Why is our society so screwed up.

I guess maybe we should listen to JCUK...

Why don't you start us off with your views on the question you have posed?

Maybe JCUK and others who don't want to talk about the screwiness of society are the problem?? /s

I'm not so sure our society in particular is screwed up. Humans in general always have had a tendency to be selfish of course, but that's not at all restricted to our society here and now. When you compare this to other societies in the past, then I think there's not a lot of places I'd rather live then right here right now. Of course, I live in the Netherlands, which is a very nice country to live in. If you live in countries like China, the USA or Zimbabwe, and you're unlucky you might think otherwise.

[quote=IsolatedBadger]Maybe JCUK and others who don't want to talk about the screwiness of society are the problem?? /s [/quote] I think some issues are important and should be discussed, just in the right forum...not in live chat swamping it. Maybe you should stop trolling and instead contribute with an intelligent view?

I wouldn't suggest that our society is screwed up. I think there is certainly a lack of education on how to use and interpret social media and deal with the quality of information published. Young people don't have the emotional intelligence gained through life experience to deal with the amount of unfiltered information. An example of this is the gender debate that was discussed in the chat. A lot of substance and facts being used in such debates are unvalidated and often consumed from echo chambers that people subscribe to. If you consider that most of the content that people consume is from platforms, groups and channels that people choose to subscribe to. Most people only subscribe to content that resinates with them - hence having an echo chamber view point. A lot of people are shielded from valid opposing views. The validity of content that is primarily consumed in the 21st Century is highly questionable. But....this is how people choose to educate themselves.

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” ― Socrates And while it might not feel like it at times, I think society has evolved in the last 2500 years or so where you can make similar claims but the reality is that we are always learning to become more civil and being locked in a room with no outside contact will not help people evolve.

JCUK, you aren't wrong, I don't have enough time to actually write a response now, but I will later.

So, the thing about the echo chamber, there are a lot of things with that... Most people don't know anything and are basing opinions off of one tiny scrap of information that they have seen, often there are things that just keep going around, like people retweeting on twitter or something(I have no idea if this is the right word, I don't use twitter.) And it often just comes down to who can get the most people to view their things, fake news can spread... Which leads me to two things, one, a personal connection, my grandmother, watches the news constantly(liberal stuff) and knows a little bit about so many things, but will act like she's studied them her whole life, and the second thing... The two main political parties in the US are republican and democrat obviously, and both are popular for different reasons... I would say that democrats have very liberal beliefs that a lot of people subscribe to because they think that they are right... Keep in mind this next statement is coming from a democrat(sort of, not old enough to vote lol) The republicans have a really good way of getting their views across and getting them to a lot of people, so even if the people don't fully agree with all of their views, they go along with them... They have better advertising in general, and it works, it really works, and some things, like creating jobs for americans I wholeheartedly agree with. I feel like republicans use the echo chamber really well, and democrats not so much, two different approaches to modern day politics.

[quote=pygmyhippo277]So, the thing about the echo chamber, there are a lot of things with that... Most people don't know anything and are basing opinions off of one tiny scrap of information that they have seen, often there are things that just keep going around, like people retweeting on twitter or something(I have no idea if this is the right word, I don't use twitter.) And it often just comes down to who can get the most people to view their things, fake news can spread... Which leads me to two things, one, a personal connection, my grandmother, watches the news constantly(liberal stuff) and knows a little bit about so many things, but will act like she's studied them her whole life, and the second thing... The two main political parties in the US are republican and democrat obviously, and both are popular for different reasons... I would say that democrats have very liberal beliefs that a lot of people subscribe to because they think that they are right... Keep in mind this next statement is coming from a democrat(sort of, not old enough to vote lol) The republicans have a really good way of getting their views across and getting them to a lot of people, so even if the people don't fully agree with all of their views, they go along with them... They have better advertising in general, and it works, it really works, and some things, like creating jobs for americans I wholeheartedly agree with. I feel like republicans use the echo chamber really well, and democrats not so much, two different approaches to modern day politics.[/quote] Not being American, I only follow American politics from afar and it doesn't directly influence me so I don't understand it as well as many people on this forum. This is my view on American politics taken typically from UK media sources: The Republicans focus heavily on what 'the people want' not necessarily what they need - their sales pitch is patriotism and 'for the working man' - Whether they actually deliver on this, I don't know. This is a very easy and simple story to promote and lands really well with people that don't necessarily see the bigger picture. I guess having a wealthy outspoken person like Trump singing their tune and using a simple language was easy to understand and digest. I can definitely understand how he was voted in. The Democrats message seems more complex to land, as my understanding is they are the 'everyone' party and trying to find the balance. This is not such a strong clear message and more complex to land. I think American politics is very easy to understand on one hand but then extremely complex to understand on the other. When you look as a US map of red and blue states it is very easy to understand what is going on, and why different geographical groups would vote Democrat over Republican. The UK is not as clear cut from a geo political sense but is still influenced by geography to some degree. As a smaller country our geography will certainly be less influential. I would suggest this plays very strongly into the echo chamber paradigm which massively influences US politics.