Direct quote from the “smartest man in the world”, 6/12/14: "The truth of the matter is that for all the challenges we face, all the problems that we have,…if you had to choose any moment to be born in human history, not knowing what your position was going to be, who you were going to be, you’d choose this time. The world is less violent than it has ever been. It is healthier than it has ever been. It is more tolerant than it has ever been. It is better fed then it’s ever been. It is more educated than it’s ever been.
Terrible things happen around the world every single day, but the trend lines of progress are unmistakable."
Honestly, as much as I’d miss 80s porn, I’d love to have lived in the 1950s with all it’s social problems because the economy was so incredible a person with a high school education could typically get a decent enough job to buy a nice house and support a family. People were also typically more socially considerate of others.
The other upside is garter belts and stockings were still standard issue for females. I’d take that over Obama’s psuedo utopia any damn day.
A bit off topic, but what the heck…I WAS that kid in the '50s. My toolmaker uncle had a new black '55 Thunderbird. I have a picture of me as a 13 year old kid (with hair!) sitting in it.
Uncle John, bless him, is gone. The T-bird was traded on something else, and that world is pretty well gone, too.
Meanwhile, the world moves on. Character and principles still matter, life isn’t fair, and stupid still hurts.
“The other upside is garter belts and stockings were still standard issue for females.”
Hate to rain on a fantasy, but garter belts, common on cheesecake, were rare in real life even when I graduated H.S. in 1966. Girdles were the norm. For some reason a flat butt was desired so even skinny girls wore them with nylons. Many a young boy lost the moment trying to pull the damn things off. Rolling them down is key.
Without the ability to see the future, I can’t say whether I’d like to be born today or not.
I was born in 1963, and I have no complaints. But I’m white, male, and I had a Beaver Cleaver upbringing. Without foreknowledge of the race, social strata, and setting I’d be born into, I don’t know when I’d choose to be born.
I was thinking the same thing.
I would be living the dream in the '50s… a time of unparalleled growth and opportunity. I can pass for 100%. My son would be a pariah up until the '90s or so.
My dad graduated HS in '59. Watch American Graffiti and that was pretty much what his teens were like.
But as for the OP, the only reason the Earth has reached it’s current human population numbers is due to petro chemicals and the internal combustion engine. We are set for a fall, a big, BIG, ****ing fall soon. In just one battle the British lost 1,000,000 men in WW1 that was only a hundred years ago. Their is an expiration date on progress/technology.
Yeah the 50’s are only great if you’re blind to the whole segregation thing… Maybe it doesn’t seem so bad if you’re white but no rose tinted lenses here.
It is true that while the world is still shitty, you are less likely to die a violent death at the hands of another man than at any other point.
This country, and the world, has never been perfect.
But if given the choice, I think I’d be a better fit back then. I can always be the cat that was cool with the brothers. I wouldn’t have to live in the south, there wasn’t a lot of segregation in the north. Congress wasn’t exactly segregated either, first black Senator was all the way back in 1870.
Well the whole of the United States wasn’t under Jim Crow you know and the white population was much larger compared to blacks, Hispanics, Indians, Asians, etc.