I'm proud to be from a Working Class Home!

[XWynterXoXPriestessX]

true, the point IS extremely clear. But thats all people can do, is make points. Some people were born rich and spoiled and then there are others who must work for their things (i fall into the catergory), but i guess we all have to deal with it....

[Mycroft]

You know, as a child raised by television, I have to say that it's not really a big deal. All it did was encourage me to try and learn Italian. I started playing Counter Strike at 12-13 and yet I turn to mush if a dog wags its tail at me.
Sure kids these days are getting worse than my generation was, but that's evolution. After all, in life you need luck a bit more than anything, and if they have it, good for them. You don't even have to be smart to end up somewhere these days.
And family values can be installed even if the families are not around. How? The child wanting a normal family will grow up to be adults wanting to give their kids what they didn't have.

TV and video games can make a child grow just as well, because they have a flexible mind which can gather all sorts of information.
Ignorance, I should agree but not because of television or more.
People have had it easier and forgot to work for stuff. But that was just another phase of evolution...people stopped reading or thinking because with a click of a button they have all the information they need. And why should you put extra effort and spend extra time to gather and study something that you can get in 5 minutes? And don't think of the answer as someone who is revolted against ignorance, but as a busy individual who has to hurry to school/college/work or simply can't spend all day researching books.

No one can actually enjoy life as it is, because it's in their nature to want more. The first lesson I ever had in Business Studies was about the human nature to want more. If I get a modern television, I want a PC and so on and so forth. You have love, you want a carrier, you have a carrier, you want a family...

Whoever doesn't want things is either lying or disappointed in life and what it has to offer.

And yes, those girls on MTV are brats, but it's a shallow world. The poorest girl in the world would go and get her mother's top from when she was younger (since fashion is repetitive...) and say she bought it at Donna Karan or whatever... just to be 'fashionable'. Also ever thought that the show might not even be real, as 90% of them. If it has ratings it will be on air. Who watches it? I don't know, people like you who wants to make a point, people who have fun, or people who want to be like that.

Plato thought it essential that a strict threefold class division be maintained. In addition to the rulers, the Philosopher-kings, there were to be "Auxiliaries" (soldiers, police and civil servants) and the "Workers" (the rest of us)...bingo! ...the rest of us. If society wouldn't be a pyramid and we would all start anew with the same amount of money, houses etc in a matter of years, again there will surely be social class distinction.

Plato's theory is not practical, and he said it himself. Aristotle sees a perfect society as one in which there is no individual, only the state. Also, false. There is no perfect society. Not even a 'close to perfect'.

I'm pretty sure I rambled away by now, but 'elite' labeling is unfair from various points of view. Especially since those who work 12 hours a day, work, basically, so that they can afford more and more stuff. Rare are those who want to have a mediocre lifestyle.

[jcrowfoot]

As long as we continue to choose civilization over anarchy, we should be fine, civilization-wise. The face of our culture will change, of course, but you have to open the gates... choose war over peace, to loose our common bonds.
Somehow, I think the Internet will help our connections between people, and that is the glue with which civilization is held together.

So many people bemoan the isolation of our new technology, but frankly we can reach out as well.

[ThePaganMafia]

Technology really isn't a problem. I love technology BUT I think there are need for some limits.

[Revolpathon]

good idea, let's put a limit on technology.

you'll get a full blown uprising, i'm a truck driver and also a major computer freak, i love my gadget's and i buy them if i have the money for it. if my technology is limited i would go insane. like allot of other people here and elsewhere.

computers help children to grow up, recieve support, provide support, share expierence's on, play game's on, socialising(sp?) learning a language, learning basic and advanced schooling, etc. etc. etc.

technology is not bad in it's own right, it's how it's used.

technology is like magic.

magic doesn't consist of black and white,magic just is. it's how you use it that make's it either good or bad, and even then it's still debate able.

hard core shoot em up game's are good in and of itself. people can loose their aggression in it while they would otherwise react to other people and make them suffer for their state of mind.

and i can go on and on about what a computer can do to a child in raising it, most of my knowledge and skills come from the computer.

[nostrarevol mode]
and we are living in the 21st century, that means that in 50 years we are experementing with jacking in into a computer, in 70 yrs it will be deemed safe enough for the population, in a 150 yrs (perhaps allot sooner) we will use highly concentrated beams of light to move our vehicle's (or some other futuristic means of propulsion) we will also be able for interplanetary travel, we will have colonized the moon by then too.
[/nostrarevol mode]

all pretty predictions and all, but not unrealistic.

what you are suggesting by limiting technology use has the consequence (only 1 of many) delaying important technological breakthrough's. ie a good, economic, enviromental friendly, stable fuel source to use instead of methane or fossel fuel, or curing dangerous deciese's(sp?) etc. etc. etc.

i'm not done ranting, but i didn't want to rant for too long.

[jcrowfoot]

Technology really isn't a problem. I love technology BUT I think there are need for some limits.

you'll get a full blown uprising,

Depends on what you mean by limits, depends on what you mean by technology.

For example massive social pressure has effectively limited some forms of technology. I'm talking about nuclear reactors as well as stem cells and some biology research. Also, in the not too distant future, computer technology will reach boundaries enforced by physics and we'll have to find other cheats to make computer chips faster and memory more compact.

I suspect that by extending the biological sciences in certain directions (see ref: Nazi Germany) people will object strongly and that sort of thing will cease under social pressure... whether from local communities or global communities.

Whereas, governments might try to stuff the Internet genie back into the bottle, but they will find that making laws will have limited effect and in order to limit it in the ways that would please them they would have to get... drastic. Calling in real physical armies (or National Guard or Secret Police) kind of drastic. Or make punitive laws on internet service providers (France is already doing this) that aren't even possible to enforce.

These, however won't work, due to more localized pressure outlets, eg. the black market, or local authorities looking the other way....

[Revolpathon]

i agree with you.

even thoiugh some major medical advancement's were made by nazi germany through their experiment's on POW's and jews or other people.

.... nope can't think of anything more to say

[jcrowfoot]

I am aware. Some of the eye surgery technology, some psychiatric technology, etc. I'm not arguing that their research didn't advance us, I'm just saying that some biotech is always going to be unpopular.

For example, we now have a way to harvest stem cells without grinding up fetuses but no one seems interested in funding.... heck, a Catholic friend of mine pointed this out.

*I*'m interested in that research because Parkensons' disease runs in my family. My mother was just diagnosed... and yet the American government is sitting their 800 gorilla arse on it and not budging, despite more humane methods have been found and can easily be used.

EDIT:

And they are even cheaper! Bah!

[Sobek]

Any reason the government would care? Like they give a f*ck about the well being of their people. Only enough to keep them in the positive as far as their exaggerated pay cheques go. Why would anyone in that position want to fund something that could benefit people and NOT draw in a rediculously large prophit...I would think that why our entertaining gadgets as revol kindly pointed out, are very prominent in our world with new tech coming out basically right after something is released.

[jcrowfoot]

I have no idea. I think they are trying to appeal to a section of our country that cares very much, and are terrified of "playing God".



But even the Clinton Administration was very hesitant to get involved.

I think it's a convenient thing to "give up to the other side" to make deals to get OTHER laws passed. After all, who gets strokes and Parkensons? Old people, that's who. And who cares about old people?

[Makbawehuh]

You know, there's actually a book on this subject I'd like to bring up "Home Alone America". I forget the name of the author, I gave my mom the book.

I spent a little time working in a day care center (Long enough to know I hated it) and several years working in a bookstore... and what I found is that while yes, there are some people who care about their children and do everything they can to do what's best for their kids, it seems to me that the the majority of parents either care about all the right things, but can't provide what they feel they need to be providing, feel guilty, and spoil the shit out of their children, thus creating monsters OR follow that line of reasoning to "allow too much freedom and spoil their kids" OR worse, the parents are the children of the prior situation and have no clue how to provide a loving home or even how to love.. and so their children come out just as dysfunctional as their parents, if not worse. This is a multigenerational problem.

I could also work into my rant regarding people passing on their entitlement complexes to their children so that I should have to cater to their slightest, most unreasonable whim, and get to see this in two or three generations of family members who come to see me, but that probably belongs elsewhere.

So.. Yes.. There's a problem with parents not being around. And there's also the even bigger problem of people who should never be allowed to have children, having them and f*cking them up.

There's a third problem here, though, and it's one that I AM going to rant about.

Schools.

WHAT THE HELL.

Admittedly, I am a libertarian who comes from a family of hard working, financial conservatives. Read, "Old Style Republicans". "Democrat" is a bad word in the house and "Communist" is about on a level "Devil-worshipper". Actually, I think "Communist" might be worse, but that's also for another day.

(On an amusing note: If the phone rings in the middle of the day, it's likely that my stepdad heard something that some liberal did on the radio and wants to bitch about it... He spends -waaaaaaay- too much time alone between jobs... It makes me giggle though. )

ANYWAYS.

We send my sister to school and she comes home, having been told that rich people are evil and greedy, and that she needs to go get extra crayons because there are poor kids in the class who don't have any, and we, obviously, have the money to go get five boxes or so to provide the class.

First, we aren't rich. In a house of five, my stepdad and I work so that my Mom can stay home and take care of the kids. We get by. -Barely-.

Try explaining this to a nine-year-old who's been told that her parents are greedy bastards who just don't want to help? Can you explain the realities of life to this kid? Instill some of the values you believe in when their teachers have blindsided you on a subject you -never- expected to have to deal with till high school on that sort of level? How do you even begin to frame the idea that "Helping people with money and things isn't always good for you OR them" to a child without sounding like exactly what the teachers told them you are?

Frankly, schools have a lot more say in what your child believes than some people like to give them credit for. They spend hours every day there, learning as they've been told they should, because it's important that they know these things... Right? Few children ever question what's fed to them that young, and whoever gets the ideas in first is the person that's going to make the biggest impression, because they're the ones breaking the moral path.

Sorry... Ran into this thread right after I got told by my sister that, even though she doesn't understand how it can be so, I must be a bad person because I work hard and want to have my own business, so I can be rich someday, and her teacher said all rich people are greedy and greedy people are bad. *Busy seeing red* We had a long talk about rational self-interest, but the simple fact is, I don't know how to make a nine-year old understand it, especially when said nine-year old is a good kid who really just wants to help out.

This sort of thing has been going on, off and on, for the last couple years. It -really- pisses me off. They use her own good will against her -and- against us. ... [/rant]