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Anyone who has had the chance to go to school, at some point during their education was thought human history. The history of the human race goes way back to more than 10,000 years ago. It's a history so long that you can be sure that some of it has been forgotten and lost forever. Every once in a while some of this lost history is found revealing what once was not known. In the present there are those who dedicate their lifes to search, find and learn all there is to know about what has been discovered. Many discoveries have been made and a lot of ancient history has been discovered, and there is no doubt in the minds of those who seek the knowledge of human history that there is even more history that remains hidden away.

A couple of days ago I was looking at Wikipedia's articles that had to do with human history, and I asked myself, how will the different cultures of the current age of civilization in which we live in will go down in the pages of history?, then I started to think and looked back at recent history. Ever since the beggining of the Industrial Revolution, we have been thought by history and witness how the world has been changing faster every day. There is no slowing down this ever changing world, at the current rate our best technology that is currently under use will become obsolete in just a few years.

There is no doubt that maybe 200 years from now, people of that time will look back at our time in history and laugh at the way we lived. One can only imagine how advance the technology will be like 200 years from now if the world continues to change the way it has been doing for the past century. Who knows how the future is going to be, nobody knows. It can be an age of prosperity or it can be a living hell. All you can do is imagine because no one can really tell.

How do you people think that we will go down in history?



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PS3 tag: TipoDLuffy

"...quite possibly the greatest game ever made"

I seriously doubt we will be laughed at, as you suggest. The last few decades have seen some of the most amazing technological advances in history, and the next few decades promise to deliver twice that. I think our era will be seen as technological pioneers and visionaries.

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

History does two things to you, makes you look worse or makes you look better. For instance, look at Herbert Hoover, in his time he was blamed for the Great Depression and was the most hated man in America. Today we see him as someone who had an a depression hit him because of his predecessors and he did everything in his power that he thought was right to end it and he is in a much better light. Who knows today, much of America hates Bush but 50 years down the road he may be looked on as a savior like Lincoln or stay a villian. It is impossible to predict how things will be judged now until future events happen.

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War is for the participants a test of character; it makes bad men worse and good men better. - Joshua Chamberlain

U sir R a n00b >:-( - Cactuar

I don't even think our planet, let alone the Human Race is going to be around all that much longer, certainly not long enough for them to study our generation, decade or century the way we study the ones before us.

Still, for the sake of argument...we're certainly advancing in the realms of technology and science at an exponentially faster rate in the last 50 or so years than in most chunks of history in their entirety. Doing the most damage to the planet, definitely something that the future species is going to look back on us on for and say things like "What a bunch of douche bags, if it wasn't for them, we'd still know what water was." That and of course, a whole disturbing amount of wars and loss of life.

There's plenty of positive and negative things we'll probably be remembered for.

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Okay, but there was a goat!

I think we will be looked at the same way we currently view people from the last few hundred years.

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"The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved."
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

I think a lot that has happened this century will be forgotten

I have made my live's mission to be remembered after death;

ultimately we all die no matter how successful and rich we may have become
that is why I don't rate becoming rich as a goal of mine in life as it will just eat away at time i could have being doing bigger things

who knows dragon_fire might be right and it could all end soon
but everyone who has ever lived and shall live will eventually die and if the planet is destroyed soon it is just going to do what is going to happen sometime anyway

I have to agree with Hamedo on this one. In 1903 the first man flew on an airplane. In 1969, a mere 66 years later, we put a man on the moon. And now, in 2006, only 37 years after that, we've put landers on Mars. I don't think we'll be laughed at.

And for the record, the current theory is that the earliest hominids started about 4 million years ago. Quite more than 10,000 years.

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Squenix games completed:

FFIII
FFIV
FFVI
FFVII
FFIX
FFX
FF Tactics: Advance 2
Chrono Trigger
Dragon Quest 8
Dragon Quest 11
Super Mario RPG

Our legacy will be mixed. We'll be respected for the many advance that we have brought about, but the many things that we get wrong will also be acknowledged. Humankind did a lot in the 20th Century relative to earlier times, but the speed of our development will be exceeded by the ones who follow us.

An interesting question is whether the rate of change of the attitudes of people will quicken or slow in the coming centuries. I am not inclined to place any limits whatsoever on the potential of humankind to solve technological problems, and I believe that there are people alive today who will still be alive in 500 years or more, in whatever form humanity exists by then. Imagine trying to cope with the changes. Even with the traditional 60-80 year lifespan, we still get the stereotypical old person who complains about the decline of society since he or she was young. If 80 years of changing norms is too much for some people to adjust to, imagine coming of age in 2006 and living to see 2506! What will 'the historical perspective' even mean if many of the people of the future who look back on us are, well, us?


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Always hopeful, yet discontent; he knows changes aren't permanent --
But change is!

I wonder about this all the time.

Technology has advanced at an extraordinary rate, but if you look at where science fiction of the 50's and 60's thought we would be today we're not even close. No space travel, no colonies on the moon or mars, no flying cars (although given the way people drive on the ground maybe that's a good thing). Yet other things have come true. Leonard Nimoy has said he can't believe that people talk on cell phones now when he was acting it out as a thing of fiction in Star Trek.

So it will be interesting to see where we end up. There are some people who think it will be a rapid increase in technology. I think those people overlook one crucial factor. The source of energy that has largely accounted for the incredible development of the past hundred or so years, oil, will one day run out. Continued rapid technological development largely depends on our finding an alternative. Which is why there are also some people who think we will see a scaled-down return to more agricultural/ecological roots.

I personally think the answer lies somewhere in between. We'll scale down our production, but we'll also learn to become more efficient. So technology will advance, but perhaps not at the rate that it does now. Given the vast amount of wealth, education, and information that has accumulated in the populace, I can't imagine it would just be a return to agrarian society. That's as farfetched as colonizing Pluto, if you ask me.

So how we will be viewed in the future? It largely depends on what we do now to get us there.

I think, centuries from now, we'll be scoffed at for our failure to address the issue of race in a sincere way. It's really quite remarkable that most people in society believe in inter-racial equality when we can't even achieve intra-racial equality.

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It's really quite remarkable that most people in society believe in inter-racial equality when we can't even achieve intra-racial equality.

Explain the difference first, because I'm unclear on what you mean when you say Inter and follow it with Intra.

Second, explain how you can so casually dismiss the civil rights movement and the progress made by men such as martin Luther King, Jr. How can you dismiss gender equality, which has advanced extremely well in the last 100 years? I think our era wil lbe remembered in this regard as taking huge first steps towards making all men and women equal.



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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

I dont think were going to go badly in race issiues unless the bnp and other nazis use the war and terrorists as an excuse to meake people vote for them then they'll gas all the minorities like in v for vendetta and start a facisit regime

so long as we put peoples human rights and liberty and the enviromnet first and stop listening to greedy corporations and nazis well be ok at least if we ignore george w bush becuase hes whats cause all the problems just now

we are the greatest nation this world has ever seen and unless our progeny is completely stupid they will see that.

just look at us. we brought democracy to the world which is without a doubt the best system ever. look what the world had before us monarchies dictatorships and empires. we showed the world that the people could govern instead of some smelly european king lol. and now were showing other countries that all over again like iraq and soon north korea and iran.

also look at our technology. we have the computer and we have definitely brought that technology with us. look at the internet its almost all in english thanks to us. and we make the best cars too. the only country with maybe slightly better tech than ours is japan and theyre our ally.

as a matter of fact were allies with almost everyone. were better than the united nations because we act as a friend to other countries instead of a dictator to try to make everyone change the way they do things to please qatar or some other little country thats backwards and no one has ever heard of anyway.

also we help the rest of the world. we saved kuwait and the iraqi people and saved at least half of korea from communism. also we bailed out france way back in the great wars. (dont even get me started on how weve been repaid for that)

finally we have the best culture. we are the least racist and sexist and antisemitic of all societies currently on earth. we are leading the rest of the world down a path of harmony and peace.

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moetsuki
moetsuki
motoranai yakusoku no basho
jouzu ni habataku watashi wo mitsumete

The Internet was born of our generation. That, alone, will forever doom us to be laughed at by future generations. I can just picture it now...

"Hey granpa!"
"What?"
"How'd that go... oh yeah... LOL!"
"You young whippersnappers have no respect for your elders! :/"
"ASL?"

Yep... we're a sad lot indeed. Luckily this generation has also brought about the unique wonder that is me.

Wait, I suppose that makes it even worse. Whatever.

The fact remains we have a lot to be proud of. The 90s ushered in the computer age with its powerful new forms of media (CDs, DVDs...), the spread of the Internet, the affordability of computers, and many concepts that will form the basis of newer technologies for years to come. I really doubt OOP will be replaced by anything new anytime soon (though it was in use long before the 90s), or that 3D will become outdated (even VR will have to rely on some means of displaying stuff.)

So long as the world is willing to turn its back to shorthand, MMORPGs, and crazy soccer moms driving while talking on their cell phones, there's a lot to be proud of.

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

Quote (chou @ 20th November 2006 12:45)

stuff

Dude, now you are just trying to be inflammatory. I hope everyone here is smart enough to ignore you so this thread remains civil.

In regards to the original post, I think that for the most part we'll be viewed positively in the future. The 'Information Age' has seen such amazing progress from a technological standpoint that at the very least we will be recognized for that. It's not like we look back in time at previous eras and automatically think negatively of them. I think the Renaissance was an amazing time period for example.

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"That Light has bestowed upon me the greatest black magic!"

Quote (The Ancient @ 20th November 2006 18:22)

Quote (chou @ 20th November 2006 12:45)

stuff

Dude, now you are just trying to be inflammatory. I hope everyone here is smart enough to ignore you so this thread remains civil.

In regards to the original post, I think that for the most part we'll be viewed positively in the future. The 'Information Age' has seen such amazing progress from a technological standpoint that at the very least we will be recognized for that. It's not like we look back in time at previous eras and automatically think negatively of them. I think the Renaissance was an amazing time period for example.

what the heck i did not say one inflammatory thing. i said mostly just positive things about my country. what is it a crime now to feel patriotic or something.

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moetsuki
moetsuki
motoranai yakusoku no basho
jouzu ni habataku watashi wo mitsumete

I refuse to believe that you don't realize that saying "US is better than everyone" won't set some people off. Especially on this board.

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"That Light has bestowed upon me the greatest black magic!"

Quote (The Ancient @ 20th November 2006 18:28)

I refuse to believe that you don't realize that saying "US is better than everyone" won't set some people off. Especially on this board.

everyone should think their country is the best. its called patriotism.

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moetsuki
moetsuki
motoranai yakusoku no basho
jouzu ni habataku watashi wo mitsumete

Quote (The Ancient @ 20th November 2006 13:28)

I refuse to believe that you don't realize that saying "US is better than everyone" won't set some people off. Especially on this board.

Patriotism is a good.. no, great thing. Elitism is not. I love my country, and I do think it's the best place to live on Earth, but I completely understand if someone else doesn't feel that way, and it doesn't bother me that they do. S'all good. I think that *might* have been what chou was trying to say, anyway. With him, you never really know.

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

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everyone should think their country is the best. its called patriotism.

There's a difference between patriotism and ethnocentrism.

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we are the greatest nation this world has ever seen and unless our progeny is completely stupid they will see that.

That sounds more like ethnocentrism...

Annnyyyway... everyone's already discussed technology, so I'm going to say that I think we'll be considered a tad more civilized than our ancestors. At least nowadays we don't throw cocker spaniels at people performing plays (the Elizabethans) or totally invade somebody's else's country and say, "All right buddy, my way or the highway.". (the early European settlers)


This post has been edited by Celes of Blades on 20th November 2006 21:42

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Come with me so I can show you how to live
Burning the candle at both ends
I’m gripping at the walls around me
Don’t complicate it
I’m addicted to this life
I’ll be your token of attention
All my lies come down to this
-Orgy, "Beautiful Disgrace"

I think that there are definitely things that future generations will look back on and laugh at. People have done some pretty stupid things.

I think that the war in Iraq is silly (that's just my opinion) and Canada should listen to their warning and pull out troops. I don't want to get bombed as much as the next person. It's a part of this era that will always be remembered, some people will laugh at it, some people won't.

There are also things that the future generations will thank us for, like the computer and the internet. Also other things that keep us a lot safer than in the past, like the major advances in medicine. We're ever getting closer to the cure of cancer and we've all ready cured lots of other diseases that killed people in the past.

Overall, I think that in the future they'll think postively about the bigger things, and laugh at some of the little things.

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Why, hello guys! Haven't been around here in a loooong time!
http://dragcave.net/user/LadyTwi
http://www.backloggery.com/ladytwi

Quote (chou @ 20th November 2006 18:45)

just look at us.  we brought democracy to the world which is without a doubt the best system ever.  look what the world had before us monarchies dictatorships and empires.  we showed the world that the people could govern instead of some smelly european king lol.  and now were showing other countries that all over again like iraq and soon north korea and iran.

Actually...
1. Democracy has been invented in ancient Greece - NOT in the USA - and has been used in many countries over time.
2. Democracy and Monarchy are NOT incompatible. Ever heard of an elective monarchy.
3. Democracy isn't the best system - it often leaves the country with idiot leaders.
4. Forcing freedom upon others is imperialism.
5. Neal will prolly say I'm obsessing over you. Again.

As to the main point of the discussion, I think the 20th and 21st century will be remembered as a time when people fought pointless wars over fake reasons...
Basically, we'll be remembered as idiots.
Even though, the times we live in remind me of the industrial revolution.

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"I fell off the mountain of words at around the 10,000ft mark. Tell my family...they owe me money." -Narratorway

"If you retort against this, so help me God I'll shove any part of your anatomy I can find into some other part. Figuratively, of course." - Josh

"We have more, can deliver tuesday." - Del S

Good old CoN

Quote (SilverMaduin @ 20th November 2006 17:07)

4. Forcing freedom upon others is imperialism.

???

Imperialism might not be the word here. I think it's more...Oxymoron.

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"That Light has bestowed upon me the greatest black magic!"

I personally believe this world will not exist the way it exists today by around the year 3,000. I think there will be some serious environmental hazards resulting in a permanent alteration of our planet in some way (sort of like the o-zone depleting so rapidly leading to radiation, but on a wider scale) unless some ingenious method was developed to produce energy in such a way that it is not only readily repeatable, but consumes a minute amount of resources in a clean, efficient method.

But anyways...I think our generation may be looked at as a shining example of resources being used inefficiently to create global concerns (fossil fuels affecting o-zone). I do believe that in the future, we will develop far more effective ways to consume energy, but for the time being, we are burning our planet at the most rapid pace that has yet been seen. It will take an earthshaking event to trigger such a global push for cleaner energy consumption, but I believe it will happen nevertheless.

From another viewpoint, I believe that this will be the generation examined as Democracy's first (but hopefully not last!) highpoint in history (From WWII on). If you think about it, the world's strongest nations in ages past (such as the Middle Ages to the present day), have been monarchies or dictatorships, and history has remembered great kings and fearless warriors leading armies all over the world. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States now stands as the strongest power in the world. Not invincible, but an effective example of the strength of a successful ideology that has struggled for more than two hundred years.

Therefore, in the longterm, I belive that we'd be looked at as a century in transition, still hammering out the inequalities of economic consumption and corporate greed, and Democracy for the first time being taken seriously as being an effective ideology.

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or totally invade somebody's else's country and say, "All right buddy, my way or the highway.". (the early European settlers)

Pretty sure Bush is doing that right now. But that's neither here nor there.

This post has been edited by TheEvilEye on 21st November 2006 05:28

I think our society will go down as one of the most loving and caring of any out there! Especially vegetarians!

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A fox is cunning
a fox is sleek.
I long to have ones
muzzle on my cheek.

Id hug him and we'd kiss
our love would be true.
And he would wisper
"I love you too"
=^_^= A snippet from a lovely and inspiring poem By Due Swann =^_^=

Quote (chou @ 20th November 2006 13:45)

finally we have the best culture. we are the least racist and sexist and antisemitic of all societies currently on earth. we are leading the rest of the world down a path of harmony and peace.

Least racist? No. All the presidents, save one, have been male, Caucasian, protestant, the only exception having been shot and killed.

Least sexist? Then why do women make so much less money on average than men? And why have there been no female presidents, vice presidents, and so few female governors?

Least antisemitic? Then why did we lead a war into Iraq under false pretenses, find out they were wrong, then stay there? Moreover, why does the word "Jew" strike up so many harsh feelings in so many people? And no, anti-semitic does not just mean anti-Jewish. It means anti-middle east.

Now, don't get me wrong. I feel patriotism for America. But blind patriotism is like a building without a door. There's no point.

To wrap this up, America will not be the most highly-viewed country in the future, I believe. All I know is that America is NOT the greatest country on Earth, nor should anyone think it is without reason.

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Squenix games completed:

FFIII
FFIV
FFVI
FFVII
FFIX
FFX
FF Tactics: Advance 2
Chrono Trigger
Dragon Quest 8
Dragon Quest 11
Super Mario RPG

Quote (TheEvilEye @ 21st November 2006 05:15)

Pretty sure Bush is doing that right now. But that's neither here nor there.

Trust me, I considered noting that exception, but I didn't want to start a discussion on the war. XD;;

Besides, I'm Canadian, so Bush's foolishness won't go down in my country's history.

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Come with me so I can show you how to live
Burning the candle at both ends
I’m gripping at the walls around me
Don’t complicate it
I’m addicted to this life
I’ll be your token of attention
All my lies come down to this
-Orgy, "Beautiful Disgrace"

I sometimes think that our society is becoming more and more temporary, what with our slow transition from hard copy data to more intangible variations (paper to digital information for example). Given the right kind of catastrophe much of our history may be lost entirely... we might just end up becoming a greater mystery than the Sumerians. I'm a worst case scenario kind of person, what can I say.

Edit

edited for rather lame compositional errors

This post has been edited by ultimage on 22nd November 2006 00:00

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Do you think we're forever?

Quote (ultimage @ 21st November 2006 18:59)

I sometimes think that our society is becoming more and more temporary, what with our slow transition from hard copy data to more intangible variations (paper to digital information for example).

In 5 years wikipedia will crash and we'll all devolve into monkeys. This is fact, I've seen the future.

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"That Light has bestowed upon me the greatest black magic!"

Quote (The Ancient @ 22nd November 2006 02:04)

Quote (ultimage @ 21st November 2006 18:59)

I sometimes think that our society is becoming more and more temporary, what with our slow transition from hard copy data to more intangible variations (paper to digital information for example).

In 5 years wikipedia will crash and we'll all devolve into monkeys. This is fact, I've seen the future.

Wiki Pedia is Great! I try and Edit on it some times but my English is not very Good so it is usually Edited again. Why are we turning into monkeys I don't believe in evolution.

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who needs pornography when you can just read about it instead?