Is society getting worse?

[pietillidie]

"Is Society Getting Worse: A Study in Old Farts Sounding Like Old Farts"

[stui magpie]

Not fair. I once met a poor person. It was a disaffecting experience. I showered for hours afterwards.

I hope they didn't touch the Lambo. you'd have to have it scrapped.

[think positive]

Well you wouldnt read about it! last night one of my best and oldest friends saved some dude in a car from going over a cliff near her home in Macclesfield. He tried to do a u turn, and lost control. (she lives of a narrow street, actually its a dirt track!) she was yelling at him but he wasnt listening and he was sliding towards the drop, so she picked up a couple of logs and chocked his back wheels. he was white and shaking so much when he got out the car. she didnt let him pay for the damage, and off he went. so today she finds out he broke into a house down the road from her, he was caught on their security cameras! and she saved the turd!! im just glad he took off straight away though, shes on her own, her new hubby pilots hot air balloons in Kenya every summer! though she reckons last year when he took off it was worse, on day two she had a massive huntsman in her house!! Shes a brave bugger, but she once smashed her car when a spider popped out!! i get that!! but i think id rather the Arachnid than the grub she copped last night!

And apparently our trailer was still attached to the ranger! So I guess we were lucky!
damn criminals!

[David]

[pietillidie]

^Yeah, likely impossible to gauge given (a) what is now known/defined/recorded vis-a-vis the bad old days, and (b) how unstable even contemporary knowledge and definitions are.

In this case, proxies for stress (the root of mental illness) are probably more reliable: deprivation, violence, disease, etc.

Actually, having just written that second paragraph, on second thoughts I would be shocked if mental health is worse now given those proxies have declined markedly in recent decades.

[watt price tully]

"Is Society Getting Worse: A Study in Old Farts Sounding Like Old Farts"

Nail Hit Head

[stui magpie]

"Is Society Getting Worse: A Study in Old Farts Sounding Like Old Farts"

Nail Hit Head

Says one old fart to another.

[watt price tully]

"Is Society Getting Worse: A Study in Old Farts Sounding Like Old Farts"

Nail Hit Head

Says one old fart to another.

We're best placed to know

Taking the train into & out from the footy today I saw young people offer older people seats without a blink or being asked etc. I praised the first lot. Society is definitely going to the dogs

All the young people I personally know, that is my children, their friends & family etc are all pretty wonderful people. Some of the oldies however with their long standing drinking habits amongst other things which I won't go into here, leave a (fair) bit to be desired.

[HAL]

I hear you. You and your their long standing drinking habits amongst other things which he or she won't go into here leave a fair bit to be desired.

[Mugwump]

^ if your understanding of this issue is that it only concerns young people, and that someone gave up a seat on a train so it's going well, and I like my kids friends, then someone needs to dim the lights on the thread. Young people are more victims of a society that has lost its capacity to set standards than the cause of it.

[think positive]

^ if your understanding of this issue is that it only concerns young people, and that someone gave up a seat on a train so it's going well, and I like my kids friends, then someone needs to dim the lights on the thread. Young people are more victims of a society that has lost its capacity to set standards than the cause of it.

Very well put.

The arsehole kids out there didn't raise themselves, unfortunately neither did their arsehole parents. The mememe generation didn't start with the kids of today, it's just evolved more by their time.

[Mugwump]

^ indeed, TP

[watt price tully]

^ if your understanding of this issue is that it only concerns young people, and that someone gave up a seat on a train so it's going well, and I like my kids friends, then someone needs to dim the lights on the thread. Young people are more victims of a society that has lost its capacity to set standards than the cause of it.

We of course if...blah blah blah...No it's not based on that & you know it. But we're all rooned rubbish is just that, rubbish.

Society is always good if you've got the means. Society is less good if you don't. The issue we have that haves have more & the have nots have less & this is becoming increasingly the case.

While our governments increasingly cut access to health, education, employment and housing then logically this will result in a less better society. Margaret Thatchers economic rationalism of users pays is only good for those who can pay. While we not only tolerate but fund large cooperate entities to socialize the costs but privatise the profit then what does one expect?

[watt price tully]

When criminals stopped fearing the law, crime exploded. Murder rates are 3.5x what they were in 1960, GBH rates 8x. Population ca 1.5x. This broadly coincides with the era of rehabilitation. I believe the evidence supports that the price of this liberal niceness is paid in the lives and brutalization of the innocent. The same people who fret about capital punishment seem to feel little connection between their policies and the capital sentence given by hardened criminals to innocent people. I think the evidence, and intuitions about criminal nature, suggest a very close connection. While there are exceptions, I think most criminals are rehabilitated when they again fear the law enough to avoid reoffending.

This is all very well. It reads nicely (even if I rather suspect that your statistics are hogwash) and in broad I come far closer to agreeing with the thrust of it than I do with David's literate, nebulous and unrealistic idealism.

However, we have to face two unpleasant facts. First, the results of exactly this kind of policy (notably in the United States) have been spectacularly poor. Imprisonment rates have quadrupled, death sentences have been reintroduced ... and the crime rate has remained static or gone up even further.

Second, consider the circumstances of the offender. If things are bad enough (i.e., if you and your Thatcherite cronies have been allowed to run the country for too long, depressing working-class living standards and life-chances beyond a certain point) punishment becomes meaningless.

My great-something grandfather was transported to Australia for stealing a piece of cloth. What would drive a man to risk a life sentence of transportation to the other side of the world and ten years hard labour in Port Arthur just for a piece of bloody cloth? They tried harsher punishments - ridiculously harsh punishments - for people like my great-something grandfather, and they achieved nothing whatever.

Only when social conditions improved (as a result of poor people coming together to help each other by forming trade unions and defending themselves against the Tories) did the crime rate drop.

I reckon that by the time someone is committing crimes that get serious jail time, it's way, way too late. The time to inspire respect for the law in that person (using punishments as necessary) was ten years previous to the offence he is doing time for,

I don't especially disagree with that, though the condition of the 19th Century poor vs now is really incomparably different. No one in Britain or Australia needs to resort to crime to survive or to live an essentially civilized life. ........

With all due respect that is errant nonsense. Do you know much pensioners have to live on & the cost of living. That is supreme ignorance.

Do you realize how hard it is for young people who are homeless to get access to money to live?

Utter ignorance & spoken from a position of privilege.

The cost of living outweighs the capacity to pay for the poor in a lot of cases. My SIL works in a senior position at Centrelink what they are doing to young people & others is simply horrendous.

[Mugwump]

Best not to start a post with "all due respect" if the remainder of it is largely ad hominem and full of foot-stamping and ignorant assumptions about my "privilege" and what I know and don't know. I don't particularly want to engage you on the basis of such unpleasant attacks, but both of my 87+ year old parents live on the state pension and have done so for many years. So before you lecture me on my ignorance of such matters you might want to project just a little humility amid the self-righteousness, and test your assumptions.

My comment compared the conditions of the 19th century poor and today's poor. The latter have state income protection in age and unemployment, minimum wage laws, government pensions, free education to age 18, free health care, workplace health and safety laws, and a plethora of opportunities for self-education. If you want to contest this with actual argument, feel free.