The optimism of the 90s was definitely a thing in the west, even if those particular metrics were worse. It was the perceived end of the cold war, and no other state could seemingly challenge the west. It really did seem like the end of war and every generation would have it better than the previous one. That optimism was pervasive and colored culture, mood, everything.
Now you've got a lot of millennials / gen-zers who grew up in homes their parents owned, unable to buy a home (in a place that would have jobs for them) saddled with college debt and few friends outside their computer screens. I think that's at the root, and all of those metrics mean nothing to them. Housing + debt, everything else is noise.
Other than for homosexuals, transsexuals, and maybe career focused females it's not outrageous to claim the 90s were a better time to be starting your life/adulthood.
> The optimism of the 90s was definitely a thing in the west
The optimism is I think the key to what’s going on here. We had used to have a positive view of and vision for the future, and by now most of the things that we were optimistic about either didn’t happen, or have made things worse.
> Their childhoods were spent with memories of a backyard pool and frequent vacations—because they were ten and their parents were forty-five. These kids might have grown up considering themselves “middle class” when they were actually safely upper middle class. Their parents, not wanting to be unseemly, probably told them they were middle class. Twenty-somethings who grew up kinda rich probably don’t yet have the money their parents did, and this can be confusing if they were led to believe they had a modest upbringing.
My parents could not afford the house they own if they had to buy today, even with their now-end-of-career salaries, at current market prices—never mind with their starting salaries (and my mom was only working part-time when they bought it).
Quality of life has improved in many ways over the last 20-30 years (tech, medicine, etc), but wage increases have not kept up with cost of living in many sectors.
> We are hardly living in a golden age of safety for kids—during the pandemic, there was a spike in crime, especially gun violence. But a big part of why gun violence became the biggest cause of deaths of people under 18 is partially because they were a lot less likely to die from other causes, notably motor vehicle accidents:
Well, that’s an excellent point. Our cars have become so good at crumpling to protect us that the old crash test videos that leaked to tv news in the 90s seem archaic by comparison. I remember many of them showed the dummies falling out of the cars when they slammed into a wall and shocked everyone.
My father took me to a junkyard to see all the windshields that people had smashed into to emphasize why I should wear a seatbelt. Now the car will basically sacrifice itself to absorb the shock as much as possible. Plus airbags are everywhere and rearview cameras are in all new cars.
I frequently think about how these days you can get shot anywhere in the USA. It was nice being reminded that I have very little fear of dying in an auto crash. And though many people drunk drive every day, societal tolerance for it is at an all time low.
> I was surprised to learn that seat-belt usage took so long to take on.
Look up the automatic seat belt fad from the 80s and 90s. To make a long story short, there's a reason why they fell out of favor; you still had to manually put on your lap belt, and a lot of people who normally would wear their seat belt correctly didn't realize they had to wear a lap belt.
Also, no one wears seat belts in India. When a car came to pick me up, there was no seat belt in the rear seat. The driver had tucked them under the seat, so I made him pull them back out. As we drove along a semi-freeway, the center divider was giant potted plants instead of a guard rail. Good luck if you happen to drift into one of those without a seat belt.
To be fair, the automatic belt "fad" was more interesting than that. For a brief time in the 80s (and into the early 90s), cars were required to have either automatic seat belts or airbags. Generally speaking, air bags were more expensive during that time period, so automatic seat belts were more popular.
Efforts to save lives within the vehicle even at a minor increased cost of lives outside the vehicle still nets many more lives saved.
The problem isn’t that the vehicles are getting more dangerous to pedestrians, it’s the poor safety engineering around where vehicles and pedestrians are likely to encounter one another, particularly at higher speeds.
I'm definitely (and primarily) all for safer infrastructure (and am happy to live in a place where that is a priority and politically feasible).
That said, it's not always a trade-off between safety inside and outside the vehicle. Some recent vehicle trends are just dangerous for people outside the vehicle, and that's a shame.
> Now the car will basically sacrifice itself to absorb the shock as much as possible. Plus airbags are everywhere and rearview cameras are in all new cars.
And what of the safety of the people outside of the cars?
Morning Brew had an amusing short/skit, "Big car safe…?":
The optimism of the 90s was definitely a thing in the west, even if those particular metrics were worse. It was the perceived end of the cold war, and no other state could seemingly challenge the west. It really did seem like the end of war and every generation would have it better than the previous one. That optimism was pervasive and colored culture, mood, everything.
Now you've got a lot of millennials / gen-zers who grew up in homes their parents owned, unable to buy a home (in a place that would have jobs for them) saddled with college debt and few friends outside their computer screens. I think that's at the root, and all of those metrics mean nothing to them. Housing + debt, everything else is noise.
Other than for homosexuals, transsexuals, and maybe career focused females it's not outrageous to claim the 90s were a better time to be starting your life/adulthood.
> The optimism of the 90s was definitely a thing in the west
The optimism is I think the key to what’s going on here. We had used to have a positive view of and vision for the future, and by now most of the things that we were optimistic about either didn’t happen, or have made things worse.
Computing, especially. It seemed we were headed for the direction shown in star trek, and instead we got ads and global surveillance.
> Their childhoods were spent with memories of a backyard pool and frequent vacations—because they were ten and their parents were forty-five. These kids might have grown up considering themselves “middle class” when they were actually safely upper middle class. Their parents, not wanting to be unseemly, probably told them they were middle class. Twenty-somethings who grew up kinda rich probably don’t yet have the money their parents did, and this can be confusing if they were led to believe they had a modest upbringing.
My parents could not afford the house they own if they had to buy today, even with their now-end-of-career salaries, at current market prices—never mind with their starting salaries (and my mom was only working part-time when they bought it).
Quality of life has improved in many ways over the last 20-30 years (tech, medicine, etc), but wage increases have not kept up with cost of living in many sectors.
> We are hardly living in a golden age of safety for kids—during the pandemic, there was a spike in crime, especially gun violence. But a big part of why gun violence became the biggest cause of deaths of people under 18 is partially because they were a lot less likely to die from other causes, notably motor vehicle accidents:
Well, that’s an excellent point. Our cars have become so good at crumpling to protect us that the old crash test videos that leaked to tv news in the 90s seem archaic by comparison. I remember many of them showed the dummies falling out of the cars when they slammed into a wall and shocked everyone.
My father took me to a junkyard to see all the windshields that people had smashed into to emphasize why I should wear a seatbelt. Now the car will basically sacrifice itself to absorb the shock as much as possible. Plus airbags are everywhere and rearview cameras are in all new cars.
I frequently think about how these days you can get shot anywhere in the USA. It was nice being reminded that I have very little fear of dying in an auto crash. And though many people drunk drive every day, societal tolerance for it is at an all time low.
I was surprised to learn that seat-belt usage took so long to take on. Only 90% in 2019. It's not like it's some horrible burden to do.
> I remember many of them showed the dummies falling out of the cars when they slammed into a wall and shocked everyone.
This reminds me of a short Simpsons bit from the 90s about crash-test dummies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWnPvsurPvI
Several generations grew up without the habit of using seat belts. It shouldn't be surprising that they didn't really ever start using them.
People were also pretty annoyed that they wouldn't be allowed to drink while driving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xcQIoh3FQQ
Edit: fixed typo
> People were also pretty annoyed that they would be allowed to drink while driving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xcQIoh3FQQ
Correction: "…they would not be allowed to drink while…"
“Pretty soon we’re gonna be a communist country.”
That’s how much propaganda we get in the USA.
> I was surprised to learn that seat-belt usage took so long to take on.
Look up the automatic seat belt fad from the 80s and 90s. To make a long story short, there's a reason why they fell out of favor; you still had to manually put on your lap belt, and a lot of people who normally would wear their seat belt correctly didn't realize they had to wear a lap belt.
Also, no one wears seat belts in India. When a car came to pick me up, there was no seat belt in the rear seat. The driver had tucked them under the seat, so I made him pull them back out. As we drove along a semi-freeway, the center divider was giant potted plants instead of a guard rail. Good luck if you happen to drift into one of those without a seat belt.
To be fair, the automatic belt "fad" was more interesting than that. For a brief time in the 80s (and into the early 90s), cars were required to have either automatic seat belts or airbags. Generally speaking, air bags were more expensive during that time period, so automatic seat belts were more popular.
Unfortunately in recent years, and particularly in the US, cars have been getting more dangerous again - especially to those not in the car.
Efforts to save lives within the vehicle even at a minor increased cost of lives outside the vehicle still nets many more lives saved.
The problem isn’t that the vehicles are getting more dangerous to pedestrians, it’s the poor safety engineering around where vehicles and pedestrians are likely to encounter one another, particularly at higher speeds.
I'm definitely (and primarily) all for safer infrastructure (and am happy to live in a place where that is a priority and politically feasible).
That said, it's not always a trade-off between safety inside and outside the vehicle. Some recent vehicle trends are just dangerous for people outside the vehicle, and that's a shame.
> Now the car will basically sacrifice itself to absorb the shock as much as possible. Plus airbags are everywhere and rearview cameras are in all new cars.
And what of the safety of the people outside of the cars?
Morning Brew had an amusing short/skit, "Big car safe…?":
* https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DEd1HXrX6-4