Ask Lemmy

30 years ago the Internet was tiny, and to this day you can largely get the same experience if you opt to ignore some of the more frustrating Internet. In practice it is a problem that extremist views can come closer together without the moderating influence of those physically near you. would definitely appreciate a harder push back towards federation and a break from subscription based software, though compared to 30 years ago, the free software today is better than anything we had back then.

Our cars were not durable, drive trains can take a whole lot more negligence than they used to and hoses and gaskets last longer than they did back then. There have been struggles with some cars adding turbos for efficiency, but even those are way less problematic than they used to be.

We can interact in real life, we just largely don't. As an adult I probably interact with peers about as much as my parents did when they were my age, not much at all. Constant hanging out goes away with age for most people.

There's a lot of regression in the world but that pendulum swings back and forth.

Medical technology has greatly improved. More people survive cancer, aids, surgery is far less invasive, and better medications.

Technology in general is getting better.

We have a faster internet. I love having access to so much information. Sure, there are far more gullible fools who believe in all manner of silly stuff but I feel the internet has done more good than bad.

Since it hasn't been mentioned, one thing that I am truly thankful for that we have improved since the 1990s is public smoking. Not having to be prepared for the reek of cigarettes in virtually every public space is such a big win.

Hell, in 1990, which is 35 years ago, you could still smoke on airplanes in the US. Airplanes! Can you imagine flying back then? Your neighbor could light up and there was nothing you could do but sit there and stew in the smoke stream. I'm glad I never had to experience flying with smoke but I had my fair share of being forced to sit in smoking sections of restaurants until my teenage years.

Depends who you ask. Things are better for the LGBTQ+ community. Still not as they should be, but I see a generation of kids now who are accepting, whereas 30 years ago, it was the worst thing anyone could accuse you of.

You say that civil rights may go away, but we do have them right now, and as our kids get older, they might not be so willing to take them away.

The sheer amount of street level crimes, bar fights, car break-ins that existed in those days would blow your mind. Things have changed so much and yet everyone seems to have forgotten. I can't speek for the 'worst' neighbourhoods in the US nowadays but back in the 70s - 80s whole sections of US cities were shitholes. Media make's everything look way worse than reality.

Crime in 1995 was...let's just say... fucking worse in virtually every category...by a lot. Waco and ruby ridge had just happened. As for poverty, there are the same number of people on poverty in 2023 a there were in 1995. Let's talk violence against women. It's tragic today at shockingly high rates. It was much worse in 1995.

Don't be a woman, or a non white man, or poor, or non cis and you are probably just fine back in 1995.

...cept for abortion. Fuck Trump.

Yes, the ozone hole is healing, we have less lead in the environment coming from leaded fuel, cars in general have become more fuel efficient, there are plenty of things that are way better now, than 30 years ago.

There is great music being made here in 2025, though the general music taste has stagnated for a long time.

Medical procedures have absolutely got better, as has tech in general, in 1995 we used CRT monitors with our computers, we used ball mice that constantly needed to be cleaned.

This is just some of the things that have improved.

For LGBTQ rights? Definitely. For the climate? Way worse. Politically? Way worse. Economically... I'd way we are in a big bubble like the roaring 20s before the great depression. And when it pops, it's gonna be bad, thanks to idiot voters and corrupt Republicans.

Government-wise...things are not looking good. It will take a very long time to rebuild.

Now...state-wise, I know my state is way better off than it was 30 years ago, but that doesn't mean we aren't about to get slammed by braindead antics of the federal government. But we have made a lot of infrastructure investments that are paying off locally. The future of America will be exclusively in states that put a premium on science and progress.

Technology is better, crime rates better, environmental issues were better, LGBT rights and racism seemed better. But the gap between rich and poor has grown, wages have stagnated. And now I fear we are regressing.

Violent crime is down. Smoking is down. Teenage pregnancy is down.

That's about all I've got.

I was around for that time, and yes in many ways the world is better now, it's a mixed bag but:

My kids were not beat up in school for being queer.

The bay is much cleaner (though that is going in the wrong direction)

Solar power has come down in cost so much that there is hope for the clean energy transition to accelerate.

I was literally paid less than the men doing the same job I was doing, openly, in the early 1990s. And there was smoking in offices.

Violent crime is much less prevalent than it was back then. My kids don't have to be as careful or afraid as I was.

Overall - I don't think it is useful to be nostalgic, there are enough changes in a positive direction, sure we had more hope for the future in the 1990s but the reason we needed it was because things were kinda shitty.

Do you have any idea how many people were always shut out of those things, in the USA? Any idea that our prosperity at home came from brutal repression and denying them to people in the global South, Asia, Africa, far away from our eyes and ears?

We still have it good. Yes, not as good, but good. Are we sliding headlong at a gallop towards overt fascism at home? Also yes. What happens depends on us, and the sacrifices we're willing to make, now. Or not.

Yes, 30 years ago the AIDS crisis was still going strong and, in the US at least, same-gender relationships were illegal and the LGBT community didn't have a right to work, and on top of that same-sex marriage was illegal. A lot of rights are rolled into marriage, including the ability to remain at the bedside of your loved-one when they are at the hospital or on their deathbed, arranging and/or attending your partner's funeral, and being allowed to remain in your house after your spouse dies. Through the 80s and 90s, gay men were losing partners left and right and some were kicked out of their partners' funerals and then kicked out of the house they had lived in for decades because the title was in their partner's name since they couldn't sign together.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell was also started in 1994.

Same sex relationships weren't made legal until June 26, 2003 (Lawrence v TX) Same Sex Marriage on June 26, 2015 (Hodges v Obergefell) Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace was barred in the US June 15, 2020 (Bostock v Clayton)

Even with all the holes Republicans drilled into it, the Affordable Care Act helps many people get health insurance. We also have medication that prevents the transmission of HIV and that prevents the onset of AIDS, saving many lives.

In 1995, the internet was in its infancy, at least compared to today and was largely text-based. If a website had a bunch of pictures, it took take 5-15 minutes to load depending on your location, provided nobody killed the connection with an incoming call.

Sure the mindset nowadays is much more pessimistic, even thought the ruling class from the 90s is aging out of power. We just need people ready to push us forward as more of the silent generation and baby boomer politicians leave office.

Yes, everyone will say "civil rights improved"

Gay marriage was only legalized due to a Supreme Court decision that declared same sex marriage bans to be unconstitutional.

Since then, Republicans have appointed replacement justices, and it was they who overturned Roe v Wade and upheld a lot of Trump's recent antics.

Yeah it’s better than in 1995.

• Vehicles have gotten much more efficient, quieter, and safer (for the occupants)
• Electric-assist bicycles
• Smartphones and fiber internet
• Making orders, reservations, and appointments online rather than with agents or phone calls
• Less crime
• More organic food choices
• Better coffee roasters
• More artisan bread bakers
• More locally made fine beer, wine, and cheese
• Less air pollution (including cigarette smoke)
• Better television and movies at home
• Affordable solar energy, batteries and off-grid living

I’m sure there more I’m not thinking of. I’d have a hard time going back to 1995.

Yes and no. Some things got better and easier than 30 years ago. Some things entshittified beyond reasonable expectations.

We got phones which act as a device to connect the world with endless amount if information, entertainment and is a great tool for personal comfort yet the same things are twisted to a degree where we cant live without a phone anymore. Can't not to have a social media account, we got fully compliant to the surveillance that is happening to us not even that we are tracked not only for the governments of our countries but mainly by advertisers in order to manipulate us into buying crap we don't need.

Feels like a double edged sword to me personally.

For most of the world's population, things have significantly improved by almost every conceivable measure.

I strongly recommend Roslings book, Factfulness. The difference between how people think things have changed and what's happened is wild.

Edit: Just saw the (US tag, sorry.)

Technology is better slightly

Society is worse

The economy is worse

The environment is worse

30 years ago most people weren’t yet on the internet, there was very little entertainment media, you couldn’t use online accounts for most stuff, and most people didn’t have online bill paying. 30 years ago I helped bring my company online as the first full investment company, and my bank was still rare for doing online bill paying.

30 years ago, most of the US were in denial over climate change, renewable energy was expensive and there were no practical EVs.

30 years ago? So 1995. As one who was there: fuck no. The 90s where cool, everything seemed fixed, osties travelling through Europe in their Trabant 2 stroke miniature cars. (That was fun on the Autobahn) Only Saddam was jerking around and that was far away, internet was brand new, everything seemed possible. No terrorist threat of the RAF, IRA or the bask separation front. There was even hope for peace in Israel.

But if you would say 40 or 50 years ago? I would say fuck yes. It's much better nowadays.The cold war was wild. The recession of the 80s was bleak af, Thatcher, Reagan. PLO, RAF, IRA, Basks. No man, there was a reason behind films like aliens, Terminator and punk music. Why they resonated with society at that time. Contrary to current popular belief the 80s was not a decade long neon party. Many people lost their jobs. Youth unemployment was at it's highest ever. No jobs, no houses available. It was dark. Darkest time of my life. Everyone thought nuclear war was inevitable. We would all die of radiation or in the cold harsh nuclear winter. Yup. That was the Outlook at that time.

70s was the all time high of the cold war, oil crisis, something else i'm forgetting. But I was a small child back then so everything about that era is hearsay.

But for me? The 90s where good. 80s sucked hard. (End) 70s also had a lot of downs.

A few technological aspects of life are incredibly easier and more accessible. We have instant access to any form of information, from porn to encyclopedia articles. Comparing prices and ordering things - commonly called "mail order" 30 years ago - took weeks compared to a couple days now. Communication is far easier and cheaper - talking between San Francisco and Stockholm or Singapore would have cost several dollars per minute 30 years ago, and now it's a built-in feature of network access. Most of us have in our pockets a telephone, photo/video camera, advanced computer, entertainment and game console. There have also been some notable medical advances - my friend died from leukemia in the 90s, and it's very treatable now, along with various kinds of tumors.

Tech is better. But life is a lot worse in general. Unless you're part of a marginalized group I suppose.

We've gone from a bright shining future to no future at all.

We drag them to the future. There is no other direction.

Some of this is just the noise that society makes though.

Our billionaires have a lot of power, but I don't think they're near the Robber Barrons of the US past. The LLMs are trash, but your boss used to put who you should vote for in your paycheck and the only media that existed was sole property of big business.

I'll grant that the last few decades have been rough, but it beats the past.

Just gotta keep moving.

Medicine has improved by leaps and bounds. We have greater life expectancy and mostly a better quality of health along the way. Child mortality is down globally.

https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality?time=1996..latest

Improvements in our understanding of neurodivergent students has resulted in better educational and quality of life outcomes for millions who in past decades would have fallen through the cracks.

The proliferation of environmental lead from paint and gasoline are WAY down, and the hole in the Ozone was just about peak in 1995.

Open source, public domain, and freely available knowledge have democratized education, technology, research, and product development in ways that would have almost been inconcievable in 1995.

We are able to communicate more globally, even with total strangers, often across language barriers, and for free.

Video games, films, and television are able to create visions that would have been technically impossible 30 years ago. And technology has reduced the barriers for people to gain entry into those industries.

I carry around a tiny super computer with instant access to all the world's knowledge. That would have been a dream in 1995.

There are of course many things that are worse. It's a harder time to be starting out in life. "Luxuries" are dirt cheap and necesities are unaffordable. We've traded our sense of community for a paranioa of "others" even as the world has gotten safer. Globally the world has been swinging toward extremism and it constantly feels like capitalism may collapse and we don't know what comes next if that happens. But failure to see how much is better and for how many seems like too much doom scrolling and too narrow and outlook.

Look up medical advancements over that time.

Billionaires aren't new. I also don't really think LLMs will be as impactful as they get hyped or feared to be, and actually think AI as a whole outside mere chatbots will be positive if not the revolution it gets hyped as.

Honestly I do think there has been an improvement. It might not seem like that when viewing the past, but the past is easy to overestimate- we don't have to live it anymore.

As to civil rights, it should be pointed out that while recent years have seen regression in the US, its not always a regression to the point that things were at back then, and more importantly, the rest of the world does not necessarily share the political woes of the US.

HA no. I was there, it was... Well differently bad, maybe less in aggregate. Cultural attitudes really took a HARD turn when 9/11 happened, and the government abused it just about as hard as they could think of. President Obama did try to bring back some of that 90s optimism, but then along came Trump and ground it into dust.

Everyone's experience will be personal to them, so it's not anyone's place to say your experience isn't worse, but as a whole, things are better.

Crime, no matter the category, is down ~33% since the mid-90s.
Median household income, adjusted for inflation, is up ~25% (despite the narrative).

Here's a post/graph I think about all the time: https://bsky.app/profile/simongerman600.bsky.social/post/3ktds56nqus25

Regardless of age, we are generally nostalgic for a time in our youth. Or even earlier. Notice that something like half (or nearly so) of people think "the most moral society" was before they were born.