A social revolution?

dopester

PasturesNew wrote: »

Perhaps we can build big structures, like the London Eye, in every town/village/area ... a giant treadmill, making the long-term unemployed generate free electricity for the rest of us

Sounds like you want to create a "Matrix."

I've got to admit the premise of that film "The Matrix" was pretty good and shocking. Humankind blissfully unware they were actually harvested in pods, living in an advanced computer generated simulation of a "real life", whilst their life-force was being used to generate power.. like a battery.

Grade_A_Reject

PasturesNew wrote: »

Perhaps we can build big structures, like the London Eye, in every town/village/area ... a giant treadmill, making the long-term unemployed generate free electricity for the rest of us

Please don't give the government ideas! Remember what happened when they read nineteen eighty-four?!

carolt

Love it!

I'd love to see change at a fundamental level, but I don't see it coming, without the sort of punishment that I absolutely wouldn't want meted out to this country first.

eg I have 2 friends both up against it, worried about jobs/mortgages, but currently scraping by. They've lived the good life for the last few years, but I can't see their habits changing once they get the opportunity to get their hands on some more borrowed money again. But would I want them to lose their homes/jobs to shock them into changing? Of course not. I hope they'll be fine.

Pr1madonna

Pobby wrote: »

Just a thought. We are pretty much in the grips of a recession, think most of us will agree on that. When we get through this do you think we as a society will change?

For years all I have heard is " my house is now worth xxxxx". Yadda, yadda yadda about some old carp. Wether it`s a talentless celeb, the latest games console, new car or some holiday. Weddings costing £10s of thousands of pounds.

Imho we have judged ourselves as a society as not what we are but what we " own " ( For own, often read owe ). I don`t see people very happy these days, albeit that they drive a car worth what a house would be 10 years ago. I do see or I am starting to see people stressing out now, some on much reduced incomes still trying to live the life they had maybe a few years ago.

Most of the youngsters in my family are " bread heads ". One or two in their late teens already in debt. Another distant relative of mine has an interest only mortgage for £300k and also a buy-to-let flat.

So when the dust has settled and we are all returned to some stability do you think that we might return to some more positive values?

I am thinking about the values I witnessed when growing up in the 50`s and 60`s. Then there was a sense of decency. Hard to describe but my guess is that anyone of a similar age to me will recall. Being responsible at a personal level was part of it. Not being a dodgy bonus hungry banker who couldn`t care less. Or a lying politician who gets away with it and cares even less.

Dunno. What do you think ?

I agree and was thinking this myself just the other day. How long before we're all talking about the "blitz spirit" and pulling together as we all finally realise we're all suffering?

mizzbiz

SingleSue wrote: »

I never really lost the old values, I was one of those who would stand by watching in amazement as others installed 10k kitchens, 6k on holidays or purchased sofas for 5-6k even though their current one was only 2 years old.

It's thanks to that mentality that we've managed to do our house up with top notch stuff from ebay, for a fraction of the price but with all the quality. e.g. we got a solid Teak coffee table, which the owners will have paid £3-400 from John Lewis for £6.50. Got an Indian Sheesham Wood unit (again £3-400 from Next) for £20 and a solid hardwood bookcase (huge) for £10. A Brosely fire (£550) for £80. The list goes on. Our house is beautiful and it's all stuff we wanted but would never have paid the asking price for.

We're now on the hunt for a nice sofa in a similar way. Go DFS Sales - means more nearly new sofas on ebay!

whathavewedone

I dont think there wil be a long term change in attitudes because of advertising, tv etc which has moved on to an entirely different level since the 1970s.

People will economise and make do for a few years but those who are spendthrifts by nature will go back to their old ways as soon as they are able to.

barrooo

I think maybe 20-30 years ago the blitz spirit may have prevailed in harsh economic times, but the way society is at the moment, its more likely to create jealousy between the haves and the have nots.

Davesnave
I know what you mean though. It's hard to pin this down, but I agree that society has become nastier

I also have to agree with this quote and is one of the reasons for my above post, its difficult to put your finger on exactly why, maybe its a whole raft of reasons, but society does seem to be more self centered, and individuals seem to have a lack of personal responsibility, always looking for someone else to take the blame

robin_banks

I know I'm going to sound a bit pretentious here, but (collectively) man has a habit of not learning from mistakes.

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

robin_banks wrote: »

I know I'm going to sound a bit pretentious here, but (collectively) man has a habit of not learning from mistakes.

I totally agree and history shows it to be true.
Nothing will change,believe me.There'll be a lot of huffing and puffing and in another 20 years we'll be in the same situation again.
It's human nature.

WestonDave

Every advert on TV and elsewhere is in effect a message saying "you have a right to the lifestyle we are showing around our product". Couple that constant brainwashing with banks who were prepared to simply open their vaults and let people walk out with the money they needed to acheive the apparent "right" and its little wonder that large chunks of the population simply sleepwalked into a financial disaster.

What is there to counteract this brainwashing? Do we educate our kids in financial matters - even simple things like if you borrow you have to pay it back, that if you have it now, you have to have less in the future while you pay it back, and that the less is going to be "bigger" because of the cost of interest. No we unleash unsophisticated people with no education into the tender mercies of an economy (quite understandably) which has the single aim of making money out of the unsuspecting.

Unless we start helping people to understand financial and economic matters there will not be a social revolution.

One final point however!

Our economic prosperity over the last however many years has been built on people spending money which doesn't exist - either unsecured borrowings or MEWing based on inflated property values. People might say that is a bad thing (and it might have kept them personally from owning a home), however because of all this money in the economy many more of us have had jobs and incomes. The reverse of this is that if people stop creating artificial money, then all the artificial jobs that funded will go as well, meaning more on benefits and those that still keep jobs will have to pay more for that. There is no easy way out of this mess, and with Brown still trying to keep on the old path, its only going to get messier when it finally has to unwind. Looks like those veg beds I made in the back garden last year better start delivering this year!