[Scuddie]

Who rules it is irrelevant.  The question you're looking for is 'who manages it?'

And right now I'd say nobody.

[Solatar]

There's a reason why an area once called the Steel Belt is now called the Rust Belt. Although Detroit might be the worst, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and others aren't doing too much better.

[Mika]

If it helps, I think there was something similar 2 km away from the Eiffel Tower in Paris, not mentioning the outskirts of the city. Though, they were not so profilic buildings as the performance hall or the central station.

Mika

[blackhole]

Americans don't care anymore. I sit by with my fashion obsessed, stupid, useless peers as they argue over whose going to break up with who and wonder why the seahawks suck so bad this year; none of whom have the slightest clue what they are going to do in college. Our area of the city is exceedingly well-off compared to the rest of the country, even when compared to nearby seattle schools, and there are lots of kids who are b!tching about how horrible their lives are.

SUCK IT UP.

I have lots of my own problems, lots of completely irrational fears, lots of things I'm ashamed of, and I've made lots of mistakes, but I try not to complain about it, and when I do I make it perfectly clear that I'm the one whose got a problem, not the rest of the world. I have difficulty respecting people who follow the latest in fashion like lemmings jumping off a cliff, and have even less respect for people who are religious just because everyone else is.

A recent study by my state's university, the University of Washington, found that when 50 students were supposedly given alcoholic beverages, most of them acted drunk even though only 2 students actually received drinks with alcohol in them.

Is everything anyone does reliant on peer pressure? Do people drink so much they puke into a toilet just to gain admiration from their friends? What happened to finding cancer, launching space probes, inventing AI? What happened to long years of study to compose songs instead of stealing them? What happened to drawing all the time instead of tracing others' artwork? What happened to the lure of scientific discovery and the respect that genuine hard work brings out?!

WHAT THE F*CK'S HAPPENING TO US?!

[Vertigo 7]

the end of our civilization is near. Its not nuclear war that will kill us, its not mysterious WMD's or any such thing. Its again, our complacency and apathy that will do us in.

[ssmit132]

@blackhole:

The thing is, that you are describing most people, apparently. The rest will probably be the ones who 'find cancer, launch space probes and invent AI'.

I'm glad that most of my friends and peers are not like what you said. At least, I think so.

the end of our civilization is near. Its not nuclear war that will kill us, its not mysterious WMD's or any such thing. Its again, our complacency and apathy that will do us in.

I doubt you're going to fall into that pit, but you probably know better than me.

[Mars]

blackhole, apparently you hang out with a buncha losers. Everyone I'm talking to right now has some type of goal - career or otherwise. Some people talk about menial things because you can't always think about the deeper things: my girlfriend, although obsessed with Brittany Spears, is very intelligent and wants to be a history professor.

Unless you're sitting around a High School smoking pit all day, I'm sure you must know more worthwhile people than you let on.

[blackhole]

Observe: I know a mathematical genius who has no idea what he's going to do in college. I know a really good computer programmer who has no idea what he wants to do. Even the guy who got accepted to MIT last year didn't know what he wanted to do. My friend who was accepted to Georgia Tech admitted that he just came up with a lot of ideas and never really came up with anything that would actually work. My friend who took like 5 AP courses each year and was accepted to Duke university... has no idea what he wants to do. Doesn't even have any idea what his major will be. My friend who is currently taking 3 or 4 AP courses... has no idea what he wants to do. Even that girl in math class who tortured me when I was in 7th grade admitted she'd "burned out" and wasn't an overachiever anymore (of course, I hate her guts, so I was immensely pleased by this, but thats not the point ).

The rest of my friends are not-particularly-smart geeks and other social outcasts who, like myself, tend to do whatever the bloody heck they want to do in complete contradiction to the social norm, which is why I'm friends with them. One of them is stupid, knows it, and doesn't care. One of them simply has no idea what their doing, and my best friend hasn't even applied to college yet. The only guy who knows what he wants to do is a not-very-good artist who I accidentally caused emotional trauma to in junior high

Our high school has the most AP classes of all the high schools in our district and had the most national merit scholorship finalists out of the entire state.

But none of these people know what they want to do in life - The football player who sits across from me in history class, on the other hand, wants to be a dentist.

[Vertigo 7]

Just to play devil's advocate, there's a saying, "The path to hell is laid out with good intentions". Its not that people aren't smart enough or capable to make a difference, its that people are too afraid or just don't care about something that is bigger than the individual.

Our government is screwed up from top to bottom. It's high time for it to be restructured and given back to the people it was founded for. The ones in office seem to forget that the government is of the people, by the people, and for the people. Things have gotten way out of hand and if the last 12 years don't make that clear enough, then I don't know what else to say.

I am a patriot and it angers me to see this great nation fall into ruin. If the american people don't stand up and say "no more!" then we are doomed. Our government is set up to run a country from 200 years ago and its become very apparent that its not working for us today. We don't need congress, we don't need a president. What we need are leaders, not politicians, that will look out for its people and worry about the rest later.

[peterv]

the end of our civilization is near.

Let's hope it's only the transition.

[blackhole]

Well I would take my point of view with a grain of salt - I don't really get out much

Either way, the good thing is that the American people did manage to elect a new, young president as a way of saying "We're sick of this crap." Unfortunately, immediately after that president was elected, a governor from Illinois tried to auction off his senate seat. The American's have gotten the gist that something bad is happening, its just taking a really goddamn long time because everyone is tied up in their own, meaningless lives, or too busy wasting their time in a church somewhere praying for salvation. People don't seem to understand that human beings give each other purpose, and that we don't need to figure out the purpose of life because the purpose of life is whatever we decide it should be.

But people can't handle that, they need someone to tell them what to do, and in the absence of someone telling them what to do they'll just do what everyone else is doing, because by nature we are social creatures no smarter then a pack of sheep.

I think the scariest part of all this is that the collapse of our culture is being caused by people simply succumbing to their own instincts.

Goddamn, I'm so freaking cynical

[NGTM-1R]

People without goals are the people who tend to accomplish more impressive things, in my experience.

[blackhole]

People without goals are the people who tend to accomplish more impressive things, in my experience.

If that's true, I'm going to try my hardest to prove you wrong

[Kosh]

blackhole, apparently you hang out with a buncha losers. Everyone I'm talking to right now has some type of goal - career or otherwise. Some people talk about menial things because you can't always think about the deeper things: my girlfriend, although obsessed with Brittany Spears, is very intelligent and wants to be a history professor.

Unless you're sitting around a High School smoking pit all day, I'm sure you must know more worthwhile people than you let on.

When I was in the US almost everyone I knew was this way. Not that any of them were my friends, it's just that we had similar classes so I saw them all the time. Yes, we are a decedent bunch. Believe it or not, once upon a time in the early 60's most people actually wanted to be either an astronaught (since we cared about things back then) or an engineer. Science was, momentarily, cool. Now no longer. Almost all the girls, when asked whether or not they would consider taking something like computer programming, would only say "ewww, computers, yuck". Such disgusting creatures these people can be.......

[Scuddie]

People without goals are the people who tend to accomplish more impressive things, in my experience.

If that's true, I'm going to try my hardest to prove you wrong

I already have...

* Scuddie belches.

[Mongoose]

Americans don't care anymore. I sit by with my fashion obsessed, stupid, useless peers as they argue over whose going to break up with who and wonder why the seahawks suck so bad this year; none of whom have the slightest clue what they are going to do in college. Our area of the city is exceedingly well-off compared to the rest of the country, even when compared to nearby seattle schools, and there are lots of kids who are b!tching about how horrible their lives are.

So...why did the Seahawks suck so bad this year?

[Polpolion]

Americans don't care anymore. I sit by with my fashion obsessed, stupid, useless peers as they argue over whose going to break up with who and wonder why the seahawks suck so bad this year; none of whom have the slightest clue what they are going to do in college. Our area of the city is exceedingly well-off compared to the rest of the country, even when compared to nearby seattle schools, and there are lots of kids who are b!tching about how horrible their lives are.

That's odd. All of my friends are actually really intelligent, and are all working towards something. I guess my peers are just smart.

I have lots of my own problems, lots of completely irrational fears, lots of things I'm ashamed of, and I've made lots of mistakes, but I try not to complain about it, and when I do I make it perfectly clear that I'm the one whose got a problem, not the rest of the world. I have difficulty respecting people who follow the latest in fashion like lemmings jumping off a cliff, and have even less respect for people who are religious just because everyone else is.

That's really odd. I just ignore those people. TBH, though, I don't need to ignore them. Maybe it's just the classes I'm taking, but all the people around me are really quite kind and of adequate intelligences. Even the ones that do follow the trends, they work hard in difficult classes and they get good grades, all that on top of being respectable people.

A recent study by my state's university, the University of Washington, found that when 50 students were supposedly given alcoholic beverages, most of them acted drunk even though only 2 students actually received drinks with alcohol in them.

Well, I'm in high school. Me and my friends don't really drink, except for the given holiday stuff, and none of it is to excess.

Is everything anyone does reliant on peer pressure? Do people drink so much they puke into a toilet just to gain admiration from their friends? What happened to finding cancer, launching space probes, inventing AI? What happened to long years of study to compose songs instead of stealing them? What happened to drawing all the time instead of tracing others' artwork? What happened to the lure of scientific discovery and the respect that genuine hard work brings out?!

I don't know about you, but a lot of my friends take extra science courses, actively build robots for robotics club, and read a lot on their own. I myself have a few ideas I'm tinkering with that I intend to follow through with during university.

WHAT THE F*CK'S HAPPENING TO US?!

Paranoia. Irrationality. Lack of respect for peers.

tend to do whatever the bloody heck they want to do in complete contradiction to the social norm,

Doing things specifically and solely because they contradict social norms is, IMHO, even worse than blindly following the social norms.

The football player who sits across from me in history class, on the other hand, wants to be a dentist.

Given the amount of information in this quote, this guys is probably all right. He's got plans and he's active. Good for him. Given you're take on people plans, however, he's stupid. Something doesn't logically flow here.