I would like to create this thread to hear from each of you how society has changed and how this either affects you or others around you and steps any authority figure has tried to tackle these situations that strike a problem within the community.

Examples of topics that could be touched on are: School bullying, theft, piracy, violence within video games/music, music in general, misuse of words (fat, retarded, gay), fighting, clothes, jobs, race (stereotypes), etc. Just about anything can fit here, but I want you guys to think locally. As such, I would refrain from things that are internationally common and spark HUGE debates such as guns, legalization of ____, abortion, etc. I hope you get the idea, here.


I'll start off by discussing a troubling subject here in Texas: I actually didn't know this, but apparently, legislators here in Texas had agreed to cut funding for the Mental Health Department in order to work on fancier highways and such. This was back around 2000 or so, but this concerns me since Mental Health is definitely a key of the future.
However, this can even lead to the concern that the Mental Health Department also has its own corruption by treating a lot of its patients as complete psychos, possibly furthering they're label "lunatics who need to be in an institution."
Speaking of labels, do you guys use words like "fat", "gay" or "retarded" in a casual fashion? Have you considered how these words are blown out of context to be used as insults, or, in the case of "gay" to be used as a casual way of something that something isn't what you'd like and instead of using a word such as lame, you say "gay"? These words have been given a negative connotation, even though "fat" is actually a body nutrient that is vital and "gay" is a sexual orientation that is a completely normal sexual orientation that is looked down onto? Edit: And because these words have a negative connotation to them, they are often used in bullying.
Bullying...

You guys kinda catch my drift? Just present a problem in your community and explain. Most likely, everyone will agree as a problem is a problem.

Note for mods: I'm not sure of this would go under the debate thread since I'm not looking for debates, just stories and small discussion.

Lot on your mind today, aye?

Going to get a few people mad by saying this, but wasn't Texas one of the ringleaders in the "cure mental people, don't ban guns" thing going around last year? And now you're telling me they're cutting back on curing mental people, too? Oh, Texas, you never fail to surprise me.

As the insult thing goes, my language is typically pretty clean (it's a weird story). At least where I am, "retarded" is a word that largely died out in middle school, though I sometimes hear people calling their homework "retarded," which hilarious in context. And funnily enough, I hear "gay" most often associated with Nintendo. I could go on at lengths about that, but I'll just quote what one of my friends so artfully said about it instead:

Change doesn't happen in an instant, it has to happen gradually and that's only because many people are afraid of change and how it will effect there everyday lives when it's really just there insecurity.

Change isn't even relative, people keep saying racism is dead but a black kid gets shot and a white man gets off scotch free. Or how there's still discrimination of genders roles like how nearly all kids toys are gender neutral or how last year only two movies out of the top 100 grossing films of the year were directed by women.

We're certainly still fair away from a country were everyone is looked at as an equal but we're certainly closer then we were 50 years ago.

That is my idea of change in society.

I'll step into another minefield: what do you all think about adblockers?

I won't go off as strongly as I did about piracy, but I think they can be almost as dangerous. I think a lot of people don't realize that probably most of the Internet is supported by ads. Google and all Google-related sites, certainly. File hosting sites that don't require subscriptions for basic membership, online news sites that offer free articles, etc. For better or for worse, anyone who gets more than about five video views a day on YouTube, in the past year or so. The numbers I've heard vary, but the most consistent ones seem to say that advertisers lose about half of their potential revenue due to people using adblockers.

However, I can see why people do it. Ads are annoying, sure. But they can be more than annoying. They can pop up when you mouse over something, causing you to visit a car dealership web site instead of what you actually wanted to click on. More recent ads can play video on the sidebar of a news, DeviantArt, etc. page . . . on peremant loop . . . with no Mute button and no way to make them stop. On more than one occasion, I've had ads crash my Flash plugin or my entire browser entirely.

And then we all know what this is like. For my less-than-technical literate sister, which is safer, to proceed as is or use a free ad blocker?

So, yeah. Comments on that?

Ooh, what fun. Well let me start off by saying that I am a very controversial person, and I do it for fun. If something is widely accepted or shown to make people feel comfortable, I will instinctively go against it just to make people feel even more uncomfortable. They don't quite realize it, but it's entertainment for both me and them. For example, in my Pokémon Gold run everything has an anti-religious name. I won't say what they are, but people thought I was going insane, and so the experiment worked. I'm not here to please people or to be a good boy, I'm here to be free. For those that do choose my friends, pfft, they must as crazy as I am.

Now in this thread I can talk about many things in many posts, but I'll start with the misappropriation of words. I'll use those three; fat, gay, and retarded. Now, for the etymology:

Fat- "to cram, stuff"
Gay- "full of joy, merry; light-hearted, carefree"
Retarded- "delayed"

And their current modern uses:

Modern Fat- "obese, unusually wide or thick"
Modern Gay- either "homosexual" or "undesirable"
Modern Retarded- "limited in intellectual or emotional development"

Now I personally admit that I use extremely casual language to the point where it wouldn't be allowed on here or Facebook. I call people gay for a laugh and when someone does something extremely stupid I ask them if they're retarded. Of course I know they're not, but I do it specifically because I know they're not, and I know they'll laugh. I use comedy/entertainment as a greenlight for a lot of things that I'd normally mark off as not okay in any environment. Gay was used as an insult to homosexual people, and then they accepted it and started calling themselves gay? That's like how the black people here call themselves the n-word (I'm not allowed to say that, am I?) I hate it when people call me either because I still perceive gay as an insult (and gay isn't the same thing as being bisexual, I like to be specific); and because my skin isn't the color black, I think the accurate shade would be dark chestnut brown. For retarded, when I say it I literally just mean slow. A ritardando is a slow down in music, and ritard means slow in Italian, so I like to keep it constant. If someone has a mental disadvantage/handicap or someone is just plain stupid, then I separate the two with words like those.

When misappropriation is specifically used to hurt people, that's when it becomes far too drawn out. Bullying is usually done by people who are jealous of something, usually because they're less intelligent, so it would make sense that some sling words around improperly. I guess that's why "slang" is the perfect word for that. If anyone were to try attacking me with words I could sling their slang back at them and leave them speechless. Eh, I chalk it up to me not caring about feelings, but words never hurt me anyway.

Personally, for me as a Christian, the whole societal change thing has really had an effect on me. When you think of things such as homosexuality, which I see as a sin, I see a lot of it being shown in the media and things of that nature. Now, I don't have anything against the person who chooses that kind of life, but I do not agree with it as I think it's wrong. As the old saying goes, "love the person; hate the sin." There are a lot of issues with society in its current form. I see a lot of things changing for the worse, but some change for the better. I hate how it seems that Christians are the only group of people that are okay to discriminate against. I believe that whether or not you agree with a person, you should still be nice to them and treat them with respect. Have I known or been friends with a person who is homosexual. Absolutely. Do I hate them for that reason? Absolutely not. In fact a lot of them are nice people. My hope is that society can advance to the point to where we can all get along. We don't necessarily have to agree with each other, but we can at least be nice to each other, whether we agree with them or not. One can only dream though. Sorry if I seemed to have focused on homosexuality alone, but that is just something I've noticed at my school and my community and in my country in general.

I like the idea of having a thread like this. It allows us to voice out opinions on different matters and tell how society has changed, etc. It's a great idea that could spark some insightful discussions. Hearing people's opinions and views on things is something I've always liked. Whether I agree or disagree with them, I've always found it very interesting to see the viewpoints of others.

I'll just feel creative so I'll just make a list.

1. I don't see the problem with micro chipping pets. You don't have to amputate anything to implant a chip, you don't have to pitch them into a fire, you don't have to put them in a basket on top of a moving car so I really don't see the problem. If my dog dug a hole under the fence and ran away it would be really lovely if we could use the micro chip to get her back. I'd also like to remind people that humans have the exact same thing, they're called "cell phones."

2. Spaying/neutering is more complicated. But then consider how many stray dogs and cats some places have and how many of them do not live very happy lives. This is a lesser of two evils.

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYZgWYZlAZU *shot*

3. In most cases, if someone eats processed foods, that's their own bloody choices (or their moms'). Really not my problem when they start buying blood pressure pills and cholesterol tablets and whatever else you get from fake food these days.

My question: when will politicians learn that "separation of Church and state" is a thing?

1. Microchipping is just better for everyone, besides the price (actual money) that has to be payed to do it, which isn't THAT bad. Just annoying. It helps animal control due their jobs better, mainly.

2. I like to think that this is by choice and it is definitely up to the owner as not everyone can handle a litter of ____. This is also to prevent stray animals from creating "more stray animals", I guess.

3. Yeah... Meat is such a money maker that veganism is loooong ways from being recognized by the general public.


With the Church being as powerful as it is (face it, it's still powerful), it is waaay to easy to manipulate people with such an easy grounds like religion. That said, I don't think it'll ever go away.