Oh I remember this. There's one positive I take from this. A lot of people are understandably upset at, say, the GOP's latest wedge issue: health care for tran

Oh I remember this. There's one positive I take from this. A lot of people are understandably upset at, say, the GOP's latest wedge issue: health care for trans children [1]. It's one of many from gay marriage to trans athletes to bathrooms to mask mandates to vaccine mandates to abortion to guns. The positive I take from this is that manufacturing issues like D&D and Satanism is nothing new and despite these continued and deliberate attempts at stoking the fires of a culture war, things have gotten better. White exceptionalism and the lasting echoes of slavery continue to this day, for sure, but it is better. Back in the 1980s people talked openly about how if Black people moved into their neighbourhood it would lower home prices. There was even a Family Ties episode about it [2] (objecting to the irrational fears, to be clear). Here's another positive actually: in the 1980s it kinda sucked to be a nerd. Now at least it's more accepted and the Internet gives lots of people (not just nerds) access to communities and likeminded people that just wasn't possible then. Of course there's a downside: cyberbullying, the envy culture of Instagram (eg hundreds have died taking selfies [3]) and so on but there's a ton of good too. People fall into a trap where they'e nostalgiac for the past. Our memories are selective. This contributes to people getting trapped into the idea that things are simply getting worse. Even if it's true (which I don't believe it is), it doesn't help you to believe that and this kind of pessimism is no way to live. You even see it with people stressing about the threat of nuclear war as a result of the war in Ukraine. To anyone who was alive in the 1980s, this is really old hat. We lived with this threat for literal decades with a much more aggressive Soviet Union. But yes, anti-D&D hysteria. That takes me back. [1]: https://www.vox.com/22360030/trans-kids-health-care-arkansas-explained https://www.vox.com/22360030/trans-kids-health-care-arkansas... [2]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0577277/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0577277/ [3]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/10/03/more-than-250-people-worldwide-have-died-taking-selfies-study-finds/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/10/0...