[KappaWing]

Same goes for the white kids who think they're "ghetto."

Oh I know all too well! I live in the northern suburbs of Detroit, in the second richest county in the US, and there are plenty of kids usually from ages 10-18 who fancy themselves inner-city Detroit people, when in reality they live in three story houses with happy, rich families in perfect little subdivisions with white picket fences. I propose some day the REAL ghetto people from inner city Detroit go out and raid those subdivisions and show the sub-trash what its REALLY like to live "ghetto".

EDIT: And I totally agree with Prophet's post above, although I think less than 2 percent of all emos in my area actually have issues.

[Polpolion]

less than 2 percent of the emo people in my area have an IQ in at least the double digits...




I'd rather have poser-emos than stupid-emos.

Hey, are you guys sure the plural of emo is emos and not emoes?

[Prophet]

Since it's a slang word, I doubt no one knows. Maybe the plural is also emo?

[Herra Tohtori]

Emii?

[Mika]

For a long time I have been wondering how is the society more competitive and worse for people than it has been before?

Thanks for clearing up what the word "emo" meant, I have had no clue about that before. Dealing with those kind of people is tricky and requires exceptionally good eyes for seeing if the stuff behind that kind of behavior is justified.

Mika

[WMCoolmon]

For a long time I have been wondering how is the society more competitive and worse for people than it has been before?

There's a lot more people around, and things are becoming a lot more internationalized. Nowadays, people can outsource jobs to India or wherever, where people have training in computers and are willing to work for much less. Many people are coming here from Japan and other countries, and either taking jobs and or getting education and then taking that knowledge back to their home country. (Not that I'm saying this is automatically bad and we should do something about it.)

The population is also growing, so there are more mouths to feed and a better chance of people who want to go into the same sort of job that any given person will want to go into. There are also now large established corporations in fields that were, before, mostly the domain of a number of much smaller entities. (For example, Microsoft or Google) The more huge conglomerates you have, the more they can set the bar and make potential employees compete for jobs, rather than the potential employees making the companies compete to hire them.

I've also seen people linking suicide rates to areas with higher population density (like Japan or China) and the US has, naturally, become less sparsely populated with time. All those people have to go somewhere.

[Mustang19]

Jordan has the lowest suicide rate, I remember. Something like no suicides since 1970, according to a mid-90s records book. So there's low population density for you.

It's more competitive today than before not because life is more difficult, but because people have more potential to gain money and power, and they want to gain more.  I mean, it's possible to totally slack of and land a job for $10,000 a year. In the US, that's considered to be at the poverty line, but that's considered middle- to upper-class in most parts of the world. You can still feed yourself, buy a car, buy a TV, and so on. In fact, you can live in a 100 sq. ft. apartment and play FreeSpace Open all day on a yardsale computer. But because education is so readily available today, people have plenty of potential to expand beyond that, and they try to do the best that they can. Compare this to just 200 years ago, most of the population was rural, your place in society was to be a farmer (or a similar job), there was little potential for you to go to a good university or advance much at all in life. Urban workers faced a bit more competition, and had a bit more potential to excel, but even then, they had little chance of making more than a little over minimum wage during their lifetime. So everyone just relaxed, there was no need to be competitive as it wouldn't get you anywhere.

[Mika]

I was more referring to the situation here in Finland, but I didn't write it there. Sorry. But I asked about this because I cannot really find my country from the description Prophet gave.

But in general, society has only a little to do with outsourcing jobs, but I find it mostly because of idiotic, greedy and short-sighted management strategies. The problem with that train of thought is that if those jobs disappear from the western countries, to whom exactly does the management think they can sell the products then? Someone figured out outsourcing would be a perfectly good idea but forgot that every other company would also follow, and in time the buying power of the nation is crippled. And that does mean that the high-end product will be much harder to sell to people who have less money. But what do I know, I never read any Economics courses.

Besides, I suspect it turns out that outsourcing was never that cheap after all, and created a lot more competitors to begin with. Surprisingly, technology transfer is usually required in order to have a permission to enter the business in outsourcing coutries. Having followed the actions in the countries where things are outsourced, I find it very disgusting to buy a product originating from those places. It has something to do with the ruthless actions by the upper management in those places that I cannot stand. On the other hand, I know that there are factories that use some 400 people (each controlling a single valve) in those countries when the same thing can be done here with 5 persons. And when you see that happening you automatically think "Oh, these people would be so sacked" at home.

More so, the people who have studied in Western countries and returned back to home also understand the value of money and may have higher salaries than their counterparts in USA or Europe! But even more so, while their education is at the same level, they have less (or not at all!) experience of actually manufacturing something. This is another reason why I think it won't be that cheap. But try to convince the management of that.

One part of this mess is also the general population in Western Countries. The more you see advertisements that promise easier way of life it is no wonder the easy way is preferred - and this also extends to upper management. How long do you accept that the management is raising their bonuses and giving you nothing? How many bad decisions are needed until the management is sacked? Currently, the management level people are not claiming their responsibility of failures, so this seems to be the only way. But have they ever done that, or is it only my imagination that the CEOs were sacked much more easily over stupid mistakes 20 years ago?

Ah, this is already ranting. My time to quit.

Mika

[KappaWing]

I think WMC and Mustang hit the nail on the head there. I heard the reason why the dutch were the happiest people in the world was "low expectations".... although id suspect some other stuff too.

[Mika]

Just to mention, Scandinavian countries have exceptionally high suicide rates and the population density is very low here.

Mika

[KappaWing]

Climate?

[Nuke]

real pain is when you have to go shovel dirt 6 days a week and are so tired when you get home that you dot feel like rummaging around your trailer looking for the asprin/vikadin/cocain.

i dont know what theese emo kids have to ***** about, what, a text limit on their cell phone. their girlfriend left? good riddance, thats why they invented the robosuck2000. what the **** is with the beatles haircut? is this hippie movement mk2? i know a guy who beat hippies with leaded nightsticks at the pentagon. now do you want to be the hippie, or the guy with a nightstick full of lead

[Polpolion]

Real pain is when someone rips off your toenails, then takes a knife and slowly cuts off one of your feet. Then the other. Then they rip off your fingernails. then one of your hands, then the other, then your legs up to the knee, then your arms up to the elbow, then your arms and legs completely, then they take out your non vital organs (if you haven't bled to death yet), then they take a paper clip and repeatedly shove it in your eyes and ears, then they make these notches all along your body with a saw. After that, they take your torso and put it into a meat grinder, and then feed it to your children. raw. Then they take your intestines (which they cut out earlier) and strangle you, after they slit your throat. And this is all done in 150 degree weather.





Of course, I wouldn't know.

[jr2]

Ah, no... if they did it to your kids / loved ones first, and made you watch, that'd be worse (for you).

[Polpolion]

Ahh yes, how could I forget that? They would do that to everyone you know. Except the people you hate. They would be the one's doing it. And before they would do it to any females, they would rape them.  THAT'S pain.

[Nuke]

ever consider a career in death metal?

[Polpolion]

death metal is overrated

[Nuke]

indeed, thats why i listen to black metal.

[Polpolion]

Only one out of sixty-three songs on my mp3 player has lyrics. [proud]

[KappaWing]

Folk Metal beats both!