People who were alive and remember life before 2000. What did you think it was going to look like? (60's, years)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
What ever happened to "Peace, Love and Understanding"? Maybe we have stepped back from the brink (a little) in regard to outright nuclear war but we seem to be pretty busy in the ethnic/religion cleansing and wholesale killing department. For a while after WW-II it seemed like we were so disgusted with the holocaust and attrocities that we would not tolerate that sort of thing. The UN and other multinational bodies have failed us in keeping the peace in places that those in authority and power feel are marginal. The other side of this coin is commercial interests stirring up separist movements, etc. Of course, this was all going on before 2000 (Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, Biafra/Nigeria etc.) but the capacity to tolerate diversity seems to have diminished even more in the 21st century. I expected a slow but general improvement but it seems like things have deteriorated. Globalization and technology have put all of our differences out in front...it's in your face now when before it was a little more remote and you had time to absorb some of the different ideas and life styles.
PS - Your claim about 2038 is even dumber than Kunstler's original claim. Understand this: computer programmers do NOT write programs depending upon specific dates or specific years.
While the poster is incorrect that the Y2038 problem has to do with a shortcut in subtracting 38 years from the current date, the Y2038 problem is real. Is it an apocolypse? Probably not, but it's work that has to be done.
I would like to know to older members on this board. Did you have any ideas what you thought the year 2000 was going to look like: For example: "I thought that by the year 2000 we would be having flying cars and jetpacks, and moon vacations by now!!!" What did you guys think about what the future was going to look like by today?
Most people on this board are not 14 years of age?
Well I liked the beginning of the internet age better than the now, except for the smartphone coolness of today. And I like today the better treatment towards homosexuals. Otherwise:
The 90s music was more upbeat
The job economy was way better and happier
Gasoline was $1.09/gallon
There were fun activities that don't exist anymore "laser tag and paintball"
There were more mam and pap stores and successful little guys
CD Rom games on computer were more deep and thorough, unlike candy crush and short term phone app games you had anecdotal games that took more thinking and dedication to win. The games involved puzzles or supplies and different worlds and bad guys and villains.
Doctors had independent practices, unlike the corporate business structure of today's healthcare
Schools taught people creative thinking and fine art was more integral to schools unlike today the overemphasis on standardized tests
People appreciated making people mix-tapes with their CD collection and some of those tapes had unique garage band stuff that no longer exists
The people were more free-spirited than today and middle class was way better off than now
I thought that breast cancer would all but be eliminated because a cure would have been found;
I thought people of all races would realize that "race" means nothing and is a means of keeping us all divided over stupidity and that we would be getting along a lot better by 2000, not perfectly, but much better than things stand now;
I was sort of hoping that rap music would be played out by now;
I thought more Americans would be bilingual (not just Spanish) as we interacted with so many people from different countries;
I thought a larger number of people would be self-employed and running successful small businesses;
I thought there might be a Palestinian state by now;
I thought there might be tougher child/animal abuse laws and tougher sentencing for those who broke them.
I remember reading a magazine advertisement at my grandma's in 1993 or 1994 or so in which the completion dates of projects were listed along with their values, etc. One said "opening in 2000" and I though it was stupid to plan so far out. (This is when I was 6 or 7).
In the late 1990s, I saw impending doom for my hobbies (after 2000, of course). All scanner traffic would be digital and encrypted (no on both counts, but encryption is more common today). All TV would be digital (mostly true) and un-DXable (not true, although analog TV is "funner" to DX than digital TV!). The shortwave radio bands would be silent (mostly true).
For me, the new century saw my life fall apart. It is now back together, wiser and more at peace. But the real revolution that changed things for me happened before.
I took my first programming class in 78. Raido Shack had a pc, but it didn't do a lot. I believe there was dial up at 300 baud, no moving the screen necessary since it scrolled slow enough. I worked as a cobol programmer for a few yeare in the early 80's, and people were already starting to talk about linking PC's into networks. I got my first computer in 84.
We started with local bbs's and it grew into linked systems and international networks. And it really really changed my world. I'm not one of those people who make friends easy since I'm very much myself and there has to be a spark to interest me. And I have very specific interests. But on the message boards I found complete strangers who liked to talk about history, star trek, wrote stories, and discovered why my son was acting like he was on drugs at three (red dye number 2).
The internet is wonderful but I still base my chief connections on boards. For those of us who just can't go and meet people and expect to find like minds its a miracle. Jericho fandom led me to visit OK and then move here. Trek fanfiction in the 80's made friends I still have. All of this would never have been without this cyber world and I'd still be starting stories I never finished since I didn't know anyone to read them.
To me, the collapse of life as I knew it is still second to the world connections we have at our fingertips, and even with a hiatus, I went back and found these friends.
The basic fundamental change of a real global village, as we talked about in the 6o's, is the most sweeping thing which has changed us, though it was there before the artifical change in centuries.
I was in high school in the mid 80's. I thought the planet and society in 2000 would be worse... and it is. Our planet is sick and greed rules everywhere.
I never imagined the internet, smartphones and flat screen TVs. I thought cars would be far more "tech" and fuel efficient and that we'd have more train services. I thought cures for AIDS, HIV and cancer would be discovered. Never thought we'd have so many people living on earth.
We've got a lot of the things people envisioned. i can control appliances from my smartphone/computer. i can ask Siri a question and get a fairly reliable answer. Some other things i would have expected by now, more renewable energy. auto-drive cars (not necessarily flying, but admit that i thought we'd be somewhat close by now). i mean, if you go back and watch Back to the Future, you'll see a lot of what Hollywood invented, we have figured out by now. Pretty cool stuff.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.