Is the world going to the dogs?

I think it’s always been commonplace for man to lament his situation, whatever time period or place he was in. And within reason of course, but I can’t help to chuckle a slight bit when people actually wish for older, more gentle times. Like when, in the middle ages? 50 years ago when women had no rights? Fuck all that shit, right now is pretty good, I say. There are, of course, some places much worse off than many others, which is why I’m glad I live in the country I do now, and in the time period here.

Or maybe it’s a generation thing. Kind of a lame example, but I notice that just about every single living adult will constantly claim that cartoons back in their day were better than what there is now. It doesn’t matter what was on during that person’s childhood, whether it was ten years ago or sixty; modern cartoons suck when you’re an adult. This is because your inner child is dead, you’re too old and you don’t wanna face it! Maybe it’s kind of the same for this subject? Things are dismissed when they no longer relate to one’s points of views and are no longer trending. If one grew up in a conservative environment, but over the years that environment has turned liberal, of course everything is going to suck. I personally believe that many of these ravenous dogs come from within, and are let loose in frustration and resignation.

Not that I have a problem admitting that my inner child is dead; Teletubies suck.

I’ll believe the world is going to the dogs when mother earth starts humping my leg.

I think we have been going to the dogs for more than 2,500 years, since the invention of agriculture in fact.

I think you’re barking up the wrong tree.

We’re making progress. Slow, spotty and non-linear progress, but progress nonetheless. On the whole, we’re much better informed, with vastly greater means of communication. This undermines the kind of isolation that fosters inbred thinking. This also breaks down the illusion that we’re much different from each other. We now have other sources of information about the world than that which our governments serve up. There are strong motives for cross-cultural economic and academic cooperation on a scale unimaginable in the past.

All this is good stuff. We just need to speed it up. The remaining pockets of old thinking now have access to powerful and dangerous technologies.

After brief space we looked again, and lo
The man was gone, evanished from our eyes;
Only the king we saw with upraised hand
Shading his eyes as from some awful sight,
That no man might endure to look upon.
A moment later, and we saw him bend
In prayer to Earth and prayer to Heaven at once.
But by what doom the stranger met his end
No man save Theseus knoweth. For there fell
No fiery bold that reft him in that hour,
Nor whirlwind from the sea, but he was taken.
It was a messenger from heaven, or else
Some gentle, painless cleaving of earth’s base;
For without wailing or disease or pain
He passed away—and end most marvelous.
Oedipus at Colonus ~ Sophocles

Humans have a place somehow linking sacred and profane. Our job is to let the universe know itself, and it is a mighty task. In knowing infinity, we simultaneously expand and shrink.

Our capabilities wonder at the vast space we watch above our heads. We delve into the depths of our bottomless seas. We quest to know.

Knowing brings humility to great minds. “Although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is, – for he knows nothing and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know.” Apology ~ Socrates

Life is beautiful. I don’t know why. It just is.

Are we regressing? No. Demagogues still dog our airwaves and foment controversy, and wise men quietly exert their ideas reasonably. In 2000 years who will be remembered from our time? Ted Cruz? I hardly think so. He is stuff and nonsense. Noam Chomsky? There’s an inkling that something of his may survive. Perhaps.

What they may say of the early 21st century is that people banded together to combat a global catastrophe in the form of unprecedented climate change, or they may say we laid the foundations of science to reach to the stars.

History moves on geological time scales. It is not measured in individual lives.

@Hawaii_Jake I came across this quote today which I’ll share. I can’t remember where I saw it, possibly on Fluther:

“The virtue of angels is that they cannot deteriorate; their flaw is that they cannot improve. Man’s flaw is that he can deteriorate; and his virtue is that he can improve.”

Mine is – Frodo Baggins rules the household!

@Symbeline I like the inner child theory. My own inner child isn’t totally dead, but it’s way too decrepit to appreciate the teletubbies. :-)

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Having just scratched the surface of quantum weirdness, I now know you may not have long to wait.

@ucme Cute.

@thorninmud Yes, access to dangerous technologies and the idiocy to use them to defend a dying way of life by killing all life. That solution is a pretty good measure of their grasp of critical thinking.

@Hawaii_Jake I’d answer your poetic quote with this one.

@flutherother That’s a fascinating quote. It’s from the talmud. And while I do not believe in the Abrahamic god that it supposes to explore, I wholly agree with its precept that those who accept absolute truth dictated from outside suffer the flaw on angels, while at least some of those who reject absolutism enjoy the virtue of being able to improve.

@janbb And that means dogs do not?

Dogs are such a mixed bag, over rated, just like us.
Does the good outweigh the bad?
I’m not so sure. Dogs like humans are known to attack without provocation, soil their sleeping areas, drool and bark over insubstantial things and, all in all, be obnoxious parasitic creatures.

Pffft…I think the world needs to be run by cats. lol

@Coloma Mine was until recently. It’s been a downhill slide since then.

:-( Long live Spoony the great.

@ETpro Well, yeah. Blowing in someone’s ass in order to produce music isn’t something I’d want to show my kids, anyways. In fact, what a great way to kill the inner child in advance lol. Teletuby fuckbastards.

I think there is no evolutionary advantage to being satisfied with the status quo, and that’s why we are all a bunch of whiny bastards.

It’s probably a defense mechanism.

@Symbeline Too true!

@Seek_Kolinahr Half of us yearn for the distant past and the other half are determined to forge on into a distant and uncertain future. The third half are just lousy at math. And from the interplay and warring of those drives, the fittest survive.

I wore a Star Trek costume to a renaissance faire, and I’m dyscalculic. No wonder I have issues.

Said our ancestors in their goatskin togs,
“The world is going to the dogs!”
Said our great great grandpa in his house of logs,
“The world is going to the dogs!’
Said Grandma as she fed the hogs,
“The world is going to the dogs!”
Say we all, now, with interrogs,
“Is the world going to the dogs?”
There’s just one thing I have to state:
The dogs have had a long, long wait.