Been spending most our lives living in a pastime paradise; churned butter once or twice, living in a gangsta’s paradise. Yes, the past is an era that we all hold dear in our gangsta hearts, the farther back, the better it was. Mankind has never quite regained its time of perfection, roaming the Garden of Eden with the original lifeforms: making friends with all the protozoa and plankton, grabbing a burger at the Chum Bucket. However, ever since that bimbo Eve ruined it for everyone humanity has only been getting worse and worse through the development of civilization, technology, and modern toilets. Today, we at Topz, are going to a take a look at a why it sucks to be us.
1950s North ‘Murika
Boy, the way Glenn Miller played, songs that made the Hit Parade. Guys like us, we had it made.
Those were the days! There was once a Golden Age in our history where the streets were peaceful, milk came in glass bottles, and the world was your oyster … provided you were a heterosexual, white man. Ever since the ’60s, reckless youths have been running amuck and causing a ruckus with their troublesome notions of rock music, civil rights, and women’s liberation. Everyone was happier when, as Archie Bunker points out, girls were girls and men were men. Women were much happier being auxiliary human beings to their male owners (be they fathers, brothers, or husbands), before they were burdened with reproductive rights, before marital rape was made illegal (1983), before those damned “feminists” had to ruin everything. As advocates of returning to these Happy Days will point out, it wasn’t sexist: it was separate and equally important “gender roles”. The same applies to racial and sexual minorities: surely they were also better off under the thumb of heterosexual, white people … somehow … afterall, they had milkmen delivering glass bottles! That would make a great Norman Rockwell painting! And let’s not forget that golden age of pooping: when janitors were totally disregarding the coloured bathrooms, the white bathrooms received a lot more attention!
18th and 19th Century Colonial America
As members of the Tea Party movement of our Southern brothers love to point out, the time of the Founding Fathers was an age to emulate. It brought about great social changes and unprecedented principles of freedom and equality. And it is in that revolutionary spirit that we must strive to stagnate and turn back time to the roaring 1700s. Yes we must try to return to a time when we held the truth self evident that all men are created equal … but some men are more equal than others (namely, heterosexual, white, male land owners). And they were kind enough to teach the Native Indians the importance of calling dibs. Calling dibs on human beings.
15th and 16th Century Renaissance
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles named after us is something we here at Topz dream about frequently (also furries). All it would take is to be alive during the oft-romanticized Renaissance, and be the first to draw Goro (also creating Mortal Kombat in the process). While you’re at it, why not become best bros with Leonardo da Vinci, a paranoid, dyslexic who made long lists of synonyms for penis, something you’ll never find in the UWaterloo Engineering. Best part is you get to live during the period of Europe coming out of the Dark Ages and into an era of secularism, rationality, and individualism … if you were rich (white male too, but that’s redundant) or if you served someone who was rich. Otherwise you would be one of the 95% of Europeans who didn’t realize anything was going on. As a bonus, you could meet all the famous people we read about in this history books, assuming you lived for centuries in the key locations of mutually independent events.
Medieval Times
For every man who fantasizes about being the namesake of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, there is a woman who fantasizes about being whisked away upon a white horse by a knight in shining armour. And people of all sexual proclivities can take heed the advice, “don’t let it be forgot that once there was a spot / For one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.” Yes, we often love to remember glowingly the time when a man would treat a woman right, such as by winning her in battle from another knight and “[taking said] lady or maiden in any way he desires without incurring shame or blame” (according to medievalist Richard Kaeuper). It was a time of honour, when the noble and chivalrous reigned over the wicked, crucifying and breaking them on the wheel for their numerous transgressions from theft to treason. We here at Topz have written to “Medieval Times: Dinner and Tournament” to see if they will start re-enacting lively medieval sports, such as nailing a cat to a post and having players try to beat it to death with their heads, evading the animals sharp claws. If they fail to get back to us, we’ll try our luck in Spain as the opening act of a bullfight.
Pre-State Societies
From Rousseau to Rand, many have warned us of the pervading force of governments and societies: be it for corrupting humanity’s nature docile state, or interfering a free market of everything. Yes, perhaps one day we, like the Eloi, will return to nature and live a more perfect existence. But for now we can only dream of living in a pre-state society, where the only governing forces were those of Mother Nature. In a free society, everything would be governed by mathematically optimized strategies: for example, imagine Edward and Wade are neighbours. Edward grows crops, while Wade tends to livestock. Forget about banks, interest, taxes, inflation, and all that jazz. Edward and Wade would reach an agreement of trade so that they could each have all their needs met. Now imagine one day Edward gets it in his head that Wade could kill Edward and have Wade’s son, Ammar, tend to Edward’s fields. While Edward doesn’t think that Wade is that kind of person, Wade is the kind of person that would think Edward the kind of person to kill for land and livestock. Therefore, the best course of action is for Edward to kill Wade so that Wade doesn’t kill Edward to prevent Edward from killing Wade. None of the “bureaucracy” of police, or lawyers, or government. And just imagine the defecation experience! Running out of toilet paper is a real nuisance, but leaves really do grow on trees!
The Age of the First Library of Alexandria
Lastly, we take a look at the greatest era of humanity: a society advanced and enlightened in every way possible, minus the sense of storing a backup. Now before you grab your Ancient Egyptian gear, you better sit your asp down. The burning of the Library of Alexendria during the time of Caesar and Cleopatra was actually the second time in our history that such a tragedy occurred. Many a gazillion millennia ago, a library (which was more like a data center) containing the entire world’s knowledge was burned down as well. It was collected in a time of peace and tranquility between man and machine (not yet women, let’s be realistic here, Susan B. Anthony and Peggy Olsen are still a few gazillion millennia away). This was a Utopia with advanced technology such as teleportation, flying cars, internet with no ads, massage pillows, heated walls, and even talking toilets. It is believed the reason Japanese toilet technology has advanced so rapidly in the last century isn’t due to aliens, but rather the rediscovery of the remains of the first Library of Alexandria. Although some scholars contest this account of the era, it is certainly less contrived that over romanticized depictions of time periods since.
The silver lining to living in the the modern age of humanity is that at least you have plenty to complain about. Join the chorus of the old complaining about the youths, each generation was right to say that their children were bringing about the end of decent society as we plunge further into depths of modernity. Since you think the present sucks and you love the past so much, why don’t you marry it? We offer our services to officiate the ceremony.
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