Back to the Future?

[Weatherman2020]

As Mark Steyn points out, take a man from 1890 and put him in 1950. Everything around him has dramatically changed to improve his life - cars, refrigerators, air conditioning, electricity, TV, radio, telephones, washer and dryer, indoor plumbing and toilets, planes, etc etc.

Now take a man from 1950 and put him in 2015. We put men in space but can't anymore, the cars are the same technology with a CD player and cup holder added, airplanes just hold more people in tighter more uncomfortable quarters, your TV now hangs on the wall in color, your phone is like a handheld supercomputer that is only used to take selfies and send pictures of cats, you fill your own gas and check your own oil, and we are now putting technology in cars and phones so the government can track every move you make.

Yes, civilization is imploding.

Back to What Future?

 

[Dajjal]

I remember the technology of the 1950s. There were only black and white valve TV's and no video recorders. No lasers, no home computers, no mobile phones. If a plane went overhead people came out into the street to see what it was. The only computers that existed were a huge room full of cabinets full of valves and they were not as powerful as a modern pocket calculator.
I think we have progressed.

 

[Weatherman2020]

I remember the technology of the 1950s. There were only black and white valve TV's and no video recorders. No lasers, no home computers, no mobile phones. If a plane went overhead people came out into the street to see what it was. The only computers that existed were a huge room full of cabinets full of valves and they were not as powerful as a modern pocket calculator.
I think we have progressed.

But what's the life changer of the past 50 years? Dozens of major changes between 1890 and 1950. So I have an iPhone. Still crappy sound quality as a 1950 phone. Microwave ovens are nice, but not a life changer like being able to refrigerate and freeze my food in my kitchen.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, for the ignorant, that is all that has changed. For those with ambition, they now have the knowledge of the world sitting on their desk with a computer connected to the net. In the '50's we were just starting to build the great Interstate Highways of this nation. Today you can rapidly drive your auto anywhere in the US. Making most of the trip at 65 to 80 mph. You could not during the '50's. It was mostly two lane blacktop with a lot of curves.

For those that take care of their body, most can expect to live into their 80's, and those with the genetic inheritance, 90's to 100's. And much healthier. And society is much better than in the '50's. At that time, lynchings were still common. And President Obama and General Powell would both have had to sit at the back of the bus in all of the south, and much of the north.

There is a certain percentage of the population that will always look back 50 or 60 years and mewl and puke over how much better things were then. They were wrong in the past, and they are wrong today.

 

[Dajjal]

I remember the technology of the 1950s. There were only black and white valve TV's and no video recorders. No lasers, no home computers, no mobile phones. If a plane went overhead people came out into the street to see what it was. The only computers that existed were a huge room full of cabinets full of valves and they were not as powerful as a modern pocket calculator.
I think we have progressed.

But what's the life changer of the past 50 years? Dozens of major changes between 1890 and 1950. So I have an iPhone. Still crappy sound quality as a 1950 phone. Microwave ovens are nice, but not a life changer like being able to refrigerate and freeze my food in my kitchen.

Well one life changer was we developed intercontinental ballistic missiles. Thereby motivating the space race that led to the moon and to eventually working together to build a space station. Then we have things like the Hubble telescope and all the knowledge we have acquired as a result. Not to mention the fact that quantum physics has given us huge technological advances.

 

[Weatherman2020]

I remember the technology of the 1950s. There were only black and white valve TV's and no video recorders. No lasers, no home computers, no mobile phones. If a plane went overhead people came out into the street to see what it was. The only computers that existed were a huge room full of cabinets full of valves and they were not as powerful as a modern pocket calculator.
I think we have progressed.

But what's the life changer of the past 50 years? Dozens of major changes between 1890 and 1950. So I have an iPhone. Still crappy sound quality as a 1950 phone. Microwave ovens are nice, but not a life changer like being able to refrigerate and freeze my food in my kitchen.

Well one life changer was we developed intercontinental ballistic missiles. Thereby motivating the space race that led to the moon and to eventually working together to build a space station. Then we have things like the Hubble telescope and all the knowledge we have acquired as a result. Not to mention the fact that quantum physics has given us huge technological advances.

But now America can't get a man into space, can't reach Hubble for repairs and I can't think of any way increased knowledge with Hubble or quantum physics have changed anyone's lives, let alone the showstoppers we saw introduced between 1890 and 1950.

 

[Weatherman2020]

Well, for the ignorant, that is all that has changed. For those with ambition, they now have the knowledge of the world sitting on their desk with a computer connected to the net. In the '50's we were just starting to build the great Interstate Highways of this nation. Today you can rapidly drive your auto anywhere in the US. Making most of the trip at 65 to 80 mph. You could not during the '50's. It was mostly two lane blacktop with a lot of curves.

For those that take care of their body, most can expect to live into their 80's, and those with the genetic inheritance, 90's to 100's. And much healthier. And society is much better than in the '50's. At that time, lynchings were still common. And President Obama and General Powell would both have had to sit at the back of the bus in all of the south, and much of the north.

There is a certain percentage of the population that will always look back 50 or 60 years and mewl and puke over how much better things were then. They were wrong in the past, and they are wrong today.

How has becoming a couch potato surfing the net improved our lives dramatically? 1950 I looked at the Sears catalog, said that's what I want and ordered it. So I cut 3 days out of the leadtime, big deal.

Life expectancy has changed little for the upper and middle class in the past 300 years. Here in 2015 we are not sure if we will live as long as Americas Founding Fathers.

Yes, race relations are now good, but the topic was technology. And we just don't get the technogical life changers anymore.

 

[Old Rocks]

Speak for yourself. As a millwright in a steel mill, I get plenty of exercise on the job. And, since I am attending university classes, brain exercise, also. Perhaps you don't see the technology changes, but I sure as hell see them on the job. And for leisure, I hunt rocks in differant states, so I much appreciate the interstate system and the fact that present autos get a couple of hundred thousand miles on major systems without major repairs.

Life expectancy has changed little for the upper and middle class in the last 300 years? You have to be kidding. No matter what class you were in, childhood diseases took many of the children. Hell, I remember 1952, over 3000 children in the US died of polio, tens of thousands were infected, many paralyzed. And it was not just a disease of the poor. Upper and middle class people were equally affected.

 

[Weatherman2020]

You're attempting to turn this into something about you, chill.
Freeways were being built in Germany 80 years ago, steel is still dangerously made with the same processes, cars today run on the same principles as they did a hundred years ago.

What I'm talking about is technological breakthroughs, not improvements to make things easier.

As far as child mortality, 66.3 life expectancy in 1950, 73.3 in 2011. Again, improvements but nothing earth shattering like discovering penicillin.

 

[Unkotare]

Someone is clinging to ignorance and pessimism like a security blanket, which it obviously is for him. Is there a doctor in the house?

 

[Old Rocks]

You're attempting to turn this into something about you, chill.
Freeways were being built in Germany 80 years ago, steel is still dangerously made with the same processes, cars today run on the same principles as they did a hundred years ago.

What I'm talking about is technological breakthroughs, not improvements to make things easier.

As far as child mortality, 66.3 life expectancy in 1950, 73.3 in 2011. Again, improvements but nothing earth shattering like discovering penicillin.

No, I am pointing out that there are a bunch of really nice improvements in what one can get out of life in the last 60 years. Because I am personally experiancing them, and have many friends that are doing the same. You are concentrating on pessimism and the fact that things have changed. I think that it is simply the fact of the changes, not there direction that is upsetting you.

 

[Weatherman2020]

You're attempting to turn this into something about you, chill.
Freeways were being built in Germany 80 years ago, steel is still dangerously made with the same processes, cars today run on the same principles as they did a hundred years ago.

What I'm talking about is technological breakthroughs, not improvements to make things easier.

As far as child mortality, 66.3 life expectancy in 1950, 73.3 in 2011. Again, improvements but nothing earth shattering like discovering penicillin.

No, I am pointing out that there are a bunch of really nice improvements in what one can get out of life in the last 60 years. Because I am personally experiancing them, and have many friends that are doing the same. You are concentrating on pessimism and the fact that things have changed. I think that it is simply the fact of the changes, not there direction that is upsetting you.

Nothing troubles me in life. Simply an observation that this civilization has reached a plateau and is in decline.

 

[Unkotare]

You're attempting to turn this into something about you, chill.
Freeways were being built in Germany 80 years ago, steel is still dangerously made with the same processes, cars today run on the same principles as they did a hundred years ago.

What I'm talking about is technological breakthroughs, not improvements to make things easier.

As far as child mortality, 66.3 life expectancy in 1950, 73.3 in 2011. Again, improvements but nothing earth shattering like discovering penicillin.

No, I am pointing out that there are a bunch of really nice improvements in what one can get out of life in the last 60 years. Because I am personally experiancing them, and have many friends that are doing the same. You are concentrating on pessimism and the fact that things have changed. I think that it is simply the fact of the changes, not there direction that is upsetting you.

Nothing troubles me in life. Simply an observation that this civilization has reached a plateau and is in decline.

Civilization isn't declining, you are.

 

[guno]

You're attempting to turn this into something about you, chill.
Freeways were being built in Germany 80 years ago, steel is still dangerously made with the same processes, cars today run on the same principles as they did a hundred years ago.

What I'm talking about is technological breakthroughs, not improvements to make things easier.

As far as child mortality, 66.3 life expectancy in 1950, 73.3 in 2011. Again, improvements but nothing earth shattering like discovering penicillin.

As far as child mortality, 66.3 life expectancy in 1950, 73.3 in 2011

Over due? Just go with the Flo, Stan