People who only go as far back as the 60s/70s, truly ignore everything that has happened prior. Things for human society and the world didn’t start getting bad on those decades, that’s only recent memory to those born from or grew up through.

The world didn’t start getting fucked up until humans developed here the day they evolved.

In ancient history;

You could be tried and killed by just simply being allegedly accused of being a witch. The Salem Witch Trials demonstrated that happened in the early 1690s. Accusations entirely arbitrary and subjective, I may add.

5 Million people got killed because of one single messenger, the wrong one, got killed. This was through the Khwarazmian Empire dated back in 1077 - 1231.

Then we know about everything the Egyptians did and how they got the pyramids built and all. Slavery was rampant in the ancient past, nothing just built itself, you know.

So yes, the world was always fucked up long before the 1960s and 1970s. You would not last a day in the past, where all developed concepts and ideas were nothing but just thoughts of the mind and just about anyone could decide to kill you just because they can.

It’s always been this way, just the internet has made global awareness easier

I’ve just finished reading a very detailed book on 13-16 century renaissance history and yes, always fucked. Though less dark ages than you’d think and more fucked politics, same as now.

Plus we only really know the history of rich people up until very recently, so no telling how fucked the poors were.

Im 59, it was just easier to plead ignorance back then. Hell, beating gays was seen as ok, raping your wife was quite legal, fucking kids was mostly ok, racism was seen as humour, my mother took up teaching as she said the other career she considered forced you to leave if you got married (bank teller).

We slaughtered people all over the place with impunity, overthrew governments. Same as today really.

My mistake? I assumed it would get much better when my cohort of Gen X came through, same as young millennials think today. It’s not worse, it’s just we’re more aware.

I’m 57 in the US and up until the last ten years I always thought that things would get better in my lifetime and that ultimately my country would eventually choose the right financial and moral paths. Now I not only don’t believe that will happen in my lifetime but I doubt if this nation will bounce back in my kid’s lifetime, if ever.

Thank you all for your comments. I have read them all but not able to reply to them individually. I must say though, we are living in the most comfortable time in any point in human history. Modern conveniences and access to medicine is definitely the highlight of modern times. I also recognise I have much to be thankful for in my personal life. Stable, well paying job, a wonderful wife and healthy wonderful children. I could’ve been born in any part of the world, at any point in human history and overall I am grateful for where I am right now.

However, after more thought, it does feel like globally something has shifted since 2020. More conflict, more division, more anger. Are we leading up to something much worse? Who knows. Social media hasn’t helped either - immediate access to everyone’s thoughts and opinions I don’t believe is a good thing whereas before people had to specifically write to a newspaper and maybe have their one liner on an issue published, now it’s all open for everyone to know. When I start feeling this way, I tend to switch off for a while and come back when I’ve had a breather from the world. Looks like I’m due again.

No, the 80s and 90s were fantastic. I would go back if I could. I thought it was bad that there was wars and corruption but I had the feeling that leaders tried to do the right thing. Maybe they didnt but I felt like they did. Not today.

Well, there are two songs which I think answer your question:

We didn’t start the Fire

And

Besuchen sie Europa, solange es noch steht

Which is a song about visiting Europe before it will be destroyed by the then assumed imminent nuclear war.

Well, as an American, I can only speak for my lifetime…

Late 60s/Early 70s - Vietnam/Nixon - Pretty fucked up.

Late 70s - Iran hostage crisis - Fucked up.

80s - Reagan/Bush - Iran/Contra - Recession - Iraq War I - Fucked up.

90s - Clinton era was pretty good. Big scandal was a blowjob. People actively talking about blowjobs all the time.

2000s - Bush II, 9/11, Iraq War II, Abu Ghraib, 2008 financial crash - VERY fucked up.

Late 2000s - Obama - Not awful. He should have ended Bush’s drone program, but not awful.

2017-2020 - Trump. Covid. 1,000,000 dead Americans. INCREDIBLY fucked up.

Early 2020s - Biden - Fucked up inflation. Covid weirdness.

Now? (gestures)

Yes

Yeah, thought it was fucked up, but assumed the vast majority of people still wanted it to be better for everyone. Recent US elections, though, indicate otherwise, which is extremely depressing.

Generally, things were always fucked up. However, two major changes between this generation and previous ones:

1. Leaders were generally portrayed as being more competent than now. Even leaders who were considered dumb at the time kept themselves to a far higher standard than now.

2. The media landscape is more fractured now than before. It was common for television shows to be seen by a third of the country. It made things more uniform culturally. A lot of that is gone

It was different, there was more of what at least looked like cause->effect. People were irrational, but not directly belligerent about their irrationality. Round table talk formats didn’t seem so useless, there being people who were more learned than you giving useful explanations about what was happening in the world (that made sense). Watching them now seems like the blind leading the blind. The world was more coherent and the incoherent parts of it seemed largely marginalized and sidelined. This marginalization seemed fairly permanent, like you could count on society making progress in science and technology without regard to your stupid uncle’s sexist bullshit or your crazy aunt’s vitamin therapy and aversion to aluminum cookware. Now all of them are wrapped up in one Super Saiyan called “Secretary of Health and Human Services.”

It really depends on how you define it. There have always been locations and groups where things were terrible and there have been locations and groups where things were good. Often the locations were the same but the groups were different.

In the US, there was a general sense that things were gradually improving that may have gone back as far as World War II and lasted through the 70’s. Not that there weren’t a lot of problems, just that society seemed to be recognizing and working on them. The conservative resurgence in 1980, lead by Ronald Reagan and Newt Gringrich, pretty much ended that positive trend. Since then we’ve seen active efforts to divide people, to encourage prejudices, and, especially, to destroy the education system. That last is critical, because it makes propaganda and other forms of social manipulation far more effective.

The US is now living with the result of allowing those changes. There are vast disparities in education, wealth, and power across the population. Many people on the low end of those distributions have been convinced to blame other groups that are also on the low end. That has allowed those at the high end to corrupt our political and economic systems to their advantage.

The current situation is not sustainable, but it will do incalculable damage to hundreds of millions of people while it exists. And we don’t know what will follow it.

There is strong evidence that humans became successful as a species because of their ability to put interests of the group before their own. Those instincts have been subverted, but they are not dead. That is what gives me hope for the future.

The creation of the universe was a mistake. It’s been downhill since the big bang.