Originally it was going to be “over the last twenty years” but I decided to be more flexible.
A lot of discussions about how society has changed or how the world is different always circle around to smartphones, social media, “no one talks to each other in person, they’re on their phones always” and the like.
Outside of those topics, what else has changed, by your perception?
From an artistic perspective, self-“publishing” (and I use quotations quite on purpose), changed writing as we know it and drastically dropped the average reading level of the public since now any chimp can bang their fist on a keyboard for an hour, upload it to Amazon and call themselves an “author” beside Stephen King or Umberto Eco.
It was always hailed as “the end of the so-called gatekeepers”. Without stopping to realise that gatekeepers/publishers exist for a reason. So that the public zeitgeist isn’t completely overrun with utter crap.
The response to having your short story or novel rejected used to be “okay…I’ll learn, practice and get better for the next time.” Now, it’s “screw you…I’ll pollute the zeitgeist with my 3rd grade level grammar nightmare with or without you and put it right up there on the shelf next to the actual writers.”
Just imagine if a doctor flunked out of med-school, and instead of trying harder, just said “screw you, I’m going to open up my own surgery and put it right next door to you and there’s nothing you can do to stop me…”
What a crazy stupid world we live in.
Isolation of individuals and the growing loss of ownership of, well, everything.
Design has changed. Instead of building powerful featues that are available to the user however they want to use it. The focus has shifted to providing a simplified linear interface where pressing a single button does the task and the tools to modify the action are hidden from the user. So if your use case doesnt 100% allign youre fucked.
No third places.
I think for me in my country it would be the collapse of the social contract. The bonds that society regulates itself.
Humanity getting dumber and dumber…
Nah, its just that the stupid people got louder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
People got smarter overall.
In not particular order, and a kind reminder that I’m not from US so some things may look different if you are from there:
People are far noisier, as there is less concerns by being judged by your neighbors. People used to behave purely out of shame. Now the shame is gone and people are wild.
Vast increase in dog ownership. There’s literally more dog than small kids in my country from several years now.
Vast increase in immigration. Statistics are weird here, as we give citizenship to a great amount of migrants in just two years, and here is illegal to record statistics based on ethnicity, country of origin or any aspect that would identify anyone’s ancestry. But my neighborhood went to 90-10 national-immigrant to 40-60. I live in a poor neighborhood so it’s not the same in all parts of the country, but immigration increase is there and it’s a big change.
Less violence overall. Street violence overall seems lower. Also there’s less of a terrorists threat as we used to have (there were several active terrorists groups here that are now gone).
A housing problem. People used to get a house without issues. Now it’s one of the biggest issues of young people.
Increase of tolerance towards homosexuality. It’s view as something very normal nowadays I think, and it use not to be that way.
Increase of equality between men and women. Direct discrimination is completely outlaw and hard to see. Indirect discrimination may still exist but is on a all time low. Most bosses I have had in all my jobs have been women (for giving a small example).
People go on vacation more often and further away. When I was young people used to just go one time a year on vacation, most of the time to a national place. Now people go several times a year to foreign countries, and “travel” have become the most important thing in many people’s lives (how many dating profiles have I seen in which the person pointed traveling as their life moto).
Most people have university studies. It didn’t used to be that way.
There’s probably much more. Those are the first things that came into my mind.
Kids are way nicer now. Kids in my day were brutal and violent. Most things have improved. People are more aware of dangers to kids now so there are stronger safeguards. Kids are better protected by laws so violence against them is getting less common. Women actually make pretty good money now and aren’t restricted to secretary like roles and there’s less jokes that the woman is a secretary. I had never seen female ceos. They just didn’t exist. Now women can scam the public just as well as men 🤣 There’s still a long way to go but things are a lot better. Gay people aren’t dying of AIDS as much anymore and people will touch gay people without a problem. When I was growing up people believed gay men might be carrying AIDS and would not touch them. Thanks princess di for your work on this. Racial diversity is so much better now. Like women, people of color did not make CEO frequently. It’s still being worked on, but it’s gotten better. Racism itself has gotten better, kids don’t say racial slurs to one another.
As far as environment there was a time when in the US we would celebrate some new technology innovation or infrastructure innovation. I remember when Boeing released a new plane and everyone was like wow so cool, this is redefining planes.
But we have not had that in years. Our desire to be top in tech or science is gone. We used to want to be the best infrastructure, top of the line water treatment and getting to different space discoveries FIRST. Being part of nasa was a huge dream for many kids to just explore the planets.
Now china has all this high speed transit and we have decaying pipes. In my childhood, this would not have been accepted. China was frowned upon.
Other countries have gotten better to the point they surpassed us. When I would visit Mexico it would be to help build in rural areas. Now our rural areas are further decrepit than anything I saw there back then and Mexico City is a vibrant bustling gorgeous place.
One visit to Apalachia and I have wondered how America got this way.
There was also a lot more stress around decorum. This one was a double edged sword. People cared a lot about how they were perceived to the point of committing heinous acts to cover up the slightest insult to their character or perception. Now, it’s more free. We don’t keep up with the Joneses on the level it was back then. Being loud or dressing any type of way means nothing. It’s all good.
But that has also led to the open and blatant acceptance of things like felonious behavior and led to what we have now. This kind of scandal would never have flown.
But then again, no woman could have ever HOPED to run for president.
There is also a lot more macro interests. I believe the people have more power now. Before, you had to listen to what’s on the radio. You had to watch why’s on tv. Trends could be fully controlled by the owners of these resources. Now your friend can post a video of their thermos surviving a car accident and suddenly a company who’s entire perception could not have possibly entered mainstream can. There is more freedom as a macro economy, you can truly access what interests you. This also leads to “too much choice” sometimes but it’s definitely awesome for some of us with unique interests. It has also leveled the playing field in way for trends to be able to match without extreme financial backing. You don’t have to be part of the big guys for your song or dance to go viral. You can have a niche on YouTube and make a living on commentary videos. You could not do this before.
Finally, the access to tech has not only improved our lives but brought a level of freedom unheard of. In my day, only movie studios had the tools to make media. Now people can express themselves with minimal financial investment. People are creating at levels never seen before because they finally have access to tools needed for it. Microphones, software, cameras, painting classes, and the world has distinctly become more and more creative and colorful. This is also helped by the less keeping up with the Joneses worrying about their perception thing. The more free we are in creating and expression, the more diverse and beautiful our works get. And yes I think it’s cool people can openly create furry porn and then connect with others who like it. This is truly something unimaginable to my generation. Our weirdness was violently oppressed. Now we out here turning that violence into twilight fanfics that spawn movie franchises.
You win some you lose some.
I’ve watched things go from “how can we profit from this?” to “how much can we profit from this without quite killing the plebs?”
No one admits when they don’t know something. The mentality of, fake it until you make it, casts ignorance as some sort of failure to be ridiculed. As a result we have politicians and laymen believing they can do something or know better than experts on a specific topic.
The other is the complete lack of humility or embarrassment when fucking up. People will just stream or post their most idiotic ideas to get ‘views,’ even if it makes them look terrible. This idea where you need to live-stream your entire life baffles me. Not sure if this falls under the tech and social media restriction of this post.
There are more idiots. Flatearthers, space deniers, antivaxxers. The more information people have access to the less intelligent society seems to get.
Surveillance Capitalism is getting more out of hand every year. Combined with more data breaches it’s not great.
The number of idiots definitely grew, but the percentage of idiots overall probably dropped.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
People got smarter. Idiots grew louder.
4 things
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People are getting lonelier and lonelier, even if we have the technoloogy, we keep getting further apart, it takes weeks to make time to see someone. So here I am, travelling alone…
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The attention span
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The willingness to actually do some legwork, laziness, or conformity.
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This will not sound nice: people getting dumber. There. I said it.
my 4 cents
peepull arnt getten dummer tho
dey allreddy was dumm b4
dum ppl got moar voyse naow
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From an American perspective, flying on an airplane sucks. 9/11/01 resulted in a whole bunch of security theatre at the airport and airlines have slowly whittled away whatever comfort or convience remained.
Remember being able to walk people to their gate, hug them goodbye, and watch the plane leave? Now you can only do this if you’re taking an unaccompanied minor to their gate.
Actually, it depends on the airport. A lot of them you only need to show ID now, not a ticket.
Good to hear that’s changing!
i got fed up enough that i decided i’m never flying again. if i can’t get there in time by driving, so sorry, i won’t be able to attend
Domestic flights should basically not be a thing. Trains should be the default option if you don’t have to cross an ocean.
Completely agree. The state of the US passenger train system is absolutely pitiful, and useless for any of the trips I needed to take.
I would gladly take the Texas Eagle to Chicago on a regular basis to see family if it didn’t cost $1,800 for a very small room in the sleeper car. I prefer the train to flying or driving. It’s just a LOT cheaper to load up the minivan and drive 12 hours instead.
I feel lucky living in the Northeast: Acela works. It’s not actual high speed rail by world standards, but it is convenient enough, fast enough, cheap enough to be the most desirable option to travel between major cities. But we don’t have this anywhere else.
How can we get this level of service between cities everywhere?
Ahh yes, trade 6 hours for a 3 day, $400 train ride to NYC.
Lmfao what a shit suggestion
With the current level of train infrastructure and service, I agree with you. That is why domestics flights are a thing. But trains would be a much better choice if rail wasn’t actively defunded and sabotaged for the last 70 years or so.
Its this lack of imagination of what could be (and already exists around the world) that makes everyone laugh at Americans.
Even with high speed rail you’re looking at 30+ hours from Seattle to NYC. And that’s optimistic, ignoring the numerous alpine mountains. No thanks.
Why do people always go here?
- Fine: coast to coast, north to south should have flights. However almost all domestic flights are shorter and most of those are between city pairs where rail could be more efficient.
- Fine: keep your bush pilots and feeder airlines, but 80% of the population is in metro areas.
- high speed rail advocates generally speak in terms of population density and distance for choosing the right option: generally city pairs less than 500 miles apart can be more efficiently served by rail. That’s most cities in the US, and metro areas are 80% the population
We don’t need to argue about it not being absolute,if you can recognized the predominant needs
It’s 14 hours by bullet train. Spend 8 of it sleeping and save the planet
Yes, all domestic flights in North America are Seattle to NYC.
The American train system isn’t normal.
I’m close. I only fly to see family and drive everywhere else. If I can’t complete the vacation without driving I’m just not doing it.
It’s weird because flights are cheaper but then I don’t have a vehicle where I land and most of the places I want to go I need a vehicle. I’m not much of a city boy.
You used to get proper meals even if it was a crazy short flight. Now it’s like $6 bag of cheese it.
Why specify the year? Everyone knows what 9/11 is, it’s not going to get confused with another 9/11.
Because over time people will forget the year. Like many hear July 4th and couldn’t tell you it is for 1776. People get lazy, and knowing the year gives a nice reference for time and how it has gone by.
Man sometimes I forget just how utterly brain dead some people are. Forgetting 1776.
Is 1776 an American thing? Because it does not seem to ring a bell for me…
When I was in high school, gay was the generic negative word. If Wendys gave you a medium fry when you ordered a large - gay. If your homie cancelled plans last minute - gay. If you slipped on the stairs and busted your ass - gay. It’s bizarre in hindsight.
Kids are still mean, they just use different words now
Same. “Gay Humor” was a thing when I was in middle-school/highschool, probably still a thing. If you act feminine as a guy, its “gay”. If you act too emotional over a girl, it’s “gay”. If you answer a question wrong, your a [R-Slur]. Everyone who you had a slight beef with is being a “bitch”, even the guys. Sometime the occational gay word equivalent that starts with “f”.
Oh this is a blue city (in the US) btw. Circa 2015-2020
The way retard has changed over the years is wild to me. Cause around me there are large communities of people with mental and physical disabilities who aggressively try to tell people that they are infact retarded. It’s the word they grew up with and are fighting tooth and nail to keep it from turning into a slur. Even tho it’s been used as one against those very people for years.
It’s such a weird thing to watch from the side line. Makes me wonder if this is what it was like during the rise of rap and the n word.
Tho it’s also getting to the point there’s so many letter-slurs that it’s getting stupid. At some point feels like we are going to have to either just stop caring and accept that intentions matter more then the words them self. Else we are goanna run out of letters to describe slurs.
Makes it very hard to have meaningful discourse around the topic. To be fair the fear of bans, and punishment for even saying some words regardless of context or topic also just makes it very iffy to talk about this topic in many places.
Hell iv seen people banned on etymology fourms and subs because someone said a “letter” slur with in the context of explaining the origin of the word. It’s crazy what the internet has become recently.
Yea that one got me by surprise. Not sure when it changed, but a few years back a friend told me I offended someone by using it.
I was confused - stopped using it though.
That’s cringe dude
It is now no longer social suicide to not drink.
Sometimes I forget that smoking is a thing, and then (after sometimes a whole year) I see someone doing it, and I’m like, “woah, people still smoke.” It was everywhere when I was a kid—even inside restaurants.
It always surprises me that pot smoking is now worse. Don’t get me wrong: go ahead with your vice. But the world used to smell like an ash tray and now it smells like skunk. Realistically the world doesn’t stink as much, which is excellent, but that means pot smokers really stand out as annoying stink
“Nonsmoking section” that wasn’t even a separate room, just a half wall divider 🫠
Lol, in my tiny ass hometown it was just tables without ashtrays.
before that, it was the whole restaurant
And it’s not that hard either. I’m out with a new group of people and just ask “do you drink?” If I get a “no” we know not to push it and just continue on like normal. They still join in with all the conversation, we keep discussions around favorite drinks, alcohol, etc light to none and no one is offended or bothered.
