Would you agree with this?

[capone]

First of all, if I made I mistake by opening topic in this part of forum, I would kindly ask moderators to put it where it belong.
Thank you.

Now, about the topic.

On first page of book that I'm studying from, that was written by my professor, he quoted George Kennan and free translation (couldn't find the quotation in English) would be:

Whoever thinks that the future is going to be easier than past, has to be crazy for sure/100% crazy/totally crazy.


Having history/past means having experience. If we experienced something, and know how it goes, wouldn't we try to make it better next time we encounter it? That sounds logical, but on the other hand, we (people) have our own history, and as we can see, no one have learned anything from it, it keeps happening all over again or even becoming worse.
There are times when we face things we have never experienced before, and all of the previous experience we have cannot be used for solving the problem. Does that make the upper sentence correct?



I'd like to hear your opinions, just made very short introduction with things that were first on my mind, and yes, I will try to debate on this with my professor, but after I pass all classes that he teaches!


P.S. I am aware of my beginners level as philosopher, but don't spare me a bit, I have to learn.

Regards, Z.

[The Voice of Time]

I think the statement lacks backing up. I see no fundamental reason why future should always be easier or always worse. It could be either or, and sometimes people make fair judgement and sometimes not, and sometimes that judgement is positive and sometimes not.

[Impenitent]

whoever thinks the future will exist at all...

of course, there is no guarantee of the next moment...

-Imp

[John]

whoever thinks the future will exist at all...

of course, there is no guarantee of the next moment...

-Imp

Check the timestamps. The future just happened. No guarantees of any subsequent posts though.

[Impenitent]

whoever thinks the future will exist at all...

of course, there is no guarantee of the next moment...

-Imp

Check the timestamps. The future just happened. No guarantees of any subsequent posts though.

"Conclusions about matters of fact that are beyond immediate sense and memory — especially predictions about the future, e.g., that bread will continue to nourish me — do not follow necessarily from experience, then, and are therefore not really reasonable. They depend on two additional, merely customary, notions: (1) that there is a necessary connection between causes (e.g., eating bread) and effects (being nourished), and (2) that the future will resemble the past. But these last two ideas are completely without supporting impressions." - http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/HUME.HTM

-Imp

[John]

Who do you think I wrote "No guarantees of any subsequent posts though"?

[Grendel]

Of course the statement is true as the theory states no time limit, and on an infinite timeline it must eventually be proven true. However for the purposes of the question I'll assume the very near future.

20 billion people by 2050, world's energy running out, environmental disaster, unsustainable economic system based upon growth, increasing spread of fanatical religion, wealth gap alienating more and more of population, technology increasing that weapons of mass destruction become available to all. I'd say the future for our grandchildren might not be quite as people in the past predicted http://www.paleofuture.com , and more Soylent Green.

[capone]

You are coming to those conclusions based on previous experience, past. Is there any reason that the increased technology available to all won't do any good in future? Sustainable economy? Use of eco friendly and sustainable energy sources? No classes? Beautiful future for our grandchildren? According to our experience, nothing of that is possible, just like you said. Why are we incapable of making better choices in future, even when we know the consequences of previous decisions?

But if majority of people agree on what you said, does that mean that we should stop fighting for better tomorrow and just deal with it? Even though we all know how system, governments and ruling class work, should we not fight and try to make a change?

Thanks for replying, Z.

[Grendel]

Hypothesing a new world economic system is easy. How do you actually change it in real life, there are surprisingly few ideas around,

[Advocate]

"History never repeats itself but sometimes it rhymes."

The lessons of history never apply to the present. There is always some significant feature of your current circumstance that can be pointed to and say "That. That thing is totally different and will have a significant impact on the outcome." The lessons of history, such as they are, are tendencies, but the gap between past experience and future prediction grows relative to technology and complexity generally.

[Advocate]

[quote=Grendel post_id=118258 time=1347083286 user_id=4759]
Hypothesing a new world economic system is easy. How do you actually change it in real life, there are surprisingly few ideas around,
[/quote]

The people with both the ideas and the power to implement them are already doing so. The rest of us aren't paid any attention to.

[commonsense]

Why do you think I wrote "No guarantees of any subsequent posts though"?

Yes, there are now no guarantees of future posts.