h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ok here it is. Take it or perish.....

There is basiclly only two ways a civilization can go, after it has been created. It does not matter what kind of civ.
One - It is not able to develop a place of living that has a chance of survival in the long run. Most likely it self destruct because of one of several reasons. Violence, stupidity, pure chanse or destruction of local and/or global enviroment.

Two - It does pass throug stages of difficulties but learn from them and slowly develop a way of living that is both in constant development and able to sustain the local and global enviroment. It does this because of consideration of future generations, self-interest and survival, consideration to the surrounding life on which it is dependant. In this way the civ can continue to evolve and reach higher levels, which all life try to do.

To NOT take care of the local & global enviroment is not only stupid on a personal level, but it also makes our race; the Humans the most puny race of Earth's history. Any living thing know of the fact that it is a part of a greater whole and without it it will die. To not understand this is a certain ticket to doom and that is really a complete waste.

Many humans as well as goverment and comanies seem to think that this will take care of it self. And maybe it will or maybe it will not. Either way it is plain dumb to chance when it's really up to us. And to leave the problem to future genartions just make us so miserable creatures that we actually deserves to get wiped of this planet.

There is clearly hope yet. But people in general must begin to understand that this starts at a small scale; with YOU! We must not go back to stoneage in order to live in a better place. Technology is in a way a two-faced-sword. It can go either way; good or bad.

If YOU do not understand this or ignore it and do nothing.....then you and your kind deserves ALL that's coming to you now and in the future!
Think about that for a moment!

Just read Jurassic Park: Lost Planet, and it takes the opposite view. The development of a global government, global laws, and the general interconnectedness of things is bad because it slows down the rate of evolution of ideas and culture.

In other words, co-operation means stagnation. Food for thought.

Ah yes. But there'd be no h2g2

Hm........
With all due respect, I will not use a fictional novel (or several) a fact of life (or science fact). But you point is valid anyhow. One side of globalisation is the change of evolutional mechanisms (from a strictly biological point of view). But there are several 'sides' to that opposition:

1) Nature always finds a way. There is NO possible chanse for us humans to completly stop the evolutional change.
2) As a sentient species (and only as far as we know) we are more or less obligated, as a natural stage in our development, to bring our existence as far as possible - it is in our nature you could say.

3) The fact that we are sentient radically offsets the normal rules of evolution (to what degree is hard to see). Humans have the possability to make both rational and irrational decisions. And for some strange reason both paths can go either way: good or bad.

4) If we are going to last there are few options open but to stop all this bickering over things like borders, money and natural resources etc. The humans seems to be the only species on this planet, sentient or not, that do NOT realise their place in the whole. We are a part of the biosphere on this planet, and equally dependent of it as it of us.

More thought snacks

The thing is, though - bickering is part of the way we think up new ideas and new moralities - without the bickering over the morality of slavery, we'd have missed the american civil war (maybe) but we'd still have a whole bunch of people in slavery.

The problem with globalisation, in this respect, is that it squashes those differences of opinions fairly heavily - even h2g2 gets this to some extent. And without the differences, our ideas just won't change - we'll be stuck in our current views for the rest of time... huge cultural inertia...

Martin - "Everything I know, I learnt from Isaac Asimov"

Hm....as I suspected....

Part of me agrees with you. This part has come to more or less the same conclusions as you.

Antoher part of me thinks diffrently:

We know nothing of what a more 'pull in the same direction' society could do. Just because it has always been this way, does not eliminate other ways of doing things. It is not written in stone that it will fail. We do not know that the present model is the most optimal one.
And besides, you can as said above 'pull in the same directions' AND keep the creative flow going. Actually it might enhance power thinking even more if the civilisation would not spend resources on stupid things like war and stuff.

But I do see your point.

A reason for being a separate-but-together group. Each group can do their way, but can cross-pollinate ideas.

isn't the technical term for a "more 'pull in the same direction' society" just "flock of sheep"?

Well - there's nothing we can do to stop it anyway, I guess - so one part of you will be proved right, I'm sure...

There is a difference between being a 'dumb' sheep and a 'smart' sheep.

Globalisation - bad
Competition - good

simple as that really, look at what happened to Microsoft. Even the powers that be in the USofA know what's good for them.

I do not know where the notion that I'm all for a global state (or something like it) came from. This is not what saying.

What I AM saying is that some basic fundamentals need to be accepted by the race as a whole, if not - we are done fore! It is not a question of 'IF' but 'WHEN'.

I do not understand how people can not grasp the fact that you can have a dynamic (competative if you like) civ and still agree and pull in the same direction, on the most important issues. Considerably more than today. This is by no means a globalisation of any kind, just common sense and survival - fit for a higher species.

This is not an attack on US people in general, but there seems to be a national misconseption (why I do not know) that freedom is a state without responsability. And the US is most definitely the one of the most influential countries in the world today. In fact these two stick together. One can not increase without the other doing so as well (or the opposite).

But why argue? If the nations of the Earth wants a race to death, which will happen much sooner than they think, it is their own business. I just think it is disrespectful against life in general.

When something is completely obvious, following the herd is the only thing you can do. To do otherwise is to be so anti-authoritarian that you'd rather blow your head off with a hand grenade rather than do what someone else did (ie: not blow ...)

Well, the way things work in the world today it is more likely that someone else will blow you head off if you do not follow the heard. Either in a literary sense or in a symbolic but equally damaging way.

Ok, this is it for me. I've made my point and I think the input has been good. Thanks!

This sheep is signing off from this thread in particular.

Keep on trucking

Unfortunatly, very true.

.....unless you blow them away first.....:P