5 ms·

The world is complex now, it was simple back then, let me explain. I was thinking the other day, in 1950, you could drop a kid randomly anywhere on the map (say

The world is complex now, it was simple back then, let me explain. I was thinking the other day, in 1950, you could drop a kid randomly anywhere on the map (say the U.S. but not necessarily), he would easily find its way: to the farm, to the factory, to the military or to the church. Everything would be ok for the 1950 kid youd drop anywhere. He would be fine and happy. Drop a kid nowdays and youd be dropping a body, virtually. Very little chance the kid would end up ok, employed nor happy. It's certainly exagerated but you get the idea.

jameshart 4y ago
> Everything would be ok for the 1950 kid youd drop anywhere. He would be fine and happy. Sure. It was a happy and golden time for everyone. So, one of the amazing things about the modern world is that actual information is at everyone's fingertips, which I find is better than anecdotal conjecture. A quick google away, I can find this document: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1380550/pdf/amjph00515-0043.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1380550/pdf/amj... From this we can learn that since 1950 the mortality rate among 5-14 year olds has declined at an average rate of 2% per year, largely due to reductions in accident rates (particularly motor vehicle accidents) and deaths due to disease. Of any group of random kids of that age in the US, in 1950 pretty much twice as many of them would be dead by 14 than in the present day. If they were black and male, in 1950 their mortality rate from 5-14 was one in a thousand. That it's only half that today is... still pretty shocking. And that's just the changing rate for kids encountering the worst possible outcome, during their childhood. What other outcomes have changed? Well, drop a boy randomly in the US in 1950, and from 1964 onwards there's about a 10% chance he gets drafted and sent to Vietnam. Or we could look at the other end of the outcome scale: If your hypothetical kid was a 5 year old girl dropped in 1950 America, she'd have very different opportunities compared to a modern child - she'd be 24 before the first women were admitted to Princeton or Yale, for example. If your 1950 experiment dropped a gay kid into America, well... if they're lucky, they're in Illinois where homosexuality becomes legal in 1962. If they're in Texas, they have to wait until 2003. About a third of kids in 1950 lived in poverty in the US. That improved a lot over the 60s and 70s. Nowadays it's... around a fifth. Still shocking, but again, your odds look better today than 70 years ago. And let's not get into the ethical issues of your 'drop a random kid somewhere in the US' plan where that might result in dropping a black child in Mississippi before the Civil Rights act of 1964, where they would grow up under Jim Crow. This kid would spend 4 years in segregated schooling before Brown v Board (and probably years after that waiting for desegregation to actually happen), and our hypothetical 1950 5 year old would turn 18 two years before the Voting Rights act. Yeah. They'd be fine and happy.
- quadcore 4y ago
  Youre twisting my point. Im not saying society was better then. Im saying it was simpler in its structure and certainly more predictive for a given person. Maybe a little bit happier on average even but if we disagree on that no need to break bad about it I can be easily convinced of the contrary.
  - jameshart 4y ago
    Don’t mean to twist your point; I’m just putting some statistical information out there that I think suggests a more hopeful picture than your assertion that a random kid in 1950 had pretty good odds of a positive outcome compared to a modern kid having ‘very little’ chance of being happy. I don’t think it is fair to gloss over the large number of people who were children in the 1950s for whom their chances of happiness were limited from the start, and to hold out some hope that maybe actually on the population level the odds for kids today are slightly better. But still not good enough, for sure.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - quadcore 4y ago
      your assertion that a random kid in 1950 had pretty good odds of a positive outcome compared to a modern kid having ‘very little’ chance of being happy. Didnt say a random kid. I said a kid randomly air dropped with no resource nor parenting. I didnt say what kid. I actually dont think he'd end up easily okay today, I could be wrong. Anyway my point was more about illustrating the complexity of society today compared to before, its not about sheer accuracy.
      - jameshart 4y ago
        Wow. So let’s unpack that a little more shall we? A kid with no parenting in the 1950s? Maybe they’d find their way into the care of the Catholic Church, where approximately 1 in 10 of the priests were abusers. Or perhaps to a residential school like the ones Canada where 1900 kids wound up in unmarked graves. Can you please be more specific about what ‘complexity’ in the modern world you feel would contribute to it being so much harder for a kid to survive?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cortesoft 4y ago
> Everything would be ok for the 1950 kid youd drop anywhere Not if the kid was black. Just ask Emmett Till, a kid from Chicago ‘dropped’ into Mississippi on vacation. Or if the kid was a woman. You think she would have no problem finding a job in the 1950s? Or if the kid was a Muslim. Or gay. Or disabled. Even if you were a straight white male, your mortality rate was a lot higher in the 1950s than today.
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  My family actually were Muslims in the US in 1950, and I’m a little irritated at the suggestion of lacking agency.
  - cortesoft 4y ago
    I am not sure where you got the idea that I was saying a Muslim wouldn’t have agency. I am only saying that if a Muslim was dropped in the middle of the country in the 1950s, they would likely encounter difficulties that a white man wouldnt, and that assuming you could just go anywhere in the 1950s and be easily successful is not equally true for everyone.
    - selimthegrim 4y ago
      Muslims can be white too. Muslim isn’t a race.
      - cortesoft 4y ago
        You are right, I should have said Christian.
bowsamic 4y ago
On what are you basing this assertion? This just sounds like your personal head canon about the past. I see no justification nor data to back this up.

jameshart 4y ago

> Everything would be ok for the 1950 kid youd drop anywhere. He would be fine and happy. Sure. It was a happy and golden time for everyone. So, one of the amazing things about the modern world is that actual information is at everyone's fingertips, which I find is better than anecdotal conjecture. A quick google away, I can find this document: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1380550/pdf/amjph00515-0043.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1380550/pdf/amj... From this we can learn that since 1950 the mortality rate among 5-14 year olds has declined at an average rate of 2% per year, largely due to reductions in accident rates (particularly motor vehicle accidents) and deaths due to disease. Of any group of random kids of that age in the US, in 1950 pretty much twice as many of them would be dead by 14 than in the present day. If they were black and male, in 1950 their mortality rate from 5-14 was one in a thousand. That it's only half that today is... still pretty shocking. And that's just the changing rate for kids encountering the worst possible outcome, during their childhood. What other outcomes have changed? Well, drop a boy randomly in the US in 1950, and from 1964 onwards there's about a 10% chance he gets drafted and sent to Vietnam. Or we could look at the other end of the outcome scale: If your hypothetical kid was a 5 year old girl dropped in 1950 America, she'd have very different opportunities compared to a modern child - she'd be 24 before the first women were admitted to Princeton or Yale, for example. If your 1950 experiment dropped a gay kid into America, well... if they're lucky, they're in Illinois where homosexuality becomes legal in 1962. If they're in Texas, they have to wait until 2003. About a third of kids in 1950 lived in poverty in the US. That improved a lot over the 60s and 70s. Nowadays it's... around a fifth. Still shocking, but again, your odds look better today than 70 years ago. And let's not get into the ethical issues of your 'drop a random kid somewhere in the US' plan where that might result in dropping a black child in Mississippi before the Civil Rights act of 1964, where they would grow up under Jim Crow. This kid would spend 4 years in segregated schooling before Brown v Board (and probably years after that waiting for desegregation to actually happen), and our hypothetical 1950 5 year old would turn 18 two years before the Voting Rights act. Yeah. They'd be fine and happy.

quadcore 4y ago
Youre twisting my point. Im not saying society was better then. Im saying it was simpler in its structure and certainly more predictive for a given person. Maybe a little bit happier on average even but if we disagree on that no need to break bad about it I can be easily convinced of the contrary.
- jameshart 4y ago
  Don’t mean to twist your point; I’m just putting some statistical information out there that I think suggests a more hopeful picture than your assertion that a random kid in 1950 had pretty good odds of a positive outcome compared to a modern kid having ‘very little’ chance of being happy. I don’t think it is fair to gloss over the large number of people who were children in the 1950s for whom their chances of happiness were limited from the start, and to hold out some hope that maybe actually on the population level the odds for kids today are slightly better. But still not good enough, for sure.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - quadcore 4y ago
    your assertion that a random kid in 1950 had pretty good odds of a positive outcome compared to a modern kid having ‘very little’ chance of being happy. Didnt say a random kid. I said a kid randomly air dropped with no resource nor parenting. I didnt say what kid. I actually dont think he'd end up easily okay today, I could be wrong. Anyway my point was more about illustrating the complexity of society today compared to before, its not about sheer accuracy.
    - jameshart 4y ago
      Wow. So let’s unpack that a little more shall we? A kid with no parenting in the 1950s? Maybe they’d find their way into the care of the Catholic Church, where approximately 1 in 10 of the priests were abusers. Or perhaps to a residential school like the ones Canada where 1900 kids wound up in unmarked graves. Can you please be more specific about what ‘complexity’ in the modern world you feel would contribute to it being so much harder for a kid to survive?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

cortesoft 4y ago

> Everything would be ok for the 1950 kid youd drop anywhere Not if the kid was black. Just ask Emmett Till, a kid from Chicago ‘dropped’ into Mississippi on vacation. Or if the kid was a woman. You think she would have no problem finding a job in the 1950s? Or if the kid was a Muslim. Or gay. Or disabled. Even if you were a straight white male, your mortality rate was a lot higher in the 1950s than today.

selimthegrim 4y ago
My family actually were Muslims in the US in 1950, and I’m a little irritated at the suggestion of lacking agency.
- cortesoft 4y ago
  I am not sure where you got the idea that I was saying a Muslim wouldn’t have agency. I am only saying that if a Muslim was dropped in the middle of the country in the 1950s, they would likely encounter difficulties that a white man wouldnt, and that assuming you could just go anywhere in the 1950s and be easily successful is not equally true for everyone.
  - selimthegrim 4y ago
    Muslims can be white too. Muslim isn’t a race.
    - cortesoft 4y ago
      You are right, I should have said Christian.

bowsamic 4y ago

On what are you basing this assertion? This just sounds like your personal head canon about the past. I see no justification nor data to back this up.