4 ms·

please expand upon your definition of "true change".

aub3bhat 9y ago
Microprocessors, Internet, Green Revolution, T-Cell therapy, China & India over the last 2 decades ..... You know the stuff that actually required knowledge and power. Not some feel goodery truthiness.
- matt4077 9y ago
  Yeah, this is the typical dismissal of anything not STEM!!STEM!! In reality, technological invention has always gone hand-in-hand with progress in our understanding of how to organise a just and productive society. It's sometimes harder to point at specific examples because this change happened more gradually, but ignorance of this progress doesn't legitimise a wholesale dismissal. Concepts such as the rule of law, democracy, capitalism etc. didn't appear out of nowhere, nor were they always-existing "goodery truthiness". And there's no technology that could be identified as central to their establishment. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd rather live in a society with the technology of the stone age and today's understanding of law&justice, than a society with the technology of today and the stone age's morality. In as far as technology had an impact on such progress, Jared Diamond argues that it was mostly in increasing the productivity of farming, allowing more and more people to not work the fields, live in cities, and actually start thinking.
  - smokeyj 9y ago
    This is like every religious group taking credit for societal advancements. > I'm pretty sure I'd rather live in a society with the technology of the stone age and today's understanding of law&justice I'm sure we could conduct an easy experiment.. but maybe that's too empirical for you
- rosser 9y ago
  This is so dismissive. You may not find those things valuable, but that doesn't make them valueless.
  - abawany 9y ago
    Exactly. One can hardly call the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964) as inconsequential.
- ionised 9y ago
  Feel-goodery truthiness like emancipation of the slaves, women's suffrage, civil rights and the welfare state?

Microprocessors, Internet, Green Revolution, T-Cell therapy, China & India over the last 2 decades ..... You know the stuff that actually required knowledge and power. Not some feel goodery truthiness.

matt4077 9y ago
Yeah, this is the typical dismissal of anything not STEM!!STEM!! In reality, technological invention has always gone hand-in-hand with progress in our understanding of how to organise a just and productive society. It's sometimes harder to point at specific examples because this change happened more gradually, but ignorance of this progress doesn't legitimise a wholesale dismissal. Concepts such as the rule of law, democracy, capitalism etc. didn't appear out of nowhere, nor were they always-existing "goodery truthiness". And there's no technology that could be identified as central to their establishment. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd rather live in a society with the technology of the stone age and today's understanding of law&justice, than a society with the technology of today and the stone age's morality. In as far as technology had an impact on such progress, Jared Diamond argues that it was mostly in increasing the productivity of farming, allowing more and more people to not work the fields, live in cities, and actually start thinking.
- smokeyj 9y ago
  This is like every religious group taking credit for societal advancements. > I'm pretty sure I'd rather live in a society with the technology of the stone age and today's understanding of law&justice I'm sure we could conduct an easy experiment.. but maybe that's too empirical for you
rosser 9y ago
This is so dismissive. You may not find those things valuable, but that doesn't make them valueless.
- abawany 9y ago
  Exactly. One can hardly call the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964) as inconsequential.
ionised 9y ago
Feel-goodery truthiness like emancipation of the slaves, women's suffrage, civil rights and the welfare state?