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Just interested in hearing what people have to say. I will chip in as the conversation starts up.

Lets start with how we think we got here.



What major changes have directly affected the average life of a human in an average city (such as yours)?

Can industry be directly "blamed" for some of the problems we see in our culture today, or is it peoples innate fascination with being completely safe and comfortable?

Do the Amish have something to teach us, minus the funny outfits, and OCD carpentry? (metaphorically)

What things could you live without, aside from the personal computer and internet... because we NEED it silly!!!
(I actually think that the internet has become the only true outlet left for most people, the ability to travel unhindered by fear of social/economic obligation is quite a different story nowadays. Perhaps it was more dangerous to move on to greener pastures, but it was a serious option for settlers up until even 50 years ago.)

How is the media to be held responsible (which it partly is) for some of the negative cultural changes we see infecting the whole world (BLING!)?

Is it possible to manipulate 90 percent of the worlds population with a promise of a fake tomorrow, instead of taking action when it is needed, and appropriately responding to issues that plague the world?

I thought this guy had a really interesting summary of human history on the whole. It is a bit confusing but he is saying some really important things.




Also related to what I am talking about.
(Apparently it is Stephen hawking narrating, I have not confirmed that though.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Fomenko
(Hmmm... he says that Gengis khan was in fact Russian, not Mongolian... that is pretty controversial.)

Meh. I'm not worried about the world as a whole. I'll work hard, play hard, donate to charity, have a family, live healthy, and die at a ripe old age having lived a fairly average life.

I might sound a bit optimistic here, but I think optimism is needed in the present day to see humanity through the tough times. We got through two World Wars, avoided a major (possibly apocalyptic) war with the Soviet Union, and we're starting to be more aware of the environment. It's not too late to save the planet, and I think that common sense will win the day (eventually).

I find myself in a negative mindset at times, but I look around and actually see a lot of really nice things around, like the bees that visit the lavender, and the hummingbird that stops at the flowering maple every day. May sound a bit simple, and that is why I like it.

Bees are fuzzy little fellows, who like to be nice and mellow, and the flowers do not mind, because they have no mind.

, ta-daa!

How has the world changed?

You can find nudies everywhere!
EVERYWHERE!

And not all nudies result in getting STDs!

Yay progress!

Cheese Elemental wrote:I might sound a bit optimistic here, but I think optimism is needed in the present day to see humanity through the tough times. We got through two World Wars, avoided a major (possibly apocalyptic) war with the Soviet Union, and we're starting to be more aware of the environment. It's not too late to save the planet, and I think that common sense will win the day (eventually).

QFT. It's not always raining, not even in Tasmania.

No, it always rains here.

Have you thought of going off with the Sea Shepherd folks?


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Come to think of it--how about a Sea Shepherds Chapter? lolz

Cheese Elemental wrote:No, it always rains here.

Teach English in China/Japan/Korea. Great money, and good job exp.

Go to Korea. China is sketch EVERYWHERE. Japan is super expensive (JET Program aside).

dogma wrote:

Cheese Elemental wrote:No, it always rains here.

Teach English in China/Japan/Korea. Great money, and good job exp.

The Japanese Eikaiwa market is really depressed at the moment.

Korea is apparently a pretty crappy place to teach English, from what I read on ex-pat blogs (it could all be lies, of course.)

A cousin of mine taught English in China for a couple of years and ended up staying. He has a Chinese girlfriend now and is having a great time.

The experience of teaching in any foreign country will depend a lot on the attitude you bring to the job, as well as the country you go to.

If anyone decides to do it, I recommend taking a TEFL (Teaching of English as a Foreign Language) course.

I never got into foreign languages, but I'd like to learn German for when I go there in a few years (in my gap year or something).

I'm more into writing and journalism. I'm taking two english courses and a media studies course at school so I have some good marks to show in college. It's going well so far, so I might just get to live my ideal life.

Actually, now that I look around, life is great. Sure we have issues like the Middle-East conflicts and masses of asylum seekers, but we've had worse before.

Much, much worse.

You mean the last 9 years or the last 100? and for what region?

In the developed world:

-Whooping cough, scarlet fever, typhus, consumption, polio are nonexistent.
-Average life span is pushing 70s now. Health care is only an issue because people refuse to die off and the usual killers are gone.
-The economy is down hard. Historically it will come back.
-Starvation is almost unheard of.

Despite the current economic bad times, most people in the developed world don't spend a lot of time worrying about where their next meal is coming from.

The middle classes can fly half way around the world for a holiday.

If your sporting team is playing half way around the world you can watch it live in your own home.

You can argue about a plastic miniatures game with people from around the world, just because you've got the free time.

This age is awesome.

In the last 100 years, in a nutshell... We now live like Kings. We do not know how to survive without our pampered luxuries. Division of labour (a lot older than 100 years) has effectively taught human beings how to depend on others without a shred of personal ability required; examine social security, "the dole" and what it has done to us. Pensions for old people, as society can now happily sever any ties it has with those ancients who birthed us, as they will be given money so we can forget about them and not have to spend one minute in their presence. Ah, a rancid gene pool, another gift of our current society. If you cannot feed yourself, or clothe yourself, or find water for yourself, who cares, the State will hand it over to you on a silver platter and you won't have to die in a ditch, the last remaining gene-carrier of an inferior seed. What other joys have been thrust upon us in the name of holy Progress? Destruction of the natural world at a terrifying rate. If we have any wildlife left in a few years I will consider us fortunate. But who cares, at least we can all have the shiny new iPhone 4th generation (garbage, who dictates that we need this crap?), 5th and 6th generation by the time our kids grow up.

Ah, soapbox, how I missed you.

Dog carcass in alley this morning. Tire tread on burst stomach. The city is afraid of me. I have seen it's true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "save us!"...

They had a choice, all of them. They could have followed in the footsteps of good men like my father, or president Truman. Decent men who believed in a day's work for a day's pay. Instead they followed the droppings of lechers and communists and didn't realize that the trail led over a precipe until it was too late. Don't tell me they didn't have a choice. Now the whole world stands on the brink, staring down into bloody Hell, all those liberals and intellectuals and smooth talkers...and all of a sudden nobody can think of anything to say.

WTF?

The world has changed so much. My cell phone is more powerful than the Apollo Moon Missions, my great grand parents travelled horse and wagon, my great grand mother on my father's side didn't have running water till 1981 and still chased after chickens for dinner. All I have to say is that we now have microwave pizzas to the world has peaked at it's greatness. It is all down hill from here.

Are we not actually in danger of all of the thing the media wants us to be?

Could that mean the media itself is partially responsible for altering the public opinion so we all remain afraid?

In a sense keeping everyone pacified through fear seems to be the name of the day in our current times. If you go and live in the woods, you are A.) crazy B.) going to die C.) become an anti-social nutcase. If you plan ahead and travel in a group, you can safely and enjoyably live in the woods beyond the grasp of social restraint.

The fact is you can't seem to do this anymore, and this is what I am mainly talking about. What are the odds that the movie "WAll-e" has a token of truth, mainly about the people and there health?

When I look on television I see:

Buy/ Do/ be this... Basically conflicting messages at every turn. Get a skinny girlfriend by being "ripped", then go out and eat junk food and spend money on more media (movies).

How is this stuff NOT changing people? Sure we might have more freedom in general, but the fact is that freedom means we need to live the life that is restricted to cities, towns, and colleges.

Way to finite for me, I can already see the end of the road from here... WHERE IS THE FUN IN THAT?

What if there are people who could care less about the danger in the world, because it has always been there. Although some of the danger has changed, overall I would say it has stayed the same. I can still get stabbed or shot, still get robbed, still get oppressed as an average Joe.

These things may seem normal, and free speech seems to have developed to a functional level, but then we get laws like the Patriot act at the whim of a slowed fart of a man.

It's interesting to think of how technology has just kicked it in the butt in the last couple of centuries compared to everything before.
In the early part of the 1900's, by way of example, man was just learning how to make machines that could fly maybe a few hundred feet. Before the century was over we were sending stuff on it's way out of the Solar system.
There're more examples like the boom in communications and medicine. All this stuff was science fiction when I was a kid, but now such progress is a almost daily thing.
What happened to make things seem to take off the way they did over the progress made in previous centuries?

I would honestly say that the potential for most if not all of these ideas has been present throughout most if not all of mankind's history. Perhaps we were not advanced enough 100 years ago to even understand what a computer is, but the fact remains that this is the only "age" where we have the logistical and economical means to develop technology that we live with every day.

If I were to live outside of mainstream society, and make everything I needed from recycled parts, I could honestly develop:

- A working car
- A working computer (with no internet access )
- An industrial refrigerator
- An "Earthship" house (google it)
- Even a personal gyrocopter

I can actually factually make ALL of these things myself, using nothing but spare parts, books, and some elbow grease. Most people seem to take this fact for granted, and prefer (yes, prefer) to let companies mass produce/ distribute easily available products.

If I focused on my living needs with a group of 10-12 people, we could easily set up a system that would require only 4-20 hours per week of community maintenance. Perhaps I am talking about tribal life, which simply cannot be applied to such large groups of people that we see on the planet today.

By relying on companies and corporations to provide what you need to survive, you will inevitably end up losing the ability to provide without them. I like Europe because of all the public markets, I would much rather give my money to a dedicated professional with a family rather than a corporate executive with stock holders to feed. I know for a fact that most of the money made by large corporations stays within the upper layers of society (the rich parts), and never actually filters back into the economy. Do you think these corporations left American production behind because they want to help all of the sweat-shop workers? On that same note, are the corporations not harming the countries immensely by bringing their greedy businesses into already poor countries?

Keyasa wrote:In the last 100 years, in a nutshell... We now live like Kings. We do not know how to survive without our pampered luxuries. Division of labour (a lot older than 100 years) has effectively taught human beings how to depend on others without a shred of personal ability required; examine social security, "the dole" and what it has done to us. Pensions for old people, as society can now happily sever any ties it has with those ancients who birthed us, as they will be given money so we can forget about them and not have to spend one minute in their presence. Ah, a rancid gene pool, another gift of our current society. If you cannot feed yourself, or clothe yourself, or find water for yourself, who cares, the State will hand it over to you on a silver platter and you won't have to die in a ditch, the last remaining gene-carrier of an inferior seed. What other joys have been thrust upon us in the name of holy Progress? Destruction of the natural world at a terrifying rate. If we have any wildlife left in a few years I will consider us fortunate. But who cares, at least we can all have the shiny new iPhone 4th generation (garbage, who dictates that we need this crap?), 5th and 6th generation by the time our kids grow up.

Ah, soapbox, how I missed you.

Were you raised by an emo gang or something? The world is far from fethed, we have great men like Al Gore who are pushing for change and actually convincing people to stop and think about the earth.

Try saying that the Third World lives like kings. Tell that to the children in Africa with no water, or the innocents in the Middle-East who have lost their homes during the wars.

You think we get free everything handed to us by the state? Tell that to the millions of homeless people and the single parents struggling to keep a steady income.

You are a pessimist, and I loathe pessimists.

In California Governer Arnold has willfully attempted to shut down all forms of state assistance. This is happening at the same time the state has no budget (yep... here is your I.O.U) and the recession is seemingly still present.

To say that the public assistance is responsible for people being lazy is simply ridiculous. There MAY be a few people that have some sort of master plan to take advantage of public assistance (yeah right...), but the fact is the amount of money directly provided is below minimum wage. Survive on that when rent cost more than half of your total income, then you can either eat well, or you can do what you need to do to make your life better. Transportation, phones, and good healthcare are not a standard thing for people living on a fixed income.

I sincerely hope Obama can actually pull of public health-care to a standard that the majority of the rest of the world has had for decades. America is quite far behind in terms of a lot of issues, the presence of a "Monopoly" or "Gasoline" economy makes nearly every issue worse. This is not to say that America isn't a nice place to live for some, but the lower class has a mountain to climb to achieve a comfortable and "King-like" life.

Over the past century the average individual has obtained access to advanced technology and amounts of information that is unprecedented in human history. Science has progressed faster in the past century than the rest of human history combined.

We're all fethed. The crazy gun nut god obsessed evangelical red state abstinence only types scare the hell outta me. In turn, the blue haired godless socialist punks who think burning flags is ok and premarital sex is just fun scare them. And that's just this country.
Add that to nuclear proliferation, environmental degradation, surveillance technology (especially in the UK with that CCTV) and extremism of all types, especially Judgment Day/Jihad/Kim Jong Il folks.

Yeah. We're boned. One way or another the whole thing is going up in flames and I'll be damned if I don't enjoy the sight of it.

That being said, the average man is generally better off today than he was in 1909. He's living longer, healthier, and current economic crap aside, wealthier than before.

Basically, I think of now as the 1920's of civilization. It's all great and fun but it's going to come crashing down before too much longer (I'm talking 100 years or so).

The planet it NOT boned. No amount of sabre-rattling from North Korea or religious extremism is going to destroy the world. Furthermore, I never hear about these 'crazy gun nut god obsessed evangelical red state abstinence only types'.

I just don't get the pessimism. We're nowhere near the pinnacle of technology or society, and things are already starting to look up in the world, with NoKo being alone in its nuclear threats, environmentalists like Al Gore successfully pushing for an improvement in caring for the earth, and the Global Recession starting to die down a bit.

And most of those 'blue-haired godless socialist punks' would be rowdy low-lifes with no fething idea of what politics is about.

I for one look foward to mankind's prosperity. If you're a pessimist, get out more. Don't just look at all the gloom and doom created by the cash-hungry media, try to improve your own life and do your part for humanity.

Wrexasaur wrote:Are we not actually in danger of all of the thing the media wants us to be?

Could that mean the media itself is partially responsible for altering the public opinion so we all remain afraid?

It is true that the media runs a lot of stories about how scared we should be of various stuff. This is because people will tune in to watch a show about how scary crime/immigrants/killer bees/the other political party is. For the most part they don't tune in to watch shows about how the issues are quite complicated with many parties giving legitimate arguments from their own POV, or that bees won't kill lots of people. People get the media they crave.

In a sense keeping everyone pacified through fear seems to be the name of the day in our current times.

No, this isn't true. First up, 'pacifying through fear' makes no sense - pacifying would involve calming. Second up, people have never needed grand conspiracies to keep them calm, we are for the most part quite happy to go our whole lives without ever storming the armouries and laying siege to parliament - just as long as we're able to provide reasonable living standards for our families. Thirdly, there can't be a grand conspiracy, because the media is formed of so many competing interests.

If you go and live in the woods, you are A.) crazy B.) going to die C.) become an anti-social nutcase. If you plan ahead and travel in a group, you can safely and enjoyably live in the woods beyond the grasp of social restraint.

If you're going in a group, there will still be social restraint.

The fact is you can't seem to do this anymore, and this is what I am mainly talking about.

You can do it, but people don't. They don't because they don't want to. If you want to, go do it.

Buy/ Do/ be this... Basically conflicting messages at every turn. Get a skinny girlfriend by being "ripped", then go out and eat junk food and spend money on more media (movies).

How is this stuff NOT changing people? Sure we might have more freedom in general, but the fact is that freedom means we need to live the life that is restricted to cities, towns, and colleges.

Yes, it does change people, we become focussed on lives of consumption and ownership. Once people are aware of this they can challenge it, they can think long and hard about whether they really need those new sneakers, or if that celebrity brand of perfume will really improve their lives. They can start reading classic, good books borrowed the library and not just the latest best seller from the bookstore. But they don't need to march off into the wilderness to achieve it.

These things may seem normal, and free speech seems to have developed to a functional level, but then we get laws like the Patriot act at the whim of a slowed fart of a man.

Bush sucked, no two ways about it. But the Patriot Act didn't appear out of a vacuum, it was supported by both parties, and it is consistent with several decades of increasing police powers in the US, which in turn is consistent with increasing police powers in the rest of the world. It's the nature of things, there a well-meaning professionals who feel they can make us all safer if only they had one more power, and they're a lot more influential than civil libertarians.

Im curious about planning on doing something similar myself .

Do caucasians have advantage on getting hired due to (english = foreigner = caucasian has more advantage) ?
more than other ethnic type?

People get the media they crave.

I would agree, but only to a certain extent. The news is just there, I have NO choice but to hear about Micheal Jackson... which is just not all that important, regardless of popular opinion. It is a "sad" thing that he did, but I could honestly care less... no offense or anything.

'pacifying through fear'

This is a pretty complicated subject, but there is absolutely no reason why you can't make people fearful to the degree of submission. Scare tactics backed up by politics and products, that is pacifying through fear. An extreme of this would be the phenomena of Nazi Germany, although it is quite hard to compare the U.S. to WW2 Germany in any way.

If you go and live in the woods, you are A.) crazy B.) going to die C.) become an anti-social nutcase. If you plan ahead and travel in a group, you can safely and enjoyably live in the woods beyond the grasp of social restraint.

If you're going in a group, there will still be social restraint.

Have you ever dealt with a thousand people??? Saying that working with a dozen is the same would be sheer madness.

"Note"
I am not saying this is how it should be, just that I seem to be in a pretty lonely boat on this one. I can understand that I could generally disagree with more than half of the worlds population on any manner of subjects, but the fact that people seem to want to be stuck in tiny little boxes astounds me. Take this as an insult if you want, but the current affairs of the world go unnoticed by many. I am not able to keep up on everything happening, and quite honestly there is just way too much stuff going on for me to form an independent opinion about everything.

Hmm... Life has improved hasn't it? ( Gets out from under rock) I suppose we've learned to live in a comfortable balance with the ecosystem. By dominating it. Trees getting chopped down in Brazil? Think all of the posters the treehuggers put up to protest this. We've done a decent job of getting down from the trees, standing up straight and then chopping the trees down over the last 20,00 years or so. we still have disease and famine, but that's where oppressive totalitarian regimes come in, telling us nothing's wrong and making us believe their bull$h1^. We still live in a screwed up world, but that's where living under a rock becomes useful.

Sorry, i'm getting OT. To return to what the topic really is about, yes I think life has improved for us here living in the sprawling hives of Terra, not looking down at the squalor beneath us, and not looking up at the wealth and indulgence above us for fear it might blind us.

Go Terra,er, I mean, Earth.


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Sorry for the rant.