How far humanity can progress in 100 years (chain mail)
Offline CHAIN MAIL I'VE SEEN BEFORE, BUT LIKE IT. LET ME KNOW IF YOU SEE ANY DISCREPANCIES:
The year is 1906.
One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some statistics for the Year 1906:
************************************
The average life expectancy was 47 years.
Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!
The average wage was 22 cents per hour.
The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year .
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,
a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births took place at HOME.
Ninety percent of all doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!
Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
Five leading causes of death were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars.
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!!!!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn't been invented yet.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write.
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regu lates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health." ( Shocking? DUH! )
Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.
There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE ! U.S.A. !
Now I forwarded this from someone else without typing it myself, and sent it to you and others all over the United States,& Canada possibly the world, in a matter of seconds!
Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.
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I'd like to adjust some of these figures to today's money. Comparing past value of money to today's value isn't rational.
$4.60/hr
$4,255 - $8,510
$42,553
$53,191
$31,915 - $85,106
$106,383
$0.85
$2.98
$3.19
As you can see, most of those figures aren't very much different than today's value. Thus the chain mail is much less shocking if you take into the account the changing value of currency.
Also, let's look at the murders, but this time, let's look at it per capita instead of a raw number.
The population of the united states at that time was 85,450,000. That is a
%0.00000269 per capital murder rate.
2004 (the last year for which the numbers have been completely analyzed by the DOJ)'s murder rate is %0.000055. That is actually a 19.44 times increase in the rate (if you compare the two).
However, that statistic is just wrong, which means the rest of that info, including currency information, is called into question. It definitely hasn't increased 19.44 times, even though that is far fewer than the 230 versus the huge number today suggests.
The actual rate has increased only %41, not %1,944.
Edit: Also, one must take into account the the increase of willingness of people to report crime today than they were before, of course I don't have any statistics available to me on this, so this can't be entered as actual "evidence", but it is something to consider.
My point is... the world wasn't that bad comparatively, and it certainly isn't today. Enjoy today!
Here is some more info from the US DOJ:
Sources (to stay rational):
http://oregonstate.edu/Dept/pol_sci/fac/sahr/cv2006.pdf
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/hmrttab.htm
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/murder.html
Gee, one of those chain e mails contains information that isn't technically correct. Big fucking surprise!
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Good work Cbenard.
Way to take the time.
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That's cool, I love those things that look back at time. I would HATE to live in 1906 :shock: , but I'm sure that they'll be saying that about us 100 years later.
*Our world is far more complex than the rigid structure we want to assign to it, and we will probably never fully understand it.*
"Those believers who are sophisticated enough to understand the paradox have found exciting ways to bend logic into pretzel shapes in order to defend the indefensible." - Hamby
Well, since I'm diabetic and take insulin, i wouldn't live in 1906 - I would quickly die. (Insulin wasn't able to be taken from animals succesfully until the 1920's and the more effective recombinant DNA version wasn't available until the '70s.)
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
How about the suggestion that in 2106 there will very much be in effect a system where data like this is suppressed because our liberties only extend as far as whether to be force fed a false sense of freedom and humanity or to choke and die on it. The current trend of capitalist imperialism and changing of the guard to a "new world order" to quote g.w. bush and his newfound buddy vlad putin strongly suggest a maniacal form of big brother government being slowly phased into effect. I guess all I can really do about it though is post on a message board using my IBM computer while drinking a Coke and eating my McDonald's quarter pounder. :smt066
"It's not so much staying alive. It's staying human that's important." - 1984
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applesforadam.blogspot.com
Well you could devise a plan to extract 100 quadrillion dollars from the governments of the world by using sharks with fucking laser beams on their heads, and then run the world!
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And I will call it ... "The Alan Parsons Project."