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Poet deVine
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0 posted 1999-12-11 10:52 AM



What do you think is the most amazing thing that happened in the last 100 years?

© Copyright 1999 Poet deVine - All Rights Reserved
Nan
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since 1999-05-20
Posts 21191
Cape Cod Massachusetts USA
1 posted 1999-12-11 11:37 AM


The most amazing thing that has happened in the last hundred years spans the entirety of that time....

We have progressed from the development of primitive electrical devices (just before the turn of the century) to landing space vehicles on other planets.... and I believe that there are just a few other relevant items that have been invented in the meantime as a result of our ability to utilize electricity... ya think???  


[This message has been edited by Nan (edited 12-11-1999).]

DreamEvil
Member Elite
since 1999-06-22
Posts 2396

2 posted 1999-12-11 04:33 PM


Since the reins of technology are about to slip our grasp, I must say that the very complexity that has brought us so far is also what will bring humanity down.

The most amazing thing is the blindness of humanity to the fact we are raping Mother Earth of her riches and that we are on the fast track to extinction.


 Now and forever, my heart hears ~one voice~.
DreamEvil©
-------------------------------------------------------
"Either kill me or take me as I am,
because I'll be damned if I ever change..."

Count Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade
(Marquis de Sade)


Severn
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-07-17
Posts 7704

3 posted 1999-12-11 05:20 PM


Ouch Dream. Ouch. (I kinda 'gree)

Unification of a bunch of poets (although through dreaded technology, I wouldn't change it!)


Ron
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since 1999-05-19
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Michigan, US
4 posted 1999-12-11 05:32 PM


I'm sorely tempted to suggest the most amazing thing is that people are still predicting the downfall of humanity "any day now," but will save that for another thread. Besides, that's been going on a few thousand years, so the last hundred are just a drop in a very large bucket.

I know I'm biased, but I think the most significant thing in the last hundred years has been the development and proliferation of computers. Did you know that if the computers in just the banking industry were turned off tomorrow it would take the efforts of every man, woman and child in the US just to process the number of checks we write? For good or ill, our world is a much different place than it would be without the computer.

I think the significance of the Internet and the impact it will have on our society is only beginning to be realized. Like the computer that gave it its birth, the Internet will change our world in ways we can't possibly predict today. More importantly, though, I think it has the power to change not just that global entity we call society, but to literally reshape the far more important individual. For the first time in history, the barriers to communication and understanding between people are beginning to fall. We still have a long ways to go, of course. Just seven years ago the WWW was little more than a dream in one man's head. Today, it has become a tool with the potential to alter the way we see other people. It's easy to hate a stranger. Understanding may not bring love, but I think it will give birth to tolerance. One person at a time.

Those, in my mind, are some of the more significant things of the past hundred years, though I could easily fill a volume with both different advances and with those that led to the computer and Internet. But the most amazing thing to me has less to do with the world and more with my own life. The accomplishments of the past hundred years hold me in awe. But I'm amazed simply by the fact that I've lived through half of it. I can think of no more exciting time in history to have been alive.

Michael
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since 1999-08-13
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California
5 posted 1999-12-11 08:20 PM


We "re"elected Bill Clinton...Amazing, still baffles me.


Michael

Sir Real
Junior Member
since 1999-12-11
Posts 17

6 posted 1999-12-11 09:10 PM


How we talk, how we travel, how we listen all changes. As for everything else, there is nothing new under the sun.

sirreal

Poet deVine
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Hurricane Alley
7 posted 1999-12-11 09:15 PM


Yes..you all have a point (I do so agree with you Michael!)

What about medicine! Electricity is great, computers are wonderful..but if we're dead, we can't use either one! Polio vaccines.. heart transplants..

And what about the human rights changes.. the way we treat each other.. one hundred years ago, we would have chosen friends based on religion and color; women weren't allowed to vote and were treated like second class citizens; children were used as cheap labor!

Sorry, I'll get off the soap box now!  

DreamEvil
Member Elite
since 1999-06-22
Posts 2396

8 posted 1999-12-12 01:32 AM


Ron I will concede that so many positive things have come of computers, just as have many negative things. Knowledge in and of itself is not inherently Good or Evil, only the use to which it is put can be Good or Evil.

Michael, I got lost when Carter was elected much less Clinton.


 Now and forever, my heart hears ~one voice~.
DreamEvil©
-------------------------------------------------------
"Either kill me or take me as I am,
because I'll be damned if I ever change..."

Count Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade
(Marquis de Sade)


Severn
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-07-17
Posts 7704

9 posted 1999-12-12 07:41 AM


But PdV - there are so many children still used for cheap labour - so many of the products that grace our homes in our Western Society were made by innocents who should be having a childhood.   What to do?
And Western culture is but one of so many... many others don't have the same values as us at all.
Human rights still has a long long way to go.

Poet deVine
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since 1999-05-26
Posts 22612
Hurricane Alley
10 posted 1999-12-12 09:34 AM


Severn, I know and agree with you. But at least we've become a society that cares and tries to do something about this.
Severn
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-07-17
Posts 7704

11 posted 1999-12-12 07:10 PM


And thank God for that...
Sunshine
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Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354
Listening to every heart
12 posted 1999-12-13 01:52 PM


Y'all know me - I'm amazed that we've all survived in spite of ourselves, thank God.

To the well wishers - may the holiday spirit live in you for the rest of your lives.

To the nay sayers - may you become a well wisher.

Hugs,

 Sunshine
Look, then, into thine heart, and write ~~~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


Ryan
Member
since 1999-06-10
Posts 297
Kansas
13 posted 1999-12-13 04:22 PM


Pink Floyd, no doubt.  The wonderful music crooning through my speakers right now and the band that created it has got to be the most amazing thing.  
Skyfyre
Senior Member
since 1999-08-15
Posts 1906
Sitting in Michael's Lap
14 posted 1999-12-13 10:48 PM


Oh, this is easy!  The most amazing thing that has happened in the last hundred years is:

ME!

(Oh, that doesn't qualify?  LOL)

But seriously, folks -- in my honest opinion, the greatest thing about the last century has got to be space travel, hands down.  It is the epitome of looking toward the future ...

To answer a queation with a question (I love to do that), what would YOU like to see happen in the NEXT century?  

--Kess


 You cannot choose the way of your death, but the path you choose will determine its own end.



patchoulipumpkin
Member
since 2000-01-01
Posts 196
Bermuda
15 posted 2000-01-04 01:50 AM


There are so many to my mind.  Probably the craziest thing is air travel, i still look at the sky in amazement when i see a plane flying overhead.  Its weird i have these moments of "futuritis" which is an affliction that you feel you are living in a futuristic society, when its just the present.  Very strange.  Also, of course space travel is the other one, the fact that we are flying around in outer space is unreal.

Of course the other amazing thing that still blows my mind is WW2, and the fact that it was only just over 50years ago that we were putting people into ovens because "we" thought they didn't belong here.  Unreal.  Of course, genocide still exists today, and is such a horrible condition that still exists within us. Although i must agree with some elements of what Ron was saying about tolerance and how the internet can be a safe tool with which it can be practiced.  Understandably, it only exists for those with a certain level of education and means, but if you can start practicing tolerance somewhere, it certainly is better than nowhere.  I feel excited about the potential of the net, as well as wary, but on the whole the opportunities it presents to the individual are immense.  And even if it is emboldening ties for a few and not all, its not to say that it can't be that way in the future.  So why not start today?...

poetry_kills
Senior Member
since 1999-12-04
Posts 549
new orleans
16 posted 2000-01-15 12:38 PM


SPAM


 **jerome the boy whose brain got left out in the rain and nobody bothered to dry it off when they put it back in

Saxoness
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Senior Member
since 1999-07-18
Posts 1102
Texas
17 posted 2000-01-15 11:16 PM


You know, there was a national survey taken, where men and women voiced their opinions on what the most significant find of the century was...most of the men said the splittinf of the Atom...women said the discovery of penicilin.  I think i'd go with penicilin.

 "Glory remains unaware of my neglected dwelling where alone
I sing my tearful song which has charms only for me."

-Charles Brugnot


Majestic
Member
since 2000-01-11
Posts 264
houston, tx.
18 posted 2000-01-16 09:35 PM


hum..score one for saxoness..hehehe
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