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No we did not I was there
I did not say rape never occurred
Please read my post I said teachers talking about teachers
Attacking teachers is new
At least in my own k12 and 70year experience
Even in New Orleans in the poor side of town it used to be fist fights among the young now it’s shootings
No friend it has changed
The boys will be boys defense is no good
We have made a turn in the road
Good thing you and I didn't live in an area that had lynchings during these golden times, eh? Or hush-hushed rape, stuff like that. Black eyes that were never reported. Toddlers "falling down the stairs" a lot while Daddy quietly drank and Mom quietly took bennies to get through her dull as toast days staring at more underwear that needed to be ironed.
If we had we might not be able to brag so badly about all the bad things people didn't do to one another, before making that awful turn in the road.
By any chance is that turn in the road you mention the time when people stopped just keeping quiet about this stuff, and maybe winding up dead, so that now it looks like bad stuff is "everywhere"?
Everyone seems to dislike young people and what they're doing, no matter what generation it is. Maybe we just don't like change!! and we see young people as stupid and immature! Older people always look down on younger people for these reasons.
For the record, I'm not old. I'm only 39.
While there are a few things here that I disagree with I believe "we just don't like change" is a major contributor to this phenomenon, which has been going on since the dawn of time - "the good old days are gone" has been lamented since stylus first scratched clay, pretty much.
Nostalgia is deceptive because it makes us remember the best times, and forget the times that weren't awesome.
Personally I grew up during the 90s, and one of my strongest nostalgic memories from back then is actually eurodance music, and I often listen to artists like that nowadays, but I am fairly sure that I wasn't particularly fond of them back then.
So in my case, this is probably largely about me associating those artists with situations from the 90s when I felt really great.
I might have been at a kickass school party or something and felt awesome, and then that music probably happened to be playing in the background at the same time and creating subconscious associations for me.
I also agree that some things are good and some are bad. I confess that I miss the days when there wasn't such a high level of noise everywhere - boom cars, devices dinging constantly with every manner of sound alerts, people talking on cell phones or consuming entertainment in public w/o headphones. OTOH, I'm grateful for the reduced amount of cigarette smoke I am exposed to and I love having the Internet at my fingertips.
OMG, I despise people playing their music loudly on their phones everywhere. So rude
The cigarette smoke has been replaced by pot smoke where I live. Not an improvement.
I think things were objectively better in the past, at least for some of the things I care about. For example I prefer a society where most children are born into a family with a married mother and father. Statistically this was much more common when I was young compared to today.
I'm a gay man and I agree with you on this point. And even liberal researchers are saying there is abundant evidence that this was a better arrangement for kids:
Another example, I want to live in a time where the death penalty is used frequently...it was in the past and is rare today, this makes the past far superior to me. If things were going in reverse, for example if state executions were twice as common today than in the past I would celebrate this time period and say how much better today is compared to yesterday.
Meh, I'm not unequivocally against the death penalty, but even if were used much more often, I don't think my everyday life would be a lot better.
As for medical care the cost has gone up but so has the quality and technology.
Technology in medical care is driving up costs and making us broke, but improvements in life expectancy have slowed to a crawl. It turns out if we really want to improve health, a lot of relatively cheap, low tech things would make it a lot better, and we wouldn't need so much d*mn "quality" health care in the first place:
You talk of low wages and no pensions like this is a new thing. Let’s not forget the lack of safety standards in the past, the abuse of employees, limitations for women, the lynchings.
Well, we really do have a lot of crappy, low paying jobs these days. However, I will say that people speak as if everyone got a pension back in the good 'ol days, and that's not anywhere near true. I think pension coverage peaked at around 50% of the work force, and for most, the pensions were pretty modest. Not everyone was willing or able to stay 30 or more years to get a good pension. And many employers would jerk people around with long vesting periods (i.e. 20 years) and lay people off right before they became eligible. ERISA legislation in 1973-74 was designed to combat this, which made pensions more expensive, which led to employers getting rid of them altogether.
Technology in medical care is driving up costs and making us broke, but improvements in life expectancy have slowed to a crawl. It turns out if we really want to improve health, a lot of relatively cheap, low tech things would make it a lot better, and we wouldn't need so much d*mn "quality" health care in the first place:
Well, we really do have a lot of crappy, low paying jobs these days. However, I will say that people speak as if everyone got a pension back in the good 'ol days, and that's not anywhere near true. I think pension coverage peaked at around 50% of the work force, and for most, the pensions were pretty modest. Not everyone was willing or able to stay 30 or more years to get a good pension. And many employers would jerk people around with long vesting periods (i.e. 20 years) and lay people off right before they became eligible. ERISA legislation in 1973-74 was designed to combat this, which made pensions more expensive, which led to employers getting rid of them altogether.
It’s greed, exploitation that is driving up costs.
Technology in medical care is driving up costs and making us broke, but improvements in life expectancy have slowed to a crawl. It turns out if we really want to improve health, a lot of relatively cheap, low tech things would make it a lot better, and we wouldn't need so much d*mn "quality" health care in the first place:
Well, we really do have a lot of crappy, low paying jobs these days. However, I will say that people speak as if everyone got a pension back in the good 'ol days, and that's not anywhere near true. I think pension coverage peaked at around 50% of the work force, and for most, the pensions were pretty modest. Not everyone was willing or able to stay 30 or more years to get a good pension. And many employers would jerk people around with long vesting periods (i.e. 20 years) and lay people off right before they became eligible. ERISA legislation in 1973-74 was designed to combat this, which made pensions more expensive, which led to employers getting rid of them altogether.
It feels that way because I work with sooo many patients (skilled nursing facility rehab) who had low wage jobs but have pensions, and in some cases, health care in retirement. Maybe it's NJ, or south Jersey. But women who for instance were telephone operators at Bell Telephone and had other similar low-skilled jobs all have pensions. Even my mother, who was a secretary at a bank for about a decade, has a small pension.
Other than federal, state or city jobs, I can't think of any low skilled jobs that have pensions now. I think many people today would stay at a company 30 years to get a pension. State workers and teachers do it. We have employees at the nursing homes I work in who have 25, 30, 35 years and won't get a pension.
I'm not making a judgement about pensions, just saying.
Hot damn. You've seriously nailed this for me. My father was a child of the depression, and my mother lived through the war in England.
It was sometimes difficult growing up with those parents.
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