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Posted: 4/28/2025 5:02:37 PM EDT
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Were people happier? Was it because of less processed foods, rent was generally cheaper and jobs correlated with income a bit better (just speculating but I’ve heard so quite a few times from elders). Did people reconnect with high school or elementary school classmates when in their 30s as well as they do now with Facebook? Maybe they just bump into each other into their home town’s bars/supermarkets or school reunions? |
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As I recall, yes. The 50s were idyllic from my 2-10-year old viewpoint. However, as I near the end of this ride, I'm quite happy with God, my wife, and family. |
"Arms are the only true badges of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a slave." -- Andrew Fletcher 1698
| People today are overconnected and overstimulated thanks to our technological "advancements." Everywhere you turn, everything is screaming at you to be afraid, to hate others according to the silly whims of the media, and to be worried about anything and everything. I think the people who give in to over-connection are definitely less happy. |
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Originally Posted By HocusFocus: Were people happier? 1950's? That would greatly depend on your ethnicity. |
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." — Friedrich Nietzsche
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There is a large contingent of people, including some on this here website, who equate improved technology with better happiness. They are fooling themselves. There’s a reason “touch grass,” as insipid as that phrase is, became a saying. Our modern civilization is practically built around making people unhappy, and increasingly this is on purpose. |
In Clown World, the only freude is schadenfreude
I'm not lazy, I just really enjoy doing nothing.
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Golden Age fallacy. By just about any general metric US citizens are better off than they were, and you have the social and legal freedom to artificially subject yourself to any allegedly character building hardship that makes you feel superior. Is this exact thing not as ideal as that exact thing, when that exact thing was more common "back in the day"? In the opinion of some, but not others. IOW...pretty much like it's always been. "Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book." Marcus Tullius Cicero |
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Originally Posted By feudist: Golden Age fallacy. By just about any general metric US citizens are better off than they were, and you have the social and legal freedom to artificially subject yourself to any allegedly character building hardship that makes you feel superior. Is this exact thing not as ideal as that exact thing, when that exact thing was more common "back in the day"? In the opinion of some, but not others. IOW...pretty much like it's always been. "Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book." Marcus Tullius Cicero This.^ Kill the TV and turn off your radio and life is damned fine. |
"What is socialism? The most difficult and tortuous way to progress from capitalism to capitalism." -Stated at an intel conference, East Berlin, Oct. 1988
"Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods." -H.L. Mencken
"Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods." -H.L. Mencken
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Originally Posted By Kraquine: 1950's? That would greatly depend on your ethnicity. This. If you were a union auto worker in Detroit, life was good. Black share cropper in Alabama not so much. Women? Second class citizens at best. Cancer was a death sentence. The highest tax rate was 90%. Everyone was terrified of the Soviets. Japan and much of Europe was still a shambles. Rationing didn’t end in the UK until 1953. Nostalgia is a dangerous drug. |
