Is society getting worse?

[David]

A lot of conservatives in the '90s idolised Singapore for its authoritarian approach to law and order (banning chewing gum and the like). I'd wager that such police states seem a lot more fun from a distance.

[stui magpie]

Police state? Maybe.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32090420

All human behaviour is driven by consequences, positive and negative. To drive the behaviour you want you need both the carrot and the stick working in balance, sometimes that means harsh consequences for undesired behaviour. eg, drink driving.

Which is the Police state? Getting the cane for spitting on the footpath or getting fired for sending a tweet?

[Mugwump]

^ Singapore is effectively a one-party state, so it passes laws about silly things like chewing gum. However, treating wilful and consequential violations of the laws of parliament with severity is not especially authoritarian. It is simply a healthy democratic community's way of holding itself together and making progress, rather than succumbing to the regressive selfishness of the criminal.

[Mugwump]

... and any fair minded person who has seen Singapore in 1975, as I first did, and today, will recognise that this place has seen perhaps the greatest miracle of domestic human development and enrichment in the history of humanity, by applying ruthlessly meritocratic principles and being pragmatic about what the state can do. In that, he was enormously helped by the stability of the Chinese and Asian family, the greatest system of social welfare ever devised before it was destroyed by "progressives". It is not my culture, so I would not do it that way, but on any reckoning Lee Kuan Yew is one of the greatest and most successful statesmen that has ever lived.

[Morrigu]

YES Stui that is perfect!!!!

I love Singapore it's so clean - it's nice not to step or sit in grubby people's chewing gum, lovely to walk down streets that don't pong to high heaven from rubbish, the public transport is excellent clean and reliable and always feel very safe there!

Looking forward to returning in Sep for the F1

Wasn't it a zero tolerance approach to even little things like littering that the Mayor (? Rudy something or other) implemented to clean up and deal with New York's crime??

[Mugwump]

^ yes, zero tolerance was a key policy in Giuliani's clean up of New York. I also spent some time in NYC in the 1980s, and it was horrible and grungy and stagnant then, compared to the relatively clean, efficient and funky city it is today. How "progressives" manage to describe themselves thus, when real progress so obviously asphyxiates from their policies, is a continual mystery.

[David]

This is the 'broken windows' social theory that remains controversial to this day. Of course, even the results of Giuliani's policies remain open to interpretation: depending on who you ask, New York is an unprecedented hotbed of crime (according to Trump and many Republicans) or safer and less dangerous than ever (many sociologists). Both have all the statistics and graphs you could wish for.

Personally, I liked the graffiti.

https://youtu.be/sTp14dhnNdI

[Dave The Man]

Simple.

Society is Utterly F**ked

[pietillidie]

Unless things are obviously "worse" across a number of major socioeconomic measures, and they aren't, it's an impossible question to answer because it's beset with personal preference, psychological projection, and incentives to talk rubbish.

It should be basic knowledge that our perception of the world is filtered by individual psychiatry, but the prevalence of illusions like Good Old Days Syndrome, and the daily stream of imaginary social panics, seem to indicate otherwise.

Even good efforts at objective analysis are sabotaged by the stories we tell ourselves (mostly to motivate and justify our behaviour). These stories can cast present life as heaven, hell, or anything between, regardless of the data at our fingertips.

The upside of this is that it makes happiness highly "elastic", so even in shite circumstances we have the capability to conjure up a sense of happiness. The downside is there might be a huge disconnect between the world and our imaginations.

To get anywhere with this question, one would have to take both the distortions of individual psychiatry and the known socioeconomic data seriously. Unfortunately, many people are frightened of self awareness on the one hand, and too time poor or careless to grapple with the data on the other. But that won't stop them feeling sure, just sure, we're living in heaven or hell.

[Mugwump]

^ thread title oversimplifies what the debate was about, but David was kind and diligent to split it out of the Pell thread, and it's nearly impossible to encapsulate a thread post facto.

[Skids]

Way worse.... if you need an explanation, you're under 30, your phone is never out of reach and the world owes you something.

Good luck Mother Future, this place is $@&^#.

[think positive]

[Skids]

[stui magpie]

Captain America won't cut it. If this country is going to have a future it will be the working class people who will make it once the over educated nuff nuffs and their hipster mates stuff things up and get jettisoned.

[think positive]