A few hundred years ago

[Lost_BMW]

DangerousMike said:

surgery isn't barbaric though - it's the best we have. Think about amputation without anaesthetic two to three hundred years ago... very primitive medical treatment but in many cases it saved lives. If you do something with good intentions to help prolong somebody's life, it's not barbaric no matter how primitive it is.

and also, in many cases I can't really see alternative to current surgical practice. Think about orthopaedic surgery - if you have a badly broken leg, how else are you going to realign the bones and position them so they can heal?

Edited by DangerousMike on Saturday 7th August 11:20

Uri Geller's great grandkids?

[Lost_BMW]

Barbaric? (and sensless) . . .

Spending billions of pounds of tax payers' money and causing untold levels of hurt (to the uninvolved and all) through the crime engendered by criminalising and (failing to) police drug use.

Redundancy in action and at massive cost.

[Hedders]

DangerousMike said:

I think democracy as we know it will be gone.

I am not even sure what democcracy is supposed to be as i know it now

[grumbledoak]

Hungry Freak said:

Maybe turned into something better, I'd hope.

History suggests you haven't read many History books.

Edited by grumbledoak on Sunday 8th August 23:06

[DangerousMike]

with brain implants constantly connected to an upgraded internet style thing we could have a truly representative (i.e. direct) democracy

[FourWheelDrift]

DangerousMike said:

with brain implants constantly connected to an upgraded internet style thing we could have a truly representative (i.e. direct) democracy

Yes Mr Lumic. Your ear pods will be a brilliant idea.

[Hungry Freak]

grumbledoak said:

Hungry Freak said:

Maybe turned into something better, I'd hope.

History suggests you haven't read many History books.

Edited by grumbledoak on Sunday 8th August 23:06

Aristotle said:

Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.

[grumbledoak]

Churchill said:

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

[stitched]

grumbledoak said:

Churchill said:

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

As I recall he also mentioned violence being the last refuge of the incompetent.
Not really there yet are we.

[DangerousMike]

i think the athenian democracy worked quite well. I wonder if this means that the best size for governable societies is much smaller than the countries we currently have.

[shoggoth1]

DangerousMike said:

with brain implants constantly connected to an upgraded internet style thing we could have a truly representative (i.e. direct) democracy

Someones been reading Alistair Reynolds then.

[PhillT]

Using the established timeline so far, capital punishment.

[Lost_BMW]

DangerousMike said:

i think the athenian democracy worked quite well. I wonder if this means that the best size for governable societies is much smaller than the countries we currently have.

But still influenced by the media (well, the popular satirists).

Probably not so representative for the slaves and foreigners living there either . .


. . but that's not necessarily a bad thing!

Maybe we could have a similar system where the Chavs would be unable to vote (rather than not bothered to - at least it would save politicians of the need to worry about the possibility and bribe them with benefits) plus the foreign residents would have no say. Imagine how little impact 'new' religions would have had on our laws/society if we'd had this in place for the last 50 years!

[thehawk]

Although our privileged lives in the West generally lead us to be optimistic about the future - curing crime, 7 day course of pills for curing many cancers, aging slowed down etc I actually think that mans darkest days are ahead of us, with cataclysmic events (natural or man-made) that will make previous disasters or genocides look reasonably pleasant.

[DangerousMike]

maybe... statistically we live at the best time/place it's possible to live, i suppose (though I wouldn't have minded living as a rich person in the years before the 1st world war either). Therefore it's quite likely that things will go downhill. On the other, on average quality of life has been increasing steadily for hundreds of years...

[purplepolarbear]

DangerousMike said:

i think the athenian democracy worked quite well. I wonder if this means that the best size for governable societies is much smaller than the countries we currently have.

With improved communication would it be possible to have larger governable societies (if the whole world was one society and everyone was treated equally within it wars and such like would be far less likely)?

[purplepolarbear]

DangerousMike said:

i think the athenian democracy worked quite well. I wonder if this means that the best size for governable societies is much smaller than the countries we currently have.

With improved communication would it be possible to have larger governable societies (if the whole world was one society and everyone was treated equally within it wars and such like would be far less likely)?

[dudleybloke]

cazzer said:

Free Will

i didn't know he was in jail!

[simonrockman]

Sea fishing

We'll consider the idea of putting to sea to find fish for food crazy. We've already pretty much fished cod to extinction. In 100 years time fish farming will be much more economic than trying to find the few fish left in the sea.

It will be regarded in the same way as we think of hunting land animals today.

Simon

[clonmult]

FourWheelDrift said:

DangerousMike said:

with brain implants constantly connected to an upgraded internet style thing we could have a truly representative (i.e. direct) democracy

Yes Mr Lumic. Your ear pods will be a brilliant idea.

Yup, absolutely brilliant.

With only a couple of teeny, tiny little flaws.