by Erkki S.

Created on: August 15, 2009

Timeline of Civilisation

There are eras of institutional and industrial progress in parallel with moral decline. These developments go hand in hand, side by side.

First Era

At first human influence on earth's resources is quite limited. Humans intuitively understand their own impact on environment and understand the importance of returning what they have taken. In this golden era, this conscious virtuous attitude in all individuals is the only framework needed to regulate the usage of resources, space, and liberties. There are no borders and no rulers. There is also no wealth, ownership or money. All needs are satisfied, because there aren't many, and everyone is capable of returning what was taken.

From another angle, it could be argued that human population is small enough not to cause any harm to environment in these times, but this is only speculation, since example of animals shows that no matter how plentiful they become, they somehow manage to preserve their habitat. Its likely that humans of golden era have the same capacity.

Second Era

In the second era, humans become aware of desire. Some of them accumulate what they don't need in order to indulge in the fruits of earth's resources somewhat more readily. From this, sins of greed and laziness sprout. The concepts of property and ownership are born. Different individual characters develop, some more virtuous, some less. To regulate these divisive tendencies, power structures, led by the more virtuous (as universal religion and morality still flourishes), introduce the concepts of work and education to balance out greed and laziness.

Third Era

Work, tilling the soil, causes erosion. People migrate and productive land becomes yet another limited resource. Needs multiply. Virtuous spiritual and earthly leaders introduce duties, taxes, and salaries to redistribute wealth more righteously, to build and fill storehouses. They also introduce institutional religion to concretise the valuable teachings more firmly. Unfortunately, the new structures cause decline of intuitive talent and take up much space and effort as all these properties are laboriously protected by more institutional and bureaucratic infrastructure and professions (including legal advisors and tax collectors-bankers derived from bookkeepers of balances and debts).

In this third era, needs become acute at some locations. Riots occur and war is born along with borders between countries, guarded by armies. Religion becomes subject

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>