Hollywoods new face of greed

Magentababy · **Joined:** Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:26 pm **Posts:** 15846

Real good thread AL, interesting :thumbz:

NightAl · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 2:11 pm

Magentababy wrote:

Real good thread AL, interesting :thumbz:

Thanks hun. I've really enjoyed it so far.

Little Alien · **Joined:** Mon Dec 01, 2008 2:14 am **Posts:** 992

NightAl wrote:

After reviewing this discussion, the one thing that has blown me away, more thasn anything else, is no matter if we agree or disagree, we all sence this urgency for change.

Maybe thats because we finally might have learned something from history.
Almost every society, culture or empire in history rose grew and fell in the very same way.
First you have something new that has to fight for his place in history, struggeling for his right to exist against old structures.
With a bit of luck and a lot of belief and effort and usually with a lot of fighting the new society can estaplish itself and reaches a point where it is relatively stable and can begin to grow.
Sooner or later the mechanisms that once served to establish the system begin to ossify. The system begins to become rigid and inflexible and starts to see new things not as a possibility but as a threat.
Eventually the system HAS to change to provide decadence and oversaturation and the inevitable fall.

The egyptian and the roman empire went this way, the empire of Alexander the Great and Genghis Khans mongol empire and in the last decades the world witnessed the fall of the Soviet Union and the whole eastern block.

The only cultures that survived did this by adapting, changing and blending in. The Germanic peoples went out, dissipated and melted with other cultures. A vital part of the old greek cultures was migration and the endeavour to blend into their new environment.
One migth say that those cultures also ceased to exist, that their empires and kingdoms are gone too. But that is only partially true. The very hearts and souls of these societies, their cultures and beliefs and their languages, continued to live on and influenced and shaped new societies and became a part of the future this way.

I think our western society has reached that crucial point where we must decide to either stay the way we are and eventually fall apart OR to change and survive.
Oversaturation, sprawling bureaucracy, waste of resources, the irrepressible urge to to force our way to see things onto others, the inability to adapt to new technologies and to realise the possibilities they bring and seeing them as a threat instead are just some of the signs of expiration of our culture.
In addition to that there are many dangers like global warming, islamic foundationalism, superannuation of the population or shortage of energy, self generated or not, that require adaption.

So we MUST change in order to survive.

marydrome · **Joined:** Sat Jun 14, 2008 3:14 am **Posts:** 3507

Quote:

Perception
Something to think about….

Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.

4 minutes later:

The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes:

A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes:

A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.

45 minutes:

The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

1 hour:

He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.

The questions raised:

*In a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?

*Do we stop to appreciate it?

*Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made.

How many other things are we missing?

Kyphe · **Posted:** Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:24 am

So very true and profound, i don't think a tube station is a fair test, as people are naturally in transit but still, i hope for all that i am that i would have stopped!

BeeBopz · **Posted:** Sun Dec 13, 2009 1:27 pm

I used to get angry with all the poverty at the world when I knew how much a lot of the big names got paid but not any more

Now I'm angry at studios and media companies that cream the cash from nothing :madz:

When you really think about the big stars and what they earn I dont think so bad of them now.

For instance take Jonny Depp, he may get paid over the top amounts but take the films hes been in but those films havent just given you hours and hours of enjoyment but also millions of people the world over and time and time again. Along with the hours of entertainment hes given millions and millions of people hes also subject his life to the public eye, he's a celeb and celebs by definition serve the public by way of entertainment.

But I have a strong hate for the media companies like Fox etc and all those making shit loads of cash for doing nothing other then being an asshole :roll:

Hollywoods new face of greed

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