Why People Don't Care

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Synthesis
Posts: 189
Joined: July 15th, 2017, 12:54 pm

Why People Don't Care

Post by Synthesis »

As I am sure most of you reading this have pondered, it has always confounded me that although few truly understand how this system operates, on whatever level people do understand, they simply do not care. An example...

Unless you have been hiding in a cave over the past fifty years, it is nearly impossible to be unaware of the seismic shifts that have taken place in Western society. Every institution has succumb to pervasive degradation through massive corruption. Although each may have a different opinion as to why this has taken place [and justifiably so], the bottom-line remains the same, nobody really seems to care.

This is the great tragedy of social man, the fact that the elite have always taken full advantage of the fact that so few people actually care [enough to do anything about "it," until it is too late (or, more often than not, never)].

I remember when I was a younger man and first began to get a somewhat clearer picture of how the system worked. What was most upsetting to me was not that things were the way they were, but instead, that so many people knew this and could care less [or had rationalized it to non-existence].

As I grew older and began to construct a historical context, I began to realize that this is way it had always been, sometimes better/worse, but this seems to be the way human beings deal with reality. So, I guess it shouldn't be any surprise that that all institutions lie through their teeth, a mixture of self interest [the ultimate human lust to get something for nothing] and simply giving people what they truly desire, a rationale to live out their fantasy that they can continue to do things antithetical to their well-being and have a positive outcome.
Eduk
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Joined: December 8th, 2016, 7:08 am
Favorite Philosopher: Socrates

Re: Why People Don't Care

Post by Eduk »

You contradict yourself when you say there have been seismic shifts and this is the way things have always been.
I am more inclined to agree with the later.
Also I try to be realistic and while there is much to fault in this world it is also hard to argue with the quality of life I enjoy.
People do care. But arguably not enough. As to why they don't care that is a more interesting question.
Perhaps people don't care because they are so jaded that they have given up.
Unknown means unknown.
Georgeanna
Posts: 436
Joined: October 29th, 2017, 1:17 pm

Re: Why People Don't Care

Post by Georgeanna »

People do care.
But perhaps not enough to change things.
Here is an article and TED video ( 15 mins) by someone who cares and shares his experience and views on the way forward.

A Columbine survivor on post-traumatic growth, emotional pain, addiction and how it is 'treated'.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... g-survivor

...“My fear is that we’re going to be in the same place that we are every time: that everyone is going to fracture in their opinion and nothing is going to change. If we have a government that is not even willing to fund a study into why this is occurring – there’s no better definition of putting your head int the sand than that.”

Eubanks said he would like to see the government invest in research to understand and address violence, rather than bowing to political pressure to cut off funding for public health research on guns at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as the US did in 1996.

“There’s a common thread through all of this and nobody’s talking about it. The common thread is isolation, loneliness and adverse childhood experiences.”...

A sidebar to the article :
The Guardian asks us to 'break the cycle':

' It's time to end America’s gun violence epidemic. The Guardian is seeking contributions to fund Break the Cycle, our in-depth series to challenge the orthodoxy that gun control is simply too difficult'
Judaka
Posts: 251
Joined: May 2nd, 2017, 10:10 am

Re: Why People Don't Care

Post by Judaka »

I don't think it's necessarily purely a case of people not caring but rather, perhaps you overestimate the power the average citizen has to many any impact whatsoever. If you understand just how "elite" the "elite" are and always have been then your question answers itself. Why stress about that which you have no control over? People are not willing to risk their safety or spend their lives for the sake of making a small difference to a cause that will never give anything back. I think it's fine.
Steve3007
Posts: 10339
Joined: June 15th, 2011, 5:53 pm

Re: Why People Don't Care

Post by Steve3007 »

Synthesis wrote:Every institution has succumb to pervasive degradation through massive corruption.
Degradation is a process of progressively getting worse over time. But the rest of your post appears to say that, in your view, things have always been the way they are now.

If you were in a position of political power, what policies would you seek to enact to change things? In other people: What words and actions would indicate that they have gone from a state of not caring to caring?
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QuarterMaster69
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Joined: March 3rd, 2018, 6:57 pm

Re: Why People Don't Care

Post by QuarterMaster69 »

People don't care because caring doesn't work! You know what happens when people care? People take advantage of it and the system crumbles. In America, look at government welfare. America "cared" by handing out free money to the poor. But people took advantage of the handout and taxes go up and the system starts to collapse. Massive corruption starts at the bottom.
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LuckyR
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Re: Why People Don't Care

Post by LuckyR »

The thing that has changed is not the "caring" part, it is the "knowing" part. In order to change how much folks care you'd have to change folk's nature. No one has done that. But the big recent change has been in the media. Let me explain:

In ancient times ideas were local, as there was not a way to broadcast them. Later through advances in transportation and printing etc, the concept of media spreading ideas took hold. Knowledge was broadly passed along and people really cared as pertains to what they learned about how things were happening in their location/situation. With the advent of mass media, ideas could take hold of large groups, say the formation of labor unions for example.

Fast forward to today. The wealthy and powerful have co-opted the media. Thus while electronic media could have been a continuation of the explosion of knowledge, it has led instead to forces of the plutocrats weaving social interests of a majority of the rabble with economic policies that favor the plutocrats (who are a tiny minority). Thus electronic media, which should have led to increased power for the masses has led instead to their easy manipulation (despite their inherent power in numbers), due to their unsophisticated thinking.
"As usual... it depends."
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