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Old 05-12-2021, 09:56 AM
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raysachs raysachs is offline
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Originally Posted by RedJoker View Post
I'm not a boomer so this thread is interesting to me. The biggest thing that stands out is everyone is saying how much "better" things were when they grew up. I think things were "better" when I grew up and I'm willing to bet that the kids growing up today will look back at how much "better" their time was. It's kind of the nature of things. Most people look back fondly at their childhood and remember the good things while forgetting / blocking / ignoring the bad things.

There are a lot of different view points of the world but we all have to remember that a vast majority of people are doing their level best. We can all only see things from the perspectives we have and that won't be the same perspective as everyone else.

Interesting thread!
I don't feel things were "better" when I was growing up. I mean, in some ways they were, but in some ways they were far far worse. I mean, I'm a reasonably comfortable white guy who came from reasonably comfortable white parents, so things were pretty good for me growing up, but they have stayed pretty good for me right along. My brother and I often talk about how being born into the generation we were born into (never mind the differences between early and late boomers, which we've also discussed a lot), in the the US specifically, we have in many ways lived in the peak of what civilization has ever had to offer. Of course, this is partly the result of a shared world view that things are getting worse now and our kid's and grandkid's lives are likely to be much more challenging than our's have been. Hopefully, we'll be wrong about that.

Nonetheless, as bad as things still are for various minority groups in the US, they were far far worse 60 years ago. I have gay acquaintances who are far FAR better off than they would have been 60 years ago. Women are still not treated equally in our economy, but they're finally getting real close - a woman could barely get a credit card in her own name 40 years ago, let alone 60. I remember traveling about the Middle East and Europe for about 6 months 40 years ago right now, and not having cell phones or email or internet cafe's or any of the other ways we take for granted about staying in touch these days. I was meeting up with people in various places who were friends of friends, and how we were able to make all that work seems inconceivable to me now. I sent my parent's a few letters and I think talked to them ONCE during that whole time - they were worried sick, but what could they do? SOOOO much easier to stay connected these days.

Not to mention, when I was growing up, learning to play guitar, there were NO ELECTRONIC TUNERS!!!! Anyone who says THAT was better needs to have their heads examined! There were no loopers either, or online lessons. I don't remember how we did any of it.

I think most of what seemed better then was just based on the innocence of youth, which get's back to the point RedJoker was making. It looked good to us, because we were young and full of hope and we didn't have anything to compare it to anyway. That's true of most kids today too, as it always has been and hopefully always will be. The one thing that gives me some hope for the future is that old men like me have ALWAYS been predicting the end of civilization as we know it, the world is falling apart, etc, etc, etc. I feel that way now, but every other generation of old me has been wrong so far. It would be awfully arrogant of me to assume that I'm right when they were all wrong. I mean, I'm sure I am right, but I hold out hope that I'm just old and stupid and I'll turn out to be wrong too!

-Ray
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