Is the world due for a rebound towards the positive?

[24788]

The world seems to be going down the drain. Now I'm in the tech field and I'm very tech saavy, so this debate came up between the geeks. The world hasn't ever changed. It's the tech that has changed to allow the rest of the world to see how many negative things happen. I mean 20 years ago the only way to hear about something was by media (tv), calling someone, or writing a book, and etc. Nowadays It seems that anything negative can be found in less than 2 seconds without using those and TV, calling, and etc seem to be going there seperate ways.

We are in a world that is changing so dramatically currently since tech is rising the bar everyday on how we are fed are information. Some people enjoy going out and researching, but the media has gone everywhere you look. I mean Google can watch you from 10 feet away with their power when they are 500 miles away at least.

You can argue that we've gotten better if you throw in hitler and power hungry leaders, but that's irrelevant since those happen every couple hundred of years throughout history give or take when there's a break.

What do you guys think? Tech opening our eyes or hurting us? It's not the best written, but I hope some of you guys can understand what I'm saying.

The main arguement is how tech changes our response times from when something happens we find out about it faster and even in rarer places where you didn't know much about.

Don't bring politics into this please. I'm not a republican or democrat or third party. I believe in a whole different philosephy (spelling) then the rest of everyone. Bush might be considered a genius in the future (not saying that now, but sometimes things are taken differently in the future than at the current time).

 

[roronoa3000]

Does it even matter?
2012 is right around the corner anyway.

 

[24788]

Does it even matter?
2012 is right around the corner anyway.

There's been conspiracies since ancient times. I don't know what's going to happen in the future. I just think it's better to worry about now and face it when it comes since if something global does happen. Well it happens and there's really nothing I can do about it unless someone figures it out with very good evidence.

Another point is how does one civilization predict the future, but they can't seem to ever predict when they are going to end?

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

Goddamnit, I was gonna say what roronoa said. Well I think your asking is technology good or bad. I think It depends on whoever is using it. Most tech comes from either NASA or the military, entities pretty diverse from each other.

 

[24788]

Goddamnit, I was gonna say what roronoa said. Well I think your asking is technology good or bad. I think It depends on whoever is using it. Most tech comes from either NASA or the military, entities pretty diverse from each other.

Do you know who was traded to the wild for gaborik?

 

[pornophile]

Speaking of google, I read online once that google (or any search engine really) is affecting our ability to read and comprehend things better and quicker. There was a bunch of people saying how they used to read books for long periods at a time and they could concentrate easier on what they were reading. As opposed to now, where people skim through articles before jumping to another, and then another, etc. The point they were making was that even if technology allows us to get all this information with just a click of a button, it isn't making us smarter because we in turn got lazier, or perhaps desensitized to having so much info thrown at us at once.

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

Do you know who was traded to the wild for gaborik?

Can't remember.

 

[jod0565]

Just relax - stay true to yourself and your family - don't worry about anything you don't have control over.

 

[roronoa3000]

Just relax - stay true to yourself and your family - don't worry about anything you don't have control over.

Thanks Dr. Phil.

 

[GregCentauro]

The only thing that could constitute a change for the better in this rotten old shit world was if Tiny Tyler agreed to be my sex slave. I estimate the probabaility is smaller than zero percent.

 

[meesterperfect]

A whiter man than myself once said, "When the world is running down you make the best of what's still around, whoa-oh".
Its true i believe.
But then again that same man once said " De do do do, de da da da
Is all I want to say to you".

so now I'm all confused like a canary in a coal mine.

 

[STDiva]

Do you know who was traded to the wild for gaborik?

Can't remember.

Gaborik signed in New York as a free agent.

And tech is good. End of story. It only allows us to view the negative shit if we look for it. Without technology, we'd still go out of our way to find some sad, revolting story to make us feel better about our shitty lives.

 

[grower_boy]

I think that the way technology has evolved is rather scary in some ways. To think that when I was born, (almost) nobody had PCs, the internet and cell phones (as we know them) did not exist and that people were still using cassette tapes is a strange thought. As much as this technology helps us, it damages the world as well. We now have "cyberterrorism" and things like that.

 

[PirateKing]

Fear of technology is so 1999...

Just go with the flow.

 

[turtle825]

No fate but what we make.

 

[EwaSonnetIsGod]

Rebound from what? The birds are chirping, its a beautiful day, great weather, were all alive and this site is still up. Dont listen to the news for a few weeks and life suddenly gets so much better.

 

[Ulysses31]

It's not to do with technology but a general trend of people increasingly hating one another. People hate foreigners and even their own countymen/women for sometimes no reason or what they read in a paper or see on the news. I sometmes think people were friendlier 500 years ago when people travelled and found other cultures and traded with them for the first time, now people attack and kill others just because of their colour, or they are drunk or to steal an ipod. One influence tech has is that people often get all their info from the internet (not just news but shopping, banking, forums etc) and they are increasingly lacking in human interaction, this makes it easier to hate and despise people you have never really met. The western world has never had it so good (technology, education, medicines, money, peace) yet people are more unhappy than ever. An increasingly materialistic world means you will never be able to afford what you THINK you need to make it in life, if you dare try leading a simplier unmaterialistic life you get branded as a loser or a hippy by people as they can't fathom alternative views on what life is about. Back to the original question tech is only a sympton of a problem which is now deep rooted in the human psyche.

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

Gaborik signed in New York as a free agent.

And tech is good. End of story. It only allows us to view the negative shit if we look for it. Without technology, we'd still go out of our way to find some sad, revolting story to make us feel better about our shitty lives.

That's why I couldn't remember.

 

[glock27]

This is a pretty good question/topic. I think the main problem is that society has been conditioned by media and entertainment to focus on the negative in life, whether it is in the news, tabloids, editorials, etc. Negativity has increasingly become the corrective lense through which we all view the world around us.

Can you imagine if the world that faced the Great Depression and World War II had to deal with half of the negativity we all deal with now? We'd all either be speaking German or Japanese, depending on what part of the country you live in.

I agree that this general negative "zeitgeist" (sit down, conspiracy theorists) is part of the reason why the world is so shitty today, but I don't see how we are going to get rid of it.

 

[BlueBalls]

You seem to be focussing solely on the media side of technology. But lets be clear about that, negativity is news. It always has been and always will be there's no way that's ever going to change because that's what interests people. What we have to admit to ourselves is that we enjoy this kind of media, we enjoy being brought the latest pictures or video from whatever nation is now under siege. Why else do you think the news, news websites and to a lesser extent newspapers are still big business.

What we're failing to discuss is the medical, ecological and industrial advantages modern technological advancement has brought us. Of course it's easy to focus on the media because that's what it wants you to do. But technology in media is really less than one percentage point in which new technology goes towards. What we've got to ask ourselves is, would we be the society we are now without these technological advancements? I don't think we would, we all live longer than any other generation that came before us, and although we're still killing our ecosystem at an ever increasing rate society now for the most part accepts this as a major problem and new technological advancement is being researched and built all the time in an attempt to correct that problem. Now of course, while we're still dependant on the same power supply we have been for centuries. But limited resources and recent news worthy events (Gulf of Mexico) have brought to the public's attention the finite nature of both our ecosystem and our need for fossil fuels which can only be a good thing. Raising awareness is what media should be doing.

But getting back to media, as this seems to be the actual subject of the thread; technology in the media no matter how much it can be a detriment to the story itself, with it's lack of detail and maybe from time to time a certain political slant put upon it by the powers that be, is now is at the peak of its importance. News, no matter how negative it may be must be gotten out to the wider populace, this is the only way for anything to be done about it. Going back to the old days for instance how long would it take for the news of a war or a natural disaster to reach our shores if it was half way around the world? Today, aid etc can be sent in a matter of hours. So no matter how bad modern technology may be on the level of how much detail and well thought out fact it allows you as the viewer to gain through it, its speed and availability to a wider audience can only be a good thing.

(Well now isn't that a whole lot of rambly nonsense)