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Merlyn
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why to make the world a better place??
December 2, 2006 - 02:46 PM
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It has become, since the beg. of the 20th century, a commonplace and a staple phrase to say "make the world a better place," especially amoung the young generation. it's like a new trend.
But how many of you have thought of actually why do we try to make this world a better place (a hard question for idealists).
With the advent of the Internet since 1994, this phrase and the notion it conveyed soared...and now every self-respectful young person cherishes and says aloud that he has to change the world to make it a better place.
Yet, how many among you asked the essential question of WHY?. Does anyone of you know or can explain me here why we strive to make this world a better place for generations to come (NOT talking about a betterment of the world for current generations, in which case the tangible results of our acts can be seen and felt during our lifetime - these type of betterments are not numerous and aremostly concerned about health situation in Africa etc).
If you ask yourself this question seriously and do not try to decieve yourself with petty and feeble arguments, you will have a hard time to answer the question if you consider the following.
Anyone familiar with Darwin's theory knows that Natural Selection (with Sexual Selection 1871) is what has
made humans' evolution. Since the modern inception of technologies, natural selection has hopelessely decelarated or in some regions of the world stopped alltogether.
Weak are being taken care of, those (animals, plants, men) who were not to survive otherwise, do survive thanks to modern technologies.
Even such great scientists as Schroedinger (in his book "What is Life" reflect and come to the conclusion that human evolution not only stopped but its taking a dip now, or in other words, humans are on the brink of experiencing DEVOLUTION.
And one can see it in everyday life also. In America for example, young people, since computers became widespread, have hard time doing even simple multiplication such as 5 x 7 in their minds.
My basic premise is that future generation of humans are going to be inferior in most if not all senses of that word.
Question is do future generations, given they are most probably much inferior ones, deserve to have a better future than us, moreover at the detriment or sacrifices of our lifes?
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vas
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Re: why to make the world a better place??
December 4, 2006 - 02:25 AM
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the future generations need not bear the burnt of our mistakes that have resulted in global warming, pollution.why parents try to give it all or bettter life to their hildern? they can also be selfish God has made the enviornment and if we cant take care of it then we dont have any right to destroy it.
a lot of asian countries faced colonialism.they got freedom after constant struggle lasting upto 100s of years.what if the then generations thought of only for themselves and didnt gave their lives for freedom of their countries? what if thousands of soldiers didnt put a brave front agianst hilter and nazism during second world war and hard won it? then it would have been a vry different plac or world to live in. can u imagine a life witjout computers ,inetrnet or mobile phone. what if Graham Bell didnt gave his life in inventing telephone.similarly if the cures for deadly dieases like cancr were nt found.today the need is to find traetment for AIDS.if we sit back then the AIDS epidemic will harm millions.think about it!
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Merlyn
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Re: why to make the world a better place??
December 5, 2006 - 03:18 PM
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Dear Vas21,
You didn't reply to my question. Your basic appeal to humanity, humility, and omitting of human egoism and avidity have nothing to do to my question.
You bring forth history to justify the current situation. But you make one major misinterpretation. You are mixing the cause and the effect. Do you think World powers fought each other because they sought to give their descendants a better future? Wrong, they fought cause of such things as European Balance of Power, Realpolitik, and the rest of claptrap political flavours. Do you think Galileo made the major breakthrough by giving the gravity its name cause he had in his mind future generations? No, he did so because he was a scientist in earnest and thus a curious and observative human. Do you think the inventor of Internet did so cause of having better future for his descendants in his mind? No, the military project of ARPA grew slowly and scientists, for sake of ease of communication, went global.
All this to show you that what you see now is the EFFECT of what was done before having LOCAL, EGOISTIC and sometimes pursuing their incumbent DREAMS. And rest assured, not even 1% of humans, on foundations of whose we stand today, had in their mind anything about their future descendants.
What I am asking here is to give me the REASON of WHY we shall do that for future. It has NEVER been done before for sake of future generations. As said, this "thinking" about future is a 20th century phenomenon.
This post was edited on: 2006-12-05 at 03:20 PM by: elemental
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Issy
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Re: why to make the world a better place??
December 5, 2006 - 04:30 PM
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Why make the world a better place?
What makes your question so difficult to answer is because in answering it I try to think of my reasoning before I answer, but thats wrong. If some one tells a joke and i find it funny i automatically laugh...no reasoning, its natural, my humor has develpoed over the course of my life from laughing when my mother played 'peek a boo' with me when i was a child to now when i might laugh at something a child may not get. If I see some one in need i feel compassionate and want to help...no reasoning its natural my compassion has developed over the course of my life from when i'd cry when if i seen someone else upset to now when i can feel compassion for someone i don't know and who i may never meet.
I want to make the world a better place because my parents,school, books, the media etc, taught me to do so and to some extent i taught myself to want it. Should this be the same for all children? Yes. Would this make the world a better place? Yes.
To say that previous generations didn't want to make the world a better place is very easy: in the times you were talking about there wasn't a Global Community as we know it today to enable them to do so. So i think that we may be the first generation to be faced with being in the position to really do something for the betterment of all of humanity.
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Issy
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Re: why to make the world a better place??
December 5, 2006 - 04:56 PM
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Also if you look at it simpler
Question
'why make the world a better place?'
Answer
'To make the world a better place.'
'Pure and simple' not 'petty and feeble'.
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Hayk
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Re: why to make the world a better place??
December 6, 2006 - 12:06 PM
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Interesting question.
I do agree that it isn't an easy question to answer to, given we have to put down our stereotypes, prejudices and self-deceptive excuses.
However, I do believe humanity has to give itself a goal in this life, a direction, a vision to follow. It is the same thing with any individual. Each of us gives him/herself a goal in the life. Someone wants to become a doctor, someone else a millioner, and yet someone third wants to be a second Richard Branson or Bill Gates *
We cannot live up fully our lifes if we don't give, create, or invent a purpose to our life.
So it is with societies, especially a society, which gets increasingly tighter and tighter, having an ultimate destination of making a global society.
Some individuals, and especially those who think of belonging to a global community or of being so-called international citizens, try to think of humanity and human society in general and thus have to give this entity a direction, a vision to follow.
What a better vision for the humanity then to make this place a better place for future generations?
This post was edited on: 2006-12-06 at 12:08 PM by: mnopq
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Anu maheshwari
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Re: why to make the world a better place??
December 10, 2006 - 03:28 AM
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Hmmm interesting question,
Why do we want to make the world a better world?
Well personally I think (referring strictly to those who genuinely wish to make the world a better place) that we are programmed to do so.
For example have you ever been on a vacation to a beautiful place and felt very happy just to be there and wishing that you could stay there forever?
Have you ever been so happy that you wished that the moment would never end?
Well the desire to make the world better can be an extension of our desire to make our own space better or ideal. Both cannot be divorced from each other. Somehow our surroundings have a deep impact on our own sense of well-being.
Also we are a species who truly go by the idiom ‘grass is always greener on the other side’. We are always aiming for better things. Our satisfaction is only momentary, the very next moment we envisage a higher goal. ([link="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs"]Maslow’s Pyramid)[/link]
So it might not be always a selfless goal but our desire to make the world better can be an extension of our everyday desire to have a better life, breathe cleaner air, drink safe water, help others in need ( helping others also gives a lot of satisfaction).
Moreover living in hope seems like a much better and healthy way of life than living with no vision and a realisation that the world we live in might not stay the same forever !
its like living with the nightmare that the home that we live in might collapse the very next day we die !
Its true that many in the past have been very selfish and no one can forget the fact so easily when we see a river which is black in colour or the people who still suffer from the after effects of the Bhopal Gas tragedy or the victims of the Holocaust , or the victims of the deadly attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki !
Its just that being selfish has not exactly set good precedents and many of us who have realised it would always be conscious of our actions and continue to hope for a world where these things are not ever repeated !
This post was edited on: 2006-12-10 at 03:31 AM by: anuriandima84
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David Miao
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Re: why to make the world a better place??
December 11, 2006 - 10:33 PM
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I agree with a previous post. It is natural for people to want to make the world a better place. This topic can be looked through a human nature point of view or even a more general animal nature point of view.
It is human nature to want to make the world a better place. Firstly, if the world is better then that means the quality of living for oneself is also better. However synical this may seem it is true that people want to improve or better society often for personal reasons. Secondly, humans naturally want to be better. For example people always strive to be the best in school. By wanting to be better yourself, at the same time you will want the society as a whole to be better.
Next, animals strive to make their world a better place to. In a zoo you can see monkeys cleaning each other. In the nature you have animals helping each other to make their life better. Therefore it is just natural for people to want to help each other.
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Merlyn
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Re: why to make the world a better place??
December 13, 2006 - 02:41 PM
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@Issl
It is to question the status-quo that advanced humanity... educational books where formed by those who questionned things at their time. To blindly obey wihtout a single pounce of doubt and to say "I am taught like this and that is it" is like believing in something without any prove, like most of faith-based religions are..
@Davidmiao
It has never been natural to want to make this world a better place. Read my previous posts n this thread. And it is a modern tendency only. It might be provisionary, but it might not, it seems.
I still have to get a satisfactory, well-reasoned and balanced answer to my question.
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