Game of Thrones

The Walking Dead is probably another good example of this, especially the graphic novel. I was actually kind of disappointed that AMC ended up getting The Walking Dead, as it would have been able to stick to the realism of the graphic novels much better on a premium channel like HBO or Showtime. The graphic novels feature rape, torture, maniacs who decapitate children for fun, etc. Certainly things that AMC cannot reproduce.

I don't know. AMC has gone a decent job of the show. The only thing that stuck out to me that they overtly censored was the murder of children; almost reminds me of Bethesda's Fallout 3.

Take AMC's Breaking Bad for instance. It attempts to show the reality of cooking meth and the occurrences associated with such a trade, and the brutalities/gore, even though I'm still in the first season, were not really masked by any scene change or whatsoever.

My original point was, it seems like we're drifting towards the extreme of sexual looseness and immodesty, with the media at the head of the pincer. Premium broadcasting or not, people watch it, and it has some degree of influence in our every day lives.

Perhaps we are drifting back from where we are, but I don't think it's like this is a first for humans. There have been plenty of cultures that don't view nudity and such like we do.

Most ancient societies were ok with it. France is pretty lax I hear.

Most ancient societies are deceased. It's an interesting pattern; not necessarily one that applies to all civilizations that fell into ruin, but to many-that of lacking conventional moral restraint in sexual behavior and other associated vices preceding the toppling of an order.

And you'd be more correct in citing Germany or Switzerland with regards to sexuality.

If you think the morality of ancient cultures (Ancient Rome is a good example) had anything to do with their downfall you're probably wrong. You could maybe argue that their morality led to conflicts, for instance slave rebellions and such, but beyond that you would have a hard time making a decent argument that morality had anything to do with it. You could maybe argue that greed had a lot to do with it, and you'd probably be right, but that's really something that is inherent to humans/survival of the individual. And even then, it isn't necessarily the greed of the cultures that fell but rather the greed of the cultures that killed them and took their stuff.

The best argument I can make against morality being a factor, though, is to suggest a hypothetical situation. Imagine there were an ancient culture that was perfectly moral, never stooping to cheap tactics in war, the use of slave labor, etc. They would probably be one of the first to fall, considering the less moral cultures of the time would have more tools at their disposal and more power. I'm pretty sure most or all of the really big empires were built on the backs of slaves, including our own.

For further reading, see: China.

After Breaking Bad broke off this season, I was thinking of watching this. Work's been getting in the way of a lot lately, though.