What is your ethnicity?

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I bet some of our great grandpappies were slave owners or mass murderers or sired 15 children among multiple women. Seriously, knowing how people lived prior to the 1900's is not a good thing.

Everytime I think about people born prior to say...1920 or so, I think about what sad miserable lives they must have had. Not because of the lack of technology, but because of how ignorant the world was, how there were wars every year, diseases that killed people young, crime and mass murder, women and minorities had no say and were treated like slaves or dirt, etc.

Thank god we were born in the right time period, as well as our parents to a lesser extent. Some of our grandparents even didn't live such good lives, I know both of my grandparents were in World War II, who knows how many people they killed.

Most people didn't own slaves. You had to be really wealthy and own lots of land and property to be able to house and feed slaves on a daily basis.

[Katie]

^^ yup.

The actual slave owners were the 1% of their time. Most people were poor sharecroppers who were probably treated only slightly better than the slaves.

One of my cousins says Robert the Bruce is in our family line too, but I have not found it. She is a cousin through my mother's half brother, so it may be in her family but not mine. I'm still digging on that one.

[Prowler]

And in European countries I'm sure most people didn't even know how to read or know what was beyond their region/area. Not to mention all those dirt poor farmers and factory workers who could barely feed themselves, let alone afford slaves. Plus, most slavery after sometime was banned in the European continent and just kept being legal in the oversea colonial territories.

I guess the closest to modern day slavery in the developed world are unpaid internships. Those are quite sh*tty.

As for the rest of the world, well many people in poor countries work at outsourced factories and are exploited. They might as well be slaves. I guess one should feel dirty for buying new pair of Nike shoes, eh?

And there's still slavery in several parts of Africa and Asia. It's really sad.

[Katie]

Also, on thinking they had miserable lives, they didn't. You can't look on it with a modern life and say "oh they had sucky lives because of disease and war and whatever else". They didn't know any better. That was just the time they lived in.

Probably a hundred, two hundred years from now, kids that read about our time period will think we're pretty backwards and naive. Yet I'm happy and content with my life. I have no idea what I might be missing that people hundreds of years from now will take for granted.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Katie

Also, on thinking they had miserable lives, they didn't. You can't look on it with a modern life and say "oh they had sucky lives because of disease and war and whatever else". They didn't know any better. That was just the time they lived in.

You were far more likely to die of war or disease back then than any later time. I'm sure crime, murder, rape, etc. was also far more rampant back then and harder to catch. Who knows all the undocumented murders and killings back then.

Entire villages were pillaged and set on fire. There were witch hunts with people burned at the stake. People died at sea during ship battles. People died of malaria, the flu and other diseases. People were beaten to death or worked in horrible working conditions, slavery, etc.

I mean do people remember history? Every year there was another war between countries. I sure as hell would never have wanted to live in the 1400's-1800's or anytime before that. Even the early 1900's had a lot of our grandparents involved in World War 1 and 2, and they were the lucky ones to survive not counting the millions killed.

Life was horrible back then. If you made it to 50 that was considered "old" back then like 70 is now.

[plastroncafe]

Someone doesn't watch the news.

[CyberCubed]

Wars of today are not a fraction of what they once were prior to 1950.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Wars of today are not a fraction of what they once were prior to 1950.

That's debatable. It's not like technology was advanced enough to produce chemical weapons hundreds of years ago.

If a large scale war blew up again it'd basically be the end of the world.

[plastroncafe]

It'd only be debatable if he came to the conversation with proof to back up his claims. Which we all know Cyber won't.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Yeah I'm with Plastron on this one. We still have wars (Middle East anyone?) and disease (resurgeance of mumps polio and others once thought wiped out), poverty (technically anyone who lives on minimum wage qualifies as in poverty), murders (which are often more gristley, or mass shootings), rapes(especially on college campuses- and so many rapes are unreported it just LOOKS like it happens less) and racism running rampant all over. We only THINK things are "so mch better" now when problems do not directly tough our own lives, but they are there.

Ethnicity.... Mine is sort of a hodge-podge of primarily Irish with German/French (grandmother's side), claims of Cherokee or Comanche from (unknown) biological father (the claims came from my uncle who SAYS he knows who my dad was and WHY my mom has always hedged on his identity), and that same uncle did a family geneology years ago that rooted out some "Black Dutch" ancestors- which I have learned means I have German/Native American GYPSY ancestors! Our Irish roots have been in the States since 1848 or so, and were traced to three brothers who came over during the Famine and spread out from New York to the midwest. We also supposedly have ties to the historical Boones and former President Reagan. And somewhere there is supposed to be a family castle from the days when my family's ancestors were landed nobility in Ulster vicinity, and there is supposed to be a clause in the deed that any member of the clan who can prove blood ancestry could claim it- after paying the back taxes and repairs of course, lol!

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

It'd only be debatable if he came to the conversation with proof to back up his claims. Which we all know Cyber won't.

You can look up the death tolls of all the major wars prior to say 1950 or so or the end of World War II. No wars of today have as huge deaths tolls as that.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

You're probably looking at "military personnel" deaths, rather than total deaths. These days most of the death toll comes from civilians killed by IED's, bombings, and other WMD's. Those are far greater than the toll on the ones doing the actual fighting.

[plastroncafe]

Telling someone else to do the research is not providing support for your claim, Cyber.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

Telling someone else to do the research is not providing support for your claim, Cyber.

Take a quick look:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._by_death_toll

[FredWolfLeonardo]

It also depends on the cultural views of the people in terms of their quality of life, what exactly makes life better or worth living? The answers may surprise you when you look at other cultures.

For example, many Buddhists do not share the typical view that more longetivity, pleasure and comfort equal to a better life. Rather, their primary purpose is to obtain peace of mind (nirvana) and the material world is seen as an illusion that can easily distract one from the true path. Thus, many gave up a comfortable life and hold no attachment to it. I wouldn't be surprised if many Buddhist living in Brutal conditions were happier than the average Westerner living a pampered life.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Happiness and a "good life" are subjective not just on a cultural level but a personal one as well. Each person defines what constitutes a good life based not only on his culture and ethnical influences but on his personal experiences and knowledge as well. For instance, many cultures focus on happiness in "the next life" over one's present condition. Yet many people consider personal wealth or accomplishment a measure of what makes them "happy".

[IndigoErth]

What's quality of life in prior generations have to do with interest in family history and genetic heritage anyhow...

I swear, people either think people long ago lived in a terrible world or a magical one. They weren't really all that different than us. They wouldn't miss what they didn't have, no more than we'd miss how life might be in 2117, and ailments with no cures were a fact of life. Advances in healthcare might help, but really we still live that way. Will people of the future think we lived in a horrible time with miserable lives because there was no cure for cancer, AIDS, and other diseases and war was still frequent? I mean, my dad died of a terminal illness most have never even heard of (to the point it took forever to even diagnose him until a month before he died), but I don't feel like it's the year 1800 because of it...

Anyhow...


If we're naming names, Patrick Henry is said to be in our family tree somewhere.

[CyberCubed]

The funny thing is unlike our ancestors thinking about the future, we all pretty much know what the future will be like. Most sci-fi movies, shows, comics, etc. take place in the future. In fact many of the things back in 80's and 90's movies that was considered "the future" we have today, like pocket phones, flat TV's, VR, video phone messaging when you see someones face, etc.

The only thing we didn't come up with is flying cars because it would be too dangerous in real life. If people are already crashing up the roads and can't drive straight as it is, I can't imagine flying cars with people crashing into buildings and nonsense like that.

[IndigoErth]

Sure... Maybe things the same generation can think up in fiction and later invent. I have a hard time thinking of such a short span of time as 'the future.' But there's probably plenty we can't even fathom that may exist in a couple hundred years.

Don't be silly... flying cars will prob pilot themselves. Considering they're starting to come out with earthbound cars that can do so. (On one hand I'm not sure I could ever trust a self-driving car, but on the other I look forward to the extra nap during the commute. Obviously a wake-up alarm when it pulls into the parking lot must be among its features.)

edit: Although small personal flying cars already exist. They're called airplanes, like the Cessna. (Though those tend to crash on their own without the pilot driver causing it.)




Curious about the so far lack of any Middle Eastern TMNT fans...

[DisKosh]

White, British.

Family history? My great grandfather was in the IRA.