As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options

Why Many Feel Even The Recent Past Was Better Than Now

24567

Posts

  • Options
    Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    The Oughties. Like the eighties, but more slack-jawed.

  • Options
    KhavallKhavall British ColumbiaRegistered User regular
    dispatch.o wrote: »

    They don't have thoughts anymore or ideas, they have "Did you see that thing?", "Did you see on facebook?", "Do you want me to friend you?"... die in a fire.

    You must be great at parties

  • Options
    PaladinPaladin Registered User regular
    who even goes to parties

    Marty: The future, it's where you're going?
    Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
  • Options
    AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    We did?

    What are we calling it?

    The shitter

    Lh96QHG.png
  • Options
    JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    Khavall wrote: »

    Alt post: It's like when we invented paper and everyone had their noses in paper and had no idea how to carry on with life without reading shit. Man that ruined society allright.

    The best thing is ancient greeks complaining about how all this reading and writing is stopping people from just remembering everything like they used to.

  • Options
    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    I can't find it

    But Xkcd has a collection of people complaining about it being too easy to write letters and read novels with paper being so readily available.

  • Options
    Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    I'd like it if people were better at figuring out what they really want to do instead of being reductive pisses at the people who actually undertook the effort to try something with their window of youth.

  • Options
    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    I'm on the early end on the millenial generation so I remember life before widespread internet

    The old days were terrible.

  • Options
    Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    One of my favorite phrases is "Those weren't the days." Sadly, it's not easily communicable verbally.

  • Options
    SealSeal Registered User regular
    Back in the old days you could you could sit on the bus or train and have a conversation with someone. Now everyone has their eyes glued to the latest issue of the local newspaper spread out in front of them, it's a damn shame.

    Wait, what year is it again?

  • Options
    nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    I'm on the early end on the millenial generation so I remember life before widespread internet

    The old days were terrible.

    Like the good old days where if you were chatting with people and didn't remember a factoid you just had to accept you'd never know it

  • Options
    ScooterScooter Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    I'm on the early end on the millenial generation so I remember life before widespread internet

    The old days were terrible.

    I view every new day as an escape from The Past

    It's keeping pace but it hasn't caught up with me yet

  • Options
    VeeveeVeevee WisconsinRegistered User regular
    edited September 2014
    Quid wrote: »
    I'm on the early end on the millenial generation so I remember life before widespread internet

    The old days were terrible.

    Like the good old days where if you were chatting with people and didn't remember a factoid you just had to accept you'd never know it

    Or having to plan what you were doing with a group of people in stone because once they left the house they were absolutely unreachable. God that was the worst.

    Edit: Now if you're stood up for a date you can send a text or call and call the other person a goose. Then? You stood there for an hour hoping the other person would show up, then another hour knowing they wont but not wanting to leave in case they're just running massively late. (Note: I wasn't old enough to date at the time, but I had cousins that were)

    Veevee on
  • Options
    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Oh and let's be realistic

    Your set in stone plan went to Hell before the night even began

  • Options
    BubbyBubby Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    I'm on the early end on the millenial generation so I remember life before widespread internet

    The old days were terrible.

    Like the good old days where if you were chatting with people and didn't remember a factoid you just had to accept you'd never know it

    But now we don't retain any knowledge. We just look to our phones immediately if we don't know something, which frankly promotes stupidity. I still probably prefer this to the old days, but back then when you learned something you were way more likely to remember it.

  • Options
    Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    People are just upset that they have to figure out what to do with their lives, as if prior decades weren't faced with the same challenge.

  • Options
    LucidLucid Registered User regular
    Bubby wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    I'm on the early end on the millenial generation so I remember life before widespread internet

    The old days were terrible.

    Like the good old days where if you were chatting with people and didn't remember a factoid you just had to accept you'd never know it

    But now we don't retain any knowledge. We just look to our phones immediately if we don't know something, which frankly promotes stupidity. I still probably prefer this to the old days, but back then when you learned something you were way more likely to remember it.

    Any concrete point of reference for this?

    Kind of seems like not even half baked conjecture

  • Options
    VeeveeVeevee WisconsinRegistered User regular
    Bubby wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    I'm on the early end on the millenial generation so I remember life before widespread internet

    The old days were terrible.

    Like the good old days where if you were chatting with people and didn't remember a factoid you just had to accept you'd never know it

    But now we don't retain any knowledge. We just look to our phones immediately if we don't know something, which frankly promotes stupidity. I still probably prefer this to the old days, but back then when you learned something you were way more likely to remember it.

    Or you were more likely to remember it incorrectly as you didn't have a way to verify that your memory was correct.

  • Options
    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited September 2014
    I'd much, much rather have instantaneous access to near infinite knowledge than a perfect memory of a far, far minor set of facts.

    Edit: And oh hey, as well pointed out, you have no way if knowing if you were actually right before.

    Quid on
  • Options
    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    FOR INSTANCE:

    I was able to point out that these super hero movies that were "everywhere" only made up 5% of movies last year thanks to instantaneous knowledge.

  • Options
    BubbyBubby Registered User regular
    edited September 2014
    Bubby was warned for this.
    Bug off, you goose. I wish you didn't have to infect so many threads with your annoying, passive aggressive bullshit.

    Jacobkosh on
  • Options
    furlionfurlion Riskbreaker Lea MondeRegistered User regular
    edited September 2014
    I was contemplating this very idea earlier this week. I am 28 and several of my friends and family have started making comments about this new generation of teenagers and it makes me laugh. Every generation, in all of human history, has complained about the next. Rock and roll is not really music has now become dubstep is not really music for example. Had to try and explain it to a friend of mine and she just could not understand the irony.
    Bubby wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    I'm on the early end on the millenial generation so I remember life before widespread internet

    The old days were terrible.

    Like the good old days where if you were chatting with people and didn't remember a factoid you just had to accept you'd never know it

    But now we don't retain any knowledge. We just look to our phones immediately if we don't know something, which frankly promotes stupidity. I still probably prefer this to the old days, but back then when you learned something you were way more likely to remember it.

    Poe's law here but assuming you are being serious this is an incredibly bizarre thing to say. Are you proposing that thanks to the invention of smartphones human beings are losing the ability to retain information? If anything they allow us to know more because any question no matter how inane or silly we can almost instantly know the answer to.

    Edit: Beaten rather thoroughly to the point but I stage by it.

    furlion on
    sig.gif Gamertag: KL Retribution
    PSN:Furlion
  • Options
    MuzzmuzzMuzzmuzz Registered User regular
    I remember when I was a kid, my parents would have quasi-arguments about who that 'other movie with that guy was called, made 1962?' Sometimes these arguments would get terrifying.


    Then, I showed them IMDB, and peace was restored to the land.

  • Options
    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Bubby you might be taking this just a touch too seriously.

  • Options
    BubbyBubby Registered User regular
    I'm saying that with how easy it is to access information at any time, it makes it more unlikely that we actually remember that information, yes. The ease of use and immediacy of google makes us lazier. It's just my opinion, I'm not drawing up statistics or something.

  • Options
    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    In my opinion I have access to Wikipedia.

    A resource a million times more accurate than 99% of the population's memory.

  • Options
    ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular
    edited September 2014
    Mankind has been offloading data so that we don't have to remember it directly for millennium.

    Take the cave people who drew deer on the walls. They couldn't even remember what deer looked like without those images, but they still successfully hunter-gathered!

    Though problems arose when Thokk accidentally erased the image of a lion.

    Classic Thokk!

    Shadowhope on
    Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
  • Options
    VeeveeVeevee WisconsinRegistered User regular
    furlion wrote: »
    Edit: Beaten rather thoroughly to the point but I stage by it.

    Do you stage left it or right it?

    BTW, did you know stage left really refers to the curtain that falls if you pull on the left rope backstage? It was a really big problem for playwrights as it would vary from theater to theater until the left curtain's rope was always put on the left through theater regulations.

    Now, prove I'm wrong without the internet.

    Welcome to the 80's. It sucked.

  • Options
    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Veevee wrote: »
    furlion wrote: »
    Edit: Beaten rather thoroughly to the point but I stage by it.

    Do you stage left it or right it?

    BTW, did you know stage left really refers to the curtain that falls if you pull on the left rope backstage? It was a really big problem for playwrights as it would vary from theater to theater until the left curtain's rope was always put on the left through theater regulations.

    Now, prove I'm wrong without the internet.

    Welcome to the 80's. It sucked.

    You have no idea how hard I'm laughing.

  • Options
    LucidLucid Registered User regular
    edited September 2014
    Bubby wrote: »
    I'm saying that with how easy it is to access information at any time, it makes it more unlikely that we actually remember that information, yes. The ease of use and immediacy of google makes us lazier. It's just my opinion, I'm not drawing up statistics or something.

    Wouldn't you rather have an informed opinion as opposed to strongly asserting something you may not really know or understand?

    Or, what's the problem in just being comfortable with realizing that by yourself, you can't account for things like this

    Lucid on
  • Options
    JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    edited September 2014
    Quid wrote: »
    I'd much, much rather have instantaneous access to near infinite knowledge than a perfect memory of a far, far minor set of facts.

    Edit: And oh hey, as well pointed out, you have no way if knowing if you were actually right before.

    Look I just miss the old days when we had huge arguments about some shit and then when looking it up later turned out none of us was right.

    Those days were fun, but I don't think they were better.

    Julius on
  • Options
    KhavallKhavall British ColumbiaRegistered User regular
    I mean, didn't Einstein himself say something to the effect of "True intelligence isn't recall of facts, but rather knowing how to find the information you're looking for"?

  • Options
    JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    edited September 2014
    Khavall wrote: »
    I mean, didn't Einstein himself say something to the effect of "True intelligence isn't recall of facts, but rather knowing how to find the information you're looking for"?

    I don't know, let's google it!

    Edit: I googled it! Turns out that you are probably wrong! Also why would we care who said it?

    Julius on
  • Options
    JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    In my opinion I have access to Wikipedia.

    A resource a million times more accurate than 99% of the population's memory.

    Right? We might actually be lazier in retaining information for casual purposes but given how terrible we are at it in the first place maybe it's better that we don't and just outsource that knowledge. It is way better if we care about the truth instead of caring about being right.

    And this is just working under the assumption that we are actually worse at knowing shit. An equally likely proposition is that we know more but also expect to know more so that we consult interwebs to correct and reaffirm our knowledge.

  • Options
    VeeveeVeevee WisconsinRegistered User regular
    Khavall wrote: »
    I mean, didn't Einstein himself say something to the effect of "True intelligence isn't recall of facts, but rather knowing how to find the information you're looking for"?

    Not according to this list http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein

    Without the internet, I'd have agreed immediately as it certainly sounds like something I would think he would say.

  • Options
    KhavallKhavall British ColumbiaRegistered User regular
    Hey I learned something!

    Thanks to the internet!

    And you know what?

    I probably will remember that past this second.





    But seriously, kids these days with their rocks and their rolls.

  • Options
    dispatch.odispatch.o Registered User regular
    You guys are defending something no one attacked...

    I do not understand.

  • Options
    KhavallKhavall British ColumbiaRegistered User regular
    Bubby wrote: »
    I'm saying that with how easy it is to access information at any time, it makes it more unlikely that we actually remember that information, yes. The ease of use and immediacy of google makes us lazier. It's just my opinion, I'm not drawing up statistics or something.
    dispatch.o wrote: »
    You guys are defending something no one attacked...

    I do not understand.

    ?

  • Options
    shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    To the OP:

    We are certainly in a rather depressing era of culture in many ways (economic mostly) but that's just the way it goes. It's not a puberty or anything, it's just that alot of stuff kinda sucks right now. The rest of culture as it exists now is different from the past because culture always is. It changes.

    But there's nothing fundamentally unique about right now, only specifically unique based on the specific circumstances that exist today.

  • Options
    QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    As far as I'm concerned culture is in a constant state of realizing how much better it could be.

Sign In or Register to comment.