
Who Killed Men's Hats? Think Of A Three Letter Word Beginning With 'I' - protomyth
http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/05/04/152011840/who-killed-mens-hats-think-of-a-three-letter-word-beginning-with-i
======
jaysonelliot
I'm surprised at the lack of discussion around the correlation between the
decline of the hat and conformity and formality of appearance in general.

Prior to the 1950s, most men dressed in a uniform fashion. Your appearance
might vary depending on your class, but within social classes, one man looked
pretty much the same as the next. A neatly trimmed haircut and a suit were
standard everyday wear, and a hat to go with it.

After WWII, the 1950s saw the invention of the teenager. Youth culture was
more prominent than ever before, thanks to many factors, both social and
technological. As those teenagers entered the workforce, they were filled with
new ideas about individuality and style. Along with the Baby Boomers ideas
about style also came changing ideas about hats.

The change didn't come overnight, of course, but by the time JFK became
president in 1961, you could see a definite trend away from hats and suits and
every man's hair cut well above the collar. It would take another decade or
more for hats to really fade out, more or less along with the decline of suits
in general.

Take a look at this film from 1967, How to Succeed in Business Without Really
Trying: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJgaaAfhR5I>

Watch for the crowd scenes in Manhattan at the beginning. You'll see a lot of
hats, just not as many as you would have seen on the street ten years earlier,
but far more than you'd see in a crowd scene from the same area in 1977.

There was no single cause for the decline in men's hats, and it didn't happen
all at once. Stories like "it was Ike with the interstates" are appealing and
make good cocktail party conversation (although I suppose the cocktail party
died along with the hat, now that I think of it), but reality is usually not
that discreet and simple.

~~~
diminish
Also hats add useless complexity, together with ties, foulards, business
suits. The question is what disappears next?

Watches? I am not wearing any since I started to carry phones.

~~~
jwhite
They're not altogether useless. They keep the sun off your face and neck,
which can be very useful in some climates. In Australia, where I live, a hat
is now a compulsory part of every school child's uniform, and they are
expected to be worn in the playground, because we have very high rates of skin
cancer here. I don't know if that will translate into adult fashion or not. It
might be too early to tell.

I suspect watches may diminish but will always be around because they signal
status in a way that hats don't.

~~~
Zev
One doesn't need a Vacheron in order to be able to wear a watch.

~~~
enko
It's not (only) a symbol of wealth. Within limits, any reasonably classy watch
will do. But wearing one is self-selecting into a certain group - someone who
cares about the details, cares about time, wants to make a good impression.

I don't want to overstate the point, but I definitely notice a nice timepiece,
just like I notice well cut clothes, cufflinks, good shoes, neat hair, an
elegant piece of jewellery, any number of things people can do to make an
effort. It's signalling, and it does make a difference, for better or worse.

------
rmason
My 96 year old dad says it was definitely JFK's influence. What JFK did was
bring about a change in American men's fashion.

Then why did the change occur world wide where mass transport was still the
major transportation source?

One word: Hollywood. If you check out the movies of the time in an eighteen
month period men stopped wearing hats. Those American movies spread the
fashion change world wide. Sorry, but Eisenhower had nothing to do with it.

~~~
mbreese
Since you bring up Hollywood, there is another theory that might help explain
it.

With the rise of movies then TV, you had more people seeing men on screen
without hats. Why? Because it's difficult to properly light a man's face while
he is wearing a hat. The lights must be somewhat above the actors, so a hat
causes a shadow across his face. If you want to see the man's face, then he
can't wear a hat on camera. So, once you have the trend setters removing hats,
then people get more used to the idea of seeing a man's head sans chapeau.
News anchors still dress nicely in suits, so they would still be somewhat
formal, even without the hat.

If this were the case, it would probably start to show the decline of hats
earlier than the rise of automobiles, in the 1930's or so, so this theory
could be tested separately from the rise of the automobile.

~~~
dhughes
Also the undershirt went away after who was it Brand or someone like what
didn't wear one in a movie .

------
rdl
One of the weirdest things I noticed about the military was the hat fetish --
all the rules about when a hat could or could not be worn (basically, all the
times outdoor it was mandatory, except in certain uniforms; indoors, only if
you were "under arms", which is distinct from just being armed), the fight
over whether an elite (Ranger) black beret would get used by everyone, "no
hat" zones outdoors (no hat/no salute areas where officers were in high
density, and also in places where hats could be blown off and into critical
equipment, like near aircraft), fights over whether an authorized hat (the
boonie hat) would be authorized on specific bases, etc.

Outside of occupational hats (hard hats, etc.), the military is probably the
last real holdout of hat use in the US.

~~~
briandear
Those rules are not arbitrary. They're based on training soldiers to wear
protective headgear without thinking. The hat requirement outdoors is because
it's designed to create an innate awareness that will protect you in a combat
zone. You never ever leave cover without your Kevlar helmet in a combat zone.
The 'hat' is a representation of that protective headgear. The rules are
designed to instill discipline that could keep you alive in a war zone. It
certainly isn't rooted in fashion. Like nearly all military traditions and
procedures, hat rules are there for a reason even though it may appear
arbitrary to those who have never served.

~~~
philwelch
Wait, seriously? That sounds like a "just-so" story, and I'm gonna have to
call bullshit on it. The tradition of wearing a cover ("hat") as part of one's
uniform both predates and extends far beyond any practical necessity to
instill helmet discipline.

I mean, sure, it creates a bit of an instinctual reminder to put something on
your head when you go outside, so it's _helpful_ , but that doesn't mean that
was the original rationale, especially when the same regulations apply to guys
who spend their days staring at a radar scope in CIC or something. And let's
be honest, lots of military traditions are kind of arbitrary (like the part
where if you're walking with someone, the senior ranking person is on the
right hand side--what, do you get shot at more often from the left hand side?)
Having to adapt to a bunch of arbitrary traditions might have some benefit in
discipline or something, but each individual tradition isn't necessarily there
for a practical reason. Especially when a bunch of those traditions are
actively dropped in combat zones--i.e. you don't salute so they don't know who
to shoot at.

~~~
kcl
It does sound like a just-so story. Whether it is or not I couldn't say.
Military thinking is often so complex that it can be hard to derive the
rationale behind any particular practice, if indeed there is one. All military
edicts are the result of conscious decisions, but the hard part is in
determining why that decision was made. Was it arbitrary, was it for a
conscious reason, or was it seemingly arbitrary but actually the result of
far-reaching, emergent military understanding? I can think of several military
practices which seem inane and even internally self-contradictory which are
most likely preserved by a large-scale probabilistic understanding of their
effects. Sometimes bureaucracy is smarter than individual people.

It is dubious, but I wouldn't absolutely rule out the hat edict as having a
purpose. Remembering to wear something on your head is definitely an
acquirable muscle memory.

> like the part where if you're walking with someone, the senior ranking
> person is on the right hand side--what, do you get shot at more often from
> the left hand side?

This example, on the other hand, probably is the result of conscious,
practical decision making. You are better positioned with your sword arm free.
It seems reasonable that the senior ranking person would insist on walking on
the side that allowed them to have their sword arm (pistol arm) free in case
of attack.

You can build a ramp around a tower in two ways. One direction puts your right
hand on the side open to the air. The other pins it against the tower wall.
Towers were built so that the direction of the ramps encircling them allowed
defenders at the top to have their sword arms free to the open air. Attackers
coming up with the ramp would have their sword arms inhibited by the face of
the tower. You can verify this by inspecting the construction of the towers.

------
bane
Just as important, I'd add that about the time that hats stopped being
fashionable, the suit, as the regular wear of men in most occupations most of
the time, started to end.

I still find it odd to see old pictures from a century ago with everybody
wearing jackets, vest and ties _everywhere_ , even in some labor jobs (at
least vests)!

e.g. hunters
[http://www.huntersgardenassociation.com/1900%20thru%201948.h...](http://www.huntersgardenassociation.com/1900%20thru%201948.htm)

miners <http://japanfocus.org/data/j.miners.1900.gif>

mechanics <http://users.senet.com.au/~mitchell/lewis/cars/html/car1.htm>

boxing [http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/english/on-line-
exhibits/sport...](http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/english/on-line-
exhibits/sports/pics/2336_boxing_820.jpg)

------
pg
There was plenty of driving before the interstates. In the unlikely event this
explanation is correct, it should be easy to test: compare the graphs of car
and hat sales.

~~~
bane
Is this going to end up similar to a pirates vs. global warming graph?

As hat wearing went down car sales went up?

~~~
mikescar
It's probably not a waste of time creating a graph that might increase
understanding and create better questions?

~~~
bane
Not to be too funny, but humans are great at finding patterns in pictures that
don't exist.

<http://static.flickr.com/54/139092366_ce5b410228_o.jpg>

------
mike_esspe
I think this explanation fail to explain why hats disappeared in Russia, where
cars were not ubiquitous until the fall of USSR.

~~~
planetguy
Yep. Also fails to explain the significant decline of all the _other_
accoutrements of the early 20th century's well-dressed man, such as the
waistcoat, the tie, and the suit.

It's more of an overall long-term casualisation trend in society from the
Victorian era through to today, reflected not only in clothes but also in
speech and manners. It seems to me that we _might_ have hit rock bottom in the
1990s and started clawing our way back up, but maybe that's just the circles I
move in.

~~~
raganwald
I agree about the casualisation. Especially ironic: People who wear tee-shirts
to work complaining about today’s youth wearing trousers so low that their
boxer shorts are hanging out. As if, you know, wearing an undershirt as
outerwear in public is somehow more dignified than wearing underpants as
outerwear in public.

~~~
Ralith
> As if, you know, wearing an undershirt as outerwear in public is somehow
> more dignified than wearing underpants as outerwear in public.

Of course it is. Tee-shirts are now conventional and perfectly acceptable
outerwear in most circumstances. Underpants aren't.

~~~
recursive
What defines acceptability? The fact that enough people are doing it or accept
it?

~~~
planetguy
Well, yes. The fact that if you walk around with only a t-shirt covering the
upper half of your body then people say nothing whereas if you walk around
with only a pair of underpants covering the lower half of your body then
people say "ugh, good god, put some fucking pants on, dude!"

This is not a random arbitrary social choice, either; if you're showing your
underpants then you're not far away from showing other stuff we really don't
wanna see. That's why the social convention is that you need _two_ layers
downstairs and one layer upstairs to be considered dressed.

If your next question is "yes, but _why_ do people object to seeing strangers'
genitals?" then I could point you at some ev-psych just-so stories, but the
answer is "we just do, okay?"

~~~
epochwolf
> That's why the social convention is that you need two layers downstairs and
> one layer upstairs to be considered dressed.

Unless you're going to a beach then you really only need the underpants. :D
(Unless you're at a nude beach, then clothing is optional or frowned on)

Not being trying snarky, just pointing out that it's actually a bit arbitrary.

~~~
Drbble
At the beach it is n-1 top and bottom.

------
defdac
As a Swede I don't know who "Ike" is:
[http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_was_President_Eisenhowers_nick...](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_was_President_Eisenhowers_nickname_Ike)

------
Mz
Nice analysis. I love this kind of analysis of social phenomenon. But I will
add that not only do cars make hats inconvenient they also make them less
necessary. You spend less time standing around or walking around outside when
you drive, especially if you have a garage. So you spend less time exposed to
the elements, like sun, wind and cold. I will suggest this might help explain
why hats were less common for women: They were more likely to be homemakers or
do "pink collar" jobs. So they probably generally spent less time outdoors
than men.

We still have men who wear hats at work but we typically don't mistakenly
think of it as a fashion choice because they tend to be hard hats or otherwise
clearly utilitarian. Much of what we view as mere fashion has either a
utilitarian purpose or a utilitarian origin that has since been forgotten.

~~~
smacktoward
If you're interested in this story, there's an excellent book on the subject
titled _Hatless Jack: the President, the Fedora, and the Death of the Hat_
([http://www.amazon.com/Hatless-Jack-Neil-
Steinberg/dp/1862077...](http://www.amazon.com/Hatless-Jack-Neil-
Steinberg/dp/1862077827/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336254444&sr=1-1))
that investigates the death of the hat as a mandatory fashion accessory for
American men in much more detail. Highly recommended.

~~~
bergie
Thanks for the link. As a man who has worn hats for past fifteen years, this
would've been interesting. Shame that there is no Kindle version...

------
untog
No. Men's hats were killed by sunglasses (better at keeping out the sun) and
umbrellas (better at shielding from rain).

Don't me wrong, I like a good hat. But there are less exciting reasons why
people stopped wearing them.

~~~
martey
Wikipedia says mass-produced sunglasses were introduced in the US in 1929.
Umbrellas have been used to keep off rain since at least the 18th century.
Both of these times are significantly earlier than the decline of the hat in
America.

~~~
hammock
Well if untog's theory is correct, you certainly wouldn't expect them to come
_after_ the decline of the hat.

------
tveita
I searched for presidents in hats and I got this:

<http://www.snopes.com/history/american/jfkhat.asp>

Contrary to myth, JFK wore his hat prominently during his inauguration.

------
losvedir
"Hats" are still going strong here in Bahrain. To me, the clothing is one of
the most visually interesting aspects of my visit. All the women wear the long
black dresses and black head scarves and all the men wear long white dresses
and either white or red+white head scarves. (Abayas and hijabs for the women,
thobes and ghutras for the men).

It makes sense since it's sooooo bright. As I've walked around here for the
last month I've really wanted to have the light full-body garment they have
and the head wrap to keep off the sun, but I'm afraid it might be
weird/disrespectful to wear it.

~~~
Semiapies
Might be worth asking someone if that'd go across OK.

------
WalterBright
I wear a hat because my dermatologist told me I'd better, while she was
carving chunks of flesh out of my forehead.

I've since discovered that a wide brimmed hat makes walking in the Seattle
rain quite pleasant.

------
paulsutter
Interesting theory. Regardless, I'll quote P.J. O'Rourke:

"A hat should be removed upon greeting a woman, and remain off for the rest of
one's life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat".

I'm only half kidding. Hats were probably more functional when bathing was
less frequent. Unless you spend a lot of time in the bright sunlight or out in
the cold, today there is little reason to wear one so now they just look
silly.

~~~
noduerme
C'mon. PJ O'Rourke? Is that supposed to be some sly, postmodern reference to
retrograde '80s culture or just a Yuppie twitch? If that guy had his way,
Reagan would still be president, Alzheimer's and death be damned. PJ O'Rourke
should probably be the last person on earth you consult for fashion advice,
short of the Pope, whose bathing habits aren't available to us mere mortals,
but who has at least one die-hard fan left...

In all seriousness, hats are great; like anything else, they'll see a comeback
when the pendulum swings the other way. I smoke a pipe and shave with a
straightrazor, when I don't have a beard (which is most of the time). I think
I'll buy myself a good hat one of these days just to bring it back and prove
old PJ wrong.

~~~
planetguy
P. J. O'Rourke is an old curmudgeon, and old curmudgeons give the _best_
advice.

~~~
caf
Yes, but they also give the _worst_ advice; the trick is distinguishing the
one from the other.

------
abhaga
A similar trend is visible in India too. Headgear(type varying by the region)
was quiet an essential part of the dressing. There are parts where a lot of
men still wear headgear (rural Maharashtra for example). But it is gone from
majority of population.

Given that we neither had a switch to private vehicles in 50s nor JFK, there
has to be a more globally applicable explanation for this!

~~~
nsns
The rise of the middle class, and adoption of Western lifestyle and values?

------
LeafStorm
Oddly enough, I think that men's hats may be making a resurgence among the
younger generations. Granted I don't have solid data to back this up, besides
a lot of people who I have seen on campus (myself included) regularly wearing
hats. Many of these are black fedoras, so Notch may be slightly responsible.

~~~
unimpressive
>so Notch may be slightly responsible.

I have seen a similar phenomena. I assure you that none of these people have
seen a picture of Notch.

The fedora/trilby/etc could be better said to have simply never gone
completely out of style. It's popularity just seems to ebb and flow like the
tide.

------
raldi
I think it's due to less time spent outdoors in general, particularly less
time on long outdoor walks. If you're exposed to the elements for a long time
on a hot day, or a cold one, a hat definitely helps. So as we spend more time
indoors, or in climate-controlled vehicles, we have less need for them.

------
joelbirchler
Hats aside, Emma Goldman was an anarchist not a socialist.

~~~
heretohelp
Fighting an uphill battle in getting people to recognize an economic ontology
that isn't comprised of "Capitalism" and "THE OTHER GUYS!".

------
bdunbar
My half-baked theory: it's hair.

Lots of hair and hats don't go - the hat feels wrong, wears wrong. If your
hair length fluctuates your hat size changes. A hat that fit you last month no
longer fits right.

Keep your hair habitually short, and hat wearing is more practical, and
comfortable.

~~~
philwelch
1961 was too early for hair to be that long then. Sure, maybe the
counterculture was starting to get shaggy, but longer hair didn't really come
into its own until the late 60's and 70's. And by the 00's it had pretty much
gone away.

~~~
bdunbar
Point taken.

But I didn't have in mind 'hippie hair' but even moderate length hair. For me,
any hair that hangs down below the level of the hat brim makes a hat
unwearable.

But I was brainwashed by the Marines, so my mileage may vary.

~~~
philwelch
Well yeah, but Beatlemania didn't start until the late 60's (the Beatles came
to America in 1964) and at the time their haircuts were considered
scandalously shaggy. If you think of the range of hair lengths, for men, in
1961 it wasn't much different from what's acceptable in the military or in the
1950's. But in the 1970's, shaggy Luke Skywalker hair was fairly normal,
moreso than it is today for instance.

------
adamc
My dad was a young man when he fought in WWII. Looking at photos of him after
he left the service in 1946, he never wore a hat. And looking at his friends
in the photos, most of them aren't wearing hats either.

I wonder if the reason JFK didn't wear a hat was... many individuals of his
generation didn't particularly care for them. JFK was the first individual of
that generation elected to the presidency.

Which doesn't necessarily mean JFK had no influence. But I wonder whether it
was part of a bigger pattern.

Obviously can't prove anything from an anecdote, and I'm not sure where you'd
get the marketing data to do more... but it would seem that if younger men did
resist buying hats, retailers at some level would probably have known.

~~~
nosse
Maybe the hat-killer was the discomfort of steel helmets in WWII. Any movie
from that war, and all the guys are taking their helmets of all the time
because they are annoying.

------
spiritplumber
Team Fortress 2 of course. Think about it: it's set in the mid-1960s. Clearly
enough the world's hat were diverted to the Teufort area that prices elsewhere
went up enough to make wearing hats an unattractive proposition.

------
rythie
A much better view on this: [http://www.fashion-era.com/hats-
hair/hats_hair_1_wearing_hat...](http://www.fashion-era.com/hats-
hair/hats_hair_1_wearing_hats_fashion_history.htm)

------
X-Istence
I wear hats, and I am a 24 year old software developer. I love the way I look
with a nice hat on, and like having something covering my head that stops a
lot of the sun from shining into my eyes...

~~~
swah
Hats look cool on cool guys, and programmers often aren't "cool guys". Perhaps
you're a brogrammer?

------
InclinedPlane
Mostly true. Hats are a necessity when you spend a lot of time outside. In the
era prior to hats where a great deal of walking outdoors was commonplace hats
were a necessity. And, of course, they became formalized as part of the
everyday uniform of respectable folks. With the rise of the automibile the
necessity of hats waned, but they retained their place in society due to
societal inertia. Eventually, that broke too though.

------
alttag
It's not just the roof distance .. when driving, it's significantly less
comfortable to wear a hat with a (rear or full) brim against a headrest.

~~~
dredmorbius
Headrests really didn't start becoming commonplace until the late 1960s /
early 1970s. They were made mandatory in the US only on January 1, 1969.

<http://www.webcitation.org/62vMMUPPX>

This post-dates the hatless trend by about a decade, though it certainly
wouldn't have helped the haberdasher's trade.

~~~
alttag
Good points. Caused me to do some additional research (beyond my personal
experience with hats).

Patents for headrests were granted in 1921, 1930 and 1950. [1] According to
some sources, they began to appear in cars in the 50s and 60s [2], which
coincides with (and slightly pre-dates) the JFK theory.

1: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_restraint> 2:
<http://www.ehow.com/facts_7597635_use-headrest.html>

------
jakeonthemove
Yeah, I think it's a matter of practicality. We've abandoned hats because
they're really a pain to maintain and use.

The same thing with suits, beards, mustaches, a lot of courtesy and manners,
duels, the "just line up in bright coats and fire" battles, the insanely
ornate dresses, and other stuff that serves no real practical purpose and only
takes time and money to maintain...

------
noss
I bought a baseball cap today, because I sport a buzzcut and I'm temporarily
working in a climate where the sun is burning. So I need it to protect myself
from the sun.

Could it be that the decline of the hat came with the office culture? Most
people I see outdoor working actually wear something on their heads.

------
yakshaving
Whilst fascinating, It's amazing that stuff like this gets bumped up to number
#2 on hackernews

~~~
meric
I remember a saying for this kind of phenomenon. What was it, "Slow news day"?

------
mynameishere
Hats and suits declined at the same time. Really, just a general reduction in
formality.

------
luigiwallo
I feel dumb for trying to think of some Apple product that had only three
letters in it.

~~~
godDLL
Like iAd? ;)

------
jleader
One flaw in the car hypothesis is that the car seat to roof distance declined
significantly from about the 1920s to the 1950s. Early motorcars had enough
headroom for their gentlemen owners to wear their tophats. The change was
partly motivated by increased emphasis on streamlining, but if hats were still
important, room would still have been provided for them.

I suspect WWII had something to do with it, but I can't figure out how.
Certainly pre-war cars had much higher roof-lines than post-war cars.

------
DanBC
Here's an article which says that public transport byelaws meant that
carriages had to have enough room for hats.

([http://www.inlondonguide.co.uk/who-are-londoners/bowler-
hat-...](http://www.inlondonguide.co.uk/who-are-londoners/bowler-hat-in-
london.html))

> _Taxi design at the time (horse-drawn cabs - Hackneys) stated the height of
> the cabin had to accommodate a man wearing a bowler hat and like many of
> those bye-laws, they remain in place today._

------
rehack
I, intuitively, thought that creation of Air conditioning (especially in the
car) has something to do with it.

In so many of the old movies you see. A doorman collects a gents overcoat and
a hat as he enters a hall full of other people. And of course the, gent has
arrived in a carriage or some other means of public transport.

So when people didn't feel that much cold in a car. They also did not need an
overcoat and a hat perhaps?

------
EvilTerran
I've heard the same said of trains and tall top-hats in particular. (I think
it was in a Horrible Histories book, of all places.)

~~~
carey
Those books also seem to be good at repeating popular wisdom unquestioned,
like the story of the Romans' vomitoria.

~~~
EvilTerran
I suspected as much; I mainly mentioned the "source" because I don't entirely
trust it.

------
gorm
“A hat should be taken off when greeting a lady, and left off the rest of your
life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.” ― P.J. O'Rourke, Modern Manners:
An Etiquette Book for Rude People

------
Legion
Oftentimes, things happen as a result of more than just one single cause.

I can easily imagine both this and JFK being contributing factors. It's silly
to set them up as one vs. another.

------
Drbble
Which 3-letter word?

It's "ion" I'll ink? Ill imp inn? Ick. Its ice ire? Ifs/Ins ilk?

------
dhughes
I wonder if the comb-over style appeared after hats disappeared?

------
Mesmoria
What about the rest of of the western world?

------
perlpimp
I am shaving my head tomorrow and I am not even american. But the message is
subtle and clear :) It is also summer.

------
planetguy
Dear NPR,

You do realise that there's a world outside the United States, right? And that
in Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, all the other culturally similar
countries, they _also_ stopped wearing hats sometime in the 1950s and 60s?
That public transport remains the main way for (say) Londoners to get to work,
and yet that the hat slowly vanished from the heads of Londoners over roughly
the same period that it vanished from the heads of Los Angelinos?

~~~
vacri
Hats are starting to come back into fashion in Australia, though nothing like
in the article's photos. Hats were seen as old-fashioned, but over the past
couple of decades, they've become much more common with schoolkids to protect
from the sun. It's pretty common to pass a primary school at lunchtime and see
every kid wearing the school cap. My guess is that with more kids growing up
used to hats, there's less of a block to wearing them as an adult.

edit: on further thought, hats also used to be seen as something to wear with
suits, and as people wore less in the way of suit-like clothing, hats went
too. In more recent times, hats are used more and more with other kinds of
clothing - if you see someone wearing a fedora in Australia, it's much more
likely they're young and wearing casual clothing than someone in business
wearing a suit.

~~~
noduerme
You know those signs on the road in Australia that say, "Tired? Tired driving
Kills!" --or something like that? You know that law in Queensland where you
can't smoke 25 feet from a starbucks? Or the one in WA where if you get two
tickets for screeching your tires, they steal your car and crush it? Or the
one where you have to spend 30 minutes strapping on a helmet and pads to climb
a ladder and fix a roof tile?

Yeah, you guys are really free thinkers. And your kids look great covered in
cancer-causing toxic waste wearing stupid ass straw hats.

~~~
Auguste
-1. What's the problem with safety laws, and what do they have to do with free thinking?

It's hard to drive when you're tired.

Not everybody in Australia appreciates cigarette smoke.

Most people here don't like hooning, but "they" won't "steal" your car for it.
It might, however, be confiscated.

I don't know of the law at home, but workplace health and safety is taken very
seriously here. Not wearing safety gear can get you and your employer in quite
a bit of trouble.

Try to be a little more constructive instead of mocking Australians.

Edit: The smoking law really is fantastic by the way, when people obey it. As
a kid, I remember having to walk through 20 metres of cigarette smoke to get
into a shopping centre. It was _putrid_. I don't mind people smoking, but the
smoke buildup outside shops wasn't good.

~~~
noduerme
Right, right. Thanks for confirming my analysis. All I'm saying is that
Australia has become one of the most conformist, politically correct nanny
states on earth (while still calling your natives all kinds of nasty names and
treating them even more like children than you treat your "full white"
citizens). Your opinion of all these things as being advancements is dead in
line with the overall Australian tendency to bend over twice for America,
China or whoever happens to make you feel like embarrassed yobs today, so
nothing new there. What's kind of sad is that I came to Oz looking for a place
where people thought for themselves, and instead found something like a very
arid version of England. Which I hate. So to answer your question about what's
wrong with safety laws: They are the last refuge of scoundrels, small minds,
and people who are afraid of ladders.

* I should just edit this to say that all the coolest Australians I met in a year of travel were 65 or older, smoked like chimneys, and thought everyone under 30 in their country was an unintelligible fool. They lived in places like Hay, Tenterfield and Dubbo. I'd like to give a tip of the hat to John in Inverell, who bless him is the epitome of what your country was and should be. Other than your old fellas, it's a joke.

~~~
Auguste
Thanks for the solid analysis.

Sincerely,

The small-minded, brainless scoundrels and jokes of Australia.

PS, the racism here can be pretty bad, I'll give you that. Things are
improving, but not as fast as they ought to.

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DavidAbrams
A couple years ago some friends that I considered reasonably polite and well
raised were shocked that you men aren't supposed to wear hats indoors.

I thought they were kidding. They swore they'd never heard that, and we're
talking about guys in their 40s.

------
DavidAbrams
Ink? Ire? Ide? Irk? Ill? Imp? Ion? Ilk?

~~~
smokinn
If you read the article you would know the answer is "Ike", the nickname of
former US president Dwight D. Eisenhower.

~~~
DavidAbrams
It was more fun thinking of three-letter "I" words.

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gcb
ny never quite saw the car change. I still rather public transportation there
over driving anytime.

As i bet all that crowd on the occupy did too.

------
sbierwagen
I like the subtle smear of implicitly comparing OWS protestors to socialists.

~~~
egypturnash
Man I dunno, every time a right-winger condemns something as "socialism", it's
something I think sounds like a pretty good idea to keep the US a good place
to live and work.

