<p>Watching Scarface and provacative music videos is hardly the same as having direct contact with serial killers, but, whatever. It’s just, like, your opinion, man. </p>
<p>/hippie’d
/white-man dreadlock’d</p>
<p>So, I might be a little on the progressive side.</p>
<p>With so many kids nowadays always online I’d say indirect contact is becoming just as effective as direct contact SO violent movies and such will be their only outlet into the outside world. The 1990s was the last time in history where social contact and honest, non-impersonal relationships were formed. Back then we didn’t have quite as many computers that went online and texting machines to rob people of their social interactions.</p>
<p>You can’t tell how its going to be in the future so basicaly you can’t tell until after it hapens when it was the best economy.</p>
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<p>That’s an EXTREME generalization. NOBODY has personal relationships anymore? And Internet technology has innumerable benefits, such as the spread of knowledge around the globe, being able to connect with friends and family from anywhere, and quick communication for business and military. </p>
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<p>Every generation says the younger generation is glorifying “sex, drugs, and violence.” It’s what they said about The Beatles and horror movies, then heavy metal and arcade games, and now it’s Xbox and Rap music. It’s a defense mechanism against simply embracing that times and standards change. And not always for the “worst,” racism and sexism have become less ingrained in our society. </p>
<p>People today say video games cause violence. Dan White’s lawyer said Coke and Twinkies cause violence. Correlation is not causation. If a large percentage of children play video games, and a handful of children do something violent, that is not a direct link to video games being the cause. A possibly mentally disturbed young person with an impressionable mind would be just as likely to be “influenced” by watching a gangster movie in the 1960s than by playing a gangsta video game today.</p>
<p>In fifty years, if College Confidential still exists, there will be a thread in this sub-forum titled ‘Debate: Prove to me the 2000s and early 2010s weren’t the peak of civilization’.</p>
<p>I also resent the fact that when the OP refers to ‘civilization’ he’s just talking about the United States.</p>
<p>I want you to go to [this</a> page](<a href=“http://www.gapminder.org/]this”>http://www.gapminder.org/), click to the tab that says “Gapminder World,” and press “play.” Note how the happiness in the world (as measured by life expectancy and per capita wealth) increases a lot in the 1950s and 60s…and then keeps getting better. A lot better. There was no peak and decline after that.</p>
<p>Also I don’t mind not living in a world where there is quite so imminent a threat of nuclear war myself.</p>
<p>Also, “there are more wars now”? Violence has been on a tremendous downward decline for much of human history, and the past 60 years are no exception. I know it’s asking a lot of you, OP, to read this review on the NYT, but it’s one of the best I saw. <a href=“The Better Angels of Our Nature — By Steven Pinker — Book Review - The New York Times”>The Better Angels of Our Nature — By Steven Pinker — Book Review - The New York Times; If you can’t bring yourself to do that, google “Better Angels of Our Nature” until you find a publication you can bring yourself to read that reviews it.</p>
<p>Constant threat of thermo nuclear destruction. Race riots in every major city. Vietnam War, Korean War. Lack of social safety nets. That pretty much kept me up as a youngster and teenager during that time. Oh yeah, seemingly routine assination of leaders…</p>
<p>I think the silence from OP means we won.</p>
<p>We have the continuous threats of terrorist attacks, neighbors you never know meaning anyone with a moving van could rob your house, a lack of social interaction and indifference which is society-wide. Women who use their legal leverage to sue men out of their money in divorce. Millions of children from broken families (divorces are far higher than they were 50 years ago meaning kids are grown up in a dysfunctional environment. Also we must consider the uselessness of “time outs”. The reason rich children (even back then )are/were spoiled is because usually they lacked corporal punishment. Kids these days are given limp wristed obedience methods. If you told me to take a time out I would have said “you told me to go into a corner, big wow, whatcha gonna do to make me”? and that would have been that. Now I know you kids wouldbe devastated by the removal of all computer devices from your rooms but I am from an era when computers were so rare in households that I didn’t obtain one until I was 10, I made due just fine without that techno mumbo jumbo which brings me to my next point. Computers:
In an era not so long ago people didn’t rely on a computer to do every little thing. Computers also rob us of the valuable social interaction between people I mentioned before. After all, 85% of conversation is nonverbal. We are getting nothing more than filtered emotionless putty.</p>
<p>We also have our own wars which have no purpose unlike the Korean Wars and Vietnam Wars, we were helping an ally at the time against an evil dictatorship of a government. (Communism in the USSR, China, and the NK is/was in no way loving and kind and if you believe so then you are most definitely wrong.</p>
<p>As for David’s argument there is a big difference in watching a gangster movie and playing GTA 4. In GTA or Saints Row YOU ARE actually PLAYING as the murderer and seeing him perform the actions under YOUR input, in the movie you are merely watching thus you are being less affected.</p>
<p>But hey, if you guys want to live in an antisocial, fast paced society with no set of morals, with no free time, and most importantly broken families and unloved children then please, love 2012 and all the horrors, I mean love, it represents.</p>
<p>I sure do miss free time and leisure that is absent from the 24 mindset of the world.</p>
<p>PS: The world is just as hectic as ever if not more hectic so don’t use the cold war I was born into as an excuse.</p>
<p>PPS Stats99: if you are so unhappy with being born in the time of JFK’s “Camelot” I’d switch birth dates and switch lives with you any day to know I was born into a time with substance.</p>
<p>Wait a minute, were you even alive in the 1950’s and '60’s? Oh, my God, this thread just got even more ridiculous.</p>
<p>Gosh dude who cares about that stuff! We got way cooler things bro! Like justin briber or lady gaga or Taylor swift! That stuff has so much meaning! I totally love listening to that stuff while rocking out to those techno rap songs! Drake is way cooler than tupac and easy e or whatever you old people used to listen to. Everything is better now! I don’t even need to talk to girls in person!
They never get to see how lame and weird I am in real life and we have such emotional and deep conversations about the newest trends because we know all new music is so totally meaningful! I mean, I’m sexy and I know it defines the 2000s! Woo! Man Obama is waaaay better than JFK anyway cause JFK wasn’t BLACK! Yeeee boy! Plus the war in Afghanistan and Iraq is so meaningful dude it’s a great idea and our economy is totally bomb! Who needs 3% unemployment rate anyway! I rock out with 8! See even our unemployment rate is a cooler number! Screw the 90s and rest of the 20th century! The 2000s are where is at!</p>
<p>^Over-the-top sarcasm is over-the-top.</p>
<p>Brah what’s sarcasm? I heard that word in an English class but I was too busy putting graffiti on my desk.</p>
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<p>Looks like your 21st century education system can’t shine a candle, much less a light bulb :/</p>
<p>Looks like your most glorious education can’t detect a blatantly facetious rant, unless you were referring to my response, in which case you should probably post with more clarity.</p>
<p>All those things he mentioned have fans, and they believe similar things. I’m referring that education in general.
Regardless I notice you have nothing to say to his replies. Please prove for example that Justin Beiber and Rebecca Black have more talent than Dusty Springfield, Paul Anka, or Elvis Presley. Or perhaps that Drake is more “gangsta” and speaks more to his supposed lifestyle than say Tupac.</p>
<p>Of course I don’t have anything to say to him, because his posts were stupid rants about the most ubiquitous parts of modern culture, not to mention the litany of grammatical errors (which were, yes, intentional; I get it) that accompanied them. Grammar and argumentation errors and fallacies made his posts incomprehensible, and have made yours a struggle to read. I guess your precious “wholesome” upbringing didn’t include the things I learned in fifth grade. Pity.</p>
<p>Look, if you can’t argue your point without setting up THE most ludicrous straw man in the history of straw men, I would say you’ve lost. </p>
<p>If I have to, here’s a couple refutations for you:</p>
<p>*Tupac wasn’t even born until the 1970s and was popular in a time much closer today culturally than the 1950s or 1960s.</p>
<p>*JFK wasn’t president for three years before he died, and in that time he presided over the beginning in earnest of Vietnam and the Bay of Pigs. While I think he was a good president, there’s no reason to hold him up as some beacon of the presidency, especially above Barack Obama, who’s had a similarly short time in office.</p>
<p>*To refer to “civilization” and then to only talk about the US is stupid. </p>
<p>*Rebecca Black is hardly a reasonable “average” to set for music in the US. The only reason her video went viral is because so many people thought it was awful. Justin Bieber is a musician popular with pre-teen and teenage girls.</p>
<p>*One doesn’t “rock out” to techno. Don’t be silly. Also, techno and dubstep are superb.</p>
<p>*Unemployment in the 2000s, until the recession, has been approximately the same as normal unemployment throughout the 1950s and 1960s.</p>
<p>You two are the trolliest tag team I’ve ever seen.</p>