anangellooksdown said:

I woke up with this this morning: Our society is declining and deteriorating (which is what entropy is), and has been for some time. It has gotten to a point where we are in "very interesting times" as Prince so nicely put it. He knew this was coming. Is anyone listening? We have GOT to start caring about other people more. There is so much cruelty in personal relationships and in the way people speak to and treat each other. We have also GOT to be more committed at our jobs again instead of being on FAcebook all day at work, then not following through with our tasks and responsibilities and disrespecting customers/patients. It is becoming all-out selfishness, greed and chaos out there, at least in the US, and we are EACH responsible for changing this. Ain't gonna be no big lightning bolt that makes everything ok again...it's got to happen at an individual level. Personal responsibility will lift the depression that is hovering over our society.

Oh, it's not. Entropy is a measure of randomness. I did systems theory at grad school

anangellooksdown said:

databank said:

I think you're highly idealizing the past. The 70s? When New York was said to be the most dangerous place in the world and the hoods were already filled with drugs, pimps and gun violence, while young Americans were sent to be butchered in Vietnam? When child abuse and rape were treated as taboo and even less often reported than today? When, in the absence of portable cameras, police violence went totally unpunished and black lives mattered much less than today? Do you really think there was no senseless violence in the streets, such as the (statistically insignificant) incident you unfortunately witnessed? This is absurd. . As for the Great Depression, it's not an era in American history I'm extremely familiar with but being a European I know how people stood for each other in face of the depression in Europe: by electing fascist dictators and persecuting minorities. I also know enough of America at the time to know that organized crime made countless victims, that black lives mattered even less and that women and children victim of domestic or sexual abuse were so unprotected that that were little more than men's possessions along the animals and furniture. I also doubt that brawls between stupid and drunken, violent uneducated men were nonexistent at that time. We could also discuss how cool it was to be a Japanese in the USA during WWII or how cool it was to have to go and be butchered by German or Japanese soldiers. . One thing is true though, at least up until the 60s a certain facade, a certain mascarade of civilization was maintained in Western societies thanks to good manners being much more prevalent between ordinary people than today, but it could be argued that this was the fortunate circumstance of a society where social positions and power were much more strongly enforced, with people being raised in a claustrophobic system of values based on guilt, religion and fear of being an outcast if one wouldn't fit the mold. . I find your perception of life as it was very romantic, like a postcard of a middle class suburb that would ignore both the hidden, intitutionalized violence at home and the neighboring poverty areas. . Now was everything worse in the 70s, probably not. Is everything better today? Probably not. New problems arose on the ashes of the ones we've solved, and many remain unsolved. But overall, the later you were born the better.

I'm talking about the day-to-day interactions among people. Yes, I miss common decency and manners and people being present instead of on their iPhones all day walking into traffic with earbuds on, thinking only of how to get ahead for themselves. When people actually wanted to be helpful to others. Now obviously these problems don't describe everyone today, but man? We're in some selfish times.

I can understand that the degradation of good manners can be perceived as sad. While I'm not as "tight" as my parents were, I've been educated to have certain manners and when people are too vulgar or gross (including online) I find it pretty offensive. I live in Asia now, where a certain amount of good manners is being maintained (not necessarily the same as ours, but as in a strong desire not to offense or insult, and those societies are in many regards comparable to the West in the 1950's): it unfortunately doesn't mean at all that people care for each other any more than we do, or that they're to be trusted any more: they're just maintaining a certain code of behavior in order to avoid conflict or rejection. Not to say that good manners are to be given up on: they're not the cause of human selfishness, but they're only a nice make-up on an ugly face.

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As for new technology I think what we're experiencing now is only a temporary step towards a much bigger integration of technology in humans themselves, and it's a really new phenomenon (smartphones, internet, social networks), so it's really hard to draw a definitive conclusion upon the impact it all have on the human brain and societies. However, I'll play devil's advocate and say 3 things. I don't know if they're meaningful, just general remarks.

- Regarding earphones, the cassette walkman was introduced in the late 70's and as a teenager in the late 80's, I could be seen walking in my earphones bubble long before we had smartphones. Still a new technology, in the sense that it's only 40 years old, but it's not related to the internet and smartphones.

- Regarding social networks it is to be noted that while people are focused on their phones in public places, it's often because they're chatting with a friend online! Chatting with the next person in the bus or a friend online remains chatting, and people are actually interacting more, not less. Anyway IDK in the US but in France it wasn't really a habit to address strangers in the street or public transports: usually it was considered intrusive and people would often be reluctant to engage in conversation. There's an other aspect of social networks that I find more disturbing though: we are never alone anymore. Back in the days when I was alone at home I was alone the whole time. Now I often find myself chatting with people on Facebook or WeChat or here on the Org. I think we've lost ourselves much more than contact with others. Sometimes I wish I could spend a whole evening at home with my internet off, just to be on my own without the urge to chat, notifications, emails and so...

- When I was a kid in the 80's TV was the root of all evil. Then in the 90's it was video games. Then in the 00's it was the internet and mobile phones. Now it's social networks and smartphones. I think those new technologies are just an easy target to express a feeling of isolation and selfishness we perceive in others. I'm not saying they only have positive effects on us. Just that it's easy to confuse the effect and the cause, and that maybe we misuse new technology because we're self-centered, not that we are self-centered because of new technology.

anangellooksdown said:

databank said:

I'll add another thing, that is the one upsetting me. By opting for this "things are going downhill" attitude, we are doing 2 things that are totally counterproductive, particularly in regards to what we tell the youngs of today. . The first is that we deny them the rights to enjoy a world that's rightfully theirs. I remember growing among Baby Boomers who kept telling us that the world, OUR world was going from bad to worse, that our values sucked, that our manners were bad, that we had few perspectives of happiness, etc. I remember thinking "fuck you, you had your time, your world wasn't the perfect picture you're depicting and just because my world is different, just because we are different, doesn't mean it isn't, that WE are not full of wonderful things that YOU were not and that YOU didn't have!" It was really insulting this "we had it all, we were so great and you suck and your world sucks" BS. Unfortunately, many kids my age bought their BS, and were totally cynical or depressed, saying "they had the peaceful city life and easy jobs and the summer of love and Woodstock and all we got left is suit and no future". So sad... . Then there is the awful thing that is downplaying all the progress that's been made in the world (and a lot has been accomplished, believe me), which gets us nothing but depressed, angry people and populist political leaders. Yes there are lots it really wrong things going on in the world today. Why addressing them as regression? Why compare with the past in such a negative manner. Why not, instead, empasize the positive by saying "a lot has been accomplished, but a lot MORE remains to be accomplished". By focusing on progress and upcoming challenges you build a world for tomorrow. By looking behind and talk of entropy, you just dig a grave for us all to bury ourselves weeping. . I know you mean well, I know that you're really sad about the violence we have to face, I am too, but you need to pull yourself together, acknowledge your cognitive biases and fight for the future, not for the past.

You're right. I also believe that sometimes we will hear warnings, and we need those too. But there are better ways I could've said this.

Warnings are necessary, I agree. They're about the future though, so they can happen without using negative comparisons with the past.

Here's a recent article to lift y'all up

https://singularityhub.com/2017/10/12/why-the-world-is-still-better-than-you-think-new-evidence-for-abundance/

databank said:

Brendan said:

IstenSzek said:

i read a lot of classic literature from all over the world and even in the earliest examples
you can always find the sentiment that a generation back the people were nicer, the veg
tasted better and the world as a whole was a better place.

so considering that as 'truth', and calculating in that the decline has continued from that
early age all the way up to now, i think it's pretty safe to say that it has always, always,
been both the best of times and the worst of times. no matter the age or the place.

the grass is always greener, etc etc.

it's probably more about growing up and becoming more aware of what is happening all
around you and all over the world, which makes people think things are getting fucked -
when in fact they always were, or weren't.

nobody dropped an atom bomb on downtown nagasaki today, for instance. it could be a
lot worse, and it has been, many times. and it will be again.

Extremely well said. That is how it works IMHO. And because perhaps one of the most important inventions in human history is just coming of age, that being the Internet, it’s just that much easier to get instant access to the good and bad that has always existed at the same human potential. There was of course no copycat mass shootings before we could be shown them 24/7, but terrorism overall was at its worst over 40 years ago. The sky didn’t fall because most of humanity is mostly good.

indeed.

williamb610 said:

That "society is declining" stuff is old insecure people stuff. It's what old people like to talk about (besides their health issues). It's what the older people have been talking about since we could legally beat our wives for not obeying or hanging people from a tree for being black.

....and far beyond then.

Society is in a FAR FAR FAR better place today than it has ever been. People like to romanticize their childhoods and even times in the past where they have absolutely no idea.

anangellooksdown said:

I don't think having lots of sex is how this gonna get better...

I can think of worse ways to save rthe world.

Ugot2shakesumthin said:

anangellooksdown said: