Quote:
Originally Posted by vta
Not really. There's a reason our country is tanking in more ways than one. This thinking that everything follows a repeatable course is illogical. Many will pipe up loudly about how far we've come when it comes to certain advances, yet when someone states the growing negative trends, people like to claim it's really just a product of 24 hour news cycles. We weren't exaclty communicating with smoke signals before the 80's - 90's.
It also suggests that consequences don't exist. That certain paths of the last generation or earlier years of our own have no ramifications.
Advertising is very effective and very powerful and to think that a generation brought up on hit and run advertising and microwavable convenience won't be radically effected is not realistic. Expectations are effected due to these certain 'advancements', and so are the reactions to adversity.
[View Full Quote]As to the effect of generations and their laments, it's based on truth. The materials you live on and in are inferior plastics that have a calculated shelf life designed to make you a repeat and frequent customer. Your appliances, your cars, your clothes all are made with the ricochet effect in mind.
Its not opinion that education scores and health have regressed in the United States. Life expectancy might be at it's highest, but is quality of life? Medicince can allow a cancer patient to hang on much longer with denigrating and painful treatments, but frankly, I'd rather drop dead. These are all examples that challenge the idea that everything's the same as it ever was and that generations don't decline. Civilizations exist on arcs, not plains. Prior civilizations died not because they remained consistently predictable, but because the changes were so subtle and long manifesting that they were not generally and popularly recognized. |
The difference is that you've come to a conclusion that civilization is on a downward path, and you presume why it is.
This is illogical.
Imagine the following scenario:
The water level in room B is lower than the water is Room A.
Without facts and data you've decided that there is less water in room B, and that the inhabitants of Room B have been removing the water, since it's lower.
In reality Room B is a larger room than Room A, and while the level appears lower the quantity of water might actually be greater.
Your preconceptions about the inhabitants of Room B were baseless, and your conclusions about the water levels were merely perceptions and not reality.