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When did the ability to take care of yourself perish?

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Originally posted by: SMOGZINN
Originally posted by: sandorski
Originally posted by: MagnusTheBrewer
Actually, the inability of current folks to take care of themselves is a fairly recent occurrence. I can date it to the day we became dependent on technology that cannot be easily recreated with common knowledge and hand tools. We are dependent upon so many things that take highly complex manufacturing and composites to function.

People tend to think of oil in terms of automobiles and transportation but, the reality is our society could not function without oil for plastics and composites even if every person in America drove an electric car powered entirely by the sun.

I have a great respect for technology but, few grasp how tenuous our hold on what passes for modern society is. A 6 month stoppage in oil would put us back to the stone age with more dead than all the victims of all the wars, plagues and famines combined.

You bring up a very good point. This is basically why "Peak Oil" and other potential disruptions to our Supply(of all sorts of necessities) are such big concerns. Our existance, as we know it, is rather precarious and we serve ourselves well by realizing it and changing things that clearly are reaching their limit of effectiveness.

I'm afraid that instead of meeting these challenges, we have been not only trying to ignore them, but actively trying to silence those who foresee the problems. To use Religious phrasing, we need to Repent from our ways for the longer we continue on this path, the closer the Day of Judgement nears. It won't be Zombies, Aliens, or Divine Intervention, it will just be us running out or losing something that holds all else in place.

This is something I've long thought about. Look what happened in New Oreleans after Katrina. That was just an isolated city that had help coming. What would happen if something actually shuts down the power grid for the nation for a few weeks?
I think our entire society would fall apart. I'm afraid that chaos would rule and millions would die.
Technology should make our jobs easier, not replace our ability to do it altogether.

The way I see it, it comes down to basically 2 things: Complexity of our Technological Society and Time. The Complexity requires specialization amongst Individuals which results in a type of isolation of skills, but those Individuals still have the same amount of Time that Individuals had when we chased animals with sticks. So, in order for specialization to work we need to let go of certain "Basic" skills, simply because there's no Time to use those skills. The more advanced our society(ies) become, the more we need to rely on others.

If you live in a City, just look at what's available around you. You need to Eat, no problem, there are hundreds/thousands of places you can go where Food is available. Need Laundry done, no problem there are plenty of places that will do that. The list goes on and on. Of course there is a limitation to all of this, that being Money available to the Individual. Even for those who can't afford Restaurants, there are Microwaveable Foods for Time savings.

I'm sure I'm failing to communicate the thought as this subject could take a Book(and I'm sure many books have already been written about it)to examine it, but basically Our great enemy is not really Ignorance concerning this threads subject. Our great enemy is Time.
 
Originally posted by: vi edit
Originally posted by: Xavier434
I think a lot of it revolves around time and expectations with careers. These days, it is expected in most cases that your home bring in a dual income.

All of these things add up to a lot more time concentrating on other parts of one's life that do not have much to do with teaching your children at home. Over enough time and generations, skills are lost to the point where proper teaching becomes less effective due to lack of being taught by your own parents.

Things like this were a lot better and easier when you had one person working and one staying home to take care of the kids.

I think more than any technology or modern convenience, it was the dual income household that forever changed our lives.

If you really want to dig deep, you can even take that a step further. Recognizing that the requirement of dual income resulted in such a drastic change over time begs the question of why a dual income became less of a desire and more of a necessity. Let's take a look at history for a moment and apply that history to how businesses operate.

Let's go back to the days where dual income was not normal. These were the days that women usually were the nurturers that stayed home and the men went to work. The businesses and their prices reflected that fact. They knew that the average household only made so much money as a result of their single income so they priced their goods and services that way. Since that pricing occurred universally, it also meant that the expenses of said business were also reduced making profit margins similar to what they are today with dual income.

Then came all of the Women's movements. I have nothing against any of them. They wanted equal rights and I agree that they deserved them. However, part of those movements resulted in many women choosing to get a job and bringing in a dual income to the home. It started with these households being moderately more wealthy than those with single income. I say moderately because women weren't really getting paid much back then. Over time, that gradually began to change though. More and more households contained women that wanted to work and more and more of them were demanding equal wages to that of men. Again, I support the equal wage stuff. It's fair.

However, it also had an effect. Businesses started to pick up on the fact that the average American household had more money so what do you think they did? Well, they raised their prices slowly but surely. As more time passed and the prices continued to equalize with average household incomes something changed. What was once considered a freedom and a choice that women made to work instead of remain home was slowly becoming more and more of a necessity that was dependent on how much money the man brought home from his job. If the man made more money then the woman had more of a freedom of choice because they were still able to make ends meet on a single income.

Fast forwarding to today, not much has changed except for one thing. The gradual decline of women's freedom choice to work has not stopped. It has only stalled as equalization occurs. These days, people hardly have a choice. We need dual incomes unless one person is very wealthy in order to make ends meet.

The irony is running rampant too. The women who once fought so hard for their freedom of choice to work did not actually earn any more freedom what so ever. All they really did was swap the choice that they were forced to make and the result was that those women who would have preferred to stay home to raise the kids rarely find the opportunity to do that any more unless they are with a guy who makes well above the average income or they live in a very low cost rural area. The point is the opportunity is becoming more and more scarce. The choice that women sought after so much was robbed from them and the robber was no one but themselves.

Who gets the short end of the stick at the end of the day? The kids and America's future. That wouldn't be the case if we adapted better but we have not. Hopefully, that will change for the better in due time.
 
Yeh, I made a point in another thread (I think that several hundred reply long "$100,000 isn't much" one) that it was the dual income that really contributed to the price escalation and inflation we have now.

And short of forcing a kid to work for rent, your only choices are to work more or make compromises in your standard of living. We are to a point where dual incomes have priced many desirable living places out of the range of single incomes.
 
It happened when people started living in cities. It's a trade off you make; as a whole we are more productive and each member of society can have a higher quality of life if each individual specializes in a very specific skill set.
 
Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
The real question is, could anyone here cook rice without a rice cooker! 😛

i can. i dont even own a rice cooker. if i want rice, i make it in a sauce pan. my mom was adamant about that kind of stuff. my kids gasped when i told them when i was their age and wanted a hot dog, id have to boil some water or fire up the grill. we didnt have a microwave. my mom would take me and my bro to the store and we would play stupid games with the pricing to find the best bargain. i now do that to my kids. they can cook quite a few meals as well, and every one of them does their own damn laundry.
 
Originally posted by: hanoverphist
Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
The real question is, could anyone here cook rice without a rice cooker! 😛

i can. i dont even own a rice cooker. if i want rice, i make it in a sauce pan. my mom was adamant about that kind of stuff. my kids gasped when i told them when i was their age and wanted a hot dog, id have to boil some water or fire up the grill. we didnt have a microwave. my mom would take me and my bro to the store and we would play stupid games with the pricing to find the best bargain. i now do that to my kids. they can cook quite a few meals as well, and every one of them does their own damn laundry.

I boil a hotdog in water *IN* the microwave instead of over the stove.

Does that count?

😛
 
Xavier - you really hit the root of the problem, along with vi_edit and other about the societal changes at home. This means no teaching kids "life" skills.
 
I was watching that show this morning where they show what would happen if everyone disappeared. So it got me to thinking how long would I live if everyone but me disappeared. I actually think I'd do alright since I'd have basically unlimited ammo and game should be plentiful. I'd just have to acquire a camper and generator and I should be good for a while siphoning fuel (not sure how long gas/diesel remain stable).
 
Originally posted by: dainthomas
I was watching that show this morning where they show what would happen if everyone disappeared. So it got me to thinking how long would I live if everyone but me disappeared. I actually think I'd do alright since I'd have basically unlimited ammo and game should be plentiful. I'd just have to acquire a camper and generator and I should be good for a while siphoning fuel (not sure how long gas/diesel remain stable).

Not sure, but you might want to find a small Ethanol plant or something. Scrounge up Solar Panels and a Wind Turbine. I'm not sure if you'd be able to emotionally handle the situation long enough to worry about all that though.
 
well what is happening is parents stopped teaching their kids stuff because they stopped doing stuff as well. For example my parents are horrible with money they always use cards and stuff. And because of this they have racked up alot of debt. Up until i was 22 i was the same way. Buy stuff on cards and worry about paying it off later. It eventually took me being backed into a financial corner to realize how i needed to manage my money. Now 5 years later I had make due with not having all the coolest new toys, but I am out of credit card debt and only one school loan left. I had to teach myself this stuff and i hate to say it but alot of it I had to learn from the internet.
 
Originally posted by: Xavier434
Originally posted by: vi edit
Originally posted by: Xavier434
The irony is running rampant too. The women who once fought so hard for their freedom of choice to work did not actually earn any more freedom what so ever. All they really did was swap the choice that they were forced to make and the result was that those women who would have preferred to stay home to raise the kids rarely find the opportunity to do that any more unless they are with a guy who makes well above the average income or they live in a very low cost rural area. The point is the opportunity is becoming more and more scarce. The choice that women sought after so much was robbed from them and the robber was no one but themselves.

Who gets the short end of the stick at the end of the day? The kids and America's future. That wouldn't be the case if we adapted better but we have not. Hopefully, that will change for the better in due time.

The girls in my age group (mid-20s) pretty much all WANT to work. One of my coworkers, her husband has a Ph.D. and was a professor, and now makes pretty good money (and he is in high demand for his skills, even in this economy). He offered for her to stay home, but she said she would go crazy if she stayed at home with her newborn all day. Instead they drop 1K per month on daycare, and she puts 25% of her salary towards 401k and fun stuff.

Also, the standard of living has greatly been raised. Back in the day, 1 car was standard for a family..nowadays if you have teenagers, you might own 3-4, and the associated insurance/maintenance. Cell phones? Just the antiquated landlines, with atrocious long distance cost -- instead of talking to their kids at college everyday, it was a once a week collect call.

Technology toys didn't exist..and air travel had the same prices as today, or multiple factors more expensive, when accounting for inflation. Nowadays I can fly once a month on a pleasure trip..that was a huge luxury back in the day.

Today >> Past, but << Future.
 
Originally posted by: sandorski

The way I see it, it comes down to basically 2 things: Complexity of our Technological Society and Time. The Complexity requires specialization amongst Individuals which results in a type of isolation of skills, but those Individuals still have the same amount of Time that Individuals had when we chased animals with sticks. So, in order for specialization to work we need to let go of certain "Basic" skills, simply because there's no Time to use those skills. The more advanced our society(ies) become, the more we need to rely on others.

If you live in a City, just look at what's available around you. You need to Eat, no problem, there are hundreds/thousands of places you can go where Food is available. Need Laundry done, no problem there are plenty of places that will do that. The list goes on and on. Of course there is a limitation to all of this, that being Money available to the Individual. Even for those who can't afford Restaurants, there are Microwaveable Foods for Time savings.

I'm sure I'm failing to communicate the thought as this subject could take a Book(and I'm sure many books have already been written about it)to examine it, but basically Our great enemy is not really Ignorance concerning this threads subject. Our great enemy is Time.

I'm not sure I agree. Advancements in technology should have increased our time as our work became more efficient.
Lets take the computer for example. In the 1980?s my family ran a small security company. Most paperwork, invoicing, billing, customer records, and other documents were all done by hand or on an electric typewriter and then stored in a room of file cabinets. When it came time to bill the entire family sat down and took turns looking up billing records, typing up envelopes, stuffing those envelopes. It took three full days with 4 of us plus 2 office employees, and this was just one specific task, there was many things that had to be looked up in those cabinets, typed on those typewriters, and stuffed into envelopes daily. In the mid nineties I installed a computer system that automated much of the tasks and 3 days of work for 6 people became about 4 hours work for 2 people. My family and I should have had a lot of extra time, but we didn?t. Where did that extra time go? I?m not really sure, but I suspect that with that extra time we grew the company, and serviced the technology that became necessary to save us all this time. So, was it worth it to upgrade to that new technology? Of course it was, we became much more efficient. After installing it we rarely had any mistakes in billing, and almost never missed billing someone. I was able to respond to important information requests in minutes instead of hours or days that the paper system required, but it also seems that the number of requests, and urgency, for information went up exponentially with the speed of the computers I was using to retrieve the information.
So, what am I saying? I guess that somewhere along the line we messed up and let ourselves become dependent to our technology instead of the other way around.
Heh, I sound like a luddite, and nothing could be farther from the truth.
 
We have become a nation of women.

It wasn?t always this way, of course. There was a time when men put their signatures to a document, knowing full well that this single act would result in their execution if captured, and in the forfeiture of their property to the State. Their wives and children would be turned out by the soldiers, and their farms and businesses most probably given to someone who didn?t sign the document.

There was a time when men went to their certain death, with expressions like ?You all can go to hell. I?m going to Texas.? (Davy Crockett, to the House of Representatives, before going to the Alamo.)

There was a time when men went to war, sometimes against their own families, so that other men could be free. And there was a time when men went to war because we recognized evil when we saw it, and knew that it had to be stamped out.

There was even a time when a President of the United States threatened to punch a man in the face and kick him in the balls, because the man had the temerity to say bad things about the President?s daughter?s singing.

We?re not like that anymore.

Now, little boys in grade school are suspended for playing cowboys and Indians, cops and crooks, and all the other familiar variations of ?good guy vs. bad guy? that helped them learn, at an early age, what it was like to have decent men hunt you down, because you were a lawbreaker.

Now, men are taught that violence is bad?that when a thief breaks into your house, or threatens you in the street, that the proper way to deal with this is to ?give him what he wants?, instead of taking a horsewhip to the rascal or shooting him dead where he stands.

Now, men?s fashion includes not a man dressed in a three-piece suit, but a tight sweater worn by a man with breasts.

Now, warning labels are indelibly etched into gun barrels, as though men have somehow forgotten that guns are dangerous things.

Now, men are given Ritalin as little boys, so that their natural aggressiveness, curiosity and restlessness can be controlled, instead of nurtured and directed.

And finally, our President, who happens to have been a qualified fighter pilot, lands on an aircraft carrier wearing a flight suit, and is immediately dismissed with words like ?swaggering?, ?macho? and the favorite epithet of Euro girly-men, ?cowboy?. Of course he was bound to get that reaction?and most especially from the Press in Europe, because the process of male pussification Over There is almost complete.

How did we get to this?

In the first instance, what we have to understand is that America is first and foremost, a culture dominated by one figure: Mother. It wasn?t always so: there was a time when it was Father who ruled the home, worked at his job, and voted.

But in the twentieth century, women became more and more involved in the body politic, and in industry, and in the media?and mostly, this has not been a good thing. When women got the vote, it was inevitable that government was going to become more powerful, more intrusive, and more ?protective? (ie. more coddling), because women are hard-wired to treasure security more than uncertainty and danger. It was therefore inevitable that their feminine influence on politics was going to emphasize (lowercase ?s") social security.

I am aware of the fury that this statement is going to arouse, and I don?t care a fig.

What I care about is the fact that since the beginning of the twentieth century, there has been a concerted campaign to denigrate men, to reduce them to figures of fun, and to render them impotent, figuratively speaking.

I?m going to illustrate this by talking about TV, because TV is a reliable barometer of our culture.

In the 1950s, the TV Dad was seen as the lovable goofball?perhaps the beginning of the trend?BUT he was still the one who brought home the bacon, and was the main source of discipline (think of the line: ?Wait until your father gets home!").

From that, we went to this: the Cheerios TV ad.

Now, for those who haven?t seen this piece of shit, I?m going to go over it, from memory, because it epitomizes everything I hate about the campaign to pussify men. The scene opens at the morning breakfast table, where the two kids are sitting with Dad at the table, while Mom prepares stuff on the kitchen counter. The dialogue goes something like this:



Little girl (note, not little boy): Daddy, why do we eat Cheerios?
Dad: Because they contain fiber, and all sorts of stuff that?s good for the heart. I eat it now, because of that.
LG: Did you always eat stuff that was bad for your heart, Daddy?
Dad (humorously): I did, until I met your mother.
Mother (not humorously): Daddy did a lot of stupid things before he met your mother.

Now, every time I see that TV ad, I have to be restrained from shooting the TV with a .45 Colt. If you want a microcosm of how men have become less than men, this is the perfect example.

What Dad should have replied to Mommy?s little dig: Yes, Sally, that?s true: I did do a lot of stupid things before I met your mother. I even slept with your Aunt Ruth a few times, before I met your mother.

That?s what I would have said, anyway, if my wife had ever attempted to castrate me in front of the kids like that.

But that?s not what men do, of course. What this guy is going to do is smile ruefully, finish his cereal, and then go and fuck his secretary, who doesn?t try to cut his balls off on a daily basis. Then, when the affair is discovered, people are going to rally around the castrating bitch called his wife, and call him all sorts of names. He?ll lose custody of his kids, and they will be brought up by our ultimate modern-day figure of sympathy: The Single Mom.

You know what? Some women deserve to be single moms.

When I first started this website, I think my primary aim was to blow off steam at the stupidity of our society.

Because I have fairly set views on what constitutes right and wrong, I have no difficulty in calling Bill Clinton, for example, a fucking liar and hypocrite.

But most of all, I do this website because I love being a man. Amongst other things, I talk about guns, self-defense, politics, beautiful women, sports, warfare, hunting, and power tools?all the things that being a man entails. All this stuff gives me pleasure.

And it doesn?t take much to see when all the things I love are being threatened: for instance, when Tim Allen?s excellent comedy routine on being a man is reduced to a fucking sitcom called Home Improvement. The show should have been called Man Improvement, because that?s what every single plotline entailed: turning a man into a ?better? person, instead of just leaving him alone to work on restoring the vintage sports car in his garage. I stopped watching the show after about four episodes.

("The Man Show? was better, at least for the first season?men leering at chicks, men fucking around with ridiculous games like ?pin the bra on the boobies?, men having beer-drinking competitions, and women on trampolines. Excellent stuff, only not strong enough. I don?t watch it anymore, either, because it?s plain that the idea has been subverted by girly-men, and turned into a parody of itself.)

Finally, we come to the TV show which to my mind epitomizes everything bad about what we have become: Queer Eye For The Straight Guy. Playing on the homo Bravo Channel, this piece of excrement has taken over the popular culture by storm (and so far, the only counter has been the wonderful South Park episode which took it apart for the bullshit it is).

I?m sorry, but the premise of the show nauseates me. A bunch of homosexuals trying to ?improve? ordinary men into something ?better? (ie. more acceptable to women): changing the guy?s clothes, his home decor, his music?for fuck?s sake, what kind of girly-man would allow these simpering butt-bandits to change his life around?

Yes, the men are, by and large, slobs. Big fucking deal. Last time I looked, that?s normal. Men are slobs, and that only changes when women try to civilize them by marriage. That?s the natural order of things.

You know the definition of homosexual men we used in Chicago? ?Men with small dogs who own very tidy apartments.?

Real men, on the other hand, have big fucking mean-ass dogs: Rhodesian ridgebacks, bull terriers and Rottweilers, or else working dogs like pointers or retrievers which go hunting with them and slobber all over the furniture.

Women own lapdogs.

Which is why women are trying to get dog-fighting and cock-fighting banned?they?d ban boxing too, if they could?because it?s ?mean and cruel?. No shit, Shirley. Hell, I don?t like the idea of fighting dogs, either, but I don?t have a problem with men who do. Dogs and cocks fight. So do men. No wonder we have an affinity for it.

My website has become fairly popular with men, and in the beginning, this really surprised me, because I didn?t think I was doing anything special.

That?s not what I think now. I must have had well over five thousand men write to me to say stuff like ?Yes! I agree! I was so angry when I read about [insert atrocity of choice], but I thought I was the only one.?

No, you?re not alone, my friends, and nor am I.

Out there, there is a huge number of men who are sick of it. We?re sick of being made figures of fun and ridicule; we?re sick of having girly-men like journalists, advertising agency execs and movie stars decide on ?what is a man?; we?re sick of women treating us like children, and we?re really fucking sick of girly-men politicians who pander to women by passing an ever-increasing raft of Nanny laws and regulations (the legal equivalent of public-school Ritalin), which prevent us from hunting, racing our cars and motorcycles, smoking, flirting with women at the office, getting into fistfights over women, shooting criminals and doing all the fine things which being a man entails.

When Annika Sorenstam was allowed to play in that tournament on the men?s PGA tour, all the men should have refused to play?Vijay Singh was the only one with balls to stand up for a principle, and he was absolutely excoriated for being a ?chauvinist?. Bullshit. He wasn?t a chauvinist, he was being a man. All the rest of the players?Woods, Mickelson, the lot?are girls by comparison. And, needless to say, Vijay isn?t an American, nor a European, which is probably why he still has a pair hanging between his legs, and they?re not hanging on the wall as his wife?s trophy.

Fuck this, I?m sick of it.

I don?t see why I should put up with this bullshit any longer?hell, I don?t see why any man should put up with this bullshit any longer.

I don?t see why men should have become feminized, except that we allowed it to happen?and you know why we let it happen? Because it?s goddamned easier to do so. Unfortunately, we?ve allowed it to go too far, and our maleness has become too pussified for words.

At this point, I could have gone two ways: the first would be to say, ?...and I don?t know if we?ll get it back. The process has become too entrenched, the cultural zeitgeist of men as girls has become part of the social fabric, and there?s not much we can do about it.?

But I?m not going to do that. To quote John Belushi (who was, incidentally, a real man and not a fucking woman): ?Did we quit when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor??

Well, I?m not going to quit. Fuck that. One of the characteristics of the non-pussified man (and this should strike fear into the hearts of women and girly-men everywhere) is that he never quits just because the odds seem overwhelming. Omaha Beach, guys.

I want a real man as President?not Al Gore, who had to hire a consultant to show him how to be an Alpha male, and french-kiss his wife on live TV to ?prove? to the world that he was a man, when we all knew that real men don?t have to do that shit.

And I want the Real Man President to surround himself with other Real Men, like Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft, and yes, Rice (who is more of a Real Man than those asswipes Colin Powell and Norman Mineta).

I want our government to be more like Dad?kind, helpful, but not afraid to punish us when we fuck up, instead of helping us excuse our actions.

I want our government of real men to start rolling back the Nanny State, in all its horrible manifestations of over-protectiveness, intrusiveness and ?Mommy Knows Best What?s Good For You? regulations.

I want our culture to become more male?and not the satirical kind of male, like The Man Show, or the cartoonish figures of Stallone, Van Damme or Schwartzenegger. (Note to the Hollywood execs: We absolutely fucking loathe chick movies about feelings and relationships and all that feminine jive. We want more John Waynes, Robert Mitchums, Bruce Willises, and Clint Eastwoods. Never mind that it?s simplistic? we like simple, we are simple, we are men?our lives are uncomplicated, and we like it that way. We Were Soldiers was a great movie, and you know why? Because you could have cut out all the female parts, and it still would have been a great movie, because it was about Real Men. Try cutting out all the female parts in a Woody Allen movie?you?d end up with the opening and closing credits.)

I want our literature to become more male, less female. Men shouldn?t buy ?self-help? books unless the subject matter is car maintenance, golf swing improvement or how to disassemble a fucking Browning BAR. We don?t improve ourselves, we improve our stuff.

And finally, I want men everywhere to going back to being Real Men. To open doors for women, to drive fast cars, to smoke cigars after a meal, to get drunk occasionally and, in the words of Col. Jeff Cooper, one of the last of the Real Men: ?to ride, shoot straight, and speak the truth.?

In every sense of the word. We know what the word ?is? means.

Because that?s all that being a Real Man involves. You don?t have to become a fucking cartoon male, either: I?m not going back to stoning women for adultery like those Muslim assholes do, nor am I suggesting we support that perversion of being a Real Man, gangsta rap artists (those fucking pussies?they wouldn?t last thirty seconds against a couple of genuine tough guys that I know).

Speaking of rap music, do you want to know why more White boys buy that crap than Black boys do? You know why rape is such a problem on college campuses? Why binge drinking is a problem among college freshmen?

It?s a reaction: a reaction against being pussified. And I understand it, completely. Young males are aggressive, they do fight amongst themselves, they are destructive, and all this does happen for a purpose.

Because only the strong men propagate.

And women know it. You want to know why I know this to be true? Because powerful men still attract women. Women, even liberal women, swooned over George Bush in a naval aviator?s uniform. Donald Trump still gets access to some of the most beautiful pussy available, despite looking like a medieval gargoyle. Donald Rumsfeld, if he wanted to, could fuck 90% of all women over 50 if he wanted to, and a goodly portion of younger ones too.

And he won?t. Because Rummy?s been married to the same woman for fifty years, and he wouldn?t toss that away for a quickie. He?s a Real Man. No wonder the Euros hate and fear him.

We?d better get more like him, we?d better become more like him, because if we don?t, men will become a footnote to history.
 
Back in my day, we had to walk 15 miles to school uphill both ways! And what's with this gas and electric stoves what with the fiddling of all these buttons, oi! When I was a kid I had to chop the wood and start a fire then slaughter our chicken! You youngsters and your "technology."
 
Originally posted by: SMOGZINN
Originally posted by: sandorski

The way I see it, it comes down to basically 2 things: Complexity of our Technological Society and Time. The Complexity requires specialization amongst Individuals which results in a type of isolation of skills, but those Individuals still have the same amount of Time that Individuals had when we chased animals with sticks. So, in order for specialization to work we need to let go of certain "Basic" skills, simply because there's no Time to use those skills. The more advanced our society(ies) become, the more we need to rely on others.

If you live in a City, just look at what's available around you. You need to Eat, no problem, there are hundreds/thousands of places you can go where Food is available. Need Laundry done, no problem there are plenty of places that will do that. The list goes on and on. Of course there is a limitation to all of this, that being Money available to the Individual. Even for those who can't afford Restaurants, there are Microwaveable Foods for Time savings.

I'm sure I'm failing to communicate the thought as this subject could take a Book(and I'm sure many books have already been written about it)to examine it, but basically Our great enemy is not really Ignorance concerning this threads subject. Our great enemy is Time.

I'm not sure I agree. Advancements in technology should have increased our time as our work became more efficient.
Lets take the computer for example. In the 1980?s my family ran a small security company. Most paperwork, invoicing, billing, customer records, and other documents were all done by hand or on an electric typewriter and then stored in a room of file cabinets. When it came time to bill the entire family sat down and took turns looking up billing records, typing up envelopes, stuffing those envelopes. It took three full days with 4 of us plus 2 office employees, and this was just one specific task, there was many things that had to be looked up in those cabinets, typed on those typewriters, and stuffed into envelopes daily. In the mid nineties I installed a computer system that automated much of the tasks and 3 days of work for 6 people became about 4 hours work for 2 people. My family and I should have had a lot of extra time, but we didn?t. Where did that extra time go? I?m not really sure, but I suspect that with that extra time we grew the company, and serviced the technology that became necessary to save us all this time. So, was it worth it to upgrade to that new technology? Of course it was, we became much more efficient. After installing it we rarely had any mistakes in billing, and almost never missed billing someone. I was able to respond to important information requests in minutes instead of hours or days that the paper system required, but it also seems that the number of requests, and urgency, for information went up exponentially with the speed of the computers I was using to retrieve the information.
So, what am I saying? I guess that somewhere along the line we messed up and let ourselves become dependent to our technology instead of the other way around.
Heh, I sound like a luddite, and nothing could be farther from the truth.

We have been dependent on Technology for Millenia. The PC is just another step along the evolutionary path. It is for the better though as each step removes Inefficincies that allow us to Progress further. We didn't mess up by becoming reliant on Technology, but we are possibly messing up by getting all antsy about that reliance. Luditism is fear over the loss of "self-reliance".
 
You make a valid point, OP. I have a few friends who are utterly hopeless in doing anything -- all things you covered in the OP.

It also baffles me.
 
Originally posted by: sandorski
We have been dependent on Technology for Millenia. The PC is just another step along the evolutionary path. It is for the better though as each step removes Inefficincies that allow us to Progress further. We didn't mess up by becoming reliant on Technology, but we are possibly messing up by getting all antsy about that reliance. Luditism is fear over the loss of "self-reliance".

I'm not saying that we should not depend on technology. We obviously can no longer sustain ourselves without our technology, nor should we try. What I am saying is that we are not useing our technology to improve our lives as much as we are useing it to increase our standard of living but I'm not sure that is translating to living better. Personally I often think that I (and more other people) would be better off if we used our technology to give us more time and not more stuff.
 
Originally posted by: sandorski

We have been dependent on Technology for Millenia. The PC is just another step along the evolutionary path. It is for the better though as each step removes Inefficincies that allow us to Progress further. We didn't mess up by becoming reliant on Technology, but we are possibly messing up by getting all antsy about that reliance. Luditism is fear over the loss of "self-reliance".

That is incorrect. We have not been dependent on technology for millennia. During as recent a time as the industrial revolution within our own country, there were alternatives to the new technology. The alternatives may have been more inefficient or costlier in the long run but, they existed and a sudden halt in the newer technology would not have caused a total meltdown in society.

Tell me what the result would be in today's society if for whatever reason, swift communication (cell phones, computers, internet) plastics or petroleum based chemicals were to disappear for even as brief a time as 6 months?

It would not be the lack of a specific technology that would cause all the damage, it would be the inability of most people to adapt within a short enough time to prevent widespread famine, looting and, disease that would kill millions.
 
Originally posted by: SMOGZINN
Originally posted by: sandorski
We have been dependent on Technology for Millenia. The PC is just another step along the evolutionary path. It is for the better though as each step removes Inefficincies that allow us to Progress further. We didn't mess up by becoming reliant on Technology, but we are possibly messing up by getting all antsy about that reliance. Luditism is fear over the loss of "self-reliance".

I'm not saying that we should not depend on technology. We obviously can no longer sustain ourselves without our technology, nor should we try. What I am saying is that we are not useing our technology to improve our lives as much as we are useing it to increase our standard of living but I'm not sure that is translating to living better. Personally I often think that I (and more other people) would be better off if we used our technology to give us more time and not more stuff.

Good points.

TV, Internet, video games, cell phone texting, email, ect has all led to the downfall of *REAL* person to person interaction and conversation. It has also filled a timeslot in our lives that was otherwise used for more personal interactions with friends and family or doing other chores around the house.

Sure it makes talking to grandma & grandpa in another state a lot easier, but it also makes it easier to make excuses for avoiding visits with friends and family that is more local.

And don't even get me started on how much email, texting, or IM impairs our abilility to communicate once we DO actually have to talk to somebody face to face.
 
Originally posted by: HardTech
racist, nationalistic, xenophobic, women-hating shit
.

Fuck that's awful. The only thing he's right about is men becoming pussies.
His reasons why are completely wrong. Dog-fighting, smoking, and calling muslims assholes makes you a real man? Whatever.
 
Originally posted by: EMPshockwave82
As a society we cater to the weakest link and make their weakness less of an inconvenience.

Whats worse is that if you adopt a personal policy of not catering to deadbeats people say you are heartless.
 
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