Do you Think Things are better now?

[ERD50]

Things which gotten worse? There are many to choose from: air quality, population density, traffic, .... But I still rather live now than 3 generations ago.

Air quality? Far better today, not worse at all. Unless maybe if you live in Beijing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_the_United_States

In the United States between 1970 and 2006, citizens enjoyed the following reductions in annual pollution emissions:[2]

carbon monoxide emissions fell from 197 million tons to 89 million tons
nitrogen oxide emissions fell from 27 million tons to 19 million tons
sulfur dioxide emissions fell from 31 million tons to 15 million tons
particulate emissions fell by 80%
lead emissions fell by more than 98%

-ERD50

 

[photoguy]

I'm trying to think of things that are personally worse for me now than before and I'm having a hard time coming up with items.

Here's my list so far:

* Social Security only partially funded so I expect to take some sort of haircut
* DRM on digital media (I guess one could argue that we had no digital media before)
* climate change (it's hotter and more uncomfortable, may need to spend more on air conditioning, flood insurance)
* increased advertising pollution (i.e. spam emails, ad driven web). It's like a death by a thousand paper cuts
* traffic jams and commute time (I assume this is worse due to population increases but haven't seen any figures)
* flying

 

[Lcountz]

I think for the most part, things are better......I love to use YouTube to learn to make repairs that before I would have had to hire someone ( repaired my washer, rebuilt the carb on my Honda lawn mower and it WORKS again!!!!....repaired my washerless faucets in my and my Mom's house, to name a few!)

What I don't like is the rampant RUDENESS. It seems that with the explosion of Social media, the population has a whole has become MUCH less civilized in face-to face situations....people say and do anything with no regard to respect for elders, other people's feelings or just plain nastiness. Take loud talking people in theaters or people who screech into thier phones in waiting rooms or church or other "quiet" zones....

And it seems like every place is MUCH more crowded today,especially places one goes to for recreation..

And there are WAY too many shootings reported daily in the news, both national and local.

Those are my peeves.

 

[Midpack]

Things are definitely better overall IMO, and the energy supply break-thru will sustain the USA for decades (that came just in time). Medicine (though we're past due time to deal with costs that are about double ALL other developed countries), technology, safety, etc. However, the rest of the world has gained ground on the USA, so the 99% are not as well off as they once were. The USA may never enjoy the advantages we had for the decades that followed WWII, time will tell...

 

[robnplunder]

I think what's better or worse list depends on where you are living in the world. E.g, air quality is really bad in Chinese cities. OTOH, it has improved in number of places. Life in general is better everywhere due to advance of technology but people are still starving to death in Africa. If this thread is posted in Africa forum, I'd guess there will be more people claiming that things have gotten worse despite the advent of smartphones, internet, etc..

 

[Rustic23]

Comments about the 'Poor' caused me to do a little googling.

What is Poverty in the United States: Air Conditioning, Cable TV and an Xbox

I did find the tables and facts interesting. While poverty may be increasing, what we define as poverty appears to also change.

I agree better or worse depends on geography, but also time frame. Better than the Romans? No doubt. Better than last year, maybe not. Horses for transportation rather than autos? I also read an article, i can not recall where, that it was not until the 1900 that the majority of Americans did not have to worry where there next meal was coming from. This was largely due to the advances in storing and processing food, along with modern farming.

 

[Walt34]

Well, one thing that's definitely worse now than thirty years ago is that I'm thirty years older. Pretty much everything else is better though.

 

[MRG]

I think many things are better, based on your comparisons and time frame. A hundred years ago I would be blind, possibly unable to provide for my family.

The net has made many customer service aspects better, investing is a great example. Some is much worse, today I spent 45 minutes on hold to talk with a rental car agency about some damage to one of there cars from 7 weeks ago. After the hold I spend another 45 minutes talking with a CSR that I could not understand. I finally got to the point of having her spell words as I had no understanding what word she was saying. At the end she referred me to a different area. Still haven't heard anything as that reps voice mail said she is on vacation until 7/21, I guess we have different calanders. Probably won't use that rental car agency ever again.

 

[6miths]

For all the prophets of doom and gloom, who go on and on about how horrible life is today, I hereby present you with -- the 70s. By far the worst decade I ever lived through. Things are far better now.

THE 1970s – a survey of the headlines​

1976 – The US enters the bicentennial year in a subdued mood.There is an enormous race riot at a Florida high school.Divisive public debate erupts over the fate of Karen Ann Quinlan, a NJ woman who lies in a coma after a drug overdose.Legionnaire’s disease erupts at a convention in Philadelphia.The US inflation rate drops to only 5.8%; it will not be this low again for the rest of the decade.The unemployment rate hits 7.7%.

Yes it was a bit of a downer decade but it was still a wonderful time to be a kid. Most of these things didn't make it onto the radar. Odd that Legionnaire’s disease is mentioned while notably missing from this list of bad news is the arrival of HIV in America. Some believe it was during the Spirit of '76 celebrations, particularly those that brought tall ships from around the world to New York harbour for the second time since the establishment of Operation Sail by President Kennedy in 1961. The time of arrival may not be known but the date can pretty safely be placed in the 70s. Over 500,000 Americans died of the virus and an estimated 1.1 million continue to live with it in the United States thanks to far more effective therapies.

 

[Gumby]

Yes it was a bit of a downer decade but it was still a wonderful time to be a kid. Most of these things didn't make it onto the radar. Odd that Legionnaire’s disease is mentioned while notably missing from this list of bad news is the arrival of HIV in America. Some believe it was during the Spirit of '76 celebrations, particularly those that brought tall ships from around the world to New York harbour for the second time since the establishment of Operation Sail by President Kennedy in 1961. The time of arrival may not be known but the date can pretty safely be placed in the 70s. Over 500,000 Americans died of the virus and an estimated 1.1 million continue to live with it in the United States thanks to far more effective therapies.

It's just a list I made up from memory and a little research, so any deficiencies are solely my own. I don't think that people were aware of HIV until the early 80s. At least, that's when I first heard of it. Medical professionals may have known before then.

 

[target2019]

I'll define "used to be" as 50 years ago, so 1964. Our childhood home was not air-conditioned. Stop right there - - things are much better.

 

[W2R]

I'll define "used to be" as 50 years ago, so 1964. Our childhood home was not air-conditioned. Stop right there - - things are much better.

Mine wasn't either, except for my parents' bedroom and we kids weren't allowed to play in there.

I used to play outside a lot when I was a kid, in the late 50's. Nobody ever worried about me running around the neighborhood with my brothers or friends until after 9PM. I guess we didn't get more than a mile from home, but still, I think that today that would not be considered safe for a young girl in any big city.

Seemed like life was much simpler then. Maybe that was at least partly due to my youth. It was pretty easy to know right from wrong, compared with today's complexities. Many people did not lock cars or even their front door. We weren't always fending off scammers and con artists. We weren't drowning in junk mail, either. It's easy to get nostalgic about those times, but I am happier now so some aspects of life must be improving.

 

[MRG]

WR2 when my parents sold the home I grew up in ~77, the new owners asked for the keys. My parents didn't even know where they were. That house had never been locked in 20 years, despite a few 4 week vacations.

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[W2R]

WR2 when my parents sold the home I grew up in ~77, the new owners asked for the keys. My parents didn't even know where they were. That house had never been locked in 20 years, despite a few 4 week vacations.

Amazing, isn't it! When we moved from St. Louis to Kailua, Hawaii (which was a far-out suburb and pretty rural back then in the early 1960's), nobody we knew in Hawaii even had locks installed on their exterior doors. So, they not only didn't lock the door, but actually they couldn't even if such a crazy idea occurred to them. Anybody who wanted to just walk inside, could and did. Nobody ever had any bad results from doing that, AFAIK. It's hard to imagine that now.

 

[6miths]

Love the Hawaii story. We were certainly very mobile in our youth and ventured far and wide around town. As 13 and 14 year olds we even started riding our 10 speeds over the Niagara River bridges to go to Niagara Falls and Buffalo NY for the day. I don't even remember being asked for ID. Round trip of 80-140 km depending on where we were heading. Used to like to go watch the Air National Guard planes stationed at the Niagara Falls airport. Love to send one of my kids to try that today. The good news is that we still leave our doors unlocked. I remember Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine, walking into unlocked houses. So funny, but largely true around here. The car sometimes gets locked but often not if it is in our driveway. Much more likely in the mall parking lot but pretty hard not to lock it with remotes these days.

 

[unno2002]

Benjamin Fraklin died at age 84.
George Washington died at age 67
Thomas Jefferson died at age 83

 

[Keim]

Benjamin Fraklin died at age 84.
George Washington died at age 67
Thomas Jefferson died at age 83

Not sure I see your point here. Surely you realize they were some of the richest men in the colonies. Most others of the time wouldn't have access to the things they could afford.

 

[jollystomper]

As a minority whose parents immigrated to the U.S. because, despite of the discrimination and prejudice they saw much more opportunity for their children in the U.S. than in the countries they were born and grew up in, I'd say things are generally better,at least in the U.S. Sometimes people confuse "opportunities" with guarantees".

However, every advance has its down side. I believe one of the "hidden" downsides of our technological and financial growth is that we are more easily isolated from each other. That isolation can easily cause us to generalize about groups that are "different" from us in ethic/income/social ways, either to envy what one perceives they have, or to blame them for what one perceives they do not have.

So... in my view, we live longer, have better medicine, have more financial opportunities (again not guarantees), and more technical toys to play with... but we know less about each other, and what we do know is more likely to come from "experts" who have their own agenda, versus our own experiences and interaction with others. To me, that is where we have lost ground.

 

[bUU]

Not sure I see your point here. Surely you realize they were some of the richest men in the colonies. Most others of the time wouldn't have access to the things they could afford.

And that underscores your point in another way: Your point is that, in colonial times, longevity was enjoyed disproportionately by the rich. The inequity regarding longevity decreased during the middle of the last century, then has regressed back toward the prior higher level of inequity, like so many other things:

Growing disparities in life expectancy | Economic Policy Institute

 

[manofstraw]

I guess for anyone born after 1946 in the Anglosphere they'd have seen an amazing upturn in technology, wealth and quality of life, my parents would vouch for that. I talk of the UK only but it has been suggested my generation (20's and below), on average, is going to be the first to be worse off than the previous generation since records began - so much for advancement.

The metrics I use are pension age (gone up and is legislated to go up further), wages (absolutely decimated in 2008), property (rising to insane multiples of salary which prices first-time buyers out of the market), job security (huge immigration from E.U and increasing global competition). Its my bleakness on the future outlook which pushes me to aim for FI asap.

 

[Closet_Gamer]

For all the reasons shared, my vote is that things are immeasurably better across a broad swath of material, medical and civil rights issues. Billions of people are now moving up the curve from subsistence living to something at least stable. Though inconsistent, globally the trend remains toward free market capitalism and some form of representative govt. Wars, while horrific to local civilian populations, no longer seem to involve millions dead as western society seems to have learned to intervene before they truly get out of hand. (We'll see if that holds or if we're no longer willing to carry the freight...). The threat of nuclear war has evolved from a global apocalypse to a regional catastrophe.

I would offer two areas of decline:

1). Society has abandoned parents

As a parent of two kids, I do feel like I want to say "Can I please get some cultural help here?" Sex, narcicism and cynicism are 24x7. I'm not yearning for Leave it to Beaver, but I'm weary of Viagara commercials and Lady gaga. Don't even get me started on rap music...can I get a little Cosby Show or Everbody Loves Raymond action? In many ways we don't celebrate stable families anymore and the hard, non-financial work that makes them a reality. We sometimes glorify the suffering that comes with bad choices. A sad by-product of the Internet is that it's almost a certainty that young kids get exposed to hard core porn while they are shaping their expectations of themselves and their relationships.

2). We've abandoned infrastructure & societal investment

The generations that preceded us built and built and built this country. Both govt and corporations invested in ways that weren't always NPV rational but left us with a spectacular society. The by-product of our consumption culture is that we've drained our cultural and economic capacity to invest in -- or even maintain -- our private and public infrastructure. If we could do a country-wide balance sheet, we'd see that we've writing down our assets to fuel current expenditures. Take a train from Baltimore to NYC and look out the window. I defy you to see something that isn't rusted thru. Private companies that do put out huge capital expenditures get politically crucified for their profits. We don't appreciate our infrastructure anymore. As a pilot friend observed to me after hearing a passenger complain the in-flight wifi was slow: "Dude, you're in a seat 40k feet off the ground going 500mph for $300. Chill."

People born into western, secular cultures are still blessed beyond words but in my opinion the above two trends strike at the roots of the long-term improvements in our societies. Something has to give. It's probably our collective lifestyles.

 

[6miths]

So... in my view, we live longer, have better medicine, have more financial opportunities (again not guarantees), and more technical toys to play with... but we know less about each other, and what we do know is more likely to come from "experts" who have their own agenda, versus our own experiences and interaction with others. To me, that is where we have lost ground.

Could be but on the other hand, I've had the opportunity to spend 3 years with my family working in a Muslim country in the Middle East getting to know the people, religon and culture; to work for extended periods in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, Botswana, Mexico, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Malaysia. For my father's and grandfather's generations, unless they were trying to escape these areas, the only way they were likely to see them was if they were part of the military being sent off to kill people in a conflict there. Women and children wouldn't likely have the opportunity to visit under any circumstance. The journey would also be weeks or months and fraught with peril. Worldwide communication is now almost effortless and often free. It's true that we may be less likely to strike up a conversation with the person sitting beside us on the bus but our ability to communicate generally has grown dramatically, as have the topics that are open for discussion.

 

[killingme]

Not sure I see your point here. Surely you realize they were some of the richest men in the colonies. Most others of the time wouldn't have access to the things they could afford.

I think it had less to do with affluence and more to do with Darwin, looking at medicine of the time. We have lots of old cemeteries in the area, one up the road with the oldest stone being form 1760. There is a large marble monument marker from one of the founding families (some who still live in town) listing multiple generations, the oldest of whom died at 63. Then there are those very modest slate stones (the ones you can still read) of people in their 80's and 90's.

Some things are better today some not so, those things which technology does and can improve will continue to be the bright spots. The acceleration of Moore's law who knows where we'll ten years from now.

 

[6miths]

I would offer two areas of decline:

1). Society has abandoned parents

As a parent of two kids, I do feel like I want to say "Can I please get some cultural help here?" Sex, narcicism and cynicism are 24x7. I'm not yearning for Leave it to Beaver, but I'm weary of Viagara commercials and Lady gaga. Don't even get me started on rap music...can I get a little Cosby Show or Everbody Loves Raymond action? In many ways we don't celebrate stable families anymore and the hard, non-financial work that makes them a reality. We sometimes glorify the suffering that comes with bad choices. A sad by-product of the Internet is that it's almost a certainty that young kids get exposed to hard core porn while they are shaping their expectations of themselves and their relationships.

2). We've abandoned infrastructure & societal investment

The generations that preceded us built and built and built this country. Both govt and corporations invested in ways that weren't always NPV rational but left us with a spectacular society. The by-product of our consumption culture is that we've drained our cultural and economic capacity to invest in -- or even maintain -- our private and public infrastructure. If we could do a country-wide balance sheet, we'd see that we've writing down our assets to fuel current expenditures. Take a train from Baltimore to NYC and look out the window. I defy you to see something that isn't rusted thru. Private companies that do put out huge capital expenditures get politically crucified for their profits. We don't appreciate our infrastructure anymore. As a pilot friend observed to me after hearing a passenger complain the in-flight wifi was slow: "Dude, you're in a seat 40k feet off the ground going 500mph for $300. Chill."

People born into western, secular cultures are still blessed beyond words but in my opinion the above two trends strike at the roots of the long-term improvements in our societies. Something has to give. It's probably our collective lifestyles.

A thoughtful post, thank you.

As a father of four, I don't so much feel that we have been abandoned, more that life and choices have become much more complicated. Madison Avenue and mass media certainly have made it more difficult to pass on positive values to children.

The second area is definitely a concern and as far as the West goes is a great worry. The dependence on foreign oil and the drain on currency has been endured for 50 years. What is likely going to be a much larger problem has been happening for less than 20 years and this is the flow of capital from the West to China in return for what essentially amounts to glass beads. Globalization has allowed the masses to afford incredible luxuries and on a international level has started the long process of income equalization but there will definitely be losers in this process. I recently read William Bernstein's book 'A Splendid Exchange' and then by chance saw the Big History episode on silver and how it shaped the world. The incredible trade imbalance between the West and China in the early 1800s led to the Opium Wars. History may not repeat itself but many say it rhymes. At the moment, it seems very much like all China needs from the West is cash, raw materials and technology (which it seems they don't feel the need to pay much for). The Chinese are patient forward thinkers and planners and some experts say that the memories of the humiliation of the Opium Wars are part of their psyche to this day. Time will tell.

 

[Closet_Gamer]

A thoughtful post, thank you.

As a father of four, I don't so much feel that we have been abandoned, more that life and choices have become much more complicated. Madison Avenue and mass media certainly have made it more difficult to pass on positive values to children.

The second area is definitely a concern and as far as the West goes is a great worry. The dependence on foreign oil and the drain on currency has been endured for 50 years. What is likely going to be a much larger problem has been happening for less than 20 years and this is the flow of capital from the West to China in return for what essentially amounts to glass beads. Globalization has allowed the masses to afford incredible luxuries and on a international level has started the long process of income equalization but there will definitely be losers in this process. I recently read William Bernstein's book 'A Splendid Exchange' and then by chance saw the Big History episode on silver and how it shaped the world. The incredible trade imbalance between the West and China in the early 1800s led to the Opium Wars. History may not repeat itself but many say it rhymes. At the moment, it seems very much like all China needs from the West is cash, raw materials and technology (which it seems they don't feel the need to pay much for). The Chinese are patient forward thinkers and planners and some experts say that the memories of the humiliation of the Opium Wars are part of their psyche to this day. Time will tell.

Thanks for your response.

Agreed on the China thing. What globalization has provided in terms of cheap goods for us and gains for impoverished people in china and other countries, it has taken in terms of domestic middle class job stability. Combine that with the loss of any sense of self-control in terms of senior mgmt compensation packages and equitable sharing of profits in large companies and you've got a seriously stressed working class. It's one thing to be able to shop at Walmart...it's another thing to build long term stability.

I wonder, however, if that doesn't somehow amount to a cultural receivable building up here and a payable building in china. If we ever got serious about incenting domestic investment and leveling the labor playing field, we could see a domestic labor rebound that would fuel the middle class and china would be in deep yogurt. They have entire cities devoted to making our baubles. What do you with 50M suddenly unemployed people?

It's also interesting that we recently became the largest oil producer again. The winds may be shifting on that score. Japan and China may discover they care more about the strait of Hormuz than we do. Perhaps they'll find something to cooperate on!!