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A New Breed of Animals?
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Post by
Magician22773
Since the arguments that I presented were very specific and factual in nature (did not have hard drug use in school, did not have gang activity in school or town, did not have armed police officers in school), I would say that helps rule out the possibility (or probability) that my views are simply "rose colored" memories. It’s not like I am basing my argument on something like "gee...everyone was soooo much happier back when I was in school". I am presenting factual observations, ones that I am sure with enough digging, I could present with evidence to support. (Its not like I can just Google up crime statistics from 1986....I tried...but I could research newspaper archives, ect. But I don't feel that should be necessary for the purpose of this debate)
So, if you can overlook the need for me to provide some hard copy evidence of what I have presented, and just accept it as, at best, plausible, then we can move on from there.
The town I grew up in was pretty typical for a Midwestern town of that time. It was not a large, urban area like Kansas City or St. Louis, but it was not a small town like the one I currently live in. I am pretty sure it was (and still is) either the 3rd or 4th largest city in Missouri.
The same goes for the school I attended. It was typical in both size and diversity with the other 4 high schools in the city. It was, in fact, considered to be the "middle ground" school. It was not the newest or richest, and it wasn't the oldest or poorest. Furthermore, in school, I was very much "unaffiliated" with any group or clique. I had many friends that included sports players, band members, and cheerleaders. I also had many friends that would have been classified as "nerds" and "stoners". And because of a couple older friends from my neighborhood, I also had several friends that were in different grades than I was.
So, from all this, I can reasonably predict that my "little slice" of life back then could be extrapolated to a much broader group than just the couple thousand people that I actually observed. I would say that it would be indicative of any Midwestern city, outside of the larger, more urban areas. I would say that it would be indicative of any small to medium sized high school of the time, and that it would encompass most ethnic groups, as well as income ranges from about the poverty level up to upper middle class.
So, excluding large, major cities and extremely poor or extremely wealthy communities, as well as some distinct cultural areas, such as coastal California and Florida, and perhaps areas with some very different ethnic makeup’s, such as borderline areas of states like Texas and Arizona, I would say that my view covered a large portion of the US at the time.
The only difference she said, really, was that less kids now were afraid of their parents finding out about their behaviour, rather than a massive change in youth behaviour. If anything was keeping kids "in line", so to speak when she was younger, it was fear, which she no longer thinks is a very positive relationship between parent and child.
Patty actually really hit the nail on the head here, in two different blows.
I do believe the degradation of kids is because of a change in parenting. I did "respect" my parents, but that respect did come, in part, from fear. If I stepped out of line, I had my Dad to deal with. He was fair, but he wasn't beyond employing a belt or some hard labor if I really got into trouble. I remember the first time I got caught smoking in school. I was suspended for 1 day, and I spent that day stacking, and restacking wood, from 6 am until about 8pm. As soon as I finished stacking all the wood we had, I was told to move it. I think I stacked the same 2 or 3 cords of wood a dozen times that day. My fingers were raw. My back and legs were killing me. And I never...and I mean never smoked another cigarette in school again.
Kids should not have to live in fear of abuse from their parents. But they should live in fear of punishment. If a child knows the worst they can expect from their parents is a "good talking too", or being grounded to their room....with their x-box, their computer, their TV, and their cell phone...than that is not going to be much of a deterrent. When I was grounded, I got a book and a bed. I was often punished with writing exercises. I would have to write sentences, in my best handwriting. And I would have to write them until they were "perfect". I also would be punished with math problems. I would be given hundreds of long division problems to solve. I hated it....but I now have very good handwriting skills, and I excelled in math. My parents didn't try to "understand my feelings", or "be my friend"...they parented me. And I respected them for that. In fact, I still do. And I don't resent them either. When my Dad was killed, he was my best friend. And I don't mean that figuratively, he
was
the best friend I had.
Post by
204878
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Magician22773
Can you offer any evidence to back up
your
theory?
Post by
204878
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Nathanyal
According to this, it seems crime rates have gone down mostly since 1986.
Post by
Aimsyr
Can you offer any evidence to back up
your
theory?
Under the definition of evidence you've been trying to put forward in this thread, done.
This. As far as I can tell the
evidence
provided in this thread, aside from what Nathanyal linked, has all been purely anecdotal.
Also, I disagree with people always going on about the 'good old days' and how much better it was back then. Maybe it was better, maybe it wasn't - either way, history has shown time and time again that it certainly wasn't all lovely and idyllic 'back in the day.
Asakawa,
First off, what we are really examining here is our perception of how things are, or were, in the past. So one the best forms of "data" would be, in this case, memories of the way things were percieved. You can't discount eye-witness testimony as "nothing". Especially if you offer no counter evidence to the contrary besides an opinion.
That is what this has been. An eye-witness testimony stating that things were different back then, and someone that wasn't there saying "no, it was the same".
Lets pretend this is a court case of robbery. I saw you rob the bank. I gave an accurate description of the events of the robbery, and an accurate description of your appearance. All you have as a defense is someone 2000 miles away that says you would never do something like that. They don't know where you were when the robbery occured. In fact, they didn't even know you when it happened, but they insist that you didn't do it.
What do you think the jury would rule?
That argument is irrelevant, what eye-witnesses see can be different to what actually was there. While I do not have any particular links on me right now, there's been court cases where witnesses were convinced of what they saw despite the fact it was later proven wrong via forensic evidence etc. Even so, they continue to remain convinced of what
they
saw - even when it is proven they were mistaken.
To put it simply, people have been wrongfully accused in the past purely because the judge put too much faith into eye witness accounts.
Post by
1000947
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
331902
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Magician22773
You start by saying its not worse
I don't think you can say it's worse
But then you give a reason (which I agree with), of
why
its worse?
Social conventions are also a factor, divorced, single parents, are many times over the percentage they were 50 years ago, Lack of father or mother figure is must also contribute greatly.
Want to speak about grown ups as well magician?
If you would like to debate a specific topic about them, that is related to this thread, than sure.
If you just want to toss out a trollish, open ended question with no opinion or basis to your comment, than no.
Post by
1000947
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Magician22773
I don't think you can compare the unprovoked actions of these kids to the provoked reaction of the public.
Both were wrong, but they were different.
The kids attacked the bus monitor for no reason, other than she was easy prey for them. Thier actions were predatory, almost animalistic, in a way. Humans, by design, should not exhibit this type of behavior. So one could conclude that the kids behavior is due in part to a lack of respect, or fear, of punishment. One could also reasonably assume that they kids had a lack of teaching, when it comes to basic morality.
The adults, (and I am sure some kids as well) that responded back to them with threats, did so as a reaction to their anger to what they saw. That action is a natural reaction to seeing something as heinous as what these kids did. It does not make it right, but it makes it more understandable. The same anger that caused a few thousand people to send violent text messages and death threats, also caused hundreds of thousand of people to donate money to the victim. One group reacted negatively, one group reacted positively.
When dealing with human beings, nothing is an absolute. Kids that are raised well can grow up to be bad, and kids that are raised bad, can grow up to be good. But they are an exception to a rule, not the norm.
Post by
204878
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Magician22773
Genesis 1:27 So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.
Yeah, actually I have thought about it a bunch.
Post by
204878
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Orranis
But I still see a huge difference between the way things were in the late 80's and now. Look at drugs for example. In my high school, we had a group of maybe 20-30 kids that we all knew smoked pot, and they all "looked the part". They all hung out together. And you could find them every day before and after school at the park across the street passing a joint. Now, you would have a hard time finding 20-30 kids in school that
aren't
smoking something. Either pot, or the synthetic crap that is for sale at every gas station. Kids are stealing their parents and grandparents pain medications, and its easy to find cocaine, extasy, and meth in any high school. I never even
saw
drugs like that when I was in school. Literally, I never laid eyes on anything other than pot until I was in college.
Cannabis Usage by Twelfth Graders over time.
The late 80's had near identical, if not higher usage of cannabis among high-school kids than we see going into the twenty-first century. 1989 had slightly lower by 1985-1988 had significantly higher levels of cannabis usage.
For what it's worth, you have to realize that I have anecdote too. You can say what you haven't seen, but you can't try and tell me the experience of a kid living in my generation. I've smoked pot but haven't seen any other illicit drug outside of it, barring a single baggy of cocaine two policemen were confiscating from a man being arrested who was at least thirty.
"Gangs" are another huge difference. When I was in school gang members were (a) minority, and (b) all but non-existant here in middle-of-nowhere Missouri. Gangs were something you only saw on TV in LosAngeles or New York....maybe St. Louis or Kansas City. Now, I see gangs of white kids, black kids, brown kids....you name it. I grew up in a town of 200,000, and went to a school with over 2000 students, and we did not have a single gang member in our school, and I can't remember ever seeing a "gang related" crime. Now, I live in a town with a population of less then 1000, and we have 3 "gangs" here that I know of.
You're right, gang activity has increased since the 80's, which is not unsurprising considering they were only 'created' in the 70's. On the other hand,
violent crime victims over time.
Violent/Property crime over time.
Despite a proliferation of gang activity, there is NOT more violent or property crime today than there was in the 1980-1990's.
And, more on topic, the overall disrespect for adults and authority. You rarely ever saw a kid disrespect their parents, a teacher, or a police officer when I was in school. We had 1 security guard when I was there. Getting sent to the office was a huge deal, and usually, the punishment was a couple days of In School Suspension. God help you if you did something bad enough to get suspended, and your parents got called to the school. Now, the same school I went to has 3, full time, armed "School Resource Officers" on duty. These are full-blown cops. Kids get arrested on a daily basis. Teachers get assaulted, physically. Guns and knives are a common thing to find in a locker.
So, yes, social media may draw additional attention to the problem, but just because there wasn't a YouTube video of it, doesn't mean it happened just as much "back in the day", because it didn't....I was there.
This isn't something you can prove with anything more than pure anecdote, so I see no reason to believe you're right about this. (Or is not taking your word for that proof of my generations lack of respect for authority?)
Post by
Nathanyal
So taking what Doctor said, and the verse Magician posted, does that mean God is an animal?
Post by
Squishalot
So taking what Doctor said, and the verse Magician posted, does that mean God is an animal?
Actually, it just mean God *looks* like an animal, notably, Homo sapiens.
Post by
Magician22773
So taking what Doctor said, and the verse Magician posted, does that mean God is an animal?
Nope, it means you believe one or the other.
You know that "missing link" between us, and the animals. There is a reason why its missing.
Post by
Nathanyal
Why can't you believe in both?
Post by
Orranis
So taking what Doctor said, and the verse Magician posted, does that mean God is an animal?
Nope, it means you believe one or the other.
You know that "missing link" between us, and the animals. There is a reason why its missing.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
CwutIdidthar?
Edit: Also my post.
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