daveinspain Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 You would think we are living in ancient times by what we are seeing in the news these days… Just sayin'... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quapman Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Pretty pathetic isn't Dave. We are not as advanced as we like to think we are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holmis Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Pretty pathetic isn't Dave. We are not as advanced as we like to think we are. On the contrary, we are the most dangerous (and sometimes the most primitive it seems) species on this planet, without comparison :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quapman Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 On the contrary, we are the most dangerous (and sometimes the most primitive it seems) species on this planet, without comparison :-( I was speaking intellectually,,, not technically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deeman Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Rioting in St. Louis. Terrorism in the middle east. Isreal and Palestine don't get along. What else is new? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Searcy Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Actually we are the most compassionate and caring creatures on the planet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quapman Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Actually we are the most compassionate and caring creatures on the planet. About ourselves yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie brown Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 You would think we are living in ancient times by what we are seeing in the news these days… Just sayin'... WE're not, but THEY are! It's, quite literally Insane!!! CB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tman Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Middle ages brutality. The news of the beheading was gruesome and so disturbing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holmis Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 I was speaking intellectually,,, not technically. And i meant both intellectually and technically, humanity is scary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capmaster Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Megalomania and outdated convictions seem to keep on ruling our overcrowded planet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awel Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Yes Dave, but real question is: are things going worst or is it simply the fact that now everything is published on multimedia stuff and that everything bad that happened, we're aware? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidblast Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Middle ages brutality. The news of the beheading was gruesome and so disturbing. it is disgusting and infuriating. What these animals will do.. when you have Rats, you exterminate them,, right? just sayin.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Searcy Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 About ourselves yes. Speak for yourself. I look around and am constantly amazed at how people take care of each other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidblast Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Speak for yourself. I look around and am constantly amazed at how people take care of each other. yes.. what he said! we only see the bad because the media feeds off it.. with out that, they have no headlines to sell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Two points for me here... 1. Modern "media" has a feedback effect, but it's not the cause. The St. Louis area "thing" almost got me chuckling when the talking heads were howling about the "low income problems" in that suburb that helped folks riot. Their "low income" is the town's household income here, too - and such rioting is less than unlikely. We're talking an entirely different cultural perspective that, IMHO, is impossible to understand unless you're part of it. 2. Even as kindness to others is infectious, so also is inhumanity and its various excuses, and that's where a lot of the violence we see nowadays occurs. The problem, of course, is cultural. The problem for those culturally inclined to a "liberal democratic secular" governance is that some folks define "liberal" and "democratic" quite differently. Ditto even more for the word "secular." The Epi side of this forum notes how immigration from cultures friendly to "European" money but not "European" culture is an increasing problem. We're seeing that everywhere. So the dilemma is how to keep being "liberal democratic secular" in any sense will be possible when votes are given to those who are anti-liberal (in the broadest sense, folks, even most US, Oz, Brit and European "conservatives" are "liberal" in that sense) and anti democratic and definitely anti-secular governance. Asian leading nations, OTOH, functionally make it impossible for such folks to immigrate and become "citizens" in any sense. Then again, perhaps the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans value their own cultures more than we value ours. Such does indeed seem to be the case. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobF_ Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 About ourselves yes. Which creatures care about us? :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Farnsbarns Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 it is disgusting and infuriating. What these animals will do.. when you have Rats, you exterminate them,, right? just sayin.. I reckon it might be that kind of thinking that drives the "animals". We're in danger of exterminating each other, the circle has to end sometime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevDavidLee Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Middle ages brutality. The news of the beheading was gruesome and so disturbing. I agree. But.. as much as I abhor violence - my initial response to these animals is to wipe them off the face of the earth which also requires more violence. So many innocents injured and killed in every conflict in history. Rodney King nailed it - "Can't we all just get along?" Sadly, apparently not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobF_ Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 "Everybody getting along" sounds nice, but is not really very realistic. There will always be conflict. We say we love humanity, but the things that create conflict are part of humanity. We can either deal with it, or end up dealt with. As a liberal acquaintance of mine likes to say, "Complacency = Complicity" - on this point we agree. There is as much chance of social quiescence as there is any other static state in nature be it climate, geology, whatever ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quapman Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 Speak for yourself. I look around and am constantly amazed at how people take care of each other. Ya,, that only exists in your back yard. As a species we suck. Yes we hear about it because the media is constantly in our face. No it is nothing new and has been going on since we picked our knuckles up off the ground. No it's never going to change. And now for the biggie. For the most part, it's all based on religious beliefs. Betcha wish ya had that minus button now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfpup Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 are things going worst or is it simply the fact that now everything is published on multimedia stuff and that everything bad that happened, we're aware? Certainly the latter. Still we expected progress, didn't we? So much work to be done still. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobF_ Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 And now for the biggie. For the most part, it's all based on religious beliefs. Betcha wish ya had that minus button now. Actually ... I wish I had a big plus button. I'm not sure about the exact proportions, but religion certainly has a huge share of the blame. We've been clubbing each other for resources for far longer than Men have used religion as a means of crowd control ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milod Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 I'd agree on "religious beliefs" only if "politics" were to be included as a subset of "religion." Many organizations for example forbid the discussion of both "religion" and "politics" equally. The holders of both religious and political beliefs - and the key word is "belief" - will have the tenets of that belief so ingrained in their world view that certain sorts of disagreement will threaten that world view - causing a very defensive response that, depending on the individual, may be perceived even as an aggressive response. Toynbee - who ain't so much in vogue as a historian today perhaps because it illuminated too much that folks didn't care to recognize, but was through much of the 20th century - basically considered Soviet "Communism" functionally a religion rather than politics. Bottom line: Politics and religion IMHO are essentially two faces of the same sort of emotional responses to certain perspectives on reality. Personally I enjoy discussion of comparative religion and philosophy, which includes "politics," but it's my observation that such discussion is often quite difficult for those not trained to do so. Western civilization more or less learned to cope with religious/political differences -AS LONG AS- others have been willing to accept the general culture and appearance of that general culture. That's not the case with some non-western cultures. Note that I said "cultures" and not "religions." A political perspective from any religion within a culture that feels it should rule all, will be violent toward others, and the "religion" expressions will reflect that view because that "religion" is part of that culture. So... one can find "religious wars" that functionally are among those of the same religion but with different views of it due to their more basic cultural differences. But the bottom line is that today's world has some cultures that can compete and more or less get along, some that can compete but play a bit of brinksmanship - and some that are entirely inimical and violent toward more tolerant cultures in ways that will force the more tolerant culture into violent defense and a degree of intolerance. m Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingfrets Posted August 22, 2014 Share Posted August 22, 2014 I've worked in a government office for the last 12 years, and I'm in contact with the public en masse every day. Based on what I see every day of the week, I've come to the conclusion that the human race is doomed. The inability of anyone under 30 to comprehend a simple direction, the fixation with their mobile devices (cell phones, ipads, what have you) to the exclusion of everything and everyONE around them, the verbal & physical abuse, the racial divide & prejudice (sorry, it DOES exist). Couple that with the headlines in the paper everyday and then consider this... The dinosaurs were here for 250 million years. We've been here about 200 thousand, give or take a couple of decades. What makes us think we're such a big screaming deal? Think the dinosaurs died out because they smoked? Nah...me either... Yes, there are definite exceptions as Searcy pointed out. Since I was diagnosed with cancer a year & a half ago, I've been re-evaluating my place in the grand scheme of things and I do endeavor to be one of those exceptions...which just kind of points out how far afield we've gotten. No, I do not judge those who live their lives to a different standard. Not my place to do so. But I can't NOT notice those differences either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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