I have yet to peak, I’ve barely hit my rock bottom.

I mean, gestures wildly at everything

Climate change, rampant (and increasing) income inequality, treating employees like disposable parts, govt handouts to the wealthy in the trillions over the last decade, healthcare costs, rent?

My country has become a practical dictatorship, and I’ve realised that people living here are not only ok with that but are happy that decisions are made for them. I miss the days I believed in people.

George W. Bush
9/11
Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
Abu Ghraib
The Tea Party
Donald J. Trump
MAGA
1/6

You cant bike around town safely anymore because a lot of the empty land around town was developed and now has a lot more traffic. There are several crosses on the side of the road dedicated to dead cyclists.

The trees that my friends and I used to play on at school when we were kids are fenced off.

The lake that my grandfather and I used to fish at is now off limits because it was choked to death with algae due to fertillizer runoff pollution.

We didn’t need to have active shooter drills, metal detectors or safe rooms in school.

The cost of housing has more than doubled adjusted for inflation. Wages have not kept pace.

When I was a kid, the bullying stayed mostly at school. Now bullies can torment you 24/7.

Embarassing moments live forever because the internet never forgets.

In the early 90’s Dan Quayle was roasted for “correcting” a child’s correct spelling of potato. Now we’ve got congress critters running around that are worried about “jewish space lasers” starting forest fires.

LAN parties and split screen gaming died with a wimper. Singleplayer only games require a constant internet connection. Games are often a buggy mess at release because they can be patched after the fact.

Malls are basically dead.

Before cell phones, you weren’t expected to be reachable 24/7. Hell there used to be “its 10 pm. Do you know where your children are?” commercials because kids and teens weren’t kept on a short leash as much. Parents couldn’t just call you wherever you were.

It’s an interesting question IMO. It’s basically a trope of aging to remember how great things were when you were young that we can’t really trust it (especially in the “OK Boomer” era). But sometimes (often arguably), things are actually lost and mistakes are actually made. So digging out that information can be interesting and helpful IMO, even you’re only starting with impressions and experiences and feelings.

For me, as a 90s kid, it’s the constant internet rage and catastrophe. Not to discount taking serious issues seriously and being informed and active. Not at all. But the whole thing of doom scrolling a feed and getting dopamine from “bad news” then echoing it into the echo chamber you’re part of.

Pretty sure it’s mostly a rubbish phenomenon.

In a similar vein, the whole Daily show comedy news thing is likely ineffectual in actually altering anything about politics as it’s almost always “the other side is dumb” (and sometimes “our side” too LOL).

Also, I was never a Twitter person, but I see a lot of people claim that important political things happened on twitter (and some of those are trying to recreate the same structures on the fediverse and other alt-social). I’m skeptical of all of that. Which isn’t to discount the value of organising communities online, I just don’t trust that much good came out of twitter or that there was a net benefit of the total system.

Interestingly, I wonder if the new tiktok generation is going to do better or more interesting things. I saw a tiktok event nearby recently, it runs regularly and it’s basically a dance jam. Random songs/clips get played over an audio system and the group of people “jamming” all try to remember the accompanying dance moves on the fly. Awards are given out at the end and the whole thing is recorded presumably for twitch or something. I’m no tiktok or dance person but it seemed like a whole lot of fun and, interestingly to me, was happening in real life.

The other thing is that I think music streaming was/is probably a bad idea. It’s hard for me to be object about this as your relationship to music changes as you age, but I think there’s a demotion of the role music plays in my life by putting it all into a streaming smartphone. Even the basic physical things of having booklets or liner notes and cover art that you could hold and read go pretty far (and also, how fucking dumb is it that streaming doesn’t have digital equivalents for albums??!!)

Lastly … housing. JFC we/boomers have fucked this up. And like the ozone layer or some other environmental damage it will take a while to clean up.

I mean I was born at sorta the decline of things in the early 70’s. So many nasty environmental things had been cleaned up do to efforts in the 60’s but even going back to the forestry service from the depression. Regulation was high so we had actual inspectors and having a recall of foodstuff was a rarity. Theoretically the economy was not great supposedly but boy you could buy a lot of eggs per hour of minimum wage and minimum wage was not something that anyone was expected to raise a family on. If you had an efficiency apartment and beater car and had enough to hit the bars every weekend you where a loser going no where with your life. Almost nothing was in plastic. Grocery bags were paper and convenience foods were in glass or aluminum by and large. Kids hung around when school was not in session but there was an adult at home in half the houses at any particular time. If someone got injured or something then odds are someones mom would be home at the time by and large. Most people worked 9-5 and when they worked weekends or nights they got a pay bonus and over 40 hours time and a half except holidays or sundays when it was DOUBLE TIME! Oh and pensions were still a thing.

My what?

I think loads of things got better but advertising just got worse and worse. It’s everywhere now. The Internet used to have no advertising. For live sports they have screens on the side of the pitch which constantly change the ads. There are sometimes ads superimposed (computationally) on the pitch grass. Sometimes they make the viewing size of the screen smaller so they can show you an ad around the edge. Or the worst, they just have a banner at the bottom with ads scrolling. Sports jerseys/vehicles etc are more and more cluttered by ads. Obviously the big change in the opposite direction is with streaming vs classic cable but even now streaming is trying to ram ads back in there. As an adult for me Mobile phones have always been available but we’re talking pre Smart phones. Smart phones are just another place that I look that has ads and older phones didn’t have ads. They had shit screens of course but no ads. YouTube, more and more ads. Podcasts, loads of ads, there used to be none.

Got a lot more crowded, expensive and exhausted. You see humans everywhere you go. Stuff gets more expensive, but quality keeps declining both in products and in services for all that is quality of life related or crucial(housing, food, transportation…)

When I was born there were less than 5 bill humans on earth, now it’s over 8. I can feel it constantly and in everything.

The trajectory doesn’t seem so great to me.

There are some aspects that are better, but I don’t feel they compensate for the things we have lost. I also feel that growing up today is a lot harder than it was when i was growing up.

Social media broke everyone’s brains and the orange man made freaks feel safe letting loose with all their worst instincts.

I think overall about half the population is smarter and more tolerant.

However we haven’t done much to combat climate change and suburban sprawl is worse than ever.

Long COVID has crippled me so much that I literally don’t have the energy to list everything.

I liked “being in the neighborhood” and popping down to a friends house. Now it feels like a have to sign a EULA to hang out :/

There are some benefits like being naked. But now that my Venezuelan friend that doesn’t speak English is moving away I’m back to basically not knowing my neighbors again :(