4 ms·

"The Edwardian era was the last era of high civilization."

7 points by asciilifeform 17y ago

pg 17y ago
"It was the apex of European civilization in the same sense that the era of Pericles was the apex of Ancient Greek civilization." Curiously enough, this is literally true, in the sense that this was when the US surpassed Britain as the leading economic power. It would have happened regardless of WW I though.
- pyre 17y ago
  When people refer to European civilization, they are usually including USA/Canada in there as they are part of the 'Western World.' It would probably do people well to specify 'European Civilization' or 'European-based Civilization' I guess.
  - gaius 17y ago
    There is a term, Anglosphere, which encompasses UK, USA, Canada, NZ, Australia. It's useful to recognize the Anglosphere as a distinct subset of The West - not least because Russia is effectively Western now.
noonespecial 17y ago
A fine example of how history compresses, sanitizes and romanticizes the past. Why in my day, "prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders." Now good sir, do get off my lawn!
- pyre 17y ago
  Reading through the comments, the guys sort of sounds like a douche. Stating things like "women don't contribute to anything of lasting cultural value." Well OF COURSE they didn't. It wasn't until 1920 that women were allowed to vote (at least in the USA), and it hasn't been until recently that women have made headway in holding political/powerful positions. If you take a look at that era, you'll find that racism and sexism abounded, and I'll bet they also believed that the Muslims were 'savages' because they didn't believe in the 'one true god.' Sounds like a perfect and enlightened civilization to me... The comments section is just bunch of "I was born in the wrong era" morons circle jerking their "my era can beat up your era" ideas. And almost everything that they talk about is subjective... like taste in music. The author admits his likes to jam to the 1920's Radio Network while coding, only to decry all the newer music as garbage.
eplawless 17y ago
"Nothing important that wasn't an obvious downfall has happened since then." I don't know, I had thought that sending human beings to the moon was a step forward. "Edwardian Science and technology was the last time we actually had real progress in science and technology." Again, I had thought nanotechnology and computing theory and hundreds of branches of medicine and myriad other fields had been conceived of and advanced in the time since the Edwardian era. But you seem to know best, Lupole Boucher. "Social welfare programs like the Large Hadron Collider are brobdinagian, billion dollar avoidances of the Basic Question." This irritates me. Using obscure wording and speaking intentionally over your audience is a tactic used when you're frightened of your arguments (or lack of) being torn apart or exposed. (He didn't even spell "brobdingnagian" correctly, the prick.) I suppose there is some value to having read that, I can now use it as a cautionary tale and steer my life firmly away from the direction his seems to have taken.
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  Edwardian Science and technology was the last time we actually had real progress in science and technology... Is anyone else driven into fits of giggles by the sight of someone typing this phrase into the Internet? Meanwhile, Wolfram Alpha continues to please. Google tells me that if you type the phrase "life expectancy France 1910" into Wolfram Alpha the number "51.37 years" comes out. 17.3% of French children born in 1910 failed to live beyond age ten! Someone should go back in time and explain to these kids, and their mothers, how great it is to live in a "high civilization". (For the curious: The life expectancy number for the UK was 54 years in 1910. Alpha doesn't seem to return a contemporary result for the USA: it keeps giving me 1933 numbers, by which time US life expectancy was 61 years and the death rate by age 10 was only 8.4% in the USA. Modern numbers: France in 2006: 81 years, 0.48% dead by age 10; USA in 2005: 78 years, 0.87% dead by age 10.)
olavk 17y ago
I have noticed on youtube there is always someone commenting that this is from the time when they made real music, not like the crap they make today. This is regardless of whether the music is 5 or 50 years old.
- arundelo 17y ago
  xkcd on YouTube comments: http://xkcd.com/202/ http://xkcd.com/202/
ephemera 17y ago
This is insane. I agree that manners and sexual behavior have taken a dive in the past 80 years, and I had to laugh at this: It's because the Edwardians were everything the hippies were not; they were civilized, productive, refined, creative people who made beautiful things. If we are ever to progress as a society; that is the direction we must go on. It's not going to be towards more sexual freedom; that has been an unmitigated disaster for everyone but those who cater to the consumer fetishes which "sexual freedom" has brought about. We need to separate the good from the bad. Good cultural changes: reduction in racism, higher degree of equality for women, increased tolerance (and eventual legality in most places) for same-sex couplings. Bad cultural changes: materialism, promiscuity, two-income trap, terrible art, and a degeneration in sexual tastes in both genders. The challenge of the 2010-20s, on a cultural front, will be how to rebuild society (after the Great Recession, which has only just started, and will destroy enough of our culture to leave an usable and welcome void) in order to keep the cultural progress of 1965-2015 while discarding the negatives. "High civilization" is not over. It's currently in pain, with a decline in morality and a large portion of the economy dedicated toward swindles (private health insurance, subprime mortgages). But this is a period of only local decline, and the best times are ahead.

7 points by asciilifeform 17y ago

pg 17y ago

"It was the apex of European civilization in the same sense that the era of Pericles was the apex of Ancient Greek civilization." Curiously enough, this is literally true, in the sense that this was when the US surpassed Britain as the leading economic power. It would have happened regardless of WW I though.

pyre 17y ago
When people refer to European civilization, they are usually including USA/Canada in there as they are part of the 'Western World.' It would probably do people well to specify 'European Civilization' or 'European-based Civilization' I guess.
- gaius 17y ago
  There is a term, Anglosphere, which encompasses UK, USA, Canada, NZ, Australia. It's useful to recognize the Anglosphere as a distinct subset of The West - not least because Russia is effectively Western now.

noonespecial 17y ago

A fine example of how history compresses, sanitizes and romanticizes the past. Why in my day, "prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders." Now good sir, do get off my lawn!

pyre 17y ago
Reading through the comments, the guys sort of sounds like a douche. Stating things like "women don't contribute to anything of lasting cultural value." Well OF COURSE they didn't. It wasn't until 1920 that women were allowed to vote (at least in the USA), and it hasn't been until recently that women have made headway in holding political/powerful positions. If you take a look at that era, you'll find that racism and sexism abounded, and I'll bet they also believed that the Muslims were 'savages' because they didn't believe in the 'one true god.' Sounds like a perfect and enlightened civilization to me... The comments section is just bunch of "I was born in the wrong era" morons circle jerking their "my era can beat up your era" ideas. And almost everything that they talk about is subjective... like taste in music. The author admits his likes to jam to the 1920's Radio Network while coding, only to decry all the newer music as garbage.

eplawless 17y ago

"Nothing important that wasn't an obvious downfall has happened since then." I don't know, I had thought that sending human beings to the moon was a step forward. "Edwardian Science and technology was the last time we actually had real progress in science and technology." Again, I had thought nanotechnology and computing theory and hundreds of branches of medicine and myriad other fields had been conceived of and advanced in the time since the Edwardian era. But you seem to know best, Lupole Boucher. "Social welfare programs like the Large Hadron Collider are brobdinagian, billion dollar avoidances of the Basic Question." This irritates me. Using obscure wording and speaking intentionally over your audience is a tactic used when you're frightened of your arguments (or lack of) being torn apart or exposed. (He didn't even spell "brobdingnagian" correctly, the prick.) I suppose there is some value to having read that, I can now use it as a cautionary tale and steer my life firmly away from the direction his seems to have taken.

mechanical_fish 17y ago
Edwardian Science and technology was the last time we actually had real progress in science and technology... Is anyone else driven into fits of giggles by the sight of someone typing this phrase into the Internet? Meanwhile, Wolfram Alpha continues to please. Google tells me that if you type the phrase "life expectancy France 1910" into Wolfram Alpha the number "51.37 years" comes out. 17.3% of French children born in 1910 failed to live beyond age ten! Someone should go back in time and explain to these kids, and their mothers, how great it is to live in a "high civilization". (For the curious: The life expectancy number for the UK was 54 years in 1910. Alpha doesn't seem to return a contemporary result for the USA: it keeps giving me 1933 numbers, by which time US life expectancy was 61 years and the death rate by age 10 was only 8.4% in the USA. Modern numbers: France in 2006: 81 years, 0.48% dead by age 10; USA in 2005: 78 years, 0.87% dead by age 10.)

olavk 17y ago

I have noticed on youtube there is always someone commenting that this is from the time when they made real music, not like the crap they make today. This is regardless of whether the music is 5 or 50 years old.

arundelo 17y ago
xkcd on YouTube comments: http://xkcd.com/202/ http://xkcd.com/202/

ephemera 17y ago

This is insane. I agree that manners and sexual behavior have taken a dive in the past 80 years, and I had to laugh at this: It's because the Edwardians were everything the hippies were not; they were civilized, productive, refined, creative people who made beautiful things. If we are ever to progress as a society; that is the direction we must go on. It's not going to be towards more sexual freedom; that has been an unmitigated disaster for everyone but those who cater to the consumer fetishes which "sexual freedom" has brought about. We need to separate the good from the bad. Good cultural changes: reduction in racism, higher degree of equality for women, increased tolerance (and eventual legality in most places) for same-sex couplings. Bad cultural changes: materialism, promiscuity, two-income trap, terrible art, and a degeneration in sexual tastes in both genders. The challenge of the 2010-20s, on a cultural front, will be how to rebuild society (after the Great Recession, which has only just started, and will destroy enough of our culture to leave an usable and welcome void) in order to keep the cultural progress of 1965-2015 while discarding the negatives. "High civilization" is not over. It's currently in pain, with a decline in morality and a large portion of the economy dedicated toward swindles (private health insurance, subprime mortgages). But this is a period of only local decline, and the best times are ahead.