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Yeah, this. A man used to be undressed without a knife in his belt. Literally you did not leave home without a sharp bit of metal in case you had to stick it

Yeah, this. A man used to be undressed without a knife in his belt. Literally you did not leave home without a sharp bit of metal in case you had to stick it into another human being, typically because they were trying to do the same to you. Remember Romeo and Juliet? The Mont. and the Cap. boys were not lower class yobs. Fighting in the street with freaking swords was their golf. - - - - One of the unspoken fears that we men have is the knowledge that the women and children don't really need us. They like us and love us but they don't need us. Not in a civilized "Star Trek" world, which is the sane result that we are all striving for (right? right?). With modern technology they don't even need us to reproduce. In the extreme (usually only talked about in Sci-Fi and hyper-feminist manifestos) men are a luxury or a fetish. (In case it's not clear, I'm putting this out there for the sake of stimulating discussion. I'm not a man-hater on anything like that. Heck I am a man, and I like being one. However, the point above still stands: once you break down traditional marriage in a technological society, men are not necessary.)

mmplxx 4y ago
You sound as if your premise were that all there is to do is reproduce.
- carapace 4y ago
  My premise? It's hardly news that sex (and death) drive pretty much all of what we call civilization, eh? I mean, you've heard of DNA?
dTal 4y ago
>Remember Romeo and Juliet? The Mont. and the Cap. boys were not lower class yobs. Fighting in the street with freaking swords was their golf. I mean, they were also fictional characters in a dramatic play about murder and suicide. I'm not sure it's safe to extrapolate broad cultural trends from that.
- carapace 4y ago
  > I'm not sure it's safe to extrapolate broad cultural trends from that. Then it's a good thing that I'm not doing that. I'm not extrapolating, I'm referencing an example (however fictional, I don't think anyone has accused the Bard of a lack of verisimilitude?) that should be familiar to most people here. Are you arguing that all those knives and swords were merely decorative? That men solved their problems with, I dunno, words rather than weapons? Isn't that kinda the whole point of human history: learning to use words instead of sharp bits of rock or metal?

mmplxx 4y ago

You sound as if your premise were that all there is to do is reproduce.

carapace 4y ago
My premise? It's hardly news that sex (and death) drive pretty much all of what we call civilization, eh? I mean, you've heard of DNA?

dTal 4y ago

>Remember Romeo and Juliet? The Mont. and the Cap. boys were not lower class yobs. Fighting in the street with freaking swords was their golf. I mean, they were also fictional characters in a dramatic play about murder and suicide. I'm not sure it's safe to extrapolate broad cultural trends from that.

carapace 4y ago
> I'm not sure it's safe to extrapolate broad cultural trends from that. Then it's a good thing that I'm not doing that. I'm not extrapolating, I'm referencing an example (however fictional, I don't think anyone has accused the Bard of a lack of verisimilitude?) that should be familiar to most people here. Are you arguing that all those knives and swords were merely decorative? That men solved their problems with, I dunno, words rather than weapons? Isn't that kinda the whole point of human history: learning to use words instead of sharp bits of rock or metal?