ManWithAPlan

what about public service announcements like TRUTH?

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In the end we are but wisps

NotMinus

I don't think soceity will end, I dont' think we will cease to be compasionate or caring either. I think alot of this just stems from how people choose to preceive the interactions they are having in society. It is very easy to buy the idea that all big buissness is evil, all materialism is immorale and commercialism kills spirituaility. I think that their are some greedy people out their who make immoral decisions to make money but on the whole we need corporations, they play their part in our capatalist soceity. Although I belive capatilism spawns materialism and greed, it provides the most people, the chance to reach their potential. With hard enough work we can each find a place in the world where we are happy. You don't need to reject materialism or capatilism to be happy, you can embrace them and remain to be a compassionate, spiritual and caring person. We need to monitoir what is happening in our society and act out when the situation merits that response.

The powers to be are smarter then you give them credit for. They do not want to see the downfall of the halcyon North American soceity. Although we see the effects of trade agreements and outsourcing we are wheighing our opinion of them on the small percentage being negitivly affected without considering the possible long term benifits.

I agree with you Dawson70, you don't need to be politicaly correct to be a benficial member of soceity. I see nothing wrong with your decisions and agree that right and wrong are perhaps not what is defined by the law as a crime but what we feel morally responsible for.

ManWithAPlan

you guys should all read American Gods... it's a book about how when people came to america they all brought their customs, beliefs and gods with them - then eventually abandoned them for new gods (such as gods of technology, etc).

it's very much a book about how people are and i absolutely loved it.

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In the end we are but wisps

fatdaddy411

Small note to original poster: Love NAFTA. It's your friend. As long as other countries are poorer than ours and easily accessible, we're going to build things there. Now ask yourself, would you rather economically develop Mexico (lil' brown brother to the south) or China (scary ass authoritarian nation of 1.5 billion). Besides, Wal Mart and China go hand in hand: if Wal Mart were a nation, it'd be a bigger trading partner with China than Russia or the entire UK.

And for all the people talking about society going to hell in a hand basket: no? The long term trend in society is towards less wholesale brutality, not more. Now, before you pitch a fit about the 20th century being the most violent ever, hear me out. Yeah, huge wars, genocide, yada yada yada. The list goes on. But look at Western Europe as an example for the future of the planet. In the past, Europe was as much a religiously fervent, violent, politically unstable place as any part of the the Middle East today. Over time though, they've forgotten past old differences, old rivalries. They've lost the religious fanaticism that launched crusades. They've matured beyond fighting one another. Nothing short of a wholesale breakdown of society is going to change that. If Europe can reach that point, why not the rest of the world? We as civilized people are tolerating wholesale violence less and less as time goes on, and not killing one another is the key to maintaining society.

braindamage351

I know we like to think of small stores as being great, but I've had an extremely shitty experience with one. It was a music store. I bought a Wah pedal ($130) that broke 3 days later. I brought it back with the receipt. The guy checked it and agreed that it was broken. He called up the owner to ask what to do. The guy told me to come back some other time so he could personally check it out. It broke in 3 days after being used with extreme care. I was getting pissed off at this point, so I asked for an exchange. Of course they don't have any other wah pedals. The next alternative was store credit. Unfortunately, because it's a small store it doesn't have jack shit. Finally I just asked for a refund, and was turned down. Apparently they are strictly no refund. Not that they ever mentioned this when I bought it. Eventually I ended up talking to the owner on the phone. He started accusing me of breaking it, then he said he'd call the police if I didn't leave. So I handed the pedal to the cashier and left the store.

I ended up calling the bank and trying to fix it through them. They credited me the money, but they have to investigate the store to prove that I am supposed to keep it. What does this mean? Basically I'm out $130 until they investigate it (Which will probably happen some time between 2006 and the apocalypse).

And all of this could have been avoided had the owner not been an asshole. Yay for mom and pop shops!

ManWithAPlan

i don't get why you gave it to the guy... that was your proof..

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In the end we are but wisps

Cynthetiq

I live in NYC and in my area of the Lower Eastside, we smile as people walk past, say hello to our neighbors, we hold the door open for those coming in behind us. We also help our neighbors like during the blackout people went from door to do on 21 floor across 4 buildings to make sure that the shut ins knew what was happening.

When I travel around the world and I see places outside of the US, I see the same "fears" being peddled. Right now people still aren't buying it, but at some point in time the scales will be tipped.

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braindamage351

There is some law that says a store has to post that it gives no refunds. That's all they'll be looking for, the purchase is proven.

raeanna74

Speaking from experience, those conversations were just as engaging and personally I believe they were MORE engaging than any electronically created conversation that we hold here on TFP.

I grew up pretty much without a television. My parents owned several televisions off and on as I was growing up but rarely watched much on them and any time my brother or I began to whine about wanting to watch more television they threw the TV out. LITERALLY. I would say we probably owned a TV for about 3 years total while I grew up. We spent MANY days and evenings sitting on our porch, chatting with neighbors who walked by. I spent my days playing kick the can, capture the flag, tag, or wandering the woods and nearby creek with my best friend. Or I spent my days painting the porch, mowing the lawn, or weeding the garden.

I think we as individuals are becoming more isolationists that our nation once was. People want to pull our military out of other countries and want to hide in their homes. They don't want anyone else to know what's going on in their lives saying that it's a violation of privacy for other's to know this. There is no neighborhood raising our kids. We're left to do that by ourselves more and more. We don't want our neighbors and friends to have any say about our kids because that's a violation of our parenting rights. We pull away from our families by watching TV and (I must claim personal guit here) interacting on the telephone and computer. We've lost the personal human physical touch. That physical element is what makes us collectively cold.

I think because we've lost that physcal element in our daily interactions we become afraid of personal contact as in that woman who fled to her car instead of accept help from another unknown human on the road. We're unaccoustomed to any human interaction that's not based on BUSINESS. We go to the store and pay a cashier - not a human, we got to work and do the bidding of a boss - not a human. We're depersonalizing the people around us and reacting to them as though they are imaginary beings on a television and on the computer.

Technology is a wonderful thing. It has given us advances in medicine and made it possible for homebound persons to even operate a business or interact in a small way with other "electronic" humans. It has increased the speed of communication.

In the end, We need to be careful not to accept technology and media as a replacement for physical human interaction.

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My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

Zdragva

the problem with society today isnt wall mart or corporations, its greed guys. i mean for the poor like u say wall mart is a must, if they want have to money spare maybe. the problem with the world is greed, and what are we greedy for? money. I have often thought recently that mankind has become like ants, we no longer care about the real world but we care about something only our society has, and only society could have. the same way that an ants entire life is governed by the scent given off by other ants so out entire lives are governed by money. ants are extremely well structured social creatures but inflict upon them something their notused too and boom, they cant handle it, dead. same with us. we are only animals after all. We all try to get as much money as we can, save as much as we can, its true. our entire lifes are governed by money, that is a fact. its the reason we are destroying our biosphere it is the reason ppl get murdered, over drugs, over not paying ur dealer, thats the point MONEY ppl MONEY, ppl in africa... they have NO money, look how they live, even poor ppl in USA are fat. poor in usa is rich beyond dreams to an african. its all about money. even if the african child doesnt know it the reason he is starving is economics.

Zdragva

oh btw money is an abstract, it doesnt really exist outside of us, if we ceased to exist birds would use up dollar bills to nest in.

Zdragva

u guys talk about sitting at the tv for hours, in the good ol days u used to sit ofr hours reading or sewing or whatever thats not the issue here, what we do in our spare time is not the issue. the world isnt at the brink of war cos of tv, its at brink of war because some have and some have not and those that dont have want. and who are we to say they shouldnt get? who made the west the deciders over billions of lives? look at the facts. policy in the west determines the lives of ppl elsewhere in the world, you CANNOT argue with this fact. depending on which president of USA there is will decide whether or not a million aids victims die now, or in a few years, or if aids can be eradicated/prevented like the west. thats a fact, thats one of many. depending on how you guys in the US vote will determine the lives or deaths of millions. that is A FACT. it is about time this world stopped denying to itself the state of things and WOKE up to the facts.

Zdragva

you know why there is so much denial tho? to sort out the world, or to at least take responsibility will mean the END of the sheltered comfortable lives of the west and and evening out of riches, food, etc. across the world and YOU dont want that guys im stating the truth because im prepared to admit it. the reason why the world sux is because u only live a short time and YOU intend to get the most out of ur life no matter who suffers. FACT FACT FACT.

adysav

Someone posted about Wal-Mart and other big stores simply being progress, but that seems to ignore the wider economic impact in the areas that house them.
About 20 years ago the town where I live was thriving, with streets full of 'mom & pop' shops all doing a reasonable trade, and the region was quite wealthy.
Then comes the Asda (now owned by Wal-Mart) supermarket, slapped down onto a huge car park which used to serve the town centre. Now the town comprises of a few 'everything for £1' type shops, charity shops and a monolithic one-stop-shop Asda selling everything from clothes, dvds, tvs, food, gardening equipment, stationery and so on.
Rather than, say, 40 people earning a reasonable wage running their own business you now have 1 person raking in a large salary as a manager and 39 people on a minimum wage stacking shelves and running the checkouts.
This has happened to every sort of business around and a significant chunk of the population are unemployed or in near poverty.

'Progress' has meant cutting costs by turning the services into warehouses that employ people at minimal rates. The people in the area have to shop at these cheaper places now because the process of progression means nobody can any longer afford to buy things anywhere else because the decent paying jobs have just disappeared to line the pockets of the directors of new 'efficient' large scale operations.

I'm sorry if that all sounds a bit ranty, but this has killed my community and basically bankrupt my family and that of many other people i know.

Also on the technology issue and social interaction, if there's one thing I like to do more than playing games or watching a film, then it's doing so with friends.

MichaelVH

Yes. It's true. I was born a capitalist and I will die a capitalist. Can you explain whats wrong with North America? Life isn't fair, fair is a concept we invented and isn't natrually occuring. The greatest thing about living in a world that is not fair is that YOU have the power to decide your fate based on your perception and actions.

People don't want to even out the rich's. Our soceity has been designed in a way that teaches everyone to be worker through memetics, materilism and public schooling. Being a worker provides you the ability to provide for your famliy, raise children and own a few of the possesions you have been told to want. It provides a suitable quality of living for the majority.

Communism provides the same standard of living for everyone but when the majority already has the means to provide a suitable standard of living it is counter productive. The level of global communication has caused an almost equalizing effect globaly to establish what the majority needs for a 'succesfull' and happy life.

I belive I define my existance and will obtain what I want from this life because of the freedom capatilism provides for me. In my eyes I will exist above the people around me because I have established my goals and in doing so defined a porpuse for my existance. Will doing so benifit the world on a whole? No. Do I want everyone to join me in my pursuit? No. My happiness is not dependant on what the other 40 million Canadians are doing as long as everyone continues to pay their taxes and participate in the society that provides me the opportunity to reach my goals.

thefictionweliv

My rant on why I and other people shop in doing so support Wal-Mart. I am a former exployee.
Being someone that has worked out the inherent problem of supporting the mom & pop stores are that the mom & pop stores aren't hiring as they are run often by family and friends, one of whom I was not born in to. So already being broke and needing to accept the low wages of Wal-Mart I can also not afford to pay a $2 dollar premium for the mom & pop store cause on a gallon of milk. The lifestyle of the one working at the mom & pop store and the Wal-Mart employee are relatively the same in quality of life, often times people live in their stores. Lets just stay for instance a successful boycott was put on Wal-Mart and ended the company resulting in the largest employer in America letting go of all of its employees while already low income as it is will have to result to, in many towns, buying from the local convenient store at "convenient" prices which is a blow to making the poor poorer. As that person since they were working at Wal-Mart likely does not have the qualifications for another job seeks out a job in food service or a shoe store, perhaps even for a dollar less an hour in which time Rent-A-Center repos their children's bed set. Or perhaps they were in college on their way to a middle class life, yet now their tuition check bounces and they are barely making the rent.

Bassically it is a two-way fucking street, I cannot inturn support myself while not supporting a corperation, even to access this forum I'm supporting AT&T for internet access. Just as artists like RAGE while being part of a system preach against it, yet without using the system they could not have made their view loud enough to be heard. Everything in life is hipocracy.

You also mentioned the wholesome value of a candystore and such like that, they are still out there, and perhaps the rarity is a gift so that experience is special and not taken for granted. Say one day corperations folded in on themselves and the mom and pop store thrived, I can guarantee you there would be people saying, "Man wouldn't it be nice if we could just go to one store to get everything again. My kids are going to grow up in a world having to go to 5 different stores instead of making one trip."

thefictionweliv

And in response to people having to accept lower paying jobs, pay people more, money is worth less. Eco 101. Its a dead end street with that argument. Work hard enough to get where you want, live life the best you can and worry the least you can about how fucked it is. Hey you want to make a difference join the Peace Corps or something, the alienation I suffer from living in America is really the least of the worlds problems.

livingfossil

I hear Patagonia, in Argentina is quite nice as well, si puedes hablar.

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livingfossil

I think someone's been reading too much Baudrillard. Really, this comes down to saying that 'technology' is not natural, but, you know, that's an impossible argument to make--unless you want to claim that humanity itself isn't natural, in which case further development of technological apparatus will make us less base (i.e., natural) and more human (i.e., more technological).

The nature/culture dichatomy is a sham. Culture, technology, they're both as natural, human, as anything else can claim to be.

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Never anything witty.

Coastal Boy

But what if technology does play an important role in how a civilization's lifespan is determined?

What if just the understanding of technology can either push forward a people, or to hold them back?

What if just looking at the technology that we have today is not that far off from the relative technology that a previous society had, ie: fire versus indoor gas stove, stick versus gun, abacus versus a computer.

Ustwo

Could we ever Art?

Lets go back 1000 years. All information was controlled by central authorities, and reading was for the elite. Any lie could be easily told and believed because there was no other authority. You were kept stupid and working for others without being aware that things could be better.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

ARTelevision

no we could not. that is why we have always been futureless and remain so today. this is not us. this is an illusion.

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Ustwo

Could you expand on this as I am not sure what you mean.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

ARTelevision

We live a pale reflection of life, experience delusional concepts rather than what may or may not be "real", and worse, we are manipulable to the degree that the thoughts in our head are not our own - I think you understand why I see it this way.

To speak of an actual future in this capacity has always been dreaming of something that does not occur. What occurs is repetition of what has occurred. The things that seem to change are continuations of the same patterns. We are stuck in this state.

In brief, to describe what we experience as authentic existence is less true than to speak of it as non-existence.

I think the things I am pointing toward here have more validity as denials of "reality" or authentic experience than they do as affirmations of same.

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create evolution

Stompy

Hm, haha shouldn't this be in paranoia?

As for the whole "corporations are taking over" bit... it's not as bad as half you are making it out to be. For example, Walmart vs. Mom & Pop shop. Mom and pop shops are horrible most of the time - either that or there's absolutely no difference between the prices of their stuff and that of the bigger chains.

Now, if we're talking about, say, pizza joints in NYC, then that's a different story. M&P food shops are really hit & miss. I've had the best pizza ever in NYC on some random corner, but on the other hand I've been to a hole-in-the-wall mexican restaurant that tasted like the place looked.

But you name it, the big chains are equivalent, if not better.

Computer shops? I called to most M&P comp shops looking for a particular video card, and each one was marked up like $20 over what Best Buy has as it's BASE price. On top of that, Best Buy offered a $30 mail in rebate. $50 cheaper than the M&P shop. Why? Bulk purchasing. Best Buy can afford to do this. Other places can't!

Next case? Electronic shop. I was looking for a 15W soldering gun and they didn't even have one. They didn't even have .1 mm tips. Radio shack did! I called every electronic shop around here within a 10 mile radius and none had em. Maybe a 15W soldering gun is rare, but I didn't think so.

Grocery stores? Ok, their deli meats can be cheaper than big chains, but everything else is the same. Chains are better because at any given time they have a million and one things on sale. I guess M&P grocery stores are useful for when you need to find some ultra rare herb that a chain won't have, but how often does that happen?

Also, as mentioned above, M&P shops have horrible return policies. For example, if you return a wireless router to Best Buy and say "it doesn't work," Best Buy will simply take it, put it on the shelf, and give you a refund. No questions asked. The M&P shop will nearly call in a forensic team of scientists to determine whether or not you sabotaged the object in question. That's how they are and it's irritating.

Big chains also do price matching. I bet you any amount of $$ I can call a shop now that has a computer part for MORE than a bigger chain and ask, "They have it cheaper than yours, will you beat their price?" To which they'll respond, "No."

It's not like corporations are forcing you to spend money. You make a conscious choice to walk into a store and buy an item. If you don't want/need it, then don't buy it! I mean, really... If they advertise a new game, if it looks like I'll like it, I'll read a review. If the review is good, I'll buy. Their ad did good. How is that evil?

News... I don't watch news. I could easily go weeks without hearing or reading a single news report. If it's worth knowing, I'll hear it from others. If I'm bored I'll load something up to get a summary of what's going on in the world. Even if I did watch local news or CNN, I'd think they're full of shit on pretty much anything they report. I'll check the facts myself, thanks.

We have the internet, people. Nothing can be controlled unless there's suddenly some super computer controlled by the illuminati that captures all data transmissions and prevents people from spreading the word.

Corporations can be good, they can be bad. For example, Microsoft I'm sure had done some things to stifle innovation in technology because they'd rather make a profit. Enter Open Source. Millions of volunteers from all over the world creating something to perform equally, if not better and get the same tasks done for.. gasp.. free!

For every bad, there is a good created.

Plain and simple, it only controls your life if you let it and if you don't know any better. Society won't fall apart - it will adjust like it always has to big changes in how we live.

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