Changing the world

[jpc]

What I've learned over the course of time is that it is a waste of time trying to help someone on the internet or change the world or whatever. You can only give people the tools, but you cannot force them to use those either.

Then how will the Web impact our society?
We live in an information economy, but I don't believe we live in an information society. People are thinking less than they used to. It's primarily because of television. People are reading less and they're certainly thinking less. So, I don't see most people using the Web to get more information. We're already in information overload. No matter how much information the Web can dish out, most people get far more information than they can assimilate anyway.


The problem is television?
When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth.

So Steve Jobs is telling us things are going to continue to get worse.
They are getting worse! Everybody knows that they're getting worse! Don't you think they're getting worse?

I do, but I was hoping I could come here and find out how they were going to get better. Do you really believe that the world is getting worse? Or do you have a feeling that the things you're involved with are making the world better?
No. The world's getting worse. It has gotten worse for the last 15 years or so. Definitely. For two reasons. On a global scale, the population is increasing dramatically and all our structures, from ecological to economic to political, just cannot deal with it. And in this country, we seem to have fewer smart people in government, and people don't seem to be paying as much attention to the important decisions we have to make.

 

[Analyzer]

You can only give people the tools, but you cannot force them to use those either.

Indeed.

"We live in an information economy, but I don't believe we live an information society"

Yeah the question is whether this will change? They are tools at end of day but will they lead to a new age? Was the Internet and other information based technologies just a mirage as far as being agents for changing the word? These information technologies changed industry no doubt such as print and other media, but that is different than changing the world. It just shifts the means not the ends.

[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif] What's the biggest surprise this technology will deliver?[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif] The problem is I'm older now, I'm 40 years old, and this stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't.[/FONT]

 

[Cognisant]

I don't watch much TV and advertisements on the internet don't take up much of my day, the real problem as I see it is entertainment, it's easy to bemoan the advertisement that steals away a few precious minutes of our time only to then spend hours watching youtube videos, playing games, listening to music, browsing pictures and playing with toys.

That's our problem, we're hideously entertained.
It's hard to be motivated when easy gratification is so readily accessible.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

No. The world's getting worse. It has gotten worse for the last 15 years or so.

15? You must be young (ish). I say this not just because of the 15 year thing but also this:

And in this country, we seem to have fewer smart people in government, and people don't seem to be paying as much attention to the important decisions we have to make.

While the number of "smart" people in government certainly hasn't risen, it hasn't lowered much either. Because it can't really. There was just as much of teh stupidz 15-35** years ago as there is today. Televison (cable television to be more precise with all the channels now offered) and the internet do highlight and display it for all to see nowadays but it was always there.

**This covers my lifetime as a teenager on. It's the only time span I can bear witness to. Now before you go thinking it must be me, like I'm somehow the equivalent to high concentrations of lead in the drinking water, stop. There's evidence to suggest it goes way before my time:

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself. -Mark Twain

 

[jpc]

15? You must be young (ish).

It was an interview that Wired did with Steve Jobs. There are a lot of ideas there, but I wanted to focus on the idea of changing the world.

I think that if we hadn't kept building better tools, women would still be burned at the stake. It is the tools that makes us who we are.

 

[gilliatt]

Let's say one accepts it, what you say, that it is a waste of time to try an change the world. Is this true or untrue? Alright, intellectual honesty means you take ideas seriously. What if, no one in the whole world ever tried to change the world? How would the world ever go from A to B. Somebody, in the past, must have tried to change the world and was a small bit successful. I see the world sort of in slow motion as for as change is concerned. One step forward, half step back. Man is continually accepting false premises, but eventually his mind sees the daylight, it takes lots of time, patience.

 

[Inquisitor]

No doubt that there's still a whole lot of suffering. Human nature doesn't really change. You can count on people to be miserable even if they're rich beyond measure; they will find a way to be unhappy about something. It's a spiritual vacuum out there. The central axis around which most people's lives revolve is material in nature, be it money, fame, power, food, sex, etc. I'm guilty of this too though I strive to be different. My experience is as soon as you turn inward, things around you start to settle out. Sounds corny, but change starts at the individual level. The internet holds all the answers, or the means to obtain the answers, that anyone might need to change, to be happy, to suffer less. Imagine being stuck on a farm in the middle of nowhere and not having access to books, articles, forums, communication of any kind. Individuals can develop themselves now like never before.

 

[TBerg]

Obama is a fucking douchebag, but I would never say he is anything but smart. He has a clear head on most issues of war and peace, maintaining certain idealist decorum while grounding his vision on cold realism. I would compare him to JFK in that regard, and no one would say that fine student, also a Harvard graduate, wasn't smart either. I hate his leftist associations, but he is not enthralled by them. Know hope.

 

[eagor]

IF we survive the next century (97% sure we won't, and 100% sure our demise will be self inflicted) it'll be millenia before humans progress away from barbarism. and even then (as it always has) something new will come along to remind us of our start as feral cavemen, because people fear change over everything else.

 

[Analyzer]

Cultivate your own garden.

 

[User]

The world isn't getting worse. It's getting smaller.

 

[Doktorin Zylinder]

I don't think the world is getting better or worse, but that both are expanding at the same rate in different directions. It seems that the world is getting worse because the media fanaticizes everything, but few seem to realize that the world is the most technologically advanced as it's ever been and, on average, the standard of living is increasing. But, hey, drama sells.

I also don't watch much for television, but I can see what the quote is getting at. I don't think people are particularly smart anymore. Everyone is always looking at their damned phones, but they're always consuming gibberish and not expanding their minds. I think it really must be boring to be an average, depressed, and disgruntled person. I can just imagine what people do in a day.

They wake up, perform their morning ablutions, decide what to wear, fight traffic or transit, pretend to work for most of the day at a job they hate whilst playing on their phones for most of the day, have lunch, complain, maybe actually do some work now, slack off, pretend to work some more, fight traffic in the opposite direction, get home, imbibe alcohol, phone, watch idiotic reality television and veg on the couch, make dinner/order in/microwave something, bitch about the spouse/kids/work/neighbors/life, more TV, nightly ablutions, go to bed, and repeat.

Like, really? No one reads anymore. I saw that statistics for the amount of reading that no longer occurs. I find it abhorrent. So, I'm of the mind that I don't want to change the world, anymore. I thought I did at one time, but I'm more inclined to watch things crash and burn, now. I can't fix other people and trying to is futile. I enjoy my life and the few people I have in it.

If we could have a place that was accepting and intelligent and off the grid in comparison to the rest of the world, I'd be happy to institute change in that world because, as whole, the populace world doesn't really like smart people. Above average fits, but outright smart isn't really up there in their book. We have a tendency of making people feel stupid even though we don't intend it as such, but that's how it comes across sometimes. People don't like to feel stupid and they don't like to use logic to come to conclusions. Feeling seems to be the predominant decision maker for many people, which creates a lot of problems. Mind you, logic also creates problems for feelers.

One of the biggest things I think needs to be done away with is tolerance because I'd rather have acceptance. Does anyone really want to be tolerated? To me, it seems like tolerance is "I despise you, but I won't beat the shit out of you and leave you for dead because I'll end up in jail," whereas acceptance is just allowing all to be as it is.

 

[Pyropyro]

Other people exists and said people had different agenda than one has. One cannot impose their will and then expect others to follow them especially if they don't have the charisma and resources to back them up.

My thoughts are:

Good reaction: What if I package the resources that I got in a way that it interests and benefits both me and the people that I teach/work with.
Bad reaction: Oh, they don't do what I want to do. Everything's useless, everyone's stupid and the world will go to hell :'(

On intelligence, I think I'm with Inappropriate Behavior. Media simply helps us become more aware on what's happening in our respective governments. There's no decline, we are just able to see what's already there.

 

[gilliatt]

Changing the world, I ask 'what change, changes, from what to what. A is A (Law of Identity), are you from the school of no law of identity. That would be no "change' is possible. Yes, we have to be very clear about 'change.' No, I personally do not see anything wrong with helping people maybe see the truth, get the facts straight. And do not have any claim on others lives, ideas. Another thing is causality-the law of causality is the law of identity applied to action. A thing cannot act in contradiction to its nature. The law of identity does not permit you to eat your cake before you have it...

 

[INTPWolf]

What about creating a whole new one? This is why i am going to be attending college to study the field of virtual sciences. Perhaps by creating a world that all variables can be observed, we will better understand our own world, and perhaps give us insight to our own nature.

 

[Haim]

A lot of little changes +time…=changed the world.
When you make a change to something that effect a lot of people you make a big change.
I sometime wonder if I made something happen or I just predicated it.
I don't bother to try to change people,I change the system.

 

[Sixup]

Nah. Don't try to change the world.

Align yourself to a path that arguably provides benefit to the world, and to which you may be able to contribute on a high level eventually, then work towards that high level achievement over 30-50 years and maybe you will change a small slice of the world.

Probably not though. But then again, what's the point? You'll be gone pretty soon anyway too.

 

[Brontosaurie]

i wanted to change myself but i found the only thing i could hope to change was the world

 

[TheManBeyond]

i don't want to change anything since everything is rotten, the only purification will come from the destruction. FIRE