Are we advancng or degrading?

[ultimaodin]

Well I have been thinking of such things for quite some time; are humans getting more advanced, are we getting brighter?
I got insanely worried after watching the comedy movie Idiocracy. (Good movie, stupid but funny)
Anyway it pin pointed many things that is clearly obvious and kind of daunting.
Many of the world’s scientists could be preventing diseases or making the world "safer" and more livable. Instead many researches waste their true talents on such things as anti-aging creams, nasal development technology (erectile stimulation) and other non-major nuisances such as hair growth.
In fact behind all the make-up, hair colour, body building formula, weight loss operations how are we supposed to find someone who "loves us for who we are?"
What other evidence is there: of the fall toward stupidity?
The way-over-the-top idiotic movies that are displayed on the big screen, The apparent need for nudity in video-clips, parents demanding a game called ‘Bully’ to be banned because of it’s title. (Even if you don’t actually play the so-called Bully) A more recent and noticeable event is the crowd of shoppers that crushed a man under foot just to get their thanksgiving specials from Wal-Mart, totally forgetting the whole point to thanksgiving. Especially when some shoppers even continued wanting to shop after the police asked for them to remove themselves from the shop due to the man’s death.
Here in Australia we have what is called the Baby Bonus, at the moment you get $5000 dollars for first having a child and then on-going payments each month etc…   What does this do? It inclines greedy people to have kids for just money and possessions, which they then tend to leave the kids in the care of their parents. (The grandparents of the kid so to speak) They aren’t having children because they want to hold the gift of life but to hold a bundle of cash.
The environment is also getting killed by pollution, and the environmental activists of anti-pollution cause more pollution by travelling via planes and jets to get to places in the world and talk to crowds about the environment. Yeah those gasses from the cars they drive and what not are perfectly fine as they are allowed to kill what they are fighting for.
This just shows the fact that as a race, humans stumble over their own two feet (good thing we don’t have four huh) and are hugely hypocritical.
So yeah do you see all this as advancement?
What is more important to a teenager these days: Books or booze? Give you a hint it’s usually the one that kills your brain cells rather than improving them.
With more “improvedâ€

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

What? Idiocracy is a horrible movie.  It's actually BELOW Army of Darkness

You don't really have any points.
Tragedies yeah, but your not showing a "decline" in anything.  This is human behavior throughout our existence.  The fact that these trampling at markets actually SHOCKED people when they heard about it, only shows we're advancing.

Look at things years - no decades - no centuries ago.  Remember when stores didn't sell food all year round?  When you had to farm and scrape, and die in the pit to enjoy your thanksgiving turkey?  Remember when you had to make everything yourself, or pay out the ass or trade something very special to get something premade?
Advancement.  Right there.  Free market.  Booya.

Trampling people to get what you want happens all the time.

Also don't confuse scientist with omnipotent.
That make up argument is laughable.  Especially since there's very few DIEHARD scientists who like, actually know immunity biology and all that stuff working in cosmetics.  Allergents, yes.  Things of that nature, yes.  But masters of cancer research?  It's comparing a guy who can change a tire to every type of mechanic out there - including aircraft and spacecraft.  Well, they know how to make a thermal emission, why don't you mr. changing your tire on the freeway?  Oh right, not everyone whose under the vaguest job title will have the skills outside their field by default.

Nudity, vandalism, all this stuff.
Welcoem to the human world  We've done far far worse.
We used to do it on a daily basis, and never grow out of it.  We do now.  The funny thing is, we're so easy to insult.  Because "back then" doesn't mean back in the day.  It means before you and I or anyone we know was ever born, and we forget about it.

Rome.
Nudity in plays all the time.  You literally didn't have nudity, you were considered a bit foolish.  Sound familiar?  Guess what, we censor it on national television now (in some countries at least), and have rating systems in place.  See that?  We "advanced".  If nudity is a "decline" we've "advanced" by limiting it or rather controlling it in some way.

Again, Rome.
Tramplings?  Seriously.  The fact that, like I said before, your surprised shows you how few times it happens.  NOW.

 

[Dissonance]

I actually see all of our decadent behaviour as IMPROVING, not degrading... because a lesser advanced society technologically wouldn't be able to concieve or create the things you're talking about.

Ultimately things are the same as they are back then, when you get down to it - The only way to live in an impure world is to be impure yourself.  If you're going to get what you want, you've got to sacrifice your purity for it.  If there's  something you'd like, then you make it yours.  That's how it is now and that's how it was then, nothing FUNDAMENTAL has changed - We've just, for the most part, moved beyond physical violence as an arena in which that plays out.

 

[mawk]

I think it's clear from this argument that you know nothing about the state of the world in general past and present. I'm tired of little idealistic teenagers acting as if the world has suddenly transformed from a shining harmonious utopia into a horrible savage place -- it's just grandstanding in the same way drawing Xes on your hands is grandstanding, there's no basis in fact (or actual motivation to care about the "problem" or change it) at all.

People have always been materialistic, selfish, and stupid, and have always found ways to exercise this. Remember monarchies? Remember the Golden King Louis bankrupting his country to make his palace pretty? Remember that positively outraaageous Marie Antoinette and how she spent a lot of money on things also too?

Remember the Grecian comedies known as "satyr plays" in which the actors all wore enormous strap-on dicks and told X-rated jokes for an hour and a half?

And as for health, remember when families would regularly have upwards of seven kids, three of whom would usually survive to adulthood due to disease or famine? Remember dysentery? Remember lots and lots of dysentery?

My personal suggestion being that you stop playing video games or watching movies set in X time period and thinking "gee feudalism was cool, life today sucks by comparison" and actually get your facts straight. Sure life as a knight looks badass, it has to for them to sell games, but try actually being one. Or being a peasant! I really don't see how you could say we're declining as a species -- a century ago black people weren't considered human, three centuries ago women were medically considered as "mutilated men," and it gets even worse the farther back you go. Considering the basic makeup of human nature (gimme all dem pretty thing's) doesn't show any signs of change (and in fact we've improved a great deal from the days when jealousy would just illicit someone to club you and take the object of their desire,) I'd say that the pretty decent improvement in our situation is at least an indicator that things are lookin' up.

And shut up about the environment everyone fucking talks about the environment but I bet you still drove something with bad fuel economy to buy the computer you're using and that your household still puts out the standard number of bags of garbage a day.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

Jesus Miek, this sure ticked you off didn't it

 

[mawk]

yes because I hear this kind of stuff all the time from teenagers who aren't informed on the facts surrounding the problem and don't care if it exists but just want to put it out there so that they have glowering rights over the rest of society (and earn themselves coveted "rebellious outcast" status as well.) that may or may not apply to ultimaodin (and sorry if I'm selling you short here man, nothing personal I'm just too cynical sometimes) but hey I'm grumpy. >:|

 

[Venetia]

I like it when people get mad at other people for doing what they want to do.

Dumbass McJohnson: "YOUR A SMART SCIENTIST! U SHOULD BE CURING CANSER LOL"

Scientist: "I don't know anything about cancer, nor do I have any interest in it. Instead, I'm developing something to make hair grow in men. Sure, it won't save lives, but it makes money and it makes people happy. I'm not a slave to pure necessity, I am a building block to a worldwide supply-and-demand spectrum, like anyone else."

Dumbass McJohnson: "IF I WAS SMART LIKE YOU I WOULD NOT WASTE MY GIFT'S"

Scientist: "What's more of a waste? My joining a group of people who know things I don't so I can help them fruitlessly try to figure something out in vain? Or my applying my knowledge toward helping people be happy?
And did you know that my research with stem cells on hair follicles is applicable to stem cell research in cancer patients and AIDS patients? No? WELL READ A FUCKING SCIENCE MAGAZINE OR PERIODICAL YOU DUMBFUCK MCJOHNSON"

Dumbass McJohnson: "It's Dumbass McJohnson, thank you."

 

[Venetia]

Guess what everyone here! We're all miserable life forms, only degraded shells of our ancient ways, because instead of building houses for homeless Mexicans, we're on an Internet forum.

SHAME ON ALL OF US.

 

[Dissonance]

actually i just went to university for a bit.

I'M BACK NOW THOUGH :3

 

[JoshieBoy]

All of this? Over a movie? I am just gonna agree with Miek and leave it at that. And Venetia. I feel like a bad person now.  :sad: I am going to go give the homeless person under the bridge were I live a candy bar now...

 

[ultimaodin]

No not just over a movie I have been thinking of it a lot and Idiocracy just showed me other people feel this way. Ok so maybe advancement isn't the correct term I am looking for. Lets look back to days that can be remembered (by some anyway and that have "good quality documentations" of those periods) the human race has dropped in many senses such as communication. Wha you ask? {sensless arguing about how our speech s become more multicultural}
How many teenagers on this site actually talk to their parents about their lives? I for one certinly don't, I would much rather text her.? I know but guess what I am not alone. So what is wrong with such a thing? Imagine going for a job interview. If you can barely talk to your mother face to face how are you going to be able to face an employer andtell them why you're the man/woman for the job?

Lets look at farmers, I know many old farming family's and they are contempt to live the way they do, the see drought as naught but an occurance in nature. It happens!
However I also know a few new farming familys who have just started out a few years back and all they do is complainabout the seasons, it's too hot, it's too cold, not enough wate, too much rain. It is retarded, if you work on a farm you have to get used to the maical thing known as nature. Unfortunately these people have high quantities of produce so they get paid heaps by distributers. (one even told me the get paid "only" 630,000 a year which is lets see is 63 times what I earn)
If you were to eat a tomato from them ad then one from the older farming family you will taste a significant difference in favour of he older farming family which only earn on average 170,000 a year.
We have thrown quality out for quantity. (probably curtisy of the over-abundant population increase which is propelled by money hand outs and government tax exemptions)

A mate of mine and my mothers whom is 26 years of age always wanted to be a Policeman. Why not, you put criminals to justice an keep the world from over abundant crime. So what did he choose to do? He became a teacher. An English teacher to be presise. He failed english the first time and just passed the next but he was capable of being a teacher. He did this because Teachers earn twice the amount a Police officer did. So not only has he desided upon the greater cash in a less-risky position but he is also putting kid's futures on the line because he really doesn't know how to be a teacher no matter how many certificates from Tafe he earns.

Another one of my friends is hell into human biology and loves learning about human science but she has instead chosen she wants to join minning because she earns yet again 15X more than she would be earning from being an actually Human biologist. The very funny thing is it was my mum's bus company that helped her ge into the mines. Violia transport here are desperate for drivers and about half a year ago the started running this thing where they would teach people for free how to drive a bus and earn them a HR license. A free HR (Heavy Rigid) you can probably guess what 80% of the people did with it along with my friend. Yep said they didn't want to do bus driving and used their new HR license to drive trucks in the mine.

Now allow me to tak Venetias point quite seriously which she would not expect. Because hasn't she even admited for logging on to the net durin paid working hours just to seek current ffairs and go on .org? How is that possibly contributing to the economy? There should be a bit of Shame on us and you may not feel it but I do. I could be doing a lot more with my life but I have become so addicted to forums I find myself to lazy to inject myself into doing more. For instance I could be working on my album write now, or Wars Remorse etc... instead here I am.

Anyway I understand peoples anger a believe me to be oblivious to facts. True I didn't get taught much at high school and my vocabulary ain't great (though in a sense this backs up my argument) but I have very bad communicating abilities. See I guess I should have been more clear because I wasn't actually comparing now-a-days to Romain battle field times and the black ages but old times in the sence of 3-4 generations ago.

@ every beries- true I drove a car but thank you it is actually a fuel conversion barina that releases 65% less emissions than the average small build four cylinders out here. The only place I ever drive to is work because walking at 4am ain't inspiring. Also no other electrical item (excluding the fridge an freezer which both have five star energy ratings) are on. Oh and as far as garbage goes, 70% what we use is recycled. About 20% is reused and 5% is disposable such as fruit peel and cores. So we waste about 5% of all houshold items used. So I guess I could say the very same to you about getting facts straight. Even if What you have stated is true and I will take it on board.

Trampling people to get what you want happens all the time.
Tramplings?  Seriously.  The fact that, like I said before, your surprised shows you how few times it happens.  NOW.

Slightly contradictory but I get what your saying, still the fact it happens at all makes me sick. How on earth is that in anyway of right? Why would people who just trampled and killed a person deserve to be thanked with a thanksgiving especially when they want to continue shopping because they had been "waiting outside for so long before hand"!?

What the heck ever happened to honour, Family values, respect etc...

Sorry but if this does happen everyday then I shake my head at the millions who do so or either aren't speeking up against such atrocities ! (damn that does sound similar to what you were saying before)
Argh I's about time I had some tea and Hypericum!

 

[skirtboy]

What the heck ever happened to honour, Family values, respect etc...

These things never existed in the sense that you are using them. Honour has always meant strength, and recoginiton of the same. The same is true of respect. People in the 19th century were often much more polite than is the case today, because good manners were literally enforced at gunpoint. Offending someone was very foolish, because you put your life on the line every time you did so. As for "family values" this is a term, like "assault weapon" that HAS NO MEANING AND NEVER DID. It was invented as a political ploy, mere grandstanding. Try to actually know abaout a word before you use it.

 

[Venetia]

pssh, lol. All you're doing is narrowmindedly judging people, sweetie.

How many teenagers on this site actually talk to their parents about their lives? I for one certinly don't, I would much rather text her.? I know but guess what I am not alone. So what is wrong with such a thing? Imagine going for a job interview. If you can barely talk to your mother face to face how are you going to be able to face an employer andtell them why you're the man/woman for the job?

a.) Teenagers have never liked to communicate with their parents at any point in history, perhaps since the dawn of man. This is not new. Teenagers are stupid hormone-driven assholes who like to pretend they have everything down pat about the world. They want to break free from the shackles of the Evil Parenthood. Even if a kid has the best relationship in the world with his parents, they're just NOT going to be as open with them as they were when they were kids. Simple fact. That HAS NOT CHANGED.
b.) Communicating face-to-face is a skill learned only through communicating face-to-face. If a kid has a problem with that, they need to work on it. That's really all there is to it. If more and more kids are becoming inept at communication, that's not society downgrading, it's just a generational quirk. Like in the 60's, when everyone happened to have the quirk of shooting up, dropping acid, and giving out free love. It's just change, man. You have to adapt and roll with it.

Lets look at farmers, I know many old farming family's and they are contempt to live the way they do, the see drought as naught but an occurance in nature. It happens!
However I also know a few new farming familys who have just started out a few years back and all they do is complainabout the seasons, it's too hot, it's too cold, not enough wate, too much rain. It is retarded, if you work on a farm you have to get used to the maical thing known as nature. Unfortunately these people have high quantities of produce so they get paid heaps by distributers. (one even told me the get paid "only" 630,000 a year which is lets see is 63 times what I earn)

... what? How is this proof of anything? Yes, when you are new to something, it will be difficult to adjust to! When you were learning to ride your bike, did you get onto the thing and instantly know every single thing you needed to do in every circumstance? When you fell and scraped the shit out of your knee the first time, did you smile and enjoy it, or did you grimace and falter? Duh?

If you were to eat a tomato from them ad then one from the older farming family you will taste a significant difference in favour of he older farming family which only earn on average 170,000 a year.
We have thrown quality out for quantity. (probably curtisy of the over-abundant population increase which is propelled by money hand outs and government tax exemptions)

The bloated farm bill is lamentable to any self-respecting libertarian, but that's not a societal flaw, it's a governmental one. And trust me sweetie! I'd much rather worry over paying farmers too much for corn rather than worrying about whether or not my despotic overlord will hang me on a stake during an Inquisition because I wore the wrong color to church!

A mate of mine and my mothers whom is 26 years of age always wanted to be a Policeman. Why not, you put criminals to justice an keep the world from over abundant crime. So what did he choose to do? He became a teacher. An English teacher to be presise. He failed english the first time and just passed the next but he was capable of being a teacher. He did this because Teachers earn twice the amount a Police officer did. So not only has he desided upon the greater cash in a less-risky position but he is also putting kid's futures on the line because he really doesn't know how to be a teacher no matter how many certificates from Tafe he earns.

You're pissed at a guy for providing for his family??? Seriously??
Kid, people do what they gotta do to get by. So what if they're not doing what they dreamed? Do you really think I dreamt of designing housing floorplans as a little kid? Fuck no! You do what you gotta do. And so what if he's not the best teacher in the world? Who the fuck are you to judge what he can and cannot do, what he should or should not do?

Another one of my friends is hell into human biology and loves learning about human science but she has instead chosen she wants to join minning because she earns yet again 15X more than she would be earning from being an actually Human biologist. The very funny thing is it was my mum's bus company that helped her ge into the mines. Violia transport here are desperate for drivers and about half a year ago the started running this thing where they would teach people for free how to drive a bus and earn them a HR license. A free HR (Heavy Rigid) you can probably guess what 80% of the people did with it along with my friend. Yep said they didn't want to do bus driving and used their new HR license to drive trucks in the mine.

why on Earth would you fault someone for making a better life for themselves? REALLY?? Jesus christ dude, grow up.

Now allow me to tak Venetias point quite seriously which she would not expect.

lol just because I pose an argument in a humorous manner doesn't mean I intended for it to be taken as a joke.

Because hasn't she even admited for logging on to the net durin paid working hours just to seek current ffairs and go on .org?

... What? I don't even understand what you're trying to say?
Yes sometimes I log on during work. So? My job lets me? I am very fast at my projects and fuck you for judging how I work?

How is that possibly contributing to the economy? There should be a bit of Shame on us and you may not feel it but I do. I could be doing a lot more with my life but I have become so addicted to forums I find myself to lazy to inject myself into doing more. For instance I could be working on my album write now, or Wars Remorse etc... instead here I am.

I'm contributing to the economy by WORKING, in which I get MONEY, which I use to PAY for things, which injects MONEY into the ECONOMY so.... Yeah not getting your point, hon.
And people are allowed to have hobbies, we're not fucking robots, you don't have to feel bad for enjoying yourself, you really don't! It's your life! YOURS! Do with it what you will! I would be sick to live in a world filled with people who felt like they knew how to spend MY time better than ME.

 

[mawk]

jesus christ this has got to be joke

ultimaodin get out there and learn about society and how the world works instead of hanging back on an internet forum and glowering at us for not following your oversimplified idea of the Greater Good. you're not selling your computer, investing it wisely, and then donating the profits to sick children. instead, you're using it to browse a forum about making games. logically, that makes you a selfish asshole and a poster child for this new and shocking decline of the human culture.

seriously. get some facts aside from this myspace idealism.

people like money and they like enjoying themselves. we're all corrupt because we prefer making money for ourselves and our families while we could spend our time sacrificing for the greater good 24/7!

 

[___]

I actually think you guys are selling the question short for lack of good presentation. I don't argue at all that we've progressed socially and technologically, but Idocracy, horrible a movie as it was, was trying to present the point that perhaps the ease of our lives, the benefits of technology and the structure of our society tends toward reversing the process of natural selection.

The people who tend to breed most, and pass on their genes and their belief systems, are the people who function most successfully in their environment. In our environment, that means riding the middle road, taking the easy job, bleating in tune with the flock. That's what tends to lead to a life where you reproduce the most, and where your young are most likely to survive to breed in turn, which is basically nature's only definition of success. Our medicine tends to enable people with bad genes and bad coping mechanisms to live longer than even the most ambitious, intelligent, or strong, and sort of like pandas we may be evolving into a niche that will eventually be detrimental to our survival. While on a global scale our level of education and lifespans are increasing, there are two things to note: one, that those traits are phenotypal - it's quite possible that our predecessors were more intelligent and healthy than us on average but had less opportunity. Second, that there is a correspondence between increase in education and decrease in reproduction.

I'm not saying all that stuff is true, but I think it's compelling enough to discuss without dismissing entirely.

 

[mawk]

Problem was, nphyx, that isn't the point that was being made -- we were selling it short because it didn't consider any kind of social dynamic other than MANKIND WOULD SELL ITS GRANDMA FOR A SHEKEL. that said, I'd gladly discuss this new topic since I think we've bled "PEOPLE ARE CORRUPT THEY CARE MORE ABOUT MONEY THAN THEIR COMMON MAN" for all it's worth.

 

[___]

Well I mean the OP sort of dropped the ball on presentation but this is a common topic and given fair treatment it's worth discussing if you want, so go for it.

 

[JoshieBoy]

Problem was, nphyx, that isn't the point that was being made -- we were selling it short because it didn't consider any kind of social dynamic other than MANKIND WOULD SELL ITS GRANDMA FOR A SHEKEL. that said, I'd gladly discuss this new topic since I think we've bled "PEOPLE ARE CORRUPT THEY CARE MORE ABOUT MONEY THAN THEIR COMMON MAN" for all it's worth.

I would have to disagree with you there. I would agree if the statement was "MOST people are corrupt".

 

[mawk]

ok

 

[___]

Rather than debating your personal perceptions of the topic, discuss or don't. It's a little early for a post-mortem.