When did the world hit it's peak? (1 Viewer)

[DocHolliday]

Im not sure how I survived in the 90s, let alone the 1910s. 

Wow.  You are really old.  

 

[Cowboysfan8]

All of you picking anything other than current day are cracking me up. To the original poster who wanted the early 1900s, do you know what the average lifespan was in 1910?  It was 49 years of age, now it’s almost 80. I can wake up, hop on a plane and be anywhere in the world by this evening. I’m sitting on a couch right now in a fully automated heated/cooled home, communicating with people by touching a screen, and in 10 seconds can pull up any piece of information in the history of the world on my phone.

Im not sure how I survived in the 90s, let alone the 1910s. 

I was right there with you until the last line

I miss the 90s      

 

[bigmarc27]

I was right there with you until the last line

I miss the 90s      

I do too but it’s all nostalgia at this point. Any product or quality of life component is without a doubt better and more convenient in 2018. 

 

[flapgreen]

Still peaking baby 

 

[Ilov80s]

September 12th, 2001

Do you realize how this comes off?

 

[jvdesigns2002]

I believe it was about 1910-1914. 

The Industrial Revolution was in full bloom with horseless carriages and flying machines!  No "Great", "World" or "Cold" Wars, no mass genocide, plagues pretty much in the past.  No Great Depression or over-population. No Fascism, Communism, or Terrorism. Everything was simple and the future was bright.  Sure, technology has made incredible leaps since then, but has that outweighed the many negative world influences?  I may sound like an old geezer, but I'm not optimistic about the world my grandchildren (should I have any) will live in.

Interesting take.  You realize that World War I started in 1914, right?   If the world was "peaking" in the window of time that you claim--things sure as hell unraveled pretty dang fast.  

 

[Ilov80s]

Interesting take.  You realize that World War I started in 1914, right?   If the world was "peaking" in the window of time that you claim--things sure as hell unraveled pretty dang fast.  

Right, it wasn’t just one little Archduke getting killed that launched the world into war.

 

[Guest]

Do you realize how this comes off?

Probably doesn't come off how it was meant.  What I meant was the sense of unity on that day. Maybe just a US thing.  We haven't been as united as a country since.  

Sorry if it was taken any other way.

 

[rockaction]

Probably doesn't come off how it was meant.  What I meant was the sense of unity on that day. Maybe just a US thing.  We haven't been as united as a country since.  

Sorry if it was taken any other way.

I honestly knew what you meant. The entire Western world was united against the evils of terrorism that day. 

I remember.  

 

[Osaurus]

If man is still alive

Lol

 

[wikkidpissah]

I do too but it’s all nostalgia at this point. Any product or quality of life component is without a doubt better and more convenient in 2018. 

Life is about a little more than access and mancave sophistication. 50-60 years ago, a person could leave the house fairly confident that their senses would not be assaulted in any way and that they could expect cooperation from friend & stranger alike in the public sphere. Of course, they largely had to be white & male & straight for that to be the case, so we got on that....25-30 years ago, the paths of most American lives were unobstructed, most people were confident and considerate, problems still had answers. Now, contact has never been so easy nor repulsive. Conducting life in public means being regularly forced to swallow da bidness of others whole without complaint; personal disease has never been more virulent and our children are not being raised to be immunized to anything. Although some of the timing is coincidental, America has been a Walmart complaint department since 9/11. The world i was born into had more in common with 1900 than 2000 and i was damn glad to be where i was in 2000. Can't say that now, and it's more than nostalgia.

 

[sports_fan]

The apostrophe is killing me. 

But antibiotics might have been the silentest shot around the world as far as greatness goes.  

I, know what you, mean

 

[DallasDMac]

 I’m sitting on a couch right now in a fully automated heated/cooled home, communicating with people by touching a screen, and in 10 seconds can pull up any piece of information in the history of the world on my phone.

Im not sure how I survived in the 90s, let alone the 1910s. 

Nevermind...

 

[Ilov80s]

Probably doesn't come off how it was meant.  What I meant was the sense of unity on that day. Maybe just a US thing.  We haven't been as united as a country since.  

Sorry if it was taken any other way.

I get what you are saying but I don’t really like the answer. After a terror attack or something like Pearl Harbor, there is a heightened sense of unity. I’m not going to call peak life a nation mourning the murder of hundred to thousands of citizens and the shared bloodlust that comes with it. Not even close to peak. 9/10/01  was a hell of a lot closer.

 

[rockaction]

I get what you are saying but I don’t really like the answer. After a terror attack or something like Pearl Harbor, there is a heightened sense of unity. I’m not going to call peak life a nation mourning the murder of hundred to thousands of citizens and the shared bloodlust that comes with it. Not even close to peak. 9/10/01  was a hell of a lot closer.

And you, a wolverine

:Red Dawn: 

Wolverines!  

 

[rockaction]

I, know what you, mean

No comma is fine right there.  

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

I believe it was about 1910-1914. 

The Industrial Revolution was in full bloom with horseless carriages and flying machines!  No "Great", "World" or "Cold" Wars, no mass genocide, plagues pretty much in the past.  No Great Depression or over-population. No Fascism, Communism, or Terrorism. Everything was simple and the future was bright.  Sure, technology has made incredible leaps since then, but has that outweighed the many negative world influences?  I may sound like an old geezer, but I'm not optimistic about the world my grandchildren (should I have any) will live in.

I agree with this. I’m presuming progress on civil rights and racial equality would have continued apace in saying so. We’re still living in a post World War 1 world IMO.

 

[dgreen]

https://ourworldindata.org/

A great resource for what’s been happening in the world. 

 

[Apple Jack]

September 12th, 2001

Wtf?

 

[Gopher State]

The minute before the first post was made in the political forum!

 

[Ilov80s]

I agree with this. I’m presuming progress on civil rights and racial equality would have continued apace in saying so. We’re still living in a post World War 1 world IMO.

You think human life peaked before we discovered penicillin?

 

[Native]

1999

Yes I think mid-late 90s. Economy surging, deficit shrinking, cold war ended, real prospect of peace in the Middle East,  the emergence of mobile and internet technology transforming traditional ways of working, and the human genome is fully mapped so scientists start reimagining human health and medicine.

Also pre 9/11 and pre market crash. And US politics is not yet fully bifurcated - the Presidnet and VP are Democrats from the Deep South while traditionally Blue states such as California, NJ, NY, and others have Republican Governors. 

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

You think human life peaked before we discovered penicillin?

I think it wasp peaking before we scrapped 200 million lives on the alters of nationalism and communism.

 

[Ilov80s]

I think it wasp peaking before we scrapped 200 million lives on the alters of nationalism and communism.

The war didn’t spring up out of nowhere. It had building for awhile. A world mostly ran by imperialist Europe can’t possibly be peak life on earth. 

 

[ShamrockPride]

September 12th, 2001

Have fun in Gitmo

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

The war didn’t spring up out of nowhere. It had building for awhile. A world mostly ran by imperialist Europe can’t possibly be peak life on earth. 

You’re right on that. Also that positive things like penicillin and democracy came out of it all too, but I’d also say nuclear weapons is the worst. I could certainly do without that.

 

[-fish-]

I do too but it’s all nostalgia at this point. Any product or quality of life component is without a doubt better and more convenient in 2018. 

My health insurance was better and cheaper.  

 

[bigmarc27]

My health insurance was better and cheaper.  

Medical care was cheaper when we used leeches and salt tablets to cure everything. 

 

[Sinn Fein]

Medical care was cheaper when we used leeches and salt tablets to cure everything. 

Was it cheaper in relative terms?

I think health care was only for the wealthy...

 

[flapgreen]

Probably doesn't come off how it was meant.  What I meant was the sense of unity on that day. Maybe just a US thing.  We haven't been as united as a country since.  

Sorry if it was taken any other way.

Completely agree. 

 

[Leroy Hoard]

The minute before the first post was made in the political forum!

The minute before the first troll alias was created in the political forum.

 

[Ilov80s]

Completely agree. 

Agree that the country was very united following 9/11 or that it was the peak of human existence?

 

[D_House]

During the lambada craze of the late 80s.  The forbidden dance

 

[Apple Jack]

During the lambada craze of the late 80s.  The forbidden dance

Now your talking. Hot on the heels of the Conga.

 

[DocHolliday]

My health insurance was better and cheaper.  

My healthcare was 100% paid by my employer in the 90s.   

But, it's easy to poke holes in any answer that is thrown out.  

As a white male, it seems like the 50s would have been pretty great.  Life seemed much simpler than it is today.   

 

[Sheriff Bart]

Whenever having mistresses is global social norm. 

 

[leftcoastguy7]

Whenever guns were invented

 

[flapgreen]

Agree that the country was very united following 9/11 or that it was the peak of human existence?

Well, I guess meant the United part.  As far as I'm concerned, the peak was before social media and smartphones. Late 90s/early 2000s.  Most people were happy and people hadn't checked out of life and onto a screen yet. The world changed shortly after and will never return to how it was. 

 

[The General]

 It even close to our peak. 

 

[wikkidpissah]

I hope it was only a speedbump, but cable television was the beginning of the end. Media was important, an easy net positive til then. People weren't connected with the whole world before that, they were connected to their community. TV was a way to feel more wonder around us, bringing performance of all the great stage stars into our homes, the glamour and hope of the Kennedys, Nureyev & Fonteyn, then the Beatles, brought new inspirations and aspirations into every home.. But it was an accessory, not a dependency. When Star Wars sucked in the fanboys and TV babysitted their latchkey lives with endless repeats of junkish 80s flix, cable news plugged regular folk into the 24-hour news cycle around the world, cable companies fell upon the curiosities & junkier aspects of our culture to fill 24/7 100-channel programming, it did two things to American society - changed our focus from doing to watching and put our attention into the hands of people who made untold riches, and possibly gained control of the world, merely by engineering our attention. It took a couple of decades for us to get completely played, but we are now.

 

[lod001]

Around 1980s to 2000. After that we've gone downhill, rapidly on average IQ, regardless of what any stats say. People now are dumber than ever. The dumb are breeding because they get free stuff. The smart people cannot afford to keep up with them on the reproductive front.

 

[Leroy Hoard]

Around 1980s to 2000. After that we've gone downhill, rapidly on average IQ, regardless of what any stats say. People now are dumber than ever. The dumb are breeding because they get free stuff. The smart people cannot afford to keep up with them on the reproductive front.

The smart people are smart enough not to overbreed. Besides, they have enough money to buy other hobbies outside of baby making.

 

[flapgreen]

Around 1980s to 2000. After that we've gone downhill, rapidly on average IQ, regardless of what any stats say. People now are dumber than ever. The dumb are breeding because they get free stuff. The smart people cannot afford to keep up with them on the reproductive front.

Exactly 

 

[Ilov80s]

I wonder what the correlation is on people’s answers and the year that they graduated high school. 

 

[Galileo]

Related

 

[GroveDiesel]

Go spend some time reading HumanProgress.org.

In the last 20 years extreme poverty has almost disappeared. Things are objectively so much better than ever before.

The book The Progress Paradox is a great read on just how far we've come but how people are more miserable than ever for some reason. And because of that misery, the vast majority of people actually perceive the world to be much worse off than it is...which, IMO, is laregly responsible for the state of politics today as everyone has an ax to grind and believes that the world is a horrible place.

 

[bcdjr1]

I was born in 1966, but would have loved to be about 20 years old then and skate from going to Nam. The music alone in the late 60’s and early 70’s is enough for me to just want to go back to that time and wander the streets of LA smoking a doobie and drinking a beer and listening to awesome music.

You do realize that you can wander the streets of LA smoking a doobie, drinking a beer, and listening to that same music now, right? And in 50 years, you’ll likely still be able to the same.

They recorded it just so you could listen to it whenever you want. Not only that, but you could listen to all the great music that has come since. 

 

[Nipsey]

When she gets out of the pool in Fast Times.

 

[kutta]

You do realize that you can wander the streets of LA smoking a doobie, drinking a beer, and listening to that same music now, right? And in 50 years, you’ll likely still be able to the same.

They recorded it just so you could listen to it whenever you want. Not only that, but you could listen to all the great music that has come since. 

I don’t think Dylan and The Doors and the Stones are playing at Whiskey a Go Go in Hollywood next week  

 

[Ilov80s]

You do realize that you can wander the streets of LA smoking a doobie, drinking a beer, and listening to that same music now, right? And in 50 years, you’ll likely still be able to the same.

They recorded it just so you could listen to it whenever you want. Not only that, but you could listen to all the great music that has come since. 

and the weed and beer is a heck of a lot better now than it was in 68