Our complex society

by cdif911 on Oct 26, 2008 2:22 PM EDT

sociologists see one of the drawbacks of modernization is the further differentiation of our institutions, thus creating more work to do the same simple tasks. The fact that I am posting on "Fanposts" helps validate this point. I like the forums, fanposts create confusion - some of my favorites have different sn's - I have discovered that I have different passwords for sbnation vs. cblog...anoying, and I can change it, but I haven't yet.....

much like I have 2 phone numbers, and thus 2 voice mails with the invention of the cell phone - or now have 3 email addresses, thanks to differentiation, my time gets poorer use as I have to do more to find out who's trying to communicate with me and why....

What do others think? Do we live in too complex of a world, are we stretching ourselves too thin?

Be respectful and keep it clean. Thanks.

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Complexity or Willfully Wasting Your Own Time

Your world is what you make of it.

If that’s how you want to spend your time, then you have no one to blame but yourself.

Blaming the world’s complexity is a cop-out.

by William_Ayers on Oct 26, 2008 3:07 PM EDT reply actions

its very easy to get caught in that trap though, and if you don’t try to keep up with the pace of the world you can easily get lost, become out of touch, not be able to relate to others, etc. To say its a copout is a misnomer imo, it’s not like we can all live at Walden. Point was there’s now essentially two forums on CB, when it worked great when there was just one

by cdif911 on Oct 26, 2008 4:52 PM EDT up reply actions

I don’t know about the complex society part, but as regards having ‘Fanposts’ vs regular forum topics, I’d rather just see recent forum posts instead of Fanposts. Thus far, I don’t see anything in fanposts that seems of a higher quality than regular posts.

No biggie, though. By and large, I like the look and feel of the new place.

by Mencius on Oct 26, 2008 5:25 PM EDT reply actions

Hopefully...

… in time, people will learn to put article-type stuff under the fanposts, and “quick thoughts” type stuff in the forums. I agree, though: these aren’t a substitute for the forums.

All the negativity in this town sucks. It sucks, and it stinks, and it sucks. - Rick Pitino

by Roy_Hobbs on Oct 26, 2008 5:31 PM EDT up reply actions

Some time you just have to jump in a pile of leaves to appreciate life

yesterday, I spent the entire afternoon jumping in the leaves with the kids. At one point I had 7 kids from the neighborhood laughing and throwing leaves. Moments like that are incredible and are seem to be lost these days.

Any way, what I was trying to say was – yup, I agree, but more importantly - I am psyched you brought back the Copley picture! Now, I have to go over to the forum to give you a TP

by SShorefan 3.0 on Oct 26, 2008 7:20 PM EDT reply actions

one of the positives of having multiple accounts (and thus the more complex world) is you can have multiple avatars – not all things are bad I guess!

and yes, jumping in leaves is awesome, as long as you don’t do what my old roomate did, which was jump in and land on a rake that was sticking up – he got to get a tetanus shot!

by cdif911 on Oct 26, 2008 9:30 PM EDT up reply actions

Don't worry...

…I’m still plain ol’ ACF :)

by Amager Celtic Fan on Oct 27, 2008 1:25 AM EDT reply actions

Reggies back

Thought I’d take advantage of this thread to check out my sig…

[img width=500 height=84][IMG]http://i367.photobucket.com/albums/oo115/greentownsfinest/GreentownsFinestHeaderCBlogLQual.jpg[/IMG]

by Reggies Ghost on Oct 27, 2008 1:51 PM EDT reply actions

I'm a Luddite

Of course it’s complex! Try to read/see Futureshock or whatever it was called. We each have to figure out how to reconcile ourselves with the overflow of information delivered to us.

So, I much prefer life without a lot of electronic intermediaries. I just can’t figure out how I ended up working in IT . . .

by Thruthelookingglass on Oct 27, 2008 10:30 PM EDT reply actions

Our Complex Society

I was going to post something along the lines of this… the human brain actually utilizes only a very small percentage of its ability, like around 5-10 so we certainly can deal with these complexities. But, then I tried to sign up for this account and got to the page that has numerous paragraphs about how to use this page and thought I must use only %3 of mine because I almost didnt even want to sign up.

Actually, there is a fantastic book written about the speed of change, transient societal changes, the speeding up of our lives basically and it is called “Future Shock” and is written by Alvin Toffler. While some of his examples are a little outdated the book is very relevant and I would highly recommend it. Tofflers main premise is that as our world around us speeds up we as humans may not have the ability to cope with it and this helps to explain many or our social problems. I am not so sure though.

It is a well documented fact that in the last 100 years or so our society has been getting smarter based on IQ scores anyway. They have risen about 10 points each generation and while IQ is mostly genetic it can also be enhanced to a degree through education and especially when we are young. If the availability of information is improved then so to does our ability to deal with its onslaught. Imagine if this IQ incresase trend continues. The average IQ today is around 100 but if the same tests are used 5 generations from now then the average would be a “genius” IQ, or around 150, and obvisoulsy our society is better able do deal with rapid and sudden change.

by celtics321 on Oct 28, 2008 10:18 AM EDT reply actions