Sometimes it seems like the country is going to hell in a handbasket, especially from a senior's perspective. People are not as honest or as caring as they used to be. Sure, we may see a good news item featuring someone doing something especially good but just chalk it up to anecdotal evidence and wish there were more people like that individual.

Check out this video and you may feel a bit better about your fellow American.

 

A few years back I passed the wallet test.
My neighbor up the street had left a bunch of stuff on his roof when he drove away.
i drove by it and went back and picked it up and figured out where he lived and put it in his door.

 

The wife and I recently found a wallet in a shopping cart left in a store parking lot. I never opened it but we went right to the police department and turned it in.

 

Today’s society is nothing like the society I grew up with. The core values I was taught are fading away. I own a detailing business and found an expensive diamond ring stuck in the drivers seat track under the seat. It was hard to see but my led light shined on it and I carefully pried out. I brought it back to the owner and she was ecstatic. She wanted to give me a reward but I refused. I told her my reward would be continued business. She has been a steady customer for about 10 years. Then there’s the hit and run drivers who hit vehicles and people and never stop and the road rage.

 

I have never found, in a universal way, a more exacting, honest society than the Japanese. Individuals from all walks of life have been touchingly human, selfless, generous as a saint, honest, and giving on innumerable occasions, but our Japanese friends are almost, I dare say, bullet proof in the honesty department. It is the only place I put complete and blind trust in people. Not a ripple of concern on my mental lake of tranquility.

 

When you don't have to lock up a bike in Japan that tells you something. I have a lot of respect for Japanese society.

 

Do you have any idea of for how many centuries or for that matter millennia that older people have been saying that?

“Our sires’ age was worse than our grandsires’. We, their sons, are more worthless than they; so in our turn we shall give the world a progeny yet more corrupt.”

Book III of Odes, Horace
circa 20 BC

 

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

― Socrates


yeah it has been said for centuries But, there is still truth in it as well. Would have to be blind to not see it. But if one generation is more greedy, impolite and selfish than the last, then it makes sense the trend will continue over time. I think we took a big leap in a bad way in the past few decades though. Seems being "More connected' and having "more access to knowledge" has not been something us immature humans can handle at this point. Here is to hoping we get better at it quickly!

Mark Rober is awesome by the way. But to see the other side of society, check out his latest videos about the scammers he is helping catch, partially by using his glitterbomb packages He is surprisingly deep in actually getting some phone scammers busted, all the way back to their call centers in India.! Very cool stuff, but also shows just how horrible some people are. Nothing says waste of air like people robbing elderly women over the phone.

 

Damn, that scammer stuff is really amazingly well thought out. Thanks for sharing that video. I will pass it along.

 

Dave, you might enjoy this lighthearted but brutal response to a spam email. No glitter bombs but it does involve toasters.