1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
30 years ago most people weren’t yet on the internet, there was very little entertainment media, you couldn’t use online accounts for most stuff, and most people didn’t have online bill paying. 30 years ago I helped bring my company online as the first full investment company, and my bank was still rare for doing online bill paying.
30 years ago, most of the US were in denial over climate change, renewable energy was expensive and there were no practical EVs.
Idk what you mean about entertainment media because sitcoms were all the rage. And while the U.S. was in denial about climate change they were also emitting far fewer ghg and climate change was much less evident
A few technological aspects of life are incredibly easier and more accessible. We have instant access to any form of information, from porn to encyclopedia articles. Comparing prices and ordering things - commonly called "mail order" 30 years ago - took weeks compared to a couple days now. Communication is far easier and cheaper - talking between San Francisco and Stockholm or Singapore would have cost several dollars per minute 30 years ago, and now it's a built-in feature of network access. Most of us have in our pockets a telephone, photo/video camera, advanced computer, entertainment and game console. There have also been some notable medical advances - my friend died from leukemia in the 90s, and it's very treatable now, along with various kinds of tumors.
30 years ago? So 1995. As one who was there: fuck no. The 90s where cool, everything seemed fixed, osties travelling through Europe in their Trabant 2 stroke miniature cars. (That was fun on the Autobahn) Only Saddam was jerking around and that was far away, internet was brand new, everything seemed possible. No terrorist threat of the RAF, IRA or the bask separation front. There was even hope for peace in Israel.
But if you would say 40 or 50 years ago? I would say fuck yes. It's much better nowadays.The cold war was wild. The recession of the 80s was bleak af, Thatcher, Reagan. PLO, RAF, IRA, Basks. No man, there was a reason behind films like aliens, Terminator and punk music. Why they resonated with society at that time. Contrary to current popular belief the 80s was not a decade long neon party. Many people lost their jobs. Youth unemployment was at it's highest ever. No jobs, no houses available. It was dark. Darkest time of my life. Everyone thought nuclear war was inevitable. We would all die of radiation or in the cold harsh nuclear winter. Yup. That was the Outlook at that time.
70s was the all time high of the cold war, oil crisis, something else i'm forgetting. But I was a small child back then so everything about that era is hearsay.
But for me? The 90s where good. 80s sucked hard. (End) 70s also had a lot of downs.
We drag them to the future. There is no other direction.
Some of this is just the noise that society makes though.
Our billionaires have a lot of power, but I don't think they're near the Robber Barrons of the US past. The LLMs are trash, but your boss used to put who you should vote for in your paycheck and the only media that existed was sole property of big business.
I'll grant that the last few decades have been rough, but it beats the past.
Just gotta keep moving.
Tech is better. But life is a lot worse in general. Unless you're part of a marginalized group I suppose.
We've gone from a bright shining future to no future at all.
Tech is better
Tech was only better until like maybe 2015-2016. We're a solid decade into enshitification across the board. I can't even find a phone I actually want to replace mine that is finally failing after 8 years and the car situation isn't looking much better, fortunately I don't have to deal with that for a while (hopefully).
I think a lot of the tech is responsible for the shitty life. Tech got better until perhaps end of the naughts. After that it's just one bullshit excuse after the other to make devices obsolete as quick as possible. Plus the complete enshittification of the internet.
I'm just glad that decentralized social media is becoming a thing and the FOSS movement is huge.
HA no. I was there, it was... Well differently bad, maybe less in aggregate. Cultural attitudes really took a HARD turn when 9/11 happened, and the government abused it just about as hard as they could think of. President Obama did try to bring back some of that 90s optimism, but then along came Trump and ground it into dust.
Billionaires aren't new. I also don't really think LLMs will be as impactful as they get hyped or feared to be, and actually think AI as a whole outside mere chatbots will be positive if not the revolution it gets hyped as.
Honestly I do think there has been an improvement. It might not seem like that when viewing the past, but the past is easy to overestimate- we don't have to live it anymore.
As to civil rights, it should be pointed out that while recent years have seen regression in the US, its not always a regression to the point that things were at back then, and more importantly, the rest of the world does not necessarily share the political woes of the US.
Everyone's experience will be personal to them, so it's not anyone's place to say your experience isn't worse, but as a whole, things are better.
Crime, no matter the category, is down ~33% since the mid-90s.
Median household income, adjusted for inflation, is up ~25% (despite the narrative).
Here's a post/graph I think about all the time: https://bsky.app/profile/simongerman600.bsky.social/post/3ktds56nqus25
Regardless of age, we are generally nostalgic for a time in our youth. Or even earlier. Notice that something like half (or nearly so) of people think "the most moral society" was before they were born.
Median household income, adjusted for inflation, is up ~25% (despite the narrative).
Now do housing education and healthcare
Median household income, adjusted for inflation, is up ~25% (despite the narrative).
What's the ratio of household income to the cost of living? I understand that's going to vary wildly from place to place, but my point is income, as a statistic, seems meaningless without knowing the cost of living to see if people are actually able to afford rent, groceries, etc on that 25% increased income.
Look up medical advancements over that time.
True, but the population in industrialized societies have become less and less healthy at the same time. We have Ozempic, but we also have 30% of Americans with prediabetes.
When was the last time you saw someone with Polio? Or someone die of sepsis?
Update: My point about sepsis isn't that it is gone, But that we've gone from hearing about it still being a thing from knowing someone who it was a thing for. As far as polio is concerned I'm 39 years old currently. While polio wasn't around while I was a child my aunt's uncle's parents knew someone who had polio while they were growing up. Friends of the family who were adults knew someone who had polio while they were growing up. That's mostly what I mean, We went from knowing someone first or second hand who suffered from all kinds of ailments to only hearing about it because there's a small amount of it.
1995? For me, personally, I'd say some things are better, some are worse. I was struggling to get by on $8.60 an hour back then, couldn't live on my own so I had a room-mate. I was still a year away from the tech job that would crack open my real career and bring me where I am today.
1996 - first tech job, income doubled+ overnight. Got my own first place. Commuting between Portland and Chicago every 2 weeks for a year. Feels like that was when my life really started.
2025? Still working in tech, married 14 years, 6 figure salary, bought a house 4 years ago. OTOH - 2 heart attacks, congestive heart failure, cancer scare in the past 2 weeks. Looks like they got it all, but I need to back in 6 months for a re-check.
Good luck at your next appointment! 🤞
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.
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.
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.
Some things are better. Other things are worse.
I'd still go back to when I was 10 if given the chance tho.
As an example: luxuries have gotten cheaper while essentials have gotten more expensive.
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!
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.
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.
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.
well things are certainly better for me...
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.
