Oaks talks about bad things coming during Provo temple dedication

[Robert F. Smith]

36 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

We live longer, much longer, than any other time in history.  We are on a whole more healthy.  We are much more educated than anytime in history.  Those are facts.What you have stated is opinion.  If we are worse off today, then that means there was some point in time that we as a human race were better off.  Please point this out for me.  Point out a time in the history of humanity which was the high point that we seem to be devolving from.  Please note that I said history, not mythology. My CFR still stands.

We do not actually live longer today.  Statistics are misused to make that argument, but we need only look at the average lifespan in 1900 to realize that it was pretty much the same as today -- with one exception:  Infant and early childhood mortality.  Once we correct for childhood diseases and death, we have the same lifespan today that we had in 1900.  Plus, in 1900 people ate better, exercised more (out of necessity), and were valued members of extended families.  These are all positive indicators of longevity, which many of us ignore and do not have.  Just now we are facing a virtual tidal wave of obesity and sedentary work, in addition to falling fertility rates.  Moreover, the background radiation exposure of all of us is more than double that experienced in 1900.

Yeh, we have education for the privileged in America (Europe does much better), but we really are a specialized people who know more and more about less and less, until we know nothing at all.  We have become, quite literally, a nation of yokels, unable to discern truth from falsehood, even at the elementary level.  This does not bode well for our future.

Edited March 22, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[omni]

23 minutes ago, sunstoned said:

I will give you the fact that the possibility of nuclear war is something that has been with us for the past 60 years.  However, this is offset by scientific advances in medicine and technologies that allow us to live safer and fuller lives today.  We are much better off than any other time is history.  If you disagree, then please point out that time in history life on a whole was better.  

Correct, by practically every objective measure there isn't a better time to be living.  Of course, if you view the availability of porn or the acceptance of gay marriage as greater threats than poverty, infant mortality, or war, education, then yes the world is most certainly getting worse.

[mtomm]

7 hours ago, bluebell said:

I don't have a problem with that and it makes sense.  Though when i have served in presidencies myself no one ever called the YW's or RS president 'President So and So'.  It was always just 'sister'.

I think the issue might be trying to hold other people to our own personal standards of etiquette .  

And Bluebell reads my mind.  

[rodheadlee]

22 hours ago, sunstoned said:

CFR that the world is marching towards more wickedness.  Today, this very second, is the best time to be alive in the history of the world.  Sure we have poverty, crime and war, but so has every generation.  People today are more healthy, better educated and have more liberty than any other time.   To say that trouble times are coming and society becoming worse is the rhetoric of religionist who feel their power base slipping away.

In the late 50's and through the 60s you could leave your house unlocked and the keys in the car and nothing would get stolen. There were no drive by shootings, gang war was a fist fight not a gun fight. Nobody stole your ID and ripped off your bank account, A 1973 Chevy 4x4 cost 5300.00 and I made 2k a month, a house payment was 240.00 a month. A Chevy 4x4 now cost 55,000.00 and a decent house will go for 2500.00 a month and I'm not making 20k a month so wages have not kept up. It wasn't necessary for both heads of household to work in those days. Gasoline was 25 cents per gallon.

People are angry now, an internet mob can take you down in nothing flat, you can't walk the streets at night in many cities. My last job in L.A., building stairs, I worked with a 9mm in my nail bags. Congress wasn't at a stalemate with the left refusing to work with the right, or the right refusing to work with the left. We got stuff done, the space race with putting a man on the moon, the whole nation was behind it. We should already have settled the solar system by now but we spend all of our money on the war machine, because it's necessary. People want to kill us. They fly airplanes into our buildings. You can't go to our state and national parks along the border in AZ and Texas, the cartel and ISIS is already there. The cartels are growing weed inside the US, you can't go hiking just anywhere in California you'll get shot by pot growers.

We are in the middle of the 6th extinction, you seem really bright, look it up.

[sunstoned]

On 3/20/2016 at 1:29 PM, VideoGameJunkie said:

 

[volgadon]

4 hours ago, sunstoned said:

We live longer, much longer, than any other time in history.  We are on a whole more healthy.  We are much more educated than anytime in history.  Those are facts.What you have stated is opinion.  If we are worse off today, then that means there was some point in time that we as a human race were better off.  Please point this out for me.  Point out a time in the history of humanity which was the high point that we seem to be devolving from.  Please note that I said history, not mythology. My CFR still stands.

If one sees things as a linear march of progress, then sure. If one sees it as a more cyclical thing, then just because the world is getting better does not mean it cannot get worse.

[sunstoned]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Those of us privileged few who happen to live in the West or in advanced industrial nations do have many advantages, such as those you mention.  However, I am not sure that those advantages make our lives fuller than in some other age or place.  Especially if anomie and the reification of man continue to relentlessly advance in such societies.  In the United States, for example, we have more people living alone than at any time in history. We do have so many choices available, yet many people find their lives meaningless, empty, and insipid.  Instead of satisfaction, we have "civilization and its discontents."  We have high technology and the existential dilemma . . . 

So where/when is the Utopia that we are devolving from.  If things are getting worse, please point out when they were better.

Edited March 22, 2016 by sunstoned

[sunstoned]

2 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

In the late 50's and through the 60s you could leave your house unlocked and the keys in the car and nothing would get stolen. There were no drive by shootings, gang war was a fist fight not a gun fight. Nobody stole your ID and ripped off your bank account, A 1973 Chevy 4x4 cost 5300.00 and I made 2k a month, a house payment was 240.00 a month. A Chevy 4x4 now cost 55,000.00 and a decent house will go for 2500.00 a month and I'm not making 20k a month so wages have not kept up. It wasn't necessary for both heads of household to work in those days. Gasoline was 25 cents per gallon.

People are angry now, an internet mob can take you down in nothing flat, you can't walk the streets at night in many cities. My last job in L.A., building stairs, I worked with a 9mm in my nail bags. Congress wasn't at a stalemate with the left refusing to work with the right, or the right refusing to work with the left. We got stuff done, the space race with putting a man on the moon, the whole nation was behind it. We should already have settled the solar system by now but we spend all of our money on the war machine, because it's necessary. People want to kill us. They fly airplanes into our buildings. You can't go to our state and national parks along the border in AZ and Texas, the cartel and ISIS is already there. The cartels are growing weed inside the US, you can't go hiking just anywhere in California you'll get shot by pot growers.

We are in the middle of the 6th extinction, you seem really bright, look it up.

Seriously?  You could leave your door unlocked in 50's and 60's?  I am sure that was true in some places just like it is true in some places today.  Yes there is crime today, but there has always been crime.  Here's a fun fact: In the 50's people were crippled and died of Polio.  We have a cure now.  Just like diphtheria, chicken pox, yellow fever, smallpox and tetanus.  All curable now.  Women's rights were almost non existent as were the rights of minorities in the 50's.  Want to go back another generation?  Let's try the 40's.  World war with 50 million dead.  The generation before that, WWI.  We can do this all day.  The fact is today, this very day, is the best time to be alive.  Of course that doesn't play to well with people who use fear as a control method.

Edited March 22, 2016 by sunstoned

[sunstoned]

13 minutes ago, volgadon said:

If one sees things as a linear march of progress, then sure. If one sees it as a more cyclical thing, then just because the world is getting better does not mean it cannot get worse.

I agree.  Things could get worse, just like they could continue to get better.

[carbon dioxide]

5 hours ago, sunstoned said:

We live longer, much longer, than any other time in history.  We are on a whole more healthy.  We are much more educated than anytime in history.  Those are facts.What you have stated is opinion.  If we are worse off today, then that means there was some point in time that we as a human race were better off.  Please point this out for me.  Point out a time in the history of humanity which was the high point that we seem to be devolving from.  Please note that I said history, not mythology. My CFR still stands.

What does being healthy, having more education, and money have to do with being righteous or wicked?  There are a lot of healthy, good looking guys out there with nice abdominal abs and with college degrees who have little sense of right and wrong and make bad decisions.  God does not determine righteousness and wickedness based on how many books a person has read or if a person exercises and takes vitamin supplements. 

The human race is better off as long as things continue to go well.  But when natural disaster strikes and the power goes down, we shall see how strong we really are.  During the depression, people were able to survive because they more self reliant and could grow their own food.  How many people would survive a great depression today.  The only thing that has gotten better over time is technology but take that technology away and you will see the true colors of people today.

Edited March 22, 2016 by carbon dioxide

[carbon dioxide]

5 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

We do not actually live longer today.  Statistics are misused to make that argument, but we need only look at the average lifespan in 1900 to realize that it was pretty much the same as today -- with one exception:  Infant and early childhood mortality.  Once we correct for childhood diseases and death, we have the same lifespan today that we had in 1900.  Plus, in 1900 people ate better, exercised more (out of necessity), and were valued members of extended families.  These are all positive indicators of longevity, which many of us ignore and do not have.  Just now we are facing a virtual tidal wave of obesity and sedentary work, in addition to falling fertility rates.  Moreover, the background radiation exposure of all of us is more than double that experienced in 1900.

Yeh, we have education for the privileged in America (Europe does much better), but we really are a specialized people who know more and more about less and less, until we know nothing at all.  We have become, quite literally, a nation of yokels, unable to discern truth from falsehood, even at the elementary level.  This does not bode well for our future.

We are not a healthier people today.  We just have advances in medicine that allows us to overcome things that would have taken us out a 100 years ago.  One of the great inventions of our time that has made the medical profession become as it is is antibiotics.  As bacteria resistance to those grow, its going to create a significant disruption to the industry.  Medical procedures that are common today will become much more risky as it will be harder to fight an infection from them.  

We clearly are not more educated.  Especially the younger generation with their addiction to their phones and games.  Yes there are exceptions out there but the average citizen is pretty dumb.

 

[VideoGameJunkie]

Shouldn't we vote for the President that can bring on the 2nd Coming? We could be getting closer to the Millennium.

[busybee]

18 hours ago, VideoGameJunkie said:

People my age say just Monson and Hinckley and McConkie instead of saying President or Elder first all the time. Blame the generation I guess where we refer to our Presidents of the United States by last names only. You hear people say Bush and Clinton and Obama and just that.

Hardly comparable, but anyway...

The young people in the countries where I have lived have and still do refer to church leaders using their correct titles. I, as a non-US person, have no feelings of reverence for the present or past Presidents of the US. The prophets and apostles, however, are God's representatives to the world, not just the US, and as such deserve all the respect that members of the church can muster.

Which is, apparently in your case, not enough to refer to them by their full names or titles. 

[Gray]

11 hours ago, omni said:

Correct, by practically every objective measure there isn't a better time to be living.  Of course, if you view the availability of porn or the acceptance of gay marriage as greater threats than poverty, infant mortality, or war, education, then yes the world is most certainly getting worse.

An overview of the practices of 19th century Americans, including forced prostitution of African American women, tells me that we could do a lot worse than life in the 21st century. 

[Gray]

8 hours ago, carbon dioxide said:

What does being healthy, having more education, and money have to do with being righteous or wicked?  There are a lot of healthy, good looking guys out there with nice abdominal abs and with college degrees who have little sense of right and wrong and make bad decisions.  God does not determine righteousness and wickedness based on how many books a person has read or if a person exercises and takes vitamin supplements. 

The human race is better off as long as things continue to go well.  But when natural disaster strikes and the power goes down, we shall see how strong we really are.  During the depression, people were able to survive because they more self reliant and could grow their own food.  How many people would survive a great depression today.  The only thing that has gotten better over time is technology but take that technology away and you will see the true colors of people today.

Homicide rates:

 

http://ourworldindata.org/data/violence-rights/homicides/

 

This is pretty typical. Murder rates are down all over the world compared to the past, even the distant past. Murder is as serious as sin gets right?

[ERayR]

8 hours ago, sunstoned said:

So where/when is the Utopia that we are devolving from.  If things are getting worse, please point out when they were better.

Try reading the legends and myths with the mindset that they may just have a very large core of truth in them.  Seek and you shall find.

[ERayR]

7 hours ago, VideoGameJunkie said:

Shouldn't we vote for the President that can bring on the 2nd Coming? We could be getting closer to the Millennium.

 

Tell me which one it is.  I have my own list that I think can and will bring on the calamities associated with that event but I am in no hurry to bring it on.

[ERayR]

14 minutes ago, Gray said:

An overview of the practices of 19th century Americans, including forced prostitution of African American women, tells me that we could do a lot worse than life in the 21st century. 

You evidently are unaware that enforced prostitution still goes on and it affects more than just African American women.

[Gray]

36 minutes ago, ERayR said:

You evidently are unaware that enforced prostitution still goes on and it affects more than just African American women.

It still goes on, but at least in America it's criminalized and not something for "respectable" gentlemen, and not applied wholesale to entire classes of people. We seem to have stopped massacring Native Americans as well. 

Edited March 22, 2016 by Gray

[ERayR]

1 minute ago, Gray said:

It still goes on, but at least in America it's criminalized and not something for "respectable" gentlemen, and not applied wholesale to entire classes of people. We seem to have stopped massacring Native Americans as well. 

Some progress has been made but as has been pointed out, once past childhood, overall longevity hasn't changed much.

[HappyJackWagon]

11 hours ago, rodheadlee said:

In the late 50's and through the 60s you could leave your house unlocked and the keys in the car and nothing would get stolen. There were no drive by shootings, gang war was a fist fight not a gun fight. Nobody stole your ID and ripped off your bank account, A 1973 Chevy 4x4 cost 5300.00 and I made 2k a month, a house payment was 240.00 a month. A Chevy 4x4 now cost 55,000.00 and a decent house will go for 2500.00 a month and I'm not making 20k a month so wages have not kept up. It wasn't necessary for both heads of household to work in those days. Gasoline was 25 cents per gallon.

 

Thankfully the cold war has ended and lynchings are no longer acceptable in America. That's progress.

Quality of life is incredible. Most within the US are among the 1% wealthiest in the world.  Clean drinking water is available to 90%+ in the world.

In short, we can find some things that are worse and some that are better. Our lives are different today than in the 1950's. Some of that is good, some is bad, and some is neutral. The world is not more sinful. People are always sinful. It's the natural state of man, right? But there is also so much good. There's no need to be pessimistic about the state of the world.

 

[Gray]

11 minutes ago, ERayR said:

Some progress has been made but as has been pointed out, once past childhood, overall longevity hasn't changed much.

Yes, I think you're right there. Of course as a parent I find the progress in reducing infant mortality to be a critical improvement. 

[rodheadlee]

9 hours ago, sunstoned said:

Seriously?  You could leave your door unlocked in 50's and 60's?  I am sure that was true in some places just like it is true in some places today.  Yes there is crime today, but there has always been crime.  Here's a fun fact: In the 50's people were crippled and died of Polio.  We have a cure now.  Just like diphtheria, chicken pox, yellow fever, smallpox and tetanus.  All curable now.  Women's rights were almost non existent as were the rights of minorities in the 50's.  Want to go back another generation?  Let's try the 40's.  World war with 50 million dead.  The generation before that, WWI.  We can do this all day.  The fact is today, this very day, is the best time to be alive.  Of course that doesn't play to well with people who use fear as a control method.

Perhaps you should read a novel called Space by James Michener. It gives a great view of life during these times, women's rights were not non existent, no one was crass enough to kill their unborn child. I grew up in Orange County, Ca, it wasn't the sticks, we all got polio shots and 2 weeks off from school for getting the measles or chicken pox, no big deal.

[rodheadlee]

1 hour ago, Gray said:

Homicide rates:

 

http://ourworldindata.org/data/violence-rights/homicides/

 

This is pretty typical. Murder rates are down all over the world compared to the past, even the distant past. Murder is as serious as sin gets right?

Pretty little pictures, do the homicide rate of Oakland or Stockton or Richmond California from the 1950's to 2016.

[halconero]

9 hours ago, sunstoned said:

Seriously?  You could leave your door unlocked in 50's and 60's?  I am sure that was true in some places just like it is true in some places today.  Yes there is crime today, but there has always been crime.  Here's a fun fact: In the 50's people were crippled and died of Polio.  We have a cure now.  Just like diphtheria, chicken pox, yellow fever, smallpox and tetanus.  All curable now.  Women's rights were almost non existent as were the rights of minorities in the 50's.  Want to go back another generation?  Let's try the 40's.  World war with 50 million dead.  The generation before that, WWI.  We can do this all day.  The fact is today, this very day, is the best time to be alive.  Of course that doesn't play to well with people who use fear as a control method.

You might have missed it, but there are two very glaring issues I mentioned a few pages back which have scientists sounding the alarm, not the religionists (ironically, a considerable amount of opposition to these issues actually comes from the religionists): The end of the antibioitic "Golden Age," and Climate Change.

You're completely correct that as far as conflict incidence, violent death, access to education, human rights, etc we are living in a Golden Age. This Golden Age is being threatened by those two issues though, both of which are becoming increasingly inevitable, if not already so.

Recently in Paris the International Community agreed to limit the Global Temperature rise to just 2 degrees Celsius. Even this is looking impossible at this point and as I mentioned earlier the results of even a 3 degree rise in temperature are catastrophic. We're going to see a rise in drought, disease prevalence related to water-borne and tropical disease (actually, we're already seeing this), the Indian subcontinent is going to be hit hard, and we're likely going to see conflict in the Sino-Tibetan area as Chinese rates of consumption rise to meet American ones and place heavy demand on food and other resources. The existence of several nations and major cities are and will threatened. Hurricanes and other storms will become more intense. Conflicts over resources are predicted, including among nuclear-armed nations.

I don't think I need to cover antibiotic-resistant diseases, but here's a nice (scary) report from the WHO about the current trends and results of MSRA, MDRTB, HIV, first-line and other forms of resistance.

Sorry, sunstoned, it isn't all sunshine and roses. In fact, both of those are just masks for a very ugly epidemiological and environmental set of disasters humanity is on the cusp of facing.