The past wasn't that great : historymemes

[–] [email protected] 52 points 4 weeks ago (7 children)

Just about every time period sucks

The only time period that was enjoyable was only enjoyed by a small portion of the global population at any one time

Many people on this thread like to point out the 80s, 90s or early 2000s were great ... it is true for only about maybe 10% of the global population ... the rest were living with developing nations with very little and everyone still struggling like they always had

The world has always been the same throughout history ... I'm guessing about 70% of the population lived just enough to get by ... 29% lived with absolutely nothing ... and 1% lived with everything

And it's still the same today.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

as someone from a developing nation, the good ol days were good because i was a kid.

i think thats the theme here.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago

70% of the population lived just enough to get by … 29% lived with absolutely nothing … and 1% lived with everything

And it’s still the same today.

Except until very recently, 100% of those people didn't have refrigerated or canned food. The best they could hope for was smoked or salted. They didn't have antibiotics or anaesthesia, they had whiskey.

"Just enough to get by" wasn't "I paid the bills this month", it was "I fed my children this week."

Most children died as children. Most adults died from "consumption" (tuberculosis). Almost everyone was literally - constantly - desperately - keeping themselves alive.

It's not the same today. Far more humans - rich and poor - survive to adulthood, far less humans starve or experience chronic malnutrition, and average human quality of life has skyrocketed.

We have come so far that we cannot imagine life before or life without. And so, many of us have turned against progress in ignorance and apathy. But the human species still has work to do. We still have the chance to ensure that the future remains better than the past.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

This works on longer scales, but I have to be honest with you, I don't know if me looking back at the late 90s and going "yeah, that went wrong at some point" is just my generation's version of being nostalgic for a time where you were oblivious to the crappy stuff or a fairly objective assessment of modern world trends.

I DID grow up in what amounted to a developing nation, several of my neighbors couldn't read or write and I didn't have a telephone or a VCR until well into the nineties, but also... you know, the post 9-11 period doesn't seem like a particular uptrend for civilization, in hindsight.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The Matrix had it right.

1999, turn of the millenium.

Zenith of human society, all downhill from there.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Unless you were gay, or female, non-white or lived in Eastern Europe, Asia (minus Japan), India, Africa, South America or Central America.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

I just wanna go back, back to 1999

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

I agree. I don't need a historian for this. I remember it, and yeah it definitely wasn't perfect. But I am not convinced I'm sugar coating it through retrospection. Mid to late 90s was peak civilization as far as I can tell.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

I'd prefer a few years earlier, the 90's was rad dude.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

I had no significant outside world problems in the 90s and early 2000s.

You could get repair manuals and replacement parts for practically anything, and you could even get away with blowing up ant beds in your yard with improv devices.

Everything seemed to change after Hurricane Katrina though, like the flood waters wiped out all the ant beds I wanted to blow up.. 😢

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 weeks ago

9/11 in 2001 change quite a bit.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

Often, when people learn that I love history, they ask me which time I'd prefer to live in.

I always like the face of surprise they make when they hear my answer.

"Today."

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

I wish I lived tomorrow.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

They mean the US in the 80s and 90s when we were burning through all of the goodwill and progress made in the prior half century.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

Good will? I mean I imagine there was some good will in the aftermath of WW2 but I'm not sure the Truman Doctrine caused a lot of good will.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The 80s and 90s are still way worse than today.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Just out of curiousity, did you ever live in the 80s or 90s?

I was a child throughout the 90s in the US, and I don't think its just rose colored glasses. We didn't have the internet as a whole, but government still mostly worked, we had a good chunk of the middle class left, the enshittification of everything being cheaply made in china hadn't happened either, food wasn't all hyper processed HFC's outside of candy and stuff that is clearly junk food.

I think there's some objectively good stuff in that time period, and its not so long ago that you don't have good medical science and can travel by car and have running water (in the developed world at least).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

The internet didn't create new problems. It made it so the problems were visible. I know a bunch of nerds boomers and genXers who talk about how it use to be a mono culture, but really, you could only know the people in your own little corner.

Did the internet and personal recording devices make police brutality worse or just more visible? I remember when teachers weren't use to half their students having flip phones that could record audio and oh boy, the causal and not so causal racism directed at the students was insane.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago

Yeah I do remember, i remember how I needed three cans of coke for dinner because our parents cooked every piece of meat to the point of shoe leather. I remember being dirt poor during the economic slump in the early 90s and how that made all the dads super stressed at a time when you could still slap your kid around a little.

Also Ronald Reagan winning all but one state, locking America into neoliberal economics for 40 years.

Worse TV (on average), too many commercials.

Lot more open racism, sexism, fatphobia.

Being bored on the toilet.

Shit sucked.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I suggest “The Way We Never Were” by Coontz if anyone is inclined to read about the sort of manufactured history surrounding American society and particularly the family unit. In some ways the past was better, but we somehow managed to get rid of the good parts, make up parts that never happened, sidestep the bad, and make the present worse.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The only good parts about the past is that families could be supported on a single income. Pretty much everything else was worse.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I’d suggest reading about it before making such a statement. Understand that the single income created its own problems. It kept women isolated thanks to the way postwar housing developed, kept them out of the workforce, dismantled their social network, resulted in suburbs that drove longer commutes, etc. women have had it hard in society for quite a while, but the separated family unit made it harder. These things also dismantled the “village” support network that people had, along with extended family and community that could help people.

Yeah, the wealth that allowed the luxuries of a single family home in the ‘burbs was great, but it came at a price.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

Depends on when you are and when you want to return to. I’d be happy with anything between 1992-2000 ce

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

Yeah, if I was an adult mid-2000s, that would be the best time, IMO.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago

I specified 1992-2000 to avoid GWB and 9/11

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago

A year or two before the Great Recession?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

As long as you weren't queer.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Where is also paramount, where and when. Think about Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

One word: dentistry. Medical science in general yeah, but especially dentistry.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I’d be fine with going back to a time before the heritage foundation and reganomics

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks ago

That would be moving to a more racist time also with bad economic policy?

[–] blarth 8 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Fucking unbeatable.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago

Unless you are gay or trans, then you're pretty much viewed as very 'beatable.'

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

This is why I love vaporwave. It romanticizes the past and criticizes it at the same time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Hypnospace Outlaw is such a great work of pseudo historical fiction. (Or Digital: A Love Story if you want more 80’s than 90’s)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago

See, I just want what I consider to be the good parts brought forward, not going backwards

Since, obviously, I know best for everyone, everywhere, you can rest assured that I will only reinstate the cool shit that you will also love. No, you'll love it. Whether you want to or not

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago

Idk it's always "we" to go back in time. Nah just me. My preferred moment in history is not gonna be the same as someone elses."we" shouldn't go back to any period, because that's not a one size fits all.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I mean I'd argue 2024 was better than 2025...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

It's only thanks to 2024 that we're having 2025, soooo...

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

Ultimately, people suck ass.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

People will always be nostalgic for their childhood because they did not understand what was going on in the world at the time and had little to no responsibilities.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 weeks ago (3 children)

As much as I love Rome, I also love not being infested with intestinal parasites and slavery being abolished.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago

I only said this is jest, but I totally agree. I'll keep antibiotics, thank you very much

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

In terms of civilization, then yes, but humanity live much longer than agriculture.

The best that civilization had to offer is definitely better than hunter gatherer lifestyle.

But also:

The worse that civilization had to offer is definitely worse than hunter gatherer lifestyle.

So it all depends what part of civilization you’re talking about, even though on average it’s better.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago

I wish I could go back to the late 80s briefly so I could listen to the morning radio show on CFNY , which was my first introduction to alternative music,while I did my hair like I used to when I was a kid before school, which was always quite a production. I'd like to hear "Song For Whoever" by the Beautiful South come out of my boom box just one more time. But that's all.

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