Question of the Day

[ayoub]

What does it say about the progress of the human race when, after mastering so many technologies, it's still easier to tear down and destroy than it is to heal?

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Look at the stem cell debate; Has anyone questioned the ethics of bigger, better weapons with the same fervour?

Comments

[babystar620.livejournal.com]

It's late.
I just wanna say, Hi & have a good day.

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

Has anyone questioned the ethics of bigger, better weapons with the same fervour?

We do that all the time in the San Francisco Bay Area! We've given what for to General Electric (One of the US biggest weapons contractors) and some of us have even staged blockades of weapon facilities.

That's how we roll!

[alainn-mactire.livejournal.com]

Not wishing to be controversial...

But I think it probably says we haven't progressed as far as we think we have. And if we don't give it up soon...well, we're probably destined to either be killed off by nature, or completely fuck up and destroy the world via our effect on it.

I know, I'm such an optimist (/sarcasm)

[chiropteraclan.livejournal.com]

With every great power to heal comes an equal power to destroy...and vice versa. It isn't "easier" to tear down and destroy than to heal. I think this is just a larger statement about our society and human nature in general. It's all about how we choose to use that power.

[fox-bard.livejournal.com]

Evolution is a very sloooooow process.

[donnickcottage.livejournal.com]

We. Are. Animals. Besides, most major technological progress has always been made for military reasons, whether offensive or defensive; you just need to decide whether all weaponry is evil, even that which is intended to deter slaughter rather than foster it.

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

Destruction has always been easier than creation.

It is unfortunate.

Think about relationships.

What's easier?

Tearing one apart or building one?

You can dissolve marriages, relationships and friendships with a few words, some emails and signing a few papers. But building something of value requires a lot more work than that.

Maybe it's a function of value.

Building something is often more valuable than destroying something. Maybe we have to work harder for that for precisely that reason.

Just musing.

[mighty-rontor.livejournal.com]

It says that the media is successful at pimping blood and fear. It says that the world shuns the time-honored maxim: "The more you bleed in training, the less you bleed in the battlefield." The media's saturation of violence has caused us to repress it as a viable learning tool. No more corporal punishment. A movement to eliminate competitive sports from schools.

Humanity's failure is that it hasn't found more commonsense ways to use destruction to further growth and healing except for basic training in the armed services. There's a bit of irony for you!

Technology has to keep growing, bu the human condition hasn't changed since the start except for the world's new-found sense of global morality that was established in the 20th century.

[nonickname96.livejournal.com]

Serious question of the day time! wowza!

I think that honestly things will never change much in this area. People are people are people and people never change. If you look at history there has ALWAYS been more attention given to weapons than to "healing".

The surrounding may have changed (i.e. the way technology looks/the way we live in a specific sense), but in general the people of today are the same as people have always been....

My hope comes from God, not the ability of man to make things better/perfect. Because man will ALWAYS fail.

♥

[nonickname96.livejournal.com]

Think about relationships.

What's easier?

Tearing one apart or building one?

You can dissolve marriages, relationships and friendships with a few words, some emails and signing a few papers. But building something of value requires a lot more work than that.

There is much truth to this. Thank you for posting your comment... it's made me think about this issue in a different way.

♥

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

You learn much when you have been a long term couple grasshopper.

;)

[nonickname96.livejournal.com]

*smile* this is true. ;-)

♥

[childeofloki.livejournal.com]

It doesn't say anything about the human race. For one, that is just a perspective, and for two, if said perspective is correct, then it exists everywhere in nature, anyways.
Which seems easier? A seed germinating in the ground for years, then sprouting some green shoots and pushing laboriously through the ground until it hits sunlight (but only if the correct series of events happens to allow it to), growing over a multitude of years until it is a 200 year old tree with rough, strong bark, and a host of seeds spread around it from years of pushing microbes together and pollinating with trees far away on other hillsides through a complex system in it's bio-dome, growing it's green leaves and losing them every year, only to grow them again that it might gather it's resources to attempt to send out even more seeds and pollen, most of which will miss it's mark or lie dormant for decades, or...

Being a giraffe and walking by, consuming said leaves that are too high off the ground for the smaller creatures?


It is always, and always will be, easier to walk by and push a block off a stack then it is to pick that block up and balance it at the top.

This has nothing to do with humanity.

[childeofloki.livejournal.com]

A very good point, but I don't think it's the little inventions, like crossbows and nuclear weapons, that we have to worry about.

I think it's the bigger inventions, like government, religion, and culture.

After all, a weapon is not evil, in and of itself. It just is.

[4kudzu.livejournal.com]

No, is the answer. Why would they. And which one is a bigger threat? Ya know?

[tsankich.livejournal.com]

Destruction leads evolution. Plain and simple. Everything that has ever came to evolve has came do die, crumble and shatter to make room for an advancement. Maybe we're extinct and just don't know it.