I don't understand why so many people here always complain about how the world is going to heck and how people these days are so rude. The worst part is how they complain about how kids these days are so disrespectful and how their taste in vehicles is terrible. It sounds like a bunch of negative nancys. Why complain about it? The old saying goes, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. I try to look at things like the glass is half full. The world is changing. Thats a fact. However, I believe that its changing for the better. I find people to be respectful and generally nice. I think that some of the people on here just want to complain about others. Lets face it, we are all responsible for some of the same stuff we are complaining about.

 

I myself am pretty bullish on the generation coming up, and have posted that opinion repeatedly. One thing I do notice is once you get out of major Metro areas, the whole way people treat each other changes dramatically. We live abut 20 miles out from Portland, but that 20 miles is like living in a different world.

 

I don't understand why so many people coimplain - period. Complaining seems like a very poor form of communication. I don't think people enjoy hearing complaining at all, and I think complainers themselves like complaining less than they think they do. Try this: shut up and fix something. If you know a better way - teach it to somebody! S-H-O-W us rather than tell us.

Anybody out there want to defend complaining?

 

how to fix complainers.
1complain.
2shoot them.
3put them on antidepressant.

 

The problem is blanket complaining that implies that everything is worse, or better. Neither is true.

In terms of human comfort, security and health, this is the golden age of all ages. Just 60 years ago there were still rural people in North America walking a half mile to carry water to cook, drink and wash. My 80 year old house had an outhouse in the yard when I bought it - that is, just 60 or 70 years ago there was still not indoor plumbing in many homes. Technological change has made life very very comfortable for us. We enjoy better health overall, we live longer on average, we live better in our old age. We have access to the world, and entertainment coming out he wazoo. Very few of our babies die, and very few of our wives die bringing them into the world.

Our prosperity and social organization means that practically all children grow up well educated compared to just 70 years ago. They have a view onto the world, and opportunities to travel.

All this is the result of a major social change that started in the eighteenth century in Europe - the Enlightenment - when the philosophy of rationalism took hold. We take it for granted now, but it wasn't always so. I mention this because there is an important difference between then and now. Amid the Enlightenment, great thinkers like Rousseau and Locke questioned the limitation of rationality alone to produce true social progress. Rationalism lead to man reasoning out the solution to problems, but questioning asked if the proposed solution was really truly better for mankind or if it was just shifting the problem elsewhere. And this, I believe, is where we have become lax.

Because attendant to all these technological wonders, we have massive family breakdown. A pop culture based on the glorification of sex and violence and all manner of corruption. A political system practically devoid of principle. An inversion of morality where having morals is wrong and everything that was once wrong is the height of progressiveness.

And one can reasonably ask the question: was having all these horrible things a requirement in order to have our technological advances? Was it really impossible to have modern medicine without sky high divorce and latch-key kids? Could we not have had indoor plumbing without gangsta rap? In other words, is it not possible that we've become so good at ratinalizing everything, that we've lost some of the soul of what's right along the way? Many of us think so, and we complain about it in hopes that even just a few others might at least think about it.

 

Now I am not a complainer in general, but I will take a crack at it I know that if anyone says they dont complain, then they are liars! A guy complains when his truck breaks, complains the way his wife acts, complains if he gets ripped off at a store. Alot of people on here dont really complain, they vent. Now if anyone in this world didnt complain somewhat, just think of how the world would be. All that saved up anger and rage. Is that really a world that you want to live in?! All happy happy till the guy that never had a chance to complain, goes postal on ya for no reason?! lol Might be a little dramatic but I think you might see what I mean!

 

To solve a problem, you have to recognize that there is one!

So, I have no qualms about pointing out the deficiencies of modern society. If you want to complain that I'm complaining, that's fine. But, I'm doing my part to make it better, I believe. I work hard at providing customer service in my business, I treat all with respect and I teach my kids to do the same. I believe in living by certain morals and principles (that come from a specific book, if you're wondering), even when sticking to those precepts have the potential to cost me in one way or another. Am I perfect? No. Do I expect perfection from others? No. But I believe there is a difference between those who (imperfectly) try to live by what is right and good and those who constantly rebel against long-held standards of what is right. It's not just teens, either, otherwise we wouldn't have had Enron, Tyco and others.

I like technology as much as the next guy, but that doesn't mean it improves life in all cases. Think about how much harder you work to pay for your home and outside entertainment, your shiny, new vehicles, your computer(s), and how much more stress all that stuff brings. So I do some things that are a bit of a throwback. I burn wood--which involves quite a bit of physical labor and is very rewarding at the end of the day, and when the fire warms the house in the winter. We homeschool our children, which means we are not a two-income family, but it means that WE are raising our children, not a day-care or the public education system. I have any number of friends that I would trust to watch my kids, and they would have me or my wife watch theirs if need be (they are mostly homeschoolers, too).

Fred_79F250, you raise some very good points. You have the appearance of being wise beyond your years (and I don't even know how old you are!)

Jason

 

This is basically a discussion forum.

How about consider some topics as Obervations instead of people complaining ?

I don't consider *Discussion of a topic* as complaining.

One has to start the discussion some way

 

as they said in the Navy, a complaining Sailor is a happy Sailor.

serious, discussions are what they are, civilized complaining, there are going to be complaints all to a certain degree on everything, but its perfectly normal to discuss complaints as long as it doesn't get childish.

as far as new, there are always annoying fads that go away after a few years, and ones that stick around and become the norm, if evreyone thinks back what new fads that really annoy them, they will see that has been replaced with something else.

i read something in a gym once, it went something like...under brutal oppression, italy had a marvalous rennasounce, inventions, artists, great contributions to society. switzerland has had 500 years of relative peace, what we got was chocolate and a cuckoo clock.

and complaints are just pointing someones opinion out, nothing wrong with that as long as its formal and educated. that is what keeps this great system going, just imagine if our forefathers didn't complain against the british......

 

OK guys I'll try to be more clear. To recap: MisterCMK doesn't get why people here complain about the world going bad, no respect, kids choices of vehicles, etc. To MisterCMK, the state of the world seems better than the complainers would paint it. We suppose there are various explanations for this.

Reasons why we complain:
a) MisterCMK has it better than most.
b) many FTE-ists have it worse than MisterCMK imagines.
c) complaining is a simple way to express displeasure and get feedback from others on it.
d) some people like external validation, e.g. others agree about a complaint.
e) things that are taken as a complaint were not actually intended as one.
f) to let off steam.
g) as a first step in group problem solving.
h) other.

None of us speaks for all the complainers, nor in all instances so it's a difficult question to answer. One could argue that MisterCMK complaining about complaining!

I pretty much agree with him though. There is more complaining these days than I would like, and not just here at FTE. Actually I have less of a problem with it here because it can easily be ignored. I have more of a problem with it in person, home, office, anywhere you can't get away from it.

My main point is that there are other, better ways to frame your thoughts than as a complaint. Better mostly because they are more pleasant and more constructive to the target audience.

I advocate a reduction in complaining, not total elimination of it. Recognizing a general propensity for complaining I have often used it to my advantage. Knowing that people are not born to express software requirements in a programmer freindly way, I have asked people to 'just complain about xyz software or the lack of it'. I get more useful information that way because its more natural for the user, I just have to translate it.

fred_79f250 makes some great points about how the world is better today for all the technical advances, but worse too, and perhaps because of them. Thought provoking, but I'm not convinced as to the causation. A nifty book which touches on the topic of 'anti-technologists' is called "The Existential Pleasures Of Engineering", a quick read, I keep my copy right next to "Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance"

preppypyro points out that we all do it, sometimes it's more venting than complaining and that it's needed to prevent us from 'going postal'. This likely explains a lot of the complaining that happens, but I don't think it justifies it. Complaining is certainly preferred to violence so it's obviously the lesser of two evils. I say there are better alternatives.

jroehl and I have much in common. Among them principles (though not always from the same source), home schooling, single income, anti-materialism, being a problem solver, and a notion of technology having it's place. I especially agree with the commitment to doing your part to make things better. To me, complaining is neither required or desired.

Mil1ion is right - as usual. Brief too. Perspective is everything. Read a complaint, just re-interpret it as something suits you better. This is wise because we are unlikely to ever "fix all the complainers".

bf250, I was a sailor for 8 years but I missed that saying! As to the 'new stuff' (people's displeasure with fads or choices of others) I say that people value what they value. Nobody can tell you what your favorite color, song, car, or NFL team should be. They will try, and you might let them, but that's your call. Complaining that "too many kids like Honda Accords" is just silly. Nobody benefits from hearing that.

I suspect that reasons for complaining run the gammut, but c) and d) are most common. If pressed as to why this is so I would suggest that people are lazy (myself included at times) and don't show enough consideration for thier audience.

 

bikerwithtruck-nicely put!

 

Some people believe that society in general isn't really getting better or worse, it's simply changing. That change will be better for some and worse for others-- if you're in the "good" camp, and suddenly things start going well for the "bad" camp, from your point of view things are clearly getting worse. That's a concept that people really miss out on when talking about, for example, evolution. The idea that there really isn't a change for the better or a change for the worse, there is simply change that favors one group and disfavors another.

What's difficult about this is that it's very hard to not get in to a "good and evil" sort of argument. Ultimately it could end up a discussion of ethics which I'm certainly not qualified to go in to deeply, so I'll end my post right here!

 

The only thing I can contribute, that is even remotely on topic is this:

There were no good ol' days.

 

I think that's an extremely good point to make. And what's wrong with guys sitting back and complaining about the new generation? Absolutely nothing. Same reason why there's nothing wrong about people sitting back and debating politics or religion or truck brands, for that matter. It's when people start trying to make laws and public policy based on what they think "the old days" were and what "feels" factual... THEN we have problems.

 

as my dad said when he got finish driving his old studebaker truck and got into his f150 harley davidson edition lightening, he said about driving the stude "why do they call it the good ole days"