First, in terms of times to live this is undoubtedly the best so far. Things we take for granted today, like antibiotics and electronic communications, were unknown. Long ago I read a novel that featured a man lamenting having to watch his child die in pain from an ear infection .. good times.

Or realizing the vaunted Battle of New Orleans in the war of 1812, an American victory and catchy tune, was fought for no real purpose. People being maimed, killed, resources expended, life and commerce interrupted because the war was over before the battle started. Of course neither side knew it because communications in those days were much slower. A victory for the nation but one wonders what those 1994 men killed or wounded might have accomplished.

The idea that somehow we are less capable because most people can't light a fire without a match is silly. I will give you odds that when flint and steel came out the people rubbing sticks together looked at the flint users as unmanly. There are really good reasons matches and lighters were developed, they work, are faster, and are far less a PITA to use. There is also that matter of people being the product of their age. Davy Crockett could shoot and skin and survive in the wilderness but he would be confounded by a computer. Much less being able to turn it on he simply wouldn't understand the need to turn it on. Which isn't to say he couldn't learn. Or a modern man learn to skin a deer. Point is that people adapt to their time.

Of course modern people have a pretty big advantage. We tacitly understand a lot of concepts that would be lost to our ancestors. Even though a modern city dweller might not know how to skin a deer she would likely know that deer are meat and extracting the meat might require a knife of some sort. On the other hand what would Crockett make of a telephone or a satellite, or nuclear weapons. Understanding these devices requires concepts entirely unknown to him. In time a friendly guide could bring him up to date but your can't overestimate the culture shock.

IMO most problems today center around two main issues: population and concentration of production. In 1915 we had a bit more than 100 million people in the US. Now we are well north of 300 million. At the same time production methods have made each worker vastly more productive. Fewer people needed to produce goods and more people available means more people with little to do. Unwanted people. Expendable people. People seen as a burden. People with nothing to lose.

Hilarity ensues.

That last paragraph sounds like a reprise of Victorian England as chronicled by Dickens. I don't think we're there yet. Surely we can do better.

The old quote "an improved means to an unimproved end" comes to mind. We have vastly improved means; what is the improved end that people should aspire to? Surely not buying larger and larger amounts of second-rate stuff; that model has a shelf life, and I expect that I'll live to see the start of the shift away from it, whether due to a more chaotic economic system or climate whackiness of some sort (i.e., changes in precipitation, which changes everything).

I begin to wonder if the less self-centred, more communal style of some people like the Hutterites, Mennonites and Amish might actually be the prototype, the leading edge of the change that must happen (whether we like it or not).

There might be something in what you just said Doug.
People used to be a lot less mobile.
They often lived and died within a few miles of their home, which was usually their family home for many generations.
Technology may have been slow, they might not have been as safe or secure and their society might have been very rigid.
However they did have a strong sense of place and community. Place, community and continuance were usually synonymous to them.
Those are things most of us no longer have.

Martin posted a couple of comments on the "Are you Connected" thread that give a different slant to this one too.

"Place, community and continuance were usually synonymous to them. Those are things most of us no longer have."

Very true.

We often don't know our neighbors, sometimes even our families. Self-centeredness is rampant.

Could we say that anonymity breeds contempt?

Sue

Maybe close to anonymity - that it's easier now than ever for groups of people with common interests to communicate and form communities, and easier than even to ignore those physically around us. At the same time, increased ease of travel and the globalizized economy brings vastly different cultures together. These two things combine to create strong and polarized groups with completely different goals and values.

Add the icing of media that makes money from stirring up problems, and you have continual chaos.