Posted on 12/08/2011 6:29:08 PM PST by billflax
During the late eighteenth century, momentous developments materialized in the West which now define modern life. Living conditions improved yielding unparalleled comfort, sanitation, and even entertainment. People lived longer with better health and more plentiful opportunities.
Previously, spare a few spurts of progress and pockets of wealth, man enjoyed minimal advancement beyond what the ancients experienced. Most of the world remained mired in subsistence agriculture, helplessly dependent on the vagaries of weather. Summer droughts, frigid winters, meager diets, and vulnerability to disease rendered life short and harsh.
Today, in the West, even our poorest are comparatively well off. Menial laborers enjoy living standards higher than did nobles of old. Its estimated that three quarters of everyone ever born died before the age of 35. Any compassionate person considers these material successes to be profound blessings.
The Industrial Revolution propelled this unfathomable prosperity Americans now assume normal. Yet to the dismay of some, combustible energy propelled much of this phenomenal progress.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
[combustible energy propelled much of this phenomenal progress.]
And the Appetite of Tyranny is NEVER far removed from the Tyranny of the Appetite.
Tata.
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