I look at people today and see more cold and mean behavior than I ever have. Most think I am weird, because I can actually empathize and have genuine feelings for people. There is NOTHING wrong with it. What has ever happened to treating people the way that you would like to be treated? I treat everyone, even strangers as family and I am the weirdo. Just some random venting to regurgitate into a few kilobytes of cyberspace.
People haven’t changed in thousands of years, but with access to media from around the country, around the world, and with the advent of social media, we’re simply more aware of the evil that men do (and women) Hotwater
I'm not sure. If you look back in time you can see that there were many abuses that today we don't accept. Things like slavery, torture, child labour and so on. It's true that all these things still go on in various parts of the world, but in a significant number of places, in most of the developed world, they are banned. Maybe though there's some regression taking place. Being nice to people is not something though that is exactly encouraged by modern culture. The stress is on competition rather than co-operation. If you take a pro human rights position for example, the UK press dubs you a 'luvvie', which is supposed to be an insult. I take it more as a badge of honour.
Slavery, torture, and child labour are still acceptable today. Slavery--Education is compulsory, and you must work a job and make money. If you reject the system, flee to the forest (Public property) and try to live natural, then you're labeled a vagrant (Homeless), and you suffer countless amounts of persecution from police. You can't stay more than 14 days or you're trespassing (Public property HA!), and you must have licenses to hunt and/or fish to keep yourself alive. When the police arrest (Kidnap) you, you go to jail (Concentration camp), get booked and processed (Profiled then molested), and are jailed (caged) until your trial (Slave auction). You go before a judge (auctioneer) and the judge will do anything he can to find you guilty (Monetarily viable), just as the police use anything they can to fine (Tax) or arrest (Kidnap) you. When you go to prison (A private institution), money is made from your head like a stock and any labor they can muster from you is extracted for profit. Society says it's a crime to be homeless. WTF? You must work, you must pay taxes, and debt is there to tempt you into getting even tighter bondage--bondage that most don't ever shed before they die. Torture--Being physically/mentally disabled, I get tortured and molested all the time by social services and hospitals. Experimental medications and techniques are used on me, most of the time without my knowledge. Social Services will often make up new stupid rules to deprive me and my wife of food, even though we both are disabled and NOT collecting SSA or SSI checks YET and have NO source of income. When we renew our application, we are always treated as liars, talked down to and jerked around like we're scum. Child Labor--I started working (100% legally) at age 14, and I worked until I was disabled at age 25. All I had to do was get a work permit from the school board. I worked at a lumber company, and I was exposed to very unsafe, hazardous, and toxic work conditions. The truth is that everything yesterday is just as acceptable today, but some of it has been repackaged to be more pleasing to the majority. The only thing that is not 100% acceptable YET that I have noticed, in first-world countries, is pedophilia. At least that is how it works in my part of the United States. I'm sure it's not much different in the UK.
^ No doubt you're right on some level, but things did used to be worse. I'm sure I don't have to outline what slavery meant during colonial times and into the 19th c. Torture and punishment by mutilation was applied on a routine basis in merry england for centuries. Stuff like cutting off ears, the rack, the whole range of medieval brutality. I don't think there's much to compare in either America or Europe today. We moderns have developed a different set of sensibilities. But that's not to say that many abuses don't still happen. I'm sorry to hear you have bad experiences. Increasingly, life is getting tougher for disabled people over here too. We have cases of physical abuse of old or vulnerable people. The thing is though, where cases get exposed those guilty usually end up in jail. The state has criminalized such things. But obviously a lot of shit goes on undetected.
slavery is still alive and well. If you buy seafood from a supermarket chances are it was caught by someone in slavery. If you buy clothes from any cheap department store chances are it was made by someone in a sweat shop making wages so low they may as well be a slave. First worlders, for all their advancements, aren't really any better than anyone who benefitted from the triangle trade of the 1600s - 1800s. and aside from that, people can be real assholes - just like they've always been. but there are good people out there too
