My guess is that the entire economic structure will end up reformed before I'm gone. The system we have won't work forever.

Absolutely not.

Economic power is relative so the question doesn't even make sense.

What I mean is, society as a whole slowly becomes richer, right? For example, when my parents were young, a lot of luxuries that I have now were absent (even mundane things as common as a television weren't widespread yet). I wonder if me having brought up in enormous luxury compared to them, am part of a "weaker spirited" generation than they are.

*having been brought up

Redhouse, you are on target with your assessment - the "luxuries" of yeterday are common place today. I have made this argument around here before -- the "poor" of America have a wealthy living standard when compared to Americans of a couple generations ago, and this is simply because of globalization and the rapid advancement of technology.

NAFTA is despised by many, but the idea behind NAFTA was to create global market that would increase the living conditions around the globe, and thus create a larger consumer base for American products. What the American public was not told was that this was a generational proposition that goes something like this:
1. Eliminate trade tarrifs, etc, and make manufacturing around the globe cheap and easy
2. Manufacturing moves overseas (much to the chagrin of US workers)....but now foreign workers begin to make money. And yes, $50 a week is a LOT of money overseas...but not everyone makes $50 a week, becuase $90K US a year, for example...and to cut to the chase, it is working. A "middle class" (over, poverty+) class is growing in many foreign countries, and US products are a thing they are starting to want. US cars are huge in China, for example.

One of the ways we can peripherally see the success oft his strategy is the "Made In..." tag in your clothing, or on the box of what you buy. It used to always say Made In Hong Kong, then Made In Korea, China..now it's Made In...The Phillipines, Banglasesh, etc. As countries see an increase of costs - because the economy is growing and wages are moving up...they move. It is a long, long painful process, but it is happening. NAFTA is slowly lifting up the world.

3. Eventually, India, Brazil, China, etc will truly have a middle class - could take 100 years, could take 25...who knows...- and then we see a more propserous globe sharing resources, but it means there would be more incentive to build at home (we've already seen some return of manufacturing)..


....bottom line, you can't predict the future, but technology is advancing at insane rates, which, if it eventually leads to cheap energy, will change the world as we know it. But, longevity rates are also causing a new set of issues....too damned many old people can cause a problem as they suck up natural resources and give nothing in return (hmmm...Logan's Run, anyone???) But I predict that even if the US is not a overal prosperous as we are now (in relationship to the rest of the world) we will remain comfortable. Cheap technology levels the playing field and makes life easier for all is the bottom line. Genetic manipulation make food production easy and feeding the world will not be a problem (if it is even a problem now...now it's more of a distribution issue than a production issue).

I've lost my train of thought now...so I'm done...

This reminds me of an edition of the Daily Mail I have from the 1920s that has an editorial saying much the same thing about the youth of the day. It was appalled, so it claimed, by the thought of what this pathetic bunch of luxury loving modern youths would do if they had to face the sort of test their parents had in the Great War.

Another article in the same paper warned of the growth of Islamic extremism in the Empire...

Nothing ever really changes.

^That's for sure, there's even texts from ancient Greece about "the youth these days" and how they don't stand up anymore when an adult walks into a classroom.

Re: another article
Were they so wrong though, about the rise of Islamic extremism? Today it's more widespread than then...

@krell,
I read your post multiple times and you speak for the both of us when you say you lost your train of thought.

"Were they so wrong though, about the rise of Islamic extremism? Today it's more widespread than then... "

You think so? There was a whole rebellion in India because of Muslim soldiers in the British army finding out that an ingredient in bullet cartridges was derived from pigs. As it was standard practice to bite the top off them when loading your weapon they considered it being force fed pork and an insult to Islam. Countless people died in the wave of fury that resulted.

I think we didn't notice it as much back then because Muslims were generally far away and we were generally more extreme too.

"there's even texts from ancient Greece" -- wow, the ancient Greeks knew how to text? They really were an advanced civilization!

I don't think so, OP.

The less "rugged" humankind is forced to be, the less breadth of knowledge we require to survive (i.e. you don't need to know how to mend a fence anymore), and the less menial tasks we all have to do. While it is true that this does leave us an increase in luxury time, it is also true that we have time to specialize in our chosen field.

Our minds are more free to pursue new lines of thinking that can further advance society.

Now we're hardly approaching a new enlightenment period any time soon (in fact, I agree it will get worse before it gets better), but long term we'll be fine.

Islamic extremism as the primary form of government only started what, 30 years ago, in the Iranian Revolution. I don't think it's as prevalent as it's made out to be, though in some sense it may be.

^ in the future

"This reminds me of an edition of the Daily Mail I have from the 1920s that has an editorial saying much the same thing about the youth of the day. It was appalled, so it claimed, by the thought of what this pathetic bunch of luxury loving modern youths would do if they had to face the sort of test their parents had in the Great War."

And, just to follow up, those youth or their younger siblings are now our "Greatest Generation"

Nice Santa, that reminds me of this one, which may add some perspective to this conversation:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

-Socrates, ~420 BC

lol sorry redhouse I missed you post, the above is what you were talking about.

One of Socrates more epic fails of a point :P

NP.
Yeah, I was too lazy to google it myself, thanks. Not really what I'm talking about though, this is the kind of complaining you always hear. I'm really talking about your "mending fences" and think you have a great point there. I don't believe people will compensate their time not mending fences by reading up on Socrates but on watching Jersey Shore though.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein"

So, I'd like to give an example of where kids are not getting more lazy:

When I was in HS (and pretty much every generation before me for the last 50 years), I could drive anywhere I wanted anytime I wanted. Cars and gas were dirt cheap.

These days, kids (and even some of my friends) can't go anywhere because gas is so expensive and car maintenance costs have skyrocketed.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EP.PMP.SGAS.CD

Compare the US and the Netherlands and FEEL MY PAIN

(distances are much, much shorter here though :-) )

Haha red it is true that the means by which today's younger people spend their free time is baffling to me. As baffling as the previous generation was to the one before it, no doubt. It is true that internet and mass media have had a real effect on the human psyche, but I don't see it as anything we can't adapt to. We just need to learn to filter out the noise. Give it a few generations :P

I love the Heinlein quote, though I disagree with it, for reasons already stated. I believe most people will agree that division of labor and specialization is more efficient and productive than general breadth of knowledge. Yes, it's nice to have somebody around who is a "jack of all trades," but with the exception of the truly gifted, they often are almost always "master of none."

Thanks Abge, so true.

I don't blame kids for having parents that don't discipline them to do what Socrates wanted. Sorry Ancient Greek people.

I don't think previous generations had the same number of children with serious weight problems (<- wealth related condition), but yeah.

I don't think previous generations had the same number of adults with serious weight problems either...

Right, OK so I see the point, the *ability* to live in excess is having real negative effects on western society. But you're ignoring the positive effects that stem from the same source as our extra luxury.

Despite weight gain, lifespan continues to increase. Despite the prevalence of reality TV, technological innovation continues to do really really cool things. I'd suggest the growth has been exponential, though I can't back that up. I just compare the advances of the last 15 years to the 150 before that.

Now I agree that with all these new influences, humankind needs to learn to moderate themselves. But I see no reason that we won't do so with this new era, just like all the previous.

No, I'm not ignoring them. I'm sitting here working at an ultra-modern technology talking to you for free, YJ. It saves me the penny for calling you I'd have had to pay 30 years ago and it saves me the money of getting letters shipped to you I'd have had to pay 300 years ago. I get your point.

I'm not really talking skills here, I'm talking more character. Do we still have the same resilience to emotional conflicts our great-grand parents did? Would they have gone half-crazy if their hypothetical cell phones had no more battery like I do?

This is one of the reasons why I'm tentatively supportive of conscription (there are many others), for example, where I think you learn to deepen and strengthen your character (if training is proper) and one of the reasons I went to study chemistry.

"I'm not really talking skills here, I'm talking more character. Do we still have the same resilience to emotional conflicts our great-grand parents did? Would they have gone half-crazy if their hypothetical cell phones had no more battery like I do?"

People haven't changed. Our awareness of people has changed. There have *always* been weak and lazy people. You just never heard about them because they would die in a poor house. Now, they get their own reality show.

Alright, sure, but I disagree. I think people have changed. Society changed. This "golden generation" for instance. I remember a part of the "Band of Brothers" video where they interviewed the real Easy Company veterans. There's this guy who talks about how soldiers came to his village to recruit new boys. Two of the boys in his village were rejected for failing the physical test. They killed themselves.

I'm obviously not saying one should kill himself after failing a physical test in the military and I'm sorry I have nothing other than anecdotal (and not even first hand) evidence, but I do think I see differences between generations in my family for example (and want to debate it with you fine gentlemen to see if there's an element of truth in it). :-)

If WWIII broke out today, I completely believe that we would act just as "great" if not "greater" than people did in WWII.

I see your point, abge. But how about this?
If you look at video images from soccer matches in the 50s (sorry for sounding like a grumpy old man, I'm quite cheerful in real life) and a goal is scored you see all the people in the stadium standing up and clapping. Last week, a linesman was kicked to death by three kids of 15 and 16 years old after a match because they didn't agree with his decisions. I'm optimistic, like YJ, but people who have everything they want sure feel like they're in need of a lot more....

@red

OK, and how many lynchings were there in 1950 compared to now?

You can find isolated incidents of anything to prove anything. I'm not particularly impressed by that anecdote.

In Holland, which my last anecdote is about, not a lot, but yeah, I see your point.