Do you ever think about which bit of history you're living in?

[RosyCheekedandRobust]

My thread title probably isn't very good but I'm just thinking about where I am in time. I'm in my 50s so I was born less than 30 years after the end of WWII and less than 10 years after JFK was shot. The fall of Communism was probably the biggest world event of my youth. So many things that are happening in the world now would have seemed very improbable to 20 year old me. Even when I was a new parent in the early 2000s global warming didn't seem so big.
I wonder what my grandchildren's world will be be like.

I've kept lots of Covid paraphernalia, also everything that came through the post about Brexit.

I wonder to what extent this will happen around Covid because, thanks to it happening in the digital era, it must be the most well-documented global event in history.

I feel like we are potentially living through the end of the 'progressive' era. For a while now there has been a movement towards more progressive values in terms of equality, opportunity and a move away from religion and towards science. I don't necessarily agree with the extremes of the movement but I feel most people in this country would support the fundamentals behind the movement and almost believe that they are permanent features of the UK and other similar Western countries.

Looking at birth rates, it seems that you are much less likely to procreate if you are a progressive. Instead it is the often quite religious families that are having more children plus immigration is coming from countries with more conservative, religious values. This will inevitably shift the demographic (potentially quite quickly if current trends continue) and as we live in a democracy then we could well find that the Western progressive values are eroded. I am particularly concerned about women's rights in this context and fear that we may look back on this time now and wonder why we didn't do more to protect them whilst we still can.

This is such a brilliant thread.
It’s something I find myself pondering over so often, I’m very interested in social history.
We live in such worrying times, in so many different areas of life, the worlds political and military agenda, climate change, cost of living crisis - it’s a sea of red flags everywhere you look.
I’ve been trying to compare it to the ‘70’s (as far as teenage life is concerned).
We had daily atrocities in Northern Ireland, IRA bombs and bomb threats in mainland Britain. Power cuts, the miners strikes and the brooding presence of possible nuclear war. (So many other issues too).
To an extent we were shielded from the worst of it, not being responsible for household bills etc.
Fast forward, for many (obviously not all), the next decades seemed largely more optimistic in comparison.
I really hope, that we will enter a new period of more peaceful, positive times in the future.
Society has in the past, the post war years, while still being challenging, being one obvious example…