Your Most Disturbing Realizations

[tonyb]

I have read that a child being born today stands a good chance of living to be 200 years old. Advances in medicine and geriatrics have been accelerating steadily and in another two or three decades will reach levels unheard-of today. A 200 year life expectancy will make them effectively immortal, since the state of medicine and the life sciences in 200 years will be beyond our imagination. 200 years ago, in 1815, medicine was little better than medieval. So we'd better do a far better job of raising this generation than the last few, because they're going to be around for a long, long time.

Provided they don't get hit by a bus.

I hope you're right, for their sake. But, to paraphrase Yogi, you gotta be wary of predictions, especially about the future. So long as we are made of perishable stuff, we shall perish. Or so I predict.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The more we find ways to defeat the things that kill us, the more we also develop new things that kill us.

The planet is long over due for another mass-extinction event, and it'll happen, one way or another. Comes then the day of the cockroach.

 

[GHT]

But, to paraphrase Yogi,

It's all about the picker-nick baskets, Boo-Boo.

The planet is long over due for another mass-extinction event, and it'll happen, one way or another. Comes then the day of the cockroach.

We had a spate of swine flu a few years back, didn't kill off anywhere near the predicted numbers. In the end it all became a bit of a boar.[/QUOTE]

 

[Trenchfriend]

1989. Someone got a time-machine at hand?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jLAGCtYpGQU/UdXB_d7BZPI/AAAAAAAAQbw/WbPgv-2u420/s729/1989+cherish.jpg

 

[HudsonHawk]

I don't have the source material to back this up as I am doing this from memory, but I believe I've read that there was a similar attitude by many of the '60s civil rights leaders that they wanted to be well dressed and have their followers well dressed as one way of showing that what they were demanding - equal rights, equal respect (I know that is an oversimplification) - was something they deserved. It might seem crazy to us now, but dressing well was one way of showing you were a respectable member of society. I am not arguing that this is a right or wrong attitude, but it was a view many held pre the '60s social / cultural changes, so it would make sense to me that some leaders of the change would take the view that dressing well would help advance the cause.

"If you want to be a good blues singer, dress like you're goin' to the bank to borrow money." - Booker T. Washington "Bukka" White

 

[Stearmen]

I have read that a child being born today stands a good chance of living to be 200 years old. Advances in medicine and geriatrics have been accelerating steadily and in another two or three decades will reach levels unheard-of today. A 200 year life expectancy will make them effectively immortal, since the state of medicine and the life sciences in 200 years will be beyond our imagination. 200 years ago, in 1815, medicine was little better than medieval. So we'd better do a far better job of raising this generation than the last few, because they're going to be around for a long, long time.

They told us when we were kids, we would live to be 100, guise what, we ain't! I looked back at my family tree, roughly 200 years, if they made it through their childhood they died in their late 70s to mid 80s, just like the more recent members of my family. what messes up the bell curve is, 200 years ago, you were lucky to make it through childhood! Look at Abraham Lincoln, only one child made it to adulthood. Also, the odds of us in the West dying from pneumonia, agriculture and industrial accidents, or war are fairly remote. I do think their quality of later life will improve and that is very important!

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Nah, I went there this morning and didn't see a single person dressed like that. I did see a lot of middle-aged men dressed in camouflage, but it wasn't very effective -- I could spot every one of them.

I wear camo utilitie pants at least once a weekend . I wear them as they are cheap, durable & if they get ruined I'm not going to lose any sleep over them. I sometimes have to gout in public wearing them as I need a part for a project that I'm working on.

 

[Stanley Doble]

I don't have the source material to back this up as I am doing this from memory, but I believe I've read that there was a similar attitude by many of the '60s civil rights leaders that they wanted to be well dressed and have their followers well dressed as one way of showing that what they were demanding - equal rights, equal respect (I know that is an oversimplification) - was something they deserved. It might seem crazy to us now, but dressing well was one way of showing you were a respectable member of society. I am not arguing that this is a right or wrong attitude, but it was a view many held pre the '60s social / cultural changes, so it would make sense to me that some leaders of the change would take the view that dressing well would help advance the cause.

Doesn't seem odd to me at all. I remember reading in the papers and seeing on TV about the civil rights struggle when I was a boy. I mean when it was happening. Would see people like Martin Luther King, Nat King Cole, Bill Cosby (on I Spy) Aretha Franklin Ella Fitzgerald etc etc. They seemed to look, dress, talk and act like any other American. I couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

Now, well...

 

[Lean'n'mean]

I have read that a child being born today stands a good chance of living to be 200 years old. Advances in medicine and geriatrics have been accelerating steadily and in another two or three decades will reach levels unheard-of today. A 200 year life expectancy will make them effectively immortal, since the state of medicine and the life sciences in 200 years will be beyond our imagination. 200 years ago, in 1815, medicine was little better than medieval. So we'd better do a far better job of raising this generation than the last few, because they're going to be around for a long, long time.

It's unlikely our genetic make up will allow anyone to live longer than 150 years , there is only so much medicine can do & quite frankly if you need medical attention to live, is that living.? Besides, "we all gotta get off the bus at sometime 'cause there's plenty others pushin' to get on"......As Lizzie stated there are so many things present in our current enviroment to curtail our life expectancy that even reaching 70 will be an achievement Again as Lizzie suggested, our time is running out, air, land & water pollution, climate change, wars, famine, epidemics, over population, droughts,......even if it was possible to halt our demise, no one has the political courage or personal will to provide the efforts & suffer the deprivations neccesary for it to happen.

 

[Bolero]

Could you elaborate on this in the context of what you spoke of in the rest of the Post ???
Does it even apply ???

You say: even if it was possible to halt our demise, no one has the political courage or personal will to provide the efforts & suffer the deprivations neccesary for it to happen.

 

[Trenchfriend]

In the really old days, the people were reaching age 40.

And today we are reaching age 40, too, and after that, we are living further 40 years, beeing more or less sick. But, if things will going on, on western capitalism, same way as today, in near future the people will again only reach 40, like in the old days, because many will burst by noshing.

Don't forget:
When you eat yummy cake or chocolate, these are moving directly to your belly and settle down, there, forever.

Earnestly:
In Germany, today, we (younger) name industrial sugar: "dangerous little brother of cocaine", but more addicting.

 

[Edward]

Being on an airplane tends to bring out the worst in people, be it fashion, or anything else.

Without exception, the very worst-dressed people I've seen in airports who are actually flying always turn left when they get on the plane.

One man who thought revolutionaries needed to look sharp was Earl Browder, the leader of the Communist Party USA during the days of the Popular Front. He was annoyed by all the organizers going around in flat caps, leather jackets and work pants -- a look which would be highly coveted by Loungers today, but which in the thirties denoted "factory hand." Browder felt that party representatives needed to project a certain authority to be respected, and he insisted that most of them wear suits when busy on party duties -- even though most of them were, in fact, factory hands.

More recently, Alex Salmond, former First Minister of Scotland, said "If you are going to say something very radical, wear a suit."

I don't have the source material to back this up as I am doing this from memory, but I believe I've read that there was a similar attitude by many of the '60s civil rights leaders that they wanted to be well dressed and have their followers well dressed as one way of showing that what they were demanding - equal rights, equal respect (I know that is an oversimplification) - was something they deserved. It might seem crazy to us now, but dressing well was one way of showing you were a respectable member of society. I am not arguing that this is a right or wrong attitude, but it was a view many held pre the '60s social / cultural changes, so it would make sense to me that some leaders of the change would take the view that dressing well would help advance the cause.

I'm told by folks who have studied the social anthropology of hip hop that the conspicuous consumption that has become a big part of its imagery was, at one time, rooted in similar notions.

Back in 2011, I visited the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Fantastic place. In particular, I remember a young man who did a 'living history' type session where he played the role of an organiser leading us through a lunch counter protest. What really enhanced it too was that on that particular occasion, I was surrounded by a very large group of African-American people, many of whom were clearly old enough to have lived through it, and had brought what I assume were their grand children to learn about their struggle. Really made the reality of it all bite home.

 

[sheeplady]

They told us when we were kids, we would live to be 100, guise what, we ain't! I looked back at my family tree, roughly 200 years, if they made it through their childhood they died in their late 70s to mid 80s, just like the more recent members of my family. what messes up the bell curve is, 200 years ago, you were lucky to make it through childhood! Look at Abraham Lincoln, only one child made it to adulthood. Also, the odds of us in the West dying from pneumonia, agriculture and industrial accidents, or war are fairly remote. I do think their quality of later life will improve and that is very important!

I hope that they solve dementia, in the case of longer life. Live long enough and it effects almost everyone. Until they do, I strongly question the quality of life in very advanced age.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Now, we got 2015 and Steve Cropper is a real history-book on two legs.

 

[scottyrocks]

Could you elaborate on this in the context of what you spoke of in the rest of the Post ???
Does it even apply ???

You say: even if it was possible to halt our demise, no one has the political courage or personal will to provide the efforts & suffer the deprivations neccesary for it to happen.

Probably not, without running afoul of some posting guidelines regarding politics.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Hahahahahaha!

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sneakers-exhibition-idUSKCN0PI2SW20150708

 

[Stanley Doble]

You have a skeleton inside you.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I remember reading a Peanuts comic strip years ago where Linus was all upset at becoming "aware of his tongue," realizing that he had a tongue in his mouth and feeling it all kind of bunched up there.

And now that I've mentioned it, you yourself are now aware of your own tongue, and you understand exactly why he was so distressed.

 

[tonyb]

Bite your tongue, Tony. Bite your tongue.

 

[LizzieMaine]