What's all the fuss about?

Having spent an empty afternoon pondering, it occured to me that all the news and everything bad going on in the world is nothing new. So why do people make a fuss about it? Perhaps the world only seems worse than it really is because of the endless news sources?

So I looked online and found a website with some quotes which applied, generally speaking, +50 (up to +1,000!) years ago and which still apply today. Read them and just ask yourself... why are you worrying? Nothing is new. It will always be the same with our race. Selfish people being in power, sheep masses and stupidity rampant. Just look for yourself here: articles.mercola.com... I note a few favourites below for your reading ease:

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Mark Twain

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
Winston Churchill

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it‘s free.
P.J. O‘Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn‘t mean politics won‘t take an interest in you.
Pericles (430 B.C)

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Somebody posted a few medical ones too, of which I note my favourite:

“Medicine, the only profession that labors incessantly to destroy the reason for its existence.”

- James Bryce

“God heals and the doctor takes the fee.”

- Benjamin Franklin

“Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing.”

- Voltaire

"One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine."

- William Osler

“The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.”

- Voltaire 1778

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So, why worry? Why complain and rally? Why be concerned about what you think is a terrible 'tragedy' for mankind, of our time? In a few years, or decades, it will pass, you and it will most likely be forgotten and life will continue i its horrid ways with people of the future just as it did for those quoted above.

TPTB want to scan and follow your every movement? Good for them. What are they going to do with the information, masturbate at nighttime over your web sessions and which bank you went to on sunday? Too much money going to war and not to help those who need it? So what? They'll kill them and maybe us eventually, and the cycle will start again.

Don't call me pessimistic, call me observational. It's all happened before, it just looks worse now because of the exagerated news reporting; the absolutely, endlessly, tiringly, boringly shoo-tyourself-in-the-head mind-numbingly dull and repetitive news reporting of it!!!

RELAX! Get on with educating yourselves, making enough money and doing what you want to be happy. It's a big world.

Just thtought I'd throw that thought out there for this evening.

You are correct I believe. It is the news sources that make everything seem so big and bad and depressing, but really, this has been happening all along.
When I moved, I was without the internet and without tv for a little while, and I found that disconnecting from "The World" and reconnecting with myself instead took away much of the anxiety I had. There is much to be said about being "globally conscious" both good and bad. It is all in what you focus on, and well, as the song goes "Give us dirty laundry". Now that we can see and hear about almost everything that happens, most people turn to the negative aspects, and they enjoy them on some level. Perhaps it is to make their own life seem not so bad, but the end result for many is getting depressed with the world because they allow media to bombard them over and over again with images of negativity.
This is also part of what Post traumatic stress is, and I am beginning to see within my own mind, much of the modern world getting a form of it.

It's funny that you say this, maybe it's one of those mass conciseness things, but I had the very same thought this morning when I was out on my walk.

I was think about how, if the internet and TV didn't exist, everything would seem so much more insignificant.
We would still hear of these things, but there would not be such a rush on information all at once. With a vast amount of information comes a vast amount of stress. If we knew less, I think we would be a much happier race of people.

You're absolutely correct. Most of the goings on in the world have been the same or similar to the goings on that have been going on for thousands of years. News just travels faster these days.

Before...if the police harassed someone unjustly it was minor news if even at all cause it was usually your word against theirs. Now when TSA strip searches a fragile little old lady while trying to get on a plane, there are 4 people filming it and it's on YouTube or Face Book before the event is even over.

New age. New technology. The fuss is cause the whole world can see in a matter of seconds or minutes what used to take weeks or months to spread around.

I took a stroll through some of the Fragile Earth archives. Threads started when ATS was new 2004. It was enlightening as many of the same things people are freaking out about now, they were freaking out about then. Disaster is exciting. News companies utilize this to make fortunes.

To think we might meet our end in some violent conflagration, such as epidemics, earthquakes, asteroids, volcanoes, radiation. While horrible evidently appeals to us more than heart attacks and strokes which is how most people die.

Like horror movies, we enjoy drama and fear together.

Yes, it's very true. Nothing has changed at all.

Now just imagine every news story ever read in the last year. All those quotes from politicians, councils, sportsmen, all those different plans, considerations, etc. I wonder how many of those would turn out to be true or to have happened if we delved into them? Less than 10% I'd reckon.

It just amazes me (now I've come to think of it), how much utter BS there is that people worry about. This bill passing through, the quotes of your presidential candidates, the wars in the middle east, what such and such company plans to do, jobs lid off, etc...

Well, surprise for you: it's all happened before and it always will. There have always been presidential candidates (generally speaking), people have always been at war with unfair (and civilian deaths) and people have been laid off work - for hundreds of years!

I have now made a PACT: Do not read any newspaper websites (or any news websites) for 6 months. I know I can't help but pick up things here and there through ATS and other comments elsewhere, but I refuse to read news sources where I can obtain up to date news. It will be such a great feeling and might I suggest you do it too.

It's by reading such junk or tuning in to such junk that the junk has fuel to continue being junk.

Stop fueling the junk!