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It’s an age of marvels

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Re: It’s an age of marvels

#51

Post by cheeseomlit »

yesbabyyes wrote: post #30
cheeseomlit wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my point, if you're going to be remotely fair when judging people from a radically different society you have to "grade them on a curve" so to speak. Otherwise, according to the prevailing modern social mores, not a single decent person existed prior to the 1960s or so

That's ahistorical. I'd say Martin Luther King seemed like a fairly decent fellow. Also Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers, Harry Belafonte, J Waties Waring, Andrew Goodman and so on.

But those people are all from the 20th century, historically speaking still quite recent and relatable. I think you'd be hard-pressed to pluck anyone from a truly different time/place (relative to the modern west) and have their moral standards hold up to modern scrutiny, and if you could they'd be a notable exception and not the rule

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#52

Post by [deleted] »

jajko wrote: post #34
chefkd wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the world had hospitality rules and treated outsiders kindly. Lots of people were allowed to come and go as they pleased they actually provide interesting reads. Borders as we understand them today were invented in the 18/1900s. Mass slavery spanning multiple continents and racism on that magnitude hasn't happened since and hopefully won't happen again (except maybe Rome & Egypt but that wasn't trans contine…

One doesn't exclude the other. You / anybody could be most welcoming to visitors and have your slaves serve them the best you had and treat them very well. Norms change, sometimes shockingly, and even within one's lifespan. Now young generations will most probably realize this when they will become out of touch and rejected by new young generation in maybe 2 decades.

[deleted]

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#53

Post by keybored »

brigadier132 wrote: post #29
ertgbnm wrote: post #23

More than anything else, I think the modern American super market would blow the minds of anyone born before 1900 more than any other marvel that exists. You have blueberries for sale in January??? A variety box of tea from 7 different countries? A wall of spices? Pineapples? Packaging made from aluminum that is just thrown away? The bread isn't full of sand and grit? And it's sliced!!! All relatively affordable and…

It really is amazing, that's why we really need to appreciate and protect what we have. The incredible abundance we currently have is not the norm. It was not even 100 years ago that people were starving in the US during the great depression. Think about this every time someone promotes extremist violent rhetoric.

> It really is amazing, that's why we really need to appreciate and protect what we have. The incredible abundance we currently have is not the norm. It was not even 100 years ago that people were starving in the US during the great depression.

This is fine and a good exercise (like a gratitude journal). The problem is that this is often used to tell people indirectly that they should stop with their political complaints, which may be well-founded. Like...

> Think about this every time someone promotes extremist violent rhetoric.

Like this?[1] I don’t know what extremist means here but there are real political problems out there, and some of the solutions are “extremist” (like e.g. some of the solutions to climate change).

Violence is less debatable and should be reserved for when it it truly necessary.

[1] If you make vague gestures I in turn have to guess.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#54

Post by jrgd »

"It's a bit fiddly because time isn't passing at the same rate for the device as it is for the satellites, but we were able to work it out."

that just knocked my brain down.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#55

Post by keybored »

marcosdumay wrote: post #44
ertgbnm wrote: post #23

More than anything else, I think the modern American super market would blow the minds of anyone born before 1900 more than any other marvel that exists. You have blueberries for sale in January??? A variety box of tea from 7 different countries? A wall of spices? Pineapples? Packaging made from aluminum that is just thrown away? The bread isn't full of sand and grit? And it's sliced!!! All relatively affordable and…

> Packaging made from aluminum that is just thrown away? Well, aluminum was supposed to be luxurious and everything... But I think before that they'd pick a piece of plastic packaging and be without words to explain their marvel.

It seems utilitarian to the person who doesn’t understand the concept of microplastics.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#56

Post by le-mark »

qlm wrote: post #35
Rinzler89 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the modern American super market would blow the minds of anyone born before 1900 more than any other marvel that exists Mate, the 7-Eleven Big Gulp, the Walmart 5-gallon bucket of Snickers and the giant Costco bulk bag of peanut butter M&Ms blows my present day European mind, let alone someone from 1900.

The quantity of chocolate for sale in bulk certainly is surprising. Unfortunately I find American chocolate to be borderline inedible.

Best not to think of it as “chocolate” similar to how cheese whiz is only loosely related to cheese.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#57

Post by pockybum522 »

qlm wrote: post #35
Rinzler89 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the modern American super market would blow the minds of anyone born before 1900 more than any other marvel that exists Mate, the 7-Eleven Big Gulp, the Walmart 5-gallon bucket of Snickers and the giant Costco bulk bag of peanut butter M&Ms blows my present day European mind, let alone someone from 1900.

The quantity of chocolate for sale in bulk certainly is surprising. Unfortunately I find American chocolate to be borderline inedible.

As an American, I agree with you. Most things we call chocolate are painfully and literally disgustingly sweet. We have plenty of good chocolate too. However, anything darker than about 40% gets called "dark chocolate" in America, which is just stupid, so even that isn't a sure sign that it's not loaded with sugar.

Most grocery stores will have a few dozen chocolate bars in their candy aisle that actually say a percentage on them. Not only does this tell you what's not sugared to death, but companies that do this tend to make higher quality chocolate anyways. Anything 70% and higher tends to be tasty.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#58

Post by chasd00 »

AStrangeMorrow wrote: post #8

I am just glad to see I am not the only one making up imaginary scenario where I bring people from the past to have them marvel at our world.

me> in my pocket contains a device that gives me access to all of the world's information almost instantly

person from the past> wow! what do you do with it?

me> look at pictures of cats and argue with people i don't even know

/i think that's from an xkcd

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#59

Post by MisterTea »

qlm wrote: post #35
Rinzler89 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the modern American super market would blow the minds of anyone born before 1900 more than any other marvel that exists Mate, the 7-Eleven Big Gulp, the Walmart 5-gallon bucket of Snickers and the giant Costco bulk bag of peanut butter M&Ms blows my present day European mind, let alone someone from 1900.

The quantity of chocolate for sale in bulk certainly is surprising. Unfortunately I find American chocolate to be borderline inedible.

You're thinking of the cheap stuff like Hershey and other candy bar crap. It's all sugar.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#60

Post by ertgbnm »

petesergeant wrote: post #36
ertgbnm wrote: post #23

More than anything else, I think the modern American super market would blow the minds of anyone born before 1900 more than any other marvel that exists. You have blueberries for sale in January??? A variety box of tea from 7 different countries? A wall of spices? Pineapples? Packaging made from aluminum that is just thrown away? The bread isn't full of sand and grit? And it's sliced!!! All relatively affordable and…

> would blow the minds I think there are two aspects to this. I think anyone who's ever been to a food market in the history of time would conceptually understand it's possible to have a bigger market, and perhaps even a faster horse or mechanical bird to bring the items there. Commerce bringing you items from the other side of the world is millennia old. So I think it would be more of a case of "how did u mad lads a…

I think people would have a deeper appreciation for what a super market is because they could understand it since it's exactly the kind of thing they would imagine a utopia would have. Throughout most of history people have spent most of their time worrying about food.

Air conditioning, satellites, and CAT scans are just too far beyond imagination that I don't think it would be fully appreciated.

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