Are we spoiled?

no i would prefer Tanna.
and yeah so you admit to cultural superiority. thats fine.
Most of the laws in Saudi regarding women are left overs from a time and turmoil when things weren't as safe for women.

and yes you need to define right and wrong.

i think its a crime eat an animal you dont want to kill.
some people think its a crime to kill an animal and eat it.
its all relative to the culture you grew up in.

right and wrong is relative to the culture. when you start imposing your views, like missionaries do on tribes that have limited contact to civilisation, you start to impose cultural superiority.
they say that they are helping the natives read and write and learn, but the natives dont need this "advancement".
they live off the land and are happy
 
Care for the elderly is not perfect here but you know we have an average life expectancy of 82 years. In some countries its only 50 years.
 
To put it mildly Saudi laws are outdated. Ancient Bedouin code of the desert. But you see the Saudis haven't advanced very far.
 
That's nothing to do with care for the elderly, that's to do with access to modern medicine (immunisations, treatment for illnesses etc), possibly a better diet (although that's debatable), less chance of dying from simple injuries (because of better access to medicine) plus a harder lifestyle in less developed countries - more manual labour type jobs, amongst other things.
 
you ignore everything else in my post and pick up that?
fine ill bite.

saudi laws would have been considered "advanced" compared to european laws at that time.

the saudi's have advanced their infrastructure greatly.

again. its all relative.
and you lack the ability to grasp what is relative and how many of these things are because you think too highly of one society over others.
 
yeah i agree lets avoid that one.
but i just mentioned them as they're usually the first groups in history to impose cultural superiority.

what would you consider the most "advanced" best society.



its relative again but i used the example because vampyre girl mentioned well being before hence the speech marks "advanced"
 
Never said that, nor was that even implied from my comments. My point was that a society that might be 'evil' by your standards could potentially be far more advanced, by those same standards, than our own.

As to the necessary for advancement, I don't believe that mass murder is necessary for advancement. I do believe that democracy is a handicap to such advancement and should only be entertained as a system once your society has already advanced to a point where all people are equal and well-educated.



Don't forget to add to that, a lot of life expectancy isn't really an improvement. The length of time we live has, on average, increased substantially. The amount of that time we spend as fully functional and capable human beings has decreased.
 
Do you not live in a democracy? Would you rather live in a totaltarian state? BTW equal educational opportunities adresses your concerns.
 
Right because Europe has centuries upon centuries long history of democracy. You know... with that superior culture and all.
 
Now that I don't agree with. Care to do the maths on that and convince me?
Because one of the biggest increasers of average life expectancy is low infant mortality. Not just adding years at the end of life (although that obviously plays a part) but simply having people living beyond 4-5 at all.
Needless to say that if you die aged 3 your years as a fully functional and capable human being are pretty limited.
 
You need to wake up and stop living in the past. The days of the monarchy are over. The west has ADVANCED beyond that. However some areas of the world have not. Do you know what progress and advancement are?
 
Yep - I live in a representational democracy. I didn't say the system was bad, I said that it's a handicap to progress towards your criteria for an 'advanced' society.



A benevolent liberal totalitarian state governed by an entity who genuinely has the best interests of all at it's heart and the intelligence to make decisions in that best interest? Yes, yes I would.



No they don't. Equal opportunities and participation in a good educational system, tailored to include citizenship and make sure that all members of the society are both interested and involved in governance of said society would address my concerns. Simply equal educational opportunities do not do so.

In fact I do live in a society with equal educational opportunities - they're nicely equal and tailored to the lowest common denominator, with very little provision for those of higher ability or determination. As a result we have the non-interested learning basic mathematics and reading (yes, this is a good thing I'll admit) but we do not have the interested being taught advanced quantum physics and higher artistic theory.
 
do you know what they are?
define advances.
you're using measures of development that are only part the story.

there are a number of indices to measure development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index#See_also

i think of all indices i like the "Happy Planet Index" the most.
because it accounts for how factors compare to how environmentally screwed up the country is environmentally, which is what matters in the long run considering we have limited resources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Planet_Index

Im unleashing my high school geography skills on you!
 
I'll do that as soon as you get a clue and sort out a definition of culture that actually makes sense for the subject at hand... guess that's going to be quite a while eh?

Or better yet... how about you set up a video cam with all those non-white friends you have and let's see their reaction as you begin to explain why European culture is superior to all others. I'm sure they will be gushing with enthusiasm. Maybe after stop gushing you can then tell them how you bust out your non-white friends card to show that despite being culturally superior to everyone else on the planet that in non W.European... you really aren't such a bad person.
 
Is wikipedia the best you can do? I could write an article on wiki, anyone can. Relying on wikipedia for your info is like walking out in the street and yelling Hey! anybody got any ideas?
 
But you were saying that the society of the time was more advanced. You know, back when it wasn't democratic. Do try to keep up.



Okay, so once upon a time your healthy life expectancy was pretty similar to your actual life expectancy. If you were unhealthy enough to be considered infirm, you were probably dead.

Nowadays life expectancy for males in the UK is 77. Healthy life expectancy is 69. That means that for each male individual in the UK, you are expected to be in seriously poor health (we're not talking just a cold here) for eight years of your life, somewhat over 10% of your existince. Given that about 25% of that same life (up to the age of 19 lets say since it makes the maths easier) is spent in care of someone else, you are therefore only independent and healthy for 65% of your lifespan. The rest of it you spend being looked after by others - a net drain on the system.

Females have it worse with a life expectancy of 81, and a healthy life expectancy of 72, meaning that 9 years is spent effectively infirm.

The problem is that measuring the length of someone's life is easier than measuring the quality of it. If you say you've added ten years to the average lifespan, it sounds like a good thing. All you need to do is not mention that half of those years will be spent out of your mind being spoonfed by a nurse.

http://longevity.about.com/od/longevity101/a/hales.htm



I'm aware of this - but we've got to the point where reducing infant mortality no longer increases life expectancy (again, referring to the UK as I'm most familiar with the maths here). In 1910 we dropped below the 1% infant mortality mark, after that increases in life expectancy are disproportionately related to decreases in infant mortality.



Technically they're non-existent.
 
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