| mrstickball said: 1) Can you factually back up your claim that scientific achievement has grinded to a halt due to business and entertainment technology? 2) A lot of the argument concerning the poor getting poorer (from my view) has to do with how they are poor, and what they get for being poor. 3) Your absolutely, totally wrong about being poor being a worse problem: |
1.) Can you factually back up your claim that scientific advancement has not slowed over the years? From 1970 onwards, what significant scientific progress has been made? Furthermore, anything you can think of either hails in comparison to progress made in the early 20th century or it is probably an addition to previous work, such as applications of Schrodingers Equation or better quality computers.
This is a difficult request for both of us, expecially for such such a broad qualitative idea or question. The best 'factual' evidence I can think of would be to somehow look at research funding over the years, but even then you would have to make a judgement calls that weaken the data. All I can say is that it strongly suggests that scientific progress was more important in the past as it is today, ideas such as general relativity or schrodingers equation proves infinately valuable to todays economy, and those ideas were by people who just wanted to improve science. Today, less people devote themselves to science for science's sake, and instead delve into the free market and try to make money off of water resistant make-up or some other 'invention' that doesnt propel mankind forward in the same way.
2.) Rich and poor is a human social construct, and what the view of poor is changes overtime. Being poor in 2008 America is a heck of a lot better than being poor in 1200 England, so arguing that we should keep our idea of poor constant over time is unrealistic and unreasonable. A poor person from 1200 England would feel like he is a king living in a New York slum, but people who live in that slum today do not feel as positive about their conditions.
3.) I have not stated that being poor is a worse problem, and by that I assume you mean that people today are living in worse conditions than people in the past. I stated that more people are becoming poor as the wealthy acquire higher percentages of wealth.
