THS relationship “projects” as an antivenom to Tinder culture

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Week 16

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Benchmark for Love.

Motion: THS relationship “projects” as an antivenom to Tinder culture
Role: Deputy Leader (gov.)

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It seems that Tinder is not bringing about the desired change in how people perceive and receive each other in love. Tales about how it is a dreary place abound. From creepy dates to ghosting to hookup disappointments to photo disasters, the app is not living up to its promise as the cybermarket of human relationships. E.g. following statements have been made about it: “people in open relationships go on it but have to go undercover, because their mutual friends do not like it”, “there is a nagging feeling that someone better could always come along” and “there is a surprising amount of LONG-MARRIED people on Tinder, looking for semi-erotic playthings”. Tinder operates on the principle: Amator quasi piscis, nequam est nisi recens. I have a novel solution beyond Tinder and I am presenting it here. It could be termed love project or project love, whichever way around.

Project in the Past: Woman Takes on an Alcoholic
What I’m on about is that people should start dating people who are on a lower level than they themselves as a whole, as GPA human beings. People should take people on who represent a challenge, in the way a couple take on a challenge when they buy a flat that will necessitate a thorough renovation before it becomes habitable for them. In the past, what this referred to was when a salaried, working woman hooked up with an alcoholic in the hopes of making a decent man out of him. In theory, it is easy to transform an alcoholic. Put him in the bath and have his beard, hair and sideburns cut and give him a new set of clothing. Buy him aftershave and give him Eau de Toilette. A different creature would emerge after this makeover. The bigger challenge, nonetheless, would be to stop him from drinking and going back to his bad, old habits. Setting him up with a cup of coffee is not enough after years of hard drinking.

What caused people to chuckle and laugh was the success rate: it was often shockingly bad. Women could not turn alcoholics into BF’s, flames or married husbands. They were often forced to give up on the guy after a few days, weeks or months. What needs to be borne in mind is this: there needs to be something, some quality about the projected human that is better or on a higher level than in the upper-hand party. It is a prerequisite for the latter to have a right amount of motivation to push through.

Project Where Roles Reverse: Man Takes on an Oversensitive or Poorly Educated Woman
Women with alcoholics is just one tried example. Men could also take on projects. They could begin to hang out with a woman who was shy and timid around crowds, events and individuals. If the man persisted and took the woman out sufficiently, to ice-hockey rinks, opera and rock concerts, at times ready to back off if she felt the need to flee, he might be able to transform the woman into a sociable being who actually liked to be at the centre of things. Likewise, the man, if and when educated at a seat of higher learning, could try to turn a woman with just a vocational school behind her into a Lady, who knew about etiquette, norms, theories and other stuff that is taught in an academic environment, something the man might have learnt decades or years ago, complementing also his sophistication thereafter.

And it would not have to stop there. Roles could be reversed. A young woman could date a so-called hikikomori or NEET, which means a young man who has given up on his hopes to become a taxpayer and retreated to his mancave at home with his parents, who’d take care of his material needs. The drawbacks of a hikikomori would be obvious to a girl, but the takeaway was that a hikky is usually intelligent and knows his way around IT, his main getaway. His company could be highly rewarding if the woman was endowed with the kind of mindset that appreciates thin recluses who are smart. Incels, on the other hand, it would be advisable to stay clear of.

Pros: They Are Far Easier to Get and Society Improves One (or Two) Individual(s) at a Time
What’s gratifying about choosing projects is that these people would not put up a fight in getting to know them. Few wanted them anyway. If someone did, the road would have been paved. When the better-equipped worked his or her magic, life of the other party would begin to improve. That would have a positive effect primarily on the individual and secondarily on society. And, if the initially stronger one persisted in the relationship, his or her life could also potentially be transformed in the form of a relationship that was based on something else than greed, jealousy and superficiality.

If people began to go down this path more and more often, Tinder might begin falling out of favour. Soon, one could only find black widows, catfishers, con artists, fitness queens, narcissists, pervoes and sociopaths on Tinder, something we have suspected all along, and better still, the app could become a veritable Rogues Gallery for the police to utilise, if and when only unsavoury people chose to remain there.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t). On tärkeää, etten tyhjennä pajatsoa toiminnallani. Minun pitää jättää poletteja myös muille joukkuetovereilleni. Jätän yhdelle mahdollisuuden väittää, että Tinder on täynnä kaupallisia prostituoituja ja seuralaisneitejä tuhmien setien lisäksi. En siis mainitse siitä. En myöskään mainitse MadTV:n sketsiä Lowered Expectations, joka käsittelee VHS-kasettien aikaista deittausympäristöä, missä pärjäsi aina paremmin, jos ei “toivonut liikoja”.

THB the 50’s, 70’s, 90’s and 10’s are not the best pop music decades

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Week 5

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CDs flourished throughout the 90’s.

Date: 28th Jan, 2020
Motion: THB the 50’s, 70’s, 90’s and 10’s are the best pop music decades
Role: Secretary (opp.)

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When I was in my teens and sitting on the bed together with my very first proper girlfriend, the talk turned onto music. We had a small conversation where she argued that the 70’s and 90’s are the best musical decades, whereas I held as my view that I was vastly more fond of the 60’s and 80’s. We both dismissed the 50’s with doo-wop and all that as the cradle of rock n’ roll, and did not spare it any thought, as it happened so long ago. And, at that point, the 90’s was the freshest decade, the ongoing decade. It was bold from my girlfriend to trumpet the merits of that decade, because it was not even halfway through. Apparently, she had already been so convinced by the exploits of the grunge generation and early Brit-poppers. I had been impressed, too, being at an impressionable age, but my perspective on history still told me that the 60’s mattered way more.

Looking back, now that there is more evidence and the 90’s is no longer the freshest decade, we may put the claims to the test again. I think that I was more right, from the perspective of today, here telling you why.

The 80’s Is the Centermost Decade Right Now
How long has rock ‘n roll been around? For 7 decades now. It has been around in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, 00’s and 10’s. And in that list, the 80’s is the middlemost decade. In the 30’s and 40’s, some musical phenomenon were recognizable as early precursors to rock n’ roll, but they weren’t called that yet, and what is more important, those musical results were not mass-produced and mass-distributed. Music to the Masses has long been the hallmark of pop music. Before there was rock n’ roll, the music of black people or people of colour was probably the closest thing that there was to rock. But it wasn’t rock yet.

In the 80’s, Major Things Peaked
If we think about my pet decade for pop music, it was the culmination of many a thing, a confluence of “rivers” as things and phonomena. A certain generation that reached maturity had been influenced deeply by the late 60’s hippie revolution and the late 70’s punk revolution and were now ready to make music on their own devices from their own premises. Technology reached a new high point in the 80’s, because synthesizers, sequencers, MIDI devices, digital effects, digital drum kits and keyboards of all shapes and sizes became mainstream. Mass-marketed and -produced, they also became available for the first time to musicians from working-class backgrounds. Sons to masons bought their very first electronics and let the music speak for itself. Last but not least, record companies had by then also become relatively affluent. The vinyl era had fattened their money reserves, as piracy was not at that point an issue that could have eaten away at their profits. Each year brought new money onto their accounts, which they in turn could invest in up-and-coming bands, their promotion, recording costs and advances. The whole microcosm of music was viable, vibrant and dynamic.

There are also other minor things that went just about right in the 80’s, such as the fact that all surviving physical formats (cassette, vinyl, CD, VHS, Betamax, cable TV, terrestrial TV) tended to flourish during that decade, and all of them contributed to the consumption of music. Satellite channels and MTV took care of the distribution of the newest and best music. Many record producers and studios reached maturity and the best phases of their lives and careers in the 80’s after their growing pains.

Decades of the Past Century Are Different to Those of the Ongoing One
What the eighties has in common with the sixties is that the music was outward-looking, communal, collective, colourful and also with an emphasis on the superficial or visual. In a way, it is easy to like the 60/80’s or 70/90’s in combination, but it is not so easy to continue that even/odd logic into this century. The 00/10’s also form a strong bond and resemble each other in a way they do not resemble any other past decade. Neither I or my ex-girlfriend would probably not, being of a certain cohort and era, be so well equipped to deal with the Aughts or Onesies from a musical point of view. I have no idea what she may have been up to pop-musically, but I at least have kept my finger on the pulse of pop. Save for circa half a decade (2006 – 2010) when I paid scant attention to pop, as a nadir of sorts, the two past decades of the ongoing century have produced artists and music beyond what radios play that I enjoy, endorse and educate myself with. Sometimes this means adding new music by tried and true artists, but just as often adding debuting music by new artists.

For all that, I realize that older-school music will hold its place in the pantheon of rock n’ roll, no matter what comes. The annals of rock n’ roll are a bit like a non-descript underpass in the eyes of a graffiti artist. Whoever gets to paint the ‘gray matter’ first appears like a hero in the eyes of his own posse and those of passers-by. The 80’s is still my favourite musical decade. And what year of the 80’s is my favourite year? It’s a tie between 1980 and 1981. Fittingly. I can’t resist listening to all that pre-cool smarts pressed onto vinyl from those years.

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Perustelu(t)/puolustelu(t): Liittyen siihen, että sihteerin pitäisi puhua puheessaan yleisestä ja yksityisestä, kuten aiemmin esitin, tässä olisi esimerkki yleistä ja yksityistä sisältävästä puheesta, kenkälusikoituna aloittajan ja edustajan väliin. Voidaan myös nähdä niin, että yhdellä tapaa menestyksekäs opponointi eli vastustus rakennettaisiin sillä yksinkertaisella logiikalla, että puheenjohtaja suitsuttaa 60-lukua, sihteeri suitsuttaa 80-lukua ja edustaja suitsuttaa 00-lukua. Whip ei suitsuta 20-lukua vaan tekee yhteenvedon muiden jutuista. Tämä kuitenkin edellyttää lievästi eri-ikäisistä koostuvaa, musiikista perillä olevaa porukkaa.