Lamenting the madness of life..

I am 35 years old, or 34, I don't remember to be honest. I've been coming to ATS since 2004-2005, lurking mostly over the years. As many of you can probably relate, the crowd at ATS and its focus fluctuates as the world and its craziness is ever changing. Today, as I just saw the thread about the Utah girl jailed over a hair-cutting prank here, I began to think about how much the Internet has exposed the world to itself, meaning that for those of you that remember the time before the Internet, I'd be willing to bet it has changed you significantly, and at the very least, made you more aware.

It has sure changed me.

At my current age, I try to avoid feeding my mind things that serve no good. Like many of you, I have seen enough disturbing things in person that I need not observe even more on the Internet, but in my earlier years, I had a philosophy that to turn your head away from the horrors of life, is to live a lie. I think it helped me learn not to bury my head in the sand, but at the same time, we should also not get caught up in sensationalism, and negativity.

The Internet is an incredible tool, and its many benefits speak for itself, but there are those very dark pockets where what you see is horrible, and you just can't look away. I went through a phase (which lasted years really) where I focused on nothing but horror and bloodshed.

I remember it began in the late 90s with photos of accident victims, suicide victims, murder victims, and war footage. When the 2000s came rolling around, the Internet became more mainstreamed, and then came the Nick Berg beheading, followed by countless others. There was also the explosion of cell phones, many with cameras, and the horror increased dramatically because so many things were caught on camera.

In all of this time, I have seen beheadings, I have seen people lynched, and burned alive in the streets of Africa, I have seen countless executions performed by various international organizations ranging from terrorists to drug cartels. I saw the footage recorded by the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs of them (teenagers) murdering a man with a sledgehammer. I could go on and on but this post isn't about some morbid curiosity, or the ever growing number of atrocities that are now observable by anyone with a keyboard.

I have no more need to see these things, and I focus my energy on much more positive, and constructive material when online. I sometimes wonder how I channeled it all without completely losing my mind, or growing cold. It doesn't shock me anymore, that part of me is dead, but I have more compassion now for all creatures than I ever have.

Now for my query..

I realize that war, atrocity and bloodshed have been with us since the beginning of time, and I also realize that technology may have played a hand in making it seem like it is all on the increase.. but when you look at young people today, no matter which ATS crowd you most relate to, does it seem like each generation is somehow more vacant, apathetic, and cruel than the last?

When I was a kid, a fist fight ended when a person was down. It was that simple, but now a teenager might get kicked in the head until he or she is a vegetable, or shot, or stabbed... Maybe I'm being a bit naive, but doesn't it seem like there is something seriously wrong? It is the food we are eating? Is it the media? Is it because we have spoiled our children? Is it vaccines? Is it anti-depressants? Pollution?

Or has the world not changed at all, other than being more visible now?

What do you think?

Don't loose faith in the youngsters yet. I believe it is a combination of: more access to stories we would have never heard before and the media selecting stories they think will sell. Sensationalism =$. I am amazed that with all the young folks today are subjected to that so many of them remain optomistic about the future that so many of them have not given up or in. There are some rotten kids out there but there are some really great kids out there full of new ideas and hope. They haven't given up, so for now I wont either.

Yes the world has changed! I have seen much in my 54 years and things are worse than ever. I'm sure there are a myriad of reasons, but it's sad.

Originally posted by BS_Slayer
Now for my query..
does it seem like each generation is somehow more vacant, apathetic, and cruel than the last?

Perhaps dependence and helplessness is intrinsically at odds with the way human beings come to live satisfying lives.

All you need to do is reduce it down to it's most simplistic form.

You have smart people ( people who don't just accept things for what they are or as they are told, but investigate somehow to come up with a more personal understanding )

And you have the people who just take things for what they are, as they are, no questions asked, specially when it's someone you feel you like or relate with, or heck even want to relate with ( i.e. they are cool )

Well before technology, people who just take things for what they are told to be, could only infect those around them of said unchallenged knowledge. It took a lot longer for things to spread, good or bad.

But now with the ability to take a picture of someone's buttcrack as they bent over and next thing you know a million people laughed at it.

It's the infection of the " Right now satisfaction " concept.
We are built to evolve constantly, we try to cut corners in many ways as a means of mental evolution, but when bad info is presented as good info, without doing the research and accepting it as fact, we pass it along through the pipeline and millions of people follow suit.

It's basically a Global mentality, form of mob mentality only everyone is involved to a degree. We constantly gauge how we should react to certain things by the examples and expressions of others, and when others tend to feel something is ok, or they just don't care, well those same feelings can get passed on just like bad information.

It's only going to get worse, unless we have a paradigm shift in human thought and the way we live. Either we have too much free time and will destroy ourselves outta boredom, or we need to be the change.

The internet is like a chainsaw.

It can be a wonderful tool that makes the work lighter and faster. It can bring warmth to a home or clear a path for a beautiful walk through the woods or it can be used to sculpt wonderful pieces of art from an oak trunk or a giant block of ice.

Likewise, it can be abused and misused and become a tool of torture, unintended hurt and pain, or the object of horror movies.

Through the farm store I help manage, I meet so many people that don't realize there is something on the internet besides the weather and porn... seriously. They'll ride all over God's creation looking for an obscure tractor part...even we don't carry on a regular basis, and then I do a "google" search for Farmall parts... and they see the online catalogues and sites and the light bulb goes off...wow.

As for the youth of today... we reap what we sow.

Most kids are pretty good... However, we hjave taken God and moral instruction out of school and society. We have made man to be the endall to end all things... man is so damn clever.

In today's schools and society, there are no consequences... no responsibilities...there are no losers, but only winners.

Life is not sacred... life is cheap... look at the video games or shows on TV and movies.... especially horror movies. Lives are just a means to an end... the murderer is the hero. Every movie has to be more shocking and graphic than the last, and the same is true in life.

People are not civil anymore. Everyone is ready and willing to be offended. Waiting in line for your turn is for losers. Take what is yours and what is someone else's too. Everybody has turned into Joe Pesci from Goodfellas.

Most young women and even older women dress and do makeup looking like porn stars. The young men are covered with tattoos and bling with droopy pants with some pitbull in tow... if you express yourself in such fashion...fine. But don't come to a job interview dressed like that.

I know I sound like a grumpy, old man from a different time...OK, I guess I am.

But I know people used to not act like they do now before everyone became so "enlightened."

reply to post by AlreadyGone


I'm only 31 and I wanna go back to your time! I am with you 100%, But remember this.

Crisis precipitates Change

Respect is a thing of the past. I'm only 25 and i can recognize a distinct shift in the concious mind of man. The Ego has no bounds. All over youtube and forums alike rarely people come together to reciprocate feelings of joy, kindness, compassion, or sympathy. More often than not, its a ruse of spelling errors and differences of oppinion all placed in cynical and sarcastic tones as if to say "I'm better because i said this, this way....who's with me". That is then distributed throughout the world. I say its a little bit of both visual acuity and the changing of times. I'm not religious but we are slaves to our flesh. We ultimately lack the control needed to withstand human change on a massive scale. The 7 deadlies are thrown at us from all directions and we dont know how to do anything but indulge and be indulged. Its only when we as human beings can understand these truths can we as a whole change and control our lives rather than be controlled by our Ego and other things like fear and insecurities.

There does seem to be a kind of madness spreading. In the US it's a kind of materialism mixed with blind ignorance and seasoned with a strong dose of mistrust and paranoia. Everyone seems to be becoming more and more self centered and less likely to come together as a community. It's really sad.

I don't know about the rest of the world. They have different problems. Still though, from the stories I've heard, there's kind of a mass restlessness and desperation that seems to be affecting a lot of people. I don't really know the cause, but it kind of feels like a powder keg is ready to go off.

Humanity has always known great good and great evil. What has changed is not so much quality but quantity. More human beings than ever: 7 billion! When I was a kid there were three billion, which means population has more than doubled in less than a lifetime. More communication. More media. More stuff in general. More, more more. And as Joe Stalin once said, quantity has a quality all it's own.

Although I don't want it to be, I'm sensing a relocation to Rant in this thread's future. I have had it made plain to me on a few occasions by this point.

Social Issues and Civil Unrest is a forum for the posting of apocalyptic doom porn. It is not the appropriate forum for users to discuss the psychological harm that they are experiencing, as a result of continual exposure to said apocalyptic doom porn.

reply to post by petrus4


I do happen to agree with you about 'Doom Porn" as you put it, though it was not my intention, or my suggestion that we are doomed lol. I have learned to assimilate the many things I have seen and experienced in real life and don't allow those things to drive the majority of the time. I am concerned about things from time to time, but there is no need for half the posts that show up in the civil unrest forum.

Some posts do seem to be dedicated to upset viewers, and too many of them gives one the impresison that the whole world is like that. It seems people generally like to focus on the negative, its an addiction. Take the police brutality video thread recently, I bet you could triple the footage with cops being cool. My post here was intended to ask people if they felt that many young people seem as though something is missing, in that violence and apathy seems intensified somehow.

Every time I get off the Internet, I have an experience which very strongly implies to me that most of the negativity is actually on here, and that people are in fact generally a lot better offline.

I think a lot of it is concentrated in America, as well. The Internet is primarily an American medium. Most of the people who use it are American, and America is probably the single most morally degenerate society or culture in human history; and yes, I say that with a bottle of Coke in front of the keyboard as I type these words. Recognising the disease, doesn't make me immune to it.

So whenever you experience hatred, ignorance, or a craving for militaristic fascism online, it might help to recognise the fact that in 95% of cases, it will either be a white American or a white Australian who voices such. The other 5% will probably be a Muslim.

It isn't humanity in general who has the problem. It's mostly America, specifically.