Get off my lawn!

[Asta Kask]

Why was everything so much better when I was young?

[Elemental]

Well, I can't say for certain, but I know one thing that was better. When I was young and my grandma would give me a dollar and let me walk across the street to the shops, the lollies were SO MUCH CHEAPER. You could get like a whole bag!

[tomandtish]

Why was everything so much better when I was young?

It wasn't. It was better when I was young. You meddling kids ruined everything!

Or (if you are older than my 45 years):

It wasn't. My generation improved upon everything your generation did, not to mentioning starting all sorts of cool things your generation didn't.


All kidding aside, there is a tendency to look at the past through rose colored glasses.

[BannedInSchool]

The threat of global thermonuclear war made everything better. How I miss it.

[Asta Kask]

Just think about this - Rolling Stones, Iron Maiden and Alice Cooper have all toured for 30 years or more. Where are the new bands who can live up to that?

[BWR]

Just think about this - Rolling Stones, Iron Maiden and Alice Cooper have all toured for 30 years or more. Where are the new bands who can live up to that?

It's hard for new bands to have been around for 30 years.

[Asta Kask]

They're just not trying hard enough.

[Aedilred]

I think there are a number of factors, most of them developmental, personal and relative. When you're young the world is exciting because you're constantly discovering things, and the older you get the less frequent those epiphanies become. For most young people in affluent societies life is also relatively secure and free of responsibility, whereas once you get stuck into the realities of earning and managing your own money things become a lot more stressful, while the mundanities of life you're shielded from as a child and adolescent start to occupy more of your time. There also seems to be a tipping-point after which new technology and societal changes stop opening up exciting possibilities and become annoyances that are hard to understand and appear to add nothing useful to your life, because until now you've never needed them. That is all pretty much the way of things for everyone, at least to some extent.

However I think - for reasons that are probably partly forum-inappropriate but are largely economic - there is a genuine argument to be made that western society largely peaked for the majority of people in about 2007 and while there has been progress made in some areas since then the general direction has been downward. So depending on how old you are, "the world was better when I was young" might actually be a legitimate observation rather than subjective nostalgia.

[factotum]

I know for a fact that the world wasn't a better place when I was young--I was born in 1970, and I remember us having to light the house with candles and use smelly paraffin heaters to keep it warm due to all the power cuts. Sure, that was exciting and unusual as a six-year-old, but I suspect my 44-year-old self wouldn't be that happy!

[Killer Angel]

The threat of global thermonuclear war made everything better. How I miss it.

We all know that when life is at stake, you appreciate it more. So yeah!

[Crow]

I know my personal situation is better now than it was when I was young. I'm not thrilled with where a lot of the world is heading though. I also come to dislike people more and more each day. The past decade's technological advances that have made it to the mainstream seem to be focused on finding new and exciting ways for people to copy one another...getting pretty tired of that. I also live near a college town, and I am astounded with the dullards that make it into college these days; and how they dress like idiots.

Yeah, I guess I'm just a crotchety old man. Get off my lawn.

[Jay R]

I'm going to attempt a serious answer.

Some things are the same as when you were young. They were new and exciting then; they are standard and boring now.

Some things are gone. If you liked them, you miss them now. But if you didn't, then you ignored them then so you didn't notice the difference.

Some things are new - like internet connections and smart phones. There's nothing back then to compare them to, so you don't compare.

Some things are different. Either they are better, in which you just think about how they are now, without comparing them. Or they are worse, and that's what you notice.

In short, you remember the good parts of the past, but you don't remember waiting for somebody with no way to call them, or not being able to see a movie because it wasn't showing at a nearby theater, or having difficulty finding the book you wanted to buy, or listening to music you didn't like in the car, because that's what the radio was playing, or getting lost with no GPS to help you drive.

But also, nobody ever got on your lawn until you owned a house with a lawn.

[Elemental]

But also, nobody ever got on your lawn until you owned a house with a lawn.

I plan on sowing mine liberally with clover and other low lying flowering plants because I like bees. The bees would also be an added incentive to stay off it because bee stings hurt.

[SiuiS]

Why was everything so much better when I was young?

Tunnel vision.

It wasn't better then. It's not even better now – we have all the same problems with an extra dose of "those aren't really happening because we live in An enlightened age".

[Brother Oni]

It wasn't better then. It's not even better now – we have all the same problems with an extra dose of "those aren't really happening because we live in An enlightened age".

Really? The fact that despite being scattered all over the world, we can communicate like this is a big plus in my opinion, although I do admit it comes with its problems.

Being able to find information at the touch of your fingertips instead of going down to the library is another advantage.


I certainly don't miss the lack of bins on the Tube or large public places to stop the IRA putting bombs in them (you know something's going on when they disappear again), not least because the way they're being placed have changed.
Being limited to only 4 (or 3 if you're old enough) TV channels is also something I don't miss.

[Asta Kask]

Tunnel vision.

It wasn't better then. It's not even better now – we have all the same problems with an extra dose of "those aren't really happening because we live in An enlightened age".

Are you seriously telling me that there has been no progress in e.g. the situation LGBTA people over the last 30 years? It's not perfect, but it's certainly better.

For instance, in 2003 the US Supreme Court decided that Sodomy Laws were unconstitutional everywhere. How is this not an improvement?

[factotum]

Being limited to only 4 (or 3 if you're old enough) TV channels is also something I don't miss.

Don't forget that the TV channels we *did* have didn't run 24 hours, like a lot of them do now. I remember getting up early on Saturday mornings and all there was to watch was Open University programmes--they didn't think about putting kid's stuff on Saturday mornings until the likes of Swap Shop and TISWAS.

[SiuiS]

Really? The fact that despite being scattered all over the world, we can communicate like this is a big plus in my opinion, although I do admit it comes with its problems.

Does being able to tweet and tumble and like and up vote stuff mean that these problems have gone away? My country is currently experiencing problems. Yours was just ten, fifteen years ago.

Being Enlightened doesn't mean jack if you don't use it to achieve anything. I have a magical glass rectangle powered by jupiter's bolt that gives me access to the sum total of all human knowledge. Today I used it to seek emotional support (good!) and to move colored circles to kill time (less good). I can communicate across the world and all that really does is allow new and more fundamentally distant ways to spin information.

Are you seriously telling me that there has been no progress in e.g. the situation LGBTA people over the last 30 years?

E: that's actually not direct enough.

Anders, please don't ask me to explain myself in a way that must involve politics and religion. I want to answer you, I really do – and we've seen that my idea of acceptably oblique isn't always correct. It's no fair to be pinned in a corner and either look stupid or get in trouble. It is dirty snooker.

[Asta Kask]

E: that's actually not direct enough.

Anders, please don't ask me to explain myself in a way that must involve politics and religion. I want to answer you, I really do – and we've seen that my idea of acceptably oblique isn't always correct. It's no fair to be pinned in a corner and either look stupid or get in trouble. It is dirty snooker.

That's a fair statement and I apologize.

[Brother Oni]

Does being able to tweet and tumble and like and up vote stuff mean that these problems have gone away? My country is currently experiencing problems. Yours was just ten, fifteen years ago.

Given that I don't use or follow twitter or other forms of social media, I can't judge their impact, good or bad.

The problem I originally meant was the ability to communicate at all. The new set of problems is primarily the online disinhibition effect, but over here in the UK at least, the existing laws prevent some of the worst excesses.

I can communicate across the world and all that really does is allow new and more fundamentally distant ways to spin information.

It depends on whether you view distorted information as being better than no information.

[Asta Kask]

Does being able to tweet and tumble and like and up vote stuff mean that these problems have gone away? My country is currently experiencing problems. Yours was just ten, fifteen years ago.

Can you touch on those problems without breaking the ban on P&R? Because if not then there's really little I can say.

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." - Lugwig Wittgenstein

[Gwynfrid]

To begin with: All music was better when I was young. That's a scientifically proven fact.

[Zrak]

Can you touch on those problems without breaking the ban on P&R? Because if not then there's really little I can say.

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." - Lugwig Wittgenstein

"Just because your name looks like mine doesn't mean you can steal my quotes, ****bird." - Ludwig Wiggtenstein

[Jay R]

It depends on whether you view distorted information as being better than no information.

More ability to spread information will mean more false information and more distorted information as much as more useful information, of course. But it has always been a net gain.

[For one thing, the ability to spread mistakes or lies further allows a much broader community an opportunity to correct them.]

[Zrak]

Yeah, I think that's pretty solid. Word-of-mouth can spread misinformation pretty far pretty fast, but it can't correct it nearly so effectively as can actual, even cursory, research. Most people I know hear something outlandish or even just unfamiliar and their first instinct is not to believe or even necessarily disbelieve it, but to whip out their phone and look it up. While this happens more often with things like me saying a given indie singer used to be in a given hardcore band and nobody believing me than with the weighty issues of import and substance generally prohibited from this board, this is generally the only thing for which factual knowledge has ever really been useful. People tend not to believe evidence that goes against their pre-conceived notions in important matters, regardless, and indeed believe their original position more strongly with each piece of evidence presented against it. We really only believe or care about facts that support the things we already believe or are trivia we can someday use to impress friends and lovers after wandering into a bar on trivia night, ostensibly by accident.

[Grimtina]

Life was better when I was young because, well, I was young.

[AtlanteanTroll]

Don't forget that the TV channels we *did* have didn't run 24 hours, like a lot of them do now. I remember getting up early on Saturday mornings and all there was to watch was Open University programmes--they didn't think about putting kid's stuff on Saturday mornings until the likes of Swap Shop and TISWAS.

You may be speaking for the UK. The US definitely had Saturday morning programming 50 years ago. M'parents can attest.

(Don't think many playgrounders are older than mid 40s, but correct me if I am wrong.)

[factotum]

You may be speaking for the UK. The US definitely had Saturday morning programming 50 years ago.

I was speaking for the UK, yes--can't speak of anywhere else because I didn't live there in the 70s . Here, children's TV programming was pretty much isolated to weekdays after school until the mid-70s.

[SiuiS]

Given that I don't use or follow twitter or other forms of social media, I can't judge their impact, good or bad.

The problem I originally meant was the ability to communicate at all. The new set of problems is primarily the online disinhibition effect, but over here in the UK at least, the existing laws prevent some of the worst excesses.

[S]uch basic things as racism and sexism are not better. I do not feel that a higher quality of life means much without a higher quality of person – it is indeed a slight improvement but it's an improvement to potential rather than an actual gain, if you follow.

It depends on whether you view distorted information as being better than no information.

That depends on the information in question. Not being facetious; some things are too important to mess up. Some are too important to worry about perfect fidelity.

More ability to spread information will mean more false information and more distorted information as much as more useful information, of course. But it has always been a net gain.

[For one thing, the ability to spread mistakes or lies further allows a much broader community an opportunity to correct them.]

That's a fair cop. I suppose that's the answer I will go with.

Anders: dropped quote. But my response here is as much as I can touch on it.

[Chen]

[S]uch basic things as racism and sexism are not better. I do not feel that a higher quality of life means much without a higher quality of person – it is indeed a slight improvement but it's an improvement to potential rather than an actual gain, if you follow.

I have no clue how you could possibly make that statement. Racism and sexism are clearly not SOLVED but they are by FAR better now than even 20 years ago. Forget going back 50 years. Odds are they won't ever be completely eliminated, but they are definitely improving. On the timescale humanity has been around, improving quite quickly in the last decades in fact.