Souless is Everywhere

Despite our obvious and now subconscious dependability for technology (especially the internet) we are now in a new decade of endless possibilities. Some of the older crowd finds this new love for technology sickening when our generation was grown in an internet world...

I look back before the internet entered my life... and i was a kid so it's hard to determine whether this theory is right or not... but I can't see it being irrational and hope it at least provokes some serious thought.

The internet was everything humanity ever wanted... an adapter linking our urges, emotions, and thoughts privately and openly to the rest of the world.. used for good, but with good comes evil... with knowledge comes truth and sometimes the truth is corrupting, and disgusting...

I remember as a teenager being fascinated by ------------------------- and it almost felt forbidden to log on there and see the pictures of dead bodies because at the time we had never been exposed to such things at that young of an age. I remember i would secretly go on to ------------------------- and nervously anticipate an image of the aftermath of a brutal murder because I knew i wasn't allowed to... and that feeling I would get could only be described as horrified and sick to my stomach...

Does anyone feel that anymore? I know after 10 years of desensitizing my stomach is iron... thanks to the internet we're able to download pictures and videos of murders, rapes, accidents, war, beheadings, etc, etc, etc...

maybe seeing things so young desensitized us all so much that we no longer feel anything... we KNOW whats wrong and even feel the anger or sadness from seeing certain events.. but is it that pure feeling of emotion?

I'm sure a lot of people still feel full emotions, but perhaps some of us who over-did it were desensitized to the point of not caring about such imagery... thanks to movies, music, news, and internet... violence is easy to watch even though our mind is telling us its not...

movies like hostel, saw, ect... does it seem like the sadistic snuff temptations of our deepest darkest human urges have been force-fed to a lot of the world, perhaps inadvertently... but my question is... did seeing so much so young ruin our very innocence?

disorders like bipolar, depression, ect have increased drastically in the last 10 years, and i know these existed PRIOR to the internet, but could this graphic exposure have helped strip the souls right from our humanity?

Sometimes I feel like we're so obsessed with things that don't matter... there is still good in this world, but when people are in real grinds... will the good still be there? and if the good is only to improve ones personal image is it still good?

when I say soul... i do not mean in a religious way, but what makes us human... sure we're still human, but why is humanity seem to be getting colder... and as computers connect the world, we, as individuals, seem to be lost from personal connection...

as we link to the world, we link it to ourselves... and we feel something is off... and its growing inside of us little by little and eventually it will manifest into either depression or anxiety...

as we become spineless and paranoid of our surroundings, we will become too scared of our own judgement to trust it... and all that will be left are hordes of zombie-like humans so robotic and brain dead they will find peace in complete isolation.

internet is our only key to stop it... yet it's cluttered and clogged with filth, corruption, and indecency. there's no answer, just discussion... so feel free. thanks

S&F

I have watched these things growing over the years in the world and mostly in us, here in the Western Hemisphere.

I think you are on to something here. It's one more contributing factor in a weakening system. People can't or won't agree on a strong cultural code of ethics that unifies the nation.

And if they did, where would we find the strength to enforce it in a loving, corrective, and safe manner?

Answer: one opportunity at a time. Keep your eyes open for chances to show respect to old folks and people in general, kindness to those weaker than yourself, and be ready to help a fellow man. What better antidote could there be? We can surely agree to some of these basics, and it's good to clarify positive moves anyone can do!

It took courage to put your experiences out there for the sake of study and understanding. Thanks so much, and I hope the people with wisdom in this area will contribute to a great thread.

Thanks... I agree with your solution but sometimes I wonder if it's too late. Another thing I forgot to mention was the drowning of video of 9/11... that's 10 years of indoctrination in our children with terrorism and the sights and sounds of our country being changed drastically.

I see our government as a corporation.

When you're about to get fired from a job, if you aren't receiving a bonus this year, and/or the company is about to go under... the peon worker is last to know...

and i feel like our country is being held together by thin strings yet our leaders are telling us it's okay and we'll be all right...

i think they've known about whats going wrong in our world but neglected to tell us for fear of us becoming unstable...

when a boss fires someone these days there's usually a witness, and if the person is a threat they may sometimes have the police ready to be called if the ex-employee takes the news bad... is that how are government is treating us?

waiting until the last minute to break the news to us? depending on the situation, i wouldn't doubt if some earth-shattering disaster were pending and after they break the news to us at the very last second they'll jump down in their bunkers and leave us to fend for ourselves.

the way humanity is being treated by other humans is disgusting, and combine that with the exposure to all of these dark sides of humanity must have taken an affect on our minds psychologically... not to mention the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the stress of just living in today's world.

LOVE EARTH HEART
our nature is connected to Nature


LOVE

I just think it takes a little more than just loving everyone and everything because there are a lot of people who hate everyone and everything... and if everyone loves everyone how will we protect the innocent from those that hate?

love is great, but corruption is a disease that can eradicate love in a second

I agree, the Internet has broke me. After only 2 years of going on gore sights every so often, I can eat my dinner while I watch beheadings. I can talk to friends normally while I watch 3 guys 1 hammer. I know it isn't normal, humans are supposed to be disgusted when they see gore, but it doesn't freak me out at all. If the weirdest, most disgusting, and most vile thing from 30 years ago was shown to me, I could just shrug it off and go eat human organ shaped food.

yeah... yes, as humans we are naturally disgusted by gore... but we've been conditioned otherwise by entertainment, media, and by constant talk of war and death...

we were exposed mostly around 2000 and on... imagine if we had been conditioned earlier in our lives.. thank god the internet wasnt around when i was little... but what about the little ones now... i see children with cellular phones! imagine how young they can be these days to see what we once considered grotesque and shocking... now imagine what will happen to their minds without childhood innocence.

Our world is violent and souless now... imagine the next generation's moral standards...

during the cold war... the closest thing to witnessing a murder was the crime scene in the news, or battles of war on a large scale... now we have archives of heinous acts, even shows that glorify it like "worlds wildest police chases" or "banned from tv volume 6".. documentaries like face of death, ogrish and rotten illustrate a darker side of humanity... one we were, as kids, hidden from... and the internet poured down upon our feeble minds and turned exaggerated myths into earth-shattering realities.

the world may be a sad, lonely, disconnected place by the time we retire. it's already going down hill.

reply to post by sourcesonly


Unfortunately, I don't think we are disgusted by gore, wars, torture, suffering of others.

A lot of people love watching unspeakable things.

This was true long before technology - think of the Romans at the Colisseum, happily giving the thumbs down, a sign that the gladiator (a slave) should die.

Human nature is basically selfish and horrible. We have to fight to try and be unselfish and caring of others.

But I do think that the widespread use of technology has dehumanised us.

We should not wonder why children who have grown up with technology are insensitive to the suffering of others.

reply to post by sourcesonly


So is disease a powerful force that can eradicate the body, but love will care for the ill and so become the more powerful of the two.

Many people are here today because, at the bottom of what saved them from various powerful dangers and threats, was an act of love.

Maybe it was a paramedic, a teacher, even a policeman or a boyfriend that helped them in a time of trouble.

We all have had some love shown that made a pivotal difference. That kind of power doesn't flex itself for show.

It is the grueling kind sometimes, but it is the greatest force on the earth, much greater than any obstacle facing mankind. Why would I say something so sappy and emo?

Because it has preserved vast amounts and kinds of humanity that are here today. They weren't all destroyed, and there were many reasons to think we shouldn't have made it this far: endless wars, plagues, famines, etc.

It was love that made people keep trying, enough people, enough times.
If not, then we'd ALL be Illuminati.

It is sad to me that so many people these days preach about loving the earth, and loving in a general, weak type of way.
They don't feel that the smaller gestures are important, except to brag about later, to prove they are good people.

Those small gestures of simple manners and tolerance of others without resentment are what I'm talking about when I say love. Putting yourself in the other's shoes, empathy, the highest form of emotional development, all these things are what I mean.

These things lead to wisdom and peace that cannot be taken away, because these actions are always needed and always within our power.
Peace, my friend.

I've always been sensitive to overt and extreme violence. I've never known the allure of watching extremely violent movies, and I don't peruse the internet in search of horrific videos to pass the time. I just don't see what anyone would get out of watching such things. They have never really appealed to me.

To each their own I suppose.

of course the internet has desensitised many many people especially of a generation born any time after the early 90's, however it is really just a by product of our advancement in communication which is developing at such an alarming pace. taking for example pornography (a better example than that of violence i feel) we are now never more than 2 clicks from it. when before the internet that stuff was not easy to come by and some say that has ruined sex, maybe its given us a freedom we are all entitled to or maybe it affects some minds in such a way that women are no longer respected sexually.

i feel that we would all have a similar response to violence if it were happening in front of us however because we may only see some of this stuff on our screens it is therefore in the past and we treat it like its purely fictional. not sure where i am going with this point but you get me i hope.

p.s. Matt is that you? long live muse

Welcome to the modern world. It will be interesting to see how de-sensitization will effect future generations. Will a lack of shock factor lead to a decrease in rebelion amongst the youth. Why bother if no ones gonna bat an eye lid anyway. Or will people constantly strive to come up with more and more shocking things leading to major atrossities. Only time will tell.

You can feel like a bit of your soul has died but maybe we were to sensitive in the first place. Maybe this is the natural proggresion towards being able to deal with some hard decisions. For example. The world is over crowded so we kill disabled people at birth. We have no problem doing this because nothing is shocking anymore.

Im not asying this should be done its just the first thing that came in to my head by the way. A psychiatrist would probably have a field day with me .

Wrote this in a hurry so excuse spelling.

Originally posted by sourcesonly
internet is our only key to stop it... yet it's cluttered and clogged with filth, corruption, and indecency. there's no answer, just discussion... so feel free. thanks

Wow! No, no, no, no, no, the internet is only one key. Mankind will need more than just the internet. I'm actually working on it, I'll figure it out.

reply to post by RuledBySecrecy



haha yes! muse totally inspired my thought-process

secondd line

[edit on 3-1-2010 by sourcesonly]