I’m not someone who thinks the past was this golden time when all the music and films and politicians were great but people think this because with stuff that came from the past you can pick and choose which to listen to or watch while with present stuff you’re stuck with whatever’s on at the particular time. Childhood was a happier time because we knew much less and this leads to people getting nostalgic thinking they were happy because of the alleged quality of the entertainment and because of all this happens they think that it’s fine to judge today’s entertainment by one’s present self while it’s fine to judge stuff from the past based on the standards of one’s younger self. I say this is both unfair and illogical. Since you can only live as your current self judge things by the standards of your current self. I also don’t see how people could miss decades where there was such hardship.
In spite of the 80’s being over with such a long time and not being that great anyway (early 80’s recession in the US and its videogame industry losing 98% of its value plus more debt racked up during one administration than all previous administrations COMBINED, early 80’s high inflation and mass unemployment in the UK and high inflation in the late 80’s there which caused the UK’s early 90’s recession, Ireland’s economy being weak for the entire decade leading to mass emigration and HIV going from a disease in only a few countries to a virtual death sentence worldwide and especially affecting groups who weren’t doing that well to begin with) the entertainment industry just can’t seem to let the 80’s die (Regular Show, The Internship, various 80’s bands reuniting etc.) I wonder if there was such nostalgia for the 50’s during the 80’s. That being said I’ll get to why things aren’t that great now.
This Century Sucks Too
9/11 And Aftermath
It would be quicker to post about what didn’t go wrong in the 00’s. Not only was 9/11 one of the worst disasters in history in of itself but the handling of it was terrible too. After 2,996 people dieing and 6,000 getting injured came the War On Terror which so far has got over 10,000 Americans killed and over 56,000 injured. In Afghanistan alone over 26,000 civilians died as a direct result of the war and in Iraq 174,000 people of which 112-123,000 were civilians. All this killing to prevent killing. It’s impossible to estimate how many people would have died were it not for the War On Terror but I doubt it would have been this many. There were also restrictions on civil liberties but again given the amount of people who died anyway they don’t seem to have been much use at the end of the day.
Recession
As if all of the terrorism wasn’t enough we just had to get the worst recession since 1928 and all for the pretty much the same reasons like the average Joe investing in a bubble wrongly expecting it to last indefinetly even though none in the past did and the governments not doing anything to stop the madness. Superficial booms then led to a recession of substance followed by a zombie economy (moving slowly and couldn’t quite be called alive but not stationary enough to be pronounced dead).
The Ruining Of The Internet
Youtube and meme sites were and still are infested with the new atheists (the old ones weren’t smug and polemical enough apparently) making hundreds of videos (each) all bashing religion and constantly praising the most extreme atheists (Harris, Dawkins, the late Hitchens and co.) plus saying stuff like churches should be taxed (they never say what the government would give churches in return) even though atheist organisations aren’t and the now tired old line “Religion is like a penis; don’t take it out in public and don’t shove it down anyone’s throat” all the while constantly flaunting their atheism on the internet; the most public space in world history and nowadays people’s definition of shoving things down people’s throats is so loose that it’s virtually meaningless. Also they would describe things as x then put x in quotation marks to show that they don’t believe in it even when x is a word that could have a religious meaning but doesn’t have to like when I saw a sign saying “Try our good coffee” with good put in quotation marks (even though good can just mean of high quality and in this case did), “Pure daycent” with pure put in quotation marks on a programme for Grease in Cork City and when news headlines would describe something as a miracle then put miracle in quotation marks and a man on youtube uploading a video called “Thank God it’s Friday” and putting God in quotation marks. If you don’t believe in something then don’t describe something as that you son’t believe in; it’s very simple. If that weren’t enough looking for historic events on youtube would (and still does) often turn up conspiracy theory videos peddled by libertarians or the Protestant fundamentalists. Apparently the New World Order, Illuminati and Catholic Church are to blame for absolutely everything that ever went wrong and looking up economics videos seems to always turn up capitalist videos when I just want the facts; I’m quite capable of being biased all by myself. On the internet you could come across anyone but judging by memes and videos and blog posts it’s mostly American liberal (new) atheists. Whatever the internet’s strong points diversity of opinion isn’t one.
Crap Politics
The 21st century in American politics so far almost reads like a manual of what not to do. I would say that Bush Junior was one of the worst Presidents of all time (top 15) what with the aforementioned recession and War On Terror happening during his watch. Obama promised hope and change but there was little of either. Not to mention that every presidential election this century has been disputed whether by people saying Bush’s wins were invalid because they claim he stole Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 or that Obama’s wins were invalid because they claim he was born in Kenya (and the spearhead of that movement was elected President in 2016!) and when Trump was elected there were protests as if that would change the result and even calls for California (or should I say Moonbatistan) to leave the United States (which would take 55 electoral votes away from the Democratic Party and make a Trump reelection much easier). The 2016 Democratic and Republican nominees were both among the least popular in history and 5 other people got electoral votes even though Colin Powell and Spotted Eagle weren’t even running. Meanwhile on the internet the American liberals would constantly complain about gay marriage and marijuana being either illegal or opposed all the while there were more serious issues (the aforementioned recession, terrorism and national debt) to discuss which were discussed less by these people. And of course it couldn’t be the case that if you’re opposed to these things that you would have good reasons; no it just had to be the case that you would be forcing opinions on other people (even though America’s Supreme Court forced gay marriage on even the States it knew full well wouldn’t support it and Brendan Eich was pressured into resigning from Mozilla because of donating money to Proposition 8 which banned gay marriage in California. Yep; that’s how it is with the supporters of gay marriage; if you oppose it they call you a bigot and homophobe (because all members of a group deserve to be tarred with the same brush as its worst members is the attitude people take when discussing politics) and will get you fired from a company for making a donation to a cause you support even if the company and cause have nothing to do with one another and the fact that ads in Ireland that aren’t about gay products or organisations have expressed support for gay marriage even 2 years after its legalisation here while there aren’t any ads opposing it). The liberals in America only support freedom, equality and tolerance for their people and their views but nobody else’s while the conservatives support heartless and greedy economics (Hardcore capitalism. More Centre-right economics can work very well however even for the less well off if the 1950’s are anything to go by) as well as warmongering. There was such talk about the various Occupy movements and the Tea Party but really it was just the same stuff that’s always being said being said by new organisations which didn’t achieve anything. What a waste of time.
In British politics meanwhile they kept going on about what they termed mass immigration. Well eventually I looked up the numbers for myself. Apparently 1% of the population immigrating to a country in a year is considered mass; 99% of the population are apparently being stretched to the limit trying to care of 1% of the population (if they said this in relation to wealth distribution I’d be more likely to believe it). The alternatives would be keep it extremely low like Japan which has an ageing and declining population so not only will a bigger share of people will be retired but there will be less income tax with which to maintain pensions or for the people already there to increase the birthrate; which tends not to happen in First World countries. Under Labour income inequality went up and their share of the working class vote went down and this is a party that was founded by trade unionists.
European Qoheleth's Thoughts 