Humanity: in decline since '75?

[Nihilist News Network (NNN)]

This may sound bizarre or just plain false, but the argument is simple. That landing of men on the moon and bringing them back alive was the supreme achievement of human capability, the most difficult problem ever solved by humans. 40 years ago we could do it – repeatedly – but since then we have *not* been to the moon, and I suggest the real reason we have not been to the moon since 1972 is that we cannot any longer do it. Humans have lost the capability.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2010/06/human-capability-peaked-about-1975-and.html

Humanity seems to have been going nowhere new, just getting better at known technologies like the internal combustion engine, computers and DNA analysis.

Interestingly, Black Sabbath peaked in 1975.

[Veritas]

Lack of motivation/goals seems to be a big factor here.

I wonder how well metal quality correlates with this? I had always assumed that the lack of motivation within society in recent years has prevented the development of any truly great metal/art in general. What was happening in the world in the late 80s/early 90s?

[scourge]

What happened was the threshold from community and country was crossed and we entered individual self-interest territory. So it is unsurprising when nations as a whole begin to lose momentum and politically speaking, develop deep fractures.

[Wolfgang]

The Cold War was happening. After "we" "won" we lost the motivation to do anything other than eat McDonald's and sit on the internet blogging about good metal as opposed to actually writing it.

The premise is an interesting question when you first look at it sure, but we have no need to go back to the moon, and we've turned to developing Iphones and other technology which further zap our motivation. What has really slowed down achievement is the rise in convenience. Everything is so easy that anything worth working for is cast aside for banal gratification.

You know, that highlights the irony with metal music; I always envisioned a modern Sodom and Gimmorah as something "cooler" than a facebook page featuring half-Filipino half-Black guys writing on the wall of a skank he wished to inseminate without actually inseminating.

[Veritas]

Now, how do we reverse the rise of convenience, or use it to our advantage?

[Wolfgang]

Download death metal recommendations from the DLA instantly, eliminating the need to go to a record store or send money to some dude in a magazine, and escape further from society until it destroys itself, whether happens in our lifetime or not...?


shit dude that's all I got, what about you man?

[Veritas]

i dunno man i was just planning on smoking weed and jerking off



If you can change what is most convenient, you can change how people behave.

[Cargést]

The only things which will take the throne of "convenience" from the current holders will be faster/cooler/dumber.  None of these attributes is good.

[Veritas]

We're going to need power before we can make any real changes.

[Umbrage]

This may sound bizarre or just plain false, but the argument is simple. That landing of men on the moon and bringing them back alive was the supreme achievement of human capability, the most difficult problem ever solved by humans. 40 years ago we could do it – repeatedly – but since then we have *not* been to the moon, and I suggest the real reason we have not been to the moon since 1972 is that we cannot any longer do it. Humans have lost the capability.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2010/06/human-capability-peaked-about-1975-and.html

Humanity seems to have been going nowhere new, just getting better at known technologies like the internal combustion engine, computers and DNA analysis.

Interestingly, Black Sabbath peaked in 1975.

I'd say Vol 4 is where they peaked, after that it went downhill with Sabotage being the last interesting Black Sabbath album (I was never a fan of Dio)

I don't think moon landings are a great human accomplishment either. If they are then the average carny ride could also be called a great accomplishment. What exactly did we learn from going to the moon? What universal secrets have been revealed to us? And at what cost? The moon race was just a prestige project during the cold war, I wouldn't call it a Wonder of the World.

[nether]

Come on.  The biggest reason we can say this is that we do not yet have enough distance from the events of recent history.  We thus cannot see the effects they will have, and are left to project our own visions, most of which tend toward the dystopic.  True, the ability to criticize is crucial to one's being a functioning member of society.  Keep in mind, however, that we are more able to perceive the problems of our time because they immediately impact us as we face them daily.

Space exploration is an accomplishment, and represents a dramatic shift as we are now able to more directly experience that which once could only be imagined.  How is the lunar landing comparable to a carnival ride?

I would imagine the largest issue to be the one of increasing impatience and inability to maintain coherent thought, which is directly resultant from too much external stimulation from media and entertainment.  This is exacerbated by a continual anticipation, as we sit at our computers and carry our smartphones waiting for the next e-mail or text.  This has very much to do with the increase in self-interest mentioned above.  I hold that these factors are today the ultimate driving forces behind a given individual: continual waiting and wanting, culminating in a simultaneous boredom, apathy, and frustration.

I find that the claim of mankind's 'decline' is a result of such frustration, and am convinced that were I born in another era, I would be no happier, finding just as much to critique without globalization or a continual dependence upon effectual virtual reality.  This great overall decline is as much an illusion as the 'progress' of the liberals.

[scourge]

I find that the claim of mankind's 'decline' is a result of such frustration, and am convinced that were I born in another era, I would be no happier, finding just as much to critique without globalization or a continual dependence upon effectual virtual reality.  This great overall decline is as much an illusion as the 'progress' of the liberals.

Decline is a euphemism for endangered Western man heading into extinction. Behind this is the silly anxiety that once Western man disappears the rest of the mankind he has been supporting and improving will fall back into mud hut monkeydom. But, they were all doing fine enough on their own. The meddlsome progress fanatic Western man sealed his own fate.

[nether]

Decline is a euphemism for endangered Western man heading into extinction. Behind this is the silly anxiety that once Western man disappears the rest of the mankind he has been supporting and improving will fall back into mud hut monkeydom. But, they were all doing fine enough on their own. The meddlsome progress fanatic Western man sealed his own fate.

I see what you're saying.  Western civilization is either nearing or past the peak of its developmental capacity in the way we tend to think of it.  It is a fallacy though to equate this to the decline of mankind as a species.

Take note of this as well: the Western world is being infiltrated by outsiders, causing great dismay as some of its core values are uprooted.  It's interesting to watch, so long as one is not too attached to such values himself.  Why call it decline and not simply the way of the world?

[Wolfgang]

"Why call it decline and not simply the way of the world?"


This is the fence I sit on, between a growing disinterest in our future with the realization that this is just the way of man, and a desire to save, or rather restore, Western civilization. The desire partially is natural. I am white of Anglo-European culture, my children are white of Anglo-American culture, therefore I have a genetic duty to want to protect my tribe/pack/pride/set. But the growing apathy towards our future seems natural too, as I begin to realize that like religion, homosexuality, and everything else people hammer on endlessly, the reasons we are declining is merely our nature and likely cannot and should not be changed. Hammering on destroying and abolishing religion is ignorant as our species quite literally evolved religion/superstition and related super natural concepts as coping, defense and organizational/social tools. It can't be abolished without altering the genome. The brain is literally wired to believe in the make believe stuff that the surrounding social structure believes in.

Our decline is just as natural, is it not?

Ultimately, humans need to believe in something, even Hessians, actually, especially Hessians. Since we here no longer have the benefit of pop music, religion or an afterlife to keep us occupied, something has to fill that niche. That something is metal and the metal world view, even if most of it is just religious obsessed pop music dressed up to scare us into acting right, so that we may get to the afterlife after all.

NP - Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath.

[Umbrage]

This thread is leading to fatalist conclusions and that bothers me.

"Why call it decline and not simply the way of the world?"

Because we're not losers patting ourselves on the back for noticing something is wrong with society. For people with testicles it doesn't stop there, we actually try to do something about it, make a positive change. And for that a subjective approach is needed. So we call it decline because that's how we perceive it.

Space exploration is an accomplishment, and represents a dramatic shift as we are now able to more directly experience that which once could only be imagined.  How is the lunar landing comparable to a carnival ride?

Because they are both technological accomplishments. Look at it this way: the Wonders of the World were something more because they represented people's culture. What does space exploration represent? To me it represents the culture of carny rides, more intelligent of course but it comes down to the same thing. Btw porn also allows me to more directly experience that which once could only be imagined (sorry bout that one, I couldn't resist)

I would imagine the largest issue to be the one of increasing impatience and inability to maintain coherent thought, which is directly resultant from too much external stimulation from media and entertainment.  This is exacerbated by a continual anticipation, as we sit at our computers and carry our smartphones waiting for the next e-mail or text.  This has very much to do with the increase in self-interest mentioned above.  I hold that these factors are today the ultimate driving forces behind a given individual: continual waiting and wanting, culminating in a simultaneous boredom, apathy, and frustration.

I agree with this. Let's just call it a common problem of the information age. Diet probably has to do with it as well, as do chemicals and radiation. But when I look where all of this started I see the industrial age as the point where everything started going in the wrong direction.