Has civilisation always been shit, as some people would have us believe? Is the evidence of people from the 90s and earlier complaining about life being shit evidence that nothing has really changed? Or is it the case that things are just getting progressively shittier with each year, and so people from past eras knew that things were worse than they were before, but couldn't comprehend just how much worse they were going to become in the future?
Maybe it's always been shit but there have been times where it has been more or less shit.
>>28813551
So is 2016 the shittiest that civilisation has ever been?
>>28813568
Definitely not. At least we have potential to do great things.
>>28813475
Most measures of shittiness are subjective, but I would agree that this century is probably the most self-deceived and antiscientific since... possibly even ever, because in the past people had no scientific views either way. Unlike now, when religious literature and speaksers thrive.
>>28813673
and we have people like this who speak out of their asshole
>>28813673
In the sense that there's never been so much relative neglect of materialism in favour of religion, ideology, philosophy, psychology, and so on than today. Back then, people attend church all, but it would occupy nowhere near the majority of their thoughts.
>>28813631
The potential to do great things is one of the only things we DONT have, though, anon. What fairy tale are you living in, did you buy your parents' memes?
>>28813702
He is probably correct that 2010s are an INCREDIBLY anti-intellectual decade. But not for the reasons he stated.
It's less to do with religious people (Religion is dead in the west excluding Islam/other immigrant faiths), and more to do with stupidity/not knowing what you're talking about being the "in" thing.
You can see it in politics at the moment. Trump/Sanders being popular for saying highly emotional, controversial things while people that use logic in their arguments are demonised as the "out of touch elite". Basically celebrating idiocy.
>>28813702
Just a couple of decades ago, a houseowning couple would argue about what best to plant in the garden, which kind of car is most suited for their travelling needs, which candidate ensures best economic environment for the man's job, knowing which language would be best for their children, and such. Nowadays, same couple just reads articles about 'personal responsibility' and 'mindful relationships' and 'the importance of understanding' and 'the necessity of reason' and 'equality' and 'compassion' and 'the rise of self-awareness' and 'offending' and 'letting go of stress' ad nauseam. Anything that is real stopped being interesting long ago.
>>28813726
Probably the one from school or the government (arguably worse) that gave me any hope of getting off of this rock or into a virtual one before I die.
>>28813835
In other words, people's standards with respect to tangibility of things they read have nosedived. Hard competence in workplace or as a driver or a builder of stuff or as an administrator is being thrown away in place of 'understanding of each other as a human being' and 'understanding each other's point of view', which always translates to nothing but a shitty 'everyone has his own truth' cliche.
>>28813475
Read Civilization and its Discontents famo
>>28813475
>always been shit
it's not shit now
we've got no caning, welfare, great diet, porn and literacy this is a golden era that you dumbasses are too jaded to recognise for what it is
in any other era we'd be the village idiots carrying sticks
depends. these times are robot-enablers because we can comfortably live as robots.
In a different time, you'd be forced to integrate or you'd die. Medieval ages for example.
Life was third world tier shit for everyone who wasn't rich for pretty much the entirety of history
>>28814031
>Medieval ages
That's redundant. It's either 'the middle ages' or 'media aeva'.
>>28813954
Yes but there's also
>Overabundance of stupid people
>Comedy is shit
>Film is shit
>Music is shit (Yes, even the non-chart music)
>Ultrafeminism and ultra-leftwing politics are rampant in the west
Anyone can see that living in any time between 1950-2010 would be better than living in this decade. At least for westerners.
As long as money is the indicator of who gets food and who gets an education it will always be shit. 1913 was the year that the federal reserve was forced to pass, it was also the last chance to have a decent society.
>>28814659
>ultra-leftwing politics are rampant in the west
Can we stop with this meme? Ultra-leftwing identity politics are rampant, but the actual people in charge are right-wing and capitalist as fuck. Whilst you whine about "muh niggers" and Tumblr whines about "muh mansplainers" society is going to shit for entirely different reasons.
>>28814813
>but the actual people in charge are right-wing and capitalist as fuck
This actually isn't the truth mate, and if you believe it then you painfully obviously are so far left-wing yourself that you've convinced yourself anyone who isn't a radical socialist must be "far-right".
Barack Obama has been in power in the US for 8 years as a centrist liberal (who occasionally veers centre-left in terms of policy). And in Europe most governments are either dead centre or left-of-centre, especially considering that socialism is much more popular there, and therefore even "conservative" parties have to appeal to left-wing economic values and collectivism.
Getting quite fed up of leftists who have skewered the definition of "centrist" so far to the left that pretty much everyone outside of their camp is now defined as "right-wing" somehow.
>>28814659
>Film is shit
>Music is shit
Holy shit you are such a massive fucking pleb.
Retards like you don't even try to go out of your way to find anything interesting and then call all contemporary art shit because you were to retarded to look for something good.
The only reason why you think that art in the past was any "better" than it is nowadays is entirely due to survivorship bias. Most of the past pieces of art that you consume are there for you to discover easily precisely because they were the best of their time and managed to survive the test of time. In their own time there was just as much shit surrounding the greats as there is now.
I bet you are one of those "GUYZ IM 13 AND I LISTEN TO LED ZEPPELIN" comments on youtube.
>>28814961
>I bet you are one of those "GUYZ IM 13 AND I LISTEN TO LED ZEPPELIN" comments on youtube.
Why is this the automatic response to literally anyone who expresses even remote dissatisfaction with the state of music?
I'm just saying that, in comparison to previous decades, music is very shit right now. In every genre. Everyone plays things very safe these days. And there are no pieces of music post-2005-ish that stand out as true classics that the majority of people can agree on. The "classics" of today are just the songs that "sound the best"/are most popular, whereas in past times the classics were both the most popular and artistically progressive/challenging.
>>28815066
>And there are no pieces of music post-2005-ish that stand out as true classics that the majority of people can agree on.
>a classic is by definition acknowledged historically after some time
>'there are no modern classics!!!'
>>28815109
Yeah, and previously it only took about 5-ish years for a song/album to be regarded as a classic and for its influence to be truly felt.
If music from 10 years ago still hasn't grown to "classic" status, it likely never will do.
