I remember my childhood mostly as a happy, oblivious one, affordable food, the usual disagreements between liberals and republicans, but nothing unhinged (say taxes, migrants or abortion). At least it looks reasonable today.
Now it’s like everything is unhinged: politics seem to be based on purely emotional reactions and the other side is hell bent on destroying the country: texas starts heavily gerrymandering to secure 5 extra republican seats at the next midterms? california starts lobbying for doing exactly the same and dismantling an independent redistricting commission texas never had.
When I was younger it seemed politics were more rational and cruelty never seemed to be the point of doing nothing. Now we execute people with nitrogen gas, meaning a conscious person has to breathe something he knows its going to kill him during 4 minutes. This is somehow not cruel and unusual. And nobody bats an eye.
I still don’t get how populists can be so popular now, they simplify complex issues most people without a degree in the matter, cannot grasp. This includes me.
I’m now 35 and wonder if I’m already talking like an old person who misses his young days so hard. I see that in people in their 60s and hoped never to become one of them, but here I am. To a younger person I may look like one of those old guys who lives to rant.
Am I going to feel even more detached and depressed with each passing day?
If you’re in the west then it’s worse now because capitalism is reaching the stages of systemic collapse. For people living in countries like China or Vietnam the picture is quite different. They see their lives improving each and every day. They have clean cities, great infrastructure, and a rate of technological progress we can only dream of. Those of us living in the west are living through a similar collapse to the one that happened in USSR in the 90s, but the west is only 13% of the world population.
It’s crazy how 13% of the world population dominate the social media discourse so much that i basically see no other people’s opinion ever.
You just have to start using non western platforms like Xiao Hong Shu and reading media from outside the west.
All of the jokes in early simpsons seasons pointing out problems inside the US are still valid today. Long standing problems have not been solved and if anything the situation has continued to deteriorate.
Apart from politics, which is always pretty up and down, my two biggest concerns for the world are
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Nobody seems to know how to build things any more. Watching companies fumble around trying to build almost anything that has the same usable life as something built 60 years ago, with fewer materials and almost no computers, is infuriating.
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The environment is in a MUCH worse state. I was born in the 80s and I can say anyone my age or older who tells you climate change is a myth is either lying or never went outside. I remember seeing large flocks of birds overhead several times at dusk. Now there’s almost nothing. Insect- and bird-life have largely collapsed, forests look sad and unhealthy, we are getting hot days earlier in the year and rainfall is nowhere near as consistent as it used to be. Do humans move farmland to places where rain now falls? Nope, they pump the rivers dry and make even more problems downstream. The situation is unsustainable and, with so many global leaders in the pockets of oil and gas companies, it is going to get a lot worse.
That said, I would say general quality of life, especially through medical advances has made a lot of people’s lives better.
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The world is definitely worse for younger people. I’m raising four kids and I weep for them.
Smart phones and social media have a LOT to answer for. I know that won’t necessarily be a popular opinion but that’s where I find the root of the problem. Well, that and FPTP election systems.
I think smart phones are a separate category of problem to the main issues of late-stage capitalism and ascendance of the alt-right. Though both are major issues.
The US was better but we were on course for this. Earlier laws restricting suing of international companies, the patriot act, citizens united, etc. Honestly beyond all of this is the lack of shame. Like I don’t think people are necessarily worse than they used to be but there was a vague agreement of what was bad and good and bad people wanted to hide being bad. There was shame. We seem to be living in the age of shamelessness. Like nazi types used to hide under klu klux klan robes but now they make youtube videos about how other races are inferior and the woke members of their race are race traitors. Again the roots go way back like the greed is good thing from the 80’s.
I’ve (36m) asked my mother and grandfather if I’m overreacting.
My grandfather (104 when he died. He was so “dust bowl” he mother died of the dust in the dust bowl. Dust pneumonia. Yeah can’t get more depression era than that without also being a shoe shine boy at a carnival ): I killed the nazis once. I can kill them again
My mother (80f I asked here again just now. Right now face to face): I’ve never seen this cult behavior before. Never in my life. People will bury their trump flags in the ground and deny they ever supported him. Like the nazis did.
Yes this bad. It’s historically significant how bad it is. People will read about this moment in history and think “I hope my grandfather wasn’t a trumpet” as the look up their ancestors. Grandfathers will lie to their families about what they were doing right now. They will even shame me because all I did was comment online.
It’s specifically bad right now.
I feel this. I keep thinking of what gandolf said to frodo and I very much feel like frodo.
I’m 36. I just told my mom I want to l go to France to ollattend a clown college. The shame in those eyes.
Sometimes the story isn’t what you wanted
In the 90s, as a kid in Quebec, I thought racism, sexism, homophobia were all things of the past. Boy was I naive.
Through the 90s and visiting various areas of the US, those things were always there but not discussed in the open. People would say disgusting shit to people they thought they were safe saying those things to.
We’ve come to the point where people will say they aren’t racist but will still defend racist views and say racist shit but it’s not all brown people, just certain ones.
We’re probably about 6 months from having these assholes walk around with armbands.
I’m from the Western US, they basically told us MLK delivered a banger speech, some people matched on DC and the country was cured of racism. We’re all 100% equal now!
Hearing my neighbor say “I’ve got nothing against black people, I just wanna own a few of em.” made me skeptical.
in my opinion the civil war around 1800 did not actually abolish slavery. it just made slavery more efficient.
instead of killing your slaves through hard work (which means you have to buy new ones) you can just work them longer if they live longer, i.e. that’s why working conditions improved. at the same time, slavery got renamed into “prison labor”. it’s essentially the same thing.
When I was younger it seemed politics were more rational and cruelty never seemed to be the point of doing nothing.
The cruelty was outside our borders. The rational, reasonable debate was for domestic issues. Foreigners got the bullet.
As the empire collapses the cruelty turns inwards i.e. fascism.
“We were just minding our own business invading other countries for oil.”
the contradictions are piling up and things are more openly fascist, economic opportunities are shrinking in the west, income inequality is off the chart, yeah things are actually worse
Person born in the late 70’s here
Although birth of social media took a gigant shit on peoples general mindset and world feels more divided, right wing and missing “street level” empathy, world is still better.
For example in the 80’s autistic people were just mentally retarded, dyslexic people were just stupid, bullying in schools was normal behaviour and part of being young, violence among teenagers was more commonplace, attitude that animals were just biological machines with instinctual reactions and just appearance of some cognition was more commonplace. 80’s yuppie culture made it fashionable to be a wealthy asshole.
In the 90’s home computers became common. Recession had bankrupted many high rolling yuppies. Nerds were no longer beaten for knowing how tech works. Gamer culture was no longer niche phenomenon. Cold war was over and nuclear armageddon was distant thing. Youth culture still had this doom and gloom attitude. Everyone was a flannel wearing tortured skater boy/girl. 90’s was the “tomboy era”, where girls were allowed to dress and act like boys without being socially ostracised. More attention was focused on mental health and colorful spectrum of human mind.
Late 90s and early 00 internet really started rolling, smarphones started to appear, social media was born. World became very small and everyone who wanted was a content creator. Suddenly large portion of population communicated with people outside their country on a daily basis.
This was the best time in the Internet. Search engines started to actually work and new webpages were sometimes an actual joy. Algorithms weren’t corrupting things and polarizing everything. Autogenerated content was yet to come. Internet and social media was infused as essential part of our lives.
2010’s the enshittification started and commercialization was on full gear. 2020 has become the era of stupid. AI, autogenerated content, polarization and dead internet.
But even with all this, I still think it’s now better for the average person than the cold war paranoia world of the 70-80’s.
We are however on a downward spiral and I’m hoping for a counter reaction in coming decades. Hoping that ignorances of past world are just making noise and attracting attention before they vanish for good.
The Matrix was built to resemble the late 90s-00, “the pinnacle of civilization”
Coming from the 70’s (US) as well the thing is things were generally getting better. The trend was upward although I would say economically that sorta ended in 2000 while technologically it was more around 20teens (excepting open source). The thing about politically, especially with freedom and rights, its been sorta back and forth but again felt more two steps forward one back pre 2k and one forward two back afterwards. Its starting to feel all back and no forward this year.
I’ve been watching BBC Archive footage from the 80s recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yfE9Ihr8F0
Everyone has the exact same fears as they do now: Russian interference, outcompeted by China, being a US lapdog, the price of housing, education standards, rich/poor divide.
All the exact same talking points we have today. We havent changed that much in 50 years just different gadgets.
(Though the absolute rich/ absolute poor divide is a lot bigger
Better gadgets and more inclusion for minorities and LGBTQ+ people. But plenty of incredibly vocal people that act like those rights are fascism, oh and numerous other rights are at risk.
Its a lot of better, and we’ve come a long way. But we’ve also come nowhere.
This was immensely interesting and helpful, thank you. I’m a millennial and reading your perspective is huge to me. I wish more things like this were shared openly, honestly, with an analytical perspective, from more people.
Thank you. This made my day.
You probably noticed that I ran out of time after 00’s
I mean, 10s and 20s were short, but I figured that was because they are most recent and don’t need to be talked about as much. Is that not why?
True, but how the world actually changed due to arrival of the world wide web and it’s commercialisation became apparent in those years.
And I do have to admit that I have slight skew of perspective.
It’s in the age of 25-30, when your career takes off and your children are born, your world kinda freezes. Mentally you see yourself as 30 years old till you’re well over 50. Your memories kinda clump together and time runs faster and faster. Song that’s playing on the throwback show feels like it was released last year.
Not sure if your brain clocks your memories in relation to life lived.
Realities of old age and appearance of new generation finally makes you wake up. You have arrived to your midlife crisis. This is what people older than me tell me. I’m still not 50, although first grandchildren are probably not far off.
The thing is that your world view also freezes. I notice that I’m still dragging along somewhere in the early 2010s
Are you American? I’d really like to know.
Nordic
My dad said that everything “went to shit” once they started privatizing hospitals and public infrastructure.
It can be both. This is also very specific to the western world and america in general, as other parts of the world have very different experiences, both good and bad
So the conclusion would be:
This world is awful! Let’s fix it, so it can be as awful as it used to be.
Yep.
It’s very important to remember that between 1991 and 2001, the US saw 10 years of a world that was the epilogue of the End of History. We had won the Cold War, and while there were problems, they were largely distant, the politics fairly civil, things like the internet changing life quickly, and even the moments of hard times gave us great music. It took 2-3 years for the effects of Columbine and 9/11 to really change the country and world.
25 years is also not nothing. 25 years before 2001 was 1976. Star Wars was new. Ford was president. Disco was HOT. Apple and Microsoft were founded. Things can change a lot.
liberals and republicans
Twenty-five years ago many slurs now rightly shunned were still part of common speech.
Twenty-five years ago marriage equality was not even on the table.
A lot of things are worse now, but a lot of things are better, too. I’d say right now things are worse than ten years ago but you can’t go much farther back without it getting murky.
