A question for the older people on the board.

[TickTockMan]

Do you feel the world has became a better place within you lifetime? Or do you feel it is going backwards.


Keep in mind “better and backwards” is suppose to be your opinion.

 

[fetaby]

Define older.

And to answer your question. "Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket"?

 

[RationalLunacy]

I am one of this board's ancient sages.

If you ask me, the world is vastly improved. It just seems worse because technology allows news (and gossip) to travel faster than it did in the Middle Ages.

Oh, and in the Middle Ages, they had things like Bubonic Plague and the Spanish Inquisition, so yeah, we're a bit better off. Yeah.

 

[Kyanimal]

So far, despite some very rocky parts, I think we're all better off than we were before.

I was born in 1950! Seen a lot since then! I think we're making Progress! It's been excruciatingly SLOW on some issues! But, still, moving Forward!

Keep smilin'!!
Chaz

 

[TickTockMan]

Define older.

I can't. I don't know the average of the users here. With that said when people feel like answering they always do so it doesn't really matter.

 

[fetaby]

I can't. I don't know the average of the users here. With that said when people feel like answering they always do so it doesn't really matter.

True.

It's a good thread, I hope it doesn't die.

 

[Yooper]

Generally, I'd have to say the answer is yes, with some qualifications.

In my opinion, the two driving factors have been 1)Technology and 2)Globalization.

Technology is a double edged sword. We have instantaneous communication from the far corners of the globe on demand. So we're far better informed. We've become aware that we're all on the same planet together and when something bad happens in a far-flung corner of the globe, we all know about it.

Kids don't have to do the 'Duck and Cover' (and once you were in Junior High school, 'and Kiss your Ass Goodbye' was added) drill anymore. Terrorism is now scarier than ever, though.

Technology has made our lives simpler yet more complex. Everyday commerce is far improved. I remember going to a department store where the clerk checked you out, put your money in a pneumatic tube and about 5 minutes later the tube came back with a handwritten receipt and your change. On the other hand, the amount of personal information gathered about you EVERY DAY is astonishing. You always are on a camera somewhere. There's no such thing as privacy.

Globalization has changed our lives dramatically, mostly for the better but not without many casualties along the road. Consumer goods are generally cheaper than they ever have been, but those manufacturing jobs are now outsourced to the cheapest labor pool that can be found. Americans haven't made their own TV sets in years. We make so few of our own consumer goods we'd never be able to win a WWII type conflict again. But our horizons have been expanded...look at the food choices available. I don't have the exact numbers, but some 30 years ago the average grocery store carried 10,000 items...now the number is closer to 60,000. Who knew there were more than two kinds of rice?

When I was a kid, ethnic food was rare unless one ventured into an overwhelming ethnic part of a BIG city. Chinese food=Chop Suey; Italian food=Pizza or Spaghetti. Now some of the smallest towns have a Chinese place, a Thai place, a Sushi place and more.

We have a long way to go, though. We're NOT colorblind, there is still hate and violence out there. Crime still exists (although per capita, even that's down). Cars are far safer than they were. The electric grid is more reliable than it was (but might not be soon). Our roads and bridges are falling apart faster than we can fix them. Schools still suck.

No, the world ain't perfect. But I think it getting a little better.

 

[Yooper]

How's this for the world has changed?

 

[TickTockMan]

How's this for the world has changed?

Dumb question, but they did know that “ducking and covering” when an A-bomb went off wasn’t going to help much right?


Its funny how much the world has changed. If a video like that was shown now I doubt most youth would take it seriously.

 

[TickTockMan]

For me only being 27 the biggest change I see is the economy. Back in ‘29 when the market tanked we didn’t have to worry as much about the UK’s economy, then China’s, then India’s, then Japan’s etc. Now if one “main” country has a bad day the next usually will too and it goes around the world.

I remember a few years ago when I owned a lot of stock that India for some reason had a bad day and a few stockbrokers jumped to their death. That scared the next country and by the time the NYSE opened I was down a lot. As Americans talk about our country failing, I am more worried about all of the others. We are now in this together. If one goes down others will probably follow.

 

[Yooper]

Dumb question, but they did know that “ducking and covering” when an A-bomb went off wasn’t going to help much right?

Its funny how much the world has changed. If a video like that was shown now I doubt most youth would take it seriously.

When the film was made, the bombs were pretty small and if you were lucky enough to be far enough away, Duck and Cover made some sense. As the bombs got bigger and more powerful, it became less relevant (which is why when we had the drill in Junior High...yes, mid 70's it still was around, we would always add 'kiss your ass goodbye').

I've been cleaning out my Grandma's house and came across a pile of stuff the Government sent out in the 60's. One is an official Evacuation Map for her town...where you lived indicated what shelter you were to go to. Another is a 40 page book on how to prepare your home bomb shelter...complete with an address sticker with a code on it to tell you which pages applied specifically to HER house. It is fascinating reading although terribly useless.

 

[TickTockMan]

When the film was made, the bombs were pretty small and if you were lucky enough to be far enough away, Duck and Cover made some sense. As the bombs got bigger and more powerful, it became less relevant (which is why when we had the drill in Junior High...yes, mid 70's it still was around, we would always add 'kiss your ass goodbye').

I've been cleaning out my Grandma's house and came across a pile of stuff the Government sent out in the 60's. One is an official Evacuation Map for her town...where you lived indicated what shelter you were to go to. Another is a 40 page book on how to prepare your home bomb shelter...complete with an address sticker with a code on it to tell you which pages applied specifically to HER house. It is fascinating reading although terribly useless.

I thought the bombs in Japan were still causing cancer? That was '45, years before the movie was made.

As for what you found at your Grandmother's house that would be interesting stuff to read. A few weeks ago I went on a trip to the coast and did a walking tour of WWII bunkers. It is amazing what history has lost. I never knew that Oregon was the only state to be attacked, it was the only state that on its soil people died (civilians at that), and it was the state that played the biggest single effort in protecting the rest of the country. So much history hardly never talked about any more. I think you have a great find with the things from your grandmother’s house. You were lucky to find such things.

 

[fetaby]

For me only being 27 the biggest change I see is the economy. Back in ‘29 when the market tanked we didn’t have to worry as much about the UK’s economy, then China’s, then India’s, then Japan’s etc. Now if one “main” country has a bad day the next usually will too and it goes around the world.

I remember a few years ago when I owned a lot of stock that India for some reason had a bad day and a few stockbrokers jumped to their death. That scared the next country and by the time the NYSE opened I was down a lot. As Americans talk about our country failing, I am more worried about all of the others. We are now in this together. If one goes down others will probably follow.

Why the worry, if we all fall down. We will all be on the same level, no?

The biggest change I see is the shift in values/morals.

 

[TickTockMan]

Why the worry, if we all fall down. We will all be on the same level, no?

The biggest change I see is the shift in values/morals.

But with one goes the other. With a down fall in the economy would come a downfall in morals, ethics and values.

Just to try to prove my point, if you live in a semi large area, did you go shopping the last few days of 1999? Here we had fights for things like water and canned goods. That didn’t even have to do with the actual economy, just a perceived future one. To a lesser extent have you ever gone shopping the morning after Thanksgiving? Just one day after a day that is suppose to show us what is important, people fight over Tvs, computers, etc. just to save a little. Morals, ethics and values go out the door for most when money is involved aka their economy.

There would be looting, fighting and rioting if the world economy dropped too much.

 

[Yooper]

I never knew that Oregon was the only state to be attacked, it was the only state that on its soil people died (civilians at that), and it was the state that played the biggest single effort in protecting the rest of the country.

Oregon was the only state that had people die. Do a Google search for Japanese Balloon Bombs; over 9000 were launched, 1000 or so made it to the states. To this day there are many unaccounted for. A buddy of mine found the remains of one here in Colorado about 6 years ago.

Anyway, there are two other things that I believe are way, way better than they were just a few years ago. These are the Environment and Food Production.

On the Environment, we are way better than we used to be. In most Western countries, anyway. In the US, we quit using Leaded gasoline, we aren't having rivers CATCH ON FIRE anymore. In many cases, wildlife is coming back where we haven't seen some species for well over a century. My family owns a half-mile of frontage on a fairly rural State Highway in Michigan. When I was a kid, we'd clean up the litter on an annual basis. It wasn't uncommon to fill ten 30-gallon garbage bags. Now, it is rare to fill up a plastic grocery sack...even picking up ciggybuts. No, it's not perfect, but far better. We DO have a ways to go, but things are better now.

On food production, I know I'll catch some flack for this, but modern farming methods HAVE allowed us to feed the world. Modern hybrids, insecticides and fertilizers have almost doubled food production in the last 50 years. If we were still producing food the way we did just post WWII, we'd never be able to sustain the population we have now. A cheap loaf of bread would probably run $5, and a dozen eggs would be about $10. Not saying that the production methods are perfect, or humane, or whatever, but it DOES allow us to feed more people for less money. In 1946, my Grandmother sold eggs for $.50 a dozen. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $5.53. I can get fancy-schmancy organic eggs for $3 a dozen, conventional ones for .69 a dozen. It's something.

 

[fetaby]

But with one goes the other. With a down fall in the economy would come a downfall in morals, ethics and values.

Just to try to prove my point, if you live in a semi large area, did you go shopping the last few days of 1999? Here we had fights for things like water and canned goods. That didn’t even have to do with the actual economy, just a perceived future one. To a lesser extent have you ever gone shopping the morning after Thanksgiving? Just one day after a day that is suppose to show us what is important, people fight over Tvs, computers, etc. just to save a little. Morals, ethics and values go out the door for most when money is involved aka their economy.

There would be looting, fighting and rioting if the world economy dropped too much.

Point proven. Y2K, Black Fridays. I've seen the vids. It's very much survival of the fittest. But that also applies on the upswing. Who knows what all has been done in the name of the dollar?

But what I was referring to was a shift in core values, regardless of economy. There was a time that children left the nest. Now it is not unheard of for "children" to stay in the parents home to the age of 30. It was once that the word pregnant was never spoken in the media. Now it is not unheard of to see a 14 yr old in her 2nd trimester. Eating habits- three squares a day around the table with the family is now a breakfast burrito in the car pool lane. Or a cereal straw with a glass of milk. Ask not what your country can do for you? More like here's some stimulus money, go spend. And don't even get me started on health care. But it's not all doom and gloom. Ref. Neil Patrick Harris, could he do what he's done 30 years ago? 50?

 

[fetaby]

move over, and stop bogarting the complimentary peanuts.

You may have gotten here first, but I'll push you out!

And the aussie's have come to play!

Back to topic:

Yooper: Good points on the environment. Hell, even I have started to recycle. One thing I'm looking forward to is a paperless society. And if that never happens, perhaps a shift of production from wood pulp to a more suitable alternative such as bamboo or hemp. Speaking of bamboo, what do you think about those flooring materials, and cork.
Of food production. While the production of food is at an all time high, the amount of misinformation regarding the food we eat is alarmingly high. In America, the obesity issue. Controversy regarding High Fructose Corn Syrup. A multi-vitamin may do you some good, but not if it sits in your body and doesn't dissolve. And where in the world are you getting a dozen eggs for $.69, the lowest I've seen is $1.19

 

[Yooper]

And if that never happens, perhaps a shift of production from wood pulp to a more suitable alternative such as bamboo or hemp. Speaking of bamboo, what do you think about those flooring materials, and cork.

Of food production. While the production of food is at an all time high, the amount of misinformation regarding the food we eat is alarmingly high. In America, the obesity issue. Controversy regarding High Fructose Corn Syrup. A multi-vitamin may do you some good, but not if it sits in your body and doesn't dissolve. And where in the world are you getting a dozen eggs for $.69, the lowest I've seen is $1.19

Being that my Mom owns a Tree Farm, I have to post the text of a bumper sticker on her truck:
'If you are opposed to Logging, please use Plastic Toilet Paper'
That being said, the paper mill in her town converted to all recycled production back in the early 80's. And I love Bamboo and Cork floors, great idea. Bamboo doesn't grow in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. About the only thing that grows there IS trees.

I loathe HFCS. I do my best to not consume it and have lost 25 lbs. Doing nothing else. All I'm saying is Wheat and Corn yields are at an all time high, the old non-hybrid wheats couldn't begin to feed us all.

And I get my eggs for .69 by buying 'Grade B' eggs. All that designation means is they were repacked at the store. Lots of times I get the $4 a dozen Egg-Lands Best for .69 and I can tell because they are marked with red dye.

 

[NickCole]

Do you feel the world has became a better place within you lifetime? Or do you feel it is going backwards.


Keep in mind “better and backwards” is suppose to be your opinion.

I think we're going forward, not backward.

And I think it's easier, but easier is not the same as better.

 

[Yooper]

RE the Environment.

At least we're not this bad anymore.