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Let me answer your question with another question. How old are you? Because I'm in my 40s, which means I was in my 20s during the 1990s. And from my perspectiv
by smacktoward 7y ago
Let me answer your question with another question. How old are you?
Because I'm in my 40s, which means I was in my 20s during the 1990s. And from my perspective, it was not a notably simpler time back then than it is today. It was not some pastoral idyll, it was just a time a lot like now, except it was a little harder to get a hold of people.
But I do notice that when I talk to people in their 20s and 30s, they often talk about the '90s as some kind of dramatically simpler time. But that's not because of anything about the '90s; it's because they were children during the '90s, and people of all ages look back on their childhood as a simpler time. This is true even of people who grew up in objectively much more difficult times, like the 1930s and '40s. It's not that the world children grow up in isn't complicated, it's that they don't comprehend all the complications. You don't start to appreciate that stuff until you reach adulthood. So to everybody, childhood is like a lost paradise.
This is part of why nostalgia is such a seductive trap. It's so easy to look back on the past and think that it was something it wasn't. So if you try to make it your mission to restore that lost paradise, to restore something that never really existed in the first place, all you end up doing is chasing shadows.
- njepa 7y agoI think that is true in the sense that everyone has their own reality. However I don't think that precludes things getting worse. For anyone who has a utilitarian view of housing, or buildings in general, this is certainly the wrong decade in most places.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- timClicks 7y agoAlso the 90s kind of sucked. Otherwise grunge and goth culture would have never taken off. Was a teenager then, but here are some of the things that I can think of: - recessions in many countries '91/'92 - Asian financial crisis '97 - higher crime rates - reunification in Germany (causing massive budgetary/cultural issues) - nuclear testing in the Pacific (was a big issue here in NZ at the time) - threat of nuclear material being "lost" from ex-Soviet military - collapse of Soviet economies, esp. Russia - WTO riots in Seattle 1999 - large absolute poverty worldwide (see also the Millennium Development Goals)
- avip 7y agoAdd: - Gulf war (unexpected school vacation) - The most amazing volcanic winter ever
- coldtea 7y ago>Also the 90s kind of sucked. Otherwise grunge and goth culture would have never taken off. Goth culture was a thing of the 80s. Grunge didn't suck, it was a reaction to overly commercial music and rock losing its roots. >recessions in many countries '91/'92 Countries like Italy, Spain, Greece, etc had it worse in 2008 and on. >higher crime rates Depends on the country. Some have their record highs these days. >reunification in Germany (causing massive budgetary/cultural issues) But hardly a bad thing in itself. >collapse of Soviet economies, esp. Russia But also dissolution of the USSR and Eastern Block... >WTO riots in Seattle 1999 That wasn't a bad thing, that was resistance. It looks like you've just posted news items from that era as downsides of the era...
- wpietri 7y agoI'm in my 40s as well, and I'd agree. It reminds me of the Douglas Adams quote: “I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies: 1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. 2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. 3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”
- JamesBarney 7y agoThis is applies to software too. Software that comes out before your professional career is natural. Software that comes out beginning and mid career is revolutionary and exciting. And software that comes out late career is obviously an over engineered solution in search of a problem.
- behnamoh 7y agoI agree. However, people like Steve Jobs literally did their best after the above-mentioned 35 years of age. Apple basically introduced so many "new" technologies which "broke the wheel" under Jobs' leadership, and he was way passed 35. Although there are always exceptions like SJ, I agree with the general notion you quoted.
- xtiansimon 7y agoWow. Strange example. SJ ran a company with thousands of employees.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago> except it was a little harder to get a hold of people Hmm. Really? Few call centres or queuing systems around yet. My bank had a local number that was answered in 3 rings - often by the same person. So did the phone and electric companies, and the tax office. They might actually remember you. I probably couldn't ping a friend if they were out with the dog, or on holiday, and definitely not in the car - few had mobiles yet, though by the end of the 90s they were getting common enough. A lot of things were indeed simpler as we've added needless complexity to loads of things. Adding complexity layers seems to be how we solve everything. Even politics was simpler - note I don't say better. Then again a lot of things were fairly crap - VHS recorders, CRT TV, cassettes. Computing was much more fun - far many more platforms - SunOS, Amiga, ST, PC, Apple, BeOS, etc, and it was still feasible to know all of the thing. Now it's more likely to be a small part of a much more complex whole, too big for an individual. That speaks of maturing, but also of over-complexity. Swings and roundabouts really.
- zzzcpan 7y agoYou can probably store all the information computers stored at the beginning of 90s on a single server today. That's how simpler 90s were.
- njepa 7y agoI definitely think computers have gotten better since the '90s. Mostly because of the very real scarcity at the time. Unfortunately the last 5 years have been mostly a wash with cpu, memory, storage and gpus not getting better as before. And that seems largely true of phones and software as well.
- rootusrootus 7y agoCassettes? We had CDs before the 1990s, thankyouverymuch.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoCourse we did, but a CD in the car? I think that had to wait until about the millennium. Tapes were still hugely popular through the 90s, even pre-recorded. Never did understand that as pre-recorded tapes had abysmal quality compared to home taping. :)
- coldtea 7y ago>But I do notice that when I talk to people in their 20s and 30s, they often talk about the '90s as some kind of dramatically simpler time. But that's not because of anything about the '90s; it's because they were children during the '90s, and people of all ages look back on their childhood as a simpler time. That sounds like an easy copout. Some eras are simpler than others, others are safer than others, some are more creative than others, and so on. History is not some amorphous soup of self-same eras... And yes, the 90s were kind of simpler than today in several areas. In fact, "when I was younger things were simpler" is so empirically verifiable that it's almost a tautology, for most eras, and even more so for the 1950s-2020 era. Legislation was simpler, bureaucracy was simpler, technology was simpler, choices in many areas were much more constrained, and so on...
- tx-0 7y agothe original question contained an unsupported assertion that the 90s were simpler: it's not a cop-out to challenge the assertion and to try to explain it.
- Whymess 7y agoAmazing answer. Truth
- hn_throwaway_99 7y agoI'm also in my 40s, and I strongly disagree. While I don't see the 90s as some sort of idyllic calm Zen, the nature of discourse and social connection (or lack thereof) I feel has been seriously harmed by technology. While I think it's a mistake to look at the past through rose-colored glasses, I also think it's a mistake to think "Oh, well things have always been that way."
- gvd 7y agoThe 90s simpler? You try learning a new technology on YouTube in the 90s or reading blogs etc. Students have it so easy these days
- rootusrootus 7y agoHa, indeed. Books, lots and lots and lots of books. Fond memories of going to Powell's periodically to get more, but not as fond memories of having to learn everything about the computer using a book.
- danellis 7y agoThere might be more signal, but there's also a lot more noise.
- esrauch 7y agoI don't think easier and simpler are necessarily aligned. Ancient hunter/gather life could be said as simpler, but also could be brutally difficult compared to all of the modern luxuries.
- brownbat 7y agoI miss going into a locally owned coffee shop with a bunch of bored people reading worn paperbacks or writing in journals, often interested in striking up a conversation with a random stranger. Big coffee chains changed that experience. And smartphones have raised the bar, the opportunity cost to meeting a random stranger is higher, because you could be distracting yourself on the Internet. On the other hand, having a collaborative encyclopedia in my pocket at all times is pretty great.
- civility 7y ago> except it was a little harder to get a hold of people I certainly don't miss using the yellow pages to find a store or service, or looking on a paper map to find where the street is.
- Aeolun 7y agoI think I do. The yellow pages never ran out of power, and wasn’t influenced by a spotty internet connection. Same thing applies to paper maps.
- theamk 7y agoWhy would you miss them? They are not gone. For some reason, I am still getting a yellow pages book every year (it goes straight to recycle), and there still maps in my car, just in case everyone’s phones die while at the trip. Are you still getting yellow pages? What do you do with them?