Need Help with Traffic.

Oh yes the video games....... yes, that is probably the worst culprit these days I think. My kids joke that if they got killed they would just RESPAWN, because that's what happens on video games.

Like you said though, some people have commited crimes that they learned on video games, I wonder how many people are delusional enough to believe that they may actually respawn

Steve, I have one song I can think of right of the bat that could be called raunchy,but it came on an album I bought and I didn't know anything about the song when I bought the album.
Other songs I have might be considered risque and/or humourus,but not outright disgustingly gross or perverted.

I can't even listen to the radio nowadays.

It's not even a case of just getting older, which I had concerns for initially. I've decided without a doubt that the majority of pop music is utter crap to the highest extreme.

Some lyrics have me creased laughing. They just pluck them from the air, add a beat, bish, bash, bosh, slapped onto a CD!

I always make sure I've got a small stack of decent CD's next to my stereo so I'm not tempted to press "FM".

Here's one more for ya'll. But I like this one. It's catchy -


EDIT: For the uninitiated... The real song is not "love" you.

How about inciting them with videos like these?

Noooooooooo

It just comes down to a difference in World view, really. You see a society in deterioration, I see a society that is just repeating a pattern. It's all patterns and cycles. People don't like to think so. They want to be the ones that are different. They want to be the ones to fix things. Guess what? Some of us will. Things will "get better" again. Then they'll get worse, until we nuke ourselves to holy hell.

Society as a whole is always just a tape playing on repeat. Worry about your individual stuff, because that is all you can control and the only thing that really has a chance of "breaking the mold" in any way.

On that note, I think the whole 'is this a world you want to raise your kids in" line to be a load of bull. Is the world raising your kid? No, you are. Of course the counter to that is "but I have to send them to school/work/etc. where they are exposed to others!"

Yeah? So what, if you did your job raising them, then they have the tools to make intelligent decisions. If you aren't confident in that and in your future child's ability to navigate the world, it is not the world's fault. It's your own for being a bad parent.

That's blasphemy, and won't be accepted. :p:p


See my above point of view on cycles and patterns. We'll have to agree to disagree, that comes down to a person's fundamental view of the world when deciding if they believe it or not, and we would have to devolve this past healthy debate to try to convince either side to change their point of view.
Music progression is a cultural evolution.


And that's OK, because it's not for you. People expect culture to evolve for what they want. Not the way things work. Like it or not, your generations time at the head of the cultural crowd has passed. They won't cater to you, and don't need to. Same thing will happen to my group. As soon as I'm out of that cherished 18-34 demographic, I'm going to see everything put out as absolute crap. And the people after me? They'll think it's golden.

Just like you, I'll probably see it as cultural decay. But it won't matter. The world will have moved on. It doesn't stop for any of us, and shouldn't have to.


Trust me, I know this. It would be foolish to think our generation doesn't recognize that, and even more foolish to base your view of how we are going to handle the world on what we consume as entertainment. Have real conversations with enough of us, and you'll see that we freaking get just how f***ed up yours and past generations have made things. In the space of five minutes, we go from making dick jokes to seriously discussing ways to balance the national budget.

No disrespect to my elders, but the smartest, most progressive, and realistic ideas I've heard on a lot of things come from my age group. We are setting our own higher standards as far as culture goes, too.

Let's use the 60s group again. Back then, it would have been just fine to call an African American a n*****. These days if you say it in a derogatory tone, you can expect for our society to make you an outcast immediately. We're making the biggest push for civil rights (gays/lesbians/all that jazz) since the original Civil Rights movement. We detest the religious intolerance that older age groups are still trying to propagate (outside of a small sect who listen to their overzealous parents). We're pissed about the environment, and not letting the older generation off the hook until they man up and f****** fix it.

Remember that crazy win Obama had back in '08 that rode largely on a youth movement that believed in him? That wasn't blind fandom. We thought he could do the job, and he seemed like he could do it. Now that he has been less than satisfactory? That guy is on f***ing notice. We won't put up with failure two terms in a row.

So yeah, we watch and enjoy Jersey Shore. We'll go to the club and bump and grind to some T-Pain and Usher. We'll shell out $20 to see another Transformers movie. But don't base your opinion of how we will handle the world on that.

We've got this s***. And if we don't? That just means that it was the point in the cycle that (American/British/whatever) society was meant to fall. We'll either all be dead or the next society will come up in it's place. It's that simple.

Hopefully I didn't step on too many toes with that. I'm not trying to insult/belittle anyone else. Rather, I just wanted to make my viewpoint clear and when I start talking about it I get a bit passionate, hence the "swearing".

The difference is, in MMA it's two men who both agree to fight each other with a set of rules. While it is violent, it's hardly like blood sports haven't been a part of society throughout recorded history.

You need to read about the old bare knuckle fights, or pit fighting of animals which was popular in California mining camps during the gold rush of the 1800's.

People used to duel to the death with guns and swords to settle disputes.

Public hangings would draw huge crowds, as would guillotines, where they would chop off a head and have it drop into a bucket, with the body twitching and convulting for all to see.

There are plenty of other examples of public torture throughout history.

Prisoners would have cages with starving rats put over their heads, with the rats having nothing to eat but the face of the prisoner.

In Roman times, you had gladiator games. But you also had the captured slaves from the Spaticus escape crucified by the thousands and on display all along the apian way.

Do we need to bring up the violence given to slaves? Or public lynchings?

How about Vlad the Impaler? (AKA the real Dracula) He'd jam a pole up a man's body and put him on display for all of his enemies to watch.

Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler also come to mind.

To compare MMA and the UFC with past historical events doesn't exactly show that we are more violent than we used to be. And MMA, as well as boxing and football, etc, is between willing competitors, unlike most of the events I posted above.

PS. I'll take Anderson Silva over Chael Sonnen.

Dan,
That was disgusting.So, its the parents fault (I agree in this case) so lets go find them and have a little talk about how they are bringing their children up.

I actually wrote a very very long response to Jo's comments and realized I needed a break when I saw I was only 2/3s done responding to him

But Since Joe is a writer,I'm going to assume he is a reader too. Joe, I highly recommend you read a book called Passages by Gail Sheehy.

You will read it now,set it aside and read it again in 10 years. It's very much in line with your theory of patterns and cycles.

Do songs kill people? It's not like I approve of songs with explicit and violent lyrics. I do believe that songs promoting and condoning violence are more harmful than sexualized songs.

For the record, I'm not making suggestions about laws regarding such things. I'm not a legal expert. I'm not an expert on the effects of video games or songs on children's psychology either. However, I can read the news, and video games have been linked to crimes. In the article I mention, the perpetrator reenacted what was on the video game. It was so much like the crime he committed, it was freaky. As a parent, I just make sure I am aware of such things, so I know better how to guide my child away from damaging influences.

That may be how you see it, but do you suppose that's how "they" see it?

I beat you, I made it to 1:31, but that was only because I had scrolled down and was reading and had to scroll back up to turn it off.

Joe, it seems to me you're missing one thing in your analysis. The line of decency keeps getting pulled lower and lower over time. Each time the line moves down to where something that was considered unwholesome becomes acceptable, it's always moved closer to even more unwholesome behavior.

Now you have organizations openly advocating adult/child sexual relations. 100 years ago they wouldn't dare openly advocate such behavior. Each time the line moves it moves closer to the fringe elements.

That's not to say you can't find instances of such behavior throughout history, but there's a difference between citing the worst examples of history and making that behavior acceptable to a society.

A rationale that justifies or accepts abhorrent behavior because it was done before doesn't offer much hope for improvement. Even if you want to say it's always been so, that's little reason not to strive for a better society now. Does anyone really thing sexualizing children is a good idea?

I heard a program on the radio a couple weeks ago that had a psychologist or psychiatrist as a guest, I forget which one he was, and the topic was treating 10, 11, and 12-year olds addicted to porn.

As far as "repeating patterns" go, domestic violence is a repeating pattern too. Doesn't mean these patterns should be allowed to flourish. It's a pattern that isn't good for society as a whole and can be extremely damaging to individuals.

I too watch the activity of every computer in my house. But I agree with your husband. Don't go crazy over a normal curiosity. My teenage son visits some choice websites once in a while, but I'm not about to embarrass him about it. I'd rather his curiosities play out here than somewhere else. If he ever ventures into illegal stuff, then I'll put a stop to it right away, but otherwise I let him have some freedom to explore once in a while. Then when he comes to me with questions, I know what he's looked at and I can better explain things to him.

I also keep an eye on the computer history to see what my kids do online. So far, I am pretty pleased with them and haven't found anything too incriminating.

As for video games, I saw Grand Theft Auto mentioned earlier, that is one game that is banned in my house. We have a couple of them (husband) but the kids aren't allowed to play them.

I know video games don't kill people, people need to be a bit screwed up in the head first to go ahead and act out what you do on a video game, but they can still put ideas in the heads of those people who are screwed up.

I remember a couple of years back, that guy who went to that island and shot all those kids, apparently he was obsessed with the Call of Duty video game. I certainly think that violent video games aren't great for those people who already have some mental illness.

@Joe I wouldn't expect you to agree with the topic being young and I know I never agreed with my parents when I was younger.

I'm not sure if it was you that said 'we've survived' but I need to question that. You have survived, but others haven't. The anxiety and depression rate in children has risen over recent years, as has the suicide rate. So...... have you really survived?

I'm not saying that music and video games are to blame, but they do play a role. There are many other factors that play a role in it too.

I can honestly say, I do worry about my children growing up in the world of today!

I don't doubt that for half a seocnd .

Will do, always looking for a new read!

Also I'll address Dennis here instead of quoting him too. Your point was correct, and something that I've conveniently left out of my analysis of the world. Did I ever mention my fatal flaw is to slip a bit too much into black and white ?

Let's not give government the opening to slip in and add their own ability to track that lol.

Yeah, that's classy and takes a load of talent to write something like that. Add to it some riffs that they have to sample (steal) and you have another hit song. :rolleyes: