I Hate the 21st Century. (The Conspiracy of the Brainless)

I hate 21st century. I mean I do like the technological/scientific advancements, but that's it. And, ironically, the internet is sucking the life out of originality. Hardly anyone is making human contact and attending interest groups to meet new friends. If you are bored and want a ridiculous amount of info (and google ads and popups) at the touch of a button, great. What I find utterly disgusting is the younger generation staring at thier phones! They spend all day and night "Texting" to their online "friendz."

I remember when I absolutely loved Usenet (1987) & the internet between the years 1993-2000. There wasn't anywhere near the numbers of people online as there are today. There was information, but you had to use Gopher to find it, and there were no pop ups, viruses, malware or annoying adds. I loved visiting the uniquely handcrafted websites by people who were passionate about what they had created and the subjects they wrote about. I loved that feeling of finding a gem of information without Google advertising and "Registering" your personal email address on some website just to read the page. Now, fast-forward to 2009. The internet and society has changed. Nobody makes Web sites anymore. They just use "CANNED" Myspace and Facebook and all these godforsaken Web 2.0 templates with "skins" that make up for the lack of anything truly valuable to read. You call "pimping a myspace page" creativity? That's like calling paint by numbers or Guitar Hero creative. Give me a BREAK! How lame can people be? Where are the bands who can perform LIVE and sound the same as the album sounds without Lip Syncing or samplers? LAME!

And now everything is about making a buck. Originality has been raped and sacrificed on the alter of mouse "Clicks" and "Hits". There are pages that are created that have absolutely no purpose, value, or content whatsoever other than to generate "Hits". This is why the world feels like it sucks... This attitude has bled its infectious disease into every aspect of our society. Bucks and Hits. Everything else is irrelevant. National Pride - irrelevant. Performance and quality over fluff marketing spin - irrelevant. Meaningful debate verses Tiger Woods drunken night drive... case in point.

What are people PASSIONATE about anymore; that they do for the sheer LOVE of it without any thought of making a buck? Must everything deemed worthwhile now be statistically measured by a "valuation" model?

The internet is also destroying letter writing, home phone calls, social outings, and libraries filled on the weekends by people who know that prior generations of authors are infinitely more wise than myspace. Things that connected people with humane and sincere communication are being replaced by quick and short comments with an ad for some bastardized popcorn and fluff movie that spent 200 million on special effects and about $1000 on scriptwriters. The human race is being destroyed by the lack of originality and thoughtfulness at an alarming pace. How do we reverse this devolving spiral of an artificially colored and flavored cotton candy society devoid of any sustenance?


[edit on 12-12-2009 by ATS4dummies]

Damn, you sound just like my dad on the advent of newer fangled TV's and Stereos. Then when the video games came out-watch out. Why the hell don't you guys go outside.

This was on one of the first ones. Remember the console you could play pong on? Maybe not. You have to adapt. Do not let it bother you.

Or, I could offer you some fine extra sharp cheddar cheese and some nice vegetable crackers.

To go with that whine/wine.

That's another problem with the current "Attention Deficit" society, a failure to grasp intellectual constructs and debate meaningful points:

Do you realize, ENDISNIGH, you have completely ignored:

1. The internet is sucking the life out of originality
   
2. The internet and society has changed.
   
3. Nobody makes Web sites anymore.
   
4. Now everything is about making a buck.
   
5. A vast majority of internet content has absolutely no purpose other than to generate "Hits".
   
6. This attitude (of Bucks and Hits) is radically degrading our society.
   
7. Creating anything for the sheer LOVE of it is no longer worthwile unless it makes a buck.
   
8. The human race is being destroyed by the lack of originality and thoughtfulness at an alarming pace.
   

[edit on 12-12-2009 by ATS4dummies]

Originally posted by ATS4dummies
How do we reverse this devolving spiral of an artificially colored and flavored cotton candy society devoid of any sustenance?

Unfortunately, we can't change this.

I believe we have de-evolved to accept all the things you said you "hate". By means of programming, Media, TV, whatever you want to call it.

Look around, no one wants these things to end.

The TV/Internet is making complacency a popular thing!

I like your thread. It's more of a rant than a conspiracy, though. Because I agree with you on alot of what you said. But, I don't let it bother me.

For, I can only change myself, and I cannot change others.

I would debate but do you live in a large city?

Do you have many groups you belong to?

How about the library, do you go there?

I have never been a social animal, more of a sponge. I enjoy reading, sci fi movies and shows, fishing, hunting, billiards, cussing and discussing ad infinitum.

I feel that when the internet started out is was a slow and problematic instrument. Slower than hell and half porn. Now anything I want to investigate-boom, there it is.

Yes the kids of today are stuck to their gadgets like I was stuck on my motorcycle and snowmobile. I am so far behind the computer age, there is absolutely no way I will catch up.

The one thing I will admit, I have talked about this before, the knowledge of man is growing exponentially. Does this scare you more than the rest. It is the only thing that scares me in the modern world.

But hell, when I die maybe he will let me know what I need to know.

Sorry about the drive by earlier, I did not mean any ill will.

[edit on 12/12/2009 by endisnighe]

Yet another response from the sheeple!

And yet another thing about this Sheeple society... WHY do you accept it. Why are you, HAVOK, not outraged that we have:

1. a lack of balls to just accept it.
   
2. why *don't* you let it bother you? Shouldn't it? What's wrong with you?
   
3. no motivation to change it.
   

Is *everybody* drinking the fluoridated water around here?

[edit on 12-12-2009 by ATS4dummies]

i agree, i hate this century so far. at least the introduction of it.

if the consciousness shift doesn't happen, i fear the later 21st century will be just like this too, only even worse.

i mean geez ... it's 2010 and it's still second-rate 90s pop culturally! people are STILL hung over rap and alternative! i've seen a bunch of mini "revolutions" in music that never got anywhere because they couldn't compete with the Nickelbacks and Britneys of the world. eww.

Originally posted by ATS4dummies
Yet another response from the sheeple!

And yet another thing about this Sheeple society... WHY do you accept it. Why are you, HAVOK, not outraged that we have:

1. a lack of balls to just accept it.
   
2. why *don't* you let it bother you? Shouldn't it? What's wrong with you?
   
3. no motivation to change it.
   

Is *everybody* drinking the fluoridated water around here?

[edit on 12-12-2009 by ATS4dummies]

What do you want us to do about it? Rage against the machine, sheeet, you need to get a grip.

The mind should be a trap and the only time you unleash it is when it is necessary.

Otherwise you sound like some wacko railing on the net, good day.

Originally posted by ATS4dummies
Yet another response from the sheeple!

And yet another thing about this Sheeple society... WHY do you accept it. Why are you, HAVOK, not outraged that we have:

1. a lack of balls to just accept it.
   
2. why *don't* you let it bother you? Shouldn't it? What's wrong with you?
   
3. no motivation to change it.
   

Is *everybody* drinking the fluoridated water around here?

I don't personally accept it.
I am outraged. Nothing is "wrong" with me.
But, it only brings self destruction to dwell on it. You still have to maintain sanity, and self-preserverance.
I take care of myself, I don't worry about what others do, think or say unless it directly affects me. Until these sheep change my way of living, I sit back and keep my guns clean. *evil-grin*

*I hope you weren't calling me a sheep*




[edit on 12-12-2009 by havok]

Right, because they put a pop-music formula through a statistical data mining program to determine the "Optimum" profitability and then "allocate" all dollars to market that formula to make a maximum return on investment.

This is what happens when everything is reduced to a "marketing dollars" model. All corporate forces compete to attain the greatest "Market Share" of that model, and everything else is deemed a waste of time based on "inferior" investment performance. The fact is, maybe a little variety wouldn't make as much profit, but it would still make a profit, but that's just not good enough to give variety the attention and promotion it deserves.

The end result is this tasteless, grey slop they push for mass market consumption and any deviation from that never see's the light of day.

This is killing originality and it's killing what humans do the best, which is to innovate. This is stagnating our entire culture! What the hell happened to us?!

[edit on 12-12-2009 by ATS4dummies]

reply to post by ATS4dummies


I am glad to see your enthusiasm. We need more people like you in this country. So keep it up and start informing people, NOT on this website.

Its the people that have no clue whats going on, that are the weak.

Remember that, my friend.

I find it incredible that people are more willing to address the imaginary global warming than they are about the death spiral of our own society and progress. Do you folks just take the bait of whatever the powers that be feed you, or do you start hunting the hunter?

Originally posted by ATS4dummies
That's another problem with the current "Attention Deficit" society, a failure to grasp intellectual constructs and debate meaningful points:

Do you realize, ENDISNIGH, you have completely ignored:

1. The internet is sucking the life out of originality
   
2. The internet and society has changed.
   
3. Nobody makes Web sites anymore.
   
4. Now everything is about making a buck.
   
5. A vast majority of internet content has absolutely no purpose other than to generate "Hits".
   
6. This attitude (of Bucks and Hits) is radically degrading our society.
   
7. Creating anything for the sheer LOVE of it is no longer worthwile unless it makes a buck.
   
8. The human race is being destroyed by the lack of originality and thoughtfulness at an alarming pace.
   

[edit on 12-12-2009 by ATS4dummies]

Intellectual constructs? Perhaps, or maybe more emotional outbursts. But okay, you want a meaningful debate, let us begin.

1.) The internet is sucking the life out of originality:

Not the most original argument ever made, but let us consider for a moment that this might be true. There is what would seem a box like quality to the internet that is like a box where the four walls inside that box are painted like the sky blue sky giving an appearance to a vast wide open space where anything is possible while those who sit inside that box sit happily inside their comfortable trap tap-tap-tapping away at their keyboards endlessly chattering in a strange and even guttural hyper text.

There is much to bemoan an internet language that encourages people to diminish the value of words rather than revel in them. There is a horrifying consequence in a proclivity to use the pronoun I and not capitalize it. There is a lazy, hazy daze to reliance on acronyms that exist to communicate nothing more than laugh out loud or laughing my AST off. Yet, even so, there is a sort of originality to LMFAO, even if it be crude and typed only to communicate a shared experience of humor. Should we picture when someone types ROFL, that that person is actually rolling on the floor laughing? Were they rolling on the floor laughing whilst they typed ROFL or did they stop rolling on the floor laughing long enough to type ROFL?

Fairly inane this proclivity towards acronymistic communication but sucking the life out of originality? One would have to allow originality had a life to begin with in order to accept such an argument. Here is a valid concern, more people have access to the works of William Shakespeare because of the internet and yet, in all likelihood, less people today are familiar with the works of Shakespeare than were a century ago. For surely, if one who would make the claims as made by you were intimately aware of the works of Shakespeare that person would know that Shakespeare pretty much said all that needs to be said and few people since have said anything new, only differently than Shakespeare said it.

What is original today or even yesteryear for that matter? Was Picasso original in his art, and was it really all that different from some of the cave paintings dated to be thousands of years old? Was Salvador Dali a true original with his surrealistic art, or was he profoundly influenced by Pichot, and was that impressionistic artist influenced by yet another? It is said that art imitates life and in life, we seem to be remarkably the same today as we were two thousand years ago, only we have better shoes and cooler toys. Is it really the internet's fault that originality seems to be lacking today?

Endisnighe makes a valid point with television and take the time to watch early television and observe how remarkably much it sounds like radio of that time and prior. Only difference is it came with pictures, stagnant, awkward pictures that only through time, developed into a more fluid type of entertainment that finally became its own long after the advent of cable television that itself in the very beginning of that new technology only imitated the "real television" of that time. Now, after finally breaking out into its own art form, and arguably modern television has become an art form, "real television" imitates cable.

You have declared the internet to be guilty of "sucking the life out of originality" but you have offered no evidence to support this accusation and the preponderance of proof lies solely with you! You want a meaningful debate? Then prove through either overwhelming evidence or at the very least through circumstantial evidence that this is so. You have done neither with your original post and thus, your backhanded dismissal of endisnighe's response is premature, at best and pretentious and self serving at worst.

2.) The internet and society has changed.

The opposition in this debate would like stipulate for the record that this is correct and would only ask what your point is? I had much thicker and stronger hair when I was younger, enough then, fortunately, that I still have some now, not as much as then, tragic as that is to my own vanity, but true. Change is eminent, this is the reality of all matter in the universe. All systems tend towards entropy, this is just a simple fact of the physical world we live in. The internet did not create this phenomenon.

3.) Nobody makes web sites anymore.

I work closely with a young man who makes a living designing new web sites for people every day. He makes a living at in Los Angeles where one must be making more than 50,000 a year in order to be making a living. That would constitute a fair amount of new web sites.

4.) Now everything is about making a buck.

There is a Latin phrase that states Caveat emptor which means "Let the buyer beware. Latin is a dead language not even spoken at mass by Catholic priests anymore. A language dead for quite some time now and yet, when it was alive and well, they found it prudent to lament the very same thing your lamenting now. I wonder what the Latin term for internet was?

5.) The vast majority of internet sites has no purpose other than to generate "Hits".

This is just demonstrably false, and while all those who create a web site have every right to hope they can generate "hits", I refer back to my Shakespeare argument to illustrate how one might create a web site even if it doesn't generate as much hits as say, Facebook, or Twitter.

Continued...

[edit on 12-12-2009 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

reply to post by ATS4dummies


Continuing....

There are countless academic web sites that exist for no other purpose than to instruct and inform. There are university websites that exist for no other purpose than to supply their students with a course syllabus. How many "hits" do you suppose that gets?

6.) This attitude (of Bucks and Hits) is radically degrading our society.

Really? Is this a different argument than "now everything is about making a buck?" Seems like the same argument to me. Was this an attempt from you to illustrate just how the internet has sucked the life out of originality? Long before Karl Marx ignored the financial needs of his own family in order to write the overwrought tome known as Das Kapital, people have been bemoaning the tragedy of greed and a lust for more. The internet did not invent this, it invented Al Gore but not greed.\

7.) The human race is being destroyed by the lack of originality and thoughtfulness at an alarming rate.

What is alarming is that even in this day and age where internet access has afforded more people now more information than ever in history there are still people who refer to humanity as the human race rather than use a more informed and intellectual term like the human species. Humanity is a species that consists of various races. Has your own thoughtlessness added to this destruction of the humanity? Hardly, your thoughtlessness is really no different than the countless other erudite and self serving intellectuals throughout history who no doubt saw themselves just as superior to the masses as you do now, and they to referred to humanity as the human race...and yet, we still survive.

Alarming rate? Just a society obsessed with bucks and hits? How many stars and flags do you hope to get from this alarmist rant? If you are going to make assertions such as you have and then take people to task for either not praising you for your assumptions or debating you on them, then it would be prudent to actually offer sound arguments to go along with these alarmist assertions your making. I am just saying, that's all.

[edit on 12-12-2009 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


A. The internet is sucking the life out of originality
[so you are arguing that the internet has increased originality? Because that was my point - it's on the decline.]
B. The internet and society has changed.
[Your response was: so what?, my response is: if it is a change for the worse, we shouldn't just "let it happen", ie - Illegal Iraq Wars or Corruption and Bailouts - you get the point - don't just take it.]
C. Nobody makes Web sites anymore.
[You site one person in LA, my point is the percentage of internet users making web sites are on the decline - that is not progress or innovation.]
D. Now everything is about making a buck.
[again your response is, things change and we should do nothing. Sorry, if it is a change for the worse, we SHOULD do something to prevent it. - You have a lot of apathy, Jean.]
E. A vast majority of internet content has absolutely no purpose other than to generate "Hits".
[You respond that this is false. I submit the efforts of Google to detect the creation of external pages all linking to the target page. A lot of crap nobody will read just to get hits to the target. Don't agree? Ask Google, they will tell you all about the problem.]

You Wrote Continued so I will check back again...
In short, you sound like a baby boomer congressman who makes empty arguments of the advantages of doing nothing, and in turn, solves nothing.

I'm not impressed with your analysis so far, Jean.

So Folks, as it stands, Western civilization is on the decline. What do we do to reverse the trend? Are you just going to take it lying down? Should we just wimp out and forget who we are and what we are capable of of accomplishing?

The most important question: What is causing the decline?


[edit on 12-12-2009 by ATS4dummies]

reply to post by ATS4dummies


Sorry ATS4Dummies, I don't know what I did wrong but I accidentally reposted my original post in the continuing post and had to go back and edit it to continue. Forgive my clumsiness, the remainder of that debate is now in there.

JPZ

Rather than create a new post to respond to your insipid rebuttal, I will use this post to respond. You are not making any sound arguments but merely assertions. You declare the change is bad but don't take the time to argue why, you declare making a profit is bad but can't take the time to argue why, and all you accomplish is to demonstrate through your own arguments that the internet is making people stupid because while I may sound like a baby boomer, you sound like an angry child who has never known a time without the internet. If you want to debate then do so, but declaring yourself the victor simply because you've declared everyone else wrong is not victory it is hubris. Must I define that word for you or might you use the internet to look it up and discover what hubris means?

[edit on 12-12-2009 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

[edit on 12-12-2009 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

Hey OP, what you said about the internet, I said almost EXACTLY the same thing last night. I remember spending late nights coding HTML by hand in Notepad, designing animated gifs a pixel at a time, simply for the love of doing it. The internet was a lot more interesting when it took some effort to be a part of it.

There is another point I think you should touch on, the freedom of the net. The internet was like a separate world where we all decided to allow each other the freedom to disseminate whatever information we see fit because we felt that information should be free and not a slave to political madness.

I'd have to say that the majority of websites these days, when not simply "social networking" sites are front pages, referral pages, niche marketing pitches, ad revenue generators, spyware and adware downloaders. At best you can find blogs that reference articles that are written on other blogs and referenced by yet more blogs.

At least there are still some places on the net, a few dark corners, where only those "in the know" show up. Maybe one day there will be the generic net and an elite net for those that use it for it's intended purpose, the dissemination and sharing of information. I can dream can't I?

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux



Oh Brother... Let's get back on track.

Innovation is declining, Society is declining as a result. The internet (which once spawed innovation) is now transformed into a giant money making machine and has lost a very valuable quality... which is ironically... quality.

There, the thread is back on topic.
What are the causes of this downward spiral of our culture and innovation?
How do we get the airplane nose pointed back to the upward sky?

C'mon folks, don't you ever think about these things? (When you're not "texting" your "Friendz" or "pimping" your myspace page?)

Seriously, I'd like to hear from you.

[edit on 12-12-2009 by ATS4dummies]

Originally posted by Shadowflux
There is another point I think you should touch on, the freedom of the net.

Good point ShadowFlux, and we have all heard about the corporate bandwidth providers lobbying to try and bribe our senators and congressmen to pass legislation to allow:

1) Corporate pop up ads more bandwidth
2) Videos of your band - less bandwidth.

i.e. net neutrality - because Money talks and BS (non commercial sites) walks.

It's Pathetic.

So yeagh, we have these giant corporations trying to bribe innovation out of existance in order to gain greater "market share".
How do we stop the grey slop, and prevent them from taking away tasty innovation in the convenient variety packs?


[edit on 12-12-2009 by ATS4dummies]

[edit on 12-12-2009 by ATS4dummies]

[edit on 12-12-2009 by ATS4dummies]

Originally posted by ATS4dummies
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

Oh Brother... Let's get back on track.

Innovation is declining, Society is declining as a result. The internet (which once spawed innovation) is now transformed into a giant money making machine and has lost a very valuable quality... which is ironically... quality.

There, the thread is back on topic.
What are the causes of this downward spiral of our culture and innovation?
How do we get the airplane nose pointed back to the upward sky?

C'mon folks, don't you ever think about these things? (When you're not "texting" your "Friendz" or "pimping" your myspace page?)

Seriously, I'd like to hear from you.

[edit on 12-12-2009 by ATS4dummies]

Now there's an intelligent rebuttal replete with the required emoticon any internet obsessed child would use. You are the one who demanded debate, I stood to your challenge and you have quite underwhelmingly failed to rise to your own challenge. Back on track? What is the track then, to denigrate others you don't know who most who haven't even read your silly and uniformed post and the few who actually took the time to engage you? Declaring other people stupid doesn't make you smart. Why are you asking others to come up with causes for a downward spiral you have failed to argue exists. Instead of hurling mindless and unoriginal insults at people why don't you actually step up and make some valid arguments as to why you think society is on a downward spiral?