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Pabitra Mukhopadhyay

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The best 5 and the worst 5

Often it is useful to stop and ponder about the past events and try to assess the journey of social world to get our bearings correct. We have seen a lot in the last 5 years. What in your opinion are the best and worst five changes that have befallen us globally?
The conversation is open for a month with a hope that there will be enough responses and it will be interesting to note consensus on observations.

Topics: Crises Developments Social Changes World Events
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    natasha nikulina 50+

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    TED Translator
    Feb 13 2013: The best is the worst and vice versa. :)
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      Pabitra Mukhopadhyay 30+

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      Feb 13 2013: Care to elaborate please?
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        natasha nikulina 50+

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        Feb 13 2013: The worst : crisis (obviously )
        The best : crisis ( hopefully )

        Sorry, a bit busy at the moment , but if you are interested we can talk about it later
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        natasha nikulina 50+

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        TED Translator
        Feb 13 2013: I am back :)
        In the dual world we inhabit everything is set up as a dichotomy, what is one thing we perceive as opposites.
        Sure you know this. Changes are not exception, nothing is.
        Crisis is a BAD thing ; no jobs, financial problems, despair... the list can be long. But it is not the crisis that is bad, but our actions that led to it. Now we question the whole paradigm that we inherited from the industrial age. We become open to the idea that something wrong with us. Btw. the word crisis means "turning point in a disease", so , we are not in crisis we are crisis, we are sick and something must be done about it. If we don't manage to recover, why should we survive ! ? And here is the hope, we have to change, evolve , if you will. And that is GOOD. If we manage, it'll be the very best :)
        Does it make sense ?
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        natasha nikulina 50+

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        TED Translator
        Feb 13 2013: I guess, with crisis best/worst, good/bad mixture is more or less obvious, but take any change and you can see the same pattern. Or maybe we can't see now, but it will be revealed later. It reminds me the anecdote i've read somewhere :
        The Chinese emperor ( don't remember who exactly ) was asked to comment on the event that had taken place 200/300 years ago. He said : "it's too early to say."
        So, "What in your opinion are the best and worst five changes that have befallen us globally? "
        It's too early to say . :)
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        natasha nikulina 50+

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        TED Translator
        Feb 14 2013: Not at all !
        It's like " We may know where the road goes, but we have no idea how the scenery will look like ".
        And the 'scenery' is the most important for us. Who cares how bad/good will be reconciled in a couple of centuries ?! Sure it will.
        But we have to make sense of what is going now to know how to live our days and plan our future.

        I have a map of New Zealand, but it doesn't eliminate my desire to go there :)
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          Pabitra Mukhopadhyay 30+

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          Feb 16 2013: Thanks. The present that we live in is a consequence of past, more importantly recent past. I think we are influencing future by our present. I also think it is important to see the whole chain of events from outside the flow at times.
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    Grace Greene 10+

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    Feb 13 2013: BEST: There has been a surge in enlightened people
    WORST: That so much beauty exists but so many are unable to perceive it. The unenlightned do not see the damage they are doing, and five examples wouldn't begin to address them.

  • Allan Hotti

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    Feb 13 2013: Worst: spread of belief in radicle religions, demise of journalism, accretion of power my corporations to serve their need for ever increasing profits, progressive urbanization and loss of "community", maldistribution of wealth.& development of increased human capacity to destroy all life on the Earth.

    Best: interracial marriage, awareness of climate change, prolongation of useful life, exponential growth and distribution of public use technology (tho' there are risks), evolution continues to operate and may make life better for those who survive
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