anyone else feel born too ~early~?

[peener weener]

Thundercat is a single dude.

He did the bassline in this song:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=DBX1E71Pdtk

This is kendrick lamar btw, who is both wildly popular and also one of the most critically acclaimed (dicksucked even) artists in like over a decade

Edited February 11, 2015 by fuccboi

[Rehab]

The way I know I was born too soon is that they haven't cured death yet

[Phoenix Wright]

often times i find myself wishing i were born later so that i may study the planets and venture to worlds not within our solar system. i will probably feel this way for the rest of my life; however, that does not mean i am unhappy living in the present--my present. i, as are most people, am fascinated by the world around me, and i think it's foolish to disregard the beauty of the world as it is now due to a clouded vision of how it used to be, or how it will be. so, despite my disappointment in knowing that my life will most certainly not include intergalactic travel, the point is that my experiences in the present can make up for it, kinda.

[eclipse]

I wish I was born five years later. Then I'd have more information on whatever the fuck is wrong with me right now - it sucks, it's getting in the way of everything, and I want an explanation for it!

[deleted35362]

I more or less agree with your post except for this, which is... concerning.

well now it's more possible for people to make a living from the comfort of home, which is good for people who don't feel comfortable going outside or are crippled/disabled.

I feel pretty old amongst all the 20-22 year olds frequenting this site ( I'm 27 ). And the music of today is crap. Those so-called singers have not an ounce of talent in their bones.

who needs singers

Also, this whole "the media is only about sluts" thing the OP mentions, is pretty gross and inaccurate.

yeah it's a common complaint thrown around but not from me :v

[mewyeon]

I do feel born too early sometimes ;) Especially when it comes to music. I'm a fan of old school stuff, like Mozart. More modernist music like say...Debussy? Is definitely not my kind of style. And then we get to contemporary music, and it's just...*sigh* Not that there isn't some great contemporary music. I love me some Disney ballads, and certain pop groups, etc etc. There's just so much other trashy stuff in the spotlight now that it's hard to find the real gems, IMO.

[peener weener]

I do feel born too early sometimes ;) Especially when it comes to music. I'm a fan of old school stuff, like Mozart. More modernist music like say...Debussy? Is definitely not my kind of style. And then we get to contemporary music, and it's just...*sigh* Not that there isn't some great contemporary music. I love me some Disney ballads, and certain pop groups, etc etc. There's just so much other trashy stuff in the spotlight now that it's hard to find the real gems, IMO.

I think you mean born too late.

[Jiac]

I don't "feel" like I was born early.

I was born 5 days early.

Anyways feeling like you should've been born in a different time.

I feel like I was born too late.

I like too many "older" stuff than I do with newer things. I enjoy the older Nickolodeon and Cartoon Network shows than newer ones. I enjoy older movies such as The Princess Bride, Rush Hour, and The Perfect Storm.

Also lower gas prices were a +.

Edited February 22, 2015 by Vermilia Scarlet

[buttmuncher.ops]

i read a few posts and i'm confused with some of the wording. i myself feel that i was born too late, as in i should have been born in an earlier era. music has nothing to do with it for me, it's more about the current state of the world

it's hard to explain my opinions about this and the following is not to be taken literally, but in a nutshell this is a world where knights do not exist anymore

pride, along with fighting for someone else and a cause greater than what's in the immediate vicinity of your bubble, is dead. space is the new frontier, yet unreachable for the common man. and ninety percent of the modern civilization's population are simply unsuspecting, content sheep

This world needs more Funky disco beats.

you rang?

allow blackop, phantom of the decks, to introduce you to psy-fi funk

[spoiler=uphigh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oebjlM0wTNQ

[spoiler=downlow]

now cross the dancefloor for disco

Edited February 22, 2015 by buttmuncher.ops

[peener weener]

i read a few posts and i'm confused with some of the wording. i myself feel that i was born too late, as in i should have been born in an earlier era. music has nothing to do with it for me, it's more about the current state of the world

it's hard to explain my opinions about this and the following is not to be taken literally, but in a nutshell this is a world where knights do not exist anymore

pride, along with fighting for someone else and a cause greater than what's in the immediate vicinity of your bubble, is dead. space is the new frontier, yet unreachable for the common man. and ninety percent of the modern civilization's population are simply unsuspecting, content sheep

you rang?

allow blackop, phantom of the decks, to introduce you to psy-fi funk

[spoiler=uphigh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oebjlM0wTNQ

[spoiler=downlow]

now cross the dancefloor for disco

ah yes the era of knights when the population were educated gentlemen who by day acted as our modern day fantasy rendition of knights and by night tended to their ladies at their manor, who were most definitely not ignorant and riddled with disease

[buttmuncher.ops]

yes, taken literally that's exactly would it mean. thank goodness i asked for it not to be taken literally so there would be no confusion

[Lord Raven]

I don't think there was ever a time where what you were describing was a cultural norm.

[dondon151]

I don't think there was ever a time where what you were describing was a cultural norm.

i think he's talking about the time where we lived in our shit

[buttmuncher.ops]

I don't think there was ever a time where what you were describing was a cultural norm.

john f. kennedy, martin luther king jr., rosa parks, truman & roosevelt. (i apologize for only using american examples, but others might be princess diana, gandhi, mother theresa etc.) these people and the events surrounding them are some recent contemporary examples you might recognize that fit the knight ideology i'm trying to describe. whether or not their movements created a cultural norm during the time they were alive i cannot say for certain, because i was not alive at the time. what is certain is that they inspired others to act as such and created ripples that shaped the future

concerning my view on the current world state, the focus isn't on the lack of these types of leaders, but the fact that people do not want to emulate the behaviour associated with them. a general example: a person witnessing a crime today is more likely to run away, pull out their camera phone etc. than actually ACTING and doing something about it. there's a lot more disillusion and simply settling for what you have, but not for what you perceive to be right

i think he's talking about the time where we lived in our shit

yes, taken literally that's exactly would it mean. thank goodness i asked for it not to be taken literally so there would be no confusion

[Original Alear]

martin luther king jr.

I know this is pretty off topic, but I actually had a King Arthur book for youngish readers back when I was in like, grade school. And I swear to god the book had Merlin say "Evil cannot destroy evil, Arthur. Only good can do that" in the context of Mordred and Arthur's attempt to kill him. I'm not sure if that quote is original to King (it could easily be from Ghandi or tons of other people), but I still think the quote is kinda rad, even if I'm not necessarily in full agreement with it.

Mentioning it because you are speaking of these people you respect as somehow tied to "knighthood."

[dondon151]

john f. kennedy, martin luther king jr., rosa parks, truman & roosevelt. (i apologize for only using american examples, but others might be princess diana, gandhi, mother theresa etc.) these people and the events surrounding them are some recent contemporary examples you might recognize that fit the knight ideology i'm trying to describe. whether or not their movements created a cultural norm during the time they were alive i cannot say for certain, because i was not alive at the time. what is certain is that they inspired others to act as such and created ripples that shaped the future

i think you need to study these people in more detail. JFK was a habitual philanderer. rosa parks was not the only, nor even the first, black female to challenge racial segregation. princess diana was pretty unremarkable outside of all of the media attention that she constantly received. gandhi was a racist and sexual deviant and he advocated non-violence even in situations where it would do more harm than good. mother teresa withheld care from terminally ill individuals in her home for dying destitutes and associated with dictators and autocrats.

you're being incoherent here. it seems like you're lamenting the fact that the modern day lacks charismatic leader figures, but that's simply not true. i can name a few off the top of my head, some of which are unsavory - aung san suu kyi, vladimir putin, abu bakr al-baghdadi. these sorts of leaders only arise in environments of political conflict, and i think you should be thankful that the time in which you live is a relatively more peaceful one. they also had the benefit of many years of hindsight that allows historians to reflect and label them as charismatic leaders.

concerning my view on the current world state, the focus isn't on the lack of these types of leaders, but the fact that people do not want to emulate the behaviour associated with them. a general example: a person witnessing a crime today is more likely to run away, pull out their camera phone etc. than actually ACTING and doing something about it. there's a lot more disillusion and simply settling for what you have, but not for what you perceive to be right

i'm not sure how you are coming to this conclusion. the hallmark example of the bystander effect, the murder of kitty genovese, occurred in 1964. the accounts of bystander non-interference are no doubt exaggerated, but things were not better in the good old days.

Edited February 23, 2015 by dondon151

[Lord Raven]

john f. kennedy, martin luther king jr., rosa parks, truman & roosevelt. (i apologize for only using american examples, but others might be princess diana, gandhi, mother theresa etc.) these people and the events surrounding them are some recent contemporary examples you might recognize that fit the knight ideology i'm trying to describe. whether or not their movements created a cultural norm during the time they were alive i cannot say for certain, because i was not alive at the time. what is certain is that they inspired others to act as such and created ripples that shaped the future

Harry Truman and Roosevelt? The dudes who ordered the bomb drop? You're using that as a paragon of this ideal society you envision? (Granted, I'm aware the idea of the atom bomb was so the Japanese would finally surrender, but keep in mind that the bomb killed 100,000 people, do you really view that as knightly?)

I can provide some other arguments stating that many of those people weren't too "knightly", but I think Rosa Parks is an interesting person to bring up. Those Montgomery bus boycotts weren't her being a brave soul and refusing to give up a seat, because calling her a brave soul to stand up to the white man is doing a disservice to the numerous people arrested for doing the same exact thing. No, she was a catalyst for it, and it was planned by a bunch of people in the NAACP that she would get arrested and then they'd spread the idea of a bus boycott so they could just fit the narratives together. In general, Rosa Parks was a largely uninspiring person who spent much of her time later on defending the "saintly" Rosa Parks image through some really... questionable means, so she wasn't any different from you or me.

Does this make her your romanticized version of a hero or just someone who was part of a bigger plan? Because it sounds to me more like a bunch of people organizing a protest and executing rather than one person being a hero.

Romanticizing a single person over an entire movement does the entire movement a lot of disservice, because behind the scenes there are much deeper plans and everything is carefully planned and executed. These people weren't just suddenly possessed to change the world, they worked their regular jobs and planned things out from the get-go, often . Even from the protesters side there is propaganda to hook people in. They way they did it is no different to any of those other dictatorships infamous for propaganda such as Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany (ugh I really hate bringing up this example), seeing as they got you hook, line, and sinker as being inspiring figures. The movement and the story are great, but the people themselves may not be as saintly as we all portray them. The reality is not so black and white.

concerning my view on the current world state, the focus isn't on the lack of these types of leaders, but the fact that people do not want to emulate the behaviour associated with them. a general example: a person witnessing a crime today is more likely to run away, pull out their camera phone etc. than actually ACTING and doing something about it. there's a lot more disillusion and simply settling for what you have, but not for what you perceive to be right

Are you certain this is true or are you just making this up? Because the Bystander Effect exists and has been researched on as early as the 1960s - you know, the time when Martin Luther King was "leading" the civil rights movement? Also consider that it was considerably harder to do things back then because there were no cell phones and payphones weren't everywhere, and there's a good chance that people are more likely to actually make use of their resources to get something done if anything. The bystander effect is real but there's also more that you're able to do to prevent it.

EDIT: i was actually re-reading this post a lot because I actually don't have much knowledge of history, because I totally didn't see dondon's post. fuckin dondon

Edited February 23, 2015 by Lord Raven

[buttmuncher.ops]

i didn't want to double post, so dondon's response starts at his quote and raven's at his

enjoy the wall of text, gentlemen

you're being incoherent here.

yes. i purposefully threw out names at random off the top of my head because it's of their association with a general idea, and not limited to any one specific thing

it seems like you're lamenting the fact that the modern day lacks charismatic leader figures

no, the emphasis is not on people or leaders named (i will indulge you with a response anyway,) but a combination of them being a key figure to inspire people to act and the events surrounding them. you can call martin luther king a "knight" as much as you can call someone who marched with him for the same beliefs a "knight"

rosa parks was not the only, nor even the first, black female to challenge racial segregation.

your statements concerning the others are relevant, but this one is not. you do not need to be the first, or the only one of your kind to fit this category. a person can be non-footnote worthy in every way but still belong

either way, i think you misunderstood that i wasn't advocating people emulating the personal behaviour of everyone on the list, but rather the fact that they championed and were involved in the movements around them. a common person living in their times might have then been inspired to act and choose for themselves what's acceptable. not everyone who voted for JFK and knew he was a philanderer was guilty of it themselves. not everyone who subscribed and utilized gandhi's non-violence became racist and sexually deviant themselves

i can idolize my favorite professional athlete's work ethic all i want and apply it to myself, but that does not mean i will give up that work ethic or the sport itself just because media scrutiny reveals that same athlete's a drug user / rapist / wife&childbeater. will the revelation, however, prevent said athlete from entering history's hall of fame? maybe, maybe not

this is where the disillusionment i notice comes in, because similar to as you have argued, the norm can now be viewed as "this person has great ideas and been involved in great things, but we will write ALL OF IT off because we know he/she is human and susceptible to flaws." it shouldn't boil down to such black & white terms. no individual has to blindly follow the doctrine or has to emulate the personal characteristics; in the end it's as simple a cliche as holding true to your beliefs and choosing to act on them

Harry Truman and Roosevelt? The dudes who ordered the bomb drop? You're using that as a paragon of this ideal society you envision? (Granted, I'm aware the idea of the atom bomb was so the Japanese would finally surrender, but keep in mind that the bomb killed 100,000 people, do you really view that as knightly?)

i don't recall claiming them as the ultimate one true and done example. it's why i provided multiple options, preferably in as recent history as people could remember, because like you said about yourself, you don't have much knowledge of history

don't forget that they also held japanese americans in internment camps against their will. would that make them the same as hitler?

attempting to treat these injustices committed as the sum of the span of their work might do disservice to the events influenced. my ideal society doesn't involve a world where millions were sacrificed and the nazi regime won world war two because one country's leaders refused to act; i hope yours doesn't either

p.s. i associate roosevelt with great depression recovery more than hiroshima / nagasaki

Romanticizing a single person over an entire movement does the entire movement a lot of disservice, because behind the scenes there are much deeper plans and everything is carefully planned and executed.

i agree completely, which is why i said the focus isn't on the leaders, but being inspired to act

if someone comes to the forefront through whatever means and becomes romanticized as the hero; it does not make the movement, and especially the people in it, any less important. in fact, the common person involved in the movement who's there because it's something they believe in is my entire point

i do recall writing "a world where knights (plural) do not exist anymore," in my first post and your argument that everyone who organized the protest and executed it deserves to be a hero is exactly what i'm driving at. expanding on the disillusionment idea in my response to dondon above, i feel that a normal person today is less likely to get involved and be a "hero," even if they agree with and feel strongly about the ideals / cause

Also consider that it was considerably harder to do things back then because there were no cell phones and payphones weren't everywhere, and there's a good chance that people are more likely to actually make use of their resources to get something done if anything. The bystander effect is real but there's also more that you're able to do with it.

i did not expand on the general bystander effect example because it also serves as metaphor for my current world view, which could get confusing. simply put, you could substitute the person in the example with a branch of government, a conglomerate of companies or even an entire country, if you wished to (obviously substitute crime / running away / pulling cell phone out to whatever related level)

if we're discussing the local individual example, however, i don't think the issue is technology, but the population, as the wiki linked in your post states. yes, we have steadily increasing technology, but we also have a steadily increasing population (ninety percent of whom are unsuspecting, content sheep, don't forget)

in my opinion, the sense of apathy is rising on every level from the local individual in the example to the nation we can substitute into it. the three out of two hundred who do decide to act, inspire / join the event and not standby doing nothing are the knights that do not exist anymore

edit: dondon edited his post later and i had to go back to fit in a response ;/

Edited February 23, 2015 by buttmuncher.ops

[Lord Raven]

i don't recall claiming them as the ultimate one true and done example. it's why i provided multiple options, preferably in as recent history as people could remember, because like you said about yourself, you don't have much knowledge of history

don't forget that they also held japanese americans in internment camps against their will. would that make them the same as hitler?

attempting to treat these injustices committed as the sum of the span of their work might do disservice to the events influenced. my ideal society doesn't involve a world where millions were sacrificed and the nazi regime won world war two because one country's leaders refused to act; i hope yours doesn't either

p.s. i associate roosevelt with great depression recovery more than hiroshima / nagasaki

That's not what happened, but okay. There's a theory that, while Pearl Harbor was not an inside job, we may have known of it happening and didn't exactly defend against it so there was an excuse to go into the war. But for all other intents and purposes, the US remained largely neutral and didn't enter until 1941 or so when Pearl Harbor was attacked. There was no freedom fighting going on in this war, and I don't believe there was much widespread knowledge (or much knowledge in general) of the concentration camps either. You can look at it in retrospect and see what kind of clusterfuck we prevented, but at the time these people just saw an attack on our nation and went into arms as reactionaries.

It's not too different from the war on Afghanistan right? 911 causes people to go into war, difference is we have president Bush and there's actually proof out there that he knew an attack was coming before he did anything about it. (And we somehow marched into Iraq, but that's not really a discussion for here nor there.) The difference is we found these out later which added fuel to the fire, but I don't think Truman/FDR were leading a group of freedom fighters in the 40s.

And this war wouldn't even happen if the brutal World War I didn't handcuff Germany to a large extent. This actually led to people overthrowing the German government at the time thanks to some people who had charisma of the caliber of which you speak, which put people into a ton of civil unrest blah blah blah Nazi Party comes into power. That level of inspiration you're talking of was both a "knightly" tool and a tool for exactly the opposite of what you're talking about. And to this day, we see people actually thriving upon political unrest which leads to certain things as ISIS and whatnot. These people are probably viewed in the same way as you view Gandhi et al by a certain cast of people, too. Doesn't mean they don't exist or they're not right.

The weird thing is they're capturing Americans who go to the middle east to act as one of those knights you speak of, but don't let this deter you from claiming there's not as many people like that out there.

I wasn't even saying they were the sole examples, they were just easy examples to see the dark side of (and the ones I know more about, I know more World War II than any era in history, simply because I've actually spent time studying it). These people were not saints, and the bomb only pulled the Japanese out of the war, as it did very little for European frontier. (In fact, I know the war was basically over by 1944, but certain people disagreed. Hitler had tunnel vision to say the least. Anything after 1944 was basically finishing things off or overkill by the Allies.)

a common person living in their times might have then been inspired to act and choose for themselves what's acceptable

Really? So a bunch of whites suddenly took the side of African Americans and now there's no more racism in America? You can grow up in any progressive part of the country and it's still blatantly obvious that there is some institutionalized racism in America. It's a more subtle version of 60s racism. Ever heard of a black dude get offended because he "acts white"? There are still a ton of people out there motivating people and making their point be heard - that this kind of shit is really dumb. There's actually a lot more of these out there than there were in the past, of mixed races too, but because there's no one central figure it is harder to actually clump them together... which was the exact reason why the MLK thing became so big; they found a central figure and managed to find just the right tipping point and frame it with the right propaganda. It's all about the timing.

Besides, there are examples of a few rallies towards policies and attitudes that people are/were not fond of, some of which happened in this country:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rally_to_Restore_Sanity_and/or_Fear

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_London

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_We_Fight_Back

Living quite close to DC during some of them, I can tell you from personal experience that there was massive turnout to these events, and a significant amount of people around me went to at least one of the three US ones. These were far from the only ones, these are just the only ones I remember off-hand. Said charisma exists in this world, but there's no benefit to hindsight, and no winners declared just yet for these to be looked at with a certain view. (I also met a good amount of people that came to the local businesses from way out west, and some of them were actually renting out a few rooms in a family friend's house because it was right outside DC. I can go on and on about this, but these do happen.)

i agree completely, which is why i said the focus isn't on the leaders, but being inspired to act

I think you're looking at this a bit too romantically. Nobody is "inspired" to act. People are not necessarily forced to act, but it's shoved into their faces and it is indeed a problem with civil unrest. It's almost the next closest thing to being forced to act. I don't think the majority of Americans even really followed MLK's lead into things, but these people were more calculating and cunning than you seem to believe they are. There is also not as much civil unrest these days because many problems aren't as blatant as segregation et al were.

if someone comes to the forefront through whatever means and becomes romanticized as the hero; it does not make the movement, and especially the people in it, any less important. in fact, the common person involved in the movement who's there because it's something they believe in is my entire point

i do recall writing "a world where knights (plural) do not exist anymore," in my first post and your argument that everyone who organized the protest and executed it deserves to be a hero is exactly what i'm driving at. expanding on the disillusionment idea in my response to dondon above, i feel that a normal person today is less likely to get involved and be a "hero," even if they agree with and feel strongly about the ideals / cause

Tell me about some movements that people should be protesting more these days, and I'll counter with people throughout history who have done similar things and completely failed at it. You just hear too much about the successes that you don't look at the failures, and there are many, many more failed examples of protest before a single successful one came about. Are the people who lead "failed" marches heroes or knights in your eyes? If so, then bear in mind there are a lot of failed protests everywhere in the world.

Very rarely do certain protests succeed, and said protests take decades to succeed and require an adequate amount of build-up to a single point where you just need a catalyst. These issues aren't things where some dude just went up and went "I want to protest," because those movements have failed. For instance, the reverend before Martin Luther King (Vernon Johns) attempted that multiple times, I believe, but failed completely because there was no structure or order to what he did. Those heroes just capitalized on a hostility that built up for a few generations, and managed to take the mantle at a point where they just had to plan the start and using a committee to come up with a plan from there. They used Rosa Parks for that purpose; she's not some sort of hero who was just really tired from working as a seamstress one day. On top of that, had they not succeeded, they would just be a footnote, like Vernon Johns before him.

Just list some specific causes worth fighting for these days and analyze how long they've actually been a widespread or even popular issue, and then look up how many people have actually protested on their behalf. You'd be surprised. Compare it now to how long the issues that MLK dealt with and all of those guys had been an issue and see how long it took for something to do what they did at that magnitude.

FDR, JFK, and HST (weird ass abbreviation) were presidents. Presidents don't have nearly as much power as one would think. That's mostly on Congress and Congress has still generally been dysfunctional throughout American history. Times nowadays don't really prove anything to contradict this. Getting out of the great depression was also a function of the war and primarily occurred as a result of the war, which is a pretty dark reason. If we didn't get involved with World War II then lord knows how long it would take to get out.

i did not expand on the general bystander effect example because it also serves as metaphor for my current world view, which could get confusing. simply put, you could substitute the person in the example with a branch of government, a conglomerate of companies or even an entire country, if you wished to (obviously substitute crime / running away / pulling cell phone out to whatever related level)

Oh it's not confusing, but government has been viewed as largely incompetent or corrupt for centuries. That is nothing that is new of our time, we're just experiencing it and complaining about it now, but it's the same shit in a different wrapper. Companies still only want money and government is still centered around appealing to businesses (at least in the west, there's never been a time where companies were about the good ol' days and honor) and/or trying to stay re-elected.

I don't know why you basically stated the bystander effect, whose formulation coincides with the timeline of many of the 20th century figureheads you've mentioned, and then proceed to dismiss that it ever happened. This is not a new phenomenon. You just hear about more murders not prevented by bystanders today because there is simply more access to information. The world comes off as more grim than it is at times because there is more access to information. Furthermore, due to these bystander studies, there are major pushes to legislation (starting in Quebec I believe) where any bystanders found in the vicinity of a crime must help prevent the crime unless the situation is very dangerous (if the guy has a gun or a knife) or if there's some sort of emergency.

if we're discussing the local individual example, however, i don't think the issue is technology, but the population, as the wiki linked in your post states. yes, we have steadily increasing technology, but we also have a steadily increasing population (ninety percent of whom are unsuspecting, content sheep, don't forget)

in my opinion, the sense of apathy is rising on every level from the local individual in the example to the nation we can substitute into it. the three out of two hundred who do decide to act, inspire / join the event and not standby doing nothing are the knights that do not exist anymore

Is this really different from back then? I think "unsuspecting sheep" are exactly the type of people in favor of Japanese internment camps. They'd also be the ones willingly joining the army in hopes of fighting for the American way. Propaganda existed back then and people were probably more sheepish back then given that the wealth of information we see on the internet now wasn't close to available back then. People are also far, far more literate now.

I actually know my shit about education in the 40s and 50s (which is probably the most random thing to know about that era) and people were actually quite a bit more unsuspecting than today. I'll dig up the numbers later, but a significant amount of people (I'm willing to bet its 40-50% or above) did not even go to middle school and instead preferred to go into some sort of blue collar labor. This isn't counting the number who actually stayed in school after the age of 14 or so. Many were actually illiterate too.

The vast majority of people back then also just wanted a job and then they'd be content with going about their lives, so long as they could eat and sleep in peace. There's very, very very few people back then who would think to lead a protest, as well. There are people these days who are participating in protests and I've linked some of the more major protests that have occurred very recently (3 of which were on the east coast and were pretty big). Were those people not heroes? Because ultimately, once something becomes of the issues they were protested, they'll just be relegated to a footnote and nothing flashy to romanticize about.

It also doesn't help that social norms were significantly different pre-20th century and post-20th century. A ton of civil unrest in the US in the early 20th century (and in nations beyond the US) were happening as a result of the 19th century and prior being so backwards (relative to our time). As it stands today, quite a bit of the norms of the 19th century don't really exist anymore (at least not in the US) even though a good chunk of certain sentiments still remain. This effectively means that there aren't as many causes worth fighting for today as there were back in the 20th century. Even still, there are people taking a stand against certain things, you just hear less about them because often times they just don't have the full backing to succeed (which may contradict hearing more about crimes and murders occurring - but the majority of news is about crime and very little tends to be about protesters unless they're massive).

Edited February 23, 2015 by Lord Raven

[dondon151]

if we're discussing the local individual example, however, i don't think the issue is technology, but the population, as the wiki linked in your post states. yes, we have steadily increasing technology, but we also have a steadily increasing population (ninety percent of whom are unsuspecting, content sheep, don't forget)

at least most of us unsuspecting, content sheep are aware that, for example, cigarette smoking is a huge risk factor for lung cancer, in contrast to the go-getters of the 50s that listened to whatever the tobacco companies told them.

[buttmuncher.ops]

That's not what happened, but okay. There's a theory that, while Pearl Harbor was not an inside job, we may have known of it happening and didn't exactly defend against it so there was an excuse to go into the war. But for all other intents and purposes, the US remained largely neutral and didn't enter until 1941 or so when Pearl Harbor was attacked. There was no freedom fighting going on in this war, and I don't believe there was much widespread knowledge (or much knowledge in general) of the concentration camps either. You can look at it in retrospect and see what kind of clusterfuck we prevented, but at the time these people just saw an attack on our nation and went into arms as reactionaries.

if we're going to start discussing conspiracy theories instead of actual history, then this will turn into a more abstract conversation than it already is. you might have to also define "largely neutral" here; because i'm not entirely sure giving financial support and arms to the Allies pre-Pearl Harbor fits into that definition

FDR decided to champion his perception of democracy three years before that, but you are correct in stating that the attack on Pearl Harbor was the catalyst that brought the rest of the nation / Congress fully on board with him later. the key here being that he decided to act before everyone else instead of standby and remain neutral

yes, i said it, roosevelt was a hipster

The weird thing is they're capturing Americans who go to the middle east to act as one of those knights you speak of, but don't let this deter you from claiming there's not as many people like that out there.

this statement along with the two paragraphs before it in your post are a little vague to me, you might have to expand on this (is "they" ISIS or the USA?) because i'm reading it as you implying / comparing terrorists & the ISIS social media outreach propaganda to my knight ideology, which isn't what i think you meant to say. if you do however, then all i can say is that you've missed the point completely

I wasn't even saying they were the sole examples, they were just easy examples to see the dark side of (and the ones I know more about, I know more World War II than any era in history, simply because I've actually spent time studying it). These people were not saints, and the bomb only pulled the Japanese out of the war, as it did very little for European frontier. (In fact, I know the war was basically over by 1944, but certain people disagreed. Hitler had tunnel vision to say the least. Anything after 1944 was basically finishing things off or overkill by the Allies.)

saying they're the "paragon" implies that they are at the pinnacle (it's lonely at the top) of whatever you are associating them with. we aren't discussing science where a perfect example can be given in mathematical terms (sometimes not even then, in that field.) we are philosophizing about ideology and aspects of human nature. we (most of us anyway) accept that we are not perfect beings, therefore the same is obviously true of anyone i claim to embody this ideology. if you're fishing for a "perfect human specimen" of my knight ideology in a scientific manner, then i am sorry to say that you will be disappointed and never satisfied

i've no doubt that you've studied about the eras surrounding world war two more than i have, since i'm a college dropout of two years on permanent vacation like kanye west. which is why it surprised me when you put truman & roosevelt in the same breath by asking "the dudes who ordered the bomb drop?" also saying "These people were not saints" while referencing the bomb is still grouping them together for the decision (i don't see a St. in front of their names btw, but if you'd like, i can attach President in front everytime i mention them)

p.s. i associate roosevelt with great depression recovery more than hiroshima / nagasaki

i'll let it slide this time though, even if you are an expert historian on world war two, because like i said above: we're human after all (insert daft punk yt vid here.) however, if you're implying that FDR would have signed off on the bomb drop had he still been alive, or rather that he signed off on it automatically by commisioning the manhattan project; we would delve into the depths of speculation and conspiracy endlessly

p.s. i'm well aware of the theory that racism was evident in the tactics the Allies chose for either their European (brethren) or Japanese (strangers) frontiers fronts. specifically chemical weapons being witheld, aiming incendiary and civilian targeting. that's a discussion for another time and place though, but i'd love to hear a world war two expert's opinion on it

Really? So a bunch of whites suddenly took the side of African Americans and now there's no more racism in America?

i'm not even sure where you felt i implied this, because the context of what you were quoting was whether or not an inspiree would choose to emulate every personal characteristic in addition to deciding to act

i expected a lot from your response, but silliness was not one of them. i will go ahead and indulge your silly question with a silly response anyway, which is pretty much an elaboration of the response i gave to dondon's view of rosa parks

your statements concerning the others are relevant, but this one is not. you do not need to be the first, or the only one of your kind to fit this category. a person can be non-footnote worthy in every way but still belong

the obvious implication here is that there may be more than one person knighting for the same grail, but the underlying implication is that they don't all have to exist in the same time period. hypothetically speaking, the difference in years between the "first" and the "second" can be one year or one thousand, but the quest for the grail never ends, as long as either one of them perceivals it to exist. i hope me writing out what should have been picked up on easily has throughly sillified satisfied the both of us on this point

I think you're looking at this a bit too romantically. Nobody is "inspired" to act. People are not necessarily forced to act, but it's shoved into their faces and it is indeed a problem with civil unrest. It's almost the next closest thing to being forced to act.

absolutely nobody? you sure? because that's what i mean when i say knights don't exist in this world anymore. as long as you're using present tense and didn't mean it to imply "nobody was 'inspired' to act, ever, in the history of humankind," i think we agree on this point

the other two levels of "action" that you mention, i feel have already been described. having something shoved in your face (to read or hear about civil unrest i presume,) but still not necessarily being forced to act upon it means that it has not effectively penetrated your bubble. in short terms, being in the state of "next closest thing to being forced to act" is the same as being in the state of the bystander. conversely, being forced to act means the (insert example here, civil unrest etc.) is knocking down your door and affecting you personally. being forced to act for reasons within your own bubble is not a bad thing and is almost always necessary; but in my opinion, not everyone who is forced to act in this specific way will fit into the knight ideology. as for the why not part, i recall you to my first post in this thread where i described it, specifically the part where i mention bubbles

we'll use our favorite example of FDR in this case: the axis powers did not make direct contact with the US' bubble pre-Pearl Harbor, but FDR acted way before that anyway by financially supporting / providing munitions (literally doing everything but sending men in uniform to die.) he was not forced to act by our definition, but neither was he in the comatose bystander state. did he knight himself for something outside his sphere because he was inspired by his own beliefs, the event itself, or someone in particular? it's hard to say for certain, but in my opinion, he was indeed "inspired" to act

You just hear too much about the successes that you don't look at the failures, and there are many, many more failed examples of protest before a single successful one came about.

Those heroes just capitalized on a hostility that built up for a few generations, and managed to take the mantle at a point where they just had to plan the start and using a committee to come up with a plan from there.

Compare it now to how long the issues that MLK dealt with and all of those guys had been an issue and see how long it took for something to do what they did at that magnitude.

i myself only mentioned "success" stories as examples for recognition purposes; if i mentioned george custer, it would be assumed i'm speaking of his last stand instead of the union, not to mention severely out of date for argument's sake (any 160 year olds on the internet around?)

so yes, the growing emphasis (from history, media, w/e) on maintaining success with your beliefs is what contributes to the disillusionment i speak of. that one key person or group of key people with the ability to turn a failed movement into a successful one is less likely to join for fear of failure or assuming it's a waste of resources. this might be a reason for why it takes generations to get something done, like you say

it's obviously unrealistic to expect the 3/200 to become 200/200 or a cultural norm overnight, but the point we agree on here is that you have to sift through a lot of rough before you find a diamond

the only difference is that you're saying it takes patience with lifespans, generations and timing of rough;

whereas i'm saying it should become an ingrained principle for people to commit themselves to increasing the quantity of rough, regardless of population or generation

enough of this bullshit where "i'm in a crowd, someone else will take care of it" slowly becomes the norm

I don't know why you basically stated the bystander effect, whose formulation coincides with the timeline of many of the 20th century figureheads you've mentioned, and then proceed to dismiss that it ever happened. This is not a new phenomenon.

i don't recall dismissing it or claiming it's a new phenomenon? the quote you respond to with this explains my view of the effect evolving, and your quote of me after that one directly touches and expands on the general example i provided at the end of my second post in this thread

the "population" criteria of the local example obviously applies to every level above it, hence what i said about apathy rising. or would you disagree and say there's fewer people / governmental offices / companies / nations in the world today than there were in the 1950's? 1940's? 1800's? 1700's? after all, the numbers factor is the staple of the effect

i apologize if this implication is not stated more obviously / easily connectable. i did warn that it gets confusing

Is this really different from back then? I think "unsuspecting sheep" are exactly the type of people in favor of Japanese internment camps. They'd also be the ones willingly joining the army in hopes of fighting for the American way. Propaganda existed back then and people were probably more sheepish back then given that the wealth of information we see on the internet now wasn't close to available back then. People are also far, far more literate now.

I actually know my shit about education in the 40s and 50s (which is probably the most random thing to know about that era) and people were actually quite a bit more unsuspecting than today. I'll dig up the numbers later, but a significant amount of people (I'm willing to bet its 40-50% or above) did not even go to middle school and instead preferred to go into some sort of blue collar labor. This isn't counting the number who actually stayed in school after the age of 14 or so. Many were actually illiterate too.

The vast majority of people back then also just wanted a job and then they'd be content with going about their lives, so long as they could eat and sleep in peace. There's very, very very few people back then who would think to lead a protest, as well. There are people these days who are participating in protests and I've linked some of the more major protests that have occurred very recently (3 of which were on the east coast and were pretty big). Were those people not heroes? Because ultimately, once something becomes of the issues they were protested, they'll just be relegated to a footnote and nothing flashy to romanticize about.

if you're still trying to link propaganda and romanticization to what i'm saying, i think there might be quite a bit of selective reading going on. either way, let's indulge

i think you're trying to claim that since people are more literate and educated now, that propaganda doesn't exist anymore? sorry, i have to ask this silly question, so feel free to respond in kind

would the internet being a wealth of information and data just not provide another, more readily processable and faster acting source of propaganda? a stronger, better, faster propaganda engine. we have the technology, so we built it

and the best part? uneducated blue collar labor can still afford 4g data access on their phones and broadband @ home on a budget / installment plan

do you know who he voted for? arnold the governator schwarzenegger. not because he was familiar with any of his policies (after all, he's only an uneducated blue collar laborman) but because he watched the terminator a million times as a kid. it also happened to be the only name he recognized on the ballot, along with mickey mouse. +1 for education, because at least he knows that showing up to the voting booth is important

why didn't he use the 4g data access on his phone to research the candidates and their policies beforehand? well you see, he's always busy playing angry birds and candy crush during his lunch break at work. whatever information he receives on propositions and such is filtered through his twitter and facebook news feed. working as an uneducated blue collar laborman is ever so dull, after all

all hyperboles aside, if we're going to seriously discuss susceptibility to propaganda in different eras, it still boils down to human nature. unsuspecting and content does not mean a lack of knowledge, but whether or not the knowledge (regardless of level,) is practically applied so you attain what your perception of right is. this can also literally be taken as whether or not this person is doing a combination of living up to their potential while living their dream (and taking the journey of all the steps in between.) this relates to the knight ideology in that they will not only attain what they perceive as right for themselves, but they will also help others attain what those others perceive as right for themselves. if the perceptions align, a movement might occur, otherwise they still aid the others in attaining their perceptions, as long as it's not in complete contradiction to their own beliefs. it's vague because i'm trying to boil down an idea about a way of living to it's simplest form, but i believe that someone with these principles and conviction to act are less likely to be susceptible to propaganda, regardless of literacy level

your last point about OWS and the people in those rallies as heroes but merely footnotes at the same time is minorly contradictory. nobody said either the forefront figure or the movement itself has to be romanticized, yet you keep coming back to this word. not romanticizing it does not also mean dismissing it instead of acknowledging. in fact, if their movement is ultimately successful, the effect would be pretty far reaching, no? if you then regulate them to a mere footnote while living in their time does a disservice to their movement imo, whether you "knight" for it or not

This effectively means that there aren't as many causes worth fighting for today as there were back in the 20th century. Even still, there are people taking a stand against certain things, you just hear less about them because often times they just don't have the full backing to succeed (which may contradict hearing more about crimes and murders occurring - but the majority of news is about crime and very little tends to be about protesters unless they're massive).

you state that racism still exists in a different form today but end your post with saying there are fewer causes to fight for in this century? if a major change requires generations of roughing it, i think "same shit, different wrapper" applies here, regardless of what social improvements may or may have not been made

you do not hear less of them because there are simply fewer causes, but because the second part is true: there's less backing to succeed i.e. that key person or key people that can turn it around don't exist or come forward anymore

p.s. knighting it up isn't all about protesting or going to war. JFK's cuban missile crisis was a stand of a different kind that still fits the bill

[Lord Raven]

if we're going to start discussing conspiracy theories instead of actual history, then this will turn into a more abstract conversation than it already is. you might have to also define "largely neutral" here; because i'm not entirely sure giving financial support and arms to the Allies pre-Pearl Harbor fits into that definition

FDR decided to champion his perception of democracy three years before that, but you are correct in stating that the attack on Pearl Harbor was the catalyst that brought the rest of the nation / Congress fully on board with him later. the key here being that he decided to act before everyone else instead of standby and remain neutral

I'm not discussing conspiracies here, just bringing up alternate motivations that, if debunked, still don't even detract from my point. If it's true, then they entered the war through questionable means, which is still not something a knight would do.

Now, assuming my little conspiracy is false, what are you talking about with acting before everyone else? The administration - read, not just Roosevelt, because presidents don't have that much power - was very hesitant to give supplies. They just didn't want to do it and didn't do it until they were forced. If the administration were looking out for other countries then they'd enter the war with them, but FDR nor did the rest of Congress want to get involved. The western European powers struggled regardless of all of that, the only reason they weren't demolished was due to the Russian front and 1941 when the US entered the war almost out of necessity. US was literally the last country to directly act.

this statement along with the two paragraphs before it in your post are a little vague to me, you might have to expand on this (is "they" ISIS or the USA?) because i'm reading it as you implying / comparing terrorists & the ISIS social media outreach propaganda to my knight ideology, which isn't what i think you meant to say. if you do however, then all i can say is that you've missed the point completely[/color]

Yes, I am comparing it. You know why? Because there are people who view them in the way you view MLK et al. The difference is that they're not on our side. There have been a ridiculous number of instances of this throughout history and the past decade alone where a leader stands up and, through very questionable means and unarguably heinous means, takes your ideology to the opposite extreme. They get shit done, but they have a devoted following that believes what they are doing is correct, as well as a great motivator. You just hear about those more because they make headlines easier, whereas a rally to restore peace won't.

saying they're the "paragon" implies that they are at the pinnacle (it's lonely at the top) of whatever you are associating them with. we aren't discussing science where a perfect example can be given in mathematical terms (sometimes not even then, in that field.) we are philosophizing about ideology and aspects of human nature. we (most of us anyway) accept that we are not perfect beings, therefore the same is obviously true of anyone i claim to embody this ideology. if you're fishing for a "perfect human specimen" of my knight ideology in a scientific manner, then i am sorry to say that you will be disappointed and never satisfied

i've no doubt that you've studied about the eras surrounding world war two more than i have, since i'm a college dropout of two years on permanent vacation like kanye west. which is why it surprised me when you put truman & roosevelt in the same breath by asking "the dudes who ordered the bomb drop?" also saying "These people were not saints" while referencing the bomb is still grouping them together for the decision (i don't see a St. in front of their names btw, but if you'd like, i can attach President in front everytime i mention them)

i'll let it slide this time though, even if you are an expert historian on world war two, because like i said above: we're human after all (insert daft punk yt vid here.) however, if you're implying that FDR would have signed off on the bomb drop had he still been alive, or rather that he signed off on it automatically by commisioning the manhattan project; we would delve into the depths of speculation and conspiracy endlessly

p.s. i'm well aware of the theory that racism was evident in the tactics the Allies chose for either their European (brethren) or Japanese (strangers) frontiers fronts. specifically chemical weapons being witheld, aiming incendiary and civilian targeting. that's a discussion for another time and place though, but i'd love to hear a world war two expert's opinion on it

You're reading too much into an implication I did not intend to make. Never said I was a history buff, never said I was good with words either.

I'm not speculating a single thing. He ordered the Manhatten Project to be researched upon, and Harry S. Truman executed it months after his death. I don't believe I really associated them with any specifics, just associated them with the entire process, which did begin and end with their presidency/vice-presidency.

I never claimed that I was a world war 2 expert, I just claimed I studied it in a bit (and this isn't me using that word modestly, it is literally only a bit). But the point is that you're calling these guys knights even though they did a lot of questionable things that affected people in this country and around the world. Sure, they got people to act, but it's not like they always fought for things that were ultimately beneficial.

the other two levels of "action" that you mention, i feel have already been described. having something shoved in your face (to read or hear about civil unrest i presume,) but still not necessarily being forced to act upon it means that it has not effectively penetrated your bubble. in short terms, being in the state of "next closest thing to being forced to act" is the same as being in the state of the bystander. conversely, being forced to act means the (insert example here, civil unrest etc.) is knocking down your door and affecting you personally. being forced to act for reasons within your own bubble is not a bad thing and is almost always necessary; but in my opinion, not everyone who is forced to act in this specific way will fit into the knight ideology. as for the why not part, i recall you to my first post in this thread where i described it, specifically the part where i mention bubbles

I'm curious why you suddenly believe that civil rights marches and all that were people acting outside of their own bubble. The issues that were acted upon were a plague for years, in just about every example, and it occurred very much within their bubble. I don't think MLK et al even really expected to make ripples across the way they did, but it's not like that movement in Montgomery was the only thing that really got things done. Brown vs the Board of Education was monumental but that was not about one person inspiring others or taking a stand - it was a court case whose verdict was a result upon decades of buildup.

we'll use our favorite example of FDR in this case: the axis powers did not make direct contact with the US' bubble pre-Pearl Harbor, but FDR acted way before that anyway by financially supporting / providing munitions (literally doing everything but sending men in uniform to die.) he was not forced to act by our definition, but neither was he in the comatose bystander state. did he knight himself for something outside his sphere because he was inspired by his own beliefs, the event itself, or someone in particular? it's hard to say for certain, but in my opinion, he was indeed "inspired" to act

I mean, in all honesty, most leaders and congress will act in the face of something like that. Not sending in your own men to die is not quite something I associate with someone who is acting, and the supplies weren't nearly enough to prevent the allies from getting battered on the western front.

i myself only mentioned "success" stories as examples for recognition purposes; if i mentioned george custer, it would be assumed i'm speaking of his last stand instead of the union, not to mention severely out of date for argument's sake (any 160 year olds on the internet around?)

But there's still a lot of those around these days, successful and unsuccessful, beneficial and detrimental, etc. You just ignore all of them.

so yes, the growing emphasis (from history, media, w/e) on maintaining success with your beliefs is what contributes to the disillusionment i speak of. that one key person or group of key people with the ability to turn a failed movement into a successful one is less likely to join for fear of failure or assuming it's a waste of resources. this might be a reason for why it takes generations to get something done, like you say

It takes generations because the long term effects of something tend to come into effect after generations. You can't effectively study or argue things based upon a small sample size, which really gets to the core of why your viewpoint is inherently flawed: all of these guys you listed have the benefit of hindsight going for them. You look back at the 50s and 60s and you've seen the ripples across time caused by those movements. We will look back at the 90s and 00s and view a lot of what's going on outside of the US (and even in the US) with the benefit of hindsight, much as we probably view the pre-70s US as an inherently culturally backwards place. In the future we may see cultural changes around the world in favor of tolerance.

Stuff like gay marriage and marijuana legalization is actually taking a lot of inspiration and rallies by the way, but I don't see you romanticizing those despite the vocal majority actually making these things work. They will take time, but it's not like the US sentiments over things such as segregation were accepted overnight either.

the only difference is that you're saying it takes patience with lifespans, generations and timing of rough;

whereas i'm saying it should become an ingrained principle for people to commit themselves to increasing the quantity of rough, regardless of population or generation

enough of this bullshit where "i'm in a crowd, someone else will take care of it" slowly becomes the norm

It never was and will never be. At this point you're just projecting a quality that was in a select few movements onto an entire population of people. The idea of people being in a crowd was always the norm, and they follow anyone who sounds good, regardless of how good the cause is. That's why organizations like ISIS exist, part of why Cuba is what it is, and part of why Russia is so ass backwards thanks to Lenins. It has equal probability of backfiring as it does working out. You just hear more about the winners in history rather than the losers.

i don't recall dismissing it or claiming it's a new phenomenon? the quote you respond to with this explains my view of the effect evolving, and your quote of me after that one directly touches and expands on the general example i provided at the end of my second post in this thread

the "population" criteria of the local example obviously applies to every level above it, hence what i said about apathy rising. or would you disagree and say there's fewer people / governmental offices / companies / nations in the world today than there were in the 1950's? 1940's? 1800's? 1700's? after all, the numbers factor is the staple of the effect

You don't have to say "it's no different now than it was then" and still agree to some of the false stuff you say. You say apathy is rising with numbers but it's really about the same as it was, and if anything people are more able to help.

if you're still trying to link propaganda and romanticization to what i'm saying, i think there might be quite a bit of selective reading going on. either way, let's indulge

No selective reading, you're calling a group of protesters "the knights." That is romanticizing a movement beyond what it was.

i think you're trying to claim that since people are more literate and educated now, that propaganda doesn't exist anymore?

sorry, i have to ask this silly question, so feel free to respond in kind

would the internet being a wealth of information and data just not provide another, more readily processable and faster acting source of propaganda? a stronger, better, faster propaganda engine. we have the technology, so we built it

and the best part? uneducated blue collar labor can still afford 4g data access on their phones and broadband @ home on a budget / installment plan

do you know who he voted for? arnold the governator schwarzenegger. not because he was familiar with any of his policies (after all, he's only an uneducated blue collar laborman) but because he watched the terminator a million times as a kid. it also happened to be the only name he recognized on the ballot, along with mickey mouse. +1 for education, because at least he knows that showing up to the voting booth is important

why didn't he use the 4g data access on his phone to research the candidates and their policies beforehand? well you see, he's always busy playing angry birds and candy crush during his lunch break at work. whatever information he receives on propositions and such is filtered through his twitter and facebook news feed. working as an uneducated blue collar laborman is ever so dull, after all

Ah, there you go. You actually took my point and ran with it beyond what I intended.

No, I did not imply as such, but literacy rates were significantly lower in the 40s than now. Blue collar people didn't read much, couldn't write much and were generally content with working in some sort of industry. This was the 1940s. There were many, many, many more blue collar works back then and considerably less people you could consider scholarly who would analyze things. Voters back then also were significantly less educated than right now, and the world was much less progressive given that the majority of people still voted for presidents that did shit all against Civil Rights and other actual issues plaguing the country. That is literally no different from now, you just have more recognizable people running and people running simply because of that recognition. That doesn't mean that people will go out and look it up, but people definitely have the means to do so and, believe it or not, people are significantly more educated as human beings and voters in general than even a few decades ago. You admitted yourself this is hyperbole but this is actually very far from the truth and stretching my point to a place that I didn't make it.

all hyperboles aside, if we're going to seriously discuss susceptibility to propaganda in different eras, it still boils down to human nature. unsuspecting and content does not mean a lack of knowledge, but whether or not the knowledge (regardless of level,) is practically applied so you attain what your perception of right is. this can also literally be taken as whether or not this person is doing a combination of living up to their potential while living their dream (and taking the journey of all the steps in between.) this relates to the knight ideology in that they will not only attain what they perceive as right for themselves, but they will also help others attain what those others perceive as right for themselves. if the perceptions align, a movement might occur, otherwise they still aid the others in attaining their perceptions, as long as it's not in complete contradiction to their own beliefs. it's vague because i'm trying to boil down an idea about a way of living to it's simplest form, but i believe that someone with these principles and conviction to act are less likely to be susceptible to propaganda, regardless of literacy level

If they were literate, they would actually have a significant amount more knowledge of what they're voting on because they'd read about it or research. If they were illiterate, that means they're listening to a guy on a podium speak his mind about things he may not know about because he's uneducated or illiterate and studied none of this. This was rampant in the 40s before massive educational reform in the 50s. If anything, people are tougher to motivate now because they're more educated and they can not only weight their options easier but they just don't believe and follow everything they hear. The knights you talk about did do good things for this world but also, to a very good extent, did strive off of people's ignorance. That is part of my point. You'll still see the traits you're talking about, they just won't motivate others as easily.

your last point about OWS and the people in those rallies as heroes but merely footnotes at the same time is minorly contradictory. nobody said either the forefront figure or the movement itself has to be romanticized, yet you keep coming back to this word. not romanticizing it does not also mean dismissing it instead of acknowledging. in fact, if their movement is ultimately successful, the effect would be pretty far reaching, no? if you then regulate them to a mere footnote while living in their time does a disservice to their movement imo, whether you "knight" for it or now

I am not actually calling them a footnote. I'm stating that what you seem to believe, which is that "knighthood" (which is honestly a pretty bullshitty word which is very, very heavily associated with romanticizing things, which is what you are dong) is not nearly dead and despite that, these people might end up as footnotes. Considering you believe it is dead, and yet there are people who continue to carry on these very beliefs you consider dead, is why I made that assertion; you're only really considering them a footnote, despite the fact that there are many of us who remember what those protests were about and the fact that they occurred for a cause.

you state that racism still exists in a different form today but end your post with saying there are fewer causes to fight for in this century? if a major change requires generations of roughing it, i think "same shit, different wrapper" applies here, regardless of what social improvements may or may have not been made

you do not hear less of them because there are simply fewer causes, but because the second part is true: there's less backing to succeed i.e. that key person or key people that can turn it around don't exist or come forward anymore

Yes, because current racism is more institutional in nature and much harder to fix. I do believe many in the US do not understand it, but given time it'll become more obvious, considering white people are still the majority in this country and will not understanding it. It's not nearly as blatant as segregation, which blocked off minorities from the best educational facilities, jobs, and sources of income out there and basically relegated them to second class citizens. While people do not necessarily believe that they are capable of much, it's not as blatant right now as it used to be. The major difference is magnitude, not the idea itself.

Can you really name many other causes that are worth doing this over? Protests against the wars have occurred and still occur, protests over what's going on in the middle east occur even in the middle east, and there's a whole group of people "knighting it up." I don't know why you refuse to acknowledge this.

p.s. knighting it up isn't all about protesting or going to war. JFK's cuban missile crisis was a stand of a different kind that still fits the bill

I know very little about the Cuban Missile Crisis, but now your description has become so vague that you can find just about anything to apply it to. In reality, your viewpoint is pretty bogus, and there was never a time when people, by your definition:

pride, along with fighting for someone else and a cause greater than what's in the immediate vicinity of your bubble, is dead.

People still do that. There's not much of a difference, aside from the fact that there really isn't nearly as much conflict now as there was back then. There aren't world wars going on, there's no cold wars going on, there's no necessity for certain things so society won't push for it. As it stands now, however, technology is developing at a rapid pace and research has gotten to be very advanced now, so there is much more emphasis on fighting diseases and funding them. Those are great causes that are actually being acted upon every single day. More people have been going into fields such as these where they can make a difference, both immediate and long-term, in human livelihood and it goes far beyond their reach. There's just not as much man vs THE MAN conflict going on, and it's an example of knightliness that you're talking about - except these aren't as glamorous.

Though I don't know why I'm bothering to respond to you, because you're really arrogant and you think you know way more than you do.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Lord Raven

[buttmuncher.ops]

my smile got bigger and bigger as i read through it all

may you end your quest in life holding onto your grail

Though I don't know why I'm bothering to respond to you,

honestly, neither do i, but i do follow with a conjecture as to why

because you're really arrogant and you think you know way more than you do.

don't forget hilarious. and extremely, really, really good-looking. this cat be one bad sex mochine

you seem to have forgotten that the OP asks a goldilocks question, along with the option of explaining why you chose your size (time) of porridge (too early, just right, too late.) i don't recall you sharing your size of porridge in this thread before our conversation took it over

in fact, if your only reason for responding to this thread is your personal judgment of me being "arrogant and stupid," and that my optionally provided explanation is unsatisfactory by your standards, therefore warranting a direct personal attack / flamebait; i regret to say that we're both done here and any further response (typed up, deleted when i read your last line) derails the thread no matter how decent the discussion is, simply because the discussion is being held for the wrong purpose

see you around kid

[Rapier]

Am I the only one who feels born in the perfect time?

I don't feel born too late, because I recognize every timeline had its gems and cons, and being from the future makes it possible for me to appreciate said gems while ignoring/avoiding the cons altogether (taking the above poster's as an example, the WWII timeline was very interesting in that charismatic and admirable leaders rose to defend their causes, but we also had to deal with the possibility that Hitler's side would succeed, or that communism would succeed as an ideology during the Cold War timeline, which counterbalances the joy of living at such time). I also don't feel born too soon, because our society (and science) advance in large steps for me to keep up with. The day people can instantaneously teleport to my room to speak to me in holograms will be the day I'll quit life.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Rapier

[Lord Raven]

may you end your quest in life holding onto your grail

No idea what the hell you're even saying when you say this.

don't forget hilarious. and extremely, really, really good-looking. this cat be one bad sex mochine

So uhh, point proven?

you seem to have forgotten that the OP asks a goldilocks question, along with the option of explaining why you chose your size (time) of porridge (too early, just right, too late.) i don't recall you sharing your size of porridge in this thread before our conversation took it over

Because "just right because I'm fine with how things are" is definitely not much of a response to this thread. Instead I turned it into a discussion that was relatively productive, until I responded to your most recent post where you took things I said and ran with them in a very weird discussion. You also go on to assume a lot about me in response to a lot of this, which is pretty crazy considering you're getting a little pissy at me for judging you, but i'll bite a bit. I think - I don't know - I've figured out why you seem to want to go back to this time. It became somewhat clear to me that your viewpoint may or may not be a projection based on this:

since i'm a college dropout of two years on permanent vacation like kanye west.

Do you just not have much motivation and wish you could be back in those times so you could get a public figure to motivate you or what? The point is that things are actually significantly better overall now than they were then so the need for such a person has lessened. You could argue it's because of them. While humanity is far from approaching a screeching halt in terms of social progress, it seems modern issues are, relatively speaking, waiting for the paint to dry after spending years upon years of applying the final coating.

What you have nowadays is more protest groups all-around and less singular figureheads. Less organization sure but overall not as much reliance on a single voice. More people are further outside of their bubble than ever before, given the massive, massive increase in university attendance in modern times as well as diversity of university student bodies. Considering that many universities out there actively cultivate a teamwork mindset and a networking mindset, it's almost absurd to suggest that people nowadays are much worse off than people back then.

I can even list off some more figurehead type people that are making strides in certain other areas such as education, but I don't think you care too much since you honestly believe that nobody gives a shit about anybody these days.

Edited February 26, 2015 by Lord Raven