Ask Lemmy

Not I. I grew up thinking overall we were on a good track and humanity would get better. The star trek utopia future type. This started to break apart in the early 90's but I held out hope that tech was going to get us through but that started to fall apart by the late aughts and really by the 20teens is about when I lost most hope. Brexit and the first trump win was pretty much the nails in the coffin. Biden did pretty well considering but you can see how behind we already are and how we would actually have to maintain a decent path in way we just had not for the last couple of decades.

Some things are better. Other things are worse.

I'd still go back to when I was 10 if given the chance tho.

Times are looking tough right now but the pendulum can swing back at any moment. And when it does we won't be starting back at square one. Might be a few years and a few wars until then. Maybe just an arms race and the odd proxy war. No way to know. All we can do is resist and wait.

For the middle aged white American or...? Even then, the question seems to mean more as words than as an actual inquiry. It's just too big of a question for it to mean anything. 30 years ago different brown people were getting bombed, for instance!

Economically for the working class, no. But it’s undeniably better to be gay or coloured in western countries than it was 30 years ago.

According to social psych, this is called reconstructive memory, "reconstructing past behaviour" - tending to underreport bad behaviour and overreport good behaviour, sometimes remisrecalling our past as worse to justify self- improvement.

If we allow for the fact that nuance exists, and apply it to a response, then I agree:

No, things are definitely NOT better in a lot of ways. And I think you summed it up very well.

Some things are better. Some things are worse. Some things are about the same.

well things are certainly better for me...

Crime has declined by 50% or more beginning in the mid to late 1980s and early 1990. While we still have some of the highest crime rates compared to other developed countries. I still think that this is something to be proud of.

Also we are improving our urban planning to make our cities more walkabke, bicyclable, and livable.

It really depends where. In the global south? Way better, in China, it's debatable. In Poland, way better. In the US, way worse. In the UK, way worse.

It's good to bring it into perspective with numbers like Hans Rossling used to do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8t4k0Q8e8Y sadly he died and nobody took this over after him to visualize data in this way so publicly yet.

In the 90s, people's minds were blown by Crash Bandikoot, now I play Balatro and Hollow Knight. Sometimes I play The Finals, a 3D game so realistic you need to use a sniper scope to see textures, and buildings can be completely destroyed every match. While this may blow the minds of most people in the 90s, honestly it doesn't even phase me, Balatro and Hollow Knight are so good, I prefer them most days.

Yeah, this is way better.

Times in general? No. Certain aspects? Yes, even with fascist rule.

I guess it depends on the person. 30 years ago, I was actually living and working in the US. I was driving a 1988 Volvo 760. I was still driving it 10 years later; best car I've ever had. Gas was under a buck. Interest rates were so high that once I got some savings, I lived off the interest and ended up saving 80% of my salary (years later, when the rates went down, I used those savings as a down payment for my house). I could get lost for a full day at Borders. I was able to hitchhike up the east coast, get odd jobs without any resumes or background checks, while on a road trip across the continent. There was a lot of new and exciting technology: CD's and discmen, computers and the beginnings of the Internet. I read the news via Gopher (unless it was Sunday, then I bought the papers for grocery coupons). I feel that now there are too many limits on people. Lots of them are self-inflicted: I'm middle aged and with kids, so I need to be far more responsible. But when I look at my kids, I feel that they won't have the same opportunities I had, for travel, education, personal growth, or independence.

Yee, unquestionably IMO. There is of course plenty of fucked up shit but we are doubtless better off in America, on the whole, than in 1995.

I don't think they are at all.

Yes. You can fit all the great music from the 90s and before in your pocket now. You can also get newer music if you want but it's up to you. Lemmy is better than a lot of the old forums.

You don't have to use social media, I don't. Information is far more available now than it was 30 years ago.

I wanted to post that we were in the hight of the cold war 30 years ago but then I calculated and now I am sad