How about we have a thread about the "paranormal"?

LuckyDuck said:

I know this is the internet & also the Pit to boot so sometimes it's hard to convey tone and sincerity but I'll at least give it an attempt.

First off- to address your comment, for what it's worth I agree with your statement. In some areas we've continued to make great & incredible progress in (specifically advancing computer technology). And that's great. I'll also own that I may not have conveyed my thoughts on the matter clearly enough as well. So, if you'll permit me, I'd like to try again.

Trying to succinctly wrap up my thoughts here- I believe over the past century specifically "we" made a conscious decision to put most (if not all) of our proverbial 'eggs' in one basket, and in this example IT. If we can find common ground on that point- perhaps it becomes more clear of my concerns that we did so at the expense of other industries of focus. It's my belief that we've neglected those other industries to the point where we've lost quite a bit of (hard earned) institutional knowledge in those areas.

By 'we' I'm more so referencing Westernized societies in what I'm pitching as a theory. "We" seemed to have decided that "old world" areas such as manufacturing or agriculture had somehow become 'beneath' our now 'learned & 21st century focused society' and in turn outsourced those 'lesser' industries to 2nd & 3rd worlds. The issue I'd suggest though is that approach was shortsighted in that much of our 'modern' society was still every bit as dependent on those industries continuing to exist (albeit "elsewhere") that over the decades we've "forgotten" how to do things that were common place (say steel manufacturing or mining since I'm from PA and those used to be a huge industries here in the past century). I just can't help but wonder what we may have 'gave' up in our ability to preserve as a sovereign nation with losing that capability. I also think we've legislated ourselves to the point where projects such as the Hoover Dam, Mount Rushmore, Panama Canal, just would become too costly to achieve in present day (even if we've retained the knowledge of 'how' to do it).

So put another way- yes we made some incredible gains but I feel like we gave up far more than we gained with the focus in those gains. Over the decades, I also feel like we've squandered leveraging this new technology to continue moving us "forward". To your point- we have in our pockets access to information unfathomable for millennia of the world's greatest libraries and we use it... to post cat videos and dismiss committing things to memorization because it can always be answered in a quick internet search. I'd also say, that point alone is indicative of us being on a path of further (and rapid) intellectual decline.

Starting to get back to the original intent of this particular post- I'd finish up with arguing that significant contributions to the technologies you referenced were systemically anchored in our commitment to the sciences and space exploration. Only a generation ago- we (as a nation) were able to rely on the industries we built and look to the heavens and say with a straight face that we're going to bankroll an idea/a concept of something that has never been accomplished in the history of mankind and we freakin' did it in something like 20-30 years. We reached the apex of fulfilling mankind's dreams and leveraging all that we had achieved previously and then... just as suddenly we abandoned those investments because it wasn't 'cost effective'. I can't help but wonder how much further we'd be along as a society or in technology if we kept (literally) reaching for the stars.

But in recent history, we seem to be placated with solving 80+ year old men being able to get an erection and letting the world know about it with his phone.

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Bullfrog08 said:

Ill stop derailing your thread!

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Bolt_Overide said:

Kinda Agnostic on this subject. Seen things I can't explain, doesn't make em ghosts or whatever.

At the same time, I think its pretty arrogant to claim theres no ghosts, aliens etc.

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Bullfrog08 said:

Think about this for just a second......

2000 years ago, a man could supposedly lay his hand on you and cure the blind, the sick, the ill, those with diesease. That person was called the Messiah. Im not claiming to know, understand, or even fully believe in all that. Today in 2025, we are doing those thing daily. I have two pin holes in my wrist that fixed carpal tunnel 2 yrs ago. All symptoms gone.

5 yrs ago, removal of my lamen on my spine to eliminate all the nerve issues within my thighs. Fixed.

10 years ago a guy used a laser to correct my vision to 20/20.

None of them were the Messiah. Our intellect and continued advancement has put us here. 2000 years ago, they would have called these doctors gods.

We can do far greater things today than any man in history could. Ask me any question, and with just a few minutes on Google, I can answer that. Ask me to write you a poem and in 5 minutes I can have ChatGPT give me a poem to send you.

Again, no point in history has man been more capable. A good amount of us here can hit 24x24 plates at 1 mile. Go back 50yrs and find as many people capable of doing that.

Ill stop derailing your thread!

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Maggot said:

I once stayed wit a woman who warned me about the ghost in the attic. I poo pooed it. Woke up in the middle of the night and heard noises in the attic, like someone dragging something, I got out a Bible and read it a passage about setting the captives free and the noise stopped and I fell back asleep. The next morning the house felt like someone had run it through a washing machine..clean and fresh.

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