the 6 second abs society?
 

we've not had a good debate here in a while and since I'm still not going to do any studying yet i thought I';d try and start one.

it regards what i call the 6 second abs mindset where everyone expects everything instantaineously wether it's their coffee or their health....


this was spurned by a post I read on another forum I browse.

it goes:

I'm an 18 year old guy

I've been running 5 miles a day for 3 weeks and the past 4 days i've been only taking in 1500 calories which is like a quarter of my usual intake but I'm still fat, whats wrong?


seriously.... if this guy is taking on 6000 cals a day I'm at least assuming he's going to be a few stone overweight if not obese and he thinks burning off around 600 calories a day for 3 weeks and limiting his calories to 1500 for 4 days is going to make him super thin?

I usually link this to fitness as i said, i calle dit the 6 second abs syndrome. usher didn't get those abs working out for 6 seconds a day or whatever the crap is they spout at you and with stuff like all the fad diets and magazines perpetuating ideas of losing tonnes of weight in a week we expect things to come easilly and get frustrated when they don't and we actually have to put some work in... i told this guy to come back after working out for 3 months and he'll notice a difference. it'll be interesting to see if he keeps it up.

anyways as i said i usually link it to health and fitness because it's one of the most obvious examples but I think it shows a trend of society in general.... we want everything faster, better and easier and I think that it'#s makign us lazy and complacent at times when we come across stuff we can't get as easilly as modern life would like to make us think we could.


any thoughts?

probably not as interesting to discuss as religion or politics but it really does make me think now and again.

I know what that is. Everything in my ever-growing pile of papers at work says URGET or EXTREMELY URGENT. I used to get out of my way to keep my "deadlines" but since I saw that my boss will simply forget about everything once it's done, I've learned to take a slower pace.

Everything's like that. We want everything now but just as quickly we forget about how much we wanted it - or why.

It is an interesting topic, and one obvious symptom of how sick our world is getting. And it's not only faster, it's also cheaper and easier.

It's a clear sign of decadence when people are unwilling, because unaware, to put the necessary effort themselves to achieve something, and become more and more assisted.

When you look at it from all sides, it's source of :

- delusion, like in your example Jim
- dependance, it creates artificial needs for products we can live without, like cell phones.
- danger, ie in my job we need to work faster all the time even if we need to make sure that the final product is compliant with codes and standards, but this takes time we do not always have.
- decadence, as we get more and more assisted, we get less and less creative and reactive.
- social disconnections, ie different scientific fields work faster and faster on their side, but do not take time to share with other fields and adress the more global issues...
- ...



Ponrauil

Being the oldest here I can relate the most I think. Example - I'm a Structural Engineer. When I first started designing things I used a slide rule - yes folks a slide rule :) It took months to design a complex project like a water treatment plant or even a small bridge. Now, with computer programs, it can be done literally in days. Do I make any more money for producing the same amount of work in 1/10 the amount of time? Can I charge more for my services? The answer to both of those is NO. Does "upper management" or the state agencies expect the same amount of work in 1/10 of the time - absolutely. Things are moving so fast I don't even have time to catch the mistakes that a slower process encourages.

Kathleen

The explosion of fast-food outlets.
Higher-speed internet connections.
Twenty20 cricket.

the other day I saw a thing on the telly where a car had the ability to "latch on" to the car in front of it so you could take your hands off the wheel and not crash.

It was a run of the mill car like a nissan or volvo or something too , it wasn't some souped up slk.

I just don't get why people would need something like that....

I mean mobile phones which are regarded as probably the most overused pieces of modern technology at least serve a use even if we could live without them but a car that drives itself so you don't have to..........?

auto-tuning gear in recording studios.... you don't even need to sing anymore, we have computers that correct your pitch. Not solely refined to her but ashley simpson would not have a singing career if not for these machines.

again back to health and fitness.... we have those pads you stick on yourself to get sculpted abs, and other muscle groups despite the fact that they';re useless unless you;re in pretty good shape and have a low body fat % in the 1st place but people still buy them thinking they'll have perfect abs and pecs on their 200lb frame in no time.... simply because it's easier than hitting the gym hard and doing proper work outs to develop your abs and pecs.

Even something as simple as takign the car for really short journeys.... my mum asks if I want to take the car to work, without a word of lie it takes me less than 3 minutes to drive to work. thats 5 minutes on my bike or 10 minutes walking... why would I need a car? my brother was astounded when I walked home from the u2 gig during the summer instead of waiting for a taxi cos the stadiums a good few miles away. end of the day it took me about an hour and a half... it's not exactly going to wind me up in hospital walking for an hour and a half without stopping....

as a society we're just getting lazier and lazier and it's because we've expect things to be easier and as i said before, the problem arises that when things do need some effort like working off fat without the aid of fad machines or weight loss powders people get frustrated and don't know how to deal with it...

I mean this guy really thought 3 weeks of running an hour a day and not eating like a sloth for 4 days would get him in shape... I'd be a contender for olympic gold if that kind of effort produced those kind of results.

and on that note, I'd like to announce that my abs are starting to show. :D
I was always a bit frustrated because I only managed to stay lean and not get that six paxk, but now I'm almost there. :)
Granted I would have achieved results faster if I'd have worked out for 3 to 4 hours a day instead of 2 but what the hell, I kept a steady diet and now I have abs!!!!!