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I'm with those who think that 1986 was more like 2014. Maybe because in 1986 I was a child and my own children are in a similar stage now, but it seems to me that the economy and politics are a lot more similar. True, in '86 we had Reagan, but in terms of how people saw the country, it was similar. Very odd.
2000 was awesome*. The economy was great. It was easy to come by two jobs with no experience. We had these low-level wars going on but nothing like, "We're under attack." Travel was probably the cheapest it's ever been, or so it seems to me, compared to incomes.
Also, I was an adult with a job and no children, so that was pretty freaking awesome. Bush had just gotten elected, like barely, but we thought, "Haha, he's such an idiot the conservatives will be defeated in 2004 for SURE!" Haha, who's the idiot now, 2000 me who voted for Ralph effing Nader to prove a point? (No point lecturing me on this now, it's 14 years later and I got it now, and I'm sorry, okay?)
"Things such as gay rights, global warming, and gluten-free everything were still WAY below the radar"
So interesting--I guess this shows how much of this question depends on our individual lives. As a child, I was aware of global warming and gay rights--in fact, I believe it was in 1989 that I first thought about how to know whether or not I was gay. I didn't know about Celiac disease but I became a vegetarian in 1993, which is equidistant from 1986 and 2000, so there's that.
In 1986 I bought a cassette tape box set of the Police with the remix of Don't Stand So Close to me. One thing that cassettes and mp3s have in common is that they don't skip! CDs, ugh.
We didn't have a computer in 1986 but we were poor. I knew people who did.
As for my life, it's no less private now than in 1986. When I was a child, my mom knew everything about me but I spent 90% of my time in books. Now I spend more of that time on the Internet reading other people's stories. I don't see this as too different (the books I was reading in 1986 were hardly intellectual feats, as I was 9 and read young adult pulp).
*Unless you were in Afghanistan, in which case, the Taliban were taking over, which sucked, or in Russia, where Yeltsin had just finished selling off the country to the Oligarchs, or China, where--n/m, I think you get the point.
I think a lot of people commenting here were not alive in 1986, many are not even old enough to remember the turn of the century so I don't know how they could have an opinion on it. I was there, and remember it all very well so Ill toss in my 2 cents. 1986 belongs totally to the old century, it is solidly before the digital age which has changed our world drastically. In 1986 our phones were wired to our house, many of them still had to be "dialed". Our TVs were big and heavy, not flat and cable was only for people with money. The rest of us used "rabbit ears". Most had no computer, and there was no internet, no social media, no online shopping, no wikapedia. New fancy technology was available, VCRs and movie stores were popular (if you could afford such things), music was not downloaded as it was on your records or tapes. Technology has changed everything about how we live our lives, it has made our lives easier in ways the young cannot fathom. It also has changed how people relate to each other. In the last 150 years technology in general has advanced at a rapid rate, but some inventions changed society far more than others. The most influencial in my opinion are electricity and the electrification of the country, the automobile and airplane, radio and television and the computer/digital technology. The computer is not new, it was invented in the 1940s. However it is the improvements to the computer and digital technology of the 1990s which revolutionized our lives. In fact you could say in some ways it has taken over our lives. Many under 30 could not survive without internet, cell phones, facebook etc. We have become dependent on tech. Your local cashier could not make change without it, your bank would shut down if its systems crash etc. It has maybe made us very vulnerable.
If we talk about social issues, politics and values its the same thing, 1986 is part of a far more traditional era. people still went to church, believed in traditional conservative values and supported capitalism. If you asked someone in 1986 who the enemy was it would have been "the commies" or the Soviets. Reagan was largely popular, even loved back then. Suggestion of gay rights, gay marriage would offend most people. Suggestion of legalizing drugs would be seen as Un-American, Un-Christian. Both democrats and republicans in 1986 would likely agree on this. Back then the biggest difference between dems and reps was about unions, by todays standards they would not been seen as far apart as they are today. Our stuff was mostly made in the USA and people made enough money to support themselves. No one had heard of the phrase "politically correct" or heard "diversity" pushed everywhere you turn. The rise of the liberal culture coincides with the rise of technology in the 90s and 00s. It may not be connected, but the tech and the liberalization all happened together. Anyone who lived and remembers living before 1990 has to admit how different it was back then. 1986 has little in common with 2000, as 1986 is clearly in the "cold war era" 1950-1989. I think we are diminished as a nation because of all this, we are weaker, we are less. I am waiting for next year for Marty and Doc to show up in 2015 in their flying Delorean, because I am going to ask them to take me back to the 20th century where I belong lol.
In the spirit of things, this is a line from 1979's "The Jerk" starring Steve Martin
I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days. And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days. And the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, and then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. I have it written down, but I can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it.
Of course they existed. Just because you didn't know about it doesn't mean it didn't exist.
I'm sure he knows that, but they were not so common that people were actually aware of it at the time unless they were around rich people or NASA scientists or something. If you were born in 1981, you really have no business being so condescending to someone who actually was old enough to remember both eras. As a 5-year old, you wouldn't know.
If you were born in 1981, you really have no business being so condescending to someone who actually was old enough to remember both eras. As a 5-year old, you wouldn't know.
And you have no business assuming I was born in any particular year.
But just to satisfy your insatiable curiosity, the guy I worked for in 1986 (not a NASA scientist) had a cell phone, and more than a few friends (not rich nor NASA scientists) had been hooked up to various Usenet groups by then. The "or something" were a weekly newspaper publisher and artists, journalists, and teachers.
And you have no business assuming I was born in any particular year.
But just to satisfy your insatiable curiosity, the guy I worked for in 1986 (not a NASA scientist) had a cell phone, and more than a few friends (not rich nor NASA scientists) had been hooked up to various Usenet groups by then. The "or something" were a weekly newspaper publisher and artists, journalists, and teachers.
Well, that's fine then. I tend to assume the end number indicates year of birth, so I was thinking you were basing it on the movies or accounts showing people walking around with those huge phones like it was common. It wasn't common to teenagers not in the workforce or those who didnt live in wealthy areas (I think he said he did not have a lot of money). I know that my mother probably knew people with cell phones and access to some version of the internet, but I as a teenager did not beyond my one friend with a modem and my viewing of the movie War Games. It's all a matter of perspective.
Oh, and I thought you weren't interested in threads like this. I guess it did turn out to be interesting after all?
I feel 2000 is closer to 2014 mostly because the cold war had already ended and the Internet was around in 2000 but not 1986, at least not for the general public. The Internet was fairly primitive in 2000 by today's standards (broadband was just picking up, little or no WiFi, no mobile Internet, no social networking or cloud, etc,.)
Cars in 2000 seem closer to 1986 than 2014..
The economy in 2000 seemed closer to 1986
Cars in 2000 were a lot closer to 1986's technology than cars today are to cars from 2000. Ironically, both utilized digital electronics, although digital displays were not common before 2000, and digital dashboards were problematic in the eighties. There was a greater acceleration of automobile technology in the 14 years from 2000 to 2014 than from the 14 years from 1986 to 2000.
Also keep in mind that you have hybrids and electric vehicles now that you did not have back in 1986.
Having said all of that 2000 feels more like 2014. There were just far too many technological advances in the eighties and nineties. There is also the War on Terror, which was more of an abstract concept in the eighties and nineties, and loosely defined, considering the events that have occurred since 2000.
In the eighties digital technology was used to supplement and assist analog technology. It was not a complete replacement for analog technology. For example a television might have a digital tuner, but you were tuning in an analog signal. A cassette recorder might have a digital readout, same with a VCR. But most technologies, outside of 8 bit video game systems, were definitively analog, at least at the consumer level. High definition was experimental, and an abstract concept. Digital cinema was still in development and films were on reel, not hard drive.
Consumers did not have true access to digital technology until the late nineties, when MP3 players were popping up, and people were experimenting with watching video online, before YouTube, Hulu or Netflix. Even then, modems needed some analog to digital conversion to work with phone lines that went into the home that were not digital. Phone service has been completely implemented through digital technologies, since at least around 2005, cell phone service was all digital even earlier than that.
The only thing that has really changed from 2000 to 2014, is that consumer grade digital technology is smaller. A smartphone is good enough to replace a personal computer for some, there was no way to think that would ever be the case in 1986. Most 90s technology we thought was really cool at the time, MP3 players, DVD recorders, etc. is totally extinct now. The only hold out is terrestrial radio, which should utilize digital transmission methods but it may never happen. HD Radio was an early attempt at utilizing the same spectrum but a complete overhaul is needed. But when everyone has a smartphone, and new cars are built with WiFi connectivity and we may eventually have some base level of free WiFi throughout the US it would be foolish to invest money to overhaul FM radio. There would be some advantages, such as the ability to listen to radio out of time or the ability to push an extremely high quality HD audio broadcast to those few people that are still interested but most radio stations are always simulcasting via their own websites online anyway. Radio would have to differentiate itself and convince consumers that it offers sound that is like 35 times better than streaming, or whatever standards broadcasting associations would agree on, but I doubt I will see it in my lifetime.
I don't consider a lot of what has occurred since 2000 as progress. Computing is still the same 1s and 0s, bits and bytes. Consumers still do not have access to optical computing. There have been interesting applications and implementations, such as social networking, or apps for mobile, but much of this is still Java, Unix, etc. just newer applications (Linux, Android). A lot of the computing languages that were popular back then are still popular, just implemented in different ways. The simplicity of mobile computing today should have been commonplace on the desktop ten years ago.
I would say neither. 2000 is more like the late 1990s than either 1986 or 2014. Internet existed in 2000, but it is nothing like the internet we have today. No internet in 1986 as it existed in 2000. Cell phones slimmed down alot by 2000. They were like bricks in 1986. The baggy pants in 2000 owed more to the late 1990s than to 1986 or 2014.
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