Bay 12 Games Forum

Um ._. Are you okay, Frumple?

M'fine, so far as that mess goes. Just occasionally offput by the aesthetics of bath products. It's easier to notice when I'm awake earlier than I want to be.

Fifty years ago pros: Stronger economy, less liberalism, more socialism, less toxic individualism, a people that wasn't dying off, functional police and legal system, less corruption, less organised crime, shrinking wealth discrepancy, shrinking class differences, and so on.

Eh. I'd give the less liberalism and more socialism, if question how much the former was actually a pro (assuming the european usage of the term, anyway; less of the american one was unquestionably not a pro) relative to conditions at the time. The messy bits of that stuff were just starting to take off around that point, far as I can recall, and the junk can be useful in small quantities.

Economy being stronger depends a hell of a lot on what you mean by that. It was certainly growing faster, but that only means so much at the end of the day. In most ways the economy today could bend the economy of yesteryear over its knee and snap it in half, and some of the ways it can't are probably for the better.

"Toxic individualism" is frankly an improvement considering what it's been supplanting, to the extent it actually exists. Yelled at or whatever's a fair bit better than getting the shit beat out of you for opening your mouth. Plenty of people (if you're talking ethnic groups) were dying off, and as a general thing the statement's bullshit unless you're thinking of a specific one -- humanity's population is still cheerfully rising, so our "people" are doing alright so far as propagation goes.

Police and the legal system were at least as fucked up back then. What's changed is awareness more than the rot in those particular sorts of institutions. Similarly corruption was sodding rampant, to the point most things these days are an improvement. It's just a hell of a lot harder to hide the shit and people seem to be somewhat less blaise about casual corruption.

Wealth disparity and class differences don't look like they were shrinking, either, or at the absolute least not much... holding steady, though, sure. Which I'd agree is an improvement if it weren't for the fact that that holding steady was apparently building the base for both of those to start shooting up in the 70s-80s. Organized crime I can't find info worth a damn on. Be pretty surprised if its influence has increased much relative to a half century ago, though. Raw size, probably, but most things have on that front what with the extra however many people piddling around.

Now pros: More cultural tolerance towards many peoples and groups, less institutional intolerance, scientific and technical advances.

Also decreased violence, heh. That tolerance stuff also involves reductions in a hell of a lot of asshattery, though it still has a helluva' ways to go on that front. The scientific and technical advances are friggin' huge, too; healthcare, all sorts of safety/comfort/etc. junk. Buncha' other crap, really.

Even as piss poor as my personal situation is in a lot of ways, it's better than it would have been just two or three decades ago, never mind a half century or better, and so far as racial et al characteristics go I'm pretty damn well off. Fuck da' police past, yo'. Ain't nobody then wanted to live there, either, or its crap would have hung on harder :V

Well, that may be the case when compared to a hundred years ago, that is true. The problem is when compared to fifty years ago, we are worse off, and heading in the unpreferable direction from there.

... no, fifty years back was pretty shit, too. I'm not even sure what metric you'd point to to make the claim things have gone downhill relative the 60s-70s. There's some isolated ones I can think of with a little thinking, but they tend to be offset by other stuff or specific to a fairly limited region.

There is a few things trending poorly over the course of the last five or ten years, and stuff like environmental damage is still accumulating even as awareness and attempts to mitigate the effects skyrockets relative to a half century ago, but... most places are still largely better off. You could probably get me to non-metaphorically bet on it just due to lead poisoning finally starting to get out our collective systems, ha.

It's difficult to understate just how shit the past was, really. Majority of the refuges I've seen to attempt to host the claim are founded substantially more in ignorance (i.e. the issue was still there and probably a bigger problem, we just didn't have the sodding information to know it statistics wise) than reality.

Florida, actually. Mind, it's conceptually possible it's one of those ones or something related. Exotic pets get loose from irresponsible owners fairly often in this state, though it's more of a thing further south than I am (i.e. where actual cities are).

My patience is remarkably short at the moment, but accommodating nonetheless! *throws a shot glass full of boiling tea at you*

"Why would I want to hire you, you're a killer!"

"I don't want a sermon, I want a job."

Uh. Just sayin', but I can't help but think "is murderer" is something that justifiably impacts employment conditions. Maybe. Just a lil'.

_{Ruddy westerns.}

On another note: I don't really understand why asexual would count as some persecuted sexual orientation, or why I've seen them described as "out and proud". Like, wtf? You're/they're above all that. Maybe I attach less importance to sexual intercourse than most people, but the idea of someone lacking an idea in sex really doesn't seem like a big deal.

It's a pretty big deal for a lot of folks, and can get some fairly notable social approbation dumped on someone to admit they're just not interested in screwin'. There's very much a perception of something wrong with you if you're not interested in sex, or a belief that you just haven't had the right sort of sexual encounter, and so on. I'd probably put it a bit behind atheism in how much social pressure admitting it can bring down on you. It's probably less likely to get you beaten or raped (maybe) than admitting to being part of the more regularly used LGBT acronym, but it can definitely net you some softer persecution.

Lacking interest in drug use has a good more number of outs, actually, from what I've seen, from a social perspective. Far less difficult to avoid confusion or disbelief from folks you're talking to if it's admitted.

EDIT: Also, why does LQBTQ not include an A for asexual, are we not people, do we deserve to be called "broken" for not wanting sex, to we deserve to be told we are just lying to ourselves?

sometimes it does, actually

There's like a baker's dozen of those acronyms. Some of them include wildcard symbols at this point.