Hit and Run

[bobpbx]

If you can believe this news report, then you can wonder why it's not a big sensation that several cars hit her and kept going.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/11/25/person-killed-trying-to-cross-garden-state-parkway/

 

[bobpbx]

Shoppers step over man in need.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/...tml?icid=maing-grid7|aim|dl1|sec1_lnk2|115827

 

[this_is_nascar]

Both stories are very sad, however, I've come to the conclusion that this is the world we now live in today. It's about "what's the best for me", "I'm entitled to that" and "screw everyone as long as I'm not negatively impacted". I see it getting worse as the years move along.

 

[woodjin]

It's a half full, half empty thing, Bob. The first car that hit her did stop. Also, the wife of the deceased shopper stated that six nurses who were shopping there came to his aid almost immeditely.

Nascar,
someone once said to me "times change, people don't". I think of this everytime I hear someone reflect on growing or changing socieological trends. If you consider this possibility it won't necessarily change your assessment of current social problems, but it does provide some promise for the future.

BTW despite my comments here, I do consider myself more of a realist than an optomist.

Jeff

 

[this_is_nascar]

It's a half full, half empty thing, Bob. The first car that hit her did stop. Also, the wife of the deceased shopper stated that six nurses who were shopping there came to his aid almost immeditely.

Nascar,
someone once said to me "times change, people don't". I think of this everytime I hear someone reflect on growing or changing socieological trends. If you consider this possibility it won't necessarily change your assessment of current social problems, but it does provide some promise for the future.

BTW despite my comments here, I do consider myself more of a realist than an optomist.

Jeff

Problem is, people do change and that change has not been for the better over the last several decades as far as I'm concerned. I could spend hours explaining, but I won't. It's because of "people changing" and the acceptance of that change that drives "times to change".

 

[MarkBNJ]

Both stories are very sad, however, I've come to the conclusion that this is the world we now live in today. It's about "what's the best for me", "I'm entitled to that" and "screw everyone as long as I'm not negatively impacted". I see it getting worse as the years move along.

As much as I would like to, I can't conjure up a well-defined time when it was better. We Americans, hell, perhaps all humans, have a tendency to "remember" a time "just a few decades ago" when everything was much better than it is now. The problem is that it wasn't better, it was worse. Despite the current economic problems our species, at least in the west, has never eaten better, lived better, had access to more choices, gotten more help, or been nicer to one and other at any time in the past that I can identify. If there was a Golden Age of Altruism I'd be interested to know when it was.

 

[woodjin]

As much as I would like to, I can't conjure up a well-defined time when it was better. We Americans, hell, perhaps all humans, have a tendency to "remember" a time "just a few decades ago" when everything was much better than it is now. The problem is that it wasn't better, it was worse. Despite the current economic problems our species, at least in the west, has never eaten better, lived better, had access to more choices, gotten more help, or been nicer to one and other at any time in the past that I can identify. If there was a Golden Age of Altruism I'd be interested to know when it was.

good observations

 

[woodjin]

Problem is, people do change and that change has not been for the better over the last several decades as far as I'm concerned. I could spend hours explaining, but I won't. It's because of "people changing" and the acceptance of that change that drives "times to change".

Do people change or do situations change that cause people react differently?

 

[this_is_nascar]

As much as I would like to, I can't conjure up a well-defined time when it was better. We Americans, hell, perhaps all humans, have a tendency to "remember" a time "just a few decades ago" when everything was much better than it is now. The problem is that it wasn't better, it was worse. Despite the current economic problems our species, at least in the west, has never eaten better, lived better, had access to more choices, gotten more help, or been nicer to one and other at any time in the past that I can identify. If there was a Golden Age of Altruism I'd be interested to know when it was.

How do you figure? I'd hope you're not making a blanket statement that everything was worse. I don't know where you live or how involved you are with society, but if you can't see how people are worse now then they've ever been, you're living in a different world than the rest of us. I'd be curious to hear of a few examples, so I could change my mind and opinion on the subject.

-People trampling on people, injuring them and sometimes killing them to get that sale item on black Friday. How many times did that happen 30-years ago?

-Kids openly telling there parents to go f*ck themselves. If you're in your 40's or 50's, what would have happened to you if you tried that "back in the day"? That's assuming if you would have even thought of attempting that.

-People's unwillingness to get involved to preserve morals and laws of the land. "Back then" as a kid, if you even thought of mouthing off to a neighbor, you'd get your a** slapped, becuase your parents had already given permission to the neighbors to disipline you if you got out of line, as did you're parents have the same permission from your neighbors.

-People would not walk pass someone lying on the ground like they do nowadays. As long as it's not impacting people's little bubble world, they don't get involved, for most part.

-People feeling entitled to everything that those who worked for earned, whereas they feel it should be given to them.

-Do you have any teenagers in your family that you're close with? Ask them to define sex. Ask them what they consider to be "OK" to do on a 1st date. Ask them what they would do if their parents forbid them them associate with a certain person. Ask them what they want their 1st job to be and ask them how much they want to make peforming that job.

I can only think of a very few things that have gotten better over the last few decades and that would include the medical industry as far as treatment and diagnostics and the other would be technology in general. As it relatest to technology, it's not really the technology itself I find faults with, but the way society has decided to use much of it.

 

[this_is_nascar]

Do people change or do situations change that cause people react differently?

As I've already stated, I believe it's the people that are changing and society changing only as a result of the behavioral acceptance of the changed people.

 

[MarkBNJ]

I don't know where you live or how involved you are with society, but if you can't see how people are worse now then they've ever been, you're living in a different world than the rest of us.

Worse now then they've ever been? Your examples basically prove my point. They're the same things my Dad complains about when we talk about how things are now. A few decades ago, in the 50's or maybe the 60's, kids were respectful to their parents, companies didn't lay people off, shoppers waited in line politely at stores and wished each other a Merry Christmas (not Happy Holidays!), there were no pedophiles or attention-whoring reality TV stars, sports heroes held themselves up as role models, there were no homeless cats, and politicians really were public servants.

Even if I grant that this America once existed (and I am not at all sure, despite having lived in it), you're only looking back a half-century at the most. Keep going. Look at the treatment of people during the onset of the industrial revolution, the age of colonization, feudalism, the post-Roman period, etc. The farther back you go the worse it gets, and not only was the average peasant's life not worth the buckles on a rich man's shoes, but that peasant was damn lucky to even get enough food to maintain that life. There was no medicine to speak of. Up to a third or more of children died in the first five years. People emptied their nightsoil into the streets, and the sidewalks were littered with manure and infested with rats and other vermin. The air was choked with coal and wood smoke and you couldn't see three blocks in most cities. Governments were unbelievably corrupt, acting solely for the powerful and in their interests. A child could be hung for stealing 5 shillings worth of food. Human beings were enslaved and shipped around the world to do brutal work in unhealthy climates. War was the hobby of half-witted noble princes who regularly fed tens of thousands to the meat grinder. I could go on, but hopefully you see what I'm driving at.

Historical romanticism is something I have little tolerance for, because it not only paints the past in broad rosy strokes that are unsupported by factual reality, but at the same time devalues what we as a species have accomplished. There are some aspects of the past that I find attractive, but I wouldn't really want to live in any other time than my own. I'd like to visit, sure, as long as I could come back when I chose. I'd rather have the Internet, and antibiotics, and grocery stores, thank you very much.

In the end you (and my Dad) are complaining about change. Some things are better. Some things are worse. Nearly everything is different. And that's the way it goes.

 

[this_is_nascar]

Ok, I'll give you part of that and alter my stance and say that "over the course of the last 50-years, people have gotten worse, in my opinion, for all the reasons I mentioned above and are at the worse now than they've ever been. I never intended to go back to the era of slavery, etc, but I guess when I say "worse than ever before", it takes us to the era, doesn't it? Sad part is, I don't see people getting any better, nicer, more compassionate, more respectful, etc. Because of that and because society will continue to accept and sometimes embrace this behavior, society as whole will suffer and continue to spiral downward.

 

[MarkBNJ]

You might have something in terms of general civility over that time period, but then it is almost impossible to decouple those changes from the other huge changes that have taken place. For one thing the population of the United States has almost doubled in my lifetime, and world population has more than doubled. I'm amazed whenever I think about that. In that same time period we've gone from getting almost all our news from newspapers to having the Internet at our fingertips. We've gone from communicating infrequently, laboriously, and expensively to exchanging messages with anyone in the world in seconds at almost no cost. We've moved off the farms and out of the countryside and into the cities and population density has increased. Disruptive, civilization-altering change just keeps rolling over us in wave after wave, driven by the reverberations of the industrial revolution and the consumption of massive amounts of cheap, transportable energy. God knows where it's all leading. It's a wonder we're still sane, if in fact we are.

 

[bobpbx]

I can only think of a very few things that have gotten better over the last few decades and that would include the medical industry as far as treatment and diagnostics and the other would be technology in general. As it relatest to technology, it's not really the technology itself I find faults with, but the way society has decided to use much of it.

Agree with that. I think back, and the late 50's through 1968 seemed ideal to me.