Are we now more smart or just more sissies compared to ppl centuries ago?

[BeBMan]

Sometimes I do think that people ages ago were way more adventurous/courageous than most ppl today living relatively comfortable lives.

Vikings making it as far as America in the middle ages, with those ships? (yeah I know longships were great for that time - does not change the fact that it was a risky move, which probably did not always end in happy plundering on foreign coasts, but often enough in failure, like all other pre-modern shipping)

Or even Columbus and his crew sailing for months into the unknown pre 1500AD? Why did they ot give up after three weeks?

A modern comparison that comes to my mind is astronauts, esp. the first, or future long distance space travel like a Mars mission or something beyond we never may see happen in our lifetime...but even then the preps today and the tech/science base of it all is completely different, me thinks.


So were ppl back then way more courageous etc or more stupid not fully realizing the risks? Was religion a way to deal with those risks? Or were genuine curiosity as well as greed and hunger for profit much more important as driving factors? Which we most often don't need to display in the same way today - we can get those things - usually - without risking our lives.


Discuss.

[Aeson]

People still risk their lives to improve thei lot in life. We rich people risk our lives doing unnecessary or even silly stuff.

Just it's a lot harder to find a new way for us to risk our lives. If you could just build a spaceship in your garage and then set off exploring... I'm sure there would be a lot of people doing it. Just most people have no chance of being able to afford the endeavor.

[Proteus_MST]

Nowadays we definitely value life more than in the centuries before.

Just look at the casualties among soldiers that were taken into account in WW1, WW2 and the wars in the 19ths century, without causing any uprising in the population.
Nowadays however even a comparatively small numbers of soldiers in body bags cause so much discontent in the population (at least in western democracies) that wars oer occupations have to be stopped (for example Vietnam, or the US troops in Iraq)

The rise in Atheism, of course, may contribute to this ... someone who believes that there is a god, he is on the own side and that he will get into a paradise wonderland if getting killed for his faith, will value his life less, than someone who thinks that after death there will be nothing

Similarly, of course the expeditions into the unknown.

[Dinner]

We are definitely bigger pussies these days.

[Elok]

Neither. Technology and society have advanced to such a point where there are few such ventures remaining that could offer an equivalent profit for equivalent risk. Modern westerners still take absurd risks--booze, drugs, running themselves into the ground with colossal loans for stupid luxuries--they just aren't heroic or worthwhile.

Space travel has no significant potential for profit that I am aware of, which is why it's really hard to get major funding for it. People simply don't belong in space, and there's nothing out there worth even a hundredth of what it would cost to get it.

[Elok]

Nowadays we definitely value life more than in the centuries before.

Just look at the casualties among soldiers that were taken into account in WW1, WW2 and the wars in the 19ths century, without causing any uprising in the population.
Nowadays however even a comparatively small numbers of soldiers in body bags cause so much discontent in the population (at least in western democracies) that wars oer occupations have to be stopped (for example Vietnam, or the US troops in Iraq)

Previous wars carried with them the real risk of harm to one's own country; it was entirely possible that the Kaiser or Hitler could invade Britain, and even if they didn't the war could hardly be allowed to continue indefinitely. Vietnam and Iraq, by contrast, were rather pointless affairs in backwater parts of the world that had nothing to do with us, at least as far as the average American could tell. NB that it was very hard to get America involved in either World War, because they mostly affected foreigners (until attacks on our blatantly non-neutral shipping/Pearl Harbor).

[Elok]

Re: atheism, the irreligious are even now a minority in America (actual explicit atheists something like 3%), and you seem to be relying on a very caricatured notion of how both the religious and premoderns in general actually think/thought. Are you familiar with the phenomenon of "radicalized" Westerners picking up copies of Islam for Dummies on their way to the Islamic State?

[Ben Kenobi]

Neither. What are the risks vs the reward?

For Columbus, it was an opportunity to become a governor of Hispaniola. The risks were high, but so were the rewards. What is the equivalent reward for exploration today? Imagine that Mars were as lush and fertile as the Earth - and inhabited by primitives. Would we see people building a space ship to get into space, if they could claim pieces, or even, say, all of Mars for themselves?

That's the situation that Columbus found himself in. For a relative modest capital investment, he could finance an expedition to these parts of the world.

[Lorizael]

I dunno. When you consider that simply living in a city used to carry the risk of getting the ****ing plague, the risk inherent in sailing across an ocean seems... basically in the same ball park.

[Bereta_Eder]

well, the west is effeminate and weak and has piggy tails that's why we need putin riding a bear.


now on the wider scale of things I'd say the same.


atheism doesn't seem to play a part since religious feelings are just a projection of deep human premodial needs and even if those can't be expressed through religion (in atheist people) they will express themselves in other ways

maybe even, religion is better for that.

[Proteus_MST]

Previous wars carried with them the real risk of harm to one's own country; it was entirely possible that the Kaiser or Hitler could invade Britain, and even if they didn't the war could hardly be allowed to continue indefinitely. Vietnam and Iraq, by contrast, were rather pointless affairs in backwater parts of the world that had nothing to do with us, at least as far as the average American could tell. NB that it was very hard to get America involved in either World War, because they mostly affected foreigners (until attacks on our blatantly non-neutral shipping/Pearl Harbor).

But nevertheless, when the murricans were part of the war (i.e. WW1 and WW2), they were more willing to endure large losses,
than they were in Vietnam.
But history of war doesn't constitute of WW1 and WW2.
Just look at how many wars were fought in europe in the 19th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1800%E2%80%9399

Every single decade of the 19th century you will find at least one war being fought on european soil ... and many of them lasting longer than WW1 or WW2.
Likewise, every single decade of the 19th century saw multiple european nations waging war in their colonies.

Also, for multiple wars, one can ask why those wars were fought firsthand, due to, as you already mentioned, the risk for the attackers own homeland/s.
Example:
The war between the german coalition and france in 1870-1871 (started by france and won by the germans).
The war didn't make all too much sense firsthand. And it was lost at the cost of Alsace-Lorraine and 130k of the french soldiers (~15% of the french army) dead and likewise 15% wounded) (with Alsace-Lorraine remaining in german hands till the loss of WW1).
Obviously, in the 19th century (and before) governments were very quickly with declaring wars on their neighbors (and european citizens were very eager to serve their countries as soldiers)

Stark contrast to the mentality today (since WW2)

Re: atheism, the irreligious are even now a minority in America (actual explicit atheists something like 3%), and you seem to be relying on a very caricatured notion of how both the religious and premoderns in general actually think/thought. Are you familiar with the phenomenon of "radicalized" Westerners picking up copies of Islam for Dummies on their way to the Islamic State?

Well, I don't even assume that you have to be "radicalized" in order to be influenced by religion (to more readily give away your life).
But I think that in past times it was more like a "certain knowledge" that you will get into heaven (or hell or purgatory), whereas nowadays even most religious people aren't so certain anymore whether there will be an afterlife (and therefore won't be so willingly give away their life).


But I agree that the prospect of getting rich and/or leading a better life may also play ann important role and has so in the past.
It surely was the biggest motivator in the colonization of the USA (and taking away the indians lands) and it is a strong motivation for many of the european volunteers for IS.

[Bereta_Eder]

Well, religion and nation are interwind.


It's no accident that in their "fight against communism" (TM) the fascistocapitalists (or any other conotation) used islamic fundamentalists and the pope against the commies.
It goes hand in hand.

That's why communism was so revolutionary (but alas it was german too ), it completely abolished the belief in god and nation.

And one can't help but wonder. If there was no nation, if there was no god, why were teh communists the most fiercest warriors out there?

Who were they fighting for?

Good question

The "religious" narrative claims that atheism turns people into self centered nihilists. It seems that it's not the case.
People are still willing to die (or were) for what they perceived as "higher ideals"


God is not required

[OneFootInTheGrave]

God is an ideal, or whatever this notion represents.

You can replace him with nation, love, king, freedom, ideology of some sort - in the end he serves the same purpose - as a propaganda mechanism to motivate the masses to die for the leaders, while the leaders fight for power, prestige, or some other sort of idea which can in most cases be reduced to money.

A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him

[Bereta_Eder]

But not having something speaking to the soul would turn us into effeminate, spotted dick pudding westerners.

We can't have that.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Ideally we should be able to recognize sweet talking warmongering psychopaths among us, and ignore them.