I think it was more like "will civilization last another 10 years?" in the 1970s. The atomic bomb was a button press away and the finger was hovering. The popul

I think it was more like "will civilization last another 10 years?" in the 1970s. The atomic bomb was a button press away and the finger was hovering. The population bomb was constantly hovering. The draft saw your friends shipped off as cannon fodder and shipped home in boxes. Heroin addiction was rampant and violent crime was high in the bankrupt inner cities. State-sanctioned racism, sexism, and homophobia caused untold suffering domestically. Inflation was in the double digits until double-digit interest rates caused double-digit unemployment. The air was so polluted in cities you couldn't see, and the water so polluted rivers literally caught fire and burned for days. Then I think of my parents' generation. They grew up with literal Hitler dominating the news. For them, it was "will civilization last the year?". These are better days. Better days are shining through.