# 1965-1970 peak of civilization?



## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

1) 1969 - Moon landing

2) ... The highest global population growth rates, with increases of over 1.8% per year, occurred between 1955 and 1975-*peaking to 2.1% between 1965 and 1970...*
(usually population growth is fastest in times of great prosperity)

3) Albums:

1967 - Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band (album)
1966 - Pet sounds
1966 - Revolver
1965 - Highway 61 Revisited
1965 - Rubber Soul

4) Songs:

Bob Dylan "Like a Rolling Stone" 1965
The Rolling Stones "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" 1965
The Beach Boys "Good Vibrations" 1966
Aretha Franklin "Respect" 1967
The Beatles "Hey Jude" 1968

5) Jimmy Hendrix

6) Arpanet (early Internet)

etc...


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Pop music is the peak of civilized achievement? Well, it does have a mysterious hold on peoples' imagination (mine included).

It's amazing to watch these guys imitate the Beatles. I mean, so much detail has been achieved by the Fab Four.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Uh...which civilization is that?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

You forgot West Bromwich Albion winning the F.A. Cup final in 1968 - during that year an event significant enough event to stand alongside the slayings of MLK and RK, the Tet offensive, the release of the Beatles' _White Album_, the invasion of Czechoslovakia and all the civil unrest in Paris. ***

(*** I do but jest just in case anyone thinks I am belittling the disturbing and tragic events of 1968)


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

I'm pretty sure that 1965-70 was also the peak production and use of naplam...so for "peak of civilization," we always have that to hang our hats on!

1) I'll take the science data gathered by Hubble and Chandra over all the science gathered by the moon missions any day of the week.

2) More folks on the planet is not an advancement.

3-5) I would be one of the first in here to argue for viewing pop/rock as its own art form worthy of varying degrees of respect. And, I'd also be one of the first to say that I loved all the songs and albums listed in the OP. But for all those great tunes produced from 1965-70 we also had to endure:

_Yummy Yummy Yummy_ by the Ohio Express
_Sugar Sugar_ by the Archies
_I'm Henry The VIII I Am_ by Hermans Hermits
_Timothy_ just a wonderful little tune about cannibalism by Rupert Holmes
_Tiptoe Through The Tulips_ by Tiny Tim
_Daydream Believer_ by The Monkees - a song still undergoing examination by both Russian and American cyrptologists to decipher it's meaning.
_Honey_ by Bobby Goldsboro
_MacArthur Park_ by Richard Harris

As much as the music listed in the OP lifts the art form up, the above tunes pull it back down, a swirling vortex pulling everything toward the center, a musical regression toward the mean. Or, to put it another way: When rock was good, it was very, very good. And when it was bad, it was very, very bad.

Perspective is an interesting thing. In 1965-70 I would never have thought that one could use the terms "Deep South" and "peak of civilization" in the same sentence.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Room2201974 said:


> I'm pretty sure that 1965-70 was also the peak production and use of naplam...so for "peak of civilization," we always have that to hang our hats on!
> 
> 1) I'll take the science data gathered by Hubble and Chandra over all the science gathered by the moon missions any day of the week.
> 
> ...


"I'll take the science data gathered by Hubble and Chandra over all the science gathered by the moon missions any day of the week."

The Moon rocks and the isotopic analysis of them led to the moonlet hypothesis. Some researchers said that it was the only plausible way to explain the surprising abundances (titanium isotopes). I don't know what its current status is.

added:
I think MacArthur Park and Henry the VIII are both interesting songs. Why are they laughed at? It's not just you.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Never mind those pesky assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. And the power struggles in Indonesia during that period that cost the lives of half a million people. Just a couple of examples that civilization was not at its peak.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

as far as I am concerned, the civilization was at its peak when we were hunter-gatherers


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Jacck said:


> as far as I am concerned, the civilization was at its peak when we were hunter-gatherers


At least before money was invented.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Luchesi said:


> "I'll take the science data gathered by Hubble and Chandra over all the science gathered by the moon missions any day of the week."
> 
> The Moon rocks and the isotopic analysis of them led to the moonlet hypothesis. Some researchers said that it was the only plausible way to explain the surprising abundances (titanium isotopes). I don't know what its current status is.
> 
> ...


Well, the moonlet hypothesis is interesting and might indeed be the correct way at looking at part of the formation of the Solar System, some 4.5 billion years ago. Hubble and Chandra have been gathering data on the universe, something bigger and older. In that realm, solar system formation is an important piece, but just a slice of the bigger pie.

Hubble and Chandra also represent just some of the great advances we've made in the science data we have gleaned from unmanned missions in the decades since 1965-70. A very large portion of the Apollo missions had to be directed to keeping man alive, and moving him from point A to point B. That's money that unmanned missions direct toward the gathering of science data. When the James Webb Telescope gets up and running......lookout.

And speaking of James Webb.....oh man, how often do you get a chance to make that kind of segue???? 

There are numerous issues with MacArthur Park. It's over melodramatic, over produced and schmaltzy, and that's not just my opinion. I remember when that song came out and all my friends made fun of talking about leaving a cake out in the rain. It's 1968, Clapton's singing Crossroads, Young's singing Mr. Soul and Hendrix is singing The Wind Cries Mary. In contrast, MacArthur Park sounds like something from the Frank Sinatra generation.

Please don't get me wrong here. I think Jimmy Webb is one of the great songwriting talents to come from the 60's and he wrote some great songs. But MacArthur Park is not one of them. Its what happens when you reach for the brass ring in rock and roll......and miss.

I'm not sure where I'm Henry the VIII I Am lies in the nine circles of earwormary hell....but it's pretty deep. Herman's Hermits were better left to being a vehicle for showing to the world, once again, how good Goffin and King were.

But of course this is all subjective. However, I am working on an objective measure for earwormary called the Schumannmeter®. This device measures the degree in earwormary from mere annoyance to insanity using units of measure called TMKDS. TMKDS stands for Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport, a unit of measure much more accurate than polka dot bikinis...because they proved to be too teenie.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

1965-1970 was the peak of civilization for muscle cars. I don't care that the modern so-called muscle cars (they really are sports cars) are far more powerful. Nothing was more fun to drive than the raw power, loads of bottom end torque, big displacement, manual shifted car of that era.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Fritz Kobus said:


> 1965-1970 was the peak of civilization for muscle cars. I don't care that the modern so-called muscle cars (they really are sports cars) are far more powerful. Nothing was more fun to drive than the raw power, loads of bottom end torque, big displacement, manual shifted car of that era.


That was one positive aspect. I have a very talented friend that buys and restores these cars. He has a '66 Impala, '64 Mustang, AMC Wagon, a '49 Chevy, and he sold his beautiful 1960 Impala which I hated to see go.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

1965-70 was certainly an exceptional half-decade that packed in many events of historic significance, both positive and negative. In the UK, it was a period of rapid social reform (good) and the years when the Northern Ireland 'Troubles' really kicked off (bad, very). And 1968 saw Beamon's astonishing long-jump gold medal. 
But the peak of civilisation? No. Not yet. We're still labouring over the foothills.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

starthrower said:


> That was one positive aspect. I have a very talented friend that buys and restores these cars. He has a '66 Impala, '64 Mustang, AMC Wagon, a '49 Chevy, and he sold his beautiful 1960 Impala which I hated to see go.


Yes, really everthing from the Flathead Ford V8 to about 1970 is great. I would throw in the 1987-1992 Mustang 5.0 (but I am biased being a half owner of one).

The 1965-1970 era was near perfect, but for the Vietnam War. Many of those kid with the great cars were drafted and the cars eventually sold.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

2001: A Space Odyssey.

'nough said.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

starthrower said:


> Never mind those pesky assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. And the power struggles in Indonesia during that period that cost the lives of half a million people. Just a couple of examples that civilization was not at its peak.


Not to mention the Cultural revolution in China, which probably killed millions and destroyed the lives off many more.


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

A fairly strong case could be made that this period was the peak of economic prosperity for the West, as it's been pretty much downhill since then. However, that is only focusing on the West, for countries like China and India huge economic growth has been achieved since 1970. As for "civilization", however, that is a very broad term and it would be difficult to make an assessment on that basis.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I was born in 1965. My birth was the peak of civilization? Sounds about right. :lol:


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Room2201974 said:


> I would be one of the first in here to argue for viewing pop/rock as its own art form worthy of varying degrees of respect. And, I'd also be one of the first to say that I loved all the songs and albums listed in the OP. But for all those great tunes produced from 1965-70 we also had to endure:
> 
> _Yummy Yummy Yummy_ by the Ohio Express
> _Sugar Sugar_ by the Archies
> ...


Omigod! (gasps) -- I second that emotion. And how about _Lightning Striking Again_ by Lou Christie?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Roger Knox said:


> Omigod! (gasps) -- I second that emotion. And how about _Lightning Striking Again_ by Lou Christie?


I always liked that song! Still do.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

What I really meant probably wasn't "peak" in sense of maximul level of development or maximum advancement in technology, or standard of living. Not even "peak" in sense of ethics or justice, or social progress.

What I meant was the period of time with strongest growth, biggest change, and also very rich in cultural products it produced. Perhaps it was indeed sort of peak, because it was the period of time that for some reason allowed people to really do their very best, even with limited amount of technology they possessed in comparison to today. So perhaps today we are more advanced, but people from 60s were stronger fellas, tougher, more talented, probably much more socially developed... they read more books than we do, didn't sit in front of their computers all day, things like that. There was probably stronger sense of community and the consequence of such community was strong creativity. It was also a heroic time of space race and nuclear weapons race. And even though nuclear armaggeddon felt so close, people kind of had strgonger faith in the future, and inspite of imagining bright future with flying cars and teleportation by 2000, they also very much lived for the every day.

Some of the things they did weren't smart at all. They smoked more, drinked more, did more drugs than we do now. They took more risks and just lived more intensely and more authentically than we do.

It was a time of great economic prosperity, great sense of community, very big changes, and heroic deeds. Like sending humans to the moon that even today seems quite difficult thing to do. And they did it with computers many orders of magnitude weaker than today's cellphone.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

In the USA, the great strengthening of civil rights in the 1960s and the beginning of crushing the stranglehold of Jim Crow law and custom in the American South marked an enormous shift, ending almost a century of retrogression and stagnation following the Civil War. Of course, then we marched into the Big Muddy of the Vietnam War.....


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Strange Magic said:


> In the USA, the great strengthening of civil rights in the 1960s and the beginning of crushing the stranglehold of Jim Crow law and custom in the American South marked an enormous shift, ending almost a century of retrogression and stagnation following the Civil War. Of course, then we marched into the Big Muddy of the Vietnam War.....


Hmmmm, I'd like to believe this is true....but sadly I know that it isn't. When Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 he knew the Democrats would lose the South in the next election. By 1968 all the Dixiecrats had switched to the Republican party or voted for Wallace/Lemay. The only Deep South state to go for Humphrey was Texas.

Jim Crow is alive and well in the area I live in. The voting districts for the local school board and county commissioners were gerrymandered decades ago. We haven't had a black representative on the school board in 40 years and there has never been a black candidate who has won a commissioner race.....ever! Years ago in a national survey this area was named one of the most segregated areas in the United States. And the SPLC lists two groups associated with the KKK within 20 miles of my house. But hey, we do have an over abundance of churches, so we must be good people.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

^^^^It is said, correctly, that hypocrisy is the tribute that Vice pays to Virtue. Yet, there has been progress--nowhere near enough, surely--but now the evening news and much other TV has, regularly, black and other minority faces giving me news, weather, trying to sell me things. No separate drinking fountains, poll taxes, segregated seating, "strange fruit" hanging from trees surrounded by grinning morons, segregated military. The switch of the unreconstructed white south to the "Republican'' party was to be expected, but that LBJ made the effort he did says something about him and the souls of both major parties. We've had black governors and senators now; even (can you believe it?) a black president, supreme court justices, heads of large corporations, police chiefs, and others confident enough to try to run. Though bigotry remains perhaps just as prevalent, yet it now must make more of an effort to conceal itself. The key, of course, is to extend this trend throughout society. I remain hopeful. Old but hopeful, having seen much change after a hundred years of decay and retrogression.


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## Guest (Jan 28, 2020)

Fritz Kobus said:


> 1965-1970 was the peak of civilization for muscle cars. I don't care that the modern so-called muscle cars (they really are sports cars) are far more powerful. Nothing was more fun to drive than the raw power, loads of bottom end torque, big displacement, manual shifted car of that era.


Great for going in a straight line, turning not so much. And the amount of uncombusted gas they sent out the tailpipe could be compatible with what they burned.

My 2017 Honda Civic is more lively and fun to drive than my 1969 Oldsmobile Cutlass was, even with 350 CID V8 engine.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

My hope is going to die a fast death if our dear leader is re-elected in November. And there's a good chance it's going to happen. As far as I'm concerned Trump is giving voice to the racist element of our population. Things are turning around in this country very fast, and not for the better.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

*Strange*,

I believe everything you stated in post #24 is true. But in my area, blacks will not win at the ballot box, maybe not even in my son's lifetime, surely not in mine. We still have a civil war monument up. It's not coming down or going in a museum probably ever. When controversy erupted over it after Charlottesville you would not believe the comments on line - I wonder, where oh where does the southern white get his philosophy of the permanent Untermensch from?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

There is an interesting book puplished a few years ago entitled Stamped From The Beginning. It traces the history of racist ideas and the propaganda that gave rise to them. Of course it comes from the ruling classes who have profitted from slavery and the disenfranchisement of people of color. The author is a black intellectual named Ibram X. kendi


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

starthrower said:


> There is an interesting book puplished a few years ago entitled Stamped From The Beginning. It traces the history of racist ideas and the propaganda that gave rise to them. Of course it comes from the ruling classes who have profitted from slavery and the disenfranchisement of people of color. The author is a black intellectual named Ibram X. kendi


and can't it be that it is something evolutionary? It is not just whites who can be racist. You find them in China, Japan, black Africa etc
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201801/the-psychology-racism


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Room2201974 said:


> *Strange*,
> 
> I believe everything you stated in post #24 is true. But in my area, blacks will not win at the ballot box, maybe not even in my son's lifetime, surely not in mine. We still have a civil war monument up. It's not coming down or going in a museum probably ever. When controversy erupted over it after Charlottesville you would not believe the comments on line - I wonder, where oh where does the southern white get his philosophy of the permanent Untermensch from?


A question has gnawed at me for years; maybe you could help answer it: We read that northerners continue to move into the Old South, continually diluting(?) one would assume the toxicity of the residue of the grotesque racism that the early strangling of Reconstruction allowed to remain and regenerate. To what extent has there been an acceptance of black equality of treatment and opportunity in the deep Old South? Or do the migrants to the South acquire the notions of their neighbors? Or, alternatively, are the migrants already "that way" and move south to join their peers? There is a whole package of retrograde ideas that one finds together that more and more defines one of our two major political parties as it seeks to cobble together always a workable grip on power. Is that part and parcel of the migration south and the zombie-like immortality of the southern mindset?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Yes, but the ideas are propagated in order to exploit other people. The book begins in Africa with some Muslim intellectuals who were spreading these ideas. And they were involved in the slave trade. I'm not certain how sound his theories are? The book has it's champions and detractors. But many examples of intellectuals spreading these ideas are sited including New England Puritan leader, Cotton Mather.


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## Minneapple (Jan 14, 2020)

In pop music--maybe. I know Baby Boomers often consider the late 60s a peak. I think of these comparisons absurd; every era is a response to the previous eras.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Baron Scarpia said:


> Great for going in a straight line, turning not so much. And the amount of uncombusted gas they sent out the tailpipe could be compatible with what they burned.
> 
> My 2017 Honda Civic is more lively and fun to drive than my 1969 Oldsmobile Cutlass was, even with 350 CID V8 engine.


What transmission did you have in the '69 Oldsmobile?

I would not find it all that fun to drive if it had an automatic.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

ZJovicic said:


> What I really meant probably wasn't "peak" in sense of maximul level of development or maximum advancement in technology, or standard of living. Not even "peak" in sense of ethics or justice, or social progress.
> 
> What I meant was the period of time with strongest growth, biggest change, and also very rich in cultural products it produced. Perhaps it was indeed sort of peak, because it was the period of time that for some reason allowed people to really do their very best, even with limited amount of technology they possessed in comparison to today. So perhaps today we are more advanced, but people from 60s were stronger fellas, tougher, more talented, probably much more socially developed... they read more books than we do, didn't sit in front of their computers all day, things like that. There was probably stronger sense of community and the consequence of such community was strong creativity. It was also a heroic time of space race and nuclear weapons race. And even though nuclear armaggeddon felt so close, people kind of had strgonger faith in the future, and inspite of imagining bright future with flying cars and teleportation by 2000, they also very much lived for the every day.
> 
> ...


I'm glad that young people read articles today and come to those conclusions. I don't really remember it that way.

Every young generation has its idealists and its ambitious people trying to get ahead to capture some golden ring for their golden years, and of course you should strive to improve yourself etc. The long-hair freaks we called them (and I was in a rock band at the time) who went to Woodstock were certainly not representative of anybody I knew and I grew up right across the river. They came from the big cities where they had their reasons for rebellion, and their new fads and screaming guitars and drug experimenting. They were a small minority.

Ask some old people what they really remember and you'll get an even-handed view, but I think you won't hear that the late 60s were a "peak". A lot of media money has been made describing the 60s. It sells advertising, even after all these years.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

The Time/ Life version of the 60s. It can be yours for just 29.95 plus shp & handling.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Strange Magic said:


> A question has gnawed at me for years; maybe you could help answer it: We read that northerners continue to move into the Old South, continually diluting(?) one would assume the toxicity of the residue of the grotesque racism that the early strangling of Reconstruction allowed to remain and regenerate. To what extent has there been an acceptance of black equality of treatment and opportunity in the deep Old South? Or do the migrants to the South acquire the notions of their neighbors? Or, alternatively, are the migrants already "that way" and move south to join their peers? There is a whole package of retrograde ideas that one finds together that more and more defines one of our two major political parties as it seeks to cobble together always a workable grip on power. Is that part and parcel of the migration south and the zombie-like immortality of the southern mindset?


I don't know if I have the answers for most of your questions *Strange*, other than saying my area seems to be selected for. Who selects? Not minorities.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Strange Magic said:


> A question has gnawed at me for years; maybe you could help answer it: We read that northerners continue to move into the Old South, continually diluting(?) one would assume the toxicity of the residue of the grotesque racism that the early strangling of Reconstruction allowed to remain and regenerate. To what extent has there been an acceptance of black equality of treatment and opportunity in the deep Old South? Or do the migrants to the South acquire the notions of their neighbors? Or, alternatively, are the migrants already "that way" and move south to join their peers? There is a whole package of retrograde ideas that one finds together that more and more defines one of our two major political parties as it seeks to cobble together always a workable grip on power. Is that part and parcel of the migration south and the zombie-like immortality of the southern mindset?


Right, so the north being free of racists, naturally their migration to the south would dilute the native population of cross-burning inbred morons


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Right, so the north being free of racists, naturally their migration to the south would dilute the native population of cross-burning inbred morons


We both know the north is hardly free of racists. But Reconstruction, Harry Truman, and FDR were all northern phenomena, while lynching, the Klan, and James Earl Ray and Bull Connor were southern phenomena. Room2201974's observation seems to confim that the ante-bellum Old South plantation mentality is still alive and well in many places. Everyone has more work to do; the question is how much more needs to be done in the south?


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