comment
stringlengths 1
9.49k
| context
sequencelengths 0
835
|
|---|---|
>
Its not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US."
] |
>
Sure, I'll take you up on this.
Having a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.
Politics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.
Gays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere.
Sure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby.
People who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.
I don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s.
Meanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:
Modern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.
Advanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.
Acceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003.
A public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.
Unparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.
By all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe"
] |
>
Most of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.
As a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.
I believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol) | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again."
] |
>
Climate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)"
] |
>
Asisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones."
] |
>
Politics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)
I assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun."
] |
>
I assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber
Yeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet."
] |
>
It literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.
And on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982."
] |
>
When you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber."
] |
>
When you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?
Western World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance."
] |
>
America is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much."
] |
>
They could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall."
] |
>
"The world" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US."
] |
>
He says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)
But you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.
Edit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries” | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet."
] |
>
Why even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world? | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”"
] |
>
I was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?"
] |
>
The economy was far better and more people-friendly.
The 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it
You could run a family on a single wage.
See above
Politics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)
See above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed
There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.
Go back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the "comfort" around them.
People were generally happier and less frustrated than now.
As with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11
There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.
This is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar "middle class" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11 | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person"
] |
>
9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever
As for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11"
] |
>
Really, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people."
] |
>
It sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term"
] |
>
Clearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.
It was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry."
] |
>
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...
Like, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison? | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though."
] |
>
The problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?"
] |
>
Is everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights.
And, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate."
] |
>
If anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint."
] |
>
Oh, absolutely. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right"
] |
>
Pre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:
There were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.
Racial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.
Political polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.
The US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.
The US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
Issues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.
So I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely."
] |
>
Was it 9/11 that put us down this path?
Was it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?
Was it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?
Was it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of "natural" human sharing?
Was it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?
Or was it earlier?
Was it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?
Was it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?
Was it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?
Was it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?
Where do you draw the line?
Why is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?
Aside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023."
] |
>
To some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people.
Maga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks."
] |
>
The economy was far better and more people-friendly.
9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time
You could run a family on a single wage.
I'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.
Politics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)
Eh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe.
There was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value
Privacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.
bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today
From my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct.
There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS
There is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows.
People were generally happier and less frustrated than now.
Where are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people.
There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.
There still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too.
From my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone."
] |
>
I gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it."
] |
>
The Patriot Act was passed after 9/11 | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians."
] |
>
Indeed it was, as a response to it | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11"
] |
>
It wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it"
] |
>
What you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement."
] |
>
You're cherry picking quite a bit.
Before 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show "Threads" if you think there was widespread hope for the future. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999."
] |
>
Were you including 19th century and early 20th century?
There were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.
The 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.
Not to mention Great Depression and World War II.
Skyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future."
] |
>
If the world seemed "free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.
I won't address all your points, but a few stand out:
- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance.
- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.
- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc
- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.
- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this?
- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Beyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.
I'll take 2023 over 1993 any day. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built."
] |
>
Honestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.
The economy was far better and more people-friendly.
The Great Recession?
You could run a family on a single wage.
What are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.
Politics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)
I mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.
There was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.
Again, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?
There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.
The Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.
People were generally happier and less frustrated than now.
Based onl...?
There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.
See above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s.
Life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.
It wasn't. What would change your view? | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day."
] |
>
It wasn't. What would change your view?
Seeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?"
] |
>
Seeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.
How would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11? | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once."
] |
>
Because there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?"
] |
>
Because there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.
There wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s."
] |
>
If the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made.
It’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on."
] |
>
why did 9/11 happen
Because Bush got elected and fucked everything up. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple."
] |
>
That world that elected him is the one your wistful for.
Would he get elected today? | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up."
] |
>
Would he get elected today?
We got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?"
] |
>
I can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by.
It’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse."
] |
>
What years exactly are you talking about? | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage."
] |
>
Post-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?"
] |
>
I think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.
All of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023
There were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s."
] |
>
I do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation."
] |
>
Why did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11? | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues."
] |
>
Sucked to be gay way more back then. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?"
] |
>
You are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.
Sure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison? | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then."
] |
>
The anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?"
] |
>
The pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious."
] |
>
Life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,
Explain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues."
] |
>
Not if you weren't white or straight. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression."
] |
>
This view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight."
] |
>
The 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol."
] |
>
(no Capitol Hills or whatever)
Remember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't! | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting."
] |
>
I meant Capitol attack. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!"
] |
>
Hey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty.
The ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day.
OP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack."
] |
>
My point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses."
] |
>
And many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise.
I’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years.
Heck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s."
] |
>
What was best back then for me… Religionless. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline."
] |
>
I love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.
That’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless."
] |
>
Ahh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist."
] |
>
It was the same shit, different century | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist.",
">\n\nAhh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face."
] |
>
Its not even 9/11, its capitalism and globalisation getting further along the track. With or without 9/11, we'd be in the mess we're in and it'll only keep getting worse. Unless we completely get rid of it it naturally converges into a few mega corporations that own everything with everyone else having nothing left. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist.",
">\n\nAhh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face.",
">\n\nIt was the same shit, different century"
] |
>
The economy was far better and more people-friendly.
You could run a family on a single wage.
I’m putting these two into one, because as many people have already explained, even pre-9/11, the economy was already starting to unravel from the middle class.
What you’re saying is more like pre-1970’s economics. By 2000, the “Dad goes to work, Mom stays at home” economics was already out of the picture for many families. NAFTA would pass in 1994, Reagonomics was already revved up, whole towns that were once economically healthy were already on the decline…. Like, if we’re gonna replicate any time period in terms of economics, post-1960’s would be the last I’d ever want to repeat (and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed for everyone, especially if you were LGBT, female, a racial minority or all of the above).
And even after 9/11, the real shitter we’re seeing now wouldn’t occur for another 7 years (and totally unrelated to 9/11). At least you could still find cheap housing in most of the world until around the 2010’s-2020’s.
Politics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)
To some extent, it was better than now, though the crazy BS of the Republican Party was already starting to sizzle since the Nixon era (see all the shit they tried to pull on Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan’s and Nixon’s shenanigans). The “fuck the unionized working class” nature of the Democratic Party was also already a thing by 2000 as well (though now they’re starting to reverse that, finally). Also, as much as human rights are being threatened again (for some reason), half of the time, they weren’t even around pre-9/11. We’re also at least finally recognizing shit like subtle/systemic racism as a society, something that did not happen after Rodney King.
And I’m just explaining national (or at least American) politics in the 80’s-90’s. Go into Eastern Europe in the 90’s, Western Europe in the Cold War, Canada’s Native population pre-1996 (hint: it’s not great, and even now, it’s still rough), South America since…. like, forever!
There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.
Wait, what are we talking about? Besides AIDS, the first two were mostly eliminated in the 90’s (which I’m assuming is what you mean by “pre-9/11”), and even after 9/11, as a 2000’s kid, I didn’t really have to worry about nuclear weaponry until around 2013-2014, when North Korea and, now, Russia were starting to threaten us. Same with pandemics. Like, I genuinely thought COVID would just be another Ebola scare since we’ve dodged almost every single life changing pandemic since the 1920’s (sans AIDS), including the 2000’s and even 2010’s. 9/11 definitely wasn’t what plunged our world into this mess….
People were generally happier and less frustrated than now.
There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.
Again, I’m gonna tackle these both since they carry a similar answer in my eyes.
If the pre-9/11 world was all rosy and positive, then why (especially in the 90’s) was media so edgy and nihilistic? There was stuff like Daria, Duck Man, the Simpsons, the “edgy” comics of the decade, Ren & Stimpy (to some extent), etc,., that either made fun of society as some stupid mass or even worse. Even the first Men in Black movie had the famous “A person is smart, people are dumb” quote. Definitely not a rosy picture of the world, especially for a world that was apparently oh-so great. Also, there was the Y2K scare, where there was a genuine fear that the world would fall into chaos once the clock hit 1/1/2000.
Life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.
Honestly, I’ve come to realize that anyone who says this tends to be because they were younger (especially kids) in the “joyful” era. That’s usually what happens when you have a decent childhood.
Like, I could make the argument that the 2000’s was oh-so fun and great simply from my own experience as a kid of that decade (late 90’s baby, with clear-ish memories starting around 2000-2001). That doesn’t inherently mean it was all great and fun for everyone or everything, or that most/no one (including me) had little to no problems back then. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist.",
">\n\nAhh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face.",
">\n\nIt was the same shit, different century",
">\n\nIts not even 9/11, its capitalism and globalisation getting further along the track. With or without 9/11, we'd be in the mess we're in and it'll only keep getting worse. Unless we completely get rid of it it naturally converges into a few mega corporations that own everything with everyone else having nothing left."
] |
>
I'm on this planet and I will strongly disagree with this take.
The Pre-9/11 world was a horrendous nightmare of continent-wide genocides, centuries-long theocracies, plagues that wiped out millions, Crusades, famines, World Wars, slavery, female subjugation, and at least one global extinction-level event.
Given the choice, I'll take the downsides of post-9/11 world any day over the millennia of suffering that preceded it. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist.",
">\n\nAhh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face.",
">\n\nIt was the same shit, different century",
">\n\nIts not even 9/11, its capitalism and globalisation getting further along the track. With or without 9/11, we'd be in the mess we're in and it'll only keep getting worse. Unless we completely get rid of it it naturally converges into a few mega corporations that own everything with everyone else having nothing left.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI’m putting these two into one, because as many people have already explained, even pre-9/11, the economy was already starting to unravel from the middle class.\nWhat you’re saying is more like pre-1970’s economics. By 2000, the “Dad goes to work, Mom stays at home” economics was already out of the picture for many families. NAFTA would pass in 1994, Reagonomics was already revved up, whole towns that were once economically healthy were already on the decline…. Like, if we’re gonna replicate any time period in terms of economics, post-1960’s would be the last I’d ever want to repeat (and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed for everyone, especially if you were LGBT, female, a racial minority or all of the above).\nAnd even after 9/11, the real shitter we’re seeing now wouldn’t occur for another 7 years (and totally unrelated to 9/11). At least you could still find cheap housing in most of the world until around the 2010’s-2020’s. \n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nTo some extent, it was better than now, though the crazy BS of the Republican Party was already starting to sizzle since the Nixon era (see all the shit they tried to pull on Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan’s and Nixon’s shenanigans). The “fuck the unionized working class” nature of the Democratic Party was also already a thing by 2000 as well (though now they’re starting to reverse that, finally). Also, as much as human rights are being threatened again (for some reason), half of the time, they weren’t even around pre-9/11. We’re also at least finally recognizing shit like subtle/systemic racism as a society, something that did not happen after Rodney King. \nAnd I’m just explaining national (or at least American) politics in the 80’s-90’s. Go into Eastern Europe in the 90’s, Western Europe in the Cold War, Canada’s Native population pre-1996 (hint: it’s not great, and even now, it’s still rough), South America since…. like, forever! \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nWait, what are we talking about? Besides AIDS, the first two were mostly eliminated in the 90’s (which I’m assuming is what you mean by “pre-9/11”), and even after 9/11, as a 2000’s kid, I didn’t really have to worry about nuclear weaponry until around 2013-2014, when North Korea and, now, Russia were starting to threaten us. Same with pandemics. Like, I genuinely thought COVID would just be another Ebola scare since we’ve dodged almost every single life changing pandemic since the 1920’s (sans AIDS), including the 2000’s and even 2010’s. 9/11 definitely wasn’t what plunged our world into this mess…. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nAgain, I’m gonna tackle these both since they carry a similar answer in my eyes.\nIf the pre-9/11 world was all rosy and positive, then why (especially in the 90’s) was media so edgy and nihilistic? There was stuff like Daria, Duck Man, the Simpsons, the “edgy” comics of the decade, Ren & Stimpy (to some extent), etc,., that either made fun of society as some stupid mass or even worse. Even the first Men in Black movie had the famous “A person is smart, people are dumb” quote. Definitely not a rosy picture of the world, especially for a world that was apparently oh-so great. Also, there was the Y2K scare, where there was a genuine fear that the world would fall into chaos once the clock hit 1/1/2000. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nHonestly, I’ve come to realize that anyone who says this tends to be because they were younger (especially kids) in the “joyful” era. That’s usually what happens when you have a decent childhood.\nLike, I could make the argument that the 2000’s was oh-so fun and great simply from my own experience as a kid of that decade (late 90’s baby, with clear-ish memories starting around 2000-2001). That doesn’t inherently mean it was all great and fun for everyone or everything, or that most/no one (including me) had little to no problems back then."
] |
>
Ok all those things still exist. Have you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan? The only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom. It’s all yours. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist.",
">\n\nAhh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face.",
">\n\nIt was the same shit, different century",
">\n\nIts not even 9/11, its capitalism and globalisation getting further along the track. With or without 9/11, we'd be in the mess we're in and it'll only keep getting worse. Unless we completely get rid of it it naturally converges into a few mega corporations that own everything with everyone else having nothing left.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI’m putting these two into one, because as many people have already explained, even pre-9/11, the economy was already starting to unravel from the middle class.\nWhat you’re saying is more like pre-1970’s economics. By 2000, the “Dad goes to work, Mom stays at home” economics was already out of the picture for many families. NAFTA would pass in 1994, Reagonomics was already revved up, whole towns that were once economically healthy were already on the decline…. Like, if we’re gonna replicate any time period in terms of economics, post-1960’s would be the last I’d ever want to repeat (and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed for everyone, especially if you were LGBT, female, a racial minority or all of the above).\nAnd even after 9/11, the real shitter we’re seeing now wouldn’t occur for another 7 years (and totally unrelated to 9/11). At least you could still find cheap housing in most of the world until around the 2010’s-2020’s. \n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nTo some extent, it was better than now, though the crazy BS of the Republican Party was already starting to sizzle since the Nixon era (see all the shit they tried to pull on Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan’s and Nixon’s shenanigans). The “fuck the unionized working class” nature of the Democratic Party was also already a thing by 2000 as well (though now they’re starting to reverse that, finally). Also, as much as human rights are being threatened again (for some reason), half of the time, they weren’t even around pre-9/11. We’re also at least finally recognizing shit like subtle/systemic racism as a society, something that did not happen after Rodney King. \nAnd I’m just explaining national (or at least American) politics in the 80’s-90’s. Go into Eastern Europe in the 90’s, Western Europe in the Cold War, Canada’s Native population pre-1996 (hint: it’s not great, and even now, it’s still rough), South America since…. like, forever! \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nWait, what are we talking about? Besides AIDS, the first two were mostly eliminated in the 90’s (which I’m assuming is what you mean by “pre-9/11”), and even after 9/11, as a 2000’s kid, I didn’t really have to worry about nuclear weaponry until around 2013-2014, when North Korea and, now, Russia were starting to threaten us. Same with pandemics. Like, I genuinely thought COVID would just be another Ebola scare since we’ve dodged almost every single life changing pandemic since the 1920’s (sans AIDS), including the 2000’s and even 2010’s. 9/11 definitely wasn’t what plunged our world into this mess…. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nAgain, I’m gonna tackle these both since they carry a similar answer in my eyes.\nIf the pre-9/11 world was all rosy and positive, then why (especially in the 90’s) was media so edgy and nihilistic? There was stuff like Daria, Duck Man, the Simpsons, the “edgy” comics of the decade, Ren & Stimpy (to some extent), etc,., that either made fun of society as some stupid mass or even worse. Even the first Men in Black movie had the famous “A person is smart, people are dumb” quote. Definitely not a rosy picture of the world, especially for a world that was apparently oh-so great. Also, there was the Y2K scare, where there was a genuine fear that the world would fall into chaos once the clock hit 1/1/2000. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nHonestly, I’ve come to realize that anyone who says this tends to be because they were younger (especially kids) in the “joyful” era. That’s usually what happens when you have a decent childhood.\nLike, I could make the argument that the 2000’s was oh-so fun and great simply from my own experience as a kid of that decade (late 90’s baby, with clear-ish memories starting around 2000-2001). That doesn’t inherently mean it was all great and fun for everyone or everything, or that most/no one (including me) had little to no problems back then.",
">\n\nI'm on this planet and I will strongly disagree with this take. \nThe Pre-9/11 world was a horrendous nightmare of continent-wide genocides, centuries-long theocracies, plagues that wiped out millions, Crusades, famines, World Wars, slavery, female subjugation, and at least one global extinction-level event. \nGiven the choice, I'll take the downsides of post-9/11 world any day over the millennia of suffering that preceded it."
] |
>
Have you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan?
Nope. Given the choice, I'll take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan any day over the millennia of wars that preceded it. I'd even take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the wars that preceded it just in the 20th century alone.
The only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom.
You couldn't make that statement truthfully if you were female. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist.",
">\n\nAhh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face.",
">\n\nIt was the same shit, different century",
">\n\nIts not even 9/11, its capitalism and globalisation getting further along the track. With or without 9/11, we'd be in the mess we're in and it'll only keep getting worse. Unless we completely get rid of it it naturally converges into a few mega corporations that own everything with everyone else having nothing left.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI’m putting these two into one, because as many people have already explained, even pre-9/11, the economy was already starting to unravel from the middle class.\nWhat you’re saying is more like pre-1970’s economics. By 2000, the “Dad goes to work, Mom stays at home” economics was already out of the picture for many families. NAFTA would pass in 1994, Reagonomics was already revved up, whole towns that were once economically healthy were already on the decline…. Like, if we’re gonna replicate any time period in terms of economics, post-1960’s would be the last I’d ever want to repeat (and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed for everyone, especially if you were LGBT, female, a racial minority or all of the above).\nAnd even after 9/11, the real shitter we’re seeing now wouldn’t occur for another 7 years (and totally unrelated to 9/11). At least you could still find cheap housing in most of the world until around the 2010’s-2020’s. \n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nTo some extent, it was better than now, though the crazy BS of the Republican Party was already starting to sizzle since the Nixon era (see all the shit they tried to pull on Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan’s and Nixon’s shenanigans). The “fuck the unionized working class” nature of the Democratic Party was also already a thing by 2000 as well (though now they’re starting to reverse that, finally). Also, as much as human rights are being threatened again (for some reason), half of the time, they weren’t even around pre-9/11. We’re also at least finally recognizing shit like subtle/systemic racism as a society, something that did not happen after Rodney King. \nAnd I’m just explaining national (or at least American) politics in the 80’s-90’s. Go into Eastern Europe in the 90’s, Western Europe in the Cold War, Canada’s Native population pre-1996 (hint: it’s not great, and even now, it’s still rough), South America since…. like, forever! \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nWait, what are we talking about? Besides AIDS, the first two were mostly eliminated in the 90’s (which I’m assuming is what you mean by “pre-9/11”), and even after 9/11, as a 2000’s kid, I didn’t really have to worry about nuclear weaponry until around 2013-2014, when North Korea and, now, Russia were starting to threaten us. Same with pandemics. Like, I genuinely thought COVID would just be another Ebola scare since we’ve dodged almost every single life changing pandemic since the 1920’s (sans AIDS), including the 2000’s and even 2010’s. 9/11 definitely wasn’t what plunged our world into this mess…. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nAgain, I’m gonna tackle these both since they carry a similar answer in my eyes.\nIf the pre-9/11 world was all rosy and positive, then why (especially in the 90’s) was media so edgy and nihilistic? There was stuff like Daria, Duck Man, the Simpsons, the “edgy” comics of the decade, Ren & Stimpy (to some extent), etc,., that either made fun of society as some stupid mass or even worse. Even the first Men in Black movie had the famous “A person is smart, people are dumb” quote. Definitely not a rosy picture of the world, especially for a world that was apparently oh-so great. Also, there was the Y2K scare, where there was a genuine fear that the world would fall into chaos once the clock hit 1/1/2000. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nHonestly, I’ve come to realize that anyone who says this tends to be because they were younger (especially kids) in the “joyful” era. That’s usually what happens when you have a decent childhood.\nLike, I could make the argument that the 2000’s was oh-so fun and great simply from my own experience as a kid of that decade (late 90’s baby, with clear-ish memories starting around 2000-2001). That doesn’t inherently mean it was all great and fun for everyone or everything, or that most/no one (including me) had little to no problems back then.",
">\n\nI'm on this planet and I will strongly disagree with this take. \nThe Pre-9/11 world was a horrendous nightmare of continent-wide genocides, centuries-long theocracies, plagues that wiped out millions, Crusades, famines, World Wars, slavery, female subjugation, and at least one global extinction-level event. \nGiven the choice, I'll take the downsides of post-9/11 world any day over the millennia of suffering that preceded it.",
">\n\nOk all those things still exist. Have you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan? The only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom. It’s all yours."
] |
>
War will never end my good man. It is a condition of humanity. And yes women have also lost liberties and freedom post 911. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist.",
">\n\nAhh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face.",
">\n\nIt was the same shit, different century",
">\n\nIts not even 9/11, its capitalism and globalisation getting further along the track. With or without 9/11, we'd be in the mess we're in and it'll only keep getting worse. Unless we completely get rid of it it naturally converges into a few mega corporations that own everything with everyone else having nothing left.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI’m putting these two into one, because as many people have already explained, even pre-9/11, the economy was already starting to unravel from the middle class.\nWhat you’re saying is more like pre-1970’s economics. By 2000, the “Dad goes to work, Mom stays at home” economics was already out of the picture for many families. NAFTA would pass in 1994, Reagonomics was already revved up, whole towns that were once economically healthy were already on the decline…. Like, if we’re gonna replicate any time period in terms of economics, post-1960’s would be the last I’d ever want to repeat (and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed for everyone, especially if you were LGBT, female, a racial minority or all of the above).\nAnd even after 9/11, the real shitter we’re seeing now wouldn’t occur for another 7 years (and totally unrelated to 9/11). At least you could still find cheap housing in most of the world until around the 2010’s-2020’s. \n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nTo some extent, it was better than now, though the crazy BS of the Republican Party was already starting to sizzle since the Nixon era (see all the shit they tried to pull on Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan’s and Nixon’s shenanigans). The “fuck the unionized working class” nature of the Democratic Party was also already a thing by 2000 as well (though now they’re starting to reverse that, finally). Also, as much as human rights are being threatened again (for some reason), half of the time, they weren’t even around pre-9/11. We’re also at least finally recognizing shit like subtle/systemic racism as a society, something that did not happen after Rodney King. \nAnd I’m just explaining national (or at least American) politics in the 80’s-90’s. Go into Eastern Europe in the 90’s, Western Europe in the Cold War, Canada’s Native population pre-1996 (hint: it’s not great, and even now, it’s still rough), South America since…. like, forever! \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nWait, what are we talking about? Besides AIDS, the first two were mostly eliminated in the 90’s (which I’m assuming is what you mean by “pre-9/11”), and even after 9/11, as a 2000’s kid, I didn’t really have to worry about nuclear weaponry until around 2013-2014, when North Korea and, now, Russia were starting to threaten us. Same with pandemics. Like, I genuinely thought COVID would just be another Ebola scare since we’ve dodged almost every single life changing pandemic since the 1920’s (sans AIDS), including the 2000’s and even 2010’s. 9/11 definitely wasn’t what plunged our world into this mess…. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nAgain, I’m gonna tackle these both since they carry a similar answer in my eyes.\nIf the pre-9/11 world was all rosy and positive, then why (especially in the 90’s) was media so edgy and nihilistic? There was stuff like Daria, Duck Man, the Simpsons, the “edgy” comics of the decade, Ren & Stimpy (to some extent), etc,., that either made fun of society as some stupid mass or even worse. Even the first Men in Black movie had the famous “A person is smart, people are dumb” quote. Definitely not a rosy picture of the world, especially for a world that was apparently oh-so great. Also, there was the Y2K scare, where there was a genuine fear that the world would fall into chaos once the clock hit 1/1/2000. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nHonestly, I’ve come to realize that anyone who says this tends to be because they were younger (especially kids) in the “joyful” era. That’s usually what happens when you have a decent childhood.\nLike, I could make the argument that the 2000’s was oh-so fun and great simply from my own experience as a kid of that decade (late 90’s baby, with clear-ish memories starting around 2000-2001). That doesn’t inherently mean it was all great and fun for everyone or everything, or that most/no one (including me) had little to no problems back then.",
">\n\nI'm on this planet and I will strongly disagree with this take. \nThe Pre-9/11 world was a horrendous nightmare of continent-wide genocides, centuries-long theocracies, plagues that wiped out millions, Crusades, famines, World Wars, slavery, female subjugation, and at least one global extinction-level event. \nGiven the choice, I'll take the downsides of post-9/11 world any day over the millennia of suffering that preceded it.",
">\n\nOk all those things still exist. Have you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan? The only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom. It’s all yours.",
">\n\n\nHave you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan?\n\nNope. Given the choice, I'll take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan any day over the millennia of wars that preceded it. I'd even take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the wars that preceded it just in the 20th century alone. \n\nThe only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom.\n\nYou couldn't make that statement truthfully if you were female."
] |
>
You're trying to move on to new debates now (whether war will ever end, whether women have lost liberties and freedom post 911).
Is that because you lost the debate we were having? | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist.",
">\n\nAhh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face.",
">\n\nIt was the same shit, different century",
">\n\nIts not even 9/11, its capitalism and globalisation getting further along the track. With or without 9/11, we'd be in the mess we're in and it'll only keep getting worse. Unless we completely get rid of it it naturally converges into a few mega corporations that own everything with everyone else having nothing left.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI’m putting these two into one, because as many people have already explained, even pre-9/11, the economy was already starting to unravel from the middle class.\nWhat you’re saying is more like pre-1970’s economics. By 2000, the “Dad goes to work, Mom stays at home” economics was already out of the picture for many families. NAFTA would pass in 1994, Reagonomics was already revved up, whole towns that were once economically healthy were already on the decline…. Like, if we’re gonna replicate any time period in terms of economics, post-1960’s would be the last I’d ever want to repeat (and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed for everyone, especially if you were LGBT, female, a racial minority or all of the above).\nAnd even after 9/11, the real shitter we’re seeing now wouldn’t occur for another 7 years (and totally unrelated to 9/11). At least you could still find cheap housing in most of the world until around the 2010’s-2020’s. \n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nTo some extent, it was better than now, though the crazy BS of the Republican Party was already starting to sizzle since the Nixon era (see all the shit they tried to pull on Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan’s and Nixon’s shenanigans). The “fuck the unionized working class” nature of the Democratic Party was also already a thing by 2000 as well (though now they’re starting to reverse that, finally). Also, as much as human rights are being threatened again (for some reason), half of the time, they weren’t even around pre-9/11. We’re also at least finally recognizing shit like subtle/systemic racism as a society, something that did not happen after Rodney King. \nAnd I’m just explaining national (or at least American) politics in the 80’s-90’s. Go into Eastern Europe in the 90’s, Western Europe in the Cold War, Canada’s Native population pre-1996 (hint: it’s not great, and even now, it’s still rough), South America since…. like, forever! \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nWait, what are we talking about? Besides AIDS, the first two were mostly eliminated in the 90’s (which I’m assuming is what you mean by “pre-9/11”), and even after 9/11, as a 2000’s kid, I didn’t really have to worry about nuclear weaponry until around 2013-2014, when North Korea and, now, Russia were starting to threaten us. Same with pandemics. Like, I genuinely thought COVID would just be another Ebola scare since we’ve dodged almost every single life changing pandemic since the 1920’s (sans AIDS), including the 2000’s and even 2010’s. 9/11 definitely wasn’t what plunged our world into this mess…. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nAgain, I’m gonna tackle these both since they carry a similar answer in my eyes.\nIf the pre-9/11 world was all rosy and positive, then why (especially in the 90’s) was media so edgy and nihilistic? There was stuff like Daria, Duck Man, the Simpsons, the “edgy” comics of the decade, Ren & Stimpy (to some extent), etc,., that either made fun of society as some stupid mass or even worse. Even the first Men in Black movie had the famous “A person is smart, people are dumb” quote. Definitely not a rosy picture of the world, especially for a world that was apparently oh-so great. Also, there was the Y2K scare, where there was a genuine fear that the world would fall into chaos once the clock hit 1/1/2000. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nHonestly, I’ve come to realize that anyone who says this tends to be because they were younger (especially kids) in the “joyful” era. That’s usually what happens when you have a decent childhood.\nLike, I could make the argument that the 2000’s was oh-so fun and great simply from my own experience as a kid of that decade (late 90’s baby, with clear-ish memories starting around 2000-2001). That doesn’t inherently mean it was all great and fun for everyone or everything, or that most/no one (including me) had little to no problems back then.",
">\n\nI'm on this planet and I will strongly disagree with this take. \nThe Pre-9/11 world was a horrendous nightmare of continent-wide genocides, centuries-long theocracies, plagues that wiped out millions, Crusades, famines, World Wars, slavery, female subjugation, and at least one global extinction-level event. \nGiven the choice, I'll take the downsides of post-9/11 world any day over the millennia of suffering that preceded it.",
">\n\nOk all those things still exist. Have you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan? The only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom. It’s all yours.",
">\n\n\nHave you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan?\n\nNope. Given the choice, I'll take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan any day over the millennia of wars that preceded it. I'd even take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the wars that preceded it just in the 20th century alone. \n\nThe only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom.\n\nYou couldn't make that statement truthfully if you were female.",
">\n\nWar will never end my good man. It is a condition of humanity. And yes women have also lost liberties and freedom post 911."
] |
>
No dude. You are wrong for all
Of the reasons you have listed. The world is shittier in every way since 911 and will
Continue to get worse. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist.",
">\n\nAhh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face.",
">\n\nIt was the same shit, different century",
">\n\nIts not even 9/11, its capitalism and globalisation getting further along the track. With or without 9/11, we'd be in the mess we're in and it'll only keep getting worse. Unless we completely get rid of it it naturally converges into a few mega corporations that own everything with everyone else having nothing left.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI’m putting these two into one, because as many people have already explained, even pre-9/11, the economy was already starting to unravel from the middle class.\nWhat you’re saying is more like pre-1970’s economics. By 2000, the “Dad goes to work, Mom stays at home” economics was already out of the picture for many families. NAFTA would pass in 1994, Reagonomics was already revved up, whole towns that were once economically healthy were already on the decline…. Like, if we’re gonna replicate any time period in terms of economics, post-1960’s would be the last I’d ever want to repeat (and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed for everyone, especially if you were LGBT, female, a racial minority or all of the above).\nAnd even after 9/11, the real shitter we’re seeing now wouldn’t occur for another 7 years (and totally unrelated to 9/11). At least you could still find cheap housing in most of the world until around the 2010’s-2020’s. \n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nTo some extent, it was better than now, though the crazy BS of the Republican Party was already starting to sizzle since the Nixon era (see all the shit they tried to pull on Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan’s and Nixon’s shenanigans). The “fuck the unionized working class” nature of the Democratic Party was also already a thing by 2000 as well (though now they’re starting to reverse that, finally). Also, as much as human rights are being threatened again (for some reason), half of the time, they weren’t even around pre-9/11. We’re also at least finally recognizing shit like subtle/systemic racism as a society, something that did not happen after Rodney King. \nAnd I’m just explaining national (or at least American) politics in the 80’s-90’s. Go into Eastern Europe in the 90’s, Western Europe in the Cold War, Canada’s Native population pre-1996 (hint: it’s not great, and even now, it’s still rough), South America since…. like, forever! \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nWait, what are we talking about? Besides AIDS, the first two were mostly eliminated in the 90’s (which I’m assuming is what you mean by “pre-9/11”), and even after 9/11, as a 2000’s kid, I didn’t really have to worry about nuclear weaponry until around 2013-2014, when North Korea and, now, Russia were starting to threaten us. Same with pandemics. Like, I genuinely thought COVID would just be another Ebola scare since we’ve dodged almost every single life changing pandemic since the 1920’s (sans AIDS), including the 2000’s and even 2010’s. 9/11 definitely wasn’t what plunged our world into this mess…. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nAgain, I’m gonna tackle these both since they carry a similar answer in my eyes.\nIf the pre-9/11 world was all rosy and positive, then why (especially in the 90’s) was media so edgy and nihilistic? There was stuff like Daria, Duck Man, the Simpsons, the “edgy” comics of the decade, Ren & Stimpy (to some extent), etc,., that either made fun of society as some stupid mass or even worse. Even the first Men in Black movie had the famous “A person is smart, people are dumb” quote. Definitely not a rosy picture of the world, especially for a world that was apparently oh-so great. Also, there was the Y2K scare, where there was a genuine fear that the world would fall into chaos once the clock hit 1/1/2000. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nHonestly, I’ve come to realize that anyone who says this tends to be because they were younger (especially kids) in the “joyful” era. That’s usually what happens when you have a decent childhood.\nLike, I could make the argument that the 2000’s was oh-so fun and great simply from my own experience as a kid of that decade (late 90’s baby, with clear-ish memories starting around 2000-2001). That doesn’t inherently mean it was all great and fun for everyone or everything, or that most/no one (including me) had little to no problems back then.",
">\n\nI'm on this planet and I will strongly disagree with this take. \nThe Pre-9/11 world was a horrendous nightmare of continent-wide genocides, centuries-long theocracies, plagues that wiped out millions, Crusades, famines, World Wars, slavery, female subjugation, and at least one global extinction-level event. \nGiven the choice, I'll take the downsides of post-9/11 world any day over the millennia of suffering that preceded it.",
">\n\nOk all those things still exist. Have you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan? The only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom. It’s all yours.",
">\n\n\nHave you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan?\n\nNope. Given the choice, I'll take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan any day over the millennia of wars that preceded it. I'd even take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the wars that preceded it just in the 20th century alone. \n\nThe only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom.\n\nYou couldn't make that statement truthfully if you were female.",
">\n\nWar will never end my good man. It is a condition of humanity. And yes women have also lost liberties and freedom post 911.",
">\n\nYou're trying to move on to new debates now (whether war will ever end, whether women have lost liberties and freedom post 911). \nIs that because you lost the debate we were having?"
] |
>
I'm open to being convinced that I'm wrong. Explain how the world since 9/11 has been shittier for women than the preceding 300 millennia were. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist.",
">\n\nAhh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face.",
">\n\nIt was the same shit, different century",
">\n\nIts not even 9/11, its capitalism and globalisation getting further along the track. With or without 9/11, we'd be in the mess we're in and it'll only keep getting worse. Unless we completely get rid of it it naturally converges into a few mega corporations that own everything with everyone else having nothing left.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI’m putting these two into one, because as many people have already explained, even pre-9/11, the economy was already starting to unravel from the middle class.\nWhat you’re saying is more like pre-1970’s economics. By 2000, the “Dad goes to work, Mom stays at home” economics was already out of the picture for many families. NAFTA would pass in 1994, Reagonomics was already revved up, whole towns that were once economically healthy were already on the decline…. Like, if we’re gonna replicate any time period in terms of economics, post-1960’s would be the last I’d ever want to repeat (and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed for everyone, especially if you were LGBT, female, a racial minority or all of the above).\nAnd even after 9/11, the real shitter we’re seeing now wouldn’t occur for another 7 years (and totally unrelated to 9/11). At least you could still find cheap housing in most of the world until around the 2010’s-2020’s. \n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nTo some extent, it was better than now, though the crazy BS of the Republican Party was already starting to sizzle since the Nixon era (see all the shit they tried to pull on Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan’s and Nixon’s shenanigans). The “fuck the unionized working class” nature of the Democratic Party was also already a thing by 2000 as well (though now they’re starting to reverse that, finally). Also, as much as human rights are being threatened again (for some reason), half of the time, they weren’t even around pre-9/11. We’re also at least finally recognizing shit like subtle/systemic racism as a society, something that did not happen after Rodney King. \nAnd I’m just explaining national (or at least American) politics in the 80’s-90’s. Go into Eastern Europe in the 90’s, Western Europe in the Cold War, Canada’s Native population pre-1996 (hint: it’s not great, and even now, it’s still rough), South America since…. like, forever! \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nWait, what are we talking about? Besides AIDS, the first two were mostly eliminated in the 90’s (which I’m assuming is what you mean by “pre-9/11”), and even after 9/11, as a 2000’s kid, I didn’t really have to worry about nuclear weaponry until around 2013-2014, when North Korea and, now, Russia were starting to threaten us. Same with pandemics. Like, I genuinely thought COVID would just be another Ebola scare since we’ve dodged almost every single life changing pandemic since the 1920’s (sans AIDS), including the 2000’s and even 2010’s. 9/11 definitely wasn’t what plunged our world into this mess…. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nAgain, I’m gonna tackle these both since they carry a similar answer in my eyes.\nIf the pre-9/11 world was all rosy and positive, then why (especially in the 90’s) was media so edgy and nihilistic? There was stuff like Daria, Duck Man, the Simpsons, the “edgy” comics of the decade, Ren & Stimpy (to some extent), etc,., that either made fun of society as some stupid mass or even worse. Even the first Men in Black movie had the famous “A person is smart, people are dumb” quote. Definitely not a rosy picture of the world, especially for a world that was apparently oh-so great. Also, there was the Y2K scare, where there was a genuine fear that the world would fall into chaos once the clock hit 1/1/2000. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nHonestly, I’ve come to realize that anyone who says this tends to be because they were younger (especially kids) in the “joyful” era. That’s usually what happens when you have a decent childhood.\nLike, I could make the argument that the 2000’s was oh-so fun and great simply from my own experience as a kid of that decade (late 90’s baby, with clear-ish memories starting around 2000-2001). That doesn’t inherently mean it was all great and fun for everyone or everything, or that most/no one (including me) had little to no problems back then.",
">\n\nI'm on this planet and I will strongly disagree with this take. \nThe Pre-9/11 world was a horrendous nightmare of continent-wide genocides, centuries-long theocracies, plagues that wiped out millions, Crusades, famines, World Wars, slavery, female subjugation, and at least one global extinction-level event. \nGiven the choice, I'll take the downsides of post-9/11 world any day over the millennia of suffering that preceded it.",
">\n\nOk all those things still exist. Have you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan? The only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom. It’s all yours.",
">\n\n\nHave you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan?\n\nNope. Given the choice, I'll take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan any day over the millennia of wars that preceded it. I'd even take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the wars that preceded it just in the 20th century alone. \n\nThe only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom.\n\nYou couldn't make that statement truthfully if you were female.",
">\n\nWar will never end my good man. It is a condition of humanity. And yes women have also lost liberties and freedom post 911.",
">\n\nYou're trying to move on to new debates now (whether war will ever end, whether women have lost liberties and freedom post 911). \nIs that because you lost the debate we were having?",
">\n\nNo dude. You are wrong for all\nOf the reasons you have listed. The world is shittier in every way since 911 and will\nContinue to get worse."
] |
>
We aren’t talking about the previous 3000 years here or at least I didn’t think we were. I am looking at the 22 Years before and after.
Things for women have been getting progressively better over the last three thousand years. Weee things not better for women in 2000 then they were in 1858? The answer is yes. And they are even better now. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist.",
">\n\nAhh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face.",
">\n\nIt was the same shit, different century",
">\n\nIts not even 9/11, its capitalism and globalisation getting further along the track. With or without 9/11, we'd be in the mess we're in and it'll only keep getting worse. Unless we completely get rid of it it naturally converges into a few mega corporations that own everything with everyone else having nothing left.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI’m putting these two into one, because as many people have already explained, even pre-9/11, the economy was already starting to unravel from the middle class.\nWhat you’re saying is more like pre-1970’s economics. By 2000, the “Dad goes to work, Mom stays at home” economics was already out of the picture for many families. NAFTA would pass in 1994, Reagonomics was already revved up, whole towns that were once economically healthy were already on the decline…. Like, if we’re gonna replicate any time period in terms of economics, post-1960’s would be the last I’d ever want to repeat (and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed for everyone, especially if you were LGBT, female, a racial minority or all of the above).\nAnd even after 9/11, the real shitter we’re seeing now wouldn’t occur for another 7 years (and totally unrelated to 9/11). At least you could still find cheap housing in most of the world until around the 2010’s-2020’s. \n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nTo some extent, it was better than now, though the crazy BS of the Republican Party was already starting to sizzle since the Nixon era (see all the shit they tried to pull on Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan’s and Nixon’s shenanigans). The “fuck the unionized working class” nature of the Democratic Party was also already a thing by 2000 as well (though now they’re starting to reverse that, finally). Also, as much as human rights are being threatened again (for some reason), half of the time, they weren’t even around pre-9/11. We’re also at least finally recognizing shit like subtle/systemic racism as a society, something that did not happen after Rodney King. \nAnd I’m just explaining national (or at least American) politics in the 80’s-90’s. Go into Eastern Europe in the 90’s, Western Europe in the Cold War, Canada’s Native population pre-1996 (hint: it’s not great, and even now, it’s still rough), South America since…. like, forever! \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nWait, what are we talking about? Besides AIDS, the first two were mostly eliminated in the 90’s (which I’m assuming is what you mean by “pre-9/11”), and even after 9/11, as a 2000’s kid, I didn’t really have to worry about nuclear weaponry until around 2013-2014, when North Korea and, now, Russia were starting to threaten us. Same with pandemics. Like, I genuinely thought COVID would just be another Ebola scare since we’ve dodged almost every single life changing pandemic since the 1920’s (sans AIDS), including the 2000’s and even 2010’s. 9/11 definitely wasn’t what plunged our world into this mess…. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nAgain, I’m gonna tackle these both since they carry a similar answer in my eyes.\nIf the pre-9/11 world was all rosy and positive, then why (especially in the 90’s) was media so edgy and nihilistic? There was stuff like Daria, Duck Man, the Simpsons, the “edgy” comics of the decade, Ren & Stimpy (to some extent), etc,., that either made fun of society as some stupid mass or even worse. Even the first Men in Black movie had the famous “A person is smart, people are dumb” quote. Definitely not a rosy picture of the world, especially for a world that was apparently oh-so great. Also, there was the Y2K scare, where there was a genuine fear that the world would fall into chaos once the clock hit 1/1/2000. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nHonestly, I’ve come to realize that anyone who says this tends to be because they were younger (especially kids) in the “joyful” era. That’s usually what happens when you have a decent childhood.\nLike, I could make the argument that the 2000’s was oh-so fun and great simply from my own experience as a kid of that decade (late 90’s baby, with clear-ish memories starting around 2000-2001). That doesn’t inherently mean it was all great and fun for everyone or everything, or that most/no one (including me) had little to no problems back then.",
">\n\nI'm on this planet and I will strongly disagree with this take. \nThe Pre-9/11 world was a horrendous nightmare of continent-wide genocides, centuries-long theocracies, plagues that wiped out millions, Crusades, famines, World Wars, slavery, female subjugation, and at least one global extinction-level event. \nGiven the choice, I'll take the downsides of post-9/11 world any day over the millennia of suffering that preceded it.",
">\n\nOk all those things still exist. Have you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan? The only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom. It’s all yours.",
">\n\n\nHave you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan?\n\nNope. Given the choice, I'll take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan any day over the millennia of wars that preceded it. I'd even take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the wars that preceded it just in the 20th century alone. \n\nThe only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom.\n\nYou couldn't make that statement truthfully if you were female.",
">\n\nWar will never end my good man. It is a condition of humanity. And yes women have also lost liberties and freedom post 911.",
">\n\nYou're trying to move on to new debates now (whether war will ever end, whether women have lost liberties and freedom post 911). \nIs that because you lost the debate we were having?",
">\n\nNo dude. You are wrong for all\nOf the reasons you have listed. The world is shittier in every way since 911 and will\nContinue to get worse.",
">\n\nI'm open to being convinced that I'm wrong. Explain how the world since 9/11 has been shittier for women than the preceding 300 millennia were."
] |
>
If you've Changed Your View from
Pre-9/11 world was much better than post-9/11 world
to
The world 22 years prior to Pre-9/11 was much better than post-9/11 world
you should acknowledge the Change in Your View.
If you've Changed Your View from
The world is shittier in every way since 911
to
Things are even better now for women than they were before 9/11
you should acknowledge the Change in Your View. | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist.",
">\n\nAhh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face.",
">\n\nIt was the same shit, different century",
">\n\nIts not even 9/11, its capitalism and globalisation getting further along the track. With or without 9/11, we'd be in the mess we're in and it'll only keep getting worse. Unless we completely get rid of it it naturally converges into a few mega corporations that own everything with everyone else having nothing left.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI’m putting these two into one, because as many people have already explained, even pre-9/11, the economy was already starting to unravel from the middle class.\nWhat you’re saying is more like pre-1970’s economics. By 2000, the “Dad goes to work, Mom stays at home” economics was already out of the picture for many families. NAFTA would pass in 1994, Reagonomics was already revved up, whole towns that were once economically healthy were already on the decline…. Like, if we’re gonna replicate any time period in terms of economics, post-1960’s would be the last I’d ever want to repeat (and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed for everyone, especially if you were LGBT, female, a racial minority or all of the above).\nAnd even after 9/11, the real shitter we’re seeing now wouldn’t occur for another 7 years (and totally unrelated to 9/11). At least you could still find cheap housing in most of the world until around the 2010’s-2020’s. \n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nTo some extent, it was better than now, though the crazy BS of the Republican Party was already starting to sizzle since the Nixon era (see all the shit they tried to pull on Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan’s and Nixon’s shenanigans). The “fuck the unionized working class” nature of the Democratic Party was also already a thing by 2000 as well (though now they’re starting to reverse that, finally). Also, as much as human rights are being threatened again (for some reason), half of the time, they weren’t even around pre-9/11. We’re also at least finally recognizing shit like subtle/systemic racism as a society, something that did not happen after Rodney King. \nAnd I’m just explaining national (or at least American) politics in the 80’s-90’s. Go into Eastern Europe in the 90’s, Western Europe in the Cold War, Canada’s Native population pre-1996 (hint: it’s not great, and even now, it’s still rough), South America since…. like, forever! \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nWait, what are we talking about? Besides AIDS, the first two were mostly eliminated in the 90’s (which I’m assuming is what you mean by “pre-9/11”), and even after 9/11, as a 2000’s kid, I didn’t really have to worry about nuclear weaponry until around 2013-2014, when North Korea and, now, Russia were starting to threaten us. Same with pandemics. Like, I genuinely thought COVID would just be another Ebola scare since we’ve dodged almost every single life changing pandemic since the 1920’s (sans AIDS), including the 2000’s and even 2010’s. 9/11 definitely wasn’t what plunged our world into this mess…. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nAgain, I’m gonna tackle these both since they carry a similar answer in my eyes.\nIf the pre-9/11 world was all rosy and positive, then why (especially in the 90’s) was media so edgy and nihilistic? There was stuff like Daria, Duck Man, the Simpsons, the “edgy” comics of the decade, Ren & Stimpy (to some extent), etc,., that either made fun of society as some stupid mass or even worse. Even the first Men in Black movie had the famous “A person is smart, people are dumb” quote. Definitely not a rosy picture of the world, especially for a world that was apparently oh-so great. Also, there was the Y2K scare, where there was a genuine fear that the world would fall into chaos once the clock hit 1/1/2000. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nHonestly, I’ve come to realize that anyone who says this tends to be because they were younger (especially kids) in the “joyful” era. That’s usually what happens when you have a decent childhood.\nLike, I could make the argument that the 2000’s was oh-so fun and great simply from my own experience as a kid of that decade (late 90’s baby, with clear-ish memories starting around 2000-2001). That doesn’t inherently mean it was all great and fun for everyone or everything, or that most/no one (including me) had little to no problems back then.",
">\n\nI'm on this planet and I will strongly disagree with this take. \nThe Pre-9/11 world was a horrendous nightmare of continent-wide genocides, centuries-long theocracies, plagues that wiped out millions, Crusades, famines, World Wars, slavery, female subjugation, and at least one global extinction-level event. \nGiven the choice, I'll take the downsides of post-9/11 world any day over the millennia of suffering that preceded it.",
">\n\nOk all those things still exist. Have you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan? The only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom. It’s all yours.",
">\n\n\nHave you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan?\n\nNope. Given the choice, I'll take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan any day over the millennia of wars that preceded it. I'd even take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the wars that preceded it just in the 20th century alone. \n\nThe only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom.\n\nYou couldn't make that statement truthfully if you were female.",
">\n\nWar will never end my good man. It is a condition of humanity. And yes women have also lost liberties and freedom post 911.",
">\n\nYou're trying to move on to new debates now (whether war will ever end, whether women have lost liberties and freedom post 911). \nIs that because you lost the debate we were having?",
">\n\nNo dude. You are wrong for all\nOf the reasons you have listed. The world is shittier in every way since 911 and will\nContinue to get worse.",
">\n\nI'm open to being convinced that I'm wrong. Explain how the world since 9/11 has been shittier for women than the preceding 300 millennia were.",
">\n\nWe aren’t talking about the previous 3000 years here or at least I didn’t think we were. I am looking at the 22 Years before and after.\nThings for women have been getting progressively better over the last three thousand years. Weee things not better for women in 2000 then they were in 1858? The answer is yes. And they are even better now."
] |
> | [
"/u/FringoloFrangolo (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.\nAll comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.\nPlease note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.\n^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nI'm gonna guess you were young and carefree back then, yes?",
">\n\nI wasn't even born, but pretty much everyone would choose to live 30-40 years ago instead of now.",
">\n\nIf we were back then, I'd have a very real chance of getting hatecrimed for going outside. Gotta say, 'able to walk down the street' is a pretty good pitch for the modern day, comparatively.",
">\n\nClimate change being a thing makes being \"hate-crimed\" a relatively minor inconvenience compared to the messes we'll have to face in the next decades.",
">\n\nBecause being beaten to death is a minor inconvenience as compared to...what?",
">\n\n\nas compared to...what?\n\nDying of hunger and extreme heat in the next few decades.",
">\n\nWhy is being beaten to death a minor inconvenience as compared to dying of hunger?",
">\n\nIn fairness, climate change IS a serious problem, one that might actually undo most of our current technological progress. Don’t forget that LGBTQ+ rights are very much limited to Western countries. Human Rights in Africa or Asia have stagnated or gotten even worse.",
">\n\nThat doesn't have anything to do with what I'm complaining about, though. 'Don't worry at least you're not going to starve to death a decade in the future' is just as comforting to a gay guy being beaten to death in Africa as it is to a gay guy being beaten to death in the US.",
">\n\nIts not even “a decade into the future” for some countries. It’s happening now; and if anything, more desperation is going to lead to more bigotry across the globe",
">\n\nSure, I'll take you up on this.\n\nHaving a family on a single wage was still challenging in the 90s. 64% of mothers worked in 1999. Source. In 2021, that number was 71%. Source. The difference is relatively minimal.\nPolitics was not less stupid in the 90s. We still impeached a president over a blowjob. Sex scandals were routine and career-ending. Gridlock was the norm, just as it is today.\nGays weren't tolerated in most places. Trans people weren't tolerated anywhere. \nSure, people saw other people IRL more often. However, they didn't get to engage in niche hobbies. In 2023, you can still meet people to hang out with regularly, you just have to have a community that you want to join. For me, it's tabletop gaming - I game in-person 3-4 times a week. For others, it's a sport or a different hobby. \nPeople who didn't have hobbies before 2000 generally met people at church, but religious belief has declined dramatically since then. The problem is that a lot of people haven't replaced the church with anything else social. That's the adjustment we need to make, and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a unique problem in 2023.\nI don't know that everybody was that optimistic in the 90s. I think that a lot of Millennials look back at the 90s with rose-colored glasses because they didn't see their parents' struggles. It's the same thing that happens with Boomers and the 50s. \n\nMeanwhile, here's some stuff we didn't have in 1999 that we have now:\n\nModern cell phones which let you find information and contact people while traveling.\nAdvanced medicine that lets us create vaccines in record time. HIV will be eradicated within our lifetimes.\nAcceptance of sexual minorities in ways that were unfathomable in 1999. Back then, some states still criminalized gay sex. Those laws weren't ruled unconstitutional until 2003. \nA public access healthcare marketplace so that, if you need to buy your own insurance, you can see the options without going through a middleman. Also, the insurers in those markets can't reject you for having a pre-existing condition.\nUnparalleled access to media. In 1999, if you wanted to watch a show at a time that wasn't convenient for you, you had to set your VCR to record it. That process often resulted in failure. Reruns were sporadic and not reliable. Video games had to be purchased in physical form, and you were generally limited to what was available in local stores. Music was purchased not as individual tracks, but as whole albums.\n\nBy all objective measurements, we're better off now than we were in 1999. The last 8 years have basically been the death throes of the old order. Once we get it out of our system, we'll be able to start progressing again.",
">\n\nMost of the Millennials who are nostalgic for the 1990’s are Upper-Middle Class Westerners, so their parents probably did NOT have struggles whatsoever. This explains why the 2008 recession is such a lingering scar on that generation psychologically - for a lot of Millennials and even younger Gen X it was the first systemic failure that they experienced. The neoliberal system really did fail.\nAs a Gen Z, I can assure you that many in my generation are already nostalgic for the 2000’s and 2010’s. I think the mere idea of adults who are nostalgic for the 9/11, Iraq War and Great Recession era speaks for itself.\nI believe the world is still adjusting to the Populist Wave of 2014-2021, but politics itself is not the problem. Global Warming is going to really undo almost all the progress that was made from 1980-2020 (and Climate Change IS real, only Americans embrace climate change denial lol)",
">\n\nClimate change isn’t something most of us deny, just the loud ones.",
">\n\nAsisn people, black people, Jewish people, and minority groups did not have fun.",
">\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber. The only difference is you didn't notice as much because you didn't have the internet.",
">\n\n\nI assure you it was just as dumb if not dumber\n\nYeah, no, there's no way a Capitol Hill could have happened in 1997 or 1982.",
">\n\nIt literally happened in Florida in 2000 over the Bush-Gore election.\nAnd on top of that, it was actually successful unlike January 6. Because things were far dumber.",
">\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right? Most of India pre 9/11 vs today is basically the same except more people have iPhones, although in the urban areas life has improved and infrastructure continues to advance.",
">\n\n\nWhen you say the world you're basically talking about America, right?\n\nWestern World in general, but honestly most of the places that were in shit back then haven't improved very much.",
">\n\nAmerica is not the world though. Would you clarify your post to be about pre/post 9/11 America? Otherwise if you leave it as the world then yes, there have been advancements and quality of life overall is improving or stagnating. The developing world continues to be developing, which means improvement overall.",
">\n\nThey could have been a little more clear, but the US can be implied here since 9/11 happened in and to the US.",
">\n\n\"The world\" doesn't imply the US, the world is the planet.",
">\n\nHe says “the post 9/11 world”. Depending on the audience, “world” can mean something smaller than the whole planet (“my world”, “our world”)\nBut you’re not wrong, this is Reddit and it is not just the United States.\nEdit: when I Google “define world”, the second definition is “a region or group of countries”",
">\n\nWhy even make this argument when OP provided clarification that they meant globally, with a focus in the Western world?",
">\n\nI was just trying to be nice to the pedantic person",
">\n\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n\nThe 90s is when the political shift away from labour had completed, and the process of dismantling jobs was coming to fruition. Saying it was better then is like saying your house was nice and toasty right before it burnt to the ground. Yes, it was, but it sure as hell wasn't going to stay that way, and 9/11 had nothing to do with it\n\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\n\nSee above\n\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\n\nSee above. Also, many human rights were completely dismissed\n\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS. \n\n\nGo back and check on that. The 90s, particularly the late 90s when people were used to it, was the definition of angst. People were anything but hopeful, and were beginning to lash out at the \"comfort\" around them.\n\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\n\nAs with the first point, even for the comfortable, the 90s was stagnant. People were already getting stir crazy before 9/11\n\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\n\nThis is a bit tricky. The 90s was the end of history decade, and it's true that, at least in the pervading liberal politics, the idea was that everything has been solved and the world needed to just steer the ship, stay the course. But it was a really stupid idea. As with the first points about work, and the last point about happiness, the cracks were not only showing, they were widening at exponential rates. It wasn't 9/11 that destroyed the manufacturering economies without anything to replace them, nor was it 9/11 that deregulated everything. Financial collapse, housing crashes, dot com crashes, the utter destruction of blue collar \"middle class\" and labour rights--all of that had happened or was happening without 9/11",
">\n\n9/11 was a Black Swan event - impossible to predict that Bin Laden would attempt such a massive attack on the US and that the Bush government would be largely negligent when it happened. The Iraq War was a separate event entirely and was going to happen anyway because of weird ideologies like Neoconservatism becoming popular. Likewise the Great Recession was a result of policies started by Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan, so your precious 1990’s were never going to last forever\nAs for social media becoming extremely toxic? That was already predicted in the 1990’s by a lot of people.",
">\n\nReally, Bush and co were dead set on destroying anything left of America's social services, and had just begun to table completely obliterating social security when 9/11 happened, forcing them to put a lot of that on the backburner until next term",
">\n\nIt sure as hell wasn't free for gay people wanting to marry.",
">\n\nClearly you are not a Gay Person who wants to get married or a women who needs an abortion.\nIt was a golden age to be a cop that murders someone and faces zero consequence, though.",
">\n\nNostalgia is a hell of a drug, and you seem very much like an addict. Everything you complain about nowadays you can find in the pre 9/11 world, you just don't know about it. The economy was never 'people friendly', politics were always stupid and ignorant (Reagen is where the Capitol Hill thing started), privacy was only if you didn't piss off the government, people were worried about the literal apocalypse, people were absolutely not happier during Vietnam or the Korean war or the aforementioned worries about the Apocalypse or the civil rights era or...\nLike, you've already said you weren't born back then. Maybe the people who are telling you these things are liars who have a vested interest in making today seem worse by comparison?",
">\n\nThe problem is that back then there were improvements, now everything's worsening at an increasing rate.",
">\n\nIs everything worsening? We are still living in some of the most peaceful times in the history of the world. Gay and trans people have more rights, racial minorities have more rights. \nAnd, like, sure, climate change isn't being solved... but it wasnt' being solved before 9/11 either, so I'm not sure why you're using that as a complaint.",
">\n\nIf anything, climate change denial was actively accepted during the 1990’s and 2000’s. By both ideologies, not just the Right",
">\n\nOh, absolutely.",
">\n\nPre-9/11, America faced a number of problems and challenges. Here’s some examples:\nThere were significant gaps in wealth and income between different groups of people in the United States.\nRacial tensions between different communities were still prevalent in America before 9/11, with issues such as police brutality and discrimination being major concerns.\nPolitical polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties was a significant issue before 9/11, with both sides becoming increasingly entrenched in their positions.\nThe US was involved in a number of international conflicts including the Gulf War, the Balkans, and the ongoing war in Afghanistan.\nThe US had experienced several incidents of domestic terrorism, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.\nIssues such as poverty, crime, and drug addiction also existed in America before 9/11.\nSo I suppose the more things “change”, the more they “stay the same”, because were pretty much still dealing with ALL of these things in 2023.",
">\n\nWas it 9/11 that put us down this path?\nWas it later when Obama was elected president and Republicans started to realized they didn't have to dog whistle anymore?\nWas it later, after the great recession stunted the economic future of the Millennials?\nWas it later when social media companies resorted to algorithms to push content, instead of \"natural\" human sharing?\nWas it later, after Covid19 pushed Americans further into their devices and dependency on the internet for social interaction?\nOr was it earlier?\nWas it in 2000, when the Supreme Court overrode the election and deciding the president before all the votes were counted properly?\nWas it Watergate? When Republicans realized they would have to fragment and polarize the media in order to survive?\nWas it Roe v. Wade, which put anti-abortion activists on the war path to enact their agenda by any means necessary, including co-opting the churches?\nWas it even earlier? The agricultural revolution that took us from being sustainable hunter gatherers into slash and burn farming?\nWhere do you draw the line?\nWhy is 9/11 the turning point for you specifically?\nAside from TSA security theater, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the other turning points described above have had just as much if not more influence on American public life than the terror attacks.",
">\n\nTo some people, the world, as it is now, is better to some people. \nMaga people well relish a time where... let's not go there, shall we? Even their time was before my time, and I'm not a spring chicken. But at least I grew up in a time where I could learn that someone's good time is not always a good time for everyone.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\n9/11 didn't cause the economy to turn in the way it did per-se, we were already heading down this path based on the way we handled the economy at the time\n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI'm assuming you're saying that you can't on a single average american wage, and in that case, fine. Disregarding high-skill trades in medium-cost areas. But again, the same things we were doing back then, cultivated the economy we're in now.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nEh. It was just dumb in different ways. People less willing to speak out for marginalized groups. Open racism was more regular and acceptable (not saying it was thoroughly supported, but it certainly wasn't seen as badly as it is today.) We have certainly made significant social progress when it comes to marginalized groups since that timeframe. \n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value\n\nPrivacy is a word that still has value. It's easier to access information when it is spread, but other than that, you still can easily have privacy from other average people in the same way you did back then. It is not easier for the average person to track you now, then it was back then. Sure, you have your phone and things of that nature that can track your location, but the majority of the population is not smart enough to take advantage of that without your permission.\n\nbullshit could not spread as widely as it does today\n\nFrom my understanding (was too young to say from firsthand experience) the opposite happened for people that actually cared enough to look into things. Someone back then, especially in non-professional circles, would make a claim, and you couldn't just deny it, because you only have your pre-existing knowledge to back it up. So people believed the bullshit of others way more willingly back in, and general stupidness was definitely more common. Now, when you want to know something, it's a quick google away. If you want to be sure it's true, it's an additional 5-15 minutes of looking up things like peer-reviewed studies and such to be sure that it's most likely correct. \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS\n\nThere is still plenty of hope for the future. We always are facing challenges, but with advancing technology, things become cheaper and more easily accessible. We are becoming extremely efficient at power produced vs c02 produced, an amazing achievment in the fight against climate change. The ozone that we depleted back then, not far from the timeframe you're speaking of, is repaired due to things we've done between then and now. Poor countries are getting better infrastructure and access to basic necessities. The world as a whole is getting richer and better quality of life, even if it looks bad from our first-world windows. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nWhere are you getting that from? At any point in time, there is always a fair amount of both. You may just be hanging around very negative and depressing people. \n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nThere still is that feeling today for many. Take the good with the bad. There may be tons of negatives to think about, probably due to media you consume that is skewed towards the negatives (it gets more clicks, so they'll keep posting it, but that doesn't mean bad things weren't happening in the 90s.) But there is plenty of amazing things happening too. \nFrom my perspective, reading this post, you are taking your personal anecdotal perspective, and due to your own personal negative worldview, you are assuming the entire world shares it.",
">\n\nI gotta ask OP. Better for who? Surely not for the innocent Muslims who were the victims of hate crimes. Surely not for the soldiers who died and their families, who were sent to war to fight against WMD that didn’t exist. Surely not for the countless civilians lives taken my American involvement in the Middle East. Surely not for American citizens unjustly surveilled because of the Patriot Act. Some of the things you mentioned like social media, wage stagnation, cost of living increase, those things were going to happen anyways. I find it interesting you say monitored, when the Patriot Act ( a direct result of 9/11) caused mass surveillance of American civilians.",
">\n\nThe Patriot Act was passed after 9/11",
">\n\nIndeed it was, as a response to it",
">\n\nIt wasn't 9/11. It was ronald reagan. Union busting, tax cuts for the rich and deficit spending to build up a giant peacetime military. He marks the moment workers wages and productivity became uncoupled. The rich could become as rich as they wanted and the poor could like it or leave. It brought the country out of a recession,and landed it in another. Unions are only now starting to regain a little power forty years later. I am making the same wages my father did in 1984. He was very well paid. I am doing okay, but not enough to live past retirement.",
">\n\nWhat you mentioned has pretty much nothing to do with 9/11. You could make the same argument for like, 3/13/1999.",
">\n\nYou're cherry picking quite a bit. \nBefore 1992 your parents and your grandparents lived until the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Look at 80's movies like The Day After or that British show \"Threads\" if you think there was widespread hope for the future.",
">\n\nWere you including 19th century and early 20th century?\nThere were no automobiles back then. Politics were shady in those days. Communication was less advanced and slow, even with telegram.\nThe 1920s US encountered negative consequences of the 18th Amendment, which banned (sales and trade of) alcoholic beverages.\nNot to mention Great Depression and World War II.\nSkyscrapers have been built after 9/11... including ones overseas. In other words, the World Trade Center skyscraper collapse didn't stop skyscrapers from being built.",
">\n\nIf the world seemed \"free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable\" pre-9/11, it probably had more to do with your knowledge and understanding of it then. The internet may shine a brighter light on these things now, but they have always been around, and worse.\nI won't address all your points, but a few stand out:\n- You could run a family on a single wage - that ended well before 9/11. And do you know what that also meant? Women were left behind in the workplace and often this also meant they stayed at home in lousy relationships with a huge power imbalance. \n- Politics was far less stupid and ignorant - except for Clinton's impeachment, the cult of Reagan, Nixon and Watergate, Kennedy's drug addiction, even the insanity of Grover Cleveland's personal life.\n- people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today - the flipside to which is that now it is easier to stay in contact with people you otherwise would have lost, people are able to find others who can support them with mental health issues etc\n- There was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS - These are not minor things. A generation grew up in fear of nuclear war. Gay people were not only terrified of but also demonised because of AIDS.\n- People were generally happier and less frustrated than now - Is there any evidence of this? \n- There was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today - Maybe because we were less aware of the imminent danger we were putting ourselves in by continuing to burn fossil fuels.\nBeyond this the social progress we have made has allowed same sex relationships to become more accepted, racism and sexism has diminished (although there is still a way to go). Medical treatments have improved markedly, to the point where diseases that were killing people 20 years ago are treatable now.\nI'll take 2023 over 1993 any day.",
">\n\nHonestly this just sounds like you were born around then and don't know much history.\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\n\nThe Great Recession? \n\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nWhat are you basing this on? Where did you get that idea? Where? In a general 'one factory job could buy you a house in Nebraska' type of thing is from half a century before 9-11.\n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nI mean.... George Bush was president, after the entire Bush v. Gore fiasco. He was a terrible moron.\n\nThere was no social media, so privacy was still a word that had value (no security laws or Facebook to spy on people), people saw each other in real life and not in front of a screen, communities were much more united and bullshit could not spread as widely as it does today.\n\nAgain, what're you basing the 'communities were more united' on?\n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nThe Great Recession, the Iraq war, and on. The three things you mention were from decades before 9-11.\n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\n\nBased onl...?\n\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nSee above. I don't understand where you're getting the idea that it was some 1950s utopia that you also seem to be dating to the '80s. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?",
">\n\n\nIt wasn't. What would change your view?\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.",
">\n\n\nSeeing climate change getting fucking solved and the economic system being fixed, for once.\n\nHow would that change your view that the world was better before 9-11?",
">\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.",
">\n\n\nBecause there would be hope for a future and hell, for a even better world than the one we left in the 80s and 90s.\n\nThere wasn't a lot of hope for the future during the Cuban Missile Crisis, during Watergate, Vietnam, the escalation of the Cold War, and on.",
">\n\nIf the world was so great why did 9/11 happen? These before vs after posts are wild because you’re ignoring what lead up to the crisis and also forgetting that just because things are different or hard does not mean they’re worse. I think BECAUSE of 9/11 so much spotlight on otherwise ignored issues was finally made. \nIt’s like a couples fight and then therapy. Ignoring the issue lead to the fight but the messy work of therapy and acknowledging the issues is (ideally) going to make a stronger couple.",
">\n\n\nwhy did 9/11 happen\n\nBecause Bush got elected and fucked everything up.",
">\n\nThat world that elected him is the one your wistful for.\nWould he get elected today?",
">\n\n\nWould he get elected today?\n\nWe got people like Trump and Bolsonaro so... now it's even worse.",
">\n\nI can assure you, in many cases, Bush was actually worse than Trump because Bush was a mainstream President not confined to a fringe movement - his failures were largely accepted by the public and by people in Washington. At least with Trump, the majority of Americans actually seem to hate him (nominatively), if approval ratings are anything to go by. \nIt’s rather indisputable that Bush actually made America weaker as a whole AND he led to both Trump and Bolsonaro because it was Bush who normalized Climate Change Denial on the international stage.",
">\n\nWhat years exactly are you talking about?",
">\n\nPost-WWII to 90s, with its peak in the decades from 70s to 90s.",
">\n\nI think you're glossing over a lot of the bad things about that era: Racism, sexism, homophobia, illiteracy, infectious diseases, lead pollution, ozone depletion, wars, military draft, riots, earthquakes, political assassinations, terrorism, etc.\nAll of those things were worse in 1945-2001 than in 2001-2023\nThere were also a lot of good things about that era, but if I could choose what year to be born in, I'd choose 2001 over 1945 without hesitation.",
">\n\nI do think that 9/11 destroyed our sense of national security in an irrevocable way and the effects on American society will probably never be fully reversed. That being said, this claim is a massive oversimplification that doesn't account for the overwhelming social progress that we've achieved since 2001 on a variety of issues.",
">\n\nWhy did you choose 9/11 as your before and after? Specifically, how do you feel the variables you listed were directly affected by 9/11?",
">\n\nSucked to be gay way more back then.",
">\n\nYou are comparing the past to an ananomoly period, which is the aftermath of a global pandemic.\nSure right now has big challenges, some that will take years to settle out. But how useful is it to do such a comparison?",
">\n\nThe anomaly period has been going on for pretty much 15 years. I compare it because I see how my parents lived and how I will live and I get envious.",
">\n\nThe pandemic was 2 years ago. Much of the economic and political stife is directly or indirectly related to it. I agree with you that the late 90s were arguably much better than now. I'm just saying try to look past the pandemic driven issues.",
">\n\n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy,\n\nExplain the popularity of “Grunge Music” then. Every album played at my high school prom sounded like depression. Except for “Song 2”. That sounded like a guy making fun how many people had depression.",
">\n\nNot if you weren't white or straight.",
">\n\nThis view is fine if you’re a cis white male with some money. Lol.",
">\n\nThe 90’s was also not that great of a time for people with disabilities. The ADA had only just been signed in July of 1990 and it took until 1999 for SCOTUS to rule that people with disabilities had to be offered services in the most integrated setting.",
">\n\n\n(no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nRemember on 9/11 where, simultaneously but unrelated to the major terrorist attack, the Capitol building was raised on stilts and a hill built underneath it? I don't!",
">\n\nI meant Capitol attack.",
">\n\nHey, OP. As a rule I have a deep and profound mistrust for anyone who mythologizes the past. One reason for this being that people have always done it, yet always treated the idea of the past being better as a novelty. \nThe ancient Greeks (talking like 500-400 BC here) believed that there were 5 ages of history: The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Age of Heroes (the setting for most myths involving gods or demigods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, etc), and The Current Age. Surprise, surprise, they believed that the current age was the worst of them all. People had never been so immoral and impious as they were right then, that was a novel problem of the current day. \nOP, to me you don’t sound much different than the Ancient Greeks. Stop mythologizing a time when you weren’t alive. There may be new problems and issues in this age that weren’t present in the past, but that doesn’t mean that the past didn’t have great difficulties of its own. Take off those rose-tinted glasses.",
">\n\nMy point is that the difficulties of current time are much worse than those of the 90s.",
">\n\nAnd many people have replied to you with statistics demonstrating otherwise. \nI’m asking what makes you different from the countless people who have always claimed that the past was better? Such people are almost always referring to a time before they were born or when they were very young, and refuse to acknowledge the problems of those years. \nHeck, in most cases I think they’re just ranting or venting rather than expressing a genuine opinion. Most people are unwilling to go full Amish or something like that. They’re happy to enjoy the advances and conveniences of the modern world while lamenting it’s moral and je ne sais quoi decline.",
">\n\nWhat was best back then for me… Religionless.",
">\n\nI love the statement “life before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy and sociable”.\nThat’s exactly what I tell myself when watching LA riots footage while listening to my grunge era playlist.",
">\n\nAhh yes, post 9/11 were you are forced to join social media and not allowed to meet people face to face.",
">\n\nIt was the same shit, different century",
">\n\nIts not even 9/11, its capitalism and globalisation getting further along the track. With or without 9/11, we'd be in the mess we're in and it'll only keep getting worse. Unless we completely get rid of it it naturally converges into a few mega corporations that own everything with everyone else having nothing left.",
">\n\n\nThe economy was far better and more people-friendly.\nYou could run a family on a single wage.\n\nI’m putting these two into one, because as many people have already explained, even pre-9/11, the economy was already starting to unravel from the middle class.\nWhat you’re saying is more like pre-1970’s economics. By 2000, the “Dad goes to work, Mom stays at home” economics was already out of the picture for many families. NAFTA would pass in 1994, Reagonomics was already revved up, whole towns that were once economically healthy were already on the decline…. Like, if we’re gonna replicate any time period in terms of economics, post-1960’s would be the last I’d ever want to repeat (and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed for everyone, especially if you were LGBT, female, a racial minority or all of the above).\nAnd even after 9/11, the real shitter we’re seeing now wouldn’t occur for another 7 years (and totally unrelated to 9/11). At least you could still find cheap housing in most of the world until around the 2010’s-2020’s. \n\nPolitics was far less stupid and ignorant (no Capitol Hills or whatever)\n\nTo some extent, it was better than now, though the crazy BS of the Republican Party was already starting to sizzle since the Nixon era (see all the shit they tried to pull on Bill Clinton, or Ronald Reagan’s and Nixon’s shenanigans). The “fuck the unionized working class” nature of the Democratic Party was also already a thing by 2000 as well (though now they’re starting to reverse that, finally). Also, as much as human rights are being threatened again (for some reason), half of the time, they weren’t even around pre-9/11. We’re also at least finally recognizing shit like subtle/systemic racism as a society, something that did not happen after Rodney King. \nAnd I’m just explaining national (or at least American) politics in the 80’s-90’s. Go into Eastern Europe in the 90’s, Western Europe in the Cold War, Canada’s Native population pre-1996 (hint: it’s not great, and even now, it’s still rough), South America since…. like, forever! \n\nThere was hope for the future despite the Cold War, the risk of nuclear war and AIDS.\n\nWait, what are we talking about? Besides AIDS, the first two were mostly eliminated in the 90’s (which I’m assuming is what you mean by “pre-9/11”), and even after 9/11, as a 2000’s kid, I didn’t really have to worry about nuclear weaponry until around 2013-2014, when North Korea and, now, Russia were starting to threaten us. Same with pandemics. Like, I genuinely thought COVID would just be another Ebola scare since we’ve dodged almost every single life changing pandemic since the 1920’s (sans AIDS), including the 2000’s and even 2010’s. 9/11 definitely wasn’t what plunged our world into this mess…. \n\nPeople were generally happier and less frustrated than now.\nThere was a feeling that humanity was going somewhere good and not towards a future of despair and misery like today.\n\nAgain, I’m gonna tackle these both since they carry a similar answer in my eyes.\nIf the pre-9/11 world was all rosy and positive, then why (especially in the 90’s) was media so edgy and nihilistic? There was stuff like Daria, Duck Man, the Simpsons, the “edgy” comics of the decade, Ren & Stimpy (to some extent), etc,., that either made fun of society as some stupid mass or even worse. Even the first Men in Black movie had the famous “A person is smart, people are dumb” quote. Definitely not a rosy picture of the world, especially for a world that was apparently oh-so great. Also, there was the Y2K scare, where there was a genuine fear that the world would fall into chaos once the clock hit 1/1/2000. \n\nLife before 9/11 was free, joyful, energetic, happy, sociable. Today instead it is aseptic, monitored, oppressive, atomising and depressing.\n\nHonestly, I’ve come to realize that anyone who says this tends to be because they were younger (especially kids) in the “joyful” era. That’s usually what happens when you have a decent childhood.\nLike, I could make the argument that the 2000’s was oh-so fun and great simply from my own experience as a kid of that decade (late 90’s baby, with clear-ish memories starting around 2000-2001). That doesn’t inherently mean it was all great and fun for everyone or everything, or that most/no one (including me) had little to no problems back then.",
">\n\nI'm on this planet and I will strongly disagree with this take. \nThe Pre-9/11 world was a horrendous nightmare of continent-wide genocides, centuries-long theocracies, plagues that wiped out millions, Crusades, famines, World Wars, slavery, female subjugation, and at least one global extinction-level event. \nGiven the choice, I'll take the downsides of post-9/11 world any day over the millennia of suffering that preceded it.",
">\n\nOk all those things still exist. Have you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan? The only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom. It’s all yours.",
">\n\n\nHave you forgotten about all the wars post 911? Iraq? Afghanistan?\n\nNope. Given the choice, I'll take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan any day over the millennia of wars that preceded it. I'd even take the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the wars that preceded it just in the 20th century alone. \n\nThe only thing that’s changed is we have far less liberties and freedom.\n\nYou couldn't make that statement truthfully if you were female.",
">\n\nWar will never end my good man. It is a condition of humanity. And yes women have also lost liberties and freedom post 911.",
">\n\nYou're trying to move on to new debates now (whether war will ever end, whether women have lost liberties and freedom post 911). \nIs that because you lost the debate we were having?",
">\n\nNo dude. You are wrong for all\nOf the reasons you have listed. The world is shittier in every way since 911 and will\nContinue to get worse.",
">\n\nI'm open to being convinced that I'm wrong. Explain how the world since 9/11 has been shittier for women than the preceding 300 millennia were.",
">\n\nWe aren’t talking about the previous 3000 years here or at least I didn’t think we were. I am looking at the 22 Years before and after.\nThings for women have been getting progressively better over the last three thousand years. Weee things not better for women in 2000 then they were in 1858? The answer is yes. And they are even better now.",
">\n\nIf you've Changed Your View from\nPre-9/11 world was much better than post-9/11 world\nto\nThe world 22 years prior to Pre-9/11 was much better than post-9/11 world\nyou should acknowledge the Change in Your View.\nIf you've Changed Your View from\nThe world is shittier in every way since 911\nto\nThings are even better now for women than they were before 9/11\nyou should acknowledge the Change in Your View."
] |
Wow can you imagine the pyrotechnics involved? | [] |
>
It was a small pigeon, so 3 pounds of c4 and a few smudge pots were sufficient for a small, tasteful explosion. The rest can be added in post. | [
"Wow can you imagine the pyrotechnics involved?"
] |
>
He should face charges about murdering the Transformers with a Shia Le Boef. | [
"Wow can you imagine the pyrotechnics involved?",
">\n\nIt was a small pigeon, so 3 pounds of c4 and a few smudge pots were sufficient for a small, tasteful explosion. The rest can be added in post."
] |
>
He should face charges over all of the franchises he’s murdered | [
"Wow can you imagine the pyrotechnics involved?",
">\n\nIt was a small pigeon, so 3 pounds of c4 and a few smudge pots were sufficient for a small, tasteful explosion. The rest can be added in post.",
">\n\nHe should face charges about murdering the Transformers with a Shia Le Boef."
] |
>
Meanwhile, Italy gives Kevin Spacey a lifetime achievement award. Priorities, Italy. | [
"Wow can you imagine the pyrotechnics involved?",
">\n\nIt was a small pigeon, so 3 pounds of c4 and a few smudge pots were sufficient for a small, tasteful explosion. The rest can be added in post.",
">\n\nHe should face charges about murdering the Transformers with a Shia Le Boef.",
">\n\nHe should face charges over all of the franchises he’s murdered"
] |
>
Phew. The first half had me worried there. Not necessary a Mr bay fan, but still didn't want another story about celebrity misconduct.
Rip pigeon | [
"Wow can you imagine the pyrotechnics involved?",
">\n\nIt was a small pigeon, so 3 pounds of c4 and a few smudge pots were sufficient for a small, tasteful explosion. The rest can be added in post.",
">\n\nHe should face charges about murdering the Transformers with a Shia Le Boef.",
">\n\nHe should face charges over all of the franchises he’s murdered",
">\n\nMeanwhile, Italy gives Kevin Spacey a lifetime achievement award. Priorities, Italy."
] |
>
Was it carrying a coconut? | [
"Wow can you imagine the pyrotechnics involved?",
">\n\nIt was a small pigeon, so 3 pounds of c4 and a few smudge pots were sufficient for a small, tasteful explosion. The rest can be added in post.",
">\n\nHe should face charges about murdering the Transformers with a Shia Le Boef.",
">\n\nHe should face charges over all of the franchises he’s murdered",
">\n\nMeanwhile, Italy gives Kevin Spacey a lifetime achievement award. Priorities, Italy.",
">\n\nPhew. The first half had me worried there. Not necessary a Mr bay fan, but still didn't want another story about celebrity misconduct.\nRip pigeon"
] |
>
It’s pigeon code for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? | [
"Wow can you imagine the pyrotechnics involved?",
">\n\nIt was a small pigeon, so 3 pounds of c4 and a few smudge pots were sufficient for a small, tasteful explosion. The rest can be added in post.",
">\n\nHe should face charges about murdering the Transformers with a Shia Le Boef.",
">\n\nHe should face charges over all of the franchises he’s murdered",
">\n\nMeanwhile, Italy gives Kevin Spacey a lifetime achievement award. Priorities, Italy.",
">\n\nPhew. The first half had me worried there. Not necessary a Mr bay fan, but still didn't want another story about celebrity misconduct.\nRip pigeon",
">\n\nWas it carrying a coconut?"
] |
> | [
"Wow can you imagine the pyrotechnics involved?",
">\n\nIt was a small pigeon, so 3 pounds of c4 and a few smudge pots were sufficient for a small, tasteful explosion. The rest can be added in post.",
">\n\nHe should face charges about murdering the Transformers with a Shia Le Boef.",
">\n\nHe should face charges over all of the franchises he’s murdered",
">\n\nMeanwhile, Italy gives Kevin Spacey a lifetime achievement award. Priorities, Italy.",
">\n\nPhew. The first half had me worried there. Not necessary a Mr bay fan, but still didn't want another story about celebrity misconduct.\nRip pigeon",
">\n\nWas it carrying a coconut?",
">\n\nIt’s pigeon code for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?"
] |
I like the idea of an actual set using this colour and having a similar texture, these look much too rough for general typing.
'Greige' alphas with with maroon legends (like the A & B buttons), black(like the D-pad) and 'Greige' mods with some maroon and 'Greige' alts.
I'd drop $124.99 on that | [] |
>
Wow that set is pretty close, got the exact prize that's spooky. I don't like it as the one in my head though. | [
"I like the idea of an actual set using this colour and having a similar texture, these look much too rough for general typing.\n'Greige' alphas with with maroon legends (like the A & B buttons), black(like the D-pad) and 'Greige' mods with some maroon and 'Greige' alts.\nI'd drop $124.99 on that"
] |
> | [
"I like the idea of an actual set using this colour and having a similar texture, these look much too rough for general typing.\n'Greige' alphas with with maroon legends (like the A & B buttons), black(like the D-pad) and 'Greige' mods with some maroon and 'Greige' alts.\nI'd drop $124.99 on that",
">\n\nWow that set is pretty close, got the exact prize that's spooky. I don't like it as the one in my head though."
] |
Gee... I can't imagine why.
She only ran as a Democrat and won as a Democrat, only to betray her constituency by joining a party of anti-democratic morons. | [] |
>
That's not a nice thing to say about independents! Although if it quacks like a fascist... | [
"Gee... I can't imagine why.\nShe only ran as a Democrat and won as a Democrat, only to betray her constituency by joining a party of anti-democratic morons."
] |
>
She's trying to have her cake and eat it, too, by calling herself an independent but caucusing with the Republicans.
As you say, if it quacks... | [
"Gee... I can't imagine why.\nShe only ran as a Democrat and won as a Democrat, only to betray her constituency by joining a party of anti-democratic morons.",
">\n\nThat's not a nice thing to say about independents! Although if it quacks like a fascist..."
] |
>
by calling herself an independent but caucusing with the Republicans.
She's caucusing with the Democrats | [
"Gee... I can't imagine why.\nShe only ran as a Democrat and won as a Democrat, only to betray her constituency by joining a party of anti-democratic morons.",
">\n\nThat's not a nice thing to say about independents! Although if it quacks like a fascist...",
">\n\nShe's trying to have her cake and eat it, too, by calling herself an independent but caucusing with the Republicans. \nAs you say, if it quacks..."
] |
>
Just votes GQP | [
"Gee... I can't imagine why.\nShe only ran as a Democrat and won as a Democrat, only to betray her constituency by joining a party of anti-democratic morons.",
">\n\nThat's not a nice thing to say about independents! Although if it quacks like a fascist...",
">\n\nShe's trying to have her cake and eat it, too, by calling herself an independent but caucusing with the Republicans. \nAs you say, if it quacks...",
">\n\n\nby calling herself an independent but caucusing with the Republicans.\n\nShe's caucusing with the Democrats"
] |
>
She doesn’t vote like a Republican, she votes like the conservative Democrat she is. Republicans are on a whole other level. | [
"Gee... I can't imagine why.\nShe only ran as a Democrat and won as a Democrat, only to betray her constituency by joining a party of anti-democratic morons.",
">\n\nThat's not a nice thing to say about independents! Although if it quacks like a fascist...",
">\n\nShe's trying to have her cake and eat it, too, by calling herself an independent but caucusing with the Republicans. \nAs you say, if it quacks...",
">\n\n\nby calling herself an independent but caucusing with the Republicans.\n\nShe's caucusing with the Democrats",
">\n\nJust votes GQP"
] |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.