Where Have All The Good Times Gone?

Chesterton · 2025-07-03T11:50:43-0500

durangodawood said:
I thusly refute thee.

I've been refuted about a dozen times since I had my morning coffee today, but that was the lamest and gayest refutation. You were already on ignore. Now I'm putting you on double secret ignore.

HBP · 2025-07-03T11:51:26-0500

Hvizsgyak said:
The More News Headlines We See, the Less We Care

Constant exposure to negative news can numb our sense of morality and empathy. Experts explain how this happens, the risks to mental health, and how to combat desensitization.

www.psychologytoday.com

Am I imagining it or have the news articles and headlines become more negative. It seemed as when Joe Biden was in office there was an aire of happiness in alot of the news stories and the only negative stories were coming from Fox News and their conservative companions. Now, practically every news feed I have on my computer is either someone famous dying, shootings all over the US and in other countries, nations arguing about taxes, immigrants or some other political dilemma, economic turmoil, war.

It is very discouraging. But what makes me mad is if this is just a mainstream media attempt at making the Trump Admin. the cause of all these woes. Surely happy stories couldn't have just disappeared just like that. Where is the positiveness of our space program, where is the positiveness of our cultures coming to together and celebrating life. Yes, our country is forcing immigrants to come to America the legal and proper way and it looks messy but Spanish, Latinos, Asians, Africans and Europeans have never been this close before in America. Don't let the negativity of the liberal media separate us. Remember E. Pluribus Unum. Follow God and He will lead us to goodness.

Walter Cronkite said long ago, "We don't run news stories about all the cats who DON'T get stuck in trees and have to be rescued by the Fire Department." News by its very nature is negative.

We now have a 24-hour news cycle with umpteen outlets competing for their respective target audiences. News is now a cut-throat business. Even when the story isn't actually negative, the grabber headline often is.

And, indeed, the world in general is a more crowded, angry, violent, fragmented place than it was 60, 40 or 20 years ago. The news to some extent just reflects this reality.

I really think the biggest factor is the 24-hour news cycle with media outlets that cater to specific target audiences who WANT to be ratcheted up and enraged by the dreaded "others" they oppose. Fox is a highly successful model for others to copy.

I like what Thoreau said more than 150 years ago: Once you understand the principle that ships sometimes sink, you don't need 100 news stories about ships sinking. Why is EVERY plane that crashes, even with three people on board, ALWAYS "breaking news"?

SimplyMe · 2025-07-03T13:00:03-0500

Chesterton said:
I've been refuted about a dozen times since I had my morning coffee today, but that was the lamest and gayest refutation. You were already on ignore. Now I'm putting you on double secret ignore.

As a Howard Jones fan, I'll ask you to be nice. As maybe something of a counterpoint, let me offer Howard Jones version of I.G.Y., which pokes a bit of fun at the optimism of the 50s (written by Donald Fagen in 1982, but talking about how, by 1976, we'd have underwater intercontinental rail service, passenger service to a space platform orbiting the Earth, etc.). It includes the line, "We'll be clean when the work is done done. We'll be eternally free, yes, and eternally young."

7thKeeper · 2025-07-03T13:02:50-0500

ThatRobGuy said:
The definition of "middle class" has changed quite a bit over time...

In that era:
4-5 people sharing an 1100 sq ft home

Well depends, from what I read, the average home for a family in the 60s-70s era in the USA was 1500 sq ft, not 1100. And quite frankly, 1100 is quite a nice size home for the average family.

ThatRobGuy said:
Very little dining out

Yes, though not sure how this is necessarily a sign of decreased wealth, epecially considering a point to follow.

ThatRobGuy said:
One car for the family to share
One TV

One car isn't necessarily a sign of lesser relative wealth, the point here goes back to the same one as above, we'll get to that later.
Also, did you consider the relative cost of TVs over time? Besides the advance in the type of TVs we have, the prices have fallen and fallen over time. A small colour TV in the 50s would have cost around 4000 in today's cash, while you can get similar sized TVs today for around 80.

ThatRobGuy said:
Life expectancy of 64

That's pre 1945. Average life expectancy was slightly over 65 around then and has kept rising since, due to obvious reasons of advance in medicine, medical knowledge, food, etc. If we take a comparison from around 1970, life expectancy has gone from around 70 to 78 nowadays.
And remember, my point was specifically about financially.

ThatRobGuy said:
HS graduation rates of around 60%

Good that that has gone up, but the topic was financially. You could earn well before even without that.

ThatRobGuy said:
...and where the occupational hallmark of the time was tough factory labor?

I think there's something of a misplaced fondness for that era based on the sole metrics of "there was more unionization" and "the CEO to Employee pay gap was smaller"

And now we can come back to the point I didn't mention before. Because of how slowly wages have increased compared to, in this case, housing prices, before a single income family could afford a home and children on that income alone. This meant that one parent could stay home to take care of the children, which included things like cook food, which would naturally lead to less eating out. And since only one person needed to go to work, the need for more than one car was less. And they could afford to have one person be at home. Nowadays that's simply out of reach for a much larger group of people.

So yes, I'd say the middle class was financially better off before.

Chesterton · 2025-07-03T13:29:30-0500

SimplyMe said:
As a Howard Jones fan, I'll ask you to be nice.

That's a big ask.

SimplyMe said:
As maybe something of a counterpoint, let me offer Howard Jones version of I.G.Y., which pokes a bit of fun at the optimism of the 50s (written by Donald Fagen in 1982, but talking about how, by 1976, we'd have underwater intercontinental rail service, passenger service to a space platform orbiting the Earth, etc.). It includes the line, "We'll be clean when the work is done done. We'll be eternally free, yes, and eternally young."

I'm not sure why you think this is a counterpoint, because I agree with the sarcastic lyrics. Life on Earth will only be better when we treat each other better, and technology does not aid in that.

durangodawood · 2025-07-03T14:10:56-0500

Chesterton said:
I'm not sure why you think this is a counterpoint, because I agree with the sarcastic lyrics. Life on Earth will only be better when we treat each other better, and technology does not aid in that.

Long term we're definitely treating each other better overall, I think. Steady moral progress.

Bradskii · 2025-07-03T17:48:24-0500

durangodawood said:
I thusly refute thee.

And this:

Two fun facts...I used to live up the road from Howard Jones in High Wycombe, a small market town about an hour west of London. And...the guy playing keyboards in the D:Ream clip is Brian Cox the well known UK physicist.

Bradskii · 2025-07-03T17:52:04-0500

durangodawood said:
Steady moral progress.

This has always puzzled me. Where is the end point? It's almost a theological argument to suggest that we're moving towards some ultimate 'good time'.

ThatRobGuy · 2025-07-03T18:36:23-0500

Chesterton said:
That's a strange quote to be a firm believer in. Some things get better, some things get worse.

I think things are only perceived as "worse" in comparison to the modern ideals of where people think things should be on certain issues.

If we compare today with 1950-1970...

Which currently marginalized groups had it better then, than they have it now?

It's certainly not the Black community, women, gays, religious minorities, Asians, atheists.

Point of reference, even in Trump's administration (that people are suggesting is horribly racist, sexist, homophobic, and bigoted against minority religions), there are people from those groups in his cabinet (something that wouldn't have happened for a president of either party 50 years ago) and had the village people perform at his inauguration along side his gay Treasury secretary (the highest ranking appointment of an openly gay person in history), and his VP that's married to a Hindu woman.

I still stand by the notion that people have short term memories when it comes to a lot of this stuff.

Pick any of the demographic groups named above, they'd have an easier time in Florida in 2025, then they would've had in NY in 1960.

ThatRobGuy · 2025-07-03T18:37:00-0500

durangodawood said:
I thusly refute thee.

That video is definitely proof that music has gotten better since the 80's

Chesterton · 2025-07-03T18:50:01-0500

durangodawood said:
Long term we're definitely treating each other better overall, I think. Steady moral progress.

I contend that there is not overall moral progress. Abolition of (most) slavery was good, but my parents grew up in a time where crime was so low people didn't even have locks on the doors of their houses.

Bradskii said:
This has always puzzled me. Where is the end point? It's almost a theological argument to suggest that we're moving towards some ultimate 'good time'.

It is puzzling. It's utopianism. An Enlightenment era fantasy which continues to wreak havoc in our culture and politics.

Chesterton · 2025-07-03T19:00:46-0500

ThatRobGuy said:
I think things are only perceived as "worse" in comparison to the modern ideals of where people think things should be on certain issues.

Yes, exactly. Things are perceived as worse in comparison to where people think they should be.

ThatRobGuy · 2025-07-03T20:18:12-0500

Chesterton said:
Yes, exactly. Things are perceived as worse in comparison to where people think they should be.

How am I wrong on that?

We literally live in an era where every major institution (academia, entertainment, major food companies, governments, etc...) literally honor "pride month", yet left-leaning activists act like there's some sort of holocaust on LGBT people because they can't have all of their new ideas implemented tomorrow.

We live in an era where the overwhelming majority of the population doesn't give it a 2nd look if they see an interracial couple, the VP of "the most racist administration in the history of racism and administrations" is married to a non-Christian Indian woman.

And it's not just the liberals who pretend they're so "put upon", conservative initiatives have scored major wins in the past decade, yet many of them act as if they've lost ground.

We live in the greatest time there is to be alive. Is is perfect? Absolutely not, it never will be. But is seems as if people across the spectrum have been getting more of the things they want...yet... acting like they're being increasingly victimized.

Our current society is the real-world manifestation of "making better the enemy of perfect"

Chesterton · 2025-07-03T20:25:09-0500

ThatRobGuy said:
How am I wrong on that?

You're not. I agreed with you. I only rolled my eyes because you're being Captain Obvious.

ozso · 2025-07-03T21:03:31-0500

I binge watched episodes of Barney Miller (1975-1982). Which focused on issues regarding society, politics, economy, climate etc. And 50 years ago there were the same exact complaints and the same exact pessimism over how bad things are compared to how good things used to be. The same goes with All In The Family (1971-1979).

ThatRobGuy · 2025-07-03T21:04:34-0500

Chesterton said:
Yes, exactly. Things are perceived as worse in comparison to where people think they should be.

Ah, gotcha, I couldn't get a good read on your previous post's tone.

durangodawood · 2025-07-03T21:10:57-0500

Bradskii said:
This has always puzzled me. Where is the end point? It's almost a theological argument to suggest that we're moving towards some ultimate 'good time'.

You could frame it that way. But we might have a scale problem. Just like people get myopic about short term moral backsliding and mistake that for the whole human story, the reaaaally long term picture may hold some catastrophic and enduring dips.

The thing about the future is, we dont know whats in it.

That said, I do believe we have a natural tendency to want to make life better for ourselves, and the wise that moral progress is foundational to achieving that in an enduring way.

durangodawood · 2025-07-03T21:11:27-0500

ThatRobGuy said:
That video is definitely proof that music has gotten better since the 80's

Ah.... the one data point proof.

durangodawood · 2025-07-03T21:14:47-0500

Bradskii said:
And this:

Two fun facts...I used to live up the road from Howard Jones in High Wycombe, a small market town about an hour west of London. And...the guy playing keyboards in the D:Ream clip is Brian Cox the well known UK physicist.

That would be funny if Howard Jones split a coffee on you at the Costa, and you replied: Howard, no one is to blame.

ThatRobGuy · 2025-07-03T21:20:55-0500

ozso said:
I binge watched episodes of Barney Miller (1975-1982). Which focused on issues regarding society, politics, economy, climate etc. And 50 years ago there were the same exact complaints and the same exact pessimism over how bad things are compared to how good things used to be. The same with All In The Family (1971-1979).

Fun fact: All in the Family wasn't an original idea, it was a US adaptation of the UK show "Till Death Do Us Part".

Being a bit of a British Comedy buff, I remember the Alf Garnett character more than the Archie Bunker.

But I do remember what I remember hearing what a political writer said about All In the Family...

Paraphrasing because I don't have it committed verbatim:

"The show taught me what a staunch conservative and hardline liberal were...
On one side, you had a man who refuses to accept changes that challenge the way things used to be due to a myopic sense of nostalgia...
And his opposite, an unemployed college-educated activist who lives in his house for free, eats his food, and repays him by calling him a bigot"

There is some accuracy to that in terms of describing our current political tension lol

Where Have All The Good Times Gone?

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