How do you fix a crumbling society?

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Phishfry

Phishfry

I feel our society in the USA is seriously breaking down.
Just last night seven killings in a Walmart only 5 miles away.

Some folks believe the gun is the problem while I believe it is an anger problem.

The rule of law seems to be breaking down as I have gangs of dirtbike riders harassing drivers on the roadways.
Doing wheelies and doing donuts in intersections.
Truly like Mad Max.
I got angry the other day and tried to run a dirtbike off a bridge into the water. It didn't end well.
What good are cops when you have gangs of dirtbikes on the roads. They could never catch them.
This is my definition of Anarchy.
I can't drive to work without being assaulted.

Should we revert to vigilante justice? I just start shooting at these folks?
I don't see a way it gets better.
Police are powerless.
We are fastly becoming a third world country.
 
It's not just society that is the problem, the entire system (the government and everything together) is broken. Anymore, I think it would be easier to have everything completely collapse, and pick up the pieces afterwards. As with building anything, you need a stable foundation to hold the main pillars. Society may have had a good foundation at the time, but it's been compromised too much that the foundation is no longer stable.
 
Ironic how I talk about anger problems while exhibiting them.

So it is a mental health issue.

How do you maintain your mental health?
 
I have an elderly neighbor whose house was on fire. I was helping her pull stuff out of the house before fire trucks showed up.

There were more neighbors filming with their phones than helping this elderly lady..

That made me very angry.

Young people seem so self absorbed these days.
 
Political stuff is not for this forum, so this thread may not be here for long. I'm sorry.

Having dirt bike gangs running amok is what you get for "defund the police", not doing jack about these "mostly peaceful protests" and in general running a country like your piggybank. And like usual, it is joe sixpack taking the hit. All I can say is, read up on the law. Carry a big stick. Speak softly. Be prepared to live with the consequences. Come back home to your family.
I see dark times ahead.
 
In the old days people were afraid of going to jail.
The death penalty was the ultimate sanction.
Now it has no meaning. Very few are executed and we warehouse criminals instead.

Should the standards for the death penalty be lowered?
Bring back public executions in the public square?
Allow the victims to extract vengeance? Public flogging for littering?

How do you scare people into acting right?
 
Phishfry said:
How do you maintain your mental health?
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I go for a walk, I go "wave a stick in a stream" (flyfish) I go pet my dogs, most of all:
I turn off tv, ignore political threads, and basically tell the world "Get OFF MY LAWN!"

Phishfry said:
How do you scare people into acting right?
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You don't/can't. The problem is not really the "people" it's the government allowing "some of the people" to act out while stomping hard on the others.

And that's all I'm saying because as Crivens says, this thread is not long for life here.
 
Honestly, I feel sorry.
It feels different to see it in the news or have it in the direct neighbourhood.

ct85711 said:
it would be easier to have everything completely collapse
Click to expand...
It would be the lazy way - not the easy one.
Phishfry said:
How do you maintain your mental health?
Click to expand...

You need to foucus on those who help and do good stuff.
On the good points. Which also there are.

Easy to say, and not easy to take in the current moment.
But that's the answer.
Anything else would be explantions - needing a long postm not capable to help.
 
I think death penalty is one main reason in the USA.
Since one knew death penalty will be for sure, why stop?
It doesn't matter how many people you've killed.
You only can hang once.
 
Phishfry said:
How do you scare people into acting right?
Click to expand...
You don't.
That's exactly the wrong idea.
I know itÄs hard to you at the current moemnt to thiunk that way, because your sorrows are turning to agression.
But that's exactly escalation - no solution.
Try to get soime distance - as mer said - and think the other way around.
 
Profighost said:
It feels different to see it in the news or have it in the direct neighbourhood.
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Yea It was 'My Walmart' but it really don't bother me too much. It was just another body count.
Maybe if he had a knife he would only have killed half the people. I dunno.
Guns are rampant and we are becoming less civilized and more tolerant to crime.

I just wonder if we can cure our ills.
Its easy to roll up your window when a mob of bikes surrounds you.
I am the guy with the window down yelling back.
 
Phishfry said:
I feel our society in the USA is seriously breaking down.
Just last night seven killings in a Walmart only 5 miles away.

Some folks believe the gun is the problem while I believe it is an anger problem.
Click to expand...
I think, even before that, it is an isolation problem.

Phishfry said:
The rule of law seems to be breaking down as I have gangs of dirtbike riders harassing drivers on the roadways.
Doing wheelies and doing donuts in intersections.
Truly like Mad Max.
Click to expand...
Yes, we had these movies. And, during the last two decades we had an immense load of "apocalyptic" stories in the movies. I don't play games, but probably it's even more so in the games.

I think, phantasy goes ahead of reality, and shapes reality. Jules Verne wrote about flying to the moon, and then we did fly to the moon.

Now I don't think games are a problem, or such. (I don't think guns are the problem, either.) But the whole move to an "online society" does change people. In all online communication you actually deal with your machine, not with a human. You do not get the impression that there is a living being on the other side.

This happens on the unconscious level. Our mind does recognize things like the mimics or the timbre of a voice, continuousely, and understands what emotions the vis-a-vis has. In online communications it cannot do that. So even if you are in a dialogue, or have a thousand "followers", you're actually alone.

Anger is one thing. Being left alone with one's anger is worse.
 
Of course.
That's why you start a discussion here about it - to talk about.
That's the point exactly: talk abouit it.
But crivens is right:
This here ain't neither the place, nor the time nor the platform.

mer put it good:
Get your pet dog or your fishing route, or whatver, and switch of news, the internet,---- at least for toady. get some distance and the look for ways.
There are ways.

And I have yet not given up hope.
 
Crivens said:
Political stuff is not for this forum, so this thread may not be here for long. I'm sorry.
Click to expand...
If I am right, then this is a problem we (in the broader sense) helped a lot to create. And you cannot get away with saying, it is not a topic for us. It is called "Technikfolgenbewertung" (looking for the english word.. something along "technological impact assessment")..
 
PMc said:
we (in the broader sense) helped a lot to create.
Click to expand...
Depends on.
The ones who built the railways are not neccessarily the ones who decided what to transport.

Technikfolgenbewertung is we engineers and scientists are aware off (shall).
But decisions are made by others.
 
Good segway into media traumatisation.
We were already knee deep in coverage of the UVA shootings.
They drag this stuff out for weeks and I see no articles on dirtbikes doing wheelies in front of city hall.
They create motifs and captions to use over and over. A cultural brainwashing.
Easy to focus on the 'big ones'.
 
Profighost said:
Depends on.
The ones who built the railways are not neccessarily the ones who decided what to transport.
Click to expand...
And that is exactly what I would like to have discussed. Because I was always thinking, no, the engineer cannot be responsible for what others do with the tool he creates.

But then there were the discussions about the Los Alamos engineers, and in the 70ies a whole bunch of hippies declared engineers as the evil per se. Until 10 or 20 years later when they started to play with computers themselves.

And at that time I was thinking that the Internet is the solution - because it would bring together all the good ideas, all over the world, unfiltered by the media shops, and it would make people wiser and the world a better place...
 
Most important for survival (both physically and psychically) in these times is to overcome the feeling of being isolated and/or alone.

There are lots of people who feel exactly like you and maybe it is a good opportunity to build or join some groups sharing the same interests, even though these groups may be “politically incorrect” and/or controversial. As long as they don't cross the line towards illegal actions, this should be fine.
 
I agree with your concerns, PMc
But one cannot easily mix up the development of a bomb within a world war with the internet.
This also ain't nothing dicussalble within a forum.
Such things need books to be read.

But I get your point.

Don't forget:
The internet, as it was thought by information scientists, programmers, engineers, nerds... in the 1990's has not disappeard.
It's still there.
And it's everybody's own choice to use google, facebook, twitter,.... or look for alternatives, which are there,
and more can be built - by people such as you....?

Besides HERE is the prove there are people thinking different, looking for alternatives, not blindlely following the main stream, only.


I'm off for tonight (texted too much already {again}, sorry)

Phishfry,
heads up!

The most solution I know I could link to you are in german, only.
But most of this stuff is related to US scientists.
So the solution(s) are within your people.
 
The engineering solution was onscreen 35 years ago.
RoboCop

We need thousands of him now.

That is my last say.
Thanks for all your comments.
Feel free to carry on.
 
The US was built on genocide and slavery, as were many other countries and places little priority on education. Basically, we're a pretty stupid country and so the Onion can print this article every time there's a shooting, just changing the location.

www.theonion.com

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

UVALDE, TX—In the hours following a violent rampage in Texas in which a lone attacker killed at least 21 individuals and injured several others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Tuesday that there was no way to prevent the...
www.theonion.com www.theonion.com
 
Profighost said:
Such things need books to be read.
Click to expand...
Probably...
Profighost said:
Don't forget:
The internet, as it was thought by information scientists, programmers, engineers, nerds... in the 1990's has not disappeard.
It's still there.
Click to expand...
I was looking out, but sadly I don't find it anymore. I have seen most places disappear. I mean the non-technical places, where one could talk fringe topics. But worse, I don't see people remembering the old ideas from where all this did arise even earlier. Like people reading John Brunner, R.A.Heinlein, etc.
With FreeBSD this also has changed. I remember times when, talking at the right place, developers would frankly admit they have their known backdoors in the code... I don't care if this is considered good or bad, and I don't know if it is still the case, my point is: such places seem not to exist anymore.
 
In my area, a guy shot and killed a cop. His execution is set for Tuesday. People are petitioning for him to go free. And if the cop was their son...

It seems no one wants to take responsibility for their actions anymore. Everyone is looking for fault in everyone else while wanting you to be nice to everyone at the same time. The minority have the rule and the say because the silent majority are afraid to say anything cause the news media and social network will find them out and come down on them hard.

It's difficult to be a decent, moral law-abiding citizen nowadays.
 
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