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| Thread: Holy Hell Batman! | |
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violent_flower
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Almost there.
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posted July 22, 2012 11:42 PM |
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Holy Hell Batman!
Practiced Apathy
While rocking in my cushioned theater seat anticipating the Batman movie and becoming more disappointed that the movie was more of an annoyance than entertainment, I realized something; out of every politically skewed reference and carefully placed phrase one caught my attention. It had me thinking about it through the rest of the movie, “Practiced Apathy”!
This is me; this is becoming the human race, the wall of non-emotional irrational thought process that we have built like that of an outstanding craftsman.
Every day we as a race are inundated with negative news casting just causing us to marinate in a cynical existence. Some are able to convince a doctor that this thing called life is so disappointing because of some new mental illness of the month or tragic event that cause this desire to soak in medication so we don’t have to deal with it. You know why that’s easier, because maybe if you have to deal with it you will discover that the only person that has had your spirit tied down is you. What then, what if “you” can’t be fixed or replaced or understood by anyone, ever?
My children come home and tell me about their day at school and for every one thing that was good there are 10 that makes you sad for them. We don’t want to coddle them too much because that will make them pansy’s for the whole world to push down but if we tell them to just get over it then we are teaching them that being apathetic to their own feelings is the way to cope.
The newspapers, magazines full of greed and over indulgence, that disquieting commercial with the underfed and over abused puppies and kittens crying at you through the screen,and let’s not forget about the lonely old woman who has fallen and can’t get up as she has no family and is just merely awaiting her sentence to the state facility.
The video games we most enjoy are the ones where we are killing and slashing the throats of other humans who have caused us no harm. They have simply taken our resources from an imitation town we have built which is based on a phony storyline which the whole dam thing is nothing but zero’s and one’s anyway you sheeple of the world.
We are all seeping this practiced apathy, some more than others but how long can our empathy sustain itself at this point. I find it more challenging every day to slide out of bed and have no control over the failing human race.
I can only do what is within my reach but it just doesn’t seem to be enough, it all seems so jaded and without purpose. I find it more difficult to fit someone else’s shoes on and live a day in their life and tell them it’s going to be ok because when I turn around there is only falsified hope staring at me.
I pray that we together can rise above all this suffering and sorrow and that my faith in humanity as a whole can be restored if it was really ever there. I am going to try my best as a person to not live to only practice apathy, are you willing to do the same?
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Learn how to duck and weave because I will throw truth at you all day!
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 23, 2012 12:18 AM |
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Practiced.. Sounds about right. There is another, similar thing I had long wondered about. Whether people really are that hypocritical or whether they fail to realize that their ideas and actions diverge. And apparently.. many do not seem to realize, they have either talked themselves into believing the lie or someone else has gotten to it and they have embraced it. An extreme example, there was a guy in his thirties that was telling himself that it is for the best that he wasn't earning a lot of money or he would not be able to uphold his leftie morals. Just wow.
It seems that some parts of our brain will stagnate if we do not keep nurturing them. Comfortably numb, unwilling to put some effort into making things better. Often not even for the sake of self improvement, much less for others.
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Map also hosted on Moddb
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 23, 2012 12:55 AM |
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Okay.
Just keep in mind that the world has actually improved a lot during the last decades. World poverty is going down fast, there's a lot more peace, the amount of religious people are decreasing, more people are getting rich, America is becoming more socialist, many more people get to participate in democracies etc.
It's a very happy time.
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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Doomforge
Admirable
Undefeatable Hero
Retired Hero
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posted July 23, 2012 01:29 AM |
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Hey VF 
Even Petronius (in Ancient Rome) complained about "current times" and "current youth". And that was 2000 years ago
So, I guess it's only natural to consider the next generation "worse" than ours, but not necessarily true - a reason to be optimistic, I guess Since humanity does it for centuries and it's not really going anywhere near total decay it should be, given that a couple hundred generations passed since Petronius 
As for the murderer... another Breivik-type loon. The issue here is that the loons saw Breivik becoming sort of a celebrity, and I'm afraid more idiots may follow in their retarded way of gaining fame. I blame the media for that. Too much spotlight for human garbage like Breivik.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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violent_flower
Promising
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Almost there.
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posted July 23, 2012 01:35 AM |
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Yes I agree and there are lots of things to be thankful for and I do believe we view the next generation as inept. I try not to have that attitude.
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Learn how to duck and weave because I will throw truth at you all day!
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 23, 2012 02:19 AM |
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And then there are those guys infecting the rest with optimism. Heh
Where the Hell is Matt 2012
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H5 is still alive and kicking, join us in the Duel Map discord server!
Map also hosted on Moddb
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mvassilev
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Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 23, 2012 02:47 AM |
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I don't understand what the problem is. You care about the things you should care about and are apathetic about the rest.
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Eccentric Opinion
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 23, 2012 08:13 AM |
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That's just because we have all the information available that we want - but also all the information we do NOT want.
Are we really supposed to care for far away people dying or suffering because of some tragic accident or the monstrous doings of people who somehow lost it?
What about those whose deaths and sufferings are too common and ordinary to be newsworthy? The children who die from hunger and AIDS every day in some dark and forlorn continent, for example?
We have 7 Billion people on the radar - that's 7.000.000.000. It's normal that a certain percentage of them will suffer from hardships and misfortune ... But you cannot change things.
So that's why it's a way to survive and not being depressed all the time, to NOT care for things you a) cannot change and b) have no direct contact with (that is, you don't know any of those suffering or dead or having lost someone). Yes, tragic things happen all the time - in earlier times as well. THEN, however, people didn't know or learned only weeks, months or even years later about them.
Our modern world lets you participate - this is good when you can watch interesting events like a faraway concert or the Olympic Games, but it's bad when it brings to you the latest desaster, plane crash, assassination, mass killing, civil war, child abuse or whatever it is, that makes it to the headlines.
So as trivial as Mvass sounds - you cannot bear the misfortune of the world. And you SHOULD not and not even try. Life's too short for that.
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kodial79
Promising
Supreme Hero
How'd Phi's Lov't
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posted July 23, 2012 09:05 AM |
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Time may be linear but history repeats itself.
Petronius complained about the youth in Rome and that was 2000 years ago, true. But then, look what happened to Rome? Probably the same thing will happen to our civilization too, later on.
To those of you who think they're immune because it all happens to some far away country or to a minority of people in yours, you will eventually have to secondguess yourselves.
Back to the example of Rome, I am sure that back then the general feeling was the same. The middle classes were content into thinking that "this can't happen to us", while the higher classes were too busy indulging themselves in their orgies, to stop and consider where this road will lead them to.Even as Nero was setting the flame to it, or even as the Goths were preparing to ransack it.
It's the boiling frog example that back then and again today and anyway, every time a major civilization was reaching its decline, is the most fitting example.
The only fact presented in this conversation, is that our civilization is declining. We're reaching the end of an era, I think. I find both sides of the argument to be very rational ways of thinking.
It's nice that some people are sensitive to these matters and think about them but it's true that on an individual level, nothing can be done. Both sides are repeating the same point from different views, and there is no absolute right and wrong here.
However the water keeps boiling and the frog keeps on adjusting. Eventually he will be cooked. So hold on to something and brace yourselves. This time around, it might not be with whimper but with a bang. Because the more violently our society is spiraling out of control, the more powerful will be the eventual crash too.
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Signature? I don't need no stinking signature!
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Doomforge
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posted July 23, 2012 11:17 PM |
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Quote:
Time may be linear but history repeats itself.
Petronius complained about the youth in Rome and that was 2000 years ago, true. But then, look what happened to Rome? Probably the same thing will happen to our civilization too, later on.
What happened to Rome was inevitable. The "moral degradation" Petronius complained about contributed the least, or not at all.
The empires (or "civilizations" as you call them) fell because of various reasons, but moral degradation? naah.
Our "civilization" does not suffer from having multiple other "civilizations" pressing on our oversized territory with our soldiers spread too thin, too... So I wouldn't worry about that 
I'm also not living in an empire, but in a piss-poor backwater country, so I don't have to fear for it falling. For a country to fall, it has to be powerful first.
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We reached to the stars and everything is now ours
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 24, 2012 12:28 AM |
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But Poland's president is amazing. Like you gave Obama The Witcher 2: Collector's Edition. How AWESOME isn't that?
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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Tsar-Ivor
Promising
Legendary Hero
Scourge of God
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posted July 24, 2012 01:38 AM |
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Quote:
But Poland's president is amazing. Like you gave Obama The Witcher 2: Collector's Edition. How AWESOME isn't that?
When your countries only great modern accomplishment is a video game franchise, then you gotta wonder.
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"No laughs were had. There is only shame and sadness." Jenny
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pei
Famous Hero
Fresh Air.
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posted July 24, 2012 03:26 AM |
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Dont be such an emo, life is great.
>>END OF LINE
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kookastar
Honorable
Legendary Hero
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posted July 24, 2012 05:01 AM |
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Have you read the young adult/teen fiction Feed? It's not exactly what you are talking bout, but it portrays a bleak, apathetic future feuled by consumerism. It's a quick read and relatively haunting if you have time to spare
I used to think the human race a real discrace, but over time I am meeting people who make me think there is still hope. The growing middle class, consumerism, and powerful multinationals are the main issue I think. People are happy as long as they can buy their two buck items made in some sweet shop on the other side of the world, spend their disposable income on self-indulgence to keep up with social pressures, while looking down on the working poor with a capitalist attitude of "they could be rich too if they wanted to be".
I guess it's all about conscience - people will change the way they look at things to appease theirs - why shouldn't they feel good? - people these days are told that they have a right to be happy and feel good and this can override how thier actions affect others. It's sad; advertising/marketing doesn't help this. Hell, we live in a world where breast implants and other cosmetic surgery is becoming NORMALISED. Scary stuff.
What people aren't recognising is that all this consumerism, marketing to make people consume to be "better" or "happier", is really about keeping the middle class in it's place. Making them feel like they have made it in life when a couple of percent of the world's population control 80% of the wealth. The need to consume is overriding empathy. We have destroyed companies and local businesses, homogenising the western world, sacked workers for cheap overseas labour and no one is really standing up against it because at the end of the day we want to be able to buy a printer that will last 12 months then be thrown away cause it is cheaper to buy a new one and hell, there's no one left to fix these things anyway.
I know this sounds like I've gone off on a socialist tangent and maybe I have, but I truly believe that this is the driving force behind apathy. Until people see themselves as a community (and not the individuals that consumerism has constructed us as) then people will use apathy to validate their own lives.
Anywayyyyyyyyyy
When I travelled a little bit (wish I had really done some long term travelling), I was amazed at how many helpful, caring, people there were in the world. It really did restore my faith in the human race. That and moving to a remote island in the middle of nowhere where I have found some people that just keep going out of their way to make others feel good about themselves - and for no good reason!
Empathy still exists, I guess we just have to try to expose people to it whenever we get the chance. I was talking to the mother of one of these awesome chicks and she was telling me she would take her 2 young daughters to old people's homes for visits every weekend, where they would sing or just sit and talk to people. They would make food or gifts for people in the neighbourhood and just pop in and share these - it really doesn't take much time. I wish my parents had exposed me more to this kind of social generousity.
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uhuh
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pei
Famous Hero
Fresh Air.
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posted July 24, 2012 05:32 AM |
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Im afraid you restored your faith based on positive discrimination.
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fauch
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 24, 2012 01:47 PM |
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Edited by fauch at 13:51, 24 Jul 2012.
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Quote:
I guess it's all about conscience - people will change the way they look at things to appease theirs - why shouldn't they feel good? - people these days are told that they have a right to be happy and feel good and this can override how thier actions affect others. It's sad; advertising/marketing doesn't help this. Hell, we live in a world where breast implants and other cosmetic surgery is becoming NORMALISED. Scary stuff.
depends where. here in europe, that's still the case in some countries, but overall people are told (especially the low to middle classes) that thay should make sacrifices for the greater good (for the riches) you can really wonder if they aren't making some kind of social experiments to see how much they can destroy humanity in people?
Quote:
I have found some people that just keep going out of their way to make others feel good about themselves - and for no good reason!
we are more used to hear about people who go out of their way to piss off others 
but in our individualistic society, it isn't often very well perceived to do something for other people for free. sometimes even the beneficiary doesn't appreciate it. people claim they don't need help from anybody, that you should cope alone.
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kodial79
Promising
Supreme Hero
How'd Phi's Lov't
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posted July 24, 2012 04:05 PM |
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Quote:
Quote:
Time may be linear but history repeats itself.
Petronius complained about the youth in Rome and that was 2000 years ago, true. But then, look what happened to Rome? Probably the same thing will happen to our civilization too, later on.
What happened to Rome was inevitable. The "moral degradation" Petronius complained about contributed the least, or not at all.
The empires (or "civilizations" as you call them) fell because of various reasons, but moral degradation? naah.
Our "civilization" does not suffer from having multiple other "civilizations" pressing on our oversized territory with our soldiers spread too thin, too... So I wouldn't worry about that
I'm also not living in an empire, but in a piss-poor backwater country, so I don't have to fear for it falling. For a country to fall, it has to be powerful first.
No, you're right. Moral degredation is not the cause of the fall of Rome, but it has been one of the many faces of its general declining. A symptom of cancer for example, not the cancer itself.
Anyway, now it's not like back then. Unfortunately we're living in the age of globalisation and everything is so incoveniently connected to each other. There's always room for things to get worse for everyone.
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Signature? I don't need no stinking signature!
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violent_flower
Promising
Supreme Hero
Almost there.
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posted July 27, 2012 03:41 AM |
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Kookie its nice to see you again and your post is great, I agree.
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Learn how to duck and weave because I will throw truth at you all day!
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