Without mentioning smartphones or social media, what societal changes have you noticed over the course of your lifetime?
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I was trying to think of specifics, but they're already getting mentioned. I'd just say a lot of these things stem from there being literally double the amount of humans alive right now than when my dad was born. An individual is devalued immensely and cultural cohesion is completely shot.
Yes, absolutely, as the population has increased, so has the feeling of being in the proverbial crab bucket.
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It absolutely has. Before Rodney King it was always fine. From 1992 to about 2014 it was mostly fine. From 2014-2020, it was a debate, and after 2020, they're pretty much always guilty. There's a whole interesting conversation to be had about why it was that all kinds of riot and peaceful protest had basically 0 result until 2014-2020, and then in 2020 it all of a sudden starting working significantly.
Anyway, now under Trump, some of the reform is going backwards. There were some outlier departments that were still in the 1992 mode, and the feds were doing some things to try to come down on them, whereas now it's the opposite, Trump is actively pardoning dirty cops. Great stuff.
It was not fine. There was a whole riot about it and everything.
The only thing that's changed recently is that cops can occasionally be held accountable if they cause enough embarrassment to the powers that be.
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It was not fine. There was a whole riot about it and everything.
The only thing that's changed recently is that cops can occasionally be held accountable if they cause enough embarrassment to the powers that be.
Can you name three incidents since 2020 where the cops have not been charged? I know of one, and even that one has an asterisk next to it. Before 2020 it was multiple every year, there used to be these massive walls with names written on them.
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If a single act of terrorism can remove an entire ethnic group from whiteness, then I wanna see the rest of the world agree that European Americans aren't white. It would be funny
some European right wingers already believe this
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
Humanity getting dumber and dumber…
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
I think for me in my country it would be the collapse of the social contract. The bonds that society regulates itself.
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
Design has changed. Instead of building powerful featues that are available to the user however they want to use it. The focus has shifted to providing a simplified linear interface where pressing a single button does the task and the tools to modify the action are hidden from the user. So if your use case doesnt 100% allign youre fucked.
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
Isolation of individuals and the growing loss of ownership of, well, everything.
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
No third places.
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4 things
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People are getting lonelier and lonelier, even if we have the technoloogy, we keep getting further apart, it takes weeks to make time to see someone. So here I am, travelling alone...
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The attention span
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The willingness to actually do some legwork, laziness, or conformity.
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This will not sound nice: people getting dumber.
There. I said it.
my 4 cents
peepull arnt getten dummer tho
dey allreddy was dumm b4
dum ppl got moar voyse naow -
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Humanity getting dumber and dumber…
Nah, its just that the stupid people got louder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
People got smarter overall.
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There are more idiots. Flatearthers, space deniers, antivaxxers. The more information people have access to the less intelligent society seems to get.
Surveillance Capitalism is getting more out of hand every year. Combined with more data breaches it's not great.
The number of idiots definitely grew, but the percentage of idiots overall probably dropped.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
People got smarter. Idiots grew louder.
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]From an artistic perspective, self-"publishing" (and I use quotations quite on purpose), changed writing as we know it and drastically dropped the average reading level of the public since now any chimp can bang their fist on a keyboard for an hour, upload it to Amazon and call themselves an "author" beside Stephen King or Umberto Eco.
It was always hailed as "the end of the so-called gatekeepers". Without stopping to realise that gatekeepers/publishers exist for a reason. So that the public zeitgeist isn't completely overrun with utter crap.
The response to having your short story or novel rejected used to be "okay...I'll learn, practice and get better for the next time." Now, it's "screw you...I'll pollute the zeitgeist with my 3rd grade level grammar nightmare with or without you and put it right up there on the shelf next to the actual writers."
Just imagine if a doctor flunked out of med-school, and instead of trying harder, just said "screw you, I'm going to open up my own surgery and put it right next door to you and there's nothing you can do to stop me...."
What a crazy stupid world we live in.
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When I was in high school, gay was the generic negative word. If Wendys gave you a medium fry when you ordered a large - gay. If your homie cancelled plans last minute - gay. If you slipped on the stairs and busted your ass - gay. It's bizarre in hindsight.
The rednecks around me have taught their children to use "gay" as an insult
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When I was still a kid, we went from bring a plate of cookies to your neighbor and introduce yourself to DON'T TALK TO STRANGERS!!
Maybe I took that advice too far because now I barely talk to anybody.
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
There's not as many people outside just....existing. I'm not that old but I remember just going outside and seeing people just not doing anything in particular everywhere, now it seems like everyone always has some place to rush to and no one is allowed to just exist in public places anymore. Maybe that also has something to do with my perspective shifting has I got older, but I still feel like it's true.
Also bugs. There are like NO fucking bugs anymore. Couple decades ago you could walk out and get sandblasted by a million different bugs and now everything just feels so fucking dead and sterile and depressed. It's like outside was replaced by a clinic and no one bothered to complain.
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Nah, its just that the stupid people got louder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
People got smarter overall.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Actually...
study - https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1718793115
CNN article talking about the study - https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/13/health/falling-iq-scores-study-intl/index.html
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There's not as many people outside just....existing. I'm not that old but I remember just going outside and seeing people just not doing anything in particular everywhere, now it seems like everyone always has some place to rush to and no one is allowed to just exist in public places anymore. Maybe that also has something to do with my perspective shifting has I got older, but I still feel like it's true.
Also bugs. There are like NO fucking bugs anymore. Couple decades ago you could walk out and get sandblasted by a million different bugs and now everything just feels so fucking dead and sterile and depressed. It's like outside was replaced by a clinic and no one bothered to complain.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]The bug thing seriously worries me
I remember so many more bugs as a child. I haven't needed mosquito spray in quite a while even while hiking
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Kids are still mean, they just use different words now
Yeah. The way bullying happens seems to have changed since my time.
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Originally it was going to be "over the last twenty years" but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, "no one talks to each other in person, they're on their phones always" and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]The world has less colour.
This isn't a dramatic "I'm depressed" post, though that is a factor. Nature is still nature-coloured, for one, and it still looks lovely.
I mean that like, you'd go outside and look at the cars and see a rainbow of colours. Now it's all black, silver, or white. You only see colorful cars if they are really old beat up rustbuckets or if they are brand new luxury vehicles used by super rich people.
Buildings too. Businesses and the buildings they set up shop in would be painted with garish, eye popping colour. Now everything trends towards landlord-beige.
Edit: And it should be noted, this happened for a reason, and I am aware of that reason, and that just makes me crankier.
