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
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.
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
Do you have any other fruits with medical tech?
I’ve goyes. A pineapple t a pineapple with an
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.
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.
Yes, 30 years ago the AIDS crisis was still going strong and, in the US at least, same-gender relationships were illegal and the LGBT community didn’t have a right to work, and on top of that same-sex marriage was illegal. A lot of rights are rolled into marriage, including the ability to remain at the bedside of your loved-one when they are at the hospital or on their deathbed, arranging and/or attending your partner’s funeral, and being allowed to remain in your house after your spouse dies. Through the 80s and 90s, gay men were losing partners left and right and some were kicked out of their partners’ funerals and then kicked out of the house they had lived in for decades because the title was in their partner’s name since they couldn’t sign together.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was also started in 1994.
Same sex relationships weren’t made legal until June 26, 2003 (Lawrence v TX) Same Sex Marriage on June 26, 2015 (Hodges v Obergefell) Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace was barred in the US June 15, 2020 (Bostock v Clayton)
Even with all the holes Republicans drilled into it, the Affordable Care Act helps many people get health insurance. We also have medication that prevents the transmission of HIV and that prevents the onset of AIDS, saving many lives.
In 1995, the internet was in its infancy, at least compared to today and was largely text-based. If a website had a bunch of pictures, it took take 5-15 minutes to load depending on your location, provided nobody killed the connection with an incoming call.
Sure the mindset nowadays is much more pessimistic, even thought the ruling class from the 90s is aging out of power. We just need people ready to push us forward as more of the silent generation and baby boomer politicians leave office.
You’re right that a lot has changed for the better, especially when it comes to legal rights for LGBTQ+ people. The AIDS crisis was devastating and compounded by the cruelty of being denied the most basic recognitions like visiting your partner in the hospital or even being allowed to stay in your home after they passed. Legal victories like Lawrence v. Texas, Obergefell, and Bostock were historic, and they represent real, hard-won progress.
But I think it’s also important to recognize that legal inclusion doesn’t always mean liberation. A lot of those rights are still tied to institutions like marriage, which leave out anyone who doesn’t fit that mold. Marriage shouldn’t be the gateway to healthcare or housing security. That just reinforces the idea that some relationships or lives are more worthy of protection than others.
Same goes for healthcare. The Affordable Care Act helped, but it still left healthcare tied to jobs and profit. Life-saving medications exist, but they’re still out of reach for many because of how expensive and inaccessible our system is. PrEP, for example, is amazing in what it can do, but the fact that it’s rationed through patents and insurance barriers says a lot about who this system really serves.
And while the internet has opened up huge spaces for connection and organizing, it also turned our identities into data and our attention into profit. Social media connects, but it also surveils and exploits. So even in our victories, the system keeps finding ways to profit off our survival.
I think the pessimism today is more than just a vibe shift. People feel it because they know deep down that we’re still not free. That our progress is fragile, often built on the same systems that oppress others. The question isn’t just whether things are better. It’s whether we’re building something that won’t keep leaving people behind.
What are you talking about with PrEP? It’s not tied to having insurance, there are LGBT sexual health clinics where you can get free PrEP even if you don’t have insurance. If you go the traditional route for medication and get a prescription through your PCP it’ll depend on your insurance, but that’s also not always the safest route. Granted if you live away from the city, you will have to go the traditional route, because there aren’t likely to be any LGBT clinics nearby unless you decide to drive into the city for your quarterly appts.
In the 90s, health insurance was almosy exclusively tied to your job. There were a couple policies that you could get if your job didn’t offer insurance, but they were expensive. Today, if your job doesn’t offer insurance or if youre out of a job, you can not only get insurance on the marketplace, but you can even get financial assistance. That financial assistance didn’t exist in the US 30 years ago outside of Medicaid. It’s not universal Healthcare, as seen in other countries, but the ACA is overall an improvement on the system.
I agree that there are still rights to be won and attitudes to be changed so that people can live their lives openly without threat of violence, just noting that the overall situation is better now than it was 30 years ago. For example, I saw a story about a trans teen in North TX (a small town north of the DFW metroplex) in the last couple years. If that story was from the 90s, it would’ve been about the death of the teen and that’s what I was expecting. Instead, the article was about the teen being kicked out of a school play because they were trans. It was a relief that the teen was still alive, which shows some positive growth, however there’s still work to be done.
The younger generations are better at inclusion and I’m hoping that trend will continue. As the Silent Generation and Baby Boomer politicians (who have been ruling for the better part of 60 years) leave office, I’m hoping they are replaced by younger, more open-minded politicians. I’ve seen articles mention how in some elections that’s happening, it just hasn’t reached the leadership of the various branches yet. Hopefully, when it does, we can reshape the system to help everyone and build better defenses against those who would abuse their power for the rich. My concern is that if the conservatives are rallying behind a goal, while progressives grow increasingly pessimistic, that we may not see shift that we really need to make progress.
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.
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.
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.
A few technological aspects of life are incredibly easier and more accessible. We have instant access to any form of information, from porn to encyclopedia articles. Comparing prices and ordering things - commonly called “mail order” 30 years ago - took weeks compared to a couple days now. Communication is far easier and cheaper - talking between San Francisco and Stockholm or Singapore would have cost several dollars per minute 30 years ago, and now it’s a built-in feature of network access. Most of us have in our pockets a telephone, photo/video camera, advanced computer, entertainment and game console. There have also been some notable medical advances - my friend died from leukemia in the 90s, and it’s very treatable now, along with various kinds of tumors.
I was around for that time, and yes in many ways the world is better now, it’s a mixed bag but:
My kids were not beat up in school for being queer.
The bay is much cleaner (though that is going in the wrong direction)
Solar power has come down in cost so much that there is hope for the clean energy transition to accelerate.
I was literally paid less than the men doing the same job I was doing, openly, in the early 1990s. And there was smoking in offices.
Violent crime is much less prevalent than it was back then. My kids don’t have to be as careful or afraid as I was.
Overall - I don’t think it is useful to be nostalgic, there are enough changes in a positive direction, sure we had more hope for the future in the 1990s but the reason we needed it was because things were kinda shitty.
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…
I know, the trend continued. And the 90s were half as bad. Sorry you can’t extrapolate.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
Times in general? No. Certain aspects? Yes, even with fascist rule.
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.
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.
