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COMMENTS:
Voted : Things are worse today than ever
50 years ago, we had fathers going to work and mothers staying home. now mothers and fathers are both working, and still they can't make ends meet. We used to take holidays overseas, now they come and take holidays here.
rich got richer, rest got poorer.
watch out, revolution may be coming soon :)
by LCD on Sat Nov 07, 09 8:05pm
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I've found that the level of gloom and doom is directly related to who you allow to feel your head with ideas, try to find out things without all this she said/he said and better... in the grand scheme of things there are many opinions out there that simply don't coount... not to mention facts out of context...
I agree with Soothsayer. Historians and Sociologists seem to be saying that things are not worse today than ever. In fact, on many levels, they're better than ever. They cite advances in medicine, communications, living standards, etc., etc. If you really do some research... I mean serious research and learning, what you discover is that for centuries, people have been predicting that their time was the end time. As far back as the 1800's, people hid in caves, expecting the end. They certainly didn't have nuclear weapons or any kind of WMD's then.
I believe it is the personal pysche that matters. Some people are just hard-wired to expect the worst and seemingly take comfort in that.
LCD, the poor have actually not gotten poorer. Statistically in fact, more people are emerging from poverty.
"We used to take holiday's overseas and now they take holiday's here." Are you sure about that? :) And actually, doesn't that statement just support the reality that more people are moving from poverty to more upwardly mobile lives?
The west has a problem on it's hands: it created the emerging economies and now that they're emerging, all of a sudden, SOME in the west are saying "that's it... we've lost...." It's absurd! The whole notion behind globalization was to help emerging economies become more self-sufficient and now that they are, SOME people are freaked out. But it's like comparing apples to oranges. So what if more people take holiday's here... what does that have to do with anything? Nothing. So are you saying that you'd rather keep the little guy down? That you'd rather keep the poor opressed and...poor? That's what it sounds like. :)
Voted : Things are as bad now as then, we just notice it more
I grew up listening to my grandparents tell stories about how it was when they grew up. We've got it damn good compared to back then. Things were even pretty bad off at times in my parent's time.
If they lost a job and couldn't buy food, there was no food stamps or welfare to fall back on. You either walked to the soup line, beg or borrowed, or cook up what you could find. Both of my parents grew up knowing how to cook poke salet, rabbits, and 'possums for that reason.
As for married couple working and still not making ends meet, that happened back then too with just the fathers working. It also happened with both parents working, just like today. Both of my grandparents worked when they were raising kids, as did many families. It was actually the norm then if you wanted to be able to live and save up anything at the same time.
The current information age has a lot to do with the spread of the doom and gloom. With the spread of the internet comes the spread of news that isn't always found on your 5 o'clock broadcast. People are more aware. And, like you said, patch, there are also those who get a kick out of spreading it. And twisting it. They put themselves on a pedestal every time they preach out this conspiracy or that prediction. I know quite a few of the "your a sheep, I'm not" conspiracy types and it's a nice ego trip for them.
I Am Quoll, Larvatus Prodeo
I might focus on gloom and doom on this site I think people should be aware of the worst events happening, not bury head in the sand and pretend its not happening, maybe that will help change and imo this is a great advantage the information age has given us.
In the 50's and prior decades I wonder how much time was spent in the media on segregation in the southern states, I'm guessing not a whole lot, bad things need to be in people's faces constantly until change is made for the better.
In my everyday life as I'm sure is same with others that post not so sunny stories, we are not dwelling on gloom when off the internet, we live our lives and are mostly content.
From the time I paid attention to world events the internet is all I knew, I also think its good that we know more of the facts and not just the few minutes of coverage on the evening news.
I've always said the good old days were not so good, I made a ballot about it few years ago.
I find some people do like to predict doom and gloom but also some people just want to say what they feel is wrong in the world .
^ I'm not saying you are asking people to bury head in sand and ignore, but I think too many people do that, oh well nothing I can do about it mentality
"LCD, the poor have actually not gotten poorer."
you might want to ask some poor people...
by LCD on Sun Nov 08, 09 7:09am
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I don't really need to ask some people. I mean, come on, look at China.. they're all rich now... didn't you know? :) Poverty rates are dropping and that is a fact. Is the fact that in some poor countries populations are increasing too rapidly? Yes. The correlation there is pretty obvious.
I don't think this is a case of people burying their head in the sand. I think it's more a case of people not just seeking out the negative, but actually latching onto it and letting it engulf them.
It seems pretty obvious to me that there are some people who not only gravitate to the negative, but also spread it around. I guess that's the "misery loves company" thing?
I just don't feel we live in a world of absolutes. Not everything is great and perfect, but conversely, not everything is dark and sinister. There is good and bad in everything. Water is good for you...drink too much, and it could literally kill you. Funny enough, I watched a news segment on this very subject and I was freaked out...here was this guy warning about the dangers of drinking too much water! And that is just ONE example.
I prefer to approach an issue with the mind-set of understanding as much as I can about it and going in with an open mind. My feeling is that I'm most likely going to encounter some negative and some positive about the issue. The key though is which I will latch onto...the negative or the positive.
I don't think anyone who spends any time on the net or watching TV can deny that it seems that some people prefer to focus only on the negative and to spread that around.
Voted : Things are not as bad now as then, we just notice it more
if we should stop watching the news, we will all be better off
by ABC on Sun Nov 08, 09 7:49am
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I actually did that for about a week ABC. I didn't watch the news, read a newspaper or visit any news sites on the web. It was hard...believe me. But I felt much less stressed that week. It was really great.
Ultimately, I think we need to be fully aware of what is going on and I think we need to be involved and open to the fact that life happens, but how you react to these events and how you deal with them and share them with others, I think is key.
^if those people feel something is wrong and focus on neg to encourage change,I support that, if they are doing only because they want company as in misery loves, I don't.
If something is good, not really necessary to focus because change not needed.
This amount of people taken out of poverty, thats great, but others are still living in poverty, not so great, which should we focus our attention on?
^^^
the biggest problem with the media is the amount of fear they promote
by ABC on Sun Nov 08, 09 8:07am
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Voted : Things are as bad now as then, we just notice it more
Homer used imagery from the Bronze Age, which was a golden age from the past when the Iliad was written. People forget how many problems there were in the past (disease, slavery and so on).
Larry, I think you may be missing my point and approaching this from a purely personal level. I'm talking about fear mongering. I'm talking about things in the broader scheme (love that expression).
The ills of the world are not new. Each generation has had them and in reality, they're still the same. But haven't some things gotten better? Of course they have. Great headway has been made on many levels. But if you take a step back and not think of this from a personal perspective alone, the reality is that now, rhetoric and fear generate ratings and clicks. Air or post a story about some imepending doom and you're going to get people glued to the TV or clicking on that article... no matter how blown out of proportion it is.
You mention poverty. Poverty, hunger, all of that has been with us since the begining of time. It doesn't mean we ignore it or just go about our daily lives not caring about it. But like I wrote in my ballot, now the ability to spread fear and gloom instantly is at all of our fingertips and there are SOME people who revel in it...who love to prophecize disaster at every turn and who love to create a sense of fear through what are often baseless dire predictions.
Who is saying change is not needed? I'm certainly not. But to say if things are good no need to focus on it because change is not needed, is in a sense, part of the problem I see. How can you/we all live life without talking about and spreading the good? If things are so bad and every situation we fact so dire, then life really isn't..........
So for me, when I hear or read about some "story" that just seems a bit off, I investigate it and 9.5 times out of 10, what you discover is that the truth of the issue is gone, because people latched onto a simple story and then twisted it, added to it, took away from it, attributed false quotes to it and created this sinister, dark, forboding thing that is just not true or remotely accurate.
So my question is: what type of person does that and, what type of person reads it/hears it and glams onto it, sucking in every negative word and getting caught up in this dark hole of doom and gloom?
the level of ambivalence you are culturing concerns me.
when you start brushing things with the broad strokes, when does it end? Nazis were just doing their jobs, it was just war and killing jews were just the way it was. Kosovo and Rwanda were just a bad hair day or two.
When you don't stop to see when something affects our brothers and sisters on this planet on a daily basis in their essential individual lives, we all lose something in the end.
in my travels recently, I have seen people struggling daily. almost panicked because they cannot bring home enough pesos to feed, house and tend to their young. it concerns me that those who are stuggling are growing in numbers, while those who are indifferent (or worse yet find that a source of comedy) are growing.
by LCD on Sun Nov 08, 09 3:50pm
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Well clearly you are not at all getting my point. There is NO ambivalence and YOU should know me better by now.
Why take this personally? This is not about you, nor about anyone on this site.
The fact is, and I don't know how much more clear I can be about it, is there is a degree of negativity that seems to have gripped the world. I didn't make this about hunger or poverty... you did. :) Sorry, but I never mentioned any of that in my ballot, nor in my comments until you raised that point and then subsequently Larry. I didn't detract from my ballot point... you did.
So let me know how many more times I have to make my point because either I didn't make it clear enough, or, some are just not getting it. Though, ABC and Skylab certainly got it, so I think I was pretty clear.
You're talking about the suffering of people... I am not. I am talking about a certain type of person that gravitates to the negative... I NEVER said that was related to poverty or hunger... did I? No, what I said was that if you look back through history, there has always been some event or a series of events that have been terrible in nature... I clearly named just a few above. In those days however, rapid and instant communication was obviously not as pervasive as it is today. Today, if you step back from your own personal mind-set and really look at TV or read the web, what you see is a constant barrage of negativity and it has become almost hysteria. The world is ending. Destruction is at hand. Don't have hope because hope is for the foolish. Throw in the towel because everything is dark, dire and gloom... YOUR DOOM IS AT HAND LCD! Didn't you know that? :)
So let's be clear here... I did not introduce anything about poverty or hunger, you did.
Now, as to your ambivalence comment, let me inform you of something. I volunteer for City Harvest, as well as for a literacy program. I contribute my time to helping the less fortunate in a way that is needed... by human hands! So what you claim to be ambivalence, LCD, is actually what is needed: an honest, rationale assessment of the situation.
Would it be better if I did what so many do and sit around, gnashing my teeth and wallowing in negativity, screaming out "Why, why oh why must man suffer so!?!??" The fact is, people suffer. If you can help, then you do.
Let's say I walked in to City Harvest and instead of helping, I cried and yelled and walked around "oh, woe is the world... such injustice! Look at all these hungry people! Oh you poor unclean man! Look at you dirty and hungry... oh, why, why, why must you suffer this way poor man?" Or is it better to realize that this woe has been with us since time began and you can either do something about it, or selfishly make it about yourself and profess your sadness at the situation, yet do nothing. I prefer to do something.
So yes, your comment is rude and it had angered me, but mostly because I never introduced this perspective into the ballot. My ballot was simply that rather than get caught up in the gloom and doom and spread around, I prefer to look at the glass and see it as half full and I prefer to close out the Cassandra's who aren't helping anyone. What type of person focuses solely on the negative? That's the question.
Maybe you should read the ballot again.
On the same note, I'd like for you to please pull out of my comments the ones that were "ambivelant." I'm just curious to see which of my words you decided to brand as such.
So let's be clear here... I did not introduce anything about poverty or hunger, you did.
I don't think I said you did.
Limiting my answer to the ballot question only
Yes, that always happened and information age making more people aware of it.
"Why take this personally? This is not about you, nor about anyone on this site."
well no, actually it's about me, and probably a lot of people on the site too.
we all struggle, including you patch, if not yet, sometimes in your life. if not financial, in other ways. I try to sympathise, because I know I've been there too.
by LCD on Sun Nov 08, 09 10:53pm
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Letting go of the doom and gloom works if you want to put your head in the sand and pretend that everything is just fine. Not saying that everyone is walking around depressed, but like Grumpy_Person said, "People are more aware" because of the current information age.
"Today, if you step back from your own personal mind-set and really look at TV or read the web, what you see is a constant barrage of negativity and it has become almost hysteria." by patch22us
I don't see it as hysteria or a barrage of negativity. I see it as being informed.
Although it wasn't mentioned in your ballot description, but has been brought up, people are not emerging from poverty as we speak. Maybe in China, but not here at home with the great loss of jobs we've seen this year. You may be living at a very comfortable income level to where this recession doesn't affect you in the least, but that's not the case for everyone. I was doing okay when this recession first hit, but it's caught up with me and I'm struggling to the point of having to work a second job for the time being. There are many more people out there just like me who have been affected by our bad economy. Now you add that in to the current problems going on in the world or in my own city or personal life, and I'm not exactly in the best mood lately, but I would never go as far as calling it doom and gloom. It's just a temporary glitch.
I think people always spoke of negative happenings, just as people have more ways to express negative events around the globe; more people are able to read such events.
Past generations used editorials or at meetings, whatever means people had to express their thoughts to others, some may have called it gloom and doom some as just facing reality of how cruel life can be at times, the latter is what I think I do, but I don’t dwell on it in my everyday life, who has time to do that?
when bad things are happening to someone or those they care about, it’s kind of hard to have happy thoughts and the recession has caused many people to have bad things happen to them.
I’m sorry for screwing up your ballot but really was not able to answer your question in the way you wanted; I don’t know how to do that.
Larry, you didn't screw up my ballot and it's not a case of answering the way I wanted. But here again we see a comment "your head in the sand."
Who says that the news you are getting is accurate Runswithscissors?
First of all, this is a topic that was covered by an expert, and if you research it online, you'll see it's a very debated topic. I've looked into this in great depth. ABC and Skylab saw my point.
You say that it is being well informed. Fine. But where are you getting your news?
Here's an example I just cited in another ballot. Recently, a story swept the web that the U.S. Supreme court was going to hear a case about President Obama supposedly not being eligible to be President due to where he was born. The "article" was made to look like it was from the Associate Press and it cited sources, even claiming that the story was carried in major European newspapers, but not here in the United States. Long story short, it was totally fabricated...not one word of it was true. Regardless, people glammed on to that story and spread it around the net and people believed it, without even checking it out. Once exposed, one of the indicators that it was a fraud was to google it. All you got in the results was hundreds of thousands of hits of it being on blogs.
That by the way is just one example and there are others.
This has nothing to do with happy thoughts. It has everything to do with people being duped(sp?) and people out there who intentionally lie and spread false stories, which always happen to be negative and about doom and gloom. Sorry, but I have a very real problem with that because it only adds to the stress levels people are having.
Sorry you're having a tough time Runswithscissors. It is very tough out there, I know. For me, I just can't understand how some people will add to that my intentionally causing trouble and mis-leading people. How can that be good?
I know. For me, I just can't understand how some people will add to that my intentionally causing trouble and mis-leading people. How can that be good?
by patch22us on Mon Nov 09, 09 7:56am
I don't see that in your ballot description, if you had said how do you feel about people lying about events or adding to stories not true, of course I would say that is wrong.
What I got from your ballot description was this
I wanted to find out if today was any worse than yesterday. I discovered that in fact, throughout the ages, there has always been, at one time or another, this feeling that doom was at hand...that the ends times were near and the final days were upon man. patch
My answer to that depends on who you are and where you are living.
Okay, I needed to read something again to make sure I was correct.
This example is not at all meant to be a direct corrlelation, but it suits a purpose.
During WWII, there was a person known as Tokyo Rose. She would get on the radio and the Japanese would broadcast her telling the Allies how bad they were, how they were going to lose, etc. She even managed to use individual soldiers names, which really freaked out the Allies. The sole purpose was to destroy morale and to break the spirit of the Allies. Much of what she said of course, was a lie. But the common theme was negativity and dire warnings, etc.
I know it's not exactly similar to my point, but it has some bearing. I hope. :)
Right Larry, I see that it isn't in my ballot description per se.
But I am still confident in my stance: in many ways, things are better today than they were yesterday. Are they perfect? Of course not...there's still tremendous work to do. But the idea of spreading negativity is still true, whether that be based on a lie, a half-truth or even if it is the whole truth.
My position is unchanged and that is, considering what type of person spreads only negativity and what type of people gravitate to that bad news and cling to it, spreading it more and creating an atmosphere of doom and gloom.
This is NOT my opinion by the way. You can easily do some research on this because it is a psychological type. Namely, people who dismiss good news and revert back to only wanting to hear about and talk about the bad news. Why some people like to spread that around, I don't know.
But I can assure you, there is good news out there and I for one as am interested in hearing about it as I am in hearing about the bad things in the world too.
There's a reason why the phrase "celebrate our wins" exists. :)
I can agree self proclaimed prophets making false prophecies is always a bad thing. But don't you think that people have reason to be more anxious today than maybe ten years ago, or even twenty, we are fighting two wars and according to our President just coming out of the the worst economic and Financial Crisis since the great depression, people who never vist a blog or news site know that, or am I focusing on the neg again? :)
"Who says that the news you are getting is accurate Runswithscissors?" by patch22us
I get my news from a variety of sources. Some from TV, some of it from the newspaper, and some of it from news sources online. I know that not all news sources are credible, which is why it's great to have multiple sources for the news.
"President Obama supposedly not being eligible to be President due to where he was born"
Even though I don't like Obama, I do know that's not news, that's a story making it's rounds. Of course I make ballots about such things. Sometimes these conspiracy theories are fun to run with and bring about interesting debate. Don't forget, I don't necessarily agree with all the ballot questions I ask, I'm just here to make ballots.
I tend to check multiple news sites as well, but generally more so if it's a news story that interests me or just doesn't add up. Part of the lesson is to try and identify true news stories vs. those that are either patently false or have been altered, thus distorting the truth.
Example:
Story A:
"A Billings Montana man was arrested yesterday on charges that he killed his boss, John Tuffluck. The suspect has been identified by Billings Police as Tom Nutter.
Witnesses say that Tom B. Nutter was angry at being laid-off and entered Mr. Tuffluck's office, shooting him 5 times....... "
Experts say this kind of workplace violence has doubled since last year. Dr. Susan Knowitall from the Rambling Institute says stress over the economy had led to a 100% increase of this kind of workplace violence compared with last year."
Story B:
"A Billings Montana man was arrested yesterday on charges that he killed his boss, John Tuffluck. The suspect has been identified by Billings Police as Tom Nutter.
Witnesses say that Tom B. Nutter was angry at being laid-off and entered Mr. Tuffluck's office, shooting him 5 times....... "
Experts say this kind of workplace violence has doubled since last year. Dr. Susan Knowitall from the Rambling Institute says stress over the economy is most likely the underlying cause, but said that there have only been two such instances this year, vs. one confirmed case last year. Dr. Knowitall said that while any such tragedy is significant and is a statistical 100% increase over the year prior, she stated that three instances in two years is not the sign of a significant trend. Dr. Knowitall also said that in one of the cases, the man's job was secure, but he was known to have underlying mental health issues........
^ Okay, so before anyone screams at me, I just obviously made that up (and you can see I don't have a future in journalism. :)
But Story A, while accurate, leaves out a key issue. Why? Someone will inevitable read story A and then take to their blog and before you know it, by the end of the week, someone will be saying "oh my gosh! hundreds of bosses are being murdered because people are so......"
With story B, however, they give the full details and give Dr. Knowitall's full quote, which makes distorting the news more difficult.
I don't know... just trying to make my point more clear since this topic is ambiguous by nature.
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