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0 pointsbee_rider2y ago0 comments

I don’t know really, I was a kid in the 90’s.

This is a bit far from the economic aspect, but the world currently seemed to be utterly suffused with a looming sense of dread, I think because we have, or know other people have, news notifications in their pockets telling us all about how bad things are.

I don’t remember that feeling from the 90’s, but then, I was a kid. And of course before that there was the constant fear of nuclear annihilation, which we’ve only recently brought back really. Maybe growing up in the end of history warped my perspective, haha.

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stupidcar2y ago

People who experienced a stable childhood seem to have a natural tendency to view the period they grew up in as, if not a golden age, then a safer, simpler time. Which makes sense: You’re too young to be aware of much of the complexity of the world, and your parents provide most of your essential needs and shield you from a lot of bad stuff.

That’s not to say all eras are the same. Clearly there’s better and worse times to be alive, but it’s hard to be objective about our childhoods.

HarHarVeryFunny2y ago

That's certainly all true, and not just parents shielding you from bad stuff, but the bad stuff just not appearing on the TV or in the newspaper the way it will today on TV or internet. If it was going on then nobody was aware of it, and maybe not a bad thing. Is my life really better for reading about some teenage cartel hitman making human "stew" etc ?

But I do think that perhaps the 70's was a somewhat more decent time than today. Lines have been crossed and levels of violence normalized that it seems really didn't exist back then, or certainly were not as widespread. e.g. I grew up with the IRA constantly in the news - often bombings in the UK as well as violence in Northern Ireland. But, by today's standard the IRA's terrorism was almost quaint and gentlemanly ... they'd plant a bomb, but then call it into the police and/or media so that people could be evacuated - they still created terror/disruption which realistically probably did help them achieve their goals, but without the level of ultra violence and complete disregard for human life that we see today, such as ISIS beheadings posted on FaceBook or Twitter that some people happily watch and forward to their friends, or the 9/11 attack which was really inconceivable beforehand.

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incangold2y ago

I was a teenager in the 90s in a house that read the Daily Mail every day, and that could deliver a similar sense of dread.

But at least the dread was about things that seemed vaguely tractable and somewhat local, rather than the dizzyingly complex, global and existential threats the news delivers these days.

And of course not everyone read newspapers as intentionally-alarming as the Mail. Whereas now many more people’s information supply is mediated by channels with that brief.

Feels to me like a double-whammy of the alarm-maximising sections of the internet developing at the same time as the climate crisis becomes more imminent, maybe?

HarHarVeryFunny2y ago

Yes - internet "news" is hardly a positive.

I grew up in the UK, so news was mainly from the BBC which was pretty decent although bad news (e.g. IRA bombings) was still front and center. US TV news doesn't even pretend/try to be unbiased and is all about shock value, reinforcing their viewers political beliefs and of course advertizing (which the BBC didn't have, being state funded).

Internet takes bad news and misinformation to a whole new and massively distorted level.

I gave up watching TV many years ago (nowadays primarily YouTube & Netflix for entertainment), and mostly just skim headlines (e.g. Google news) to get an idea of what's going on.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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stupidcar2y ago

That’s not to say all eras are the same. Clearly there’s better and worse times to be alive, but it’s hard to be objective about our childhoods.

HarHarVeryFunny2y ago

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incangold2y ago

I was a teenager in the 90s in a house that read the Daily Mail every day, and that could deliver a similar sense of dread.

But at least the dread was about things that seemed vaguely tractable and somewhat local, rather than the dizzyingly complex, global and existential threats the news delivers these days.

And of course not everyone read newspapers as intentionally-alarming as the Mail. Whereas now many more people’s information supply is mediated by channels with that brief.

Feels to me like a double-whammy of the alarm-maximising sections of the internet developing at the same time as the climate crisis becomes more imminent, maybe?

HarHarVeryFunny2y ago

Yes - internet "news" is hardly a positive.

Internet takes bad news and misinformation to a whole new and massively distorted level.

I gave up watching TV many years ago (nowadays primarily YouTube & Netflix for entertainment), and mostly just skim headlines (e.g. Google news) to get an idea of what's going on.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse