Um ._. Are you okay, Frumple? 
M'fine, so far as that mess goes. Just occasionally offput by the aesthetics of bath products. It's easier to notice when I'm awake earlier than I want to be.
Fifty years ago pros: Stronger economy, less liberalism, more socialism, less toxic individualism, a people that wasn't dying off, functional police and legal system, less corruption, less organised crime, shrinking wealth discrepancy, shrinking class differences, and so on.
Eh. I'd give the less liberalism and more socialism, if question how much the former was actually a pro (assuming the european usage of the term, anyway; less of the american one was unquestionably
not a pro) relative to conditions at the time. The messy bits of that stuff were just starting to take off around that point, far as I can recall, and the junk can be useful in small quantities.
Economy being stronger depends a hell of a lot on what you mean by that. It was certainly growing faster, but that only means so much at the end of the day. In most ways the economy today could bend the economy of yesteryear over its knee and snap it in half, and some of the ways it
can't are probably for the better.
"Toxic individualism" is frankly an improvement considering what it's been supplanting, to the extent it actually exists. Yelled at or whatever's a fair bit better than getting the shit beat out of you for opening your mouth. Plenty of people (if you're talking ethnic groups) were dying off, and as a general thing the statement's bullshit unless you're thinking of a specific one -- humanity's population is still cheerfully rising, so our "people" are doing alright so far as propagation goes.
Police and the legal system were at
least as fucked up back then. What's changed is awareness more than the rot in those particular sorts of institutions. Similarly corruption was sodding rampant, to the point most things these days are an improvement. It's just a hell of a lot harder to hide the shit and people seem to be somewhat less blaise about casual corruption.
Wealth disparity and class differences don't look like they were shrinking, either, or at the absolute least not much... holding steady, though, sure. Which I'd agree is an improvement if it weren't for the fact that that holding steady was apparently building the base for both of those to start shooting up in the 70s-80s. Organized crime I can't find info worth a damn on. Be pretty surprised if its influence has increased much relative to a half century ago, though. Raw size, probably, but most things have on that front what with the extra however many people piddling around.
Now pros: More cultural tolerance towards many peoples and groups, less institutional intolerance, scientific and technical advances.
Also decreased violence, heh. That tolerance stuff also involves reductions in a hell of a lot of asshattery, though it still has a helluva' ways to go on that front. The scientific and technical advances are friggin' huge, too; healthcare, all sorts of safety/comfort/etc. junk. Buncha' other crap, really.
Even as piss poor as my personal situation is in a lot of ways, it's better than it would have been just two or three decades ago, never mind a half century or better, and so far as racial et al characteristics go I'm pretty damn well off. Fuck da' po
lice past, yo'. Ain't nobody then wanted to live there, either, or its crap would have hung on harder :V
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Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O (Read 14958901 times)