What’s your most controversial opinion? Read OP Mod Warning in Post #8023

kowloonkev · 25-04-2026 12:56PM

Automatic cars are not any more fun to drive in traffic to be honest.

Jack Daw · 25-04-2026 01:03PM

I can only drive an automatic as I spent years trying to learn on a manual transmission and couldn't crack it.I was also the last in my class to learn how to tie my shoelaces and the last to learn how to ride a bike so I suspect there's something not 100% right with my co-ordination.

Driving an automatic is so much easier and therefore probably safer aswell as fewer decisions need to be made so fewer mistakes can be made.

El_Duderino 09 · 25-04-2026 01:10PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124420747#Comment_124420747

Driving in traffic isn't fun with any kind of gears. Not really the point though, is it?

Badly Drunk Boy · 25-04-2026 04:20PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124420254#Comment_124420254

The people who can't get tickets…can use the money for their SKY subscriptions. (Not dodgy boxes).

El_Duderino 09 · 25-04-2026 04:34PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124421197#Comment_124421197

Of course they could. Doesn't answer the question in the post you quoted which was "Why exactly do you want to price normal people out of events?"

Hotblack Desiato · 25-04-2026 09:27PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124419177#Comment_124419177

The old Schrodinger's Immigrant shîte, who is both on welfare and "takin r jobs" at the same time!

I'm a lot, LOT happier with what Irish culture is today than with what it was in the 70s and 80s. Culture is not a fixed thing, there was no idyllic past, these are the lies that conservatives peddle constantly.

Hotblack Desiato · 25-04-2026 09:40PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124420393#Comment_124420393

I love driving a manual car, and motorbikes too.

The 'twist and go' on a whiny scooter CVT does not appeal at all. Plus they have no engine braking. You can't kiss the redline on an auto.

Drove an auto 3.5L Commodore from Sydney up to Cairns. It was meh. Would have preferred a manual tbh. Much of the engine power was lost in the slushbox.

JM2300 · 25-04-2026 09:41PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124420319#Comment_124420319

How is growth a scam?

El_Duderino 09 · 25-04-2026 09:48PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124422103#Comment_124422103

Sure. I understand that some people get pleasure from driving. I don't get it personally.

The pleasure I get from driving is getting where I want to go. The driving is just a chore. Changing gears is just an irritating, unnecessary job as part of driving.

How would you describe the pleasure you get from changing gears?

Ozymandius2011 · 25-04-2026 09:51PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124418235#Comment_124418235

Perhaps but I think over time, even immigrants birth rates reduce as they move up the economic ladder. Thats why the West still has declining birth rates after 60 years of immigration (30 years in Irelands case).

I think it is a reality that the countries with larger populations have more foreign policy influence.

While I support women's rights to work on equal terms with men, I think you can believe that, while also acknowledging it has contributed a lot to declining birth rates.

I think the solution to the pensions issue is autoenrollment, and maybe more of a role for the private sector. I think people having more children would help too, provided they work and pay taxes in Ireland when they grow up. I agree its not for the Government to order people to have more children. But they can tackle issues like the cost of childcare.

Also more remote working might help. I oppose governments trying to force workers back into workplaces. I think with the growth of AI, remote working also becomes more feasible. But it would clash with other vested interests like landed interests.

Hotblack Desiato · 25-04-2026 10:11PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124422125#Comment_124422125

It's a skill. Performing a skill correctly.

Do an advanced driving course, there's lots in there about how correctly using the gearbox enhances your driving

My dad (my mam never learned to drive until after he died) in the 80s used to take us out 'for a drive' often up the Dublin mountains. It's hard to imagine doing that on a regular basis these days, with my kids I've done it I think twice in all, and both times it was a struggle to find a parking space at the Hell Fire Club…

We also used to regularly "go visiting" on a weekend too, i.e. drop in unannounced on a relative. Who probably didn't have a phone to alert them on even if you wanted to. So, so unthinkable today 😀

Jack Daw · 25-04-2026 10:12PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124422065#Comment_124422065

You didnt read whst i wrote , you just wanted your little rant about people opposed to excessive immigration. Im not complaining about immigrants taking jobs. Im complaining about the pyramid scheme economics thst have been pursued by the west for the past 75 years that means immigrants have to be brought in purely to prop up the welfare state (that they end up taking from aswell)

Perpetual population growth is the economics that has been pursued by the world and its a load of bullshit ,there needs to be a change of approach to how the economy operates.

Culture changing around the world so that we eventually end up with one world wide mono-culture ould be a terrible thing , we have more of a mono culture today and it will continue to go this way , there will be a point in the future where there will be very little difference between the cultures of countries sround the world ,im not sure this is a good thing as it'll make the world more boring.

The one thing travelling abroad has shown me is how the uniqueness of each country/region/city should be protected at all costs ,"diversity " eventually leads of homogenisation.For example I love the fact that Montreal is different than Toronto as they have a very French inspired culture in Montreal and Montreal has a unique feel because of this. Toronto with its "diversity" on the other hand although nice is essentially no different than New York , Chicago, London etc and its less special because its so homogenised, you eventually get more world wide diversity and every city will be like Toronto, New York and the world will be less interesting. If Montreal wete to become more diverse it would lose its unique French inspired culture and become just like Toronto and this would mean it would be a less interesting city and the world would be a less interesting place.

ancapailldorcha · 25-04-2026 10:17PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124422106#Comment_124422106

Growth as a concept is a miracle. It's lifted countless millions out of poverty, caused the standard of living to skyrocket and it has made the world the best it's ever been.

I used the word "scam" because we live in a world where growth has spluttered and stalled. Meanwhile, people expect their investments, like houses, to increase in value perpetually. Therefore, we've become locked into a paradigm where we cannot invest in future growth because the middle classes of today will not allow it. House prices can never go down. If people don't have more children to prop up demand as is happening (The UK has a higher death rate than birth rate now), we must allow immigration to prop up that demand.

What's going to happen in a few decades when millenials can't afford to retire? Who pays the pensions (which must also be perpetually increasing)? Who's going to man the care homes? I suppose we'll find out.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124422130#Comment_124422130

Absolutely. Pavel from Poland might have moved to Dublin with the best of intentions but he doesn't get a discount on renting in Dublin so he's subject to the same financial demands as any other immigrant, expat or native Irish.

Autoenrollment is a terrific idea but it isn't a solution. For political reasons, pensions must always increase and societies are ageing. Some more than others.

People have fewer children for various reasons. Women have options, the world is safer, the increasing cost of living, no need to compensate for high mortality, development, etc… The problem is that nobody's properly taxing big corporations. That's literally billions a year left on the table to nobody's benefit. Cheaper childcare would be nice but someone has to make that shortfall up.

I view the growth of AI with extreme scepticism. The people who own this technology are not benign actors. I'm delighted that the EU is finally standing up to US big tech and the toxic consequences of its dominance.

Ozymandius2011 · 25-04-2026 10:21PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124422181#Comment_124422181

The solution to the dominance of US AI is to create an AI-friendly environment for European IT companies.

We have a tendency in Europe to tar a sector (e.g. Social Media) with the same brush because of excesses of US companies. The solution is not to shut it down but to regulate it, and this is easier if the companies are EU-based. If they are US-based, its harder to regulate because their servers might be in the US and given the ties of the CIA with Silicon Valley might have spyware in them for economic and other espionage.

ancapailldorcha · 25-04-2026 10:33PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124422187#Comment_124422187

Agreed. AI is here to stay so best make peace with that.

Ozymandius2011 · 25-04-2026 10:36PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124422210#Comment_124422210

Ireland should also support the proposal from some big states for a EU Capital Markets Union, though we should try to make it as free market as possible and not biased towards big states. This will help Irish companies have IPOs across 27 countries. Then when we have European giant AI companies, we can regulate them.

JM2300 · 25-04-2026 10:39PM

I'm not seeing how growth has spluttered and stalled. Over the long term growth has veen phenomenal. The last 200 years in particular has been amazing for growth.

El_Duderino 09 · 25-04-2026 11:23PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124422171#Comment_124422171

I can change gears. I just don't get pleasure from doing it. I've no intention to do a driving course to learn to use gears for fun. I don't get pleasure from using windscreen wipers or indicators either. They're just necessary to drive from A to B. Gears are just a completely unnecessary job which can be automated.

Sounds like they're being phased out in this part of the world so it's just a matter of time.

cj maxx · 25-04-2026 11:47PM

Wait until you have to jump one

PTH2009 · 25-04-2026 11:52PM

No including the last 18 years or so but you have to respect some of the grest British Prime Ministers of thr past

Winston Churchill was a remarkable human being

JM2300 · 26-04-2026 07:48AM

In my opinion one of the key drivers of the invention of marriage was to give ordinary men a chance to have sex. Men who don't have a chance to have sex are not people you want in society, they're destructive rather than productive.

The problem was that most men are not sexually attractive to women. This is nobodies fault, it's just a result of evolution. Eggs are expensive, sperm is cheap, therefore it makes sense for women to only be attracted to a small minority of men who are the best.

The marriage contract is a way of engineering the chance of sex for a greater portion of men. This means that most women marry men they don't find attractive. It's no surpise then that many married couples have passionless sex once or twice a month. This is one of the costs of a wealthy productive society, bad sex.

pgj2015 · 26-04-2026 09:46AM

Sex and women are way too important to most men, this is a huge mistake, men throw their lives away over the promise if it with some woman who will likely stop having it with them after a few years of marriage.

women may marry men who they are not attracted to but id say a lot of men age better than their wife as well so the men are less attracted to her after a few years marriage in a lot of cases.

id say a lot of people would be happier single but they go with the flow and get married because they think its the thing to do.

I would never get married for lots of reasons, I don't even like seeing anyone these days. im too focused on my business goals and other plans, women only get in the way of them.

Hotblack Desiato · 26-04-2026 12:56PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124422174#Comment_124422174

Blather. Cultures are always changing and evolving, it's people with a highly negative view of the world who want things to always stay the same. That's impossible though, so we end up with "old man yells at cloud".

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124422187#Comment_124422187

It doesn't matter where the servers are, EU laws like GDPR apply if you do business with EU citizens.

Most of these firms' EU operations are regulated here in Ireland. Billions in fines issued - not collected, still under appeal - and a lot more to be done, but they're going to learn that they can't just do what they want.

Hotblack Desiato · 26-04-2026 12:58PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124422231#Comment_124422231

Yep. People look at the paltry interest rates on offer in demand accounts and proclaim that there is no growth. They should be looking at equities.

Also the PBP-esque claim that corporate profits don't benefit anyone. They benefit shareholders. That's anyone with an equity investment or a pension.

Hotblack Desiato · 26-04-2026 01:01PM

Adi Roche is a complete fraud. She has the usual moany article in the Irish Times about Chernobyl, an accident that was impossible in the West. Going on about iodine-131 and disingenuously leaving the reader the impression it's still around 40 years later - in reality it had all decayed away within weeks.

Her whole 'charity' is based on a false premise, that somehow all of the ills of the children of the region are to be blamed on something that they were never exposed to.

Mother Shaboobu · 26-04-2026 01:07PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124422502#Comment_124422502

"Most" women do not marry men whom they don't find attractive. They did when marriage was forced on them, but it's 2026.

JM2300 · 26-04-2026 01:24PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124423008#Comment_124423008

They still do in my opinion. Most men aren't attractive to women so there aren't enough attractive men for women to marry. Do if they want to settle down and have a family most have to settle for a man they don't find attractive.

Rocket_GD · 26-04-2026 01:39PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124423034#Comment_124423034

Seems like you’ve a bitter view of women based on personal experience.

Mother Shaboobu · 26-04-2026 01:44PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124423034#Comment_124423034

You said "most" though. Some do yes when the clock is running out, but most? Evidence of that would be needed. Opinion doesn't come into it - it's either the case or isn't, and it definitely isn't most from what I've observed.

Ahcrod · 26-04-2026 01:58PM

I think that the provision of electricity supply should be taken back under national control. It was a very bad idea originally to farm it out to private concerns and was sold to the people with a lie: that competition would reduce the price. It was already being sold at virtually cost price and having individuals pocket some of the profits was simply going to increase the cost, not to mention the nonsense about a free unrestricted market was giving permission to those individuals to price gouge.

What’s your most controversial opinion? **Read OP** **Mod Warning in Post #8023**

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What’s your most controversial opinion? Read OP Mod Warning in Post #8023