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What Do You Think We Take For Granted?

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shyboy

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This is a question we should all think about everyday just before we get up and just before we go to bed. We should think about our life compared with the average person's life a few hundred years ago. Think about the hunger, the lack of heat in the winter and AC in the summer, outhouses, bad and boring food, no one washing, constant disease and constant pain if you lived past 4O, probably dying in childbirth if you're a woman, seeing half your children die from disease, boredom, lack of opportunity, a short life, backbreaking work, well, you get the idea. But at least they could enjoy a sunset and a clear view of the night sky. Think about it often; you will relish what you have more.

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We should always be greatful for the things we have, but that involves thinking of the positives of today (eg: cars, computers, ovens, hot water cylinders, planes, electricity generators and power stations, etc), not thinking of the negatives pf the past that no longer exist in the developed nations.

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Think about the hunger, the lack of heat in the winter and AC in the summer, outhouses, bad and boring food, no one washing, constant disease and constant pain if you lived past 4O, probably dying in childbirth if you're a woman, seeing half your children die from disease, boredom, lack of opportunity, a short life, backbreaking work

None of which was solved by thousands of years of government running countries until the industrial revolution occured.

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This is a question we should all think about everyday just before we get up and just before we go to bed. We should think about our life compared with the average person's life a few hundred years ago. Think about the hunger, the lack of heat in the winter and AC in the summer, outhouses, bad and boring food, no one washing, constant disease and constant pain if you lived past 4O, probably dying in childbirth if you're a woman, seeing half your children die from disease, boredom, lack of opportunity, a short life, backbreaking work, well, you get the idea. But at least they could enjoy a sunset and a clear view of the night sky. Think about it often; you will relish what you have more.

No. Think about what you will do. What you will make of yourself. What you will accomplish with what you have

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Excuse some of the incisive replies, shyboy. People can sometimes be a touch rude here.

I have a different perspective. You don't have to look at the things you can take for granted. Instead, you can always keep in mind the thing that has caused all these wonderful inventions and luxuries to be available to at such a convenient price that you can take them for granted: reason, egoism, capitalism.

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  • 2 weeks later...
This is a question we should all think about everyday just before we get up and just before we go to bed. We should think about our life compared with the average person's life a few hundred years ago.

I think this sort of excercise is useful to keep in mind how much better life keeps getting. But it's not really necessary to go back hundreds fo years. Tens of years are enough. In some cases, even less than ten years is enough.

Last year the largest Mexican cell phone company, Telcel, ran a TV add that asked "Do you remember staying home waiting for a call?" And other questions about what people did before cell phones were widespread. Think about that. I do recall my car breaking down in a bad downpour, not being able to call for help until the rain passed, then maybe walking a mile or so searching for a pay phone.

Think about online shopping. Online booking of plane tickets and vacations. Sending important business info by email. Scanning important documents. Chatting with poeple across the world. Only a handful of TV channels (if that many) vs cable/satellite TV. Improved milleage on cars. Improved safety on cars, too. The Hubble telescope. Google Earth. Online driving directions and maps. GPS. The sheer amount of information available online. Remember 24 hour photo developing and printing?

Many of the things on that spur of the moment list are less than ten years old, all less than 20.

Here's another useful excercise. Find someone who was born ten years after you were and try a list of words and phrases on him. See how many he recognizes. Things like carburator, warming up the car, black and white TV, vynil records, tape cassettes, audio modems, Compuserve, computer terminal, monochromatic monitors, CGA, EGA, VGA. 9600 baud, those monthly or weekly credit card booklets stores used to consult beafore taking a credit card, stove-top popcorn, dot matrix printers, floppy disks, punch cards, exploratory surgery, etc etc.

Finally I'd like to mention some small ironies. Advances that dind't stick, or that were scrapped. We could go to the Moon thirty nine years ago, not anymore. There commercial supersonic airliners some years ago, not anymore.

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