Progress

[Silverstein]

What do you believe is the next step in the human endeavor?

We went from nomads and travelers to hunters and gatherers.

This makes sense because if you were lost, after trying to find a suitable place, you would settle in and search for food and water.

Hunting and Gathering soon led into society.

Once you found food, if people appeared and offered you help, you'd try to survive together.

Technology Part 1:

Hunters and gatherers would have formed crude items from the world around them. But after soceity would form, better technology would come about. For instance, instead of wielding a stick, with these people maybe you could form a bow and arrow set? Someone has string, someone else could find a sharp arrow head stone or something.

From society, came religion and politics.

Together, you'd discuss how you got there and a likely way to escape. Then you'd set grown rules and assign tasks.

And then came education...

With nothing to do but survive, you would learn many things about the world around you.

Currency and business would soon follow.

If you and the other survivors had given up on a timely escape, and you set rules barriers, and had a basic knowledge of the world around you, you would seek to benefit yourself and ensure that you profit from sharing the things you worked hard for. Such as food and harvesting.

Technology Part 2:

At this point, technology would take the next big leap. Mining, digging and finding more resources in the land would lead to better versions of items that you had before. And eventually, new items would be thought of.


Repeat.

All of the steps would happen again and again. Going with the "lost" premise that I used above, if you came to a new area, the steps would begin again. And even if you stayed in the same spot, the steps would "begin" in another individual. Not necessarily as a literal instance but more as a progression.

And that seems to be where mankind has been stuck for many centuries. We have not "changed" past these general concepts. So what is next?

 

[Majic Walrus]

I don't think we've been stuck at our current point.

The time it took from religion to politics was pretty long, even longer to get to basic education and WAY longer to get to currency and business.

And currency and business was being used a few thousand years before our second technological jump. We've had small bursts during the industrial revolution and the computer age, I don't think we're due for another big jump until 2050 and I think that will be the genetics jump.

 

[Ronny Shade]

We'll make contact with alien life via a monolith in 2001.



wait.

 

[Zephyr Alexian]

I appreciate your post Silverstein, but I'm curious about some things. I guess by stating:

Hunting and Gathering soon led into society.

you are referring to the agricultural metamorphosis?

I would agree that technology furthered society, but didn't create it. More or less, I would say that it was one of the things that encouraged the formulation of it.

From society, came religion and politics.

Historically speaking, do not the last two create the first? I can't think of a single example where a civilized national group came together prior to establishing, or at the very least, promoting a political nature and a religious structure or the right to choose: loosely and/or otherwise.

And then came education...

Define what you meant by education? An educational system?

Education refers to many interpretations of knowledge. Nomads were proficient in travel long before aid from cartographers. Agricultural labor requires a certain skill set that can deem itself as educational.

Business? Loose forms of bartering pre-date educational systems in a lot of cultures.

What do you believe is the next step in the human endeavor?

Societal regression for most of the major countries, similar to what has happened in every major civilization that history has documented.

We have not "changed" past these general concepts. So what is next?

Do people even really know? I have yet to meet one person who could tell me my future or that of any other specific homo-sapiens.

 

[Silverstein]

I appreciate your post Silverstein, but I'm curious about some things. I guess by stating:

Thank you. I appreciate your interest.

you are referring to the agricultural metamorphosis?

Yes. But I mean to say that you move from one step to another. Not that either previous point necessarily creates the next.

I would agree that technology furthered society, but didn't create it. More or less, I would say that it was one of the things that encouraged the formulation of it.

It was my erroneous phrasing. Your wording is better. (Pardon me, it was just late and I was very tired and slightly under the influence of one too many margaritas.)

Historically speaking, do not the last two create the first? I can't think of a single example where a civilized national group came together prior to establishing, or at the very least, promoting a political nature and a religious structure or the right to choose: loosely and/or otherwise.

But they established it, together. I mean all of these terms in a loose sense, my friend. Society represents the union of many people working together under cohabitation to survive. Not necessarily a governmental body. The people come and then the religion and politics.

Define what you meant by education? An educational system?

Knowledge. Collected knowledge of the world around us and hypothesized theories and laws of nature. Not schools. From many people working together.

Education refers to many interpretations of knowledge. Nomads were proficient in travel long before aid from cartographers. Agricultural labor requires a certain skill set that can deem itself as educational.

True. But their knowledge was not that of a societal variety. Collected knowledge of many people who may have come from different lands or maybe just different techniques.

Business? Loose forms of bartering pre-date educational systems in a lot of cultures.

Again, you assumed I meant educational systems.

Societal regression for most of the major countries, similar to what has happened in every major civilization that history has documented.

Hence the "repeat" line, eh? Surely, that can not be the end of the human endeavor? Are we more than governments, religions, and gold? Or are we made only to make importance out of the invisible?

Do people even really know? I have yet to meet one person who could tell me my future or that of any other specific homo-sapiens.

Do you suggest that nothing is "next" or are you arguing semantics, I am honestly unsure....

 

[Zephyr Alexian]

Hence the "repeat" line, eh? Surely, that can not be the end of the human endeavor? Are we more than governments, religions, and gold? Or are we made only to make importance out of the invisible?

Ok, I've read your explanation for the rest.

For this question, I'm not sure one person from one society can answer a question that involves many different countries inside and outside of the UN. That's my feeling.

Do you suggest that nothing is "next" or are you arguing semantics, I am honestly unsure....

I merely meant that the future is one of the greatest variables of all.