(July 7, 2015 at 7:20 am)Tonus Wrote:(July 3, 2015 at 7:30 am)Little Rik Wrote: The difference is that i may be hilarious because i believe in God without the need to go through an NDE while i believe that you will believe only after your body die or go through an NDE.You're hilarious because you lack self-awareness and because you're a steaming bath of cognitive biases at work. I'm hilarious because I point those out. So really, you're the source of most of the hilarity. I guess you had to be good at something.
Little Rik Wrote:Actually rather than be thin air i would call it thin bread.Again, I'm wondering why you're trying to question the march of scientific and technological progress by claiming that things aren't going well around the world. If you only focus on a distorted picture of the world, that might seem to be the case, but reality isn't on your side. One simple example:
Little Rik Wrote:And what about the N0 1 killer malaria still out of control?Malaria isn't even in the top five in poor countries. By far the leading killer is heart disease, which is a disease that primarily strikes as we get older. Even in those places where the quality of life is relatively low, we're living longer and healthier lives with more leisure time. The worst places in the world to live are places where science and technology are being blocked by religion and spiritual leaders who consider things like vaccines to be the work of evil spirits. Thanks to such nutty ideas, diseases like polio and mumps, which were all but eradicated, are making a comeback (sadly even in the USA, where non-religious nuts are the ones battling against science and technology).
In other words, we make progress anywhere that we allow science and technology to flourish. We regress anywhere that we block those and replace them with spiritual and religious influence. So if you want to be negative about it, you've got to point the finger of blame at people like yourself.
Little Rik Wrote:You never finish to amaze me Ton.If science and technology only got us one step forward and then one step backwards, humanity would be extinct today instead of the dominant species. You have no idea what you are talking about, Rik. You speak of not making progress while you enjoy a healthy diet, medical care, electricity and internet access on a computer with a processor core that is the size of your fingernail yet performs billions of operations every second. The society you describe wouldn't even know how to use fire or stone tools. Technology is more like 100 steps forward for each step backwards. That backwards step is often helped along by "spiritual" people and ideas.
Didn't i explained you the policy of one step forward and one step backwards?
Where do you think you can get to?
This stuff only amazes you because you've so thoroughly insulated yourself from reality
That is funny Ton.
Just before the 1929 when we had the Wall street crash most people thought that the reality was their own idea of materialist reality.
Today previous mistakes tell nothing to this new generation of people.
The same mistakes are made and therefore the same fate await us.
In those times so many people jump down tall buildings after loosing their own reality.
Today we got even more speculations and the buildings are even taller so the crash will be even more spectacular
when the next crash will happen.
As the things go i guess it will be very soon.
Well, well Ton if you live in a place with top building i am sure you will witness a lot of smashed bodied on footpath.
I hope you will not be one of them.
Ok, now let us talk about progress.
Suppose you build a vehicle with a very powerful engine and you put it inside an old body or the other way around.
A beautiful body with an old falling apart engine.
Can this be called progress?
Today we are in similar position.
The technology is making progress but all the rest is falling apart.
80% of people on earth are floating in the sewer.
18% are struggling and only 2% are doing well.
Do you really think the the technologies advances will be able to solve humanity problems?
Sorry Ton but you haven't got a clue what reality is.