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When I was a kid in the 1980s I was constantly in fear of global nuclear war, it was basically impossible to be openly gay in my small Missouri town, a signific

When I was a kid in the 1980s I was constantly in fear of global nuclear war, it was basically impossible to be openly gay in my small Missouri town, a significant percentage of the population thought interracial marriages were wrong, my uncle had fought in Vietnam and came home a heroin addict, we’d just seen a decade of high unemployment and inflation and so on and so on. It’s easy in any era to list out 9 or 10 things that everybody is worried about. It would be pretty weird if you couldn’t think of 9 or 10 things to be worried about today. The question is whether things are better or worse on balance. And by that accounting I think there are lots of reasons to be optimistic.

OnlineGladiator 5y ago
> The question is whether things are better or worse on balance. And by that accounting I think there are lots of reasons to be optimistic. Such as? Nuclear arsenals are still a thing and more countries have them now. Inflation is ramping up right now and many people say the economy is on the verge of being utterly fucked. Apart from that it seems like you're generalizing life from a small town specific to your family. I can cherry pick anecdotes from my own life to paint a picture either way too, it doesn't really tell us anything substantial.