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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Technology, more than anything else.

Tech introduced the instantaneous news era with everyone having a smart phone in their pocket. Well into the 1990s technology was something the geeks and dorks did in their basements  :roll: I actually remember sneering at interest in computers and this weird thing called email because only the dorks seemed to find it interesting and who wanted to stay in a darkened bedroom all day looking at this box thing when you could be out doing stuff with people. And then when cell phones first starting emerging in the very late 1990s, we laughed at the people who rushed to get one because it was so obvious they were slaves to their phones and who wanted to be at beck and call all the time?

As you can infer, I was a cruel and sanctimonious high school kid. But there's truth it it - we lived in a world were you really didn't feel pressured around the clock with constant social media and instantaneous news and the expectations that come with it. If someone wanted to reach you, they called your landline number and you could let it go to the answering machine if you didn't feel like answering. And for kids it meant sharing a phone with your parents and siblings. But today everyone assumes you're available 24/7 with email, phone and texts and if you don't respond within a minute they thing something's wrong or are offended. Things were just more relaxed all around when "news" meant something you watched for half a hour after dinner, not in your face screaming internet headlines and notifications popping into your inbox or phone ceaselessly throughout the day.

There were certainly still pressures of various forms in the 1990s. And typical anxiety. But altogether, the 1990s, particularly after 1992 till 2001, was a period of remarkable peace and a sense of genuine progressive growth to a better and cohesive world. Some people still whine about racism or bigotry, but even in the 1990s we were aware of how much progress had been made compared to a decade earlier and were proud of it. Barriers were falling everywhere, the whole world was opening up and travel was starting to become cheaper and ordinary people could go to more places. Francis Fukuyama's End of History was the prevailing sentiment. In a way, it was nearly the best of liberal democracy.

After 9-11 things really did start changing although it took me a while to realize it. And while I'm appreciative of the improvements in health care and certain technological advantages, on the whole I don't see it better because people aren't happier and we seem much more disunited and divided and the extremes of politics on both the left and right, and I'd argue more the left, have become more authoritarian and angry and less respecting of this casual and relaxed liberal tradition we once took for granted. I'd never thought I'd see the day that papers like the NYT or Washington Post would brazenly lie and justify it in the name of a greater progressive good, whatever that is.  :roll:

Really don't know what the future will bring. Part of me is hopeful, other parts are not.

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I was kinda with you....until...the left is the authoritarian problem and the WaPo and NYT are liars. You've got Fox News brain, bro. [/quote]

Bruh I voted for Trump after bezos run wapo was making liberal actors sound deeply offended over decades old comments Trump made in interviews. They made it seem like the comments were recent. Lost all credibility. But continue kissing bezos rich ass. [/quote]

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