Is society heading for mental breakdown

[SWM]

What do you think, is the world heading for a mental breakdown?     

occurrences of mental illness seem to be on the increase... high levels of depression and suicide, people requiring anti depressants is a common fact of life. more people than ever are using alcohol and drugs, and this is often celebrated and promoted through the media, television and radio. 

If we look at the societies we live in do you think this psychological deterioration is likely to continue and what would that mean.

if we look at the problems in our cultures today would it be fair to say that we are having a collective mental breakdown?

[corwin137]

Just listened to Black Flags' "Nervous Breakdown" a minute ago...

Would say this in answer to the question though: we're paying a much higher "psychic" price for our relationships with one another (individuals, nations, races, genders... etc ad nauseum) than we're even able to pay attention to.  I think we're in so much pain and uncertainty, we can't even see the trouble we're in as an animal.  We may soon be a genetic cul de sac (thanks Carlin) if we don't start attending to it, and it's causes.

Of course the idea of "mental breakdown" has to be defined, but overstated/oversimplified, I'd say that dissociation from our senses including our e-motions, dissociation from understanding of the essential qualities of what it means to be human are pretty strong indicators.  As long as human fears are activating character defects and we don't learn to be graceful about such things, we're arguably doomed.

Not that this is gonna stop me from trying to do something about it though, starting with me first.

[SWM]

i decided a few years ago that i could not change the world except in so far as i change myself. what i mean i cannot make any significant changes to the greater scheme of the world, the ills of society, the national debts, wars, nuclear disarmanent and, ecological chaos are all pretty much beyond my sphere of influence. however i can make changes as within myself and to my immediate environment

[S. Earl Martin]

I don't know weather any of you can remember the book "Future Shock"? It was based on studies of animals reactions to stress brought on by over population and other factors. I see alot of the things predicted in that book happening today.

There is an old saying. If the rest of the world goes insane and you are the only one sane? Are you really the one who is insane. If the norm becomes what we consider insane today. Like killing a certain group of people or burning witches. How can someone who realizes it is wrong do anything to stop it?

Also technology is creating change at such an accelerated rate many people are having a harder and harder time adapting. When faced with situations that they can't understand? Many people react emotionally. Or they just shut down and pretend it isn't happening.

There is nothing wrong with me. We are just fine! LOL!

[voodoo scientist]

Also technology is creating change at such an accelerated rate many people are having a harder and harder time adapting.

This is a very salient point. The velocity of information used to be limited by the net human capacity for computation, virtually guaranteeing that adapting to technology was never a major problem, but with the dawn of energy-scaling computing, this limit has been removed. Much like the ability to transform energy into mechanical productivity, we will become increasingly able to transform energy into computational productivity.

I question your predictions though. Granted, this is/will be a problem for people born before or during the information and computer revolutions, but technological gaps are growing increasingly smaller as the tech cycle has fallen to timescales far below a human generation. Millenials are probably the first generation viably adapted to this environment, having grown up in a time where the years of a tech cycle can be counted on one hand. I suspect that the elite of the millenials or their children will come to dominate the next social era, much in the same way the Carnegies and Rockefellers came to dominate the industrial age, and everyone else will trot along in much the same way they do now. It'll be a shapeup, not an implosion.

[S. Earl Martin]

I agree to an extent, The question that comes to mind is "what if technology surpaces human ability?" Computers/machines are predicted to surpass humans in many ways. How will humans cope when a computer is actually smarter than them. Or if their boss is a computer? Or we have cyborgs? In my book Logical Man the people are told what to do by their computers. Many people think it is so easy. Just do what your computer tells you and everything is okay. Others resent a machine telling them what to do and want to think for themselves.

[voodoo scientist]

I agree to an extent, The question that comes to mind is "what if technology surpaces human ability?" Computers/machines are predicted to surpass humans in many ways. How will humans cope when a computer is actually smarter than them. Or if their boss is a computer? Or we have cyborgs? In my book Logical Man the people are told what to do by their computers. Many people think it is so easy. Just do what your computer tells you and everything is okay. Others resent a machine telling them what to do and want to think for themselves.

Human ability to what?

[S. Earl Martin]

"Human ability to what?" Anything imaginable.

[voodoo scientist]

"Human ability to what?" Anything imaginable.

The question that comes to your mind when reading my previous post is "What if technology surpasses human ability to do anything imaginable?"

[S. Earl Martin]

Yep that is it. I do not assume mankind or our technology should have limits. People have done that in the past and were proved wrong.