I really never have believed times improved, and i am almost positive things will only get worse.
30 years ago we had a future to look to, the unshittified internet, great music, affordable land/housing, affordable durable cars, people actually interacted in real life, no social media trash. Now, we have billionaires and LLMs. I don’t see how anyone can possibly think times are better or going to improve.
Yes, everyone will say “civil rights improved” and yes thats maybe the only thing that has changed, however it’s getting taken away every day again so I don’t think you can even use that point anymore.
Medicine has improved by leaps and bounds. We have greater life expectancy and mostly a better quality of health along the way. Child mortality is down globally.
https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/child-mortality?time=1996..latest
Improvements in our understanding of neurodivergent students has resulted in better educational and quality of life outcomes for millions who in past decades would have fallen through the cracks.
The proliferation of environmental lead from paint and gasoline are WAY down, and the hole in the Ozone was just about peak in 1995.
Open source, public domain, and freely available knowledge have democratized education, technology, research, and product development in ways that would have almost been inconcievable in 1995.
We are able to communicate more globally, even with total strangers, often across language barriers, and for free.
Video games, films, and television are able to create visions that would have been technically impossible 30 years ago. And technology has reduced the barriers for people to gain entry into those industries.
I carry around a tiny super computer with instant access to all the world’s knowledge. That would have been a dream in 1995.
There are of course many things that are worse. It’s a harder time to be starting out in life. “Luxuries” are dirt cheap and necesities are unaffordable. We’ve traded our sense of community for a paranioa of “others” even as the world has gotten safer. Globally the world has been swinging toward extremism and it constantly feels like capitalism may collapse and we don’t know what comes next if that happens. But failure to see how much is better and for how many seems like too much doom scrolling and too narrow and outlook.
Technology is better slightly
Society is worse
The economy is worse
The environment is worse
Tech is better. But life is a lot worse in general. Unless you’re part of a marginalized group I suppose.
We’ve gone from a bright shining future to no future at all.
Tech is better
Tech was only better until like maybe 2015-2016. We’re a solid decade into enshitification across the board. I can’t even find a phone I actually want to replace mine that is finally failing after 8 years and the car situation isn’t looking much better, fortunately I don’t have to deal with that for a while (hopefully).
Unless you’re part of a marginalized group I suppose.
This is a pretty dismissive take. “Sure, things have improved for the blacks and queers, but what about us… uh, regular folk?”
Wasn’t intended that way.
I mean, most of the people here didn’t mention it at all.
Yes, it’s better to be gay in America in 2025 than 1995, although might not be trending in a good direction now. Probably black too, although that’s been a painfully slow process by comparison.
I don’t disagree, but OP didn’t ask for trend predictions. Anyone who tries to convince you “things” are worse today than than they were in 1995 is either trying to gaslight you, or doesn’t consider the experience of the LGBT community to be as equally valuable as everyone else.
I think a lot of the tech is responsible for the shitty life. Tech got better until perhaps end of the naughts. After that it’s just one bullshit excuse after the other to make devices obsolete as quick as possible. Plus the complete enshittification of the internet.
I’m just glad that decentralized social media is becoming a thing and the FOSS movement is huge.
the unshittified internet
If you were in the 1% or whatever of the developed-world population that had it, a nice collection of bookmarks and an hour to load every image over your shitty dialup.
Like, I’ll go ahead and say the internet has gotten worse, but only after a decade or two where it got much, much better.
As for the rest of the stuff, the 90’s were kind of a sweet spot. The Cold War was over, the new gilded age was just starting to gather and some of the 20th century problems were on their way out. Leaded gasoline, rampant littering, near-disposable cars and cigarette smoke everywhere are more 1980’s and earlier in my head.
90’s music is often terrible to my ears, by the way, and grinding was weird.
90s alt rock is a pretty deep genre. Music-wise, I might take the 90s over either of the decades that followed it. And I’m sure that’s because it’s better and not because I grew up with it.
Okay, I do like some music from the 90’s. Some of it straight up sounds like parody now, though. I wasn’t sure WTF was going on when I heard “Too Close” for the first time.
Like, I’ll go ahead and say the internet has gotten worse, but only after a decade or two where it got much, much better.
Yeah. 90s internet was really novel and interesting and unique, but after a couple hours you got bored. There wasn’t that much happening on it. Also slow as all hell.
Then internet speeds picked up and there was enough content to keep you basically permanently entertained. Lot of entertaining stuff. The Age of Memes was truly upon us.
Then the bad actors and village idiots were able to easily get access and understand they could use the internet for nefarious reasons and it’s been getting shittier for about the last decade or so. Realistically, probably around the time smartphones came out and the influx of fools was of tsunami proportions.
According to social psych, this is called reconstructive memory, “reconstructing past behaviour” - tending to underreport bad behaviour and overreport good behaviour, sometimes remisrecalling our past as worse to justify self- improvement.
Times in general? No. Certain aspects? Yes, even with fascist rule.
Convenience-wise? Yes. A lot of things are easier to get taken care of now. From being able to handle DMV shit online to organizing events to paying bills. All way easier than they used to be.
Everything else…yeah, no. Things are not good economically. Things are not good socially. Things are not good civically. Stress levels are high. Suicides are up. Wealth disparity is getting insane. Finding career jobs with good employers is rough. Have fun buying a house. You might be on the street if you have a medical emergency. Fuck you if you’re poor.
Generally speaking, things are getting worse, but we’ve got some cool tech and easier payment methods while everything else goes to shit, so we’ve got that going for us.
30 years ago we THOUGHT we had a future.
Medical technology has greatly improved. More people survive cancer, aids, surgery is far less invasive, and better medications.
Technology in general is getting better.
We have a faster internet. I love having access to so much information. Sure, there are far more gullible fools who believe in all manner of silly stuff but I feel the internet has done more good than bad.
Life expectancy has gone up about 2 years since 1995 (from 76 to 78). Not a massive difference TBH.
Wow, that really puts the impact of covid in perspective.
Look at that dip right before 2020! Wonder why America dipped so much lower. Surely, face-masks as a way to prevent the spread of infectious disease wasn’t suddenly a controversial issue!
What about people’s overall health? Two years isn’t much but if a person’s last ten years is lived with less pain and more mobility that is something.
The one grape I have with the medical technology thing is the fact that if I used any of it I would be in debt for the rest of my life which would be longer because of the technology
Half the technology only prevents death, but doesn’t necessarily give you quality of life, so they can keep it. It’s the pharmaceutical advancements that have had the biggest QoL impact on me, and thankfully generics have been reasonably affordable.
Do you have any other fruits with medical tech?
I’ve goyes. A pineapple t a pineapple with an
That is only an America problem though
True
Maybe you’ll get lucky and get a recall or a class action lawsuit
The internet allowed to stupid to find each other far too easily and spread far too much bullshit.
People believed in all manner of things without supporting evidence long before the internet arrived.
Yeah but it was harder for so many stupid people to link up and feed off of each other.
But now they have the means to organize
Medical technology has greatly improved.
If you can afford it. Health insurance in the US was certainly better 30 years ago.
Since it hasn’t been mentioned, one thing that I am truly thankful for that we have improved since the 1990s is public smoking. Not having to be prepared for the reek of cigarettes in virtually every public space is such a big win.
Hell, in 1990, which is 35 years ago, you could still smoke on airplanes in the US. Airplanes! Can you imagine flying back then? Your neighbor could light up and there was nothing you could do but sit there and stew in the smoke stream. I’m glad I never had to experience flying with smoke but I had my fair share of being forced to sit in smoking sections of restaurants until my teenage years.
Thats true, it stank!! And non smoking was never a truth ha
The (true) joke at the time was that it was like a swimming pool with a little corner marked “no peeing zone”.
Can you imagine <pick a thing> back then? Your neighbor could light up and there was nothing you could do but sit there and stew in the smoke stream
It wasn’t just flying. I grew up in the 90s, and you could smoke in so many places, it was awful. I was so happy listening to my mother bitch and complain when they banned smoking in establishments entirely. I could finally breathe, and she had to go outside to keep killing herself (unless we were at home or in the car, in which case there was still nothing I could do but stew in the smoke).
Depends who you ask. Things are better for the LGBTQ+ community. Still not as they should be, but I see a generation of kids now who are accepting, whereas 30 years ago, it was the worst thing anyone could accuse you of.
You say that civil rights may go away, but we do have them right now, and as our kids get older, they might not be so willing to take them away.
Yeah, that’s a big one in the US. Being a queer person in the 90s was almost exile from my social circle. There were some gay guys and lesbians were accepted on the perifery, but homophobia reigned.
The sheer amount of street level crimes, bar fights, car break-ins that existed in those days would blow your mind. Things have changed so much and yet everyone seems to have forgotten. I can’t speek for the ‘worst’ neighbourhoods in the US nowadays but back in the 70s - 80s whole sections of US cities were shitholes. Media make’s everything look way worse than reality.
I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this but 30 years ago was the mid 90s, not the 70s-80s
Oh God…
Unpossible!
I know, the trend continued. And the 90s were half as bad. Sorry you can’t extrapolate.
Crime in 1995 was…let’s just say… fucking worse in virtually every category…by a lot. Waco and ruby ridge had just happened. As for poverty, there are the same number of people on poverty in 2023 a there were in 1995. Let’s talk violence against women. It’s tragic today at shockingly high rates. It was much worse in 1995.
Don’t be a woman, or a non white man, or poor, or non cis and you are probably just fine back in 1995.
…cept for abortion. Fuck Trump.
Yes, the ozone hole is healing, we have less lead in the environment coming from leaded fuel, cars in general have become more fuel efficient, there are plenty of things that are way better now, than 30 years ago.
There is great music being made here in 2025, though the general music taste has stagnated for a long time.
Medical procedures have absolutely got better, as has tech in general, in 1995 we used CRT monitors with our computers, we used ball mice that constantly needed to be cleaned.
This is just some of the things that have improved.
Thank you. It’s hard to see what’s better sometimes but I have definitely benefited from a surgery that was “dark ages” 30 years ago.
Yeah, currently there is so much negativity on the news that it is easy to forget the good stuff that does happen.
Trump wants to allow the production of CFCs again.
This is interesting, CFCs have as far as I can tell been banned since the 70s/80s, so reintroducing it would mean that a lot of industrial production lines would need to be rebuilt, costing vast amounts of money.
I don’t think any established producer would want to pay a lot of money to restore an old process to end up with a product that can’t really be sold outside the US…
we used ball mice that constantly needed to be cleaned.
I still use one. Though, it is the Logitech Trackball, but it still needs to be cleaned, like the old school mice.
Implying that the CRT has yet to be improved upon in any material sense. (Okay, maybe in terms of weight.)
Tap for spoiler
I am (mostly) joking by the way
Now we have PFAS and microplastics in the water.
Before it was lead, chromium and Christ knows what since there was little visibility and less oversight.
Now we have inexpensive, easy to install reverse osmosis that is within reach of nearly any person who isn’t destitute. During the lead days, it was out of reach for nearly everyone due to size, relative complexity, cost and general availability.
Today we have test kits for many type of pollutants and the water authorities have mandated reporting for water quality.
When I was a kid 30 years ago, we lived in the country and drank shit water from a well out in the country. Tasted and smelled like sulfur. We also had a neighbor who owned property with nothing on it but what looked like a cistern cap (underground water tank). Every so often a tanker truck would show up and leave shortly thereafter. We never knew what the hell that tanker was putting into the cistern or if there was even one down there. It could have very well just been a cap that led right into the damn dirt. Every person in my immediate family has endocrine/thyroid problems, none of the extended family does. Was it the mystery truck that was dumping fucky chemicals right into the ground? I will never know, but if we had reverse osmosis back then, none of us would be at the fucking doctor as much as we are. Hormone replacement as a 35 year old man is some shit. Hashimodos is a pain in the dick.
My kids grew up drinking nothing but purified water. If the local water authority was lying and producing shit, at least I’ve been able to add a layer of protection all for about $250 and an hour of my time to set it up.’
I’m voting for better now, shittier then.
I’m interested in reverse osmosis systems, but the most inexpensive ones I’ve seen that could be installed in a rental home are still around $100-200.
Damn that’s tough to hear. I’m sorry you and your family are experiencing long term medical issues. Water pollution by industry is a real evil and I’m glad there’s more awareness and better technology to deal with it today.
We had that back then too. We just didn’t know about it.
I bet we had microplastics in the water, then. We have only now been able to detect them.
But you could throw the mouse ball at someone across the classroom. Throwing an optical sensor doesn’t have the same impact.
The teachers at my school had a very smart idea of using super-glue to seal to ball cover to prevent students stealing and/or throwing the balls.
After about a week the every computer mouse was basically useless as it was impossible to clean the gunk off the rollers
For LGBTQ rights? Definitely. For the climate? Way worse. Politically? Way worse. Economically… I’d way we are in a big bubble like the roaring 20s before the great depression. And when it pops, it’s gonna be bad, thanks to idiot voters and corrupt Republicans.
Government-wise…things are not looking good. It will take a very long time to rebuild.
Now…state-wise, I know my state is way better off than it was 30 years ago, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t about to get slammed by braindead antics of the federal government. But we have made a lot of infrastructure investments that are paying off locally. The future of America will be exclusively in states that put a premium on science and progress.
Politically? Way worse.
I’d say yes and no. 30 years ago was not long after the likes of Reagan and Thatcher. Things are very much not okay today, but more people were okay with worse stuff back then. I’d argue some parts of politics have certainly gotten worse, but others have nevertheless gotten better.
I think the core issue is that the political systems of some countries are beginning to show their age, and people today are becoming more cognizant of their failings over time. I think it wouldn’t hurt to look at all of the data available to us now and go back to the drawing board on a lot of key components. But in saying that, it’s impressive to even have so many consistent political systems that have remained relatively stable for centuries when countries used to just have revolutions and regime changes to shake things up all the time.
I do agree we are quickly approaching a major economic downturn, though. I feel like the writing is on the wall that we are already there, but for some reason economists have their heads buried in the sand. I’m reminded of videos I’ve seen (ignore the edgy V for Vendetta splash screen before it) shortly after the 2008 recession where a small handful of economists anticipated a significant downturn only to be derided by the majority of “experts” who said everything was going great. Because I keep hearing things today like the economy has never been stronger, but no one around me seems to be feeling that. Scaled for inflation, I’m making more money than my parents did when they bought a house, but that feels like an impossibility for me today.
