# Maybe waywardness just a symptom of greater prob



## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

America is a bomb about to go off!!

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/318986-america-bomb-society-crisis/

Thoughts?!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Pluto2 (Aug 17, 2011)

you having a bad weekend?


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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

Nah all is well and u?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## NoChoice (Feb 12, 2012)

I wholeheartedly concur. The "incompetence" referred to in the article permeates society, all the way to the family level. We are not even competent to be married. He mentioned the 1930s and how communities were actually close knit groups. Hardship serves to stimulate mental growth and that allows for much more of the things we sadly lack today, empathy being chief among them. Integrity, honor and consideration are some others that in the absence of, narcissism proliferates. If people knew just how close to oblivion we are there would be pandemonium. Ignorance is bliss.


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## Pluto2 (Aug 17, 2011)

Glad you're ok, Dude.

Personally I like teetering on the brink. I'm sure its happened multiple times over the years and we just don't pay attention.

Time to start a new project to make my little corner of the globe pretty for the apocalypse


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## Marduk (Jul 16, 2010)

NoChoice said:


> I wholeheartedly concur. The "incompetence" referred to in the article permeates society, all the way to the family level. We are not even competent to be married. He mentioned the 1930s and how communities were actually close knit groups. Hardship serves to stimulate mental growth and that allows for much more of the things we sadly lack today, empathy being chief among them. Integrity, honor and consideration are some others that in the absence of, narcissism proliferates. If people knew just how close to oblivion we are there would be pandemonium. Ignorance is bliss.


It may feel that way, but the opposite is actually true.

IQ is increasing year by year. As is education. Violent crime is declining. So is divorce, teenage pregnancy, and the number of people dying in war.

It's actually a golden age for humankind. And yet, we constantly feel like it's in decline.

Why is that?

I would argue it's because of the rise of news as entertainment and a hyper-polerized politburo that cashes in on such things.


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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

I agree waywardness big topic here but it's just a symptom of a fallen people. Dude
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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

marduk said:


> It may feel that way, but the opposite is actually true.
> 
> IQ is increasing year by year. As is education. Violent crime is declining. So is divorce, teenage pregnancy, and the number of people dying in war.
> 
> ...



Huh? We have mass shootings weekly?
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## lifeistooshort (Mar 17, 2013)

Cheating is nothing new. What is new is the number of families broken up over it because you couldn't divorce in days of old and even when it became legal it was frowned upon. 

And while men have always been able to cheat openly women had to hide it, because there was a huge double standard and women had no means to support themselves, so men controlled everything. It was expected that men cheat and women had to accept it.

The idea that women can now openly cheat and leave is new for men. 

What you're seeing now is equality.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## NoChoice (Feb 12, 2012)

marduk said:


> It may feel that way, but the opposite is actually true.
> 
> IQ is increasing year by year. As is education. Violent crime is declining. So is divorce, teenage pregnancy, and the number of people dying in war.
> 
> ...


Sir, I do not know from what position you perceive things but I see the opposite. Young people cannot even make change without the help of the electronic cash register. 60-70 years ago almost half of the country lived on farms (approaching 49%), that percentage has fallen to less than 2%. We're losing the knowledge of how to even grow our own food.

Standard testing requirements have been lowered in my state so that more students can pass and be moved into society. The inner cities are turning into mini war zones and more and more "Americans" are being recruited for terror activities both here and abroad. Gangs are an ever increasing threat as well.

Morality is falling like a stone as evidenced by the rise of web sites promulgating infidelity, instantaneous hookups and the like. There are now billboards advertising help for girls with unwanted pregnancies. As to divorce, there are sufficient numbers of divorce cases now to allow specialization. Attorneys can offer "male only" services.

I do agree with you that the news is now more akin to dramatic reality television filled with sensationalism and hype but there is reality behind the hype.


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## Heatherknows (Aug 21, 2015)

marduk said:


> I would argue it's because of the rise of news as entertainment


Reality TV has turned the average American into an imbecile. Recently I've reduced my internet and TV watching usage. I believe it's been a good thing but I still find myself oddly addicted to both TV and social media/information. I could live without the internet but I doubt I could give up TV. It would be nice to give up both and spend more time focused completely on the real world.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

Dude007 said:


> I agree waywardness big topic here but it's just a symptom of a fallen people. Dude


The level of cheating in marriage has always been about what it is now. The major difference is that it used to be that men had what was a basic blank slate to cheat. It was accepted that most men cheated (mostly with single women) and the a wife had to pretend that he was not cheating. Why? Because she had no way of leaving him and/or supporting herself and her children.

The difference today is that now women are more able to cheat and that if a man cheats on his wife, she does not have to pretend that he is not.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

Heatherknows said:


> Reality TV has turned the average American into an imbecile. Recently I've reduced my internet and TV watching usage. I believe it's been a good thing but I still find myself oddly addicted to both TV and social media/information. I could live without the internet but I doubt I could give up TV. It would be nice to give up both and spend more time focused completely on the real world.


Since the average American does not watch reality TV, I don't think that the damage is a much as one might think. Not even 10% of Americans watch it on a regular basis. I think that there is hope. >


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## jb02157 (Apr 16, 2014)

EleGirl said:


> The level of cheating in marriage has always been about what it is now. The major difference is that it used to be that men had what was a basic blank slate to cheat. It was accepted that most men cheated (mostly with single women) and the a wife had to pretend that he was not cheating. Why? Because she had no way of leaving him and/or supporting herself and her children.
> 
> The difference today is that now women are more able to cheat and that if a man cheats on his wife, she does not have to pretend that he is not.


No way of leaving him and supporting herself...come on now. Anyone, whether male or female can support themselves. Today women have just as many college degrees as men do and are quite able to support themselves. The only difference is we have a female dominated court system that wants to make men pay for whatever goes wrong in a marriage whether they cause it or not. In other words, let's make everything old fashion, the way it used to be, up until it doesn't benefit women, then let's give them the advantage there to.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

jb02157 said:


> No way of leaving him and supporting herself...come on now. Anyone, whether male or female can support themselves. Today women have just as many college degrees as men do and are quite able to support themselves. The only difference is we have a female dominated court system that wants to make men pay for whatever goes wrong in a marriage whether they cause it or not. In other words, let's make everything old fashion, the way it used to be, up until it doesn't benefit women, then let's give them the advantage there to.


That part of my post was not about today. It was about in the PAST... I was comparing infidelity in the past to infidelity in more recent years.

.


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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

And now it's hip to be betrayed!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

Dude007 said:


> And now it's hip to be betrayed!


???????????


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## NoChoice (Feb 12, 2012)

EleGirl said:


> The level of cheating in marriage has always been about what it is now. The major difference is that it used to be that men had what was a basic blank slate to cheat. It was accepted that most men cheated (mostly with single women) and the a wife had to pretend that he was not cheating. Why? Because she had no way of leaving him and/or supporting herself and her children.
> 
> The difference today is that now women are more able to cheat and that if a man cheats on his wife, she does not have to pretend that he is not.


I have seen it argued that the numbers are about the same from then till now but how can this be? By your own admission it was mostly males that cheated and now that women have equality, they can cheat as well. So if it was a mostly male phenomenon then and now many more women have entered the cheating arena how can that increase not affect the numbers? Additionally, are the infidelity numbers including non married committed relationships? More skewing of the data.

Also they say the divorce rate is declining. Of course it would appear so if fewer couples are getting married in the first place. In light of available facts, anyone who believes that our society is not growing worse with each passing generation I believe is either in denial or is a hopeless optimist, as in delusional.

May I ask, if this is getting better then what would getting worse look like?


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## TeddieG (Sep 9, 2015)

Okay, I see things a little differently, but I'm a medievalist by profession. In the day of arranged marriages which were really family mergers based on combining properties, infidelity occurred but the eleventh commandment, especially in the Victorian period of the 18th century, was "thou shalt be discreet." Men had affairs but they were never intended to last and women looked the other way, or vice versa. The role of a couple was to produce an heir and a spare. 

The rise of romantic marriage seemingly gave people more autonomy, but until the 1950s, when the myth of the nuclear family reigned, there was less economic recourse in splitting up families over infidelity or just general incompatibility. The 1960s ushered in the reign of free love, and I think marriage as the kind of commodity that it was in the medieval period or even a contract about raising a family became a contract that could be broken. 

I grew up in a rural community with grandparents who had survived the depression in their very early youth, and we grew gardens and canned our own food. There was something about a common shared sense of survival, since none of us were wealthy, that led to a cohesiveness really not unlike that of the peasant societies of medieval Europe. We also had livestock and we fished and we rarely EVER ate out or bought processed food, so we spent time preparing it, cleaning up, all that stuff . . . our life was structured by chores. And we didn't have cable TV. On Sunday mornings my dad and I read the paper together while Mom made breakfast before we went to church. No one ever divorced in our family or cheated, until my dad's youngest sibling did so, and he was the only one who went to college.

I do think the media play a huge role in body insecurity for women, and I don't watch reality TV, but I was reading an article online today that was supposedly "news," but it was a line or two in the first paragraph, and then a series of tweets that said the same thing over and over again. We don't even really have a fourth estate, a real journalistic entity, anymore. So I do think the junk that is peddled online and in huge quantities provides a very dismal view of our society and culture and I had to stop using the internet and phone apps so much, since it was depressing. On the app for our local ABC affiliate, we get "breaking news" all the time, but it is something like, "murder/suicide in Town B," or "7-11 robbed in town C." I now just read newspapers for the entire story and the analysis, and I don't have much time to do that at the moment with a dissertation in progress, but I don't need up to the minute breaking notations of some idiot stealing gas or some bozo robbing a 7-11 in front a security camera for all the world to see. 

But I think the really big turning point in our decline was the debacle on Wall Street. Years ago I used to watch Luis Rukeyser on public television, and you could tell that in his panel discussions, there was a kind of moral underpinning to advice about investing, stocks, entering into mortgages, and all things financial in our country. We lost that in the Bush years, when companies were making loans for mortgages that they knew weren't sound, but didn't care because they were going to sell those mortgages at a profit and not have to face the responsibility for the outcome if they defaulted. NPR played a tape that had been made at a lunch of Wall Street financiers. They didn't know they were being taped, but they said they didn't care if people lost their houses and the whole system fell apart; they said they worked hard and deserved to be as rich as they could get. 

I honestly think that while I felt the 1960s anti-war protests were a good thing, even though I was in elementary school in the mid-70s and was just seeing the tail end of it when the Vietnam War ended, there were a lot of things resulting from a period where people felt they could walk away from responsibility that have trickled down to succeeding generations, and we're reaping the consequences as a country. When I was in England this summer, I noticed the difference in the way Brits approach responsibility and the fact that the privation of the 1950s after World War II ended, and the resulting rise in the punk rockers, somehow the Brits have maintained a kind of national character that we don't have anymore. But my English half of the family have become MORE conservative as the years have gone on, not less, yet are still willing to call out their government and their banks on their shenanigans than Americans are (or are able to, since corporations own the Congress). 

That's just my subjective anecdotal opinion, though.


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## Marduk (Jul 16, 2010)

Heatherknows said:


> Reality TV has turned the average American into an imbecile.


Incorrect.


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## Marduk (Jul 16, 2010)

NoChoice said:


> Sir, I do not know from what position you perceive things but I see the opposite. Young people cannot even make change without the help of the electronic cash register. 60-70 years ago almost half of the country lived on farms (approaching 49%), that percentage has fallen to less than 2%. We're losing the knowledge of how to even grow our own food.


So you've changed the problem now to food production?

The problem with food production 60 years ago was that it was horribly inefficient, resulting in having to have a larger % of the population do it.

This is quite similar to manufacturing.










The fact that less people are required to make food is a good thing, not a bad thing.


> Standard testing requirements have been lowered in my state so that more students can pass and be moved into society. The inner cities are turning into mini war zones and more and more "Americans" are being recruited for terror activities both here and abroad. Gangs are an ever increasing threat as well.


Not supported by the data.

See "the flynn effect" and the following:












> Morality is falling like a stone as evidenced by the rise of web sites promulgating infidelity, instantaneous hookups and the like. There are now billboards advertising help for girls with unwanted pregnancies. As to divorce, there are sufficient numbers of divorce cases now to allow specialization. Attorneys can offer "male only" services.


Also not supported by the evidence:









Although it is hard to find a metric for this thing you call "morality."


> I do agree with you that the news is now more akin to dramatic reality television filled with sensationalism and hype but there is reality behind the hype.


C'mon, Spock. Science and logic means you have to go where the data takes you, not where you feel like it's taking you.


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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

We're all waywards now
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## McDean (Jun 13, 2015)

Dude007 said:


> We're all waywards now
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


More and more this appears to be the case. We live so much longer than people 80 years ago the expectation that our personal goals and expectations won't change in one lifetime is long gone...leading to wayward searching for others that match our new goals.

Societal decline, if you believe in history as a blue print, is inevitable. No empire has ever lasted 'at the top' forever. The fall of the US mimics many similar issues of excess, breakdown in institutions like marriage etc as the fall of Rome.

In all historical accounts of decline the one consistency I've seen is a 'lack of leadership'. Our country is in dire need of that at all levels of society: when what the Kardashian's say has more followers than our own president it's a no brainer we're in decline...


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## Heatherknows (Aug 21, 2015)

marduk said:


> Incorrect.


Do you have a chart regarding Emotional IQ?


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## Marduk (Jul 16, 2010)

Heatherknows said:


> Do you have a chart regarding Emotional IQ?


How would you measure it?

If you're going to assert that emotional IQ is dropping, the burden of proof is on you, not me.

I am not saying that the world is unicorns and rainbows. But I am saying that the current politicized trend of "the world is going to hell" is mostly propaganda -- and suits both the right and left wing thinkers alike.

But it does not make it _true._ Merely convenient.


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## BetrayedDad (Aug 8, 2013)

EleGirl said:


> The difference today is that now women are more able to cheat


I think that is both very true and very sad.

In the last few generations rather than something being done about men openly cheating. Which I agree, used to be the worst kept secret no one talked about. Now you still have the same men openly cheating and also almost as many married women cheating as well. At least in the past, most of the women who were "mistresses" were single so at least only one family rather than two was being affected. Now the married women have joined in on the home wrecking as well. Equality indeed.


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## Marduk (Jul 16, 2010)

Women have always been able to cheat.

It's just become a lot more socially acceptible for women to cheat. 

What is likely true is that women will cheat about as often as men, and for similar reasons. The story we might tell ourselves about that might be slightly different...

But it comes down to means, motive, and opportunity.


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## BetrayedDad (Aug 8, 2013)

I don't think the reasons are similar. 

Most men cheat for sex, most women cheat for emotion.

Obviously there are exceptions but this is true more often than not.

Cheating for sex is "neater". ONS's and brief affairs in/out never see the person again.

Cheating for "emotion" is messy. Long drawn out affairs that are more likely to be discovered.

Part of the reason for the large uptick in divorces in my opinion. Most women aren't looking to be used.


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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

Yeah what we are talking about here is just a breakdown of an institution(marriage) mirroring the breakdown of an empire. Hand and hand. Like I said, we're all waywards now. Dude
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## woundedwarrior (Dec 9, 2011)

Marriage is dead. The original definition is now all interpretation, like pretty much everything else in the world, no black and white, only grey. It should just be called a committed relationship and do away with the "marriage" term all together. People recite vows, only out of tradition and not meaning, they know the first sign of unhappiness, they're gone. Instead of "for better of for worse" or "death do us part", just change it to a more honest "until I no longer feel like it".

Divorces are down because marriages are down and living together is up.


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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

woundedwarrior said:


> marriage is dead. The original definition is now all interpretation, like pretty much everything else in the world, no black and white, only grey. It should just be called a committed relationship and do away with the "marriage" term all together. People recite vows, only out of tradition and not meaning, they know the first sign of unhappiness, they're gone. Instead of "for better of for worse" or "death do us part", just change it to a more honest "until i no longer feel like it".
> 
> Divorces are down because marriages are down and living together is up.


nail on head!!! Dude


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## TAMAT (Jun 20, 2015)

Dude007,

You wrote, *Huh? We have mass shootings weekly?*

And they are big news stories, but I suspect if you analyzed the data, a greater percentage of people died each week from diseases that are now easily preventable back in 1910.

You may respond that we have more lifestyle diseases, heart attack, obesity, AIDs, STDs but to some extent people are choosing to engage in the risky behaviors which often cause those ailments and get to enjoy eating and having sex.

Improvements in auto safety also save quite a few more than are killed in mass shootings on a weekly basis as well, do you have a sense of nostalgia about 1950s cars watch this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_ptUrQOMPs

Tamat


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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

Cutoff the USA from Psyche meds for a week and this is Mad Max


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## Marduk (Jul 16, 2010)

Dude007 said:


> Cutoff the USA from Psyche meds for a week and this is Mad Max


I would say instead revamp your political system from its current two party (hence polarized) broken system and force the media to stop treating news as shock entertainment. 

I don't know if you yanks have noticed, but turn on CBC or BBC once in a while, and republicans are no longer fiscally conservative and democrats are no longer socially liberal. 

If it feels like your country is tearing itself apart, ask yourself who's agenda that notion serves.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Dude007 (Jun 22, 2015)

marduk said:


> I would say instead revamp your political system from its current two party (hence polarized) broken system and force the media to stop treating news as shock entertainment.
> 
> I don't know if you yanks have noticed, but turn on CBC or BBC once in a while, and republicans are no longer fiscally conservative and democrats are no longer socially liberal.
> 
> ...


Its much worse than that, the two parties use small time wrestling theatrics. They are the appearance of choice. They are both controlled by a global banking cabal and the corporatists. DUDE


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## NoChoice (Feb 12, 2012)

marduk said:


> So you've changed the problem now to food production?
> 
> The problem with food production 60 years ago was that it was horribly inefficient, resulting in having to have a larger % of the population do it.
> 
> ...


I sincerely do not know the purpose of this post and the question of my logic.

The first question you ask is about food production. However, the statement I made was regarding losing the knowledge of how to grow food. Also, none of the statistics you presented negated any of my statements so I am unsure of your intent.

Your statement of food production being inefficient I do not understand either. The reason for more farms is simply because that is how people early on survived and it was a way of life and, unlike manufacturing, growing food dates back millennia. Humans have survived without manufactured goods but they perish without food. Your opinion that the less people who are capable of growing their own food the better I find to be somewhat shortsighted in that those same people will be the first to perish if the supermarket closes or to kill the farmers to take their food. Then they will perish when the supply runs out because they haven't the knowledge to grow more.

The "data" that you seek can be found if you desire to find it but violent crimes have risen sharply in the last 12-18 months in many metropolitan areas as has civil unrest. You can deny the proliferation of gangs in these same areas but it does not negate their existence. The US government now has ongoing surveillance to find terrorist sympathizers and recruits. If you doubt the violence you may choose to take a holiday in downtown Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland or any one of a number of metro areas and see the "data" for yourself.

Regarding "this thing I call morality", if you think finding matrices on it is difficult, try finding the ideal itself.

Your statistics on teen pregnancy do not negate the billboards I have seen nor do they negate the fact that many high schools across America now have day cares so the mothers can graduate.

You have presented statistics many of which can be countered but I fail to see the purpose. You show data from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s but I and many, many, many more like me have memories of those times and I can tell you from experience that times are worse now than then and it continues to decline.

Again, I am perplexed by your post. If you are attempting to purport that these are the best days of humankind then I will agree to disagree.


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