What Do You Think is the Current General State of Society? (Congress, legal)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 1.5 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Again, FcDonalds and cheap processed crap don't count as food. There may be more people eating..but what are they eating ? Our grandparents had farms with fresh vegetables and fresh dairy & meat. None of it was laced with pesticides or preservatives. How many of the worlds hungry are eating those foods ?
While the green revolution of the post-war period has been a mixed blessing, it remains a fact that traditional agricultural practices weren't providing enough food to go around. Nor was this a particularly recent phenomena: famines were a frequent, cyclical, even predictable event in previous centuries. China averaged nearly one famine a year, for centuries, and it wasn't alone in this sad state, yet today, it hasn't experienced a major famine in decades.
Historically, most people didn't experience an abundance of ''vegetables and fresh dairy and meat'' fifty, a hundred or more years ago, and this is despite populations that were majority agrarian for the past few thousand years. Past agricultural practices were simply not feeding the world.
Reducing hunger isn't a matter of replacing healthy dining options with McDonalds. Most people in the third world would starve to death if the only option they had was fast food; it's simply not affordable, and in fact most people in developing nations have never been to a McDonalds. vernutrition and obesity are largely an epidemics of extant and emergent middle classes.
I understand concerns over things such as fertilizer and pesticide use, but ask your self: if the only thing between you and death was a bowl of rice that was grown with modern methods, is death really preferable?
We often forget how much progress we've made and how precarious life is that we've made it so far in some societies where we no longer fear for our lives due to disease, famine, war and brutality. The advances in medical technology, in industrialization etc. can be taken for granted when we always find more things to complain about.
For some reason, it's a quirk of our psychology to often look at past events with rose-coloured glasses and ignore the parts that sucked.
Sometimes we imagine the past as a nicer, gentler time the way some portray the Middle Ages as an exciting, chivalrous and heroic time of knights rescuing princesses, without imagining the peasants dumping their toilet wastes out the window, burnings at the stakes etc..
Not to say that the future is all guaranteed to be shiny and lovely but it's not bad to have some faith in what human progress has and can accomplish.
That is true that society and the world in general made a lot of progress in plenty of ways (not in every way but still in plenty of ways) in the past few decades, since the past 50 years, past century+ etc.
It seems like the positive stuff about that should be focused more than the negative stuff about that and current existence, and for it to not be taken for granted and forgotten.
Also, more people can be more resourceful with the progress society made in certain ways, which can further bring more positive outcomes and less negative things getting in the way.
I guess some people use that progress such as advances in technology as an excuse to become lazier, and more easily feeling negative, which includes becoming lazier with how they think about things and live their day to day lives. So there needs to be less laziness in people’s day to day lives and thinking, and more intelligent positive day to day choices and less of the easier lazier options.
That is true there should be plenty of faith for what humanity can accomplish, human potential, and human progress.
All of this positive ways of thinking about this subject can still be very realistic and still being aware enough of the negative stuff. However, doing that while focusing on the positive stuff more instead and also whatever ways that can reduce the negative ways of thinking/negative actions.
Last edited by Thepastpresentandfuture; 02-01-2012 at 12:35 AM..
Consumption aside "society" disintegrates as we speak (trillions of forum posts prove that ) . Well Prozaced, centrally "programmed" human atoms are chasing jobs around the country, atoms who are unable to make connection with anything or anybody, be it land, nature, community, etc.. It doesn't make joyful society, sorry. Take rat race and consumption rewards out of the equation, and what is left? Yup, you got that right, nothing.
While the green revolution of the post-war period has been a mixed blessing, it remains a fact that traditional agricultural practices weren't providing enough food to go around.
Global transportation has much more to do with decreasing intensity of (not eliminating) famines. Cut Asia from global grain suppliers in Americas and Europe and it's not gonna be pretty despite green revolution. Yes, the rise of agribusiness in Asia to make high input industrial agriculture possible boosted yields (of some crops) on the expense of long term soil health & indigenous ways of life, & environment. But that boost is already converted to human biomass. Nothing changed really, and the "law of diminishing" returns is just kicking in. As soils die, it takes greater and greater inputs of fertilizers and poisons to maintain yields. Vicious cycle with easy to predict finale. And you don't really need to travel to Asia to see it for yourself. High input American farmers are going belly up too, even record food prices lag behind increasing costs of the industrial inputs (required to maintain production).
Quote:
Nor was this a particularly recent phenomena: famines were a frequent, cyclical, even predictable event in previous centuries. China averaged nearly one famine a year, for centuries, and it wasn't alone in this sad state, yet today, it hasn't experienced a major famine in decades.
Yup, because Chinese trade their cheap labor for the foreign fertilizers & food staples.
Quote:
Historically, most people didn't experience an abundance of ''vegetables and fresh dairy and meat'' fifty, a hundred or more years ago, and this is despite populations that were majority agrarian for the past few thousand years. Past agricultural practices were simply not feeding the world.
The word "Historically" need to be clarified. Historically hunter gatherers were very careful about their "breeding" not to overburden their food supplies. Hierarchical agrarian societies were too "successful" in destroying their natural environment to grow limited number of food staples. Increased food supplies lead to more population, more population lead to "overshoot" (when population increases faster than food supplies), famine "balanced" things out. Occasional drought, pestilence, war made things much worse since large human mass can't just move to the greener pastures. So how is "green revolution" different than this ancient scenario I outlined? BTW, who said that modern agriculture provides abundance of fresh foods? It doesn't.
Quote:
I understand concerns over things such as fertilizer and pesticide use, but ask your self: if the only thing between you and death was a bowl of rice that was grown with modern methods, is death really preferable?
Kicking small land owners/communes off their land, replacing 3rd world villagers with large agribusiness (frequently Western), boosting consumption of fertilizers and poisons in order to grow commodity crops for export, locking "excess" population in urban slums to provide cheap labor for the transnationals. Importing actual food to consume at "market" prices. That's IMF recipe to "fight" world hunger. It's a shameless myth that "modern methods" are saving the hungry from starvation. They make fat fatter, that's true (since fat have money), but they don't save the hungry. Are Brazilian Indians locked in the slums so their land could be clear-cut and used to grow beef (for North American consumption) better off now so they could buy a bowl of Arkansas grown rice (if lucky to find a day of work). I really doubt that.
Consumption aside "society" disintegrates as we speak (trillions of forum posts prove that ) . Well Prozaced, centrally "programmed" human atoms are chasing jobs around the country, atoms who are unable to make connection with anything or anybody, be it land, nature, community, etc.. It doesn't make joyful society, sorry. Take rat race and consumption rewards out of the equation, and what is left? Yup, you got that right, nothing.
It doesn't have to be that though.
Maybe as Americans we have it too easy and many have lost touch with what is really important. However - we don't HAVE to believe only in the money we have and the things it buys.
We're still fortunate to have it be our choice. We're not scrounging around trying to just survive, we have our cell phones, our televisions, our fast foods, our cars -- but too bad so many of us don't realize how much we do have and we're not grateful for what we have and how easy it all is for us.
We have the choice to accept the next promotion that brings us more money but away from the family and that which does bring joy -- or we can choose not to take it and let someone else go for it instead, even if they have to end up popping pills to think they're happy.
I have mixed feelings about this. Society has improved in certain areas but have gotten worse in others.
PRO'S:
- Social Mobility: Anybody who puts enough effort into their goals could easily be successful.
- Freedom: You could do whatever you want with your life (obviously to an extent). Get a Sex-Change, be a "Furry", a Stripper. You can date who you want. Wear what you want.
CON'S:
- Social Pressures: Even though you could do almost whatever you want, there is a lot of pressure in society to comform. (examples: You see a lot of young girls dressed inappropriately and growing up fast. Young women becoming anorexic/bulemic to fit a certain image.)
- Huge Decrease in Values: As a whole, society values marriage/family stability, physical social activities, kindness, virginity and love much less than in previous generations.
Taxes aren't enough? Now I need to get married to help support society? Marriage I think is something between 2 people. Not 310 million.
Have you ever wondered whether stable family backgrounds might simply be on the wrong side of the equation here? By that, I mean to ask whether there might be some otherwise unmentioned variable X that leads to stable family backgrounds right along with staying out of trouble, performing well in school, and so forth?
I'm not going to blabber on about the sanctity of marriage or any of that malarkey, but I do believe that the destruction of the family unit and the lack of communities have caused much of our demise as a society. Stable families are extremely important to a child growing up and I don't care if that stable family consists of a man and a woman, 2 men or 2 women. Kids from broken homes have the odds stacked against them into adulthood. Often the damage is irreparable and the cycle continues into the next generation.
Everything has become too throwaway. Bad marriage? Don't try to fix it, just get a divorce and don't bother trying to work at it or try to remember why you fell in love and took the vow in the first place. Kid's doing badly at school and is being disruptive? Give him Ritalin. Feel down because your life actually sucks, not because you have some sort of invented or over diagnosed mental illness...take pills.
I've noticed many changes in the last decade especially. At work for example, people seem far more inclined to throw you under the bus than help. The economy has made people more paranoid and more likely to look out for number 1, technology has opened up many lines of communication, but many people have forgotten how to talk. You don't see as many kids playing in the street as you did when I was a kid, not a million years ago. People are so paranoid about pedophiles now that they lock their kids up and stick em in front of an Xbox.
We seem to have all become islands, stuck in our own bubbles and circles of friends that we are unwilling to stray from to let someone else in. In many ways, no longer able to depend on others for help and not as willing to help. No wonder there is so much reliance on welfare programs. In poorer countries, people seem to take care of their families so much better with fewer resources.
I'm not going to blabber on about the sanctity of marriage or any of that malarkey, but I do believe that the destruction of the family unit and the lack of communities have caused much of our demise as a society. Stable families are extremely important to a child growing up and I don't care if that stable family consists of a man and a woman, 2 men or 2 women. Kids from broken homes have the odds stacked against them into adulthood. Often the damage is irreparable and the cycle continues into the next generation.
Nuclear family is very recent building "unit" of society. The rise of industrial age destroyed traditional societies, extended families, villages & communities and substituted it all with a nuclear family, which is grossly inadequate to make up for the communal environment lost. That's probably reason #1 why divorce rates are so high - too many expectations that nuclear families are unable to satisfy, especially considering that both parents need to sell their arses, groom, commute & self-adjust most of their waking hours.
Nuclear family is very recent building "unit" of society. The rise of industrial age destroyed traditional societies, extended families, villages & communities and substituted it all with a nuclear family, which is grossly inadequate to make up for the communal environment lost. That's probably reason #1 why divorce rates are so high - too many expectations that nuclear families are unable to satisfy, especially considering that both parents need to sell their arses, groom, commute & self-adjust most of their waking hours.
That is the downside of the industrial revolution. Many women also chose to work as the boundaries of gender inequality were broken down. Unfortunately, it became necessary that both parents had to work to make ends meet. Stress, longer working hours with long commutes have all contributed. Add to that, expectations of marriage have been raised and have become almost delusional in some cases thanks to the media, so fewer people can live up to the expectations. I have also noticed even in my lifetime that people seem more inclined to walk away from something than try to fix it. It's a throwaway society of epic proportions with little or no sense of community left. It's also become increasingly difficult to deviate from then norm.
As a gross generalisation, American society is entitled, selfish, greedy, whiny and unable to take care of themselves without their government orchestrating everything.
I have never seen so many entitled people in my entire life until I came to the US.
Unfortunately most of these people have internet access so they're on these forums, complaining about everything.
Last edited by TheViking85; 02-07-2012 at 12:47 PM..
Reason: Removd Hyperbole, this is not the appropriate forum section for charged language
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $53,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 1.5 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
) . Well Prozaced, centrally "programmed" human atoms are chasing jobs around the country, atoms who are unable to make connection with anything or anybody, be it land, nature, community, etc.. It doesn't make joyful society, sorry. Take rat race and consumption rewards out of the equation, and what is left? Yup, you got that right, nothing.
