[iamzack]

I can't tell you how many times I have heard "well, you're only __ years old, and therefore I can make whatever statement I want and not justify it in any way."

It usually means somebody is full of ****, and it ain't me for a change.

In any case, you are the perfect example of what I was talking about. "Look at all the people doing stuff I'd NEVER do. It's so wrong! Oh, humanity is going to hell! Oh no! Oh no! Thank goodness I'M SO MUCH BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE because I've got these lovely, made-up, invisible MORALS!!!"

[StarSlayer]

Funny Western Civilization only got to where it is because it was more warlike and brutal then the other civilizations on the globe, we certainly didn't subdue and colonize the world through diplomacy and flowers

[Herra Tohtori]

* Herra Tohtori summons some God Warriors to give that burn and then some

Nausicaa?

Maybe. Or it might be a reference to perhaps the most infamous individual in "Trading Spouses", a show that TrashMan mentioned...

I always found the unintended reference rather humorous.

[iamzack]

I'd give up land and money for flowers

Wife Swap.

That show is hilarious

[The E]

The western civilization is on a fast track to the sewers. Of course, this wouldn't be possible if it also wasn't dumbified....

Oh God, not THAT again.....Seriously, Every time something new comes along SOMEONE says it's a sure sign that western civilization is on a downward spiral. This goes back REALLY far, as far back as we have written records of civilization, anyway. If it were true, (and i, for one, don't believe it to be) I'd like to know how much better the world was back when we didn't have written records...

EDIT: I'm not saying that I would watch this show, or encourage my children to be part of it (if i had any). Ultimately, noone was FORCED to be part of it, and since noones forcing me to watch it, I feel free to ignore it.

[Polpolion]

Morality is just another excuse for assholes to be self-righteous.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard "well, you're only __ years old, and therefore I can make whatever statement I want and not justify it in any way."

It usually means somebody is full of ****, and it ain't me for a change.

In any case, you are the perfect example of what I was talking about. "Look at all the people doing stuff I'd NEVER do. It's so wrong! Oh, humanity is going to hell! Oh no! Oh no! Thank goodness I'M SO MUCH BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE because I've got these lovely, made-up, invisible MORALS!!!"

lol @ irony. Enjoy rationalizing being a bad person.

[Nuke]

ive despised reality shows since they first came on. then i despised them more when they became popular and purged the air waves and the cable lines of an descent programming. i don't think i can hate reality shows any more than i already did no matter who they exploit. tv has gone to hell in the last 10 years. so has pretty much every other form of entertainment. movies have gone to ****, mainstream music has gone to ****. and so on. the problem is that we let entertainment become way to important in our lives. we have to be entertained constantly because otherwise were bored and thats bad. in response entertainment has shifted its focus from quality to quantity.

Morality is just another excuse for assholes to be self-righteous.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard "well, you're only __ years old, and therefore I can make whatever statement I want and not justify it in any way."

It usually means somebody is full of ****, and it ain't me for a change.

In any case, you are the perfect example of what I was talking about. "Look at all the people doing stuff I'd NEVER do. It's so wrong! Oh, humanity is going to hell! Oh no! Oh no! Thank goodness I'M SO MUCH BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE because I've got these lovely, made-up, invisible MORALS!!!"

lol @ irony. Enjoy rationalizing being a bad person.

all people are bad people, few admit it.

[Black Wolf]

Who cares? Who cares?

How can you NOT care when the most basic moral and ethical laws are broken?

When peoeple don't care, that's when the rules get broken the most.

What moral and ethical laws? The kids are fed, given water and constantly supervised. For two weeks. They're basically plaing house - we're not talking about permanant psychological scarring here, just kids arguing and squabbling. If this was being done as a sociological experiment rather than as a commercial project, nobody would have heard of it, nor raised this kind of fuss. Show me child abuse and I'll agree with you, but I've seen nothing of the sort in that article.

This is just disgusting ! I cant believe how low the human race has fallen ! Seriously none in the animal kingdom would make their offspring miserable and such ! We really are lower then animals aren't we?!

As long as their babies are below a certain age, most marsupials will dump their offspring out of their pouch when presented with a predator, and use the distraction to escape. Dolphins and chimps (two classic examples of highly intelligent mammals) kill young members of their species (including their own offspring) in a not uncommon manner. Pigs will regularly kill and eat their own offspring if their diet is lacking in essential nutrients. Honestly, sentience puts us so far above the rest of the animal kingdom in this regard it's not even worth the comparison.

Oh, the 'general softening of human morality' actually is happening. You know why? Cause 25 years ago you would never see things like this on TV. you'd never see kids beating eachother up, filing it and showing to the whole world full of pride. You'd not see people goating a desperate man to jump from the roof and kill himself.

That may be so, but you also got hundreds if not thousands of catholic families telling their kids not to make trouble when they brought home stories of over-friendly priests. Hell, not just priests - child abuse by anyone was largely shushed up for decades because it broke social taboos. Fifty years ago wife beating was acceptable method of maintaining "family discipline".

Morality reflects society. It's fluid and constantly changing. You're taking a few extreme, sensational examples from modern times and comparing them to some false, imagined ideal of human society that we like to pretent existed before the sixties and seventies shook everything all to hell. Drawing any kind of conclusion about the state of morality as a whole in western society from that comparison is pure, unadulterated fantasy.

[Polpolion]

all people are bad people, few admit it.

And you're saying that makes it okay to be a bad person?

EDIT:

Morality is just another excuse for assholes to be self-righteous.

[Daniel P]

Remember this reflects a very small percentage of people.

Almost all of parents/people are very nice to other people and to their kids.

And news thrives of bad news. 

[TrashMan]

EDIT: I'm not saying that I would watch this show, or encourage my children to be part of it (if i had any). Ultimately, noone was FORCED to be part of it, and since noones forcing me to watch it, I feel free to ignore it.

You mean, no one except the children....

What moral and ethical laws? The kids are fed, given water and constantly supervised. For two weeks. They're basically plaing house - we're not talking about permanant psychological scarring here, just kids arguing and squabbling. If this was being done as a sociological experiment rather than as a commercial project, nobody would have heard of it, nor raised this kind of fuss. Show me child abuse and I'll agree with you, but I've seen nothing of the sort in that article.

It's not the only article. Google and read. There's more.

The children don't want to be there. The children are forced to be there and do all sorts of work. The children squabble and some abuse others. The children cry into the cameras and beg their parents to take them home. One child grabbed a knife and threatened another (which was cut).

Yeah...everybody is perfectly happy.

I wouldn't allow something like this even as a socilogical experiment.

Morality reflects society. It's fluid and constantly changing. You're taking a few extreme, sensational examples from modern times and comparing them to some false, imagined ideal of human society that we like to pretent existed before the sixties and seventies shook everything all to hell. Drawing any kind of conclusion about the state of morality as a whole in western society from that comparison is pure, unadulterated fantasy.

Pffft.. I know how life was here "in the old days", before all the western influence took hold.
I know how my country is now. For all the s*** that was going on in the old system it's still WORSE.
I read the news. I read the black pages for years and it's only getting worse.

It's a fact. You can close your eyes and hide from the horrible truth - I wouldn't blame you, it's not nice. Cope with it however you can. Denial is one way too.
But there isn't a chance in the universe that you'll convince me otherwise.

[Mars]

I can't tell you how many times I have heard "well, you're only __ years old, and therefore I can make whatever statement I want and not justify it in any way."

It usually means somebody is full of ****, and it ain't me for a change.

In any case, you are the perfect example of what I was talking about. "Look at all the people doing stuff I'd NEVER do. It's so wrong! Oh, humanity is going to hell! Oh no! Oh no! Thank goodness I'M SO MUCH BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE because I've got these lovely, made-up, invisible MORALS!!!"

I can't tell you the number of times you've made outrageous statements without any qualifying statements at all.

Now as to morality, unless you rape puppies and disembowel squirells for pleasure, if you care about the well being of people, creatures, or objects around you, then you have some form of morality. Please don't insult me because I believe that some things are simply wrong.

[blackhole]

The world is ALWAYS going down the tubes. It was going down the tubes when rock music was introduced. Communism was going to take over the entire world. Capitalism was criticized for being an insane-man's experiment. Christians had their 'Son of God' person crucified because the roman's thought they were the end of the world.

We've been saying the world is going down the tubes ever since we started talking. Give it a rest.

---

In terms of the reality show, it seems very stupid, but I can't really make any judgments because I haven't seen what happened to the children or what the result was. I do know any parent who gave consent to that should have their reproductive organs removed.

[BloodEagle]

What could possibly go wrong?

[The E]

Pffft.. I know how life was here "in the old days", before all the western influence took hold.
I know how my country is now. For all the s*** that was going on in the old system it's still WORSE.
I read the news. I read the black pages for years and it's only getting worse.

It's a fact. You can close your eyes and hide from the horrible truth - I wouldn't blame you, it's not nice. Cope with it however you can. Denial is one way too.
But there isn't a chance in the universe that you'll convince me otherwise.

Sooo, based on your experience and your observations you'd say that WESTERN CIVILIZATION is going down? Not just the part of it you live in, but ALL OF IT? Bit of a small sample size, isn't it? I'll just say that based on MY observations and MY experience, I think you're wrong. Western civilization has existed for....well, milennia, really, without imploding in a destructive fashion. It DID, however, change considerably over time, and there were always people who chose to view that change as the end of everything.

[Daniel P]

Not to ruin this post. News Love these type of story's. If you watch/read it the rating go up.

I rarely see good things about society because the News Corporations like The bad aspects of society. (because of the ratings)

Don't give me the World Going down crap. It just a small percentages of people ruins everybody.

   

[Galemp]

What could possibly go wrong?

Ah, but this is just the beginning.

[General Battuta]

Trashman: another hapless of victim of confirmation bias!

Like blackhole said, this kind of hand-wringing has been around forever. People mistake change for decay.

[iamzack]

The children don't want to be there. The children are forced to be there and do all sorts of work. The children squabble and some abuse others. The children cry into the cameras and beg their parents to take them home. One child grabbed a knife and threatened another (which was cut).

Dude, that sounds exactly like school.

I can't tell you the number of times you've made outrageous statements without any qualifying statements at all.

Now as to morality, unless you rape puppies and disembowel squirells for pleasure, if you care about the well being of people, creatures, or objects around you, then you have some form of morality. Please don't insult me because I believe that some things are simply wrong.

But I don't do it and then justify it by going all "I'm not explaining myself because you're too stupid to understand my massively intelligent reasoning." I do it because I am lazy.

I don't believe in morality outside of context. If it's an adorable squirrel/puppy, then I'll defend it. If it's some snot-nosed brat kid, then I don't give a ****. Unless it's my snot-nosed brat kid. I'm a bad, selfish person just like everybody else. I just don't try to pretend I'm not.

[Polpolion]

But I don't do it and then justify it by going all "I'm not explaining myself because you're too stupid to understand my massively intelligent reasoning." I do it because I am lazy.

Actually you don't even say that you're not going to explain it. All you say is that people suck. You never say why...

I don't believe in morality outside of context. If it's an adorable squirrel/puppy, then I'll defend it. If it's some snot-nosed brat kid, then I don't give a ****. Unless it's my snot-nosed brat kid. I'm a bad, selfish person just like everybody else. I just don't try to pretend I'm not.

Tell me, what evidence do you have to support that claim? No really, tell me how you came to the conclusion that everyone is completely bad and selfish. I can cite plenty of personal experiences that support the claim that it is possible for people to not be completely bad and selfish.