The real world is disappearing underneath our feet and right before our eyes. In modern times the spectacle has replaced the real; the image, the perception of things is all that matters anymore. Nothing we do matters unless you buy the t-shirt and update your Facebook status and take some crappy pictures and text everyone to let them know you bought a t-shirt, updated Facebook and put up some crappy pictures on it.
Personal experiences is no longer enough, We rely on a constant stream of inane babble to validate our existence. Communication has become so easy and so cheap that there is no longer any real information contained in what we say. For every one message that relates to a real physical happening, there are thousands more that amount to nothing beyond "I'm here. Are you there?"
As social animals it is natural for us to derive pleasure from interacting and communicating with each other. But we've made this communication so freely available--in fact you're usually considered something of a social pariah if you don't partake in this modern Soma--that we've become thoroughly dependent on it even as it becomes less and less satisfying. All this endless chatter is like a shower that never gets quite hot enough, so you twist and turn to get as much of yourself under the lukewarm communication as possible. The air chills your skin and you stay in longer and longer because you keep hoping that eventually the water will heat up and you'll finally feel satisfied and clean and be willing to step out into the chilly air. But there's no external power, no reality heating the water; it's just the heat of thousands of other tepid bodies, everyone showering with each other's runoff so it never gets above body temperature and we never get clean.
My generation has destroyed information. The world ends not in fire or in ice, it ends not with a bang or a whimper...
But with a Tweet.
That's okay, you may have destroyed information, but we destroyed your economy, your arable land, your drinking water, and your faith in every institution we rely on to run things.
Sorry about that, kid.
:lulz: I love this.
But as an angry older person, I feel obliged to point out that kids today are WAY better than my generation was. My generation was a bunch of self-centered, antisocial assholes. Kids today care more, have better manners, and do more socially responsible things.
Probably as a backlash against what a bunch of narcissistic wastrel twats we were.
Oh. TGRR already said it, and better.
Yeah, sorry about that.
Hey look, this is me NOT BEING IN MY STUDIO 40 minutes after I said I was going to go there. No wonder I don't make any money.
My generation viewed bullying as a noble sport.
And we kicked the shit out of anything we didn't understand. The previous generations were worse.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 20, 2009, 11:46:44 PM
My generation viewed bullying as a noble sport.
And we kicked the shit out of anything we didn't understand. The previous generations were worse.
Yeah. Kids today will have a hard time digging out of the hole we put them in, won't they? God, what assholes we are.
Quote from: Nigel on October 20, 2009, 11:48:04 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 20, 2009, 11:46:44 PM
My generation viewed bullying as a noble sport.
And we kicked the shit out of anything we didn't understand. The previous generations were worse.
Yeah. Kids today will have a hard time digging out of the hole we put them in, won't they? God, what assholes we are.
Yep. And the "middle" between my generation and my father's generation is most at fault (people that are 50-55 right now). The boomers get a bad rap.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 20, 2009, 11:44:19 PM
That's okay, you may have destroyed information, but we destroyed your economy, your arable land, your drinking water, and your faith in every institution we rely on to run things.
Sorry about that, kid.
How I reacted to this:
:x --> :horrormirth: --> :lulz:
Quote from: Nigel on October 20, 2009, 11:45:29 PM
:lulz: I love this.
But as an angry older person, I feel obliged to point out that kids today are WAY better than my generation was. My generation was a bunch of self-centered, antisocial assholes. Kids today care more, have better manners, and do more socially responsible things.
Probably as a backlash against what a bunch of narcissistic wastrel twats we were.
Aw, auntie Nigel has faith in us! :)
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 20, 2009, 11:49:17 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 20, 2009, 11:48:04 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 20, 2009, 11:46:44 PM
My generation viewed bullying as a noble sport.
And we kicked the shit out of anything we didn't understand. The previous generations were worse.
Yeah. Kids today will have a hard time digging out of the hole we put them in, won't they? God, what assholes we are.
Yep. And the "middle" between my generation and my father's generation is most at fault (people that are 50-55 right now). The boomers get a bad rap.
Yeah, it was totally the leading edge of Generation X that fucked us over the hardest, with the full encouragement of the Reagan generation.
We've also been sure to have WAY too many kids, world-wide. Now the planet is turning into desert.
You're welcome.
Quote from: Nigel on October 20, 2009, 11:55:47 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 20, 2009, 11:49:17 PM
Quote from: Nigel on October 20, 2009, 11:48:04 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 20, 2009, 11:46:44 PM
My generation viewed bullying as a noble sport.
And we kicked the shit out of anything we didn't understand. The previous generations were worse.
Yeah. Kids today will have a hard time digging out of the hole we put them in, won't they? God, what assholes we are.
Yep. And the "middle" between my generation and my father's generation is most at fault (people that are 50-55 right now). The boomers get a bad rap.
Yeah, it was totally the leading edge of Generation X that fucked us over the hardest, with the full encouragement of the Reagan generation.
Hunter S Thompson called them "A generation of swine...thick wallets, thin necks, and low foreheads".
Um, hello, older generation.
See, I've got a problem. I inherited the earth, sure, but I think it's broken. May I have another one?
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 20, 2009, 11:56:23 PM
We've also been sure to have WAY too many kids, world-wide. Now the planet is turning into desert.
You're welcome.
:lulz:
Quote from: Sir Remington III on October 20, 2009, 11:58:05 PM
Um, hello, older generation.
See, I've got a problem. I inherited the earth, sure, but I think it's broken. May I have another one?
There's Mars. Go to town.
Quote from: Sir Remington III on October 20, 2009, 11:58:05 PM
Um, hello, older generation.
See, I've got a problem. I inherited the earth, sure, but I think it's broken. May I have another one?
There was this hippie saying that went "we are borrowing the Earth from our children".
Well, it turns out there was no collateral, so we burned it all up and handed you a polluted cinder.
Our bad.
Quote from: Cainad on October 20, 2009, 11:42:09 PMin fact you're usually considered something of a social pariah if you don't partake in this modern Soma
I can't help but notice this too. People are literally surprised when I tell them I don't have a Facebook or Twitter account.
Apparently, if you don't have an RSS feed of someone's sleep, food and bathroom schedules, you aren't a real friend.
Twitter is bullshit.
Here's some REAL fucking, courtesy of us old bastards:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33377328/ns/business-personal_finance/page/2/
QuoteSo the data is available if you're willing to dig a little. There are plenty of economists and analysts who take issue with the "official" number. John Williams, who runs a Web site called Shadow Government Statistics, does his own calculations each month that adjusts U-6 to include an estimate of the number of "long-term" discouraged workers - those who have been in that category for more than a year - and fall off the BLS radar. By his count, the unemployment rate hit 21.4 percent last month.
Welcome to the new great depression.
Quote from: Malachite on October 21, 2009, 12:08:29 AM
Quote from: Cainad on October 20, 2009, 11:42:09 PMin fact you're usually considered something of a social pariah if you don't partake in this modern Soma
I can't help but notice this too. People are literally surprised when I tell them I don't have a Facebook or Twitter account.
Apparently, if you don't have an RSS feed of someone's sleep, food and bathroom schedules, you aren't a real friend.
Whenever I see a Facebook status that says "Goin to bed now" or "brb taking bio quiz" it makes me want to delete the damn account. Probably shouldn't have made one in the first place. I delayed for like 2 years on a MySpace account; probably time to delete that shit too.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 21, 2009, 12:16:10 AM
Twitter is bullshit.
Here's some REAL fucking, courtesy of us old bastards:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33377328/ns/business-personal_finance/page/2/
QuoteSo the data is available if you're willing to dig a little. There are plenty of economists and analysts who take issue with the "official" number. John Williams, who runs a Web site called Shadow Government Statistics, does his own calculations each month that adjusts U-6 to include an estimate of the number of "long-term" discouraged workers - those who have been in that category for more than a year - and fall off the BLS radar. By his count, the unemployment rate hit 21.4 percent last month.
Welcome to the new great depression.
But that's just it. You're talking about
real things. You old people may have mixed and baked the shit cake, but now it's our turn, and all that's left for us to do is apply the frosting.
Quote from: Cainad on October 20, 2009, 11:42:09 PM
The real world is disappearing underneath our feet and right before our eyes. In modern times the spectacle has replaced the real; the image, the perception of things is all that matters anymore. Nothing we do matters unless you buy the t-shirt and update your Facebook status and take some crappy pictures and text everyone to let them know you bought a t-shirt, updated Facebook and put up some crappy pictures on it.
Personal experiences is no longer enough, We rely on a constant stream of inane babble to validate our existence. Communication has become so easy and so cheap that there is no longer any real information contained in what we say. For every one message that relates to a real physical happening, there are thousands more that amount to nothing beyond "I'm here. Are you there?"
As social animals it is natural for us to derive pleasure from interacting and communicating with each other. But we've made this communication so freely available--in fact you're usually considered something of a social pariah if you don't partake in this modern Soma--that we've become thoroughly dependent on it even as it becomes less and less satisfying. All this endless chatter is like a shower that never gets quite hot enough, so you twist and turn to get as much of yourself under the lukewarm communication as possible. The air chills your skin and you stay in longer and longer because you keep hoping that eventually the water will heat up and you'll finally feel satisfied and clean and be willing to step out into the chilly air. But there's no external power, no reality heating the water; it's just the heat of thousands of other tepid bodies, everyone showering with each other's runoff so it never gets above body temperature and we never get clean.
My generation has destroyed information. The world ends not in fire or in ice, it ends not with a bang or a whimper...
But with a Tweet.
Is it bad that this gave me the warm fuzzies?
Quote from: Da6s on October 21, 2009, 12:29:56 AM
Is it bad that this gave me the warm fuzzies?
No, but the fact that you touched yourself because of it... nope, still not bad.
Also, this should probably be moved to OKM. I just wanted to be cool like all the other kids who were ranting in Apple Talk.
Quote from: Cainad on October 21, 2009, 12:33:26 AM
Quote from: Da6s on October 21, 2009, 12:29:56 AM
Is it bad that this gave me the warm fuzzies?
No, but the fact that you touched yourself because of it... nope, still not bad.
Also, this should probably be moved to OKM. I just wanted to be cool like all the other kids who were ranting in Apple Talk.
I can't honestly complain about the value of worthwhile conversation and how it has gone up tremendously.
I wonder how that factors into net-worth.
The good people I know don't have Twitter
The very best people I know don't have a Facebook
Twitter and Facebook both make me laugh
but then, I only read posts by people I think are funny.
Also Facebook is startlingly effective for organizing and inviting people to events. If you don't know how to use such media effectively, it might be a sign that you're not trying.
I still wish my mom wasn't on it, though.
Quote from: Nigel on October 21, 2009, 01:47:41 AM
I still wish my mom wasn't on it, though.
That was so awkward when my mom had one.
I have one because my friends and relatives are scattered across the country and Europe and I find it easier to keep in touch with them with Facebook.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 20, 2009, 11:49:17 PM
Yep. And the "middle" between my generation and my father's generation is most at fault (people that are 50-55 right now). The boomers get a bad rap.
^ This. My parents are that age (they turned 54 this year) and my father agrees with you there, TGRR.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 20, 2009, 11:56:23 PM
We've also been sure to have WAY too many kids, world-wide. Now the planet is turning into desert.
You're welcome.
Or so polluted with toxic chemicals that breathing kills you, one brain cell at a time.
Quote from: Corvidia on October 21, 2009, 02:18:47 AM
Or so polluted with toxic chemicals that breathing kills you, one brain cell at a time.
So thats where all those brain cells went.
Quote from: Corvidia on October 21, 2009, 02:18:47 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 20, 2009, 11:49:17 PM
Yep. And the "middle" between my generation and my father's generation is most at fault (people that are 50-55 right now). The boomers get a bad rap.
^ This. My parents are that age (they turned 54 this year) and my father agrees with you there, TGRR.
My own parents turned 54 this year, and they consider themselves Boomers. I know they're more of a later-in-the-generation Boomer, but they totally relate to their decade-older-elders.
Mine, too, I think. But they apparently never went through the hippy-dippy liberal stage, so I wonder if that has something to do with it. Though ironically, it's my mother (who comes from the more liberal of two sides) who's the most conservative. My dad's family is traditionally Southern in a lot of ways and he, aside from his Builderberg delusions, is the more liberal one nowadays.
Aren't both our parents Boomers anyway? 1955 is mid-generation, I thought.
My grandma is all like "Kids these days, they're at least 100 times worst than my generation!"
And then we're all like, "But grandma, didn't your generation cause and participate in the deadliest conflict in human history?"
or
My mom is like "Young people these days are just always engaged in such terrible activities!"
And then we're all like "But wasn't your generation engaged in being hippies?"
Quote from: Nigel on October 21, 2009, 01:47:12 AM
Twitter and Facebook both make me laugh
but then, I only read posts by people I think are funny.
Also Facebook is startlingly effective for organizing and inviting people to events. If you don't know how to use such media effectively, it might be a sign that you're not trying.
I agree with all of this. But when one is ranting, considering the positive side of things sort of kills the mood, yanno?
Dear whining little ingrate,
We took all the drugs and drunk all the liquor so the doctors could measure the effects on our bodies and declare them badwrong to protect you from them. We spent all the money and used all the oil so now you don't have to worry yourselves about what to do with an over abundance of money and gas. We bought all the crappily produced inferior old music so the recording industry could afford to hone their act and now you get to listen to britney and mylie cyrus and you can actually hear the words! We thought to ourselves "thinking sucks" and we invented machines to do our thinking for us so you don't have to.
Just what the fuck are you complaining about exactly?
Sincerely,
Old Cunt
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on October 21, 2009, 09:46:50 AM
Dear whining little ingrate,
We took all the drugs and drunk all the liquor so the doctors could measure the effects on our bodies and declare them badwrong to protect you from them. We spent all the money and used all the oil so now you don't have to worry yourselves about what to do with an over abundance of money and gas. We bought all the crappily produced inferior old music so the recording industry could afford to hone their act and now you get to listen to britney and mylie cyrus and you can actually hear the words! We thought to ourselves "thinking sucks" and we invented machines to do our thinking for us so you don't have to.
Just what the fuck are you complaining about exactly?
Sincerely,
Old Cunt
:lulz:
It's weird how this continual pursuit of the Authentic Experience makes us water down the world's quality even further. We look at pictures of people having fun perhaps because we want to be included in it. We have to document our Authentic Experiences because they are so few and far between. We spend most of our day interacting with a lifeless machine. We work for these giant faceless corporate fictions, serving their DNA's instructions like red blood cells. I don't make anything, I don't produce anything. When I have real human contact, it seems so important to hold onto it, to tell others about it, and here we are, the Empire of Signs and Signals, of words and images, all ghosts.
I was reading up on Everyday Life (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everyday_life), and I found this interesting bit:
QuoteHistory
Humans traditionally live in family-based social structures and artificial shelters.
In the past, before modern technology largely alleviated the problem of economic scarcity in industrialised countries, most people spent a large portion of their time simply attempting to stay alive.[4] Survival skills were necessary for the sake of both self and community; food needed to be harvested and shelters needed to be maintained.[5] There was little privacy in a community, and people were identified by their social role.[6] Jobs were assigned out of necessity rather than personal choice.[7]
Furthermore, individuals in many ancient cultures primarily viewed their self-existence under the aspect of a larger social whole, often one with mythological underpinnings which placed the individual in relation to the cosmos.[8] People in such cultures found their identity not through their individual choices — indeed, they may not have been able to conceive a choice which was purely individual. Such individuals, if asked to describe themselves, would speak of the collective of which they were part: the tribe, the Church, the nation.[9] Even now, survival issues are still dominant in many countries and societies. For example, the continents of Africa and Asia are still largely mired in poverty and third-world conditions, without technology, secure shelter, or reliable food sources. In such places, the concepts of a "personal life," "self-actualization," "personal fulfillment," or "privacy" are largely unaffordable luxuries
So: we get self-actualization, we get identity, but in trade we also get ennui, vertigo, and nausea. And express it in 140 characters or less!
This morning I'm overwhelmed by the cornucopia of bad career choices ahead of me. The job market is as stiff as the soil in late October. I don't even want to DO anything. I
wish there was a community function that
needed filling. If I was marching back to the tribe every night with the day's kill hoisted high above my head, I certainly wouldn't be feeling this restlessness, this anxiousness, this discord between me and my culture.
Maybe it's best just to accept that everything drifts along Siddhartha's river...
Quote"Your father knows everything about you", he said.
"So he has you all figured out. He knows who you are and what you do, and there is
no power on earth that can make him change his mind about you".
Don Juan said that everybody that knew me had an idea about me, and that I kept
feeding the idea with everything I did. "Don't you see ?", he asked dramatically.
"You must renew your personal history by telling your parents, your relatives,
and your friends everything you do. On the other hand, if you have no personal
history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your
acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts.".
(...) "But that's absurd", I protested. "Why shouldn't people know me ? What's
wrong with that ?"; "What's wrong is that once they know you, you are an affair
taken for granted and from that moment on you won't be able to break the tie of
their thoughts. I personally like the ultimate freedom of being unknown. No one
knows me with steadfast certainty, the way people know you, for instance".
"But that would be lying". "I'm not concerned with lies or truths", he said
severely. "Lies are lies only if you have personal history".
-castaneda
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on October 21, 2009, 09:46:50 AM
Dear whining little ingrate,
We took all the drugs and drunk all the liquor so the doctors could measure the effects on our bodies and declare them badwrong to protect you from them. We spent all the money and used all the oil so now you don't have to worry yourselves about what to do with an over abundance of money and gas. We bought all the crappily produced inferior old music so the recording industry could afford to hone their act and now you get to listen to britney and mylie cyrus and you can actually hear the words! We thought to ourselves "thinking sucks" and we invented machines to do our thinking for us so you don't have to.
Just what the fuck are you complaining about exactly?
Sincerely,
Old Cunt
:mittens: :lulz:
:mittens: for P3nt and Cram...both great examples ITT. My husband always says these are the problems of the well-fed. But he's kind of jaded that way.
Quote from: Nasturtiums on October 21, 2009, 04:34:19 AM
My grandma is all like "Kids these days, they're at least 100 times worst than my generation!"
And then we're all like, "But grandma, didn't your generation cause and participate in the deadliest conflict in human history?"
or
My mom is like "Young people these days are just always engaged in such terrible activities!"
And then we're all like "But wasn't your generation engaged in being hippies?"
What terrible activities? I mean, what, was pot invented yesterday? :lulz: