Titor's Culture

[DWOMT]

Titor's Culture

As far as war goes, I have faith you are quite capable of starting one all by yourself. I am hard pressed to accept any criticism on my outlook on that subject. Growing up might have been a vastly different experience for me than it was for most of you. Personal responsibility, determination, honor, friendship and self-reliance are not just words we try to live up to or fantasize about.

On my worldline, life is not easy. We live in a world recovering from years of war, poison, destruction and hate. All of it, courtesy of the thinking and actions of people that live right now in the same world you do, worrying about which stocks to buy or whether or not a stranger is lying to them on the Internet.

How can you possibly criticize me for any conflict that comes to you? I watch every day what you are doing as a society. While you sit by and watch your Constitution being torn away from you, you willfully eat poisoned food, buy manufactured products no one needs and turn an uncaring eye away from millions of people suffering and dying all around you. Is this the \"Universal Law\" you subscribe to?

Perhaps I should let you all in on a little secret. No one likes you in the future. This time period is looked at as being full of lazy, self-centered, civically ignorant sheep. Perhaps you should be less concerned about me and more concerned about that.

These are just some of the examples of how Titor described how his culture in the future looked back on our current time. It's obvious that the people in his time were not very fond of us. Basically placing all the blame on us. What bugs me is the things that Titor overlooks.
He sits there and says how his future is striving to be a better society as they clean up "our mess." I didn't get the chance to talk to Titor when he made his appearance online, but I would have loved to have told him that he can enjoy his society all he wants, but they will eventually repeat history again. He cannot deny human nature. All it takes is for one person in a group of humans who hungers for power (add money into that equation) and wants to fuel his ego to stir up trouble. There has to be people like that in Titor's time. I'm sure maybe shortly after a 100 years his society will become like ours again

One example I'd like to use is from the supposed time traveler maxwell. I don't think maxwell is real, but I will use something from his discussions. He mentioned a popular diner in his future town called "Greg's Diner." Now imagine Greg's Diner gets lots of business, give it maybe 10 years or maybe 20 and Greg's Diners spread all over post nuclear America. Eventually growing into a corporation of restaurants. Then slowly but surely shady deals are made and the business grows out of control. I know it's a bad example, but I am sure things like this can happen in Titor's future even though he sat back and criticized our society.

I'd like to know what you guys feel about this. Let's make this an interesting discussion with a lot of feedback on how our society relates to his.

 

[pauli]

Titor's Culture

I have often found the sociological implications of Titor's world to be interesting. Part of me had to agree with his point of view, because I also see the flaws in our society that he points out.

For instance, there is a large record store in Mid-town Los Angeles called Aomeba Records and Tapes. It is a large warehouse sized building, whose lower floor is devoted to music of all kinds - both records and CD's. The upstairs is devoted strictly to movies, VHS & DVD's. It is a great place to pick up recent and not so recent material. My friend introduced me to the place a few years ago and I have been there about 5 or 6 times. But, I cannot tell you how strange I feel, at times, going upstairs to the movie section. You hear the noise of click, click, click all around you, as people sort through section after section of movie titles. (The DVD's are encased in a clear, hard plastic containers.) As I stand there, I begin to feel uncomfortable. I think to myself, "Do we really need to make more movies? I mean, the movie industry has created thousands of movies over the past 70 or so years." And, as I stand in the midst of all of this noise and the people clicking through the titles, I can't help but think of John's comment "uncountable tonnage" of worthless items you so gleefully consume (something like that). I can't help at moments like that to agree with him. If everything fell apart in our society, we would find this sort of thing completely unusable. I mean, you can't really eat a DVD and our media often distracts us from forming better relationships with one another.

On the other hand, I think it is a bit rich for someone from "the future" to ride our tails about creating the potential for nuclear war, when he admitted to the fact that his side ordered the nuking of the American cities. It is almost as if he is crying in a victim-like status. "It's your fault that our lives are so difficult. It's your fault that we struggle to bring children to term. Poor us."

These are the sorts of feelings I have about the whole issue. I'll post more if/when I can think of it.

 

[The_Ruffneck]

Titor's Culture

Definetaly , we are greedy and we crave conflict - whether it be sport , or anything really , our entire lives we are saturated with greed and conflict through the media , the media has definetaly made us worse in regard to greed , conflict , but even in ancient times there was rulers of empires who wanted more land , riches , oppression.

So i never understood the guy , i think it's a case of 'the grass is always greener on the other side'

 

[Judge Bean]

Titor's Culture

It's an easy shot to come back to the past and criticize people for how they are trying to live. Let's look at who we really are, rather than what an alleged timetraveler might have been taught about us (thereafter reinforced by his selective experience among us, supposedly).

We are not to clumped together into some amalgam of all the worst human traits. First of all, Americans are greedier than most in the world, but they are also more generous than most. We don't have the dirtiest air and water here, nor the most dangerous food. We are loud and vulgar, according to some of the French and English who have not run into any Australians or Germans. Some of us are apparently bent on making money no matter the cost to the environment or the Constitution, or to the social fabric; but many more of us complain constantly about the abuse.

You certainly cannot blame us for the worst problems now facing the world. The other nations are just as consistently stubborn in their refusal to institute international controls on fuel consumption and emissions, and the US could not do it alone anyway. We invented the atom bomb, but used it to end a war we did not start and tried to stay out of; without refugees from the tyrants, we couldn't have invented it. We've been the first and only ones to use nuclear weapons-- twice, 60 years ago. If they are used again very soon, it won't be us. You can blame us, since we have more of the weapons than all other nations combined (well, tens of thousands more), but the fact remains that we have refrained from using them, and, even in Titor's scenario, it is others who launch the holocaust.

If Titor is actually blaming all of the current generation in the world, and not just Americans, he has immersed himself so deeply in a thick muck of generalization that you'd have to rescue him by restating his meaning for him before refuting him. I for one won't bother. He is one of us as much as any one of us is; he was born here, and he couldn't tear himself away. I think what he says is actually self-loathing.

Human beings work hard on insufficient information and almost nonexistent supernatural guidance. We try to pay our debts and protect the children. We try to obey ridiculous laws, face up to our taxes, figure out the vehicle code so we don't get a ticket for looking odd to an officer. At least the women seem to conduct themselves with honor, telling the truth more than lying, and trying to lessen the pain in the world. I wouldn't trade any of you for life in any other time period, period. Titor teaches me nothing about my culture.

 

[StarLord]

Titor's Culture

Good for you Paul! Very well put as usual! the only way titor's rantings could have made sense, was as if he was speaking to those that actually made the laws themselves and or it was a form of self loathing as you pointed out.

To be honest, I have been waiting for some kind of reading from Grayson in regards to titor or the group behind titor and what their possible case was in regards to all this projected gloom and doom.

No one is perfect and most of us try our best to do right. But when it truly comes down to it, it's the power structure to blame and certainly not John Q. Public. For someone that seemed to have their common sense act together, the titors sure screwed up on where to put the blame and none too lightly either.

For someone with information from the future *Cough*,*Cough* where is all the information regarding the nuclear materials that are leaking from the countries that used to be Russia? And why, if your there to help your country(like some red blooded American would NORMALLY DO) would you refuse to say anything specific? How many times have we been bitten by that bug from wannabe TT's, it's the dangled carrot or the "better be nice to me and not BAN me otherwise I won't be able to tell you all the secrets I have come with" Please!

There are more holes in this saga of horse cookies than you can shake an excuse for no concrete information at. Rather than being paid for each word, perhaps they were paid for each instance of being vague. If that was the case they made a killing.

 

[Darkwolf]

Titor's Culture

I think that the bitterness Titor expressed adds a sense of authenticity to the story.
Immagine that you were born into modern day America, and had just enough time to get used to how things are when suddenly these scary guys appear on the streets on a regular basis. They wear camo or black and carry large evil looking guns. One day some of these people burst into your home, mabey they push your dad around and threaten your mom. Think of the effect that would have on a six to eight year old.
Now you move into the middle of nowhere, you don't have reliable electricity or any of the things you are used to. The adults tell you that you have to hide here so the bad guys with guns don't get you. As you grow into adolesence, you recieve your education from the militia types in the small town. They tell you that it is beacause the people allowed the federal government to grow out of controll that this has happened to you.
They tell you that it is beacause people had their eye on their SUVs and their plasma TVs that this was allowed to happen.
At thirteen, they hand you a shotgun, and send you out to live in a swamp, run around and set ambushes or whatever his unit supposedly did. You spend the next years living in a swamp (insert any other hostile environment here) dodging federal forces who are trying to kill you with tanks, assult rifels, hellicopters, you name it. You see friends die. You nearly starve to death, nearly freeze, get diseases no one has heard about in a hundred years.
Then the bombs go off, and you spend however many years trying to rebuild socioty almost from the ground up.
Think you might be just a little bitter at folks who you think were just watching the TV rather than the republic?

Just a thought.

 

[Judge Bean]

Titor's Culture

Originally posted by Darkwolf@Nov 12 2004, 11:00 PM
I think that the bitterness Titor expressed adds a sense of authenticity to the story.
Immagine that you were born into modern day America, and had just enough time to get used to how things are when suddenly these scary guys appear on the streets on a regular basis. They wear camo or black and carry large evil looking guns. One day some of these people burst into your home, mabey they push your dad around and threaten your mom. Think of the effect that would have on a six to eight year old.
Now you move into the middle of nowhere, you don't have reliable electricity or any of the things you are used to. The adults tell you that you have to hide here so the bad guys with guns don't get you. As you grow into adolesence, you recieve your education from the militia types in the small town. They tell you that it is beacause the people allowed the federal government to grow out of controll that this has happened to you.
They tell you that it is beacause people had their eye on their SUVs and their plasma TVs that this was allowed to happen.
At thirteen, they hand you a shotgun, and send you out to live in a swamp, run around and set ambushes or whatever his unit supposedly did. You spend the next years living in a swamp (insert any other hostile environment here) dodging federal forces who are trying to kill you with tanks, assult rifels, hellicopters, you name it. You see friends die. You nearly starve to death, nearly freeze, get diseases no one has heard about in a hundred years.
Then the bombs go off, and you spend however many years trying to rebuild socioty almost from the ground up.
Think you might be just a little bitter at folks who you think were just watching the TV rather than the republic?

Just a thought.

​

I think a lot of the story is from the TV. Also, I think that the story is expertly designed to appeal to someone just like you.

And me.

 

[Darkwolf]

Titor's Culture

I think a lot of the story is from the TV. Also, I think that the story is expertly designed to appeal to someone just like you.

And me.

What? Me? Survivalist?

I'm going with the theory that Titor was somone who knew something about government plans for the future, and was trying to get a message out.
The only thing that gets me is, Shotguns, get real. Somone would have to be desperate or desperatly stupid to use one as a primary weapon.

 

[Judge Bean]

Titor's Culture

Originally posted by Darkwolf@Nov 12 2004, 11:57 PM

I think a lot of the story is from the TV. Also, I think that the story is expertly designed to appeal to someone just like you.

And me.

What? Me? Survivalist?

I'm going with the theory that Titor was somone who knew something about government plans for the future, and was trying to get a message out.
The only thing that gets me is, Shotguns, get real. Somone would have to be desperate or desperatly stupid to use one as a primary weapon.

​

This has come up before, about the shotgun militia. Combined with the other advice of Titor's that you shouldn't stockpile arms (so as not to attract attention) it really does suggest that Titor doesn't want us very well equipped.

 

[StarLord]

Titor's Culture

Well not unless you were carrying 00 buckshot with 40" barrels or more. I'd prefer at least a Marlin 30 30, straighest shootin bush gun I ever did shoot without a scope. And leave us not forget how a m60 can plink right nice over mountains...