Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
While things may get better for us in a material sense, the rush of our science to assert itself over our lives has made many of
us forget what truly matters in life and that is... living a virtuous life.
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It's much easier to live a virtuous life in a condition of plenty rather than a condition of want.
Do you think that the abolition of slavery had nothing to do with machine technology being able to replace forced labour? Is it merely coincidence that official corruption of the State is far less prevalent in modern democracies that have access to technologies of communication, information retrieval, and surveillance that were not available in the past? Or that the insane are treated instead of cast out with no reference to the advances in our understanding of mental illness?
The essential nature of people has not changed over the millennia, what has changed is the societies around them, and the one main engine of change in societies has been the advance of technology, whether that be military technology like the stirrup or cannon, or civil technology like vaccines or railroads. That we do not go to the coloseum to watch gladiators fight, nor crucify disobedient slaves, nor expose babies on hillsides to die, is not merely coincidental with our having much better technologies than the Romans. That evil doctrines such as Nazism or Communism are enabled by technology to perform atrocities the ancients could not imagine obscures the fact that such are seen as aberrations in modern times, whereas people like Hitler or Stalin would have fit right into the ruling elites of elder times and been celebrated for their useful ruthlessness.