The mortality rate has gone down. We have better lives. Computers, Better Healthcare and All the modern facilities. All the material needs are fulfilled.

But still we dont have peace of mind. We are always under stress to excel. To better others. We are caught in this rat race, a vicious circle to be precise, to live up to expectations of OTHERS.

R we living or is life just passing by. R we living our own life. Has the material advancement led to the increasing crime and psychological disorders. Do we know where to go to seek peace.

U see the computers were meant to reduce the workload and offer more space for creativity and leisure. They were meant to lessen stress. Has they contributed in that direction. I mean we have all the information but we are starving in wisdom.

Who should take the blame for all this or is there anyone to blame?

Did we get carried away with all the materialistic pleasures.

thats somethign good to think about. and i wonder that myself. i mean....i dont sit there and i havent came up with something like this, ever. but....i CAN say that i've thought about these things, at least in different occasions.

computers just stress you out more. theyre supposed to make things easier but they actually make them harder. i mean...it's conventional for the common person, but in the big picture they just complicate things.

if we got rid of all these things life would be much simpler. and i think that in this arguement "computers" include not only PCs but so many other types of computers that have revolutionized life.

i much rather live a couple hundred years ago than live in this shit era we are now.

but besides that. one should always try for the betterment of oneself and those around us. time goes on and people should take steps forward, not back. but it's a different thing to live the goals of others, or to do thigns other people expect of you than to do what really makes you happy. whatever that is. as long as this is a forward movement and not a step backwards then that's what should be done. people should fulfill their own dreams and ambitions, rather than the dreams and ambitions of others.

but there's been also things that have been gained. better medicine, medical procedures, cars, so many different inventions, but i believe that we've lost more than we have gained. and also that we have not advanced as much as we probably should have at this point.

i don tknow.....this brings an endless amount of thoughts to my mind. and the only reason im stopping here is beause i have to take a piss and cuz il never finish. also cuz no one will; probably read this anyway.

Fatter people, more disease, dirtier water, more pollution, more waste, more homeless, more crime, more corruption, bigger weapons with bigger kill zones, bigger planes to carry bigger bombs, many wars 2 of them called world wars,
extinction of many animals with many more on endangered lists..

wow all in the last 100 years.. aren't we fuking brilliant.

Fatter people, more disease, dirtier water, more pollution, more waste, more homeless, more crime, more corruption, bigger weapons with bigger kill zones, bigger planes to carry bigger bombs, many wars 2 of them called world wars,
extinction of many animals with many more on endangered lists..

wow all in the last 100 years.. aren't we fuking brilliant.

:wah:

We also have worse posters as this degenerate shows every time he starts whining about shit people tell him he should be pissed off about.

Learn to think for yourself tool - or are you even too stupid to do that?

Oh, and fuck has a k in it - you fucKing moron.

Fatter people, more disease, dirtier water, more pollution, more waste, more homeless, more crime, more corruption, bigger weapons with bigger kill zones, bigger planes to carry bigger bombs, many wars 2 of them called world wars,
extinction of many animals with many more on endangered lists..

wow all in the last 100 years.. aren't we fuking brilliant.

+1

http://www.ishmael.com/welcome.cfm

:wah:

We also have worse posters as this degenerate shows every time he starts whining about shit people tell him he should be pissed off about.

Learn to think for yourself tool - or are you even too stupid to do that?

Oh, and fuck has a k in it - you fucKing moron.


-1

***never seen you get so riled up bro... I actually think he has some points. However generalized and poorly articluated they are.

-I'm about to go on a rant. Warning, I can't spell worth a shit...

Despite our modern world and convienences, there is alot of disolusionment within our plush society, but more so in the rest of the world. I can understand this disolusionment in both regards.

It's not just that so much more of humanity lacks the things you and I have (The American Dream)- it's that for you and I to enjoy this dream we are living, we do indeed rely on "our" business and "our" goverments to strip resources and livlihoods from the worlds poor. It's almost a social "theory of relativity"- where when I get 'more of the items that complete my dream'- somebody else in the world is losing those items. Water, oil, food- not to mention all of the basic resources that we turn into luxuries, while half of India or Africa could use said resources for actual necessities. So much of what we value is rooted in finite resources. 6 billion people cannot live the American Dream. Hell, not even 1 billion could.

This is going to lead to conflict, war, poverty, disease, pollution... all the great things we don't see on Fox News.

Diamonds are a perfect representation of this phenomenon. Diamonds are an American girls "best friend"... nothing says "luxury, success, high-class or "well-off" than a big fat diamond on a girls finger. Where do most of our diamonds come from? Africa... In Africa diamonds are harvested using kids (because their arms are tiny enough to dig for them). So much money can be made by African Warlords selling Diamonds to the worlds market that they go into towns and essentially kidnap kids and make them "diamond harvesting slaves". Kids all over the Diamond portions of Africa have no arms because they lose them during the harvesting proces... This phenomenon definately creates a horrible existence for the African's living in these areas,,, and for alot of Americans who recognize this reality, they too become disolusioned to the point of not only rejecting the Diamonds, but rejecting alot of what they see in their life that is "unfair" to other humans.

It's the Golden Rule. Nobody wants to treat other people like shit, because deep down we all know how it would feel to be treated like shit. Most Americans, unfortunately, can only apply the Golden Rule to 100 yard radius. I call it their "bubble". I do not live in a bubble. I don't buy African diamonds and I recycle. Like a big fucking emo pussy, I become dissolussioned and depressed when I realized my actions harm other people- no matter how far away they live.

Starbucks coffee is another great example. Those fuckers grow a lot of their coffee in Guatemala. Why? Besides the cheap labor (they can use Indians who are basically indentured servents), and because Guatemala hasn't yet caught up with our environmental practices. Up until a few years ago Mayan women and their children would harvest coffee beans as crop dusters released DDT over the crops. YES, the same DDT we American's outlawed 40 years ago because it causes lukemia in children. Needless to say, the villages in S. America who house these DDT exposed workers have the highest rates of deformed babies on the planet.

Soooooooo- hey Mr. American, enjoy your amazing loco-choco-latte and your amazing plush life- some Indians in S. America only have 4 fingers so you could enjoy that.

Not only are gigantic swaths of the Earth used as "resource banks" for 2% of the worlds population to live in luxury,,, but those of us who make up that 2% do, upon learning how it all works, feel depressed, or unfulfilled, or lost despite all of our luxury. The luxury we place so much value on does not fulfill us as we thought, but when we realize how we bascially kill, maim, mutulate and steal from the rest of the world to procure those unfulfilling luxuries, our bad feelings become exacerbated and we are left with all of the questions posed by Amanamagus in the opening post of this thread.

:wah:

We also have worse posters as this degenerate shows every time he starts whining about shit people tell him he should be pissed off about.

Learn to think for yourself tool - or are you even too stupid to do that?

Oh, and fuck has a k in it - you fucKing moron.

you must be offended with my fat comment.. well to bad fatty..
P.S I'll spell any fukin way i please.. so piss off fatass i'm sure ther's a cheesburger somewhere that needs eating..

you must be offended with my fat comment.. well to bad fatty..
P.S I'll spell any fukin way i please.. so piss off fatass i'm sure ther's a cheesburger somewhere that needs eating..

Harshreality's new, and entirely original, book How to Make Friends and Influence People is in stores now.

Just finished finals! so let's see if i can quickly apply some of what i learned here!

IMO the strive to succeed you talk about is due to the increase in global capitalism in the past twenty years and the decrease of socialists ideals. Thus it's an open market, where the hardest workers, or those who are born with the advantage of access to institutions (education, healthcare, etc) and resources are more likely to succeed.
"Has the material advancement led to the increasing crime and psychological disorders. Do we know where to go to seek peace."

I would say that material advancement does lead to crime. A social strain perspective would believe that those who are of higher social class, and have access to the neccessary institutions (such as education) have more legitmate means of obtaining goals, whereas the lower classes who don't have these opportunities may resort to illegitmate/illegal means of obtaining goals. Therefor resulting in crime.

For psychological disorders, there is a "revolving door" theory where those who live in poor areas lack sufficient institutions for treating these disorders. These people are sent to mental hospitals, however patients have very short periods of treatment in which they are released into the public too soon for the treatment to take effect. They often relapse shortly after going back into mental hospitals, thus the "revolving door."

I believe that social strain is something that will be around forever. It is not something of just the last 100 years, and has occurred throughout history. For example, you talk of social inequality in the form of material goods. During the 17th and 18th century (period of enlightenment), this too was a problem, but also another major problem was the lack of liberalism, capitalism, and democracy in certain countries such as France. Now Western and also more recently, Eastern countries have such ideals. However, it can be argued that capitalists and liberal ideas have led to the vast discrepancies of individuals today.
DONE
Just testing my crim and history lol.

Walmart.

the only people who dont have problems are in cemetaries, the grass isnt always greener on the other side etc etc blah blah blah

So we all agree that we're evil fuckers. What do we do about it?

Try to live in an isolated cabin for a while and you'll begin to realize how much this world and the people in it have changed in the past 100 years.

Gather your wood every day, Find, catch, kill, and bake your food daily. Good luck trying to keep it fresh and unspoiled.

Time to go to the bathroom. Hmm... where are soft leaves.

Damn it's getting cold. Time to get more wood for the fireplace.

I go to a site (survival.com) that has a forum with people that actually have and sometimes do live in isolated cabins somewhere and they have stories of everyday life that sounds hard as hell to me after living my life spoiled by the modern tools of this time.

It still trips me out when I remember that we never had an air conditioning when I was a kid. House or car. I am so reliant on things like that now.