Denis, Jim and Daniel;

There is truth to what each of you has said. You cannot do this subject justice on the Internet or without writing many books on the subject.

In some ways we have improved but are we better off today than yesterday? In some ways the answer is yes, no and maybe. We can point back to the past and state a simpler event compared to today. We can also point out the cruelty of the past. Now the argument is, “What is the past”, yesterday or a thousand or more years ago? You choose the period.

I would suggest that today and through out time we have become increasingly more sophisticated. That sophistication takes on many forms and touches every aspect of civilization. Technology, politics, economics, medicine, you name it!

Yes the Crusades were cruel and Peter the Hermit who led a Crusade for the poor is just another example. Do not forget the invasions by Mongols and Muslims into Europe. There are many such examples throughout history.

Today and for about the last 60 years man has had in his hands the ability to destroy the world in one form or another. The complexity of today’s world exceeds that of the past and this only continues to be true. We are at the mercy of politicians and terrorists who wish to express themselves in one form or another.

What have we learned? Take Capitalism for an example. Our laws affecting business are constantly changing, as well as economic models, accounting, taxation and you name it. As man is less than perfect he seeks the means to ingratiate himself and use his ingenuity to “beat the system”. Yes, he evidentially may be caught and sometimes punished. Others will follow as copycats and still others will have his/her own means to “beat the system”.

Think of what the executives of Enron and many others have done? What will happen to such individuals who have hurt so many people? It depends upon many factors such as a good lawyer, a sympathetic court, political pull and luck.

When all is said and done there will be a lull in some specific type of wrong doing. Then someone will again think of some great way to “beat the system”. It is a matter of greed, and ego.

Today we can easily destroy the world and as one example the United States has a stockpile of nuclear weapons that can do so 770 times over. You would think that destroying the world once would be enough!

We have not begun to see what man is capable of be it good or bad. The unfortunate reality is that one man can have great influence upon the world. This has been made easier and easier throughout time.

May everyone enjoy life as you define it.

By the way, I am an optimistic pessimist. That is I look for the best but expect the worst. During the intervening period I attempt to survive. Thus far I have not been disappointed. :)

Tom




>History repeats itself. Does that ring a bell? But for us IT developers we could refer to an "endless loop" <g>
>
>It really looks like humans are programmed to evolve but just to a certain level. After that is seems like we must get back to square one and start over.
>
>>It's good that you're optimistic, Daniel. I wish I could be!
>>
>>The examples you cite are perpetrated way back, infrequently, and by an extremely limited number of people.
>>
>>I look back to 1963, for example, and until then even the President could travel in an open limo.
>>I look back to 15 years ago and the NEED for one to lock one's doors just wasn't there, neither at home nor on the car.
>>I look back to 10 years ago and the need for strict security at the majority of workplaces waqs non-existent.
>>
>>Today we have big companies directly coding in their systems deliberate ripping-off of Medicare or some other government program or another on the basis that when they get caught they get to keep what they've ripped and they pay a fine that doesn't approach their gains. Simple "cost-benefit" justifies it all.
>>We have car manufacturers that calculate the cost of an improvement versus the cost of personal injury litigation (as in save the 2 cents per brake for glued versus non-glued pads) and it goes on. And when a competitor sees the declared profits they either learn or guess that they must be loosly interpreting some law(s) to make that dough so they use that as justification to do it themselves!
>>
>>I'd like to be optimistic, but both the numbers and rates of these calamities are huge today where they were miniscule before. That's the difference, in my eyes. The media promotes/rewards these antic (pretending that nothing untoward is going on) and the younger people swallow it whole and wnat to be JUST LIKE THEM. (by the way, I believe that there are/were LOTS more Enron-styled misdeeds out there and that it is in "the system's" interest to hope that nio wise guy uncovers them.
>>
>>Jim
>>
>>
>>>>I don't know what the answer is, and the powers have pretty much ensured that mechanisms for changing the status-quo are assured to failure. I suppose we can only wait for things to implode.
>>>
>>>That's a pretty pessimistic view of things, and as a student of history, I think you're dead wrong. It doesn't take much research to find much, much worse examples of greed and stupidity in action by our forefathers (the collective "our", not the American "our", although we've certainly had our share). Some examples that come to mind include:
>>>
>>>1) any of the Crusades, but especially the First, which saw the sack of Constantinople (nominally an ally of Europe) by the Crusaders at the behest of Venetian merchantmen;
>>>2) the Dutch tulip market crash of 1635 (http://www.ricedelman.com/planning/investing/tulipbulbs.asp);
>>>3) the forced importation of opium by the British, which led to two wars with China in the late 1800's;
>>>4) The Boer war, again, instigated by the British in a quest to grab the natural resources of South Africa.
>>>
>>>Color me optimistic, but I think we've come a long way as a race, but by no means are we done learning. Capitalism has proven to be one of the strongest and most resiliant forms of societal behaviour yet developed. Does that mean it's perfect? Far from it. There have always been elements in the human race that preys on other humans, and we will continue to suffer from that. Enron was a huge scam that bilked a lot of people out of a lot of money, but we learned from it, and I doubt something like that will happen again (at least while anyone involved remembers what happened).