Social Destruction?

[SantaMonica1369]

Originally Posted by can't sit still

I agree completely. We invented air conditioning and got rid of the front porch. Since we don't know our neighbors, we don't trust them. Kids have lots of energy but we keep them cooped up inside, We pump them up with high fructose corn syrup, They're so wound up that the school refuses admittance unless they're on Ritalin.

We feed them food loaded with additives and then discover that they can't concentrate. We vaccinate them and then wonder why autism is on the rise. We don't allow them to see nudity or pornography because the "experts" say that this will influence them.

We allow them to see endless violence on TV because the "experts" say that this won't influence them. We can show them endless murder and mayhem, but we could go to jail if we show them a picture of a couple making love. What message does this send to kids?

30,000 kids under 5 die every day. It's a rough planet for kids.
Dan

You have such a good point... It's common now for what's accepted as basic rules of life to completely contradict itself, and I think this is yet another kind of social destruction. Most people think nothing of it, so it gets worse and worse. The kids don't go outside, they sit, they're constantly overstimulated with having music, tv, the computer, and homework going on at the same time, not doing a good job with any of it. Over half the kids of my school have "ADD", which I believe is overdiagnosed and basic lifestyle changes could fix it. Most children don't even know there's any different way of living then what they do now. Teenagers could take responsibility in the past, why is it that expectations are dropping quickly and children are getting away with so much more? Maybe that's making the world a less safe place in itself when no morals are cultivated from the start.

How do you change a society so corrupted as ours?

[de_budding]

I was 20 this year, I have a few friends at Uni my age, but frankly I find most people my age irresponsible, people at Uni seem to be too preoccupied with drinking and sex, I've been told it's my problem though- 'a 40 year old trapped in a 20 year olds body' is the phrase usually coined, but that's rubbish I challenge anyone to be more immature and childish than me. I relate more to I an aged (70+) alcoholic called Max who drinks at the pub I work at. He tells the best stories and always gives me something to think about, weather he tries or not.

Dan.

[GoshisDead]

There are two opposing forces in culture that are universal, evolution and romanticism both of which are viewed through the egocentric eye. What we see as "destruction" is simply the evolution of culture adapting to new stimuli and new technology through the romantic eye of "when life was good". When we say the world is going to hell in handbasket, its simply us raging against the inherently senseless evolution of culture. Much like biological evolution, cultural/social evolution has no real direction, and this worries us as adults because it may differ radically from how we acted and how the world was duriing our socially formative years, and as humans we prefer to think of life as ordered somehow, especially the parts of life in which we think humanity has agency to choose. The simple fact is that agency to choose is only operative within the realm of the possibilities a person/culture percieves.

[can't sit still]

Goshisdead, I can't argue with your assertation that the 2 controlling forces are evolution and romanticism... though I don't agree. The issue that looks very bad indeed is that we've "evolved" to a stage where we've created a society that we can't tolerate.

The Commerce Dept reports that there are 19 murders and 17,000 assaults in the American workplace every week. That's just what's reported. We have millions who can't [or won't] cope without anti-depressants. 1% of our pop in the US is in jail or prison.

The native-born pop is falling in developed countries. I see too many people who only want to live for today. They don't want to be burdened by kids. In the US we spend 107% of our income. We want to have fun,,, and let the devil take tomorrow. In Ireland , they spent 160% of their income.
We work harder and earn less. We vote for reforms and get more war.
I've had people tell me that the world is too screwed up to bring in kids.
Many people fall further into apathy as they feel that they are losing more and more control of their own lives.

As our technology becomes more and more powerful, it becomes a fearsomely powerful "force multiplier" in the hands of the evil. What will happen on the day when guns are taken from the police and put in the mandibles of battle robots? As the force multipliers concentrate more and more power in the hands of a small group, what will happen to the human spirit?
If you've seen the movie "Brazil", imagine bringing kids into a dystopia Brazil (film - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Obviously, power corrupts. Also, power attracts the corrupt. Runaway greed and corruption seem to be the byword of the decade. They have always been there but technology has given them enormous new power.
Half of Ohio and 10% of America is on food stamps. Our debt is 370% of our GDP. There just isn't any confidence in a happy future in America.

Party On while you still can afford it!!!

[Drewry]

Obviously, power corrupts. Also, power attracts the corrupt. Runaway greed and corruption seem to be the byword of the decade. They have always been there but technology has given them enormous new power.
Half of Ohio and 10% of America is on food stamps. Our debt is 370% of our GDP. There just isn't any confidence in a happy future in America.

Indeed it is true that the future of America is grim. A great awakening is certainly needed. The more these problems are actualized the more likely it will be that people will be willing to act. However, we must hope that it is not too late.

[Fido]

Originally Posted by Drewry

Indeed it is true that the future of America is grim. A great awakening is certainly needed. The more these problems are actualized the more likely it will be that people will be willing to act. However, we must hope that it is not too late.

When people are shocked out of their hope there is hope for change, for revolution. When people are slowly dragged down to despair about their futures, to blame themselves for their failure, or to look upon their suffering as an act of God, dumb luck, or inexorable fate; then they become demoralized, and they settle back into their situation and look at destruction coming at them like their turn in the gas chambre, always paralyzed, unable to resist.

What is happening is inevitable. Societies are born, live, florish, and decline. There is nothing strange about that, but something very strange at how many go down with the ship who are unable to see any future without the current form of relationship. Think about society. Form new relationships. Find what is common to all working relationships, and use that as the basis of a new form of society.

[GoshisDead]

On this subject, Interesting Book, Jared Diamond's Collapse. It is grim when people screw themselves out of existence. I wonder what the person who cut down the last tree on Easter Island was thinking and if he thought, "hey in 20 years a common epithet will be to say, your mother tastes bad"

As a reply to the above: You take the good with the bad. Work place violence is up. Of course it is more people are working in offices,warehouses, and not in agricultural settings. Crime rate has risen throughout history when population density increases. But arts, technology, science, law, and order have too. Medical advances have come far enough to aleviate people from depression, so people take advantage of it. People Realize that if they had kids, they wouldn't be good parents, isn't that a good thing? See all this is value based opinion based on whether one has a tendency to be romantic or progresive. Either way the evolution is going to happen, the world will change, world power will shift, morals will evolve and so on.

[Rasputini]

Man, I read through this thread, and though I think you guys have really hit the mark on alot of social changes, I do however think you over estimate the time in which these changes have occured. I'm 19, going on 20 in October, and the changes between when i was a kid and my younger brother who's 8, going on 9 in June are rediculous. The time some of you were talking about around page 1 of this thread were in the 80's... I wasn't born until 1988. I remember growing up with Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles and a whole mess of other cartoons; Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and the, for the time, amazing N64. That only takes me up to being about 9 or 10. I remember playing out side in my neighborhood with other kids and little to no parental supervison. We were never worried about getting taken away or anything, and it doesn't seem like our parents were either. My brother on the other hand is never outside, or when he is, its with mum or dad. The only real "outside play time" he gets is at lunch and recess. So based on that, I think its been a much more rapid degration of society than some might realize. I love my technology, like anyone my age, but there are aspects of pop culture that are absolutely appauling.
Getting away from childhood memories, today's pop culture just aggrivates me. You see how people dress, what they listen to and even what they do for recreation and not only is it a huge shift from the 70's, 80's and even 90's; but I would argue that it is a definate degration.

[can't sit still]

Rasputini, obviously society evolves. We're facing problems that are essentially,,, new. We live our lives faster and faster. We've grown more iunsular. As we become more immersed in electronic entertainment, we lose our interest and ability in interpersonal interaction. Society is fast losing it's cohesiveness.
The fragmentation is showing up in crime figures, dissatisfaction, depression and disease.
As GOV and the banks steal more and more, we work longer to compensate. The family suffers.
It would be great if we could simply turn things around. The spectre of poverty, the stress and general unhappiness are not going to change by themselves.
What does it take to make people feel secure and happy????
Dan

[Rasputini]

Well there's no denying society evolves. All I'm suggesting is that its happening much more rapidly than the other posts suggest. Though I think i disagree with your statement on society losing its cohesivenes. I dont think its a matter of losing it; its more a matter of it changing. Instead of people getting together and socializing, its increasingly happening in situations like this one right here: online chat rooms. I suppose you could argue this is a lose of cohesion, but it's still social interaction on some level or other.
For me its not so much the change in social interaction that bothers me, its the change in 1) pop culture and 2) the shift in how kids are growing up. Again, just in the last 10 years from when i was growing up and my brother now, there are HUGE differences in what our parents allowed us to do, as well as what we do. Actually, the more I think about it the more I see an emphasis on over acheiving rather than letting a kid be a kid. Something has undergone a huge change in a very short amount of time.