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We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s

chris.pagecord.com

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Re: We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s

#121

Post by NoGravitas »

techblueberry wrote: post #57
TacticalCoder wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup that's the thing: it's not only people who lived that era who do wish they could live in it today. I never wanted to live in the post-WW II late 40s/50s: maybe the sixties though. For honestly the late 40s and 50s looked incredibly dull. Just dull: movies were dull, acting was dumb, music was mostly pathetic save for a few exceptions. The boomers really lived the absolute dullest, naive, era and nobody fantasizes…

I'd be curious to see the 20's since it seems like that was it's own like big breakout time culturally.

I'm really fascinated by the 1890s, myself. Would have been horrible to live in for medical reasons, but there was an amazing counterculture and avant-garde that was just amazingly cool and weird.

Re: We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s

#122

Post by stvltvs »

pier25 wrote: post #32
internet2000 wrote: post #7

This Douglas Adams quote is still undefeated: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

There's definitely some truth to that but not everything is a generational thing. Eg: Social media is a net negative for kids and teens.

The angst over social media and kids has achieved moral panic status.

Re: We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s

#123

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #118
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Black people in the South may disagree with you that were still feeling the remnants of Jim Crow - which my still living parents grew up in. I can guarantee you a lot of people “hated them”. Ask Ruby Bridges - 71 years old - how much people hated her for just going to elementary school.

Of course we can always find a marginalized people for any generation. I am speaking as a white male though and not for everyone else.

Of course things were great for White men when an entire part of the US population were kept out of opportunities by law. “Separate but Equal” was the law of the land from 1898 to the 1950s. As were laws against interracial marriage until 1969.

This isn’t de facto marginalization this was encoded into the law.

Re: We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s

#124

Post by nozzlegear »

Markoff wrote: post #90
pier25 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure it's not the other way around? That all of this is happening because of social media, phones, etc?

I'd say it's more likely thanks to more cars and better news coverage, now you hear about every kid being attacked/abused, while in past this was not so widely available knowledge playing into parents fear

I agree with better news coverage (I'd argue it's more news coverage, in which social media plays a huge role), but I'm not sure I understand your point about more cars?

Re: We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s

#125

Post by GlibMonkeyDeath »

throwyawayyyy wrote: post #39

If you want to sum up the 90s in the UK for people like me who became adults then, it would be the song, "Things can only get better". A little embarrassing, yes? Naive? and yet there really was an optimism then. If things weren't great (and objectively it was a poorer country), they were getting better, and they could get better, and they would. Happiness is more about cake tomorrow than cake today, and in the 90s y…

I haven't heard a frankly optimistic piece of pop music in a very long time - the example I can think of from the 80-90's in the US is 10,000 Maniacs ("These are Days" was a Clinton campaign theme song.) Some people bash them is trite "concern rock", but at the time there really was optimism that society could be (and would be) improved.

Re: We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s

#126

Post by pier25 »

Markoff wrote: post #90
pier25 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure it's not the other way around? That all of this is happening because of social media, phones, etc?

I'd say it's more likely thanks to more cars and better news coverage, now you hear about every kid being attacked/abused, while in past this was not so widely available knowledge playing into parents fear

have you looked at countries where the car culture is not so prevalent as the US?

Re: We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s

#127

Post by GlibMonkeyDeath »

I think the Gibson quote is applicable: "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed." Some people are going to remember the 2020's as a time that AI was new, and the eventual winners will look back with nostalgia at all the opportunity. I guarantee HN will have a post in the 2050's about how Moltbook was the peak of society (probably written by an AI agent, though...)

Re: We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s

#128

Post by dapangzi »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #79
dapangzi wrote: post #2

I was hoping this would be more fleshed out as an article, but the sentiment is understandable. Want to throw some of my knowledge of digital music, as you called it out specifically. In the late 90s most digitally arranged music production was relegated to trackers (think Amiga trackers) and sequencing samples and loops, because the storage simply didn't exist. Then that would be committed to tape, sometimes on a 4-…

They didn't mean digital music production, they meant digital downloads/streaming of finished music products. As in later in the early 2000s and beyond iPods and mp3 players and then streaming changed everything as far as accessibility.

That's the trouble isn't it? If we can't even agree on the meaning.

I didn't read it that way specifically because of the use of "you", which to me feels like an invocation of the audience or the royal "you" so to speak, to refer to musicians themselves, rather than the concept of digital streaming and distribution.

"Computers helped you make things louder, cleaner, faster...you still needed a band...or a mate that could actually play something..."

Does the streaming/digital industry no longer have a need for a mate that plays drums? I guess you can read it that way.

Maybe I'm the odd one out, but I read it as almost like a lamenting of the emergence of the "one man band" and cheap throwaway music production by the ease of creating digital recordings at home, and even replacing musicians in the broader music industry with digital replacements, which I also kind of disagree with as being necessarily a negative thing. Toro y Moi, Washed Out, etc., would not be possible without such technology, but the metal music production industry itself has largely replaced drummers with drum machines, not streaming and digital distribution companies.

BTW those of us on the internet earlier were downloading mp3s as soon as 1997 or 1998.

Re: We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s

#129

Post by Markoff »

pier25 wrote: post #126
Markoff wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it's more likely thanks to more cars and better news coverage, now you hear about every kid being attacked/abused, while in past this was not so widely available knowledge playing into parents fear

have you looked at countries where the car culture is not so prevalent as the US?

I'm not from US, this is problem everywhere, no matter whether you are in China or middle of Europe, actually I'd say there was much bigger increase in car ownership in recent decades outside US than in the US, especially in China and Eastern Europe

so this is my biggest fear with my kids roaming outside - whether someone will hit them with the car, 2nd biggest would be probably potential attacks/bullying by immigrants (kids)

Re: We (As a Society) Peaked in the 90s

#130

Post by Markoff »

nozzlegear wrote: post #124
Markoff wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it's more likely thanks to more cars and better news coverage, now you hear about every kid being attacked/abused, while in past this was not so widely available knowledge playing into parents fear

I agree with better news coverage (I'd argue it's more news coverage, in which social media plays a huge role), but I'm not sure I understand your point about more cars?

I'm considering cars the biggest danger for free roaming kids alone outside.
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