Did something go seriously wrong...

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rwsmith

rwsmith

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Did something go seriously wrong with our gene pool about 30 years ago? Exposure to plastics, artificial sweeteners or vaccinations? Every day I see in the news that someone has killed their own children. Not to mention everything else that is going wrong. Being a crazed murderer is the 'new normal'.

A lot of societal ills can be linked to instant gratification, over stimulation, jadedness, 'self' above all and a whole lot of other stuff, but it doesn't explain everything. Oh, and don't forget the drug 'culture'. Maybe LSD DID break chromosomes, but instead of physical abnormalities, most of the effects are mental.
 
It's really not that unusual.... unfortunately. Plenty of that back in the day too, it was just less publicized. Drugs and other things do contribute but it's nothing new.

Look at Ed Gains. Psycho the movie was based on his story.

1977 to early 1978 cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono carried out a reign of terror in California, kidnapping, raping and killing 10 girls aged between 12 and 28

Don Gaskins has claimed 90 kills between late 60s to mid 70s. Convicted of 8.

Arthur Shawcross killed several children and 12 prostitutes starting in the early 60s.

There are many from 20s to the 60s. S. American killers have been even worse. Killing hundreds in poor areas and in time when police had no means to track these killings. One is credited with killing hundreds or children across the Andes

Itll take forever to list them all



Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
 
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Nothing New

One factor today, not a factor in years gone by, is the instant spread of information, worldwide, through social media. History is replete with thugs, sadists, cold blooded killers etc but you didn't hear about it. Likewise, you didn't have people politicizing everything to prove their point, especially with crime and punishment and gun control.

Within the past few centuries, you had Vlad the Impaler, Genghis Kahn, Caligula, Jack The Ripper, etc. Then, there was the sanctioned violence against religious groups, so-called witches, collectively referred to as the Inquisition.
 
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Sickos always make the news. The population of the world has exploded exponentially, so there are a lot more sickos out there today than 30 years ago. That combined with the always on 24/7 news communication available today, you hear about it on a near constant basis.
 
Yeah, everything is splashed on the news......

......and spreads like wildfire. But way back when you wouldn't have seen so many cases of parents killing their kids. I know it happened. Kid's used to 'stop breathing'. Forensics are better, so the ones that would have gotten away with it would have been greater. Our own history has things like Indian genocide, making examples by lynching, but even then everybody didn't act like they were eating each other alive. A lot of these violent movements were planned and executed for a reason, but this day to day violence on so many by so many?
 
federali said:
One factor today, not a factor in years gone by, is the instant spread of information, worldwide, through social media. History is replete with thugs, sadists, cold blooded killers etc but you didn't hear about it. Likewise, you didn't have people politicizing everything to prove their point, especially with crime and punishment and gun control.
Click to expand...

As much as I enjoy the fruits of the Internet, I feel that it is the key factor in the decay of our civilization.

I always use the volatility of the stock market to illustrate this. 30 yrs ago, if hog futures were struggling, you'd call your broker. He'd tell you to calm down, and a few months later, the ship would be righted again.
Nowadays, one hog gets a fever, everyone jumps on the smartphone, and 45 seconds later hog stocks are getting dumped like wildfire.
The internet and instant info is a cool tool, but extremely dangerous.

How hard would it have been for ISIS to recruit here 40 yrs ago?
 
federali said:
One factor today, not a factor in years gone by, is the instant spread of information, worldwide, through social media. History is replete with thugs, sadists, cold blooded killers etc but you didn't hear about it. Likewise, you didn't have people politicizing everything to prove their point, especially with crime and punishment and gun control.

Within the past few centuries, you had Vlad the Impaler, Genghis Kahn, Caligula, Jack The Ripper, etc. Then, there was the sanctioned violence against religious groups, so-called witches, collectively referred to as the Inquisition.
Click to expand...

Ditto...................


Also what use to be local is now national........."news"

Domestic disputes draw SWAT teams...........

Amber Alerts................

Clowns....... (by the way what are they charging these folks with? "Premature Halloween"???? Terroristic Threats????? )

Things have changed..... when was the last time you heard of someone " accidentally shooting themselves while cleaning their gun"?
 
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Every situation today seems to escalate to Defcon 5!
I graduated from HS is the mid 1980's. A school fist fight was punished by in school detention. Repeat offenders were suspended form school for ten days. No cops, no courts. Nobody got shot, stabbed or thrown off a bridge and nobody in the community knew what happened in school.

Today a student bumps a student in the hallway. The bumped student is offended and posts a bunch of **** on social media about the bumper. Bumper reads it and fires back with his own attack. School gets wind of it, police are called because one student is making "terroistic threats" to the other. Students are expelled and go to court and the entire thing is on the news, in social media and the public eye.

Another thing which the internet, and more specifically social media and cell phone cameras, has made much, much worse is BULLYING. I was bullied because I was a fat kid (still a fat guy) in school. In my day it was all face-to-face or notes and other stuff of limited scope. Today, people snap photos with their phones, manipulate them in horrible ways and post to social media. Thousands of people get to see what the bully wants. I am so thankful Austin Power's movie with Fat Bass(edit) didn't exist in the 80's, heck Fat Albert was bad enough.

Our society has become totally self-centered, vain and exceedingly rude. To many inhabitants of our country whatever makes them feel better is the only thing that matters. Don't like dealing with your children, well kill them or dump the baby in a dumpster. And when did like become so hectic that parents can't remember that they have a baby in the car? Several times this summer we heard news stories of babies which died because mom or dad left them in the car all day since they forgot the child was there. A sick society getting sicker every day.
 
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I think that it may seem that evil deeds tend to be much worse now and in fact may be if just applying averages as a certain portion of the population commits crime and our population is growing but also the almost instant report of things along with hi-def video distributed via the WWW.
 
BAM-BAM said:
Ditto...................


Also what use to be local is now national........."news"

Domestic disputes draw SWAT teams...........

Amber Alerts................

Clowns....... (by the way what are they charging these folks with? "Premature Halloween"???? Terroristic Threats????? )

Things have changed..... when was the last time you heard of someone " accidentally shooting themselves while cleaning their gun"?
Click to expand...

In oldspeak, getting shot cleaning your gun mostly meant eating your gun.

There are anti masking laws in some locales who make exceptions for holidays. Since they can't charge them with acting like idiots and scaring people they have to charge them with that.
 
You know how good parents are sheltering their little kids as they grow up and carefully and gradually expose them to the realities of life, so the kids develop good judgment as they become more mature?

The internet has turned us all into children without parents.

EVERYTHING is just dumped on us. Reality and then some. And scary stuff gets the most clicks.

In some ways the free flow is good; it's a lot harder for any one entity to control information, like exercise censorship. But in other ways, like discussed in this thread, we don't seem to be able to handle it. We clutch our smartphones or stare at our computers (yes, I'm guilty too) and get sucked into instant reality chaos, and sometimes even fabricated reality.

And it changes how we view reality. For many folks, a world that LOOKS scarier therefore must BE scarier.

Fun times.
 
Also---

Television and computers used as baby sitters.

A large portion of the young being raised by child care workers and acquiring their values, if any.

Vast numbers of children born and reared without fathers.

Half of marriages ending in divorce.

The proliferation of illegal drugs for "self-medication."

Being labeled an anti-whatever for adhering to conservative values.

Lack of responsibility for one's actions.
 
Vast numbers of children born and reared without fathers.

I feel that is one of the primary reasons. Or maybe symptoms of a sick society.
 
rwsmith said:
In oldspeak, getting shot cleaning your gun mostly meant eating your gun.

/QUOTE]

Yep........leave the family/kids with some "dignity"................world didn't need to"broadcast" what had actually happened.

Happened to a guy in our town...on the news that night.........the next day stopped by my Dad's office after school.

He was at inspection (4-12)the pictures on his desk included a..... Barcalounger, 12 gauge and a newly painted wall............glad to this day they were B&W!



12 years ago a friend with 4 boys 6-12 killed himself.......by the next day every kid in their schools knew; who, what, when, where and how!

IMHO no need ..............................
Click to expand...
 
We didn't have 24 hour cable news networks desperate for something to talk about and keep up their commercial ratings.
 
'Twas ever thus. We've always had the monsters among us.

As has been noted, both instantaneous communication and tremendous population growth--it has doubled in my lifetime--are factors.

I wonder also if better police work, using more advanced technology and the gigantic advantage of the computer, now connects more dots in the cases of serial killers and breaks more cases of John and Jane Does who formerly just went into paupers' graves unknown and unavenged.

Linking up murders by serial killers who kill in several states, or identifying the monsters by DNA analysis, may bring a lot more case to light that were never solved (or publicized widely) before.
 
Both parents need to be involved with raising the children.

Tough love works, no games or cable until your chores and homework are done and only if it isn't yet bedtime.

You can boil it down to my Mom's #1 rule, never embarrass me.

A parents love is ever vigilant, watching, observing, coaching and teaching.
 
Well, I always wondered about people from Flint (MI), and it turns out there was a reason. :p
 
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