What can humanity do to slow down?
Messages used to take days, weeks or months to go from A to B, using messengers, and mail.
So did goods and people, using legs, horses, and horse drawn carriages.
Even just a few decades ago, if you wanted to order something from afar, you had to either go to a shop and request it, or use a catalogue, make a phone call, then wait a few weeks for your order to arrive.
Before the invention of the telephone, your employer could not reach you until the next workday, and even after, only if you were at home.
Nowadays everything has to happen instantly.
You can, and are expected to, travel anywhere in the world withing a few hours.
You order something online, and expect it to arrive the same day.
With e-mail and mobile phones, you are reachable, and expected to be, reachable 24 hours a day, no matter where you are.
Shops are expected to be open until late at night.
It has to stop.
Humans are not meant to live at this high a speed, under this amount of stress.
Humans are meant to gather berries in the forest, hunt a deer, whose meat will last their tribe for weeks, then go to sleep in a cave when the sun goes down.
What can humanity do, to slow down, to go back to a healthier way of living, and to undo the damage that the way of life mandated by modern western civilisation has done to the species?
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15 Answers
Seems like you have control over these things. You don’t have to answer the phone nor order on line. Likewise travel is under your control as well.
Why would you think The old slower way of life was healthier since the longevity back then was more in the range of 30–40 years. Now it’s in the 70s. Seems like we’re healthier now.
It doesn’t matter because it won’t be fixed unless there’s a violent revolution.
Capitalism has to grow for it to operate, which means needing a constant stream of bodies to grind into dust.
If you slow business down, that means less money, which means less influence and less status to put your value above the other humans.
Everything I’ve read about history informs me that technological reversals do not happen (apart from isolated communities that have rejected certain aspects of society, like the Amish). I don’t think there’s much to be done other than personal decisions to slow down. But that’s difficult because the nature of humanity is to want more and want it quickly. It takes real effort to not be taken in by the “pleasure loop” of instant gratification.
Take a break by going to the country ( trailor, tenting,cabin,or resort etc)
Take phones calls once a day ( morning or eveing only and if its urgent).
Take a walk in the woods,Park, view Nature as its meant to be in its natural environment.
Doing this will slow everything down to give one a much needed time out from our hectic world, especially if one lives ina City.
Go for a walk and look up at the stars and be thankfull that we live in this great beautiful world.
Boy do I hear you, @ragingloli! I’ve felt like that for a long time. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s ever going to slow down, in fact, I think the opposite will happen. All we can do as individuals is try to look after ourselves and our sanity like others here have said. Personally, I think the best thing for us is to get out into nature. For some reason, that seems to have a soothing, slowing effect on people, and reminds us of what is important. This is in the top five of your many posts, imo
@ragingloli I think that you were born 10,000 years too late.
Perhaps you are right. Humanity may be on a high speed train heading towards oblivion. Nothing much we can do but enjoy the ride and hope for the best.
Get rid of planes, trains and automobiles?
^But then we couldn’t throw mama from the train.
Convert all major roadways into canals and scrap cars, trucks and trains. Canal boats must be pulled by horses. Humanity should not only slow down but become much quieter. The noise in out city streets and motorways should never have been allowed to drown out the sounds of birdsong or the buzzing of bees.
Make a massive global carbon/energy tax. Also a fast tax.
All of it is only destined to proceed and accelerate, as we await the definitive fault in the layout of the roller coaster to send the whole thing flying off the tracks. Which will it be? The nukes the, plague, the coming globalized oven, or the galloping disappearance of common sense as a plentiful commodity? I look around, and am grateful to be old. I wouldn’t want to wade into this as a youngster for all the loot in the world.
@RedDeerGuy1 Don’t tell the US Congress about your “fast tax”. HA!
Some of you need to go out and experience these things before saying such things. The wealthiest aristocrats did not live as well 200 years ago as someone average living in a one bedroom apartment does today. .
More time, for more sex, more often.
Of course that’s just one theory – but definetly worth testing.
Mankind is a self-defeating creature. They CAN slow down but are creatures of immediate gratification. They make decisions based on what will benefit them in the short run instead of the long run. Every time we come up with something to “help” us like ordering things on line or cell phones, there are widespread impacts on people and society that we don’t consider. Some are okay, others are harmful, but we just don’t care. We are getting what we want right away and that is all that matters.
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