Yes, very much (I'm 41). The running joke with my friends is that my tag line should be "I miss the 90s". Some things were much better then than today, for exa

Yes, very much (I'm 41). The running joke with my friends is that my tag line should be "I miss the 90s". Some things were much better then than today, for example: * Children and adolescents had freedom that seems to have been lost today. However, I think that a young person's virtual self extends far out into the aether compared to Gen X. * The lack of cynicism today concerns me. There are so many very.bad.things happening in the world that I find blind optimism offensive. I just read that 40% of the world's species have gone extinct in 40 years. It doesn't matter if that's precisely true - what matters is that the order of magnitude is likely accurate, and that humans only have about one more generation before Earth's wildlife can only be seen in museums. * Politics was better. Everything since 9/11 has been a blind alley on the fractal of possibilities. Young people maybe aren't aware that the world wasn't always this... dystopic. * One thing was worse - weed was illegal everywhere except like, Amsterdam. * Video games were better. But the quality was partially due to suspension of disbelief and using one's imagination. * Grunge/alternative was a revelation that can't be expressed in words or replicated. But, around 2013 I noticed a similar cultural revolution, the rise/return of the Burning Man sentiment and a reconnection with creation via psychedelic drugs which seems to be changing the world like a mix between 60s hedonism and cyperpunk. YOLO might be the only thing Gen X truly envies about today hahah. * Basement parties, raves, skate and punk culture, underground internet geekdom. Vans. Airwalks. Corduroy jeans. All better, but somewhat make-believe. * Web metaphors were better (declarative and data-driven programming, UNIX theology). Programming languages like C++ and platforms like Windows set us back at least 10, maybe 20 years. But they were FUN. I knew a guy from my parents' generation when I was growing up who wore Hawaiian shirts everywhere and would never leave the year 1985. Now I am him, forever trapped between the years 1992-1999 like a character in The Matrix. So while I could go on forever, I'll stop here. Edit: somehow I left out music. Listen to Green Day or Stone Temple Pilots or Alice in Chains chronologically and you might if you're lucky get the slightest glimpse into what it was like to watch Beavis and Butthead in your friend's trailer home before going out to ride BMX in the gravel pits and then coming home and playing Nintendo until 4 in the morning, staying up all night and then going to a party the next night and getting a ride home with random girls like on Dazed and Confused. I assume all that is even better today (what with your Uber and Tinder), but the shear bleakness and transcendental euphoria that the future was arriving before your eyes and nobody older than 30 knows it yet has perhaps diminished.