Is society in your opinion better or worse from 30-40 years ago?

[Arkitech]

just curious what the consensus is

 

[Matthiasa]

As a whole yes.
Some parts are better and some are worse but overall it's in sort of the almost proper direction.

 

[BoomerD]

IMO, kind of a wash. SOME aspects are better...some are worse.

 

[Arkitech]

I was thinking exactly the opposite. Some parts are better but overall it's seems much worse.

 

[HeXen]

All societies throughout history have consistantly go up and down depending on your view of what that is. Its basically change and adoption to that change between living generations.

You could view today as better in terms of safety and living standards. You could also view it as worse in terms of behaviors..etc.

30 years ago, i was 5 years old. My mom left me in the car and no one cared. i used to sit not just in the front seat, but the arm rest of the front door so i could see..lol. If that happened today, my mom would be in jail. I also got my ass whacked in school if i acted up. Today, kids act how they want cause no one can touch them without going to jail. There were more drunk drivers on the road more often, i can certainly tell ya that. But today we have more drivers and more stupid drivers on top of that.
Coke came in glass bottles...but there was always broken glass along the roadside. Today we have more recycling. We also had to use paper maps to go on vacation and not GPS's, you could buy real wood lumber that was straight............my point is, its more of the same, just different if that makes any sense. some ways its improved, some ways its worse.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Crime has gone down significantly since then and people are in general less bigoted than they were (probably because of all the old people that have died since then). I dunno, I'm having a hard time coming up with what components "society" is built up of. Overall I think it's break even at worst.

EDIT: Oh, but the sue-happy culture since (and starting with?) the 80's and how that has changed American behavior certainly isn't a positive.

 

[SsupernovaE]

For the world as a whole, it's MUCH better. For Americans, it's better overall, but many things are worse.

 

[Number1]

Things are much better for us then in 1972 from just about every point of view. Better close, better medicine, better transportation, better laws, better communication, the internet and on and on.

 

[Perknose]

You may think it's a minor point, but your failure to emply proper English grammar in your title indicates one area where our society and our educational system has truly gone south.

I'm not just talking about your failure to delimit the clause "in your opinion" with commas, either. I'm talking about your use of "worse . . . from." It grates on the ears of any reasonably literate English speaker, yet I doubt you even noticed.

"Worse" is a comparative adjective. It takes "than."

Below find a grammatical snippet from the web that outlines this distinction:

People say different than out of the mistaken belief that different is a adjective and thus takes than, as with better than, faster than, etc. But it's not a comparative (diff, differ, diffest?), it just looks like one. Different is used to draw a distinction and thus properly takes from, as do separate from, distinct from, apart from, etc.

 

[Perknose]

Things are much better then [sic] in 1972 from just about every point of view.

And then there are supposedly educated adults who can't even properly differentiate between "then" and "than."

I rest my case.

 

[HeXen]

grammar Nazi's attack!!!

 

[Number1]

And then there are supposedly educated adults who can't even properly differentiate between "then" and "than."

I rest my case.

F you bud. Yes you're right I don't know it.

 

[BladeVenom]

While most things have gotten better, music has gotten worse.

 

[Number1]

While most things have gotten better, music has gotten worse.

Why do you say that?

 

[Jaskalas]

The internet helps tremendously. It needs to remain easily accessible, free and open. Communication is essential. ESSENTIAL to avoiding war.

OTOH, America has passed through its golden age, and so sitting at the chair of a floundering whale whose best days are behind her... it's very difficult to tell you we are better off than we were.

Our superpower status will end with our debt crisis. The bubble that has been inflated to mask the previous one will burst. That day will be a reckoning. You don't f' with the currency the way we're going and keep your place in the world.

With our population increasing and resources already pegged... quality of life is going to fall. Rest of the world will be dealing with these problems as well, but we're well beyond our means. Our way of life will be required to change the most. Fat and greedy folks among us won't handle that change without a riot and civil unrest.

Whatever remains ... well, your original question seems quite silly to ask. Although we are still on the cusp of revolution and not quite there yet. Perhaps you can still say things are still looking great outside... but I'm more concerned about what lays directly ahead.

Society has a lot of !@#$ to deal with that it has put off for far too long.

 

[Perknose]

F you bud. Yes you're right I don't know it.

If I told you your fly was open, would you respond, "F you bud," or would you thank me and zip up your fly? Zip up your grammatical fly.

I'm sure there are innumerable things you know that I don't. We all learn from each other, and learning is a life-long process. Don't ever be too proud to remove the metaphoric spinach from your teeth.

I'd bet you take pride in your grooming and appearance, and pride in the computer hardware and software you use. Language is your most basic tool. Take pride in that, too.

 

[Engineer]

I would say yes but with the decline of the middle class, how long will it last? Keep on whistling and ignoring it and next thing you know, you'll be a part of the slide.

 

[SirStev0]

With out a doubt. Is it as good as it could be? Fucking no. We have too much bullshit holding back progress.

 

[Meghan54]

The trouble, Perk, is no one values language and its proper use any longer. So we stumble down the rabbit hole towards meaningless babble. And our math and science scores, when contrasted against the other countries of the world, reflect this. If current generations see no value in good grammar, the basic tool of communication, then how can any value be placed on math and science, science which depends upon precise communication.

C'est la vie. The unread and unwashed. I shudder to think what will happen to this world when the "F U" types become the "leaders" of this and other countries.

And that "F U" retort points out another area that has declined dramatically, common civility. More's the pity for that, too. I do feel sorry for the "kids" these days.

 

[Number1]

If I told you your fly was open, would you respond, "F you bud," or would you thank me and zip up your fly? Zip up your grammatical fly.

I'm sure there are innumerable things you know that I don't. We all learn from each other, and learning is a life-long process. Don't ever be too proud to remove the metaphoric spinach from your teeth.

I'd bet you take pride in your grooming and appearance, and pride in the computer hardware and software you use. Language is your most basic tool. Take pride in that, too.

I take pride in the way I present my ideas in here. I do it to the best of my abilities. I remember a time where I pointed out a mistake in your use of the french language and it was not well received AT ALL. I have nothing more to tell you.

 

[Matthiasa]

Language is what lesser minds worry about. Those with grand ideas, those ideas that have the true possibility to change everything we have come to know, do not have time to waste on matters so trivial.

 

[Perknose]

I take pride in the way I present my ideas in here. I do it to the best of my abilities. I remember a time where I pointed out a mistake in your use of the french language and it was not well received AT ALL. I have nothing more to tell you.

Link or shens.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

To be honest "not well received at all" is clearly taking things too far, but it does show that Perknose's generation contained a certain intellectual sloth that his grandparent's generation were above. No wonder society today continues its descent with role models like that.

 

[Jeff7]

You may think it's a minor point, but your failure to emply proper English grammar in your title indicates one area where our society and our educational system has truly gone south.
...

:hmm:

The trouble, Perk, is no one values language and its proper use any longer. So we stumble down the rabbit hole towards meaningless babble. And our math and science scores, when contrasted against the other countries of the world, reflect this. If current generations see no value in good grammar, the basic tool of communication, then how can any value be placed on math and science, science which depends upon precise communication.

C'est la vie. The unread and unwashed. I shudder to think what will happen to this world when the "F U" types become the "leaders" of this and other countries.

And that "F U" retort points out another area that has declined dramatically, common civility. More's the pity for that, too. I do feel sorry for the "kids" these days.

:thumbsup:
I can't stand hearing how attempts to adhere to the established rules of a language are somehow nitpicky, rude, or unnecessary. People have a long history of misunderstanding each other, which can even escalate to the point of violence. English is also a bit clumsy and psychotic in its rules, but no one wants to change to a different language either, such as an engineered language, something created such that it could make sense. (Goose? Geese! Moose? Meese? Nope. Thank you, English.) Changing would take time, and there are logistical difficulties that would need to be overcome. But it could make it easier to communicate, and as a species that's very much interested in communicating, this would seem to be something desirable.

If everyone adheres to the same rules, it at least reduces the chances of a miscommunication. Or at the very least, if there is a misunderstanding, you might be able to say that you were indeed correct, and the other person's poor understanding of the language was the reason for their own failure to comprehend what you'd said or typed.


My favorite, and surely the most eloquent, example:

"I helped my uncle, Jack, off a horse."
"i helped my uncle jack off a horse"

Wah, typing punctuation is hard, and so is the horse.

 

[Matthiasa]

To be fair, there is a lot of money in that second sentence if done to the proper horse.