What does our generation fear?
- Thread starter E.X.D.
- Start date
What does our generation fear?
Good question, I suppose. I would have to say that it's a lot less black-and-white than, say, the Red Scare in the post WWII era, or the whole Cuban Missile Crisis/Cold War fiasco. It may just be me, but I'm still deathly afraid of M.A.D., even though it will likely never be implemented.
But a big societal fear, especially now with the world-wide economic downturn, is whether or not they will be able to provide for themselves or their families. I mean, even college graduates are having trouble finding jobs in anything more than blue-collar situations.
Another fear that I know is held by many of my peers is whether it is a good idea for them to bring children into this world, which is believed by many to be horrible and likely near the end of its life. That's a fear that I too have; it hasn't overpowered my desire to raise strong, independent children, but it's still another niggling thought at the back of my head.
And that's my $0.02 US.
Good question, I suppose. I would have to say that it's a lot less black-and-white than, say, the Red Scare in the post WWII era, or the whole Cuban Missile Crisis/Cold War fiasco. It may just be me, but I'm still deathly afraid of M.A.D., even though it will likely never be implemented.
But a big societal fear, especially now with the world-wide economic downturn, is whether or not they will be able to provide for themselves or their families. I mean, even college graduates are having trouble finding jobs in anything more than blue-collar situations.
Another fear that I know is held by many of my peers is whether it is a good idea for them to bring children into this world, which is believed by many to be horrible and likely near the end of its life. That's a fear that I too have; it hasn't overpowered my desire to raise strong, independent children, but it's still another niggling thought at the back of my head.
And that's my $0.02 US.
Change! We dont wants it! It horrifies us! *clears his throat*
But seriously, what a generation fears and what would make a good horror film for said generation are two completely different things. To mix those together like you're implying, I suppose we fear things from the 80s coming back with better effects?
But seriously, what a generation fears and what would make a good horror film for said generation are two completely different things. To mix those together like you're implying, I suppose we fear things from the 80s coming back with better effects?
Our generation fears individualism more than anything. If someone is different, they are constantly ridiculed until they conform to the accepted ways of society.
Old stupid/crazy people getting young people killed.
Since fear is the basis for all things that retard intellectual growth it is unlikely that you'd have intellectually completion and still have fear.
I'm sure that'll never happen. Mainly because my the time you've streamlined every process to the best possible level you have probably gotten well past necessities of fear.Not Good said:
Since fear is the basis for all things that retard intellectual growth it is unlikely that you'd have intellectually completion and still have fear.
Nuclear holocaust? The current generation has multiple fears, there isn't really one major threat that can be singled out. You'd have to wait at least fifty years to find out which fears persist, as many are just panic inducing ideas that hold no real threat and are forgotten within a few years.
At least no one put dying while trapped in a metal box with salvation and air only an inch of unforgiving, unyielding steel away. Proves people read topics, at least.
I'm kind of with the poster who said that it varies from place to place. In the US, or similar countries, I could get behind the "losing all our technology" idea. We've come so very far with technology: to paraphrase the foreword to Kingdom Come (showing my comic book geek-ness, excuse me) today the average man is the superman. We can communicate over tremendous distances in an instant, traverse those distances in only slightly more time (comparative to how we managed them for millenia), we have ready access to any and every aspect of human comfort we could want (depending on personal economic status of course, so that last one's iffy). Within any of our lifetimes, the kind of things science fiction writers have been imagining for years will EXIST, and that's not even hypothesizing, it's fact.
But all of it is from technology. As a species, we've really not gone very far at all. Oh sure, we're universally taller and slightly more physically powerful, but when you get right down to it we are still killed just as easily by all the same old stuff, except for one or two diseases.
So what happens if the lights go out? Even better(worse), what happens if the lights go out permanently? How many people here can really claim to having survival training, or even any basic idea of what to do in order to live in such a situation? Yes, of course the number is low because of how far we raised ourselves up from that basic level, but that's the perverse beauty of it. Without all our shiny new toys, we're very nearly the same as we were millenia ago. Small, weak, and so very, very fragile.
Take that a step further: how many people reading remember how to use nothing but a library for a book report? Seems a daunting task even if you do, right?
Now turn it around. Remember that bit about science fiction becoming science fact? All the bad stuff applies too. Robots CAN really learn to lie, and develop self-serving personalities: this has been proven, if only on a simple level. People who know computers well enough can play with your life however they please, and may eventually be able to control you directly if cyborg-like technology (like the kind being developed to help blind people see) works out. Genetics is hurtling forward, and while pretty much everyone agrees creating a race of physically and mentally superior supermen is BAD, it's also pretty much inevitable that SOMEONE will do it. Nanotech is a real, steadily advancing technology and yes, they COULD go haywire and break down the entire planet to reconstruct it as themselves. Unless stopped by, say, an electromagnetic pulse, which would pretty much be scenario 1 all over again.
And that's just what we have and what is up-and-coming NOW. Assuming the concept of a technological singularity (In which technology cannot advance any further, as another poster used for an example) doesn't exist, that particular problem seems like it could only grow even further.
I'd say, (in the developed countries that have access to this kind of stuff, anyway) that is the fear of our generation. Our greatest strength is also our single most glaring weakness, and our most rapidly-growing if not-quite-omnipresent-yet threat.
Funny, I swear I heard a philosophy about that somewhere. Think it was a fighting cartoon of all things, hilariously enough.
I'm kind of with the poster who said that it varies from place to place. In the US, or similar countries, I could get behind the "losing all our technology" idea. We've come so very far with technology: to paraphrase the foreword to Kingdom Come (showing my comic book geek-ness, excuse me) today the average man is the superman. We can communicate over tremendous distances in an instant, traverse those distances in only slightly more time (comparative to how we managed them for millenia), we have ready access to any and every aspect of human comfort we could want (depending on personal economic status of course, so that last one's iffy). Within any of our lifetimes, the kind of things science fiction writers have been imagining for years will EXIST, and that's not even hypothesizing, it's fact.
But all of it is from technology. As a species, we've really not gone very far at all. Oh sure, we're universally taller and slightly more physically powerful, but when you get right down to it we are still killed just as easily by all the same old stuff, except for one or two diseases.
So what happens if the lights go out? Even better(worse), what happens if the lights go out permanently? How many people here can really claim to having survival training, or even any basic idea of what to do in order to live in such a situation? Yes, of course the number is low because of how far we raised ourselves up from that basic level, but that's the perverse beauty of it. Without all our shiny new toys, we're very nearly the same as we were millenia ago. Small, weak, and so very, very fragile.
Take that a step further: how many people reading remember how to use nothing but a library for a book report? Seems a daunting task even if you do, right?
Now turn it around. Remember that bit about science fiction becoming science fact? All the bad stuff applies too. Robots CAN really learn to lie, and develop self-serving personalities: this has been proven, if only on a simple level. People who know computers well enough can play with your life however they please, and may eventually be able to control you directly if cyborg-like technology (like the kind being developed to help blind people see) works out. Genetics is hurtling forward, and while pretty much everyone agrees creating a race of physically and mentally superior supermen is BAD, it's also pretty much inevitable that SOMEONE will do it. Nanotech is a real, steadily advancing technology and yes, they COULD go haywire and break down the entire planet to reconstruct it as themselves. Unless stopped by, say, an electromagnetic pulse, which would pretty much be scenario 1 all over again.
And that's just what we have and what is up-and-coming NOW. Assuming the concept of a technological singularity (In which technology cannot advance any further, as another poster used for an example) doesn't exist, that particular problem seems like it could only grow even further.
I'd say, (in the developed countries that have access to this kind of stuff, anyway) that is the fear of our generation. Our greatest strength is also our single most glaring weakness, and our most rapidly-growing if not-quite-omnipresent-yet threat.
Funny, I swear I heard a philosophy about that somewhere. Think it was a fighting cartoon of all things, hilariously enough.
People Fear each other, Gangs, Terrorism (the fear of being blown up, Nailbombs scare the shit out of me - Long gone are the days of seeing a bag unattended on a train, bus or subway & thinking, "im having that 
") Flying, Spiders, War, Flu (you couldnt make this shit up!), Global warming, Recession, Etc.
I know some are worse than others, Some are more of a niggle, But in this day and age...
") Flying, Spiders, War, Flu (you couldnt make this shit up!), Global warming, Recession, Etc.I know some are worse than others, Some are more of a niggle, But in this day and age...
