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The last person who own this house wasn't discovered for five days.( 1990s ) No one in the neighborhood even bothered to stop in and visit for a cup of sugar, or a chat with him. His wife divorced him, and the doctor he had gave him enough medicine for a month to keep his diabetes under control. The last family renting the place that lived here before me, had a three year old daughter that died in the house (1998).

 

Technology was not quite readied for his situation and not only him, but the 3 year old girl that died too, because of the little changes to social behavior. The guy was dead for five days before anyone checked in on him, the child's mother fired up the old forced air furnace for the first time since her and her husband had moved in with their child. He just missed saving his daughter and only got there in time to save his wife's life.

 

There was so much dust in the old furnace's pipes filled with large enough amounts of arsenic, lead, and such from the days when the Smelter was active nearby. The yard was a landfill with waste from the Smelter years before and the three had pets bringing in dust and dirt from the yard outside as well. When the furnace's fan kicked it the baby died from it and the woman passed out.

 

Today's technology could have saved them both.

 

Social behavioral patterns, which were still a bit of a habit, especially with the neighbors and their friends, I saw at the house before and after the babies funeral; went out the windows with the volunteer fire department members failing to do their yearly bit in this small community of 400 residents totalling a 1000 houses with renters and owners of homes.

 

The community VFD apparently didn't hold it's annual reminder for checking homes for all the hazards we used to be very conscientious about. We're becoming boxed in, cages rented as apartments the size of dog travel cages for rent are becoming common place in China, and societal conditions I grew up with are going the way of the Dodo.

 

2019 > 21st Century.

 

Unless, of course, if you're part of the mainstream Silicon Valley family, like many people today; people outside of that class.

 

I won't be going to Mars, but the company still wants everyone to buy expensive Electric Cars to support the cause so they can go.

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When I was a kid I literally had rocks and sticks to playwith. I also spent most of my time outdoors playing in creeks and climbing rocks.

 

I think the digital age has damaged our society greatly.

 

 

I did exactly the same thing you did and my level of imagination improved. Electronics have our children ( not precisely mine so they grew up in a different era ) very sedentary ( health problems will arise sooner .. ) and their mind is just focus on a screen which is limiting their brain capability to be more creative and develop their imagination.

 

I am driving every single day to my work and I see in front, behind me and beside me, everybody with their heads down looking at the phone screen. I have called this today's World : "The World with the heads down". People cannot even take their eyes from the phone so instead having a conversation with their families or friends, or just simple stay for a few minutes away from the screen listening music, they are texting and putting in jeopardy not only their lives but the live of others around.

 

So, if the parents cannot have the discipline, what can we expect from their children whose will copycat what their parents do ? I am not against technology at all but I am happy that I grew up when I had to play with stones, playing baseball with a sock inside other socks to make them look like a ball and be more creative overall to have entertainment as a child. Blessed are those old days !

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I hope everyday for a coronal mass ejection to wipe out our digital age.

 

It's only a matter of time.

 

During my youth...

I discovered an old house in a huge empty field which was falling over leaning toward the west. It looked like the wind was pushing it so the walls were leaning into the wind too keep it from blowing it off it's foundation.

 

A pond appeared near it that Spring. There was a raft with four 55 gallon drums under a barn door. There were large boards tied together with heavy rope to make a dock. The first day of Spring I didn't see anything but dry land. Until I got close to the end of the boards roped together, laying on the dry ground, to try and figure out what they were for I never suspected it was a dock. I didn't know what the barrels were with the barn door on top them either. I stepped down on the dry ground off the last board and my Ked's tennis shoe sank fast into the ground. I sank up to my knee. I felt something solid under my foot. Thankfully I sat down on the board behind me before I sank any further.

 

I speedily went to work trying to save my tennis shoe from coming off my foot while I pulled against the vacuum of the watery mud.

 

My shoe came up and a moment later a carnivorous mud turtle popped up. I speedily grabbed the turtle. It was two weeks before the pond fully appeared, 8 feet deep at it lowest point. Then I realized all that stuff was a raft, dock, and 12 foot pole for navigating the pond.

 

Yeah! I'll miss poling around and watching the pond arise, and all the life forms that occurred when it did. And the peoples houses on top that land have a huge pump house to keep the water from flooding their homes there now.

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It is interesting watching people blame everyone and everything for a problem that was documented and explained half a century ago.

 

The "digital age" didn't exist in 1959, but the tests indicated that Little Johnny couldn't read as early as 1959. America's literacy rate was in decline LONG before the "digital age". Then, the pundits blamed television for the decline. That decline has continued into this, the next millennium. Only now, people blame electronic devices and the digital age. Pffft.

 

What's that old saw? "The act of creation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". So if creation and creativity are dying, look to the larger portion that makes creation and creativity possible. What is dying and affecting creativity is the work ethic. I can hear the screams from here. NO!!! Laziness can't be the problem, it has to be some external mechanism that is to blame.

 

Let me give you some perspective. Who here under the age of 30 has had to work for an allowance? (And I mean hard sweaty manual labor, not just clean your room.) Who here under the age of 30 was required to read eight books a semester in your English Lit classes? How many here under the age or 30 even know what a paper route is? How many here under the age of 30 have looked at the table and wondered where their next meal is coming from?

 

Prior to the 1900's, America was predominately an agrarian society. We worked on farms and cities were for the rich and indolent. But the industrial revolution changed that. By the 1920's the balance was shifting. Following WWI, the shift was permanent. America was an industrial nation. Machine did most of the work and people operated the machines. People no longer needed to be slaves to the land to survive, and the work ethic began a steady decline. We don't need to work so hard, so why bother. The impact of "If you don't work, you don't eat" became lessened.

 

That decline in the "gotta work to survive" attitude is what is effectively killing creativity. It isn't some gadget, it is the people using the gadgets that are to blame. And that means YOU are to blame, and we can't have that, now can we.

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It is interesting watching people blame everyone and everything for a problem that was documented and explained half a century ago.

 

The "digital age" didn't exist in 1959, but the tests indicated that Little Johnny couldn't read as early as 1959. America's literacy rate was in decline LONG before the "digital age". Then, the pundits blamed television for the decline. That decline has continued into this, the next millennium. Only now, people blame electronic devices and the digital age. Pffft.

 

What's that old saw? "The act of creation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". So if creation and creativity are dying, look to the larger portion that makes creation and creativity possible. What is dying and affecting creativity is the work ethic. I can hear the screams from here. NO!!! Laziness can't be the problem, it has to be some external mechanism that is to blame.

 

Let me give you some perspective. Who here under the age of 30 has had to work for an allowance? (And I mean hard sweaty manual labor, not just clean your room.) Who here under the age of 30 was required to read eight books a semester in your English Lit classes? How many here under the age or 30 even know what a paper route is? How many here under the age of 30 have looked at the table and wondered where their next meal is coming from?

 

Prior to the 1900's, America was predominately an agrarian society. We worked on farms and cities were for the rich and indolent. But the industrial revolution changed that. By the 1920's the balance was shifting. Following WWI, the shift was permanent. America was an industrial nation. Machine did most of the work and people operated the machines. People no longer needed to be slaves to the land to survive, and the work ethic began a steady decline. We don't need to work so hard, so why bother. The impact of "If you don't work, you don't eat" became lessened.

 

That decline in the "gotta work to survive" attitude is what is effectively killing creativity. It isn't some gadget, it is the people using the gadgets that are to blame. And that means YOU are to blame, and we can't have that, now can we.

 

It's always interesting watching the crowd surrounding my stronger older brother, that took my prosthetic device, funny how he plays around with it, acting crippled like me, and now it is the crowds crutch so they've became weaker then I am.

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It is interesting watching people blame everyone and everything for a problem that was documented and explained half a century ago.

 

The "digital age" didn't exist in 1959, but the tests indicated that Little Johnny couldn't read as early as 1959. America's literacy rate was in decline LONG before the "digital age". Then, the pundits blamed television for the decline. That decline has continued into this, the next millennium. Only now, people blame electronic devices and the digital age. Pffft.

 

What's that old saw? "The act of creation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". So if creation and creativity are dying, look to the larger portion that makes creation and creativity possible. What is dying and affecting creativity is the work ethic. I can hear the screams from here. NO!!! Laziness can't be the problem, it has to be some external mechanism that is to blame.

 

Let me give you some perspective. Who here under the age of 30 has had to work for an allowance? (And I mean hard sweaty manual labor, not just clean your room.) Who here under the age of 30 was required to read eight books a semester in your English Lit classes? How many here under the age or 30 even know what a paper route is? How many here under the age of 30 have looked at the table and wondered where their next meal is coming from?

 

Prior to the 1900's, America was predominately an agrarian society. We worked on farms and cities were for the rich and indolent. But the industrial revolution changed that. By the 1920's the balance was shifting. Following WWI, the shift was permanent. America was an industrial nation. Machine did most of the work and people operated the machines. People no longer needed to be slaves to the land to survive, and the work ethic began a steady decline. We don't need to work so hard, so why bother. The impact of "If you don't work, you don't eat" became lessened.

 

That decline in the "gotta work to survive" attitude is what is effectively killing creativity. It isn't some gadget, it is the people using the gadgets that are to blame. And that means YOU are to blame, and we can't have that, now can we.

Several studies want to blame it on immigration (mostly on illegals), an expanding workforce, poverty, the 'education gap', and prison populations.......

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It is interesting watching people blame everyone and everything for a problem that was documented and explained half a century ago.

 

The "digital age" didn't exist in 1959, but the tests indicated that Little Johnny couldn't read as early as 1959. America's literacy rate was in decline LONG before the "digital age". Then, the pundits blamed television for the decline. That decline has continued into this, the next millennium. Only now, people blame electronic devices and the digital age. Pffft.

 

What's that old saw? "The act of creation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". So if creation and creativity are dying, look to the larger portion that makes creation and creativity possible. What is dying and affecting creativity is the work ethic. I can hear the screams from here. NO!!! Laziness can't be the problem, it has to be some external mechanism that is to blame.

 

Let me give you some perspective. Who here under the age of 30 has had to work for an allowance? (And I mean hard sweaty manual labor, not just clean your room.) Who here under the age of 30 was required to read eight books a semester in your English Lit classes? How many here under the age or 30 even know what a paper route is? How many here under the age of 30 have looked at the table and wondered where their next meal is coming from?

 

Prior to the 1900's, America was predominately an agrarian society. We worked on farms and cities were for the rich and indolent. But the industrial revolution changed that. By the 1920's the balance was shifting. Following WWI, the shift was permanent. America was an industrial nation. Machine did most of the work and people operated the machines. People no longer needed to be slaves to the land to survive, and the work ethic began a steady decline. We don't need to work so hard, so why bother. The impact of "If you don't work, you don't eat" became lessened.

 

That decline in the "gotta work to survive" attitude is what is effectively killing creativity. It isn't some gadget, it is the people using the gadgets that are to blame. And that means YOU are to blame, and we can't have that, now can we.

Several studies want to blame it on immigration (mostly on illegals), an expanding workforce, poverty, the 'education gap', and prison populations.......

 

 

And I can probably find a study that blames it on solar flares, one that blames too much seafood in the diet, and another that blames it on the slaughter of African elephants. But none of these were political motivators back in 1959. Neither were "immigration (mostly on illegals), an expanding workforce, poverty, the 'education gap', and prison populations".

 

These "studies" that support political minorities but lack truly viable facts are all just so many horse apples. They attribute causality to coincidence and serendipity. You could print them all and have an unlimited supply of paper which is useful only in the head to wipe your ...

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It is interesting watching people blame everyone and everything for a problem that was documented and explained half a century ago.

 

The "digital age" didn't exist in 1959, but the tests indicated that Little Johnny couldn't read as early as 1959. America's literacy rate was in decline LONG before the "digital age". Then, the pundits blamed television for the decline. That decline has continued into this, the next millennium. Only now, people blame electronic devices and the digital age. Pffft.

 

What's that old saw? "The act of creation is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". So if creation and creativity are dying, look to the larger portion that makes creation and creativity possible. What is dying and affecting creativity is the work ethic. I can hear the screams from here. NO!!! Laziness can't be the problem, it has to be some external mechanism that is to blame.

 

Let me give you some perspective. Who here under the age of 30 has had to work for an allowance? (And I mean hard sweaty manual labor, not just clean your room.) Who here under the age of 30 was required to read eight books a semester in your English Lit classes? How many here under the age or 30 even know what a paper route is? How many here under the age of 30 have looked at the table and wondered where their next meal is coming from?

 

Prior to the 1900's, America was predominately an agrarian society. We worked on farms and cities were for the rich and indolent. But the industrial revolution changed that. By the 1920's the balance was shifting. Following WWI, the shift was permanent. America was an industrial nation. Machine did most of the work and people operated the machines. People no longer needed to be slaves to the land to survive, and the work ethic began a steady decline. We don't need to work so hard, so why bother. The impact of "If you don't work, you don't eat" became lessened.

 

That decline in the "gotta work to survive" attitude is what is effectively killing creativity. It isn't some gadget, it is the people using the gadgets that are to blame. And that means YOU are to blame, and we can't have that, now can we.

Several studies want to blame it on immigration (mostly on illegals), an expanding workforce, poverty, the 'education gap', and prison populations.......

 

 

And I can probably find a study that blames it on solar flares, one that blames too much seafood in the diet, and another that blames it on the slaughter of African elephants. But none of these were political motivators back in 1959. Neither were "immigration (mostly on illegals), an expanding workforce, poverty, the 'education gap', and prison populations".

 

These "studies" that support political minorities but lack truly viable facts are all just so many horse apples. They attribute causality to coincidence and serendipity. You could print them all and have an unlimited supply of paper which is useful only in the head to wipe your ...

 

In all reality, you are correct. I tried to point that out in another thread, (that studies were exactly that, studies, and the bias of the folks doing the study plays a LARGE role in the 'results'.....) and got raked over the coals for it. :)

 

From what I am seeing though, literacy rates are right around 99%.... which is darn good for a country of 350 some odd millions..... Now, are our scores in the various disciplines on par with the rest of the world? Nope. We lag behind in math and science, fairly significantly. Why is that the case? I blame it on our government meddling in the education system, attempting to 'improve' it, but, what they actually end up doing is simply adding more layers of administration, that does absolutely nothing for education.

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