HereAndGone
4mo ago
80s Ireland was a land of rain and misery - high unemployment rate, crashed economy, expectation that pretty much as soon as you hit 18 you will emigrate because there's damn-all at home for you.
In 1987 a government minister defended the emigration expectation (and lack of action by the government) by telling us "We can't all expect to live on a small island". Population back then was around 3.5 million. Population today is around 5.5 million.
The 90s were the Celtic Tiger and the good times would never stop, except it was a bubble and the 2008 global crisis hit us hard once again. Austerity budgets and back to the emigration trail.
Today we're being told that the economy is going great (sounds familiar?) but yet people feel that they have less money in their pockets, prices are going up, and there isn't enough damn housing (sounds familiar?)
HereAndGone
4mo ago
Lot more women than trans people, for a start.
Mainly, it's in response to guys on here wondering why on earth women don't want to marry (them) and then expressing views which explain why no woman in her right mind and with an ounce of self-respect would marry a man like that.
HereAndGone
4mo ago
totally ready to start settling down young (or at least a year or two after university when they had an income) and raising a family
Really? 25 year old men wanting to take on a wife and kid? Not impossible, but funnily enough in the context, I was reading a ghost story from the 1930s or so and in it the narrator describes how he doesn't want an early marriage - this is a man in his late 30s established in his career and with enough money to support a stay-at-home wife (no other sort for the middle-to-upper classes back then) and children.
So the attitude of putting off marriage was indeed prevalent among the educated classes back then, but it wasn't solely over-educated women spurning men of their own class.
HereAndGone
4mo ago
Clarify for me, as Southkraut has requested me to do: is this comment shitflinging or discussion forum things?
HereAndGone
4mo ago
Never heard of that meme, first time I've been compared to a meme. You like me!
HereAndGone
4mo ago
He retires/is kicked upstairs, and the new agent takes on the code name "James Bond" and number 007. (That seems to be how they explain change of actors in the films and why he is always late 30s to mid 40s, and why he's not immediately recognised on sight by enemy organisations).
HereAndGone
4mo ago
Because things felt like, globally, that they were going in the right direction and all boats were rising.
That is it. Collapse of the Berlin Wall, now the Cold War was over and there was no threat of nuclear war. Capitalism had won and every country would pursue money-making, and to do that trade needs open markets and political stability and no wars. People were doing better as we came out of the 80s recession. There was a sense of optimism. Colour blindness was in, idpol wasn't yet a thing. Gay rights were winning. We had environmental problems, but they were solvable (see the ozone layer and doing away with CFCs), e.g. adopt recycling and do away with pollution, not the intractable problem of climate change. Things were getting better and would always get better because now we were smart, educated, peaceful, and Science and Progress would bring us into the ever more bountiful future hand-in-hand.
It was the End of History and the liberal project had won.
But consider: when was the last time a cultural trend happening in Africa was discussed on this forum?
Tangential to Black Panther and the genre of Afro-futurism? But I agree, not much about cultural trends. Though now and again musical trends seem to come and go - see world music, Paul Simon collaborating with Ladysmith Black Mombazo, Mory Kanté having a late 80s hit, Youssou N'Dour, Ali Farka Touré, Amadou and Mariam, various others.
HereAndGone
4mo ago
Yet, a modern James Bond would be considered more cringe for not knowing Japanese than a 1990 James Bond was.
Are we all forgetting You Only Live Twice? Probably would be excoriated for yellowface amongst many other crimes as well as being generally cringe, but the 60s also were interested in Japan as a modern, post-war nation taking a role on the global stage. (The novel seems to be a little more complex in its exploration of Bond's character than the movie, which naturally was more oriented towards being in sync with the suave spy theme of the Bond movies).
HereAndGone
4mo ago
Sorry, but I have to smile at the idea of the world of the 90s being smaller. In one way, yes. Modern technology like smartphones and the Internet was not entirely ubiquitous, you could be out of reach of people trying to contact you from work or social reasons, and everyone had not put up every single detail of their real life on various platforms - Facebook was still in its prime, and many of the hot hip sites of those days have long vanished.
But Bond etc. were creations of the 60s, it was just as implausible in 1990 as in 2020.
Nostalgia has locked on to the 90s because a new generation is looking back at the simpler times when they were in their teens and life seemed easier to navigate, they weren't trying to handle adult responsibilities, and pop culture was what they consumed, not today when it is product for Gen Z or Alpha. People are talking about My Chemical Romance and the likes because those are the bands of their youth. I don't think I've ever listened to one of their songs, or if I have, I can't tell you which one, because that was not my era (I was just old enough when punk was kicking off and the New Romantics came along, followed by the rise of the indies, these are the bands of my nostalgia days).
In ten or fifteen years time, someone else will be writing nostalgically about how much simpler the world of 2020-25 was.
HereAndGone
4mo ago
Nostalgic recommendations from days gone by - Time Team videos up on Youtube.
It's so good to see these again, and I miss the old team. Educational, interesting, and fun pop archaeology broadcasting from the prime days of the 2010s (the show ran from 1994-2014). You can watch the cast members getting older over the years and it reminds me of happy days back in the 90s-00s watching the show with my late father.
Also, we talk about climate change today and hotter summers, but there were some blistering hot summers back in the 90s as well, and watching some episodes brings all that back!
HereAndGone
4mo ago
Tone moderating is tricky, I realise. Words on screen don't come through with fine shades of "is this lightly humorous or bitterly savage?" But it's a little tedious to get "your tone is bad" and nothing else. Why is it bad? Well, it made some people uncomfortable. And if some of those people made me uncomfortable? Well, suck it up, they didn't make the rest of us uncomfortable.
To quote Amadan, the fact that I am fighting youse guys is because I respect you. There's a lot of idiot shit out there online I don't even bother engaging with because it is so dumb and so pointless and would achieve nothing even to attempt engaging with it. I have higher opinion of this joint and the denizens thereof.
If I really hated you guys, I wouldn't even spit on you. That I bring jewels of former wisdom from the grave scholars of yore to lay at your feet is simply a token of my esteem!
HereAndGone
4mo ago
Do you even realize that the fact I am wasting time responding to your three (3!) responses to my one post is a gesture of respect that I fully realize will be both unappreciated and is largely undeserved?
I didn't read all your response because, frankly, too long. Sorry about that (and yeah, genuinely sorry).
You don't have to respond to me. I won't take it as lack of respect. Ignore it after you've had your say and imposed the punishment, if any. Don't get hung up on it, brother!
HereAndGone
4mo ago
HereAndGone
4mo ago
you're reinforcing the stereotype that most women are incapable of separating emotion from logic in debates
The amount of guys dropping back onto the fainting couch clutching hartshorn-soaked hankies to their brows is giving me immense entertainment, not gonna lie. I said mean words! How dare I say mean words! Mean words are hurtful!
HereAndGone
4mo ago
But see, here's the thing. The guys here are not marrying young highschool women in order to have her be a stay-at-home mom of six kids. They too want freedom, a career, and as much fun as possible before they settle down. So sauce, gander, goose.
HereAndGone
4mo ago
The real-world norm that a man does not push back against that sort of shit from a woman does not exist here.
And yet you men are as sensitive as the most hysterical Karen when it comes to push back on your shit views. Now, we could start yelling abuse at one another. Or you could mock my views by quoting idiot ultra-feminists of the past. I believe the 70s are rich and fertile ground for terrible hot takes in that area.
I won't mind it, even if Amadan feels the need to invoke the "avoid sarcasm" rule. I can take joshing!
Raillery, folks. Rediscover the lost art.
HereAndGone
4mo ago
I know about the craziness of some trans activists re: cis women (see all the good wishes they express online towards TERFs).
I expect crazy shit from crazy people. I don't expect it on here precisely because it's supposed to be where we can argue out positions with no holds barred (apart from rules around civility). So I'm smiling wryly at all the "you hate men, that's why you say this!!!!" from guys who were swapping opinions about how women should be deprived of personal choice when it comes to romantic relationships, access to higher education, the vote, age of marriage, number of children, confinement to the domestic sphere and other trivial little instances of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
HereAndGone
4mo ago
As a fat person myself, I've had the "it's easy to be thin" and "fatness is a moral failing" lines quoted at me, so part a joke, part the weariness of being judged as Watson allegedly judged fat interviewees.
HereAndGone
4mo ago
It might be, were it in response to someone who had just remarked about how they looked forward to economic circumstances that would force black people back into chains.
I am slightly amused by all the emotional response to what I said; there's a lot of hurt feelings rather than cool analysis, ironically enough in the accusations that I am crashing out, emotional, etc.
Odd, as I'm not sure biology is known as a high-paying field that draws in short men (surely that would be finance or something) but not objectionable.
I imagine the view there is "well, bio is full of women because the ladies, bless their little fluffy heads, aren't smart enough for real science like chemistry and physics, so a short guy will have a better chance there" mixed in with some "and since men are smarter than women, a guy in bio will hit the top of the profession, tenure, prizes, etc. faster and easier than competing against men in other disciplines".
Why not take advantage of anti-fat prejudice and get talented fatties at a steal?
Because fat people are stupid. If they were smart, they would not be fat. It is easy not to be fat, so if you are fat, it is because you are too stupid, lazy and greedy not to be fat. Everyone knows this!
HereAndGone
4mo ago
I really do just think people here who take a generally adversarial position against the whole site don't really grok that some of us do kinda identify with this place and how irritating it is to have people talk about how "the general attitude on" here
My friend, try being a woman on here when there's sixty versions of "yeah the wimmens is uppity and should be confined to the home and maybe don't even teach 'em to read and write". Serious discussions of how society went to the dogs once women got the vote.
I've got 20 responses so far that I haven't even read yet, and I'm betting 19 at least of them are going to be some variation on "you are WRONG because you HATE MEN" and of course good old tone policing, a term I never imagined I would use myself.
Imagine for yourself: it's terrible enough when the prevailing cultural view is "everything is the fault of straight white men" and "toxic masculinity" and "men are to blame for everything". I can sympathise with that! I hate that view myself!
And then I come on here, where at least expressing a conservative or right-wing view won't have me immediately tarred and feathered, and I hit up against "Good, then, gentlemen, it is agreed: women are the problem".
I mean, I could go screaming mad into the void. I could rail and curse and call names. Or I could be sarcastic about how views haven't changed all that much between 1905 and 2025. I'll get in trouble for the sarcasm, but for my part I think laughing at such views better on the whole than vitriolic ill-will and hatred for those expressing them.
HereAndGone
4mo ago
I should therefore quote Dr. Smith on the bad effects of too much education on men. Yes, it's bad for men too, it's just that it's worse for women.
Everyone on here telling me that he makes good points about the nature of women and decline of population even if it is couched in out-dated terms should be happy to find out how being educated has harmed them, right?
The Catholic church has, for many centuries, realized the importance of marriage and maternity in the upbuilding and strengthening of religious life in the community; and if the Protestant churches are not to be emptied of their male attendance, the protestant clergy must speak out in no uncertain tone against the present methods of education, which are turning out women by the thousands, with requirements so varied and so great that no young man can afford to marry them; a step, moreover, which he is deterred from taking by the discouraging report of those of his friends who have ventured to marry the women of their own class, and who have advised them, in the words of Punch : ' To those about to marry, don't.' Whether a man should marry or not is too often spoken of lightly and as a joke. But to those who believe in the immortality of the soul, and that the whole world avails nothing to a man if he loses it, the possibility of early and happy marriages becomes a question of the vastest importance and one which students of sociology, and the fathers of the nation should study with the most intense anxiety and care.
...The profession of teaching was once exclusively in the hands of the men, and it can not be denied that they have achieved some great results. But as education rendered an ever-increasing number of women unsuited for marriage, that is, unwilling to marry the available men, they invaded the schoolmaster's rank to such an extent that his salary has been cut down one half, and now he is unable to marry at all. Two well-known consequences have followed this state of affairs; first it is impossible to get men in sufficient numbers to become teachers for the boys' schools; and secondly, even big boys being taught by women, the effeminization of our men is gradually taking place. Although there are some instances of a mother alone having formed her son into a manly man, yet as a rule the boys require the example of a man's character to make them manly men. This subject has recently been dealt with in several elaborate papers by well-known educationalists, to whom it appears to be a real danger to the coming generation.
...What about the men? If the higher education prevents the women from being good wives and mothers, will it not prevent the men from being good husbands and fathers? To some extent it does, and in so far it is a misfortune, but to a much less extent than among women, for the simple reason that the man contributes so little towards the new being; while, on the other hand, high intellectual training enables him to win in the struggle for existence much better than if he were possessed of mere brute force. But nature punishes the man who has all the natural instinct cultivated out of him, just as it does the woman, namely, by the extinction of his race. For the struggle for existence among the highly educated men has become so keen, because there are so many of them, that great numbers of them are unable to earn a living even for themselves; while the supporting of a highly educated woman, with her thousand and one requirements, is simply out of the question. A president of a great company recently informed the writer that he had, in one month, applications from eighty-seven university graduates for a position equivalent to that of an office boy at fifteen dollars a month while out of one hundred millionaires, at least ninety-five of them are known not to have been highly educated; but, on the contrary, to have left school between fourteen and sixteen years of age. So there is such a thing as learning too much, without knowing how to do anything. Just as athletes may be overtrained, so men may be overeducated.
This great question has received the attention of one of the brightest men of our age — no less than the chief magistrate of the United States; while quite recently, in the British House of Lords, the Eight Reverend Dr. Boyd-Carpenter, Bishop of Ripon, from his seat in that august assemblage, has called attention to the lateness of the age for marriage and the diminishing birth-rate, foreseeing, no doubt, that these two factors would soon be followed by the emptying of the churches and the lowering of the high standard of British morals and character. The writer feels certain that, before long, this subject will receive the attention which it deserves from those who love their country and have the forming of its destiny in their hands. If he succeeds, by this or any other means, in drawing their attention to it, he will have fulfilled the object of his paper.
So gentlemen, the solution for the problem means:
(1) You should all convert to Catholicism
(2) You, too, should marry early for the salvation of your soul
(3) You should engender a large family (six to eight children)
(4) You should not let your sons be educated by female teachers as already in 1905 the rising generation of boys are all effeminate limp-wristed mama's boys
(5) You should not be over-educated, nor should you let your sons be over-educated. Avoid university if at all possible. Manual semi- and skilled work, or office work in business as future self-made millionaires, is the goal here for success in life. You know all you need to know by fourteen, now go out there and work!
(6) Marry early to young, ignorant, slightly stupid, possibly lower in social status than you, women who will be totally dependent on you for provision during wifehood, motherhood, and possibly widowhood and who will not have any views, opinions, tastes, or interests higher than maintaining her home and family. Presumably you seek out other men for stimulation of the intellect or just a conversation that is not about babies and furniture?
HereAndGone
4mo ago
Yes, but that was seen as a good thing. Instead of having thirteen children, eleven of whom would die in infancy, now you had four/three/two healthy children who would survive to adulthood, get an education, get a good job, and have families of their own.
What happened after that was a combination of "we would rather spend our youth enjoying ourselves and our adult years enjoying our money" dressed up with "it is immoral to bring children into this world due to overpopulation/nuclear weapons/climate change".
And men, as I have repeatedly pointed out, wanted that as well. They didn't want to be trapped into marriage with a clingy, dependent wife and a brood of kids, they wanted to sow their wild oats during the Sexual Revolution, settle down to marriage once established in a career, have a couple of kids (the raising of which would mostly be left to the wife) and then enjoy retirement travelling and doing fun things. Maybe skip the couple of kids and enjoy freedom and economic prosperity.
That is why I am kicking back against "it's all the fault of women, they shouldn't go to college, their fathers should marry them off at eighteen". The hell you thirty year old guys want a dependent on you full time wife and six kids, you want as many girls who will sleep with you and be sexually adventurous as you can get, then maybe a wife who earns money to contribute to the household herself and put off having kids to later or never.
And she was wrong, and cruel, and abusive.
But there's a particularly horrible case right now in Ireland, where a stepmother murdered the four year old stepson. While the father of the child was living in the house and did, apparently, fuck-all about his partner beating and starving the kid.
I'm furious about that, because what the hell? The social services certainly failed the child, she was a murderous bitch who has properly been convicted, but what the hell was this man doing? "Oh I don't want to make a fuss because she'll just blow up at me?" or even worse "So long as I get laid regularly, I don't care". He got jailed last year but for the love of God, what was going on in that home?
Yeah. I'm not happy reading the news today.
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