On Having Perspective
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I came across this a couple of days ago, and it's something worth keeping in mind each and every day:
----- On Having Perspective At this moment, imagine you were born in 1900. When you are 14 years old, World War I starts. It ends when you are 18 and with 22 million people killed. Later that same year a Spanish Flu pandemic hits the world and lasts until you are 20. Fifty million, yes, 50 million, people die from Spanish Flu in those 2 short years. When you are 29 years old the Great Depression begins. Unemployment reaches 25%, global GDP drops 27%. The Great Depression continues for 4 years, until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You are nowhere near to “over the hill” yet. When you’re 41, the United States is fully pulled into World War II. Between your 39th and 45th birthdays, 75 million people perish in the war and the Holocaust kills 12 million. At age 52, the Korean War begins and 5 million perish. As you approach your 62nd birthday, the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War, occurs. Life on our planet as we know it could very well have ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening. When you turn 64, the Vietnam War begins and continues for over a decade. Four million people die in that conflict. That same year John F. Kennedy is assassinated. As you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally draws to a close. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that? How do you deal with all the great, but revolutionary, changes to daily life that come in the form of electricity (and all that goes with it), the invention of the automobile and the airplane, transistors, computers, and the list goes on and on. Life as people have known it for centuries is falling away at an unprecedented rate. A kid in 1985 often mistakenly believed that their 85-year-old grandparent couldn’t understand how hard school was. Such is youth. Yet those same grandparents lived through everything mentioned above. Having perspective is an amazing thing – it’s an art and it’s a gift. As we consider our own lives let’s try to keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out, and we will get through all this. In the history of the world there has never been a storm, however strong, that lasted. Whatever the current storm may be, remember, “This, too, shall pass.” --Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 19045 Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. ~ H.L. Mencken, AKA The Sage of Baltimore |
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Gene
I am not saying things will be as bad as they might be, but this is
the first time in the history of the world where humans are using
resources at such rates. There was a good Sixty Minutes segment
last Sunday discussing the enormous proliferation of population and
how it is affecting the earth.
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According to Sixty Minutes, we have doubled humann population since 1960. Here is another perspective. When I was growing up, one car families were the norm. Now, three car or four car families where the husband and wife and the children over sixteen have cars is routine. How many people remember when soft drink bottles were returned to stores and a deposit retrieved? Now, we either throw away or recycle soft drink containers. While I haven't seen a discussion of this, I expect a lot more energy is used either way. I consider us to be in the position of a species who, for some reason, no longer has predators. In such cases, they multiply with abandon and the population crashes at some point. You can delay Malthus for a good while, but Malthus was right, you can't multiply the human population forever without very bad consequences. Gene On 1/4/2023 11:42 AM, Brian Vogel
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I came across this a couple of days ago, and it's something worth keeping in mind each and every day: |
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On Wed, Jan 4, 2023 at 06:35 PM, Gene wrote:
You can delay Malthus for a good while, but Malthus was right, you can't multiply the human population forever without very bad consequences.- Which is another, and entirely valid, perspective. You know I'm not the type to blow sunshine up anyone's proverbial skirt. I was struck by what I posted mostly because of recent plaints about how hard it is to deal with changes in Windows. Perspective is needed there, that's for sure . . . -- Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 19045 Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. ~ H.L. Mencken, AKA The Sage of Baltimore |
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Gene
I agree. I think a lot of blind people fear change in Windows so
much because they have gotten poor training.
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When I say that I have found that Windows is mostly Windows from XP on, that is because I got good instruction and read good materials. It is also because I have a natural talent for understanding structures. But it appears to me that a lot of blind people aren't taught structure and so things appear far different than they are or they don't know what to look for to see the similarity. People may tell them and show them differences and not emphasize what hasn't changed or very little. Gene On 1/4/2023 6:22 PM, Brian Vogel wrote:
On Wed, Jan 4, 2023 at 06:35 PM, Gene wrote: |
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Brian's Mail list account
Yes all very true, but this is why when people say to me, ah I remember the good old days, but really there never were any that did not have some challenging times.
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I think for some of us born just after the 2nd World war, its probably harder because we have not lived through one that affects us in the country we live in. This can change perspectives to expect more. I'm often reminded of the lyrics from the Eagles song, Sad Cafe. The bit about changing the world with words like peace and freedom and the part about things in this world change very slowly if they ever change at all. We are, I suspect the main problem ourselves. Great words are easy, great acts tend to be only possible in the short term. Brian -- bglists@... Sent via blueyonder.(Virgin media) Please address personal E-mail to:- briang1@..., putting 'Brian Gaff' in the display name field. ----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Vogel" <britechguy@...> To: <chat@nvda.groups.io> Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2023 5:42 PM Subject: [chat] On Having Perspective I came across this a couple of days ago, and it's something worth keeping in mind each and every day: ----- *On Having Perspective* At this moment, imagine you were born in 1900. When you are 14 years old, World War I starts. It ends when you are 18 and with 22 million people killed. Later that same year a Spanish Flu pandemic hits the world and lasts until you are 20. Fifty million, yes, 50 million, people die from Spanish Flu in those 2 short years. When you are 29 years old the Great Depression begins. Unemployment reaches 25%, global GDP drops 27%. The Great Depression continues for 4 years, until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You are nowhere near to “over the hill” yet. When you’re 41, the United States is fully pulled into World War II. Between your 39 th and 45 th birthdays, 75 million people perish in the war and the Holocaust kills 12 million. At age 52, the Korean War begins and 5 million perish. As you approach your 62 nd birthday, the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War, occurs. Life on our planet as we know it could very well have ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening. When you turn 64, the Vietnam War begins and continues for over a decade. Four million people die in that conflict. That same year John F. Kennedy is assassinated. As you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally draws to a close. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that? How do you deal with all the great, but revolutionary, changes to daily life that come in the form of electricity (and all that goes with it), the invention of the automobile and the airplane, transistors, computers, and the list goes on and on. Life as people have known it for centuries is falling away at an unprecedented rate. A kid in 1985 often mistakenly believed that their 85-year-old grandparent couldn’t understand how hard school was. Such is youth. Yet those same grandparents lived through everything mentioned above. Having perspective is an amazing thing – it’s an art and it’s a gift. As we consider our own lives let’s try to keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out, and we will get through all this. In the history of the world there has never been a storm, however strong, that lasted. Whatever the current storm may be, remember, “This, too, shall pass.” -- Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 19045 *Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.* ~ H.L. Mencken, AKA The Sage of Baltimore |
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Gene
Here is another question about perspective.
I sometimes wonder if earlier improvements or inventions were much more meaningful in the daily lives of people than computer-related ones. I'm not sure what the answer is but the development of the long playing record was really revolutionary and is a good example of thoughts that might come to mind when asking such a question. Developments in music streaming may be as or more revolutionary, but are they? In the old days, a symphony would take many heavy 78's and the music from a musical would, too. I would imagine an album of music from a musical would often take five or six heavy records. So in terms of daily life, which is more revolutionary, streaming or the lp? There are probably all sorts of examples of this sort of question but we assume that our age is the most revolutionary and it may not be. Gene |
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On Sat, Jan 7, 2023 at 08:18 AM, Gene wrote:
There are probably all sorts of examples of this sort of question but we assume that our age is the most revolutionary and it may not be.- "Revolutionary," like "best," is a subjective term. One man's trash is another man's treasure, and vice versa. But one thing we can be certain of is that the very late 19th century through all of the 20th century was an era of the most rapid technological change in the history of the world so far. And those changes were incredibly disruptive of life as it had been known. So far, in my opinion, the 21st century (unsurprisingly) has been much more about refinements of existing technologies as opposed to their creation "from nothing." The space race of the 20th century was the last time I can think of where there was massive creation of myriad things that had not existed before and then lots of revolutionary ways of applying them and miniaturizing them. The miniaturizing continues to this very day. -- Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13) Journalism 101: If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the f**king window and find out which is true. ~ Jonathan Foster (attributed) |
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