When was the best time to be alive?

[ohfook]

If right through history you had to pick a point somewhere in between say the Stone Age where there was no technology at all, life was exceptionally tough and people didn't have any rights right up to now where we have every convenience known to man but we live so out of tune with nature and we're watching the planet burn in slow motion. Where do you think the sweet spot was? The point where we had enough to make our lives easier but we weren't producing so much that it was actively destroying our planet?

Feel free to take other factors like wars or disease into account too if you like, but you don't have to!

I don't have an answer, I just posted this because I was reading about the Ancient Maya and thought it seemed like quite a nice life until I heard they sacrificed children.

Dog

It is wrong to blame a whole generation for the corruption of the governments

They didn't set out to mess things up - they saw hope and growth and a way of out poverty

They were lied to like many others - read Rachel Carson "silent spring " to see how much corruption was hiding environmental truth from the population at large

Now. Especially in the west. This is literally the best possible time. Women have rights and people live in luxury as compared to historical times.

It is wrong to blame a whole generation for the corruption of the governments

They didn't set out to mess things up - they saw hope and growth and a way of out poverty

I think some people are angry at them as they feel like they have pulled the ladder up so to speak & obviously older people are more likely to vote Tory & Brexit*

NB yes I know not every older person votes Tory or for Brexit. And I'm not saying that they have pulled the ladder up just explaining why posters such as dog may feel the way they do. I also expect this part of my post to be ignored 😆

Anyway I'd like to go back to the early 60's and see what my little part of Cornwall was like when my parents were making a future for themselves and feeling suddenly unfettered

They had trains, for a start, before Dr Beeching swung his axe, but if it's anything like my experience of early 60s Devon (admittedly as a child) it was as boring as hell. Lovely scenery, though.

www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/lost-railway-lines-once-crossed-4138443

No I agree that people are angry and upset and with justification

It's just I think if they go around blaming whole generations it won't help solve the problems - in times of stress blaming others is the default human response - it's why hitler did well as he could give people others to blame - but it leads to violence and greater harm usually

Like brexit - people blaming Europe - simplistic and wrong but easy because it gives people hope that things can be made better

Which is what I said earlier funny enough - it was the hope in the 60s that made it good for people

I agree with you about divide & conquer but I'm not even young & I feel there is huge inter generational inequality for those younger than me & no real desire by many to acknowledge it let alone tackle it.

You're right about hope.

To be fair I think older people have often gained wealth over their lives - and so many expect the same to happen for the younger ones - they see what the young people have and not what they don't if you see what I mean .

After all no one in my parent's generation expected to own a house ( and they didn't have holidays or food out either ) - it's just the council safety net got sold off and most could not resist the temptation that Maggie offered

It's more now that younger ones can't ever see themselves getting there

It takes a bit more vision to see the structure has changed and is more biased against the less well off than since the pre war period

Yes I agree with that.

I e just Googled when Blair was Prime Minister (1997-2007) and those were very good years. I tool them for granted, and thought life could only get better and better.

The '80s weren't great- I went to school with a lot of people whose parents were unemployed. Poverty was a very real thing.

More countryside and not building on every green space. Less traffic on roads in 80s/90s or even 00s

That's not to say poverty isn't real now but circumstances leading to it are different, just as they were different in other decades.

You're probably right @MrsDanversGlidesAgain My childhood there in the 70s wasnt thrilling (until we learned to drive and could beach party all night long!). But I'm guessing more locals could afford to live here. My parents were 'incomers' who started a business and from the start could afford a home. And there was more of a variety of industry - some mines still open, metal works, fishing etc. Would have been more energy about the place perhaps. I dunno..

Not just when but where and as what, male, slave, peasant?
Ancient Greece?
Yucatan peninsula in the year 1100?
Nigeria in the year 1200?
Arabia in the year 1300?
China in the year 1400?
etc.

a. They voted for it. Repeatedly.
b. They're still the biggest barrier towards fixing any of the mess they left.

The whole generation did not vote as one

Many of that generation still do not vote for it

They are a barrier because no one wants to lose their inheritance / ie some younger people want the cash rather than let that pay for their parents care ( in my own family I have seen this and managed to protect my mothers asserts for her use should she need it )

Stop being so lazy and grouping people together by narrow stereotypes - because until you manage that things will never change

You will put pensioners against youth rather than rich against poor or , pensioners against youth rather than Tory vs socialist

Labour will not get in if none of the pensioners vote for them

1990-2003 in the West. Right before smart phones but after established medical practices.

But I also think some societies, particularly pre-Christian small hunter-gatherer or the rare non-patriarchal pastoral enjoyed more egalitarian decision making and a connection with semi-wild and wild animals and the natural world. I'm assuming my tribe would have passed down working herbal medicine knowledge. Of course, there's be the fear of raiding bands of child/woman kidnappers, but I regularly fear school shootings and general urban violence as I live in the gun happy US... so same fear of random violence.

@TheaBrandt Ditto!

SM and smartphones aren’t all bad imo. You can disengage from that which you don’t like - people should do this more - but also it’s given a voice and a view to the younger generations in oppressed places. Iran for example

In the UK - late 50s to late 80s. Then the crash in 2008 had serious repercussions. It's very bad now and TBH is only going to get worse.

The 90s seemed full of optimism after the difficulties of the 80s. My mum really struggled when we were little following our dad's death. Single mums were really stigmatised still under the Thatcher regime (whatever the reason for being single) and it was not a good time to be on a low income. But during 6th form things seemed to get better. The general vibe everywhere felt happy and forward looking. The summer of 95 was hot and I remember the end of A levels, fun with friends, being madly in love with my then boyfriend. I know now that part of that was being young and not having any real responsibilities yet but now seems so stressful and grim by comparison. I'd also love a holiday in the 18th century to see what it was really like as it fascinates me as an era but I'd like to come home after trying it.

2010 NHS was judged the best health service in the world. Now we are sold the lie that a functioning NHS is unrealistic.

If this refers to the Commonweath Fund study, they were top in 2014 and 2017 too and went down to fourth place in 2021. I agree that it is underfunded since Osbourne in 2010 though. And seems to be on its knees at the moment. (I don't even want to call my GP now. I look back wistfully on my lovely old doctor's surgery visits in the 80s. Where you called a number and they answered and gave you a date and time).

1995 was a wonderful summer! So hot, and It's Alright by Supergrass playing all the time.

I get the 90s were a good time but we were on a global boom which then bust. It was fuelled in part by easy credit which got to us in the end via US. We are linked as we’ve seen with interest rates. So yes it was nice but a bit like the credit card before the bill.

Today.

Who knows, it might be your/my last day. So best make the most of it!

<cheerful>