Why has society changed to this ?

You may have seen the News yesterday about a young lad threatening to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge/building, and people in the crowd of spectators below were shouting "Jump" "Go on Jump" "Just Jump", etc; and of course the poor kid done it, I mean what is wrong with the society we live in when we have shitheads like these shouting "jump".

I sometimes think there is no respect for life left in this world....but i wonder how the feel now knowing the contributed to that poor lads death.They got to live with now....

Society hasn't changed to this. The death of a human being for the entertainment of others has always been part of human culture. In comparative terms, society in 2008 is incredbily civilised in comparison to the Romans, The Witchhunts, or the public Hangings of the 19th Century. Even when people look back with rose-tinted glasses to "the good old days of the war", when society clubbed together, we seem to forget that over 4 million people were dying in the trenches, or millions more in the concentration camps.

In 2008, humans satisfy this need through the torture porn of modern cinema. Outside of that, I don't think the occassional sadistic encouragement of a bridge jumper is a damning verdict on our society. Possibly tens of thousands of people dead before sundown due to political and military agendas in Africa is more of a concern, but that seems to have become a dull news story. And we can't have that, can we.

while the people who cried jump are clearly sickos i agree with Michael

"distaste for the modern isn't modern" i.e. people have always looked back favourably to condem what they see now. looking at commentary from any age the youth are always castigated as unworthy and the violence in society seen as new and a troubling sign of moral decay.

jeremy paxmans 'the english' is great book and tells how we've always been lagered up brawlers on the one hand and polite and reserved on the other. times don't change as much as people think.

cheers

paul