Originally posted by Hanslune
Or maybe the ancients realized that there is a tipping point of technology and waste and learned to live with "just enough".
Hans: Probably not that concept doesn't seem to appear in their literature
Hence "maybe". I'm supposing.
They made their buildings to be warm in winter and cool in summer naturally with no electricity bills.
In some cases, not in all the farmer was in general warmer or cooler but not the hunter-gatherer.
Sorry. Should have used the caveat of "civilization" or "level of civilization"/"civilized culture". Rome. Egypt. Sumer. Greece.
Rome had natural cooling methods. Egyptians had natural cooling methods.
They ate better foods.
Hans: Which is why we see ground down teeth and dental problems even in the elite in most cultures. However you are correct in some way, very little
additives but then they absorbed large amounts of parasites and toxins from the environment.
Ground down teeth exists in some remains of humans, not all. Moreover, see my point on population control.
They did not eat artificial preservatives. They did not consume mass quantities of Splenda or Equal. They did not have artificial dyes and colorings
in their food. They did not have to worry about trans fats.
They had running water and flushing toilets in many cases.
Hans: Rather rare based on the percentage of such systems vs the number of people
Running water was not rare. Flushing toilets, yes, rare. Only the rich had that luxury in most cases. However, in Rome they did have public toilets
that flushed for the city residents.
They had a sense of purpose.
Hans: They had mind boggling fear of demons, spirits and sudden violent death - what sense of purpose did they have. They survived.
You have no idea that they had a mind boggling fear of these things. They wrote about the gods with great respect and, yes, fear, but mind boggling?
Now you are supposing.
Their sense of purpose was built into their culture. To preserve family and personal honor was of great importance to the ancients. Yes, their
writing proves this. Perhaps, it is not a sense of purpose that modern man approves of, but men held this purpose so tightly to the chest that they
would die for it.
What would you die for? What would I?
Their medical industry was good enough to save the strong and not so advanced to save the weak (social Darwinism, anyone?)
Hans: Not really an infection would kill them and they suffered greatly from small pox, malaria, typhus and cholera = They lived in perfect population
control.
Again, having dug up more than my share of "ancients" I can tell you that many lived with horrendous woundings. An infection
might have
killed some of them, but it certainly did not kill all of them.
A close inspection of gladiators, for example, shows just how wounded they were and still lived.
Look at how overpopulated our current world is and how weak and disease ridden we are? The strong survived. Now we pick and choose who survives and
that is not always for the betterment of the species.
What has advanced technology gotten us?
Hans: The ability to not be wiped out and our culture lost. Sooner or later humans will be wiped off this earth. We can use technology to escape that
dead end
Egypt, Greece, and Rome thrived for thousands of years. Their culture permeated the world we live in today. What was lost? Look at our language,
our ideals, even our flaws...we are their children. They are not lost.
Moreover, our advanced technology has not prevented us from being wiped out. History will decide that, but for now the jury is out.
Egypt's culture at it's height of civilization existed a hundred times longer than the US, and they did this without laptops.
We now have near godlike powers without the wisdom. The Terry Schiavo case where the concept of "what defines quality of life thereby defines life"
is something that left millions wrecked over and polarized. The ancients would not have had this angst. She would have died after collapsing and her
mother could have grieved and moved on.
We have waste out the wazoo.
We have less time with our families.
Hans: Farmers spend a great deal of time working, hunter-gatherers less, but yes we have lots of waste, hopefully we can surmount that problem
Family farmers spend a great deal of time working with their family. That is my point. Hunters (pre-civilization) spent time with their sons.
As for waste, "hopeful" is the key word. I doubt it will happen because we are sick with greed. Until the garbage piles up in the lawns of the
rich I find it highly unlikely we will consider it a priority.
We have to pay for water and electricity.
Hans: other cultures paid for it too just in a different way. We also rarely (westerners) die from contimated water or die of thirst
And yet I have dug up countless remains and worked with forensic scientists and found this not to be a proven case.
I think that we've lost more than we've gained.
Hans: one can rejoin the land and renounce your involvement in a modern technical society, a number of organizations have done that, with varying
degrees of success. Few do so.
True. Technology is an addiction. We believe we need it to live.
') It was again in Timaeus that Plato discusses calamities that have
affected developing civilizations, not Critias as I had initially thought. 
' 
