To think the 90's/early 2000's was when we peaked and everything has gone downhill since due to technology

I agree. I was born in the mid 50s so I've seen everything from post-war through the imminent threat of nuclear war in the 80s and so on. I do think 2012 was a peak of positivity and the current international situation is dire but it's a mistake to look back through rose coloured glasses.

"...the globalist project of making British people reject their own culture and history and identity." 😂😂😂
"Had the British Empire never existed, there would be no USA, no Australia, no Canada and no New Zealand, not as we know them today."

Er no, it would be different, They would be there though. The last sentence is quite a stretch. I'd love to see your working for that.

Well if there was a swinging 60s equivalent I definitely swung in the 90s! Lived that decade as a ne'er do well teen to it's fullest - the good, the bad and the ugly! Carefree crazy times.

But I actually love having my friendships now curated on my phone in Whatsapp etc and it would have helped me as an awkward teenager in communicating with others.

I also think kids are a bit less cruel than they used to be, in general that is, they seem nicer and I like the values of things now.

I loved the 90s so much though for music and culture that I think it's a privilege to have grown up in that time (and it being last pre digital age).

Have you read the thread posted by the supply teacher? Arseholes would be about right.

Only marginally. As a careless teenager in the 70s most of us weren’t politically aware enough.

Absolutely agree with this. Best music? When you were 14-17, best times? When you were a teenager probably. It’s not the decade it’s when and who you were, likely.

I don't think we were scared of being nuked in the 1990s (70s/80s were a different story).

And the negatives? A destroyed economy, a destroyed ecology? A destroyed future? So easy to ignore?

Ive never been convinced by technological ‘progress’ anyway. Why do things made with modern materials have to be replaced every couple years while medieval items were functional for tens, hundreds of years? As for AI don’t make me laugh. The cost is astronomical and the returns merely empower a few who don’t want the trouble of thought.

I think everything deteriorated after 9/11, including due to the advances in technology around that time.

Absolutely, I was a teenager in the mid 1990's and I feel sorry that my 16 year old DD isn't experiencing the same youth as I did. Great times. Having said that those who experienced the 1960's 70's and 80's would probably think the 1990's were rubbish.

‘Employment was ok’ in the 90s? Wrong. Highest unemployment in lots of regions. So much negativity in this.

Oh ffs, EVERYONE had empires. Arabs, Mughals, Ottomans, Aztecs, Zulus, Incas, Mayans, Russians, Persians, the list goes on and on. Yuval Harari writes that most humans since the beginning of history have lived within or under an empire. The empire is older and more natural to us than the nation state. Modern China is an empire (just ask a Tibetan or a Uyghur Muslim).

All you can do is compare them. And whatever its faults, the British Empire banned slavery across the globe and used its navy to enforce that ban. In fact, many African and Arab people fought against Britain because they wanted to continue a slave trade that had existed since the dawn of time. In the 1840s and 1850s Britain nearly went to war with the USA because British ships were stopping American ships and freeing the slaves. We aren’t taught this, because it goes against the globalist project of making British people reject their own culture and history and identity.

Had the British Empire never existed, there would be no USA, no Australia, no Canada and no New Zealand, not as we know them today. Instead, we’d live in a world dominated by Putin, China, and Iran.

Falling fertility rates might be a good thing. In 1900 there were a billion humans. By 1960 that had trebled to three billion. It’s now eight billion and heading for ten. And the birth rates aren’t falling everywhere. Africa’s birth rate is so high the African population is going to double - just as climate change is getting worse.

As I get older, I am constantly on guard against romanticising the past. There are so many things today that I’m grateful for. It’s amazing to be able to order a book from anywhere in the world, watch YouTube videos, listen to podcasts on anything that interests me, and turn to AI Mode for help and advice. I am very excited about advances in medicine as well, especially nanobots and drugs to slow and reverse ageing. AI itself is now inventing new drugs, and this is just the beginning.

We can’t stop technological advance. All we can do is embrace the positive bits.

It’s Islamic terrorism and the internet. Without them we’d all be in a happier place.

I’m a similar age to you OP. For me I remember so much optimism mid- late 90s around girl power, Brit pop, pure happiness ringing in the millennium! 9/11 seemed to send shockwaves and then the barrage of terror attacks and threats that happened… and it seemed to just kind of knock the joy out of the world 😕

Yeah. I watched the take that documentary on Netflix yesterday. Very evocative of those times.

I can assure you, they are.

I’m so sick of the endless need for passwords, counter passwords, special PIN codes and verifications. To do the simplest things.

Search facilities are getting worse and worse too.

This technology, based on connected computers, is not fit for purpose. It is too vulnerable. How much longer can it actually last??

I've been thinking this lately.

My own mental health was a mess, but the world was so much simpler. It felt like we had more in common in the old days, society was much more harmonious.

Yes, people still moaned, but there wasn't the nihilistic, existential dread that we all seem to have now. There has been nothing to be positive about, no optimism for so long now. All the problems like housing costs, high taxation, falling fertility rates, international wars, seem to keep getting worse.

Forgot to add, if you did shit at school, you had to go on a YTS scheme which paid 30 quid a week. My friend would get all the shit jobs like scraping the stickers of the storefront windows. She also got called the N word a lot, and nobody batted an eyelid.

For me i loved the 1970s and 1980s, also the 1990s. Life was slower, fun, we were more independent and creative, sociable, patient because we had to be! As a middle aged adult I do value the positives of technology as it does help a lot to make life and keeping in touch easier.

I feel grateful to have experienced life before and after the technological revolution but do think growing up in the last couple of decades it has made kids less resilient, people have become more hermit like, less value attached to items. Xx

Yes it has.

But man I love technology. I was bored a hell of a lot of the time.

We were scared of being nuked by the Russians back then. Also, parents were afraid that rock music would turn all of us into demon-worshipping lunatics.

Definitely. Technology, and in particular social media, has wrecked lives. No wonder young people can’t/won’t go out or get a job when at the touch of a button, they can communicate with friends, order a meal to be delivered, play games etc etc. No, life isn’t better. Email and the internet was okay back then, but now there’s way too much ‘influencing’ and all the crap that goes with it. Sorry, but I feel strongly about this.