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I think it might just be hard for many of the people on HN to have an objective opinion about it. We might just think of the 80s as the beginning of the modern

by delecti 12y ago

I think it might just be hard for many of the people on HN to have an objective opinion about it. We might just think of the 80s as the beginning of the modern world because it's when we were born.

dragonwriter 12y ago
> I think it might just be hard for many of the people on HN to have an objective opinion about it. Opinions are, by definition, subjective, and the issue here is a subjective question of feeling, not an objective question of fact, so, yes, its impossible for anyone to have an "objective opinion" about it, for a few fairly fundamental reasons. (And its not just limited to people on HN.)
- delecti 12y ago
  Well, my point was more that "of course we think the 80s were significant because that's when so many of us were born", and less a discussion on the meaning of "opinion". If some of the older posters (40-60 rather than 20-30) were to post a similar sentiment about the 80s then it would say more. Edit: Alternatively, I'm very likely just projecting my age range on some posters who are in that age range, but them chiming up to confirm that fact would be helpful.
  - mordechai9000 12y ago
    I was born in the 70s, and I feel my whole decade was left out of your age range.
  - randallsquared 12y ago
    People who are in their 40s now were teens and young adults in the 80s, and are therefore likely to agree that that decade was significant, and I can understand that (I'm 41). Let me try to give a different perspective, though: Modern times seems to me to have started about when The Matrix came out and Google came along. It's truly amazing to me that we managed to get along without immediate and virtually unlimited access to any information about anything. Being able to just look things up completely changed my life. The internet was qualitatively enormously different when the best search engine was Altavista and most of my time was spent on IRC and Usenet.

by delecti 12y ago

I think it might just be hard for many of the people on HN to have an objective opinion about it. We might just think of the 80s as the beginning of the modern world because it's when we were born.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> I think it might just be hard for many of the people on HN to have an objective opinion about it. Opinions are, by definition, subjective, and the issue here is a subjective question of feeling, not an objective question of fact, so, yes, its impossible for anyone to have an "objective opinion" about it, for a few fairly fundamental reasons. (And its not just limited to people on HN.)

delecti 12y ago
Well, my point was more that "of course we think the 80s were significant because that's when so many of us were born", and less a discussion on the meaning of "opinion". If some of the older posters (40-60 rather than 20-30) were to post a similar sentiment about the 80s then it would say more. Edit: Alternatively, I'm very likely just projecting my age range on some posters who are in that age range, but them chiming up to confirm that fact would be helpful.
- mordechai9000 12y ago
  I was born in the 70s, and I feel my whole decade was left out of your age range.
- randallsquared 12y ago
  People who are in their 40s now were teens and young adults in the 80s, and are therefore likely to agree that that decade was significant, and I can understand that (I'm 41). Let me try to give a different perspective, though: Modern times seems to me to have started about when The Matrix came out and Google came along. It's truly amazing to me that we managed to get along without immediate and virtually unlimited access to any information about anything. Being able to just look things up completely changed my life. The internet was qualitatively enormously different when the best search engine was Altavista and most of my time was spent on IRC and Usenet.