I really never have believed times improved, and i am almost positive things will only get worse.
30 years ago we had a future to look to, the unshittified internet, great music, affordable land/housing, affordable durable cars, people actually interacted in real life, no social media trash. Now, we have billionaires and LLMs. I don’t see how anyone can possibly think times are better or going to improve.
Yes, everyone will say “civil rights improved” and yes thats maybe the only thing that has changed, however it’s getting taken away every day again so I don’t think you can even use that point anymore.
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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.
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.
Depends who you ask. Things are better for the LGBTQ+ community. Still not as they should be, but I see a generation of kids now who are accepting, whereas 30 years ago, it was the worst thing anyone could accuse you of.
You say that civil rights may go away, but we do have them right now, and as our kids get older, they might not be so willing to take them away.
Yeah, that’s a big one in the US. Being a queer person in the 90s was almost exile from my social circle. There were some gay guys and lesbians were accepted on the perifery, but homophobia reigned.
Technology is better, crime rates better, environmental issues were better, LGBT rights and racism seemed better. But the gap between rich and poor has grown, wages have stagnated. And now I fear we are regressing.
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.
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
That crime statistic is going to spike drastically from 2025 on…
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.
Medical technology has greatly improved. More people survive cancer, aids, surgery is far less invasive, and better medications.
Technology in general is getting better.
We have a faster internet. I love having access to so much information. Sure, there are far more gullible fools who believe in all manner of silly stuff but I feel the internet has done more good than bad.
Life expectancy has gone up about 2 years since 1995 (from 76 to 78). Not a massive difference TBH.
What about people’s overall health? Two years isn’t much but if a person’s last ten years is lived with less pain and more mobility that is something.
Look at that dip right before 2020! Wonder why America dipped so much lower. Surely, face-masks as a way to prevent the spread of infectious disease wasn’t suddenly a controversial issue!
The one grape I have with the medical technology thing is the fact that if I used any of it I would be in debt for the rest of my life which would be longer because of the technology
Maybe you’ll get lucky and get a recall or a class action lawsuit
That is only an America problem though
Half the technology only prevents death, but doesn’t necessarily give you quality of life, so they can keep it. It’s the pharmaceutical advancements that have had the biggest QoL impact on me, and thankfully generics have been reasonably affordable.
Do you have any other fruits with medical tech?
I’ve goyes. A pineapple t a pineapple with an
The internet allowed to stupid to find each other far too easily and spread far too much bullshit.
People believed in all manner of things without supporting evidence long before the internet arrived.
Yeah but it was harder for so many stupid people to link up and feed off of each other.
The sheer amount of street level crimes, bar fights, car break-ins that existed in those days would blow your mind. Things have changed so much and yet everyone seems to have forgotten. I can’t speek for the ‘worst’ neighbourhoods in the US nowadays but back in the 70s - 80s whole sections of US cities were shitholes. Media make’s everything look way worse than reality.
I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this but 30 years ago was the mid 90s, not the 70s-80s
I know, the trend continued. And the 90s were half as bad. Sorry you can’t extrapolate.
Unpossible!
Oh God…
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.
Crime in 1995 was…let’s just say… fucking worse in virtually every category…by a lot. Waco and ruby ridge had just happened. As for poverty, there are the same number of people on poverty in 2023 a there were in 1995. Let’s talk violence against women. It’s tragic today at shockingly high rates. It was much worse in 1995.
Don’t be a woman, or a non white man, or poor, or non cis and you are probably just fine back in 1995.
…cept for abortion. Fuck Trump.
Violent crime is down. Smoking is down. Teenage pregnancy is down.
That’s about all I’ve got.
Violent crime about to explode as abortion now illegal in many places–the knock-on effects of it pretty well isolated as the only reasonable explanation to the sudden drop in violent crime in the mid 90s that has continued through today and was a central thesis in Freakonomics.
With abortion now illegal, hushed up, or hidden in many states, the crime and its vicious cycle will return. Bet your money, when those who would have otherwise been aborted come of crime age in ~15 years, full Judge Dredd world will be on in the US. Teen pregnancy, from the 2nd generation of otherwise aborted kids, will of course explode to the delight of evangelicals everywhere.
Absolutely agree that abortion was a significant reason for falling crime. Should be interesting to see what happens. I personally think crime will never quite get back to where it was because we condition kids to spend more time indoors these days.
You might be right; they’ll be hooked up to the Matrix, eyes glowing
I think there won’t be nearly as much unwanted pregnancy still. Kids these days - first of all - just aren’t fucking as much. But also they are better informed about the risks of pregnancy and how to prevent it. And abortions are quite destigmatize now, and people are motivated to get them. If necessary, they can buy an abortion pill on the internet or drive across state lines.
Slavery across the world ia actually at its highest point.
Perhaps in absolute terms.
For most of the world’s population, things have significantly improved by almost every conceivable measure.
I strongly recommend Roslings book, Factfulness. The difference between how people think things have changed and what’s happened is wild.
Edit: Just saw the (US tag, sorry.)
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.
Actually billionaires are a new thing. There were like 2 of them in 1992. Now there’s what, over 15? I forget.
Because of inflation and such, but the important aspect of them is being super rich compared to everyone else (hence we don’t count people that have a billion of some much less valuable currency), and that’s a very old problem.
For LGBTQ rights? Definitely. For the climate? Way worse. Politically? Way worse. Economically… I’d way we are in a big bubble like the roaring 20s before the great depression. And when it pops, it’s gonna be bad, thanks to idiot voters and corrupt Republicans.
Government-wise…things are not looking good. It will take a very long time to rebuild.
Now…state-wise, I know my state is way better off than it was 30 years ago, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t about to get slammed by braindead antics of the federal government. But we have made a lot of infrastructure investments that are paying off locally. The future of America will be exclusively in states that put a premium on science and progress.
Politically? Way worse.
I’d say yes and no. 30 years ago was not long after the likes of Reagan and Thatcher. Things are very much not okay today, but more people were okay with worse stuff back then. I’d argue some parts of politics have certainly gotten worse, but others have nevertheless gotten better.
I think the core issue is that the political systems of some countries are beginning to show their age, and people today are becoming more cognizant of their failings over time. I think it wouldn’t hurt to look at all of the data available to us now and go back to the drawing board on a lot of key components. But in saying that, it’s impressive to even have so many consistent political systems that have remained relatively stable for centuries when countries used to just have revolutions and regime changes to shake things up all the time.
I do agree we are quickly approaching a major economic downturn, though. I feel like the writing is on the wall that we are already there, but for some reason economists have their heads buried in the sand. I’m reminded of videos I’ve seen (ignore the edgy V for Vendetta splash screen before it) shortly after the 2008 recession where a small handful of economists anticipated a significant downturn only to be derided by the majority of “experts” who said everything was going great. Because I keep hearing things today like the economy has never been stronger, but no one around me seems to be feeling that. Scaled for inflation, I’m making more money than my parents did when they bought a house, but that feels like an impossibility for me today.
