Drop that X box!

[DFIB]

This story talks of the deterioration of values among people that live in America. How people are willing to do anything and everything to get what they want or what they think they deserve. Does it speak of Americans as a people and our core values or a freak occurrence? http://www.huffingto..._n_1114486.html

There is another story that claims that shoppers continued looking for bargains while nurses did CPR on a man who colapsed in a department store. I know they probably could not help but does it say something about society? Can we consider this "normal"

behavior?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/27/black-friday-target_n_1115372.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Chp-laptop%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%7C115827

Are times really that hard?

Edited November 28, 2011 by DFIB

[DwayneEMTP]

Not sure what story you mean, the link is a guy puking into an emisis bag...

[DFIB]

Not sure what story you mean, the link is a guy puking into an emisis bag...

Oh, cramps. Now I have to find the right story again.

Fixed it.

http://www.huffingto..._n_1114486.html

Edited November 28, 2011 by DFIB

[DwayneEMTP]

Man...crazy, crazy world....

[ERDoc]

You've got to give them credit for their determination.

[systemet]

This story talks of the deterioration of values among people that live in America. How people are willing to do anything and everything to get what they want or what they think they deserve. Does it speak of Americans as a people and our core values or a freak occurrence? http://www.huffingto..._n_1114486.html

I'm not American, so I'm not sure how qualified I am to talk about your core values. But I don't think I find these incidents particularly damning. I'm not saying that they're in any way justified or acceptable, just that they fall within the spectrum of criminal behaviour that we've learned to expect. I just don't find them that remarkable.

Unloading pepper spray in a crowded store is an antisocial, dangerous and egotistical act. So is stepping over a dead man, being helped by bystanders. But these are not particularly unusual. In the first instance, you can look at any number of instances of people being killed by gun, knife or blunt trauma as the result of a personal insult, or for a trivial monetary gain (e.g. a pair of sneakers, an iPhone). These are arguably much worse. In the second, you can look at the general neglect of the homeless, or children of poor families in many societies.

It's perhaps true that this might be a particular problem in the US. But I think part of that is just that you guys have a lot of handguns, both legal and illegal, you have a lot of poor people, and a greater wealth disparity than other first world nations. That's not to judge from a distance, it's just factual.

I think it's a problem in most societies that people feel less connected. I'm only 33, so I can't claim to have great insight into the communty sensibilities of generations past. But I think that we feel less responsibility and less empathy for people around us than was common in the time of my grandparents.(Of course, they were watching German bombs fall out of the sky and kill random people around them, so perhaps their situations were relatively unique compared to the experiences of most people in the US). I think societies are becoming more materialistic, and more consumer-oriented. We're not smart enough as a species (nor perhaps as individuals), not to want what's being sold to us, and in some cases we're willing to go to extremes to get it. It's always tempting to thing that things are better in the past (what's that? Historical fallacy? I forget the fancy name), but I think we have been conditioned to spend and purchase. That doesn't remove us of our basic responsibility not to act as ****heads, but I think it explains some of our behaviour.

This might be a particular problem in the US, but I doubt that it's unique. I think that similar factors are at play in other societies. There's maybe just a little less violence and poverty in other first world nations. It seems like a lot of them are moving in a similar direction. It feels like sometimes what happens in the US is something of a warning of what's to come in societies elsewhere.

There is another story that claims that shoppers continued looking for bargains while nurses did CPR on a man who colapsed in a department store. I know they probably could not help but does it say something about society? Can we consider this "normal"

behavior?

http://www.huffingto...1_lnk3%7C115827

I think some of this can be explained by stress reactions. If the shoppers see people tending to the unresponsive man, they may feel relieved of responsibility. This is the old idea that the larger the group of people witnessing an event, the greater the influence of herd behaviour, and the less likely one individual is to act independently (with the caveat that when an individual chooses to act, sometimes it causes the herd to follow). I think we've all probably been on scenes where people are doing stuff that's just crazy, like the wife of 20 years washing the dishes while her husband lies in arrest on the floor in the living room.

Are times really that hard?

I think they're getting harder for the average person. The financial crisis hasn't helped anyone. It may get worse yet, depending on what happens with the euro, and how the Chinese choose to intervene (from what little I understand). It's clear that over the last 30 years the earnings of the middle 25-75% have fallen in real value, and the richer percentiles have become richer relative to the poorer percentiles. The right wing counterargument seems to be that the poor deserve to be poor, and the rich rich, by basis of their individual merits.

It's interesting to see political activism in the US. Obviously there was a strong antiwar movement during Vietnam, but this was before my time. There's been episodic protests at the G8 events. But it's never seemed that there's been the same political consciousness that's been present in other countries. I think a lot of people have believed the argument that "we're all middle class now", and they're only just beginning to realise that maybe that's not true -- or that even if it is, the middle 50% have taken a bit hit over the last few decades.

[DwayneEMTP]

To define a society by the few rabid, damaged shitheads that make the news isn't terribly logical either.

A bazillion people (Know, I looked it up) went shopping on Black Friday yet we only had these handfuls of atrocities...It's not a good representation.

I would have more patience if they had been fighting over food, none at all for Christmas gifts. My recently promised contract fell through meaning a skinny Christmas for our family. Not a big deal really. Babs and I ran down to the craft store and started planning home made stuff for everyone.

Punch my neighbor to feed my family? In a second...to get an Xbox? Not on my very drunkest, weakest, most impotent day...

Dwayne

[Just Plain Ruff]

I was watching the news the day after black friday and they blamed the stores, the bargains and the advertising on the bad actions of the few idiots who got out of hand and not once did they say that those involved and who caused the incidents were the ones to blame.

[Richard B the EMT]

A few years back, a local branch of a chain store had a security "officer" trampled to death. The CPR efforts were posted on Youtube, we commented on how badly the CPR was being done by "non-professional rescuers", and the newspapers reported that shoppers were angry with the Nassau County Police Department for closing the store while conducting their investigation (at 4 in the morning on "Black Friday").

[Just Plain Ruff]

A few years back, a local branch of a chain store had a security "officer" trampled to death. The CPR efforts were posted on Youtube, we commented on how badly the CPR was being done by "non-professional rescuers", and the newspapers reported that shoppers were angry with the Nassau County Police Department for closing the store while conducting their investigation (at 4 in the morning on "Black Friday").

Screw the black friday shoppers. Sorry but I was at the black friday sales a year or so ago and the manners of those trying to get a good deal was despicable. Pushing, shoving.

The retailers are mainly at fault I think. They put these special deals like 199 laptops or 300 dollar big screens but they only have 2 or three per store. So you have 100 or 1000 people (in the case of best buy) that think they are going to get the super deals when in reality the super deals are not that great if you look at the specs of the tv or laptop.

Black friday 5 years ago or so I got in line at Comp Usa. I was at least to my calculations the 14th person in line. Well at 1am here comes a van full of people. They all got out and went to the 4th person in line. A couple of us in line behind them came up and said those people needed to get in the back of the line. The person already in line said that he was saving their places. So instead of being 14th, we were effectively 24th. Well group pressure started to mount and we told those who had their place in line saved It didn't work that way. They told us to F off and one kid pulled up his shirt and several of us saw what we thought to be some sort of holster.

We backed off and called the police. The police arrived in force, they contacted the people involved and indeed there was noa weapon(arrests were made though). Comp Usa came out, told everyone in line to leave and had the police make us leave. (SUCKED) and I just moved to Micro center where I was the 3rd person in line and got my 199 laptop anyway.

that laptop was the biggest piece of shit that I ever did see. I could have gone to Office max the next day, bought another laptop that was 100 dollars more expensive and 5 times the computer that the one I got for 199 was.

So I have sworn off black friday shopping forever because well for all the people I know, I need my beauty sleep more than most.