No Brent, what I AM saying is that they are GONE! Well and truly
gooooorrrrrrnnnnnn!
We could get side tracked into all sorts of discussions about how each
of the civilisations you named, waxed and waned more than once in the
face of environmental changes and the inherent instability of feudal
societies, but I haven't got the time [fascinating though it would be :-].
My point is that, with all due respect to the late Douglas Adams, and I
suppose to whoever it was who wrote the book of Daniel in the
Judaeo-Xian Bible, the TRUE
"Writing on the Wall" AKA God's last message to humankind, is five short
words in plain-English:
* Shape up or die out!
What I say is if we really want to 'shape up' and survive, then
compassion, democracy, ethics and scientific method are four essential
ingredients without which our modern world will go the way of all those
other civilisations your mentioned. But this time it will be well and
truly final because we will have used up all the easily obtainable
resources, and blighted enough of the landscape to see Homo sapiens
disappear into fossilised oblivion.
Regards
Mark Peaty CDES
mpeaty.domain.name.hidden
http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
Brent Meeker wrote:
> Are you saying I just dreamed that Sumer, Ur, Egypt, Babylon, Rome, Sparta, Cathay, and the Indus Valley where civilization first developed and lasted for thousands of years (much longer than the U.S. which is the oldest existing democracy) were not democratic and pre-dated the scientific method?
>
> Brent Meeker
>
> Mark Peaty wrote:
>
>> Dream on Brent ...
>>
>>
>> Regards
>> Mark Peaty CDES
>> mpeaty.domain.name.hidden
>> http://www.arach.net.au/~mpeaty/
>>
>>
>>
>> Brent Meeker wrote:
>>
>>> Klortho wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>> The other thing I do is check to what extent a person's speech and
>>>>> writings support and affirm the four fundamental ingredients of
>>>>> civilisation:
>>>>> Compassion, democracy, ethics and scientific method. No civilisation can
>>>>> survive without all four of these.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Talk about assertions without any evidence!
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Actually there's a lot of evidence that civilization developed and survived until recently without democracy or the scientific method.
>>>
>>> Brent Meeker
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
> >
>
>
>
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Received on Thu Mar 01 2007 - 09:44:38 PST