For those say in their 60s or 70s here. When you were in your 30’s or 40’s did you have the feeling that the world was a fucked up place? So much has been going on since I entered adulthood in the early 2000s and I feel like it’s getting more and more intense. It’s never ending.
Is it unique? Or has it always been this way?
You’ve never had smallpox.
You probably have never been hungry. Famine used to be a thing that just happened every ten years or so.
You’ve probably always had ready access to drinking water.
There’s always been wars, people doing terrible things. Slavery and genocide are pretty much par for the course whatever the ethnicity/region.
By most metrics this is the safest time to be alive.
But ya, shits pretty fucked still. So I say we all wake up tomorrow and try and do a little better.
Didn’t know I needed some good old fashioned pessimism to ground me today. Thanks!
My dad regaled me with tales of the 60s/70s once. The JFK assassination, Vietnam war, the gas crisis, hyper inflation, 20% mortgage rates.
The older you get, you realize everything isn’t a world ending crisis. I think our 24/7 outrage-based media is responsible for a lot of FUD.
YES. But a big chunk of people have been sheltered from that fact.
That’s why we have people: wanting civil war, because they’ve never had to personally suffer the loss, privations, and terror of a real war. Are anti-vax, because they haven’t had plagues of smallpox, the flu, or polio kill their kids, friends, and relatives. Pro-authoritarian, because they’ve never lived under a series of shitty power grifters and a corruption-based economy where absolutely nobody does well except the richest. Anti-social programs, because they’ve never faced homelessness or a disability.
There are so many things that people have had the luxury of avoiding that they’ve forgotten how shitty the world is. Spoiled children, they are.
The world was always fucked up, but we had a sense it was improving. That’s what has changed, majorly. We started having the feeling that as bad as it is, it is only going to get worse.
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 assumed it would get much better when my cohort of Gen X came through, same as young millennials think today.
TBF the same generation has been in power for 30-40 years now. If the torch had actually been passed it would be a different timeline.
I mean, your cohort still hates trans people and isn’t sold on the rest of the rainbow even if you aren’t rabid homophobes anymore
edit: ooo, downvotes from folk whose favorite game growing up was smear the queer
It’s not nice to generalise people. That’s why you’re getting downvoted.
by people like you who are unfamiliar with the word cohort? that’s fine.
maybe, just maybe, go look at statistics around this shit. i have worked for years in homelessness. i know exactly what i’m talking about. gen X wants to think they solved their homophobia problem, how did they treat their queer peers in school? could their classmates come out? Fuck no. Not until after graduation. How DO they treat their queer family members, siblings and children? do they accept them or shun them? less than 30% of gen X parented families accept them in our area. I’m in the san fuckingcisco bay area and gen x folk fled here to texas because they were not accepted. We’re known for being the one of gay capitals of the world but local gen x queer kids have had to flee because of their families. don’t even start
So, by your own admission, a percentage of Gen X parents are accepting of LGBTQ+ kids.
I don’t care where you’re from, some people will be dick heads and some won’t.
remind me, how many posts are you upvoting and cheering on about all americans being idiots because 22% of the population voted for trump
I’m friends with a few USA people. I know that they aren’t all idiots. So….next.
so call them out when you see them and take the lumps. stop being part of the hivemind. what does the percentage have to be for you to care? or do you just have to be part of the group that’s called out?
You make up whatever you like in that little head of yours, my friend.
my dude, i don’t lie. just because some of us have actually done shit with our lives, it gives us access to this kind of information. programming, uh, you get to draw catgirls and i see why you don’t understand.
ooo, downvotes from folk whose favorite game growing up was smear the queer
I’m not downvoting you, but you have to understand: yes, I vividly remember playing the game. I didn’t even know why it was called that, or what it meant. We were kids and we played a playground game (which was pretty fun). Looking back on the name, yeah, yuck. We also played a game called “Barf It”; the game had a name and the words didn’t mean much.
There are lots of Gen X allies out there and things that were a product of the time don’t define us all today.
There are lots of Gen X allies out there
yeah, i just had to talk a gen X “ally’s” son out of suicide because they’re great with the LGB but T? get the hell out of our house and the son is ftm. and this shit is not uncommon. miss me with this ally talk
So there are a lot of allies, but this guy’s asshole family isn’t actually one. Just because this is common doesn’t negate the existence of actual allies. Remember, anecdotes are not statistics. It can be a reason to be cautious, but it is not a reason to deny the existence of a group.
my dude, that was one incident. i am posting all up and down the fediverse about working with homelessness. why do you think i was talking with the son. how many of these do you want because i have hundreds. i have been doing this since i was… fuck. i can’t remember not working with homelessness charities. it’s just something my family has done. the biggest shelter in town is literally on a street named after me.
Goddam, Minnesota. Huge props to your work. You have my admiration.
For it to be data rather than anecdotes, you need to gather the data. Survey not just the examples you have, but the people outside of the demographics you work with. Form the questions in a way that gathers the data you really want - split it out to give you granularity. Are you a member of gen X? Are you LGBT+ yourself? Do you consider yourself an ally? Do you support the gay community? Do you support the lesbian community? Do you support the trans community?
Right now, the cohort you have the most experience with is the people who have suffered, which will skew your conclusions. However, this is the anecdotal evidence that tells you something is fishy. The next step is to get actual statistics.
my dude, i ran the organization for two decades (it’s why they put the shelter on a street with my name on it) i have the statistics. just the ones i have are a decade old. I had to retire due to disability.
this is literally my wheelhouse.
smear the queer
I doubt. Maybe I can’t generalize from my own ignorance, but we had no idea what this was referring to. It was no different than “kill the guy with the ball”, but my mom didn’t like us talking about killing our friends and brothers
ignorance is no excuse for your bigotry
It’s exactly analogous to someone using the n word because that was common usage at the time time, compared to using it now when all the negative associations are clear and (most) usage is not acceptable. Not the same at all
True story: growing up i thought « to gyp » was just kid’s language for « to cheat someone ». i had no idea it was pejorative until i was an adult. no one was telling me Roma people were bad - i didn’t even know the connection. young people today would probably call me a racist for using that term as a kid, but i legitimately had no idea, and i will never use the term again now that i know.
damn, you went straight from Queer to Nigg–? what the fuck? you are not slaves and not that oppressed. get over yourself
Not at all. I’m a sheltered white dude, oblivious in my security. But it’s important to point out that ignorance is a thing: we should know better but didn’t always.
Using offensive/insulting terms ignorantly may be wrong but it’s not the same as intentionally
that comparison is incredibly offensive and you should know better. You have never been ripped from your continent and your history and enslaved just for loving people. Black people have for the color of their skin. Queer does not equal Nigg-- and you fucking know that
or you don’t and you’re a racist maga. pick. this is one of those things that ain’t got middle ground.
Always has been, the big difference is it wasn’t streamed straight into your eyes in real time
Yep, only in my 50s but this is correct. All the shit under Reagan, Nixon etc, decades of meddling in the middle east before that. A century of oppressing South America. All the labor struggles. It’s like the increase in the diagnosed cases of autism. The number of cases didn’t increase. Only our awareness.
Yep, you had to get out of bed, and walk a few miles, if you wanted to see public torture and humiliation of others.
But executions and all that were public events. Not behind closed doors like today.
No, no it was not.
Example: when they found out what caused the hole in the ozone layer, they fixed it.
If we found out now, people would say that you can’t trust Big Academia or Big Science and nothing would be done. And don’t get me started on vaccinations.
We’re sliding rapidly backwards.
People who say it isn’t are just too lazy to do anything.
Stopping climate change is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE harder than protecting the ozone layer. Protecting ozone requires switching the chemicals we used in refrigerants and propellants to other, viable alternatives. That affected products worth, generously, maybe 1% of GDP?
Stopping climate changing the vast majority of the vehicles on the planet, along with the majority of our electrical power plants. It also necessitates stopping deforestation and overhauling a wide number of industrial processes, including for basic materials like steel and concrete. And that’s not even getting into methane emissions from livestock.
All of these things add up to a massive chunk of the planets GDP. It’s an extremely heavy lift, and it’s not fair to say that the world has gotten worse because we’re struggling more with climate change than the ozone hole.
No one could see the ozone hole. We had to believe science and everyone did.
meanwhile climate change is not just easier to understand, but becoming apparent in everyday life. There’s been an overwhelming consensus in science for half a century. How do people still doubt? Or what kind of hatred could make you actively resist changes to mitigate it?
I feel @[email protected] was saying more than that. I don’t recall any serious studies or news articles suggesting the ozone hole was a hoax or that debunking a human cause. Although it was kinda an aside but the anti vaxine thing he points to. I mean one of the most effective medical interventions since soap and sterilization has people acting like its some sort of evil witchcraft that will actually harm you despite the clear evidence both clinical and personal to its effectiveness.
I don’t know of any for the ozone hole specifically, but you can look to the fight over cigarettes to see the same science-denying approach during the 50s and beyond. That was literally the blueprint for climate change denial by the fossil fuel industry in later decades.
I think that is an apt comparison and it just outlines the things to me. We really did not know smoking was bad till the 40’s and the 50’s is when it was much more conclusive and the industry was able to push off legislation for like a decade into the 60’s. The greenhouse effect although known for awhile similarly did not really become conclusive till the 50’s and still it was like the late eighties when congressional hearings brought it more into the us public sphere although many folk still did not really know about it till gores 2006 movie put it more into the common culture. The industry fud started with the congressional hearings when there was indication it might lead to regulation. So they have pretty effectively stalled it for the most part for over 30 years! In addition we have had some regulation and then had it pulled back. I think it really highlights the decline compared to before when you look at cigarettes compared to greenhouse gases.
I guess. You could also look at things like plastic pollution where industry straight up won, and during the 60s-70s successfully pushed the responsibility onto consumers to recycle while continuing to crank out single use plastic with very few restrictions.
I don’t think the industry did much there. Consumers were not exactly avoiding plastics. There was kinda a few attempts to avoid them but they did not really go anywhere except for maybe the reusable shopping bags. I have to say I used to love and get the 16 ounce pop bottles that had the deposit that you got back when you brought them back. I would be buying them now if the pop industry had not phased them out. Was still able to get them even in the first year or so of the 90’s. That ones a hard comparison.
My local grocery carries deposit-bottle drinks of some varieties (mostly milk and soda, both of which are produced locally, sometimes tea and other drinks), so they are still around in some cases. I’m also a big fan of grolsch beer because it comes in nice swing-top bottles that are great for use as a home brewer, or for making sauces or whatever you may like them for. The beer itself isn’t that good imo, but it’s basically free with the purchase of bottles, as that’s basically the cheapest way to get swing-top bottles of that size.
Very importantly, only the one grocery store carries the glass bottle soda, though there are 4 others within a 10-minute range. So it’s entirely possible that there is somewhere near you that has it and you just aren’t aware of it.
But there were a lot of news articles suggesting at that time that global warming was overrated.
But at that time the science was just solidifying so overrated was not that contrary to say its overrated or inconclusive or something. Its like at one point there was a microbiologist that thought hiv was a passenger virus and did not cause aids. Which at the time was reasonable given koch’s postulates although they are basically impossible to apply to aids but eventually we had some much evidence built up that it became moot. Which is very similar with global warming. Someone might say we don’t know enough or have done enough studies and that might be reasonable in the 50’s but becomes silly by the 90’s
You must realize terrible stuff was happening over that time period too. Yes, there is a ton of regression happening right now, but compared to any other time in history some things are better some are worse. One can probably select any two points in modern history and say the same. There are always great and terrible things happening.
I think it depends how we slice it. last century compared to previous. yeah will take this century. this quarter century to the quarter century before. Ill take before. I mean if we are at the tail of of a falling post world war 2 blip that is not a great thing.
People said the same we can’t fix it about the ozone layer.
But it was still done. Regulations were put in place and corporations were made to comply.
Tje only place that still happens is here in Europe, and I’m afraid that might begin to deminish soon.
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.
Well fucked.
All part of the “worship the rich” thing, wouldn’t you say? It’s like, how many stately homes do you know of, versus working class houses for a particular period or relevant to when the local slate mine was open, for example, do you know of?
I wouldn’t fully agree with that. There is some of that, but then also there’s very little historical record of poor people. Up until like 1850ish, only rich people could really read/write, and their books and correspondence is what a lot of historical research is based on. And the rich people themselves didn’t write about the filthy poors a lot. And there are historians that would very much like to study this topic, l but it’s exceedingly difficult for lack of resources.
Now that said, there is quite a bit of bias still. Not just toward poor “unimportant” people, also towards women. E.g. Milan was ruled by the Visconti family, which was a powerful name back then. The last Visconti ruler died, leaving his son in law in power. He’s called “Francesco I Sforza” in most history books, even though Sforza was kind of a minor name back then, and he himself would sign letters with the Visconti last name of his wife, Bianca Maria Visconti. And even his sons (and I think Grandsons) would still use the Visconti name. But because 18th and 19th century historians thought it’s no good to refer to a man by the last name of his wife, and that the wife must have been unimportant anyways, this was the new Sforza reign, not the continued Visconti reign. But we have letters of her managing the whole city while he was off, of her disagreeing with him quite strongly and openly in letters, leading everything when her husband was ill, dealing with diplomacy and military affairs etc. So in a lot of ways they were reigning together, not one single strong man doing everything.
There is a growing group of historians that do study these kinds of things and it is slowly shifting. And I don’t doubt that this also happens in regards to poor people, just less so due to lack of available sources. But of course there’s also institutional pushback, nationalistic infighting, funding being assigned based on biases etc. it’s not all rosy.
And I’m no historian, so this in large part based on the “inventing the Renaissance” book by Ada Palmer(History professor at Uni Chicago and also a really good scifi writer). It’s an amazing read, not just about the period, the different power dynamics and personalities, stuff like homosexuality and atheism in the period etc., but in large part also on how historians work, how perceptions among historians changed through the ages, how some misconceptions (like “women aren’t important”) persisted for centuries. It’s without a doubt the best history book I read in a long time and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
This gave me a bit more understanding and made me reconsider my biases.
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.
Same age, same thoughts. The past was violent & sucky but it really felt like we were making progress, things were getting better. Some things have, there’s a lot less violence where I live, and more to do, the city has progressed.
Honestly I think the slide started after Bush vs Gore, and very often wish I had been in the other timeline, where the votes got counted before he conceded, Gore seemed conceited but smart, geeky and took good ideas seriously.
I’ve never understood the concept of conceding an election before all the votes have been counted and verified. It’s like the voters and their votes don’t matter. And instead all that matters is the spectacle of it.
Fortunately there’s less of that here than in the US.
It was part of the spectacle and formality of the peaceful transition of power, something that got shot to hell around 2020 or so for some reason or other.
Yeah, Lemmy was always so pessimistic about the future, but everything was looking up. Lots of reasons for hope that tomorrow would be better than yesterday, my kids would inherit a better world and make it even better.
Then it all fell apart. The scary thing is not how ugly, immoral, hate filled, corrupt it is, but how quickly and easily it fell apart yet still has people supporting it
The world has always been a shithole. The manner of shittiness has changed and also depends largely on location.
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Did you forget the huge bombs going off in British cities too? Mad Cow? Black Wednesday?
We didn’t start the fire was written for this exact reason. Billy Joel was talking to someone 20 years younger than him who said that when he was 20 more stuff had happened than when Billy Joel was 20, so he just started listing all the stuff that had happened before he was 20 and then expanded it into the song.
If only Fall Out Boy wrote the update better.
OP keep this in mind.
During and 18 month period in the early 1970s there was an average of five domestic terrorist bombings in the US every day. Think about that… five a day was the average.
Ah, that does warm my European heart.
The world is on fire, climate change looks to be a thing that will just happen, wars, everything getting more expensive with no hope in sight… but at least the US has less bombings!
I get that things have been shitty all the time, but generally the direction has been towards better things. I dunno if we reached a point where things are as good as it gets and getting better is more and more difficult, but I personally feel that things are in some sort of a turning point. I know I’m a grumpy fuck, but I’ve really tried to always look on the bright side of life (whistle) but I haven’t really found anything worth looking forwards to. Plaargh.
It used to be a lot worse for the vast majority
Not an old person. But so to put into perspective:
My maternal grandmother was born in war-torn China after the japanese imperilists wrecked our country. Food was not even a guarantee… farming sucked…
My parents were born during the cultural revolution… the way they described stuff… all they had to eat was 番薯 (sweet potatoes?)… they say my generation had it better off…
I remember rations were said to be a common thing…
By my era, I had stable access to food. I remember being so picky and they scold me for me… “back in my day… all we had to eat was…”
I wanted more things to play with… its responded with… “back in my day… all we had to play with is…” (don’t remember the answer but they played with like rocks or sticks or strings or stuff like that)
Literally… all the food would’ve been a luxury in their era…
So like… in a way… westerners having access to food is already not bad…
I mean y’all are not being invaded by imperial japanese…
y’all not being bombed by russians in Ukraine…
y’all not being bombed by israel in Gaza
so…
(I’m not saying you should accept status quo, just trying to think positively by looking into how bad it could get…)
-From an American Citizen originally born in China in 2002
Edit: I also wanna mention the problem with people who grow up under these conditions… they had to deal with so much “real issues” that the whole topic of mental health is never a thing to them… “just get over it” as my parents say…
UGH WTF…
So yea… the west have mental health acceptance… so consider yourselves lucky…
