I doubt that humanity is any worse or more 'corrupted', or indeed, that there is less innocence in us any more so than any other period of history. They were humans back then, we're still humans now. We've not suddenly got worse, we were always pretty shitty to begin with.
Only thing that's changed is that we have far more ways of finding out a person's misdeeds that would highlight said lack of 'innocence' nowadays - what with the internet, all-invading mass media and what not.
Last edited by stuartj1992; 2013-04-21 at 07:40 AM.
I agree to an extent, but I disagree with blaming it entirely on the internet.
It feels like there's been a steady decline in morals going on for a while now (the fact that there are things like Jerry Springer / Jeremy Kyle show that live and prosper from people being generally, terrible examples of a human being etc).
How many have died from the war on terror/drugs and the boston bombing? Now compare that to the casualties of FUCKING WORLD WAR TWO. That would have been humanities future without nukes. Progressively larger massive conventional conflicts resulting in the deaths of tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of humans. The MAD principle (mutually assured destruction) is the only thing that kept the cold war from becoming a hot one. Kept Russia from trying to overrun western Europe, and forcing us to send in millions of soldiers to help NATO. Right now its the only thing keeping India and Pakistan from having a continuous bloody ground war. Nukes keep the peace between world powers.
And don't give me that sandyhook tripe. The worste school attack in American history actually happened way back in the 20's. A guy blew up a school and killed over 30 people with dynamite because he lost a county election.
Looking up a real beheading video isn't cruel in the least, regardless of the age. It's curious, ignorant, and frankly historically standard. Humanity's always been intrigued by death and violence. If this is your biggest complaint, be glad these kids are looking at a recording rather than going out with weapons of their own.
We're not less innocent. We're less ignorant. Ignorance does humanity as a whole a huge disservice. Fewer people are forced to suffer for natural curiosity. Which isn't to say it's all roses and rainbows - we can now exact more extreme suffering at further length due to a greater understanding of the human mind and body... but far fewer are exposed to those consequences.
Really dude? You realize they used to hang and burn people for witch craft by the thousand right? That Europe didn' have a sing year of peace for over a thousand years right? That every once in a while China's government would enter a crises and 30,000,000 people would die right? Fuck man. Read a history book.
Actually in France it was the popular social spectacle well into the 30's when the government banned it. Same thing America. People would take the family out to have a picinic while watching the Sunday hangings. People have always loved blood. Today its UFC. Yesterday it was public executions and gladiators.
Please inform us how it's worse today? Anything to actually back that up instead of just simply saying no to everyone here? The world is a much better place to live in now compared to even 100 years ago, humans where much more brutal before when we had slaves etc. Also look at our average life compared to the average life a few hundred years ago. Granted there will always be violence and it's part of the human condition. Here's a link on life expectancy.
Also in many ways innocence is a way of being ignorant and blind to the world we live in, yes I could look up a violent video, but most people don't do that. Also some people stumble upon those videos and for all you know it could be their motivation to become a cop, firefighter etc. to help people. Just remember there's a lot more good in this world then bad or else we wouldn't exist. Take the Boston bombings, two men committed the acts while thousands helped out the injured etc. and helped seek out the criminals. The good is more prevalent in the world then the bad, it's just the media focuses on the bad as it gets more views and is some to spark a debate etc.
I wouldn't claim we've become less pure... rather desensitized.
We live in a society where hypersexualisation is the norm, and everything ranging from drugs, to illegal content is just a hands breadth away.
So... it's more beneficial i feel, we've adapted - changed our morals, and expunged those who'd of not been found out for there deviant behavior in the past.
Have we lost certain standards that we previously claimed? Yes, but society standing by morals in the past - is a society where stagnation and corruption will rule...
This question is ridiculous. If the internet didn't exist and you couldn't look up those violent videos, would the world somehow be more innocent? You see more violence on the internet now because it's the fucking internet. You can see each and every individual case of violence that someone posts online. You couldn't do that before the internet, but that didn't mean that those cases of violence didn't happen.
Statistically? In the US, violent crime has been down in recent years. Hell, number of murders has been down over all as well. This year has been a bit of an exception though, with some of the crazy shit that's gone on.
The world is smaller now than it ever has been. The average human being is more aware of what's going on in the world than they ever have been. Do these things reduce innocence? If so, does that mean that they are bad?
A better question: Of what use is innocence?
This is ignorant in the extreme. If anything, the world is a far better place than it is ever been. Medical advances, vast increases in tolerance, human rights and more have made today's world a far better place to live in than it used to be.
Doesn't mean it's still not in a bad shape. But it's in a considerably better way than it once was.
(Oh and before you go all "what tolerance? racism and x-ism and y-ism everywhere!", yes, they're still there and will likely never go away completely. But they are considerably less than they used to be. Can't really argue with that when you look at what terrible shit used to go on.)
The world has always been this way, it's just that now a days their is a far larger media coverage. So it seems like a lot of bad stuff is happening in the world when its just business as usual.
The population of the world is far higher than it was 100 yrs ago. I would argue the crime rate is much higher now than it was back then, cartels and drug wars around the planet account for a lot of deaths, torture, rape, and killings run rampant in our societies it's just not reported that much. And this is all because morals have slid down hill and the world is a more corrupt place to live in. Just because we live longer does not mean we live more enjoyable lives, and just because life is easier now does not mean it is better.
Personally, I would take a harder life with a lower life expectancy, yet with less crime and higher moral standards any day.
---------- Post added 2013-04-21 at 01:00 AM ----------
I think most people would rather believe in the convenient lie that we are the same today as we were in the past because they don't want to accept the hard reality that that there is less morals, purity, and innocence in the world today and it is their fault. It is too much for people to take, and lets face it almost everyone doesn't like to place blame on themselves.
How many real beheadings do US kids get to see in the town squares these days? How many real hangings? US citizens are so, so protected from what is simple reality in other parts of the world. It seems odd that you're not separating the generically "safer" places from the generically "at risk" places to me.
People who have the luxury to be idle and curious about things they know exist but have no way of experiencing personally will want to satisfy their curiosity. That doesn't put them anywhere near the level of the people who commit them - unless they're out their beheading or hanging people just to make sure the recordings they viewed were accurate, and then repeating because if you're interested in testing it out once, you'd probably be interested in getting a better look at all of the variations too.
Yes, the human population has grown a great deal. Rather than go on at length disagreeing with one another (over the way you and I seem to be looking at this from completely different angles), I guess I'm more interested in seeing what the statistics are about the various kinds of violence humanity's been up to. Today, 10 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago. What % of US crimes have been punished with executions? In a nation going through a revolution or uprising, what % of the populations die in attacks (civilian casualties vs rebel/military casualties)? What % of the US population is suffering with or dying due to diseases today, what % of our population 100, 200 years ago? What % of the total human population is dying due to starvation?
Are the %s going up? Are they going down? are they remaining the same? If the number is going up due to the population increasing, but remaining similar in terms of %, at least to me that doesn't seem like any change at all.
More people, more suffering by total numbers, sure. But that sort of argument just sounds ... unwilling to seek a larger, more complete picture.
humans are humans.
there will always be the same amount of corruption, because we are humans.
While yes due to the population increase crime is a bit higher in a way, but it's also hard to compare deaths etc. from even 100 years ago as they were not well documented. Honestly I've only seen one fight in my life in person where someone was hospitalized. Yes violence exists but it's not as bad as it used to be where 10's of thousands of people where killed and millions where forced to be slaves. Also morals are subjective, and deaths, rapes, torture, and so on are much more reported then anytime in history, you just need to remember its part of the human condition. There will always be some violence but our world is a great place to be alive in right now, its like yin and yang, the good outweighs the bad by a lot but both must coexist as it is part of the human condition. I don't know why you would rather live to maybe be 35-40 and live in a world where people where dictated in to a social class and had to follow whatever their leader told them to, where women where treated like shit and raped, and any minority was forced to be a slave. Moral standards where complete shit 100+ years ago, a lot worse then today.