What's wrong with society today?

[Kill4Me]

I'm pretty sure you won't get executed in most places for having a sense of humor.

not true...in some of these "developing countries" a husband can have his wife executed for whatever she does that ticks him off (including a joke)

all he has to do is make a bad faith claim that she cheated on him...his word will outweigh hers.

most of those "developing countries" have been in existence for over five hundred years...what makes you think they will develop if they haven't already.

countries are like people, at the end of the day, they are what they are...you ain't gonna change 'em.

most of those "developing countries" are third world toilets...let's be blunt about it.

[xerx]

not true...in some of these "developing countries" a husband can have his wife executed for whatever she does that ticks him off (including a joke)

all he has to do is make a bad faith claim that she cheated on him...his word will outweigh hers.

most of those "developing countries" have been in existence for over five hundred years...what makes you think they will develop if they haven't already.

countries are like people, at the end of the day, they are what they are...you ain't gonna change 'em.

most of those "developing countries" are third world toilets...let's be blunt about it.

The operative word here is some. Some < most.

[xerx]

4X games are supposed to let you run an interstellar empire. In MOO 3 you actually get to run one.

[Esaman]

I live in the West well, at least West enough.

My viewpoint on the Canadian and American AND European societal and economic degradation is that with 100-150 years worth of glorious surplus and expansion many social and legal systems were invented and enforced which were inefficient and often contrary to individuals viewpoints of what is right or wrong. This has lead to many perverse incentives and bloated service economies coupled with social degredation.

You will either fall into one of two camps. You will either want to support the failing social system because you like the idea of communality (which is noble enough) or you'll want it torn down and reformed into something fit for purpose (which is also noble, believe it or not). If you are communual you will view everything as becoming more insular and angry, if you are in the other camp you'll be exascerbated as the system inertia weighs you down.

In short 'the wheels have fallen off the cart'; because there is no such thing as society, merely individual actors with their own ethics. I think you are broadly in Camp A. Welcome to your Randian Objectivist nightmare.

Randian Objectivist nightmare is what we(to different degrees) are living in now. What is coming Randian Objectivist's nightmare.
The natural and the right response to current economic, environmental and societal problems (possibly disasters in future) is societal organisation to regulate relevant areas in accordance to societal interests. The freedom of opportunistic ass rape through financial sector will be removed.
The Te dream of anarchic opportunistic wild west. "Wild west" was a frontier - something very much temporary. Whats more even frontiers of technology and colonization of space will have to happen in a stifled fashion to preserve the integrity of humanity. Te people will have to suck up their disappointment.

[InvisibleJim]

Te people will have to suck up their disappointment.

I guess since the politics of austerity are dominant with markets re-aligning to fundamentals that things ain't living up to your theory.

[Raver]

Does anyone else ever get a feeling that something is seriously wrong with society these days? It seems like most people have lost compassion towards one another and have become selfish and self indulgent. I'm not pointing out fingers to anyone in particular it's just a general feeling.

It could be a product of mass media incorporating ideals onto our youth that corrupts their fragile minds. The introduction of the internet enables people to feel less connected with eachother and thus have lower compassion. An unstable economy forces people to care more about their own problems and ignore others. People succumbing to new unknown forms of addiction that damage their sense of well being and moral code. These are just a few of the multitude of possibilities that are wrong with society today imo.

[Animal]

To read some of the written records of ages past, in all regions of the world, our particular society doesn't seem any more or less diseased than previous generations'. We're not seeing anything more than an expression of basic human vices that have always existed, but manifest differently in different times and cultures. I think the most pressing issues today are those that always have been part of the human fabric: tribalism and objectification, in which we can no longer look beyond the dualistic tendency towards psychologically "splitting" the world into a tangible "us" vs. an unreal "other." The reality of other people doesn't usually set in until you've spent time with them.

In current times, globalization and industrialization has exacerbated this problem. The further removed we become from the source of the things we eat, wear, use on a daily basis, the less we tend to think of the human rights implications, the environmental implications, and the social and economic implications. There are people literally dieing to make the clothes we wear. There are people literally dieing from the chemicals we consciously spray on our food crops and unwittingly dump into the ecosystem. There are real human, animal, and plant casualties to greed, which has evolved beyond the human scale of the past and extended to the organizational level of corporatism. But because those things happen "over there" and not here, we aren't faced with the reality of what sustains our standard of living. "Over there" usually refers to places with absent, weak, or corrupt governmental oversight of the preservation, support, and stewardship of the country's land and people.

On a more cerebral note, the more estranged we become from the act of producing and retreat into day-after-day consumption, the more helpless we become to the forces that shape our acculturation and our collective mind. I say "mind" in the singular because the human mind is socially conditioned and sustained: the very manner in which we parse our experience is linguistically conditioned. Many facets of my identity as "I" doen't exist without "you." The way our mind is shaped, not only through the explicit channels of advertising and mass media, but the more subtle back-channel feedback of the way we go about sating the pleasure-centers of our brains.