This forum used to be about "WW2 Tech and Personality ACM Wars". My book is bigger than your book and my ACM is superior to your ACM.
Then it changed to "All My Aces" 24x7 with a soap opera cast of regulars.
Then over time it morphed into "All My Drama Qweens". 24x7 accusing each other of violations to the sacred ways of playing the game while competing to out insult each other over everything.
Finally we have evolved as a reflection of our popular culture.
Welcome to the "Aces High, the Reality Show".
You too can have your 15 minutes of fame if you are willing to do anything to hold the attention of the audience no matter how insulting, depraved, or irritating. Honorability was never high on the agenda for the Jersey Shore kids. That's a new one. Maybe the worm is turning again.
One can only imagine what will be next? "SQweekers on Parade" brought to you by the letter (xBox) and the prosthesis (Game Boy)??
Bustr, you always have such well written perspectives and appear here to openly lament the decline of values which you seem to observe in these more recent events. What do you think causes these declines and how do we get back to the way things use to be or, as some would say, should be? Are you saying there was much less drama and/or "look at me" activity in the past, and therefore yesteryear's pilots were resultantly better than the more recent crop as reflected here in these forums?

Do the OP's comments regarding my "amazingly impressive" (his words) piloting skills not give you hope for the future or are you saying the decline is predetermined and therefore inevitable? If the latter is the case, then what is the cause and what is the most optimal solution, given your observations, or do you instead believe the forum does not reflect the actual skills and related interests of the current group of pilots in the same way it did in the past?

Could you, perhaps, be biased by the general human trait to tend to remember the good more than the bad and therefore creating a better past than actually existed?

I tend to think that things, even here in Aces High, improve over time as knowledge builds upon both knowledge and experience and, frankly, find it somewhat disconcerting that the more experienced folk often tend to take the opposing point of view.

Hopefully as I get older and wiser, I won't fall into this often seen and somewhat negative thought process which you seem to support and certainly others have espoused. I believe, if you step back a bit and look at how much things have advanced over time, that you may in fact find things improving and not generally deteriorating as you seem to imply above.
Perhaps the worm isn't turning as much as simply advancing forward to an even better tomorrow.

At least that is my perspective.


PS: Pardon me, Slade, but I thought bustr brought up an interesting observation.
