Our society in 2007 - Are we evolving or de-evolving?

When you take everything into account.... Technology, condition of the world, ethics, our attitudes toward fellow man and ourselves, education, how we treat each other... is this society evolving? Or de-evolving?

I don't have the answer. I would love to hear other people's views.

 

Devolving.

Obesity. Litigiousness. Distrust. Violence. Corruption. Outsourcing of all those jobs. Technology sealing us off from our neighbors. So, so much evidence.

 

Things are better now than they ever have been.

These are the good old days.

 

I'd disagree, Simon, by saying we simply aren't evolving fast enough as people to keep up with evolution in technology, etc.

 

Maybe we're evolving into a more obese, litigious, distrusting, violent, corrupt, outsourced, technologically lonely place.

 

Are We Not Men? We Are...

 

Revolving.

 

I guess it depends what you're into.

People have access to more "information" than ever, creating a society that thinks it has knowledge of a given topic, but their topic knowledge is about an inch deep on thousands of things.

People have more access to each other than ever, but we've created a more impersonal world through computers and other technology. Half the time, when I go to Home Depot, my goods are "checked out" by a self-scanning terminal, instead of by an actual person.

We're more literate than ever, but the demand is for something that's quick and easy. Screw you, Steinbeck. USA Today? Yummy!

I could go on for hours...

 

To add to OnTheRiver's train of thought ...

Many people spend more time chatting with people they've never met in person than they do with people who live on their street. People sit next to each other on a bus or van or in a car and listen to their iPods on headphones instead of talking with each other. Technology has brought us closer together globally at the same time that we're growing apart in other ways. You don't have to leave home to shop, not even for food. As the planet becomes more crowded, we have more ways than ever to isolate ourselves -- and yet, in a larger sense, nowhere to run to. Thanks, terrorism.

I'm not saying it's all because of technology, but in the context of all of history these are very new developments, and a very odd dynamic has evolved. It makes you wonder what kind of society they'll be posting about in 2057.

 

"Technologically lonely" is my new favorite phrase

 

The outsourcing of jobs is a sign of global development, evolution.
The rising world per-capita income and rising GWP are signs of evolution. Although job outsourcing is bad for the people who lose their jobs, it's a sign of a rising standard of living worldwide.

 

Bob beat me to it.