What's the worst thing about the modern world?

[The Yankee]

Lack of community. Yes, we're part of larger and larger communities (maybe even a global community) because the world is smaller and smaller. But even with communication being instantaneous, we seem even more isolated than before. Perhaps because with that instant communication, it's become more about "me" than "you" or "us."

Gosh, look at me sounding like an old fuddy-duddy!

Edit: Wow, what are the odds the post before mine would have the same answer? Didn't read the whole thread, just the OP before I stated my opinion.

 

[Theige]

The worst thing about the modern world, is that no matter how hard we try, we are destined to fail.

 

[Dann]

Yet you are posting on the internet.

Oh I could completely do without it if necessary. After all, in half of my years on this world it didn't even exist yet. Humanity chugged along nicely as I recall.

 

[Grisu]

I'll go with the food thingy...it's downright insane that there are people starving while we are perfectly able to produce enough food for everybody.
Unfair trade practices are linked closely to this issue as well.

The rise of humanism/secularism. OR, the rise of the belief that there are no absolutes. All that "shades of gray" stuff.

I'd say this is one of the best things about the modern world

 

[Sidhe]

I think the greatest problem is people pretending to be something they aren't. You have people who think they're economists, or historians, or intellectuals, or anthropologists, or communists, or capitalists, or neoplatonists, or feminists, or whatever, and they either don't really understand what it is that they're talking about, or know that they don't, yet continue to do so anyway. The problem with this is twofold: first, you have lots of people spreading information that is either entirely false or partially false; the latter of these being the most dangerous, because often parts of it are right, making it that much more difficult to rebuff. The second problem is that people actually listen to these people, and then continue to spread their false information. With our present rate of information exchange, it's all the easier to spread false ideas very quickly, and the implications of this rapid diffusion are only multiplied.

Great more people who want to live in the past. Join the club, just for old times sake though. I don't care about stupid petty arguments that happened a year ago, has everyone got that. The fact that no one can ever be an intellectual no matter what they do or study on this forum is well established. Even if you spent all day reading philosophy, dedicated your life to the pursuit of knowledge and had a Nobel prize, you would not be an intellectual. We sorted that out.

Now please if anyone has any dignity left, try and leave the past in the past. It's very sad that you still care so much about an argument on the internet that happened a year ago. But you can go on discussing it amongst yourselves, suffice to say I wont be responding to anything else, but since it's now been mentioned about 8 times by different people I felt the need to say something broad so that I can make it clear I don't care about it any more, nor did I particularly care at the time although it was funny trying to watch people rewrite the dictionary. Just to re-iterate though it means less than the usual crap on an internet forum, it's history, get over it.

For those who can't let the past lie, for fun and hopefully to divert your attention away from me, here's a definition of intellectual you can rewrite from wiki:

An intellectual is one who tries to use his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate, or ask and answer questions about a wide variety of different ideas.

There are, broadly, three modern definitions at work in discussions about intellectuals. First, “intellectuals” as those deeply involved in ideas, books, and the life of the mind. Second, “intellectuals” as a recognizable occupational class consisting of lecturers, professors, lawyers, doctors, engineers, scientists, etc. Third, “cultural intellectuals” are those of notable expertise in culture and the arts, expertise which allows them some cultural authority, which they then use to speak in public on other matters.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=206530&highlight=intellectual

And here's a thread you can read where you can relive your past glories ad infinitum should you wish.

Enjoy.