Have things not really gotten better since the 80s or 90s?

[Hardkill]

I used to think that maybe there was some truth about the idea that the 1950s or 1960s being the "good old days," but now I believe that to be largely a myth. I now get that things in recent times are still way better overall than they were during the 50s, 60s, or 70s, even though the country used to be so much more united and the economic system used to be so much more fair for the bottom 90-something percent of Americans during the mid 1900s than it has been since the early 2000s. 

However, my parents, who lived through the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s decade, 2010s, and so on, don't think that things have necessarily gotten better for the country overall since the 80s to 90s. I mean they've acknowledged that things have now been definitely much better for racial minorities, women, and members lgbtq+ community in America than during the 80s, 90s, or early 2000s with regard to social justice, civil rights, and school/job opportunities. However, they are aware of how much worse off things have been for racial minorities, women, members of the lgbtq+ community, and young people when it come to economic/financial issues since the 80s to 90s such owning a home, being able to afford to go to a college/university, making enough of a comfortable living, etc. Also, my parents never worried about the worsening climate change problems until about the 2010s. Plus, they said that never in their lifetimes had there ever been anyone in our country who was as dangerous to our country's democracy as Trump has been.

Therefore, my parents see it as things perhaps haven't really gotten better overall in our country, but that it's been more like a trade-off since the 80s to 90s. In fact, they believe that the 80s and 90s were still the best decades they ever lived through because of the fact that during those decades peace, prosperity, optimism, and overall level of fairness was at its peak in America and throughout the whole world.

What do you guys think?

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by Hardkill

[Tanz]

@Hardkill The 80s had the AIDS epidemic and people like Fauci was the one that spreaded the fake news that gay men get AIDS easier.  Socially things were worst back in the 80s and 90s for people but economically better because 5-10 years of hard work would allow someone to pay off their home while now its 30 years.  

I don't think there has been ever a year where wars don't exist, people were just less exposed so they weren't aware of the injustice in the world.  

Spiritually there are more awakened people today than the last 30+ years.  Now novice meditators can do a week long retreat and actualize.  In the 90s and early 00s, only a handful of people awakened.  

Today a poor kid from a village in India, Vietnam etc can learn to program and get a 6 figure income within 10 years.  The opportunities around the world have risen while taking away opportunities for people in a place like America.  

Big Pharma and companies that sell food around the world have centralized now and what people eat so our food is far dirtier and less pure than before.  Cancer rates and chronic disease is on the rise because the stuff people are putting in their bodies isn't helping that.  

So then it becomes really hard to say if things are better or not.  

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Tanz said:

and people like Fauci was the one that spreaded the fake news that gay men get AIDS easier. 

It is a medical fact that gay men get HIV way more. In the US 65% of all HIV cases are from gay men.

[Leo Gura]

What I loved most about the 90s ans 00s was the rise of computers and the internet. The days before the internet was dominated by tech giants, there seemed like endless opportunity for the little guy. Many of those opportunities are gone now.

[OBEler]

@Leo Gura New opportunities will raise again with the power of ai. 

The little man will have opportunities again, maybe not like in the beginning of the internet but he will have the power of a whole mancrew thanks to ai. 

[Girzo]

To hell with AI, it’s an even bigger bullshit than crypto. Niche technology with niche applications. To add to it, a field dominated by giga corporations.

AI needs a way bigger memory of what it read just a few minutes ago, and also I am not convinced that the methods used now to develop GPT for example will ever give desirable results.

Midjourney is the biggest turd. Everyone is like saying how nice the pictures are, but this app cannot realize most of the creative ideas you can come up with. Stuff that you could explain to a low skilled artist in two sentences and they would do it, this app cannot do it, no matter how much of toying with commands you do, it’s worth 5% of a real artist.

[Mysterious Stranger]

15 minutes ago, Girzo said:

To hell with AI, it’s an even bigger bullshit than crypto. Niche technology with niche applications. To add to it, a field dominated by giga corporations.

AI needs a way bigger memory of what it read just a few minutes ago, and also I am not convinced that the methods used now to develop GPT for example will ever give desirable results.

Midjourney is the biggest turd. Everyone is like saying how nice the pictures are, but this app cannot realize most of the creative ideas you can come up with. Stuff that you could explain to a low skilled artist in two sentences and they would do it, this app cannot do it, no matter how much of toying with commands you do, it’s worth 5% of a real artist.

20 years from now, AI will cook your fucking food, drive your car, clean your house. 
It will replace most jobs. 
Be careful with being too Myopic

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, OBEler said:

New opportunities will raise again with the power of ai. 

The little man will have opportunities again

Seems like AI will be dominated the by big corps from the start. So that's a bad example.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Leo Gura

[itsadistraction]

3 hours ago, Mysterious Stranger said:

20 years from now, AI will cook your fucking food, drive your car, clean your house. 
It will replace most jobs. 
Be careful with being too Myopic

@Mysterious Stranger  Drive your car sure but Cook your food? Clean your house? Sounds like the Jetsons which was also an over enthusiastic prediction on the future. 

How could AI cook your food? Is every house going to be equipped with robots like they have in the hospitals now? 

[Mysterious Stranger]

1 hour ago, itsadistraction said:

@Mysterious Stranger  Drive your car sure but Cook your food? Clean your house? Sounds like the Jetsons which was also an over enthusiastic prediction on the future. 

How could AI cook your food? Is every house going to be equipped with robots like they have in the hospitals now? 

@itsadistraction Basically, AI has an insane exponential growth, cause it can teach itself and learn from people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Non stop learning. 
But it's also probable that we'll just merge with AI, "if you can't beat it, join it"

[Girzo]

5 hours ago, Mysterious Stranger said:

20 years from now, AI will cook your fucking food, drive your car, clean your house. 
It will replace most jobs. 
Be careful with being too Myopi

No machine ever has been more efficient than humans.

When people plant potatoes by hand it is a return of 20 calories back for every 1 calorie invested into planting them.

When using a tractor the ratio is 5 calories back to 1 calorie invested.

Why are humans still using tractors? Because we have abundant extra source of energy in the form of gas and oil. But this source is running low.

AI and robots are no outsiders to this principle. AI has subpar performance with 2000 times as much energy consumption as a human for the same task.

NO fucking way any robots are taking jobs as cooking from people in 20 years, in the situation where our population is bigger than ever, while at the same time easily accessible energy sources get scarcer and scarcer, no sane person would invest in that technology. Not to mention climate change and additional challenges and demand for energy it will create.

It's pure magical thinking and I am not willing to partake in it. What you are betting on is not only that AI and robotics will improve drastiaclly, but also at the same time we will somehow source shit-tones of rare metals, minerals, but also find new abundant energy sources, but also deal easily with the climate change. It's a delusional bet in my opinion.

[Hardkill]

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

What I loved most about the 90s ans 00s was the rise of computers and the internet. The days before the internet was dominated by tech giants, there seemed like endless opportunity for the little guy. Many of those opportunities are gone now.

 

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Seems like AI will be dominated the by big corps from the start. So that's a bad example.

So, are things better, worse, or about the same now for most people compared to the 80s, 90s, 00s?

[Leo Gura]

34 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

So, are things better, worse, or about the same now for most people compared to the 80s, 90s, 00s?

Your question is far too general to have a proper answer.

It all depends on your place in the world and your situation. And there are many trade-offs. Somethings are better and some things are worse.

Income inequality has gotten worse, for example. But technology has gotten so much better. The tools for making stuff are so much better: like software and hardware.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Scholar]

8 hours ago, OBEler said:

@Leo Gura New opportunities will raise again with the power of ai. 

The little man will have opportunities again, maybe not like in the beginning of the internet but he will have the power of a whole mancrew thanks to ai. 

AI might lead to the most significant concentration of power in the history of mankind. You cannot really add anything to AI that some megacorporation cannot then use to fuel their AI and make you obsolete. That is the inherent problem with this technology and the way we are using it.

And for the few people who will be able to use an AI, you have to consider that it will just lead to less people overall having opportunities. Everything will be so filled with noise that only those who already have a monopoly on attention will be able to benefit from any of this. The average will stand no chance, and even the slightly above average joe will stand no chance.

 

You keep thinking that AI will make you more productive, and in a sense it will make you more productive in terms of output. But all that means is that the standard for how much output vs work input is expected will adjust.

Whatever creative solution you have, someone else will be able to use AI to steal that idea from you effortlessly. It won't matter how good your ideas are, how amazing your contributions are, nobody will even find you in the noise, other than the scrapers who will use your information to then feed them to the audience they have acquired.

There will be a sea of noise and islands of attention monopolies, which will basically lead to a sort of technological feudalism.

 

At least that is how I think this might very well go. In terms of a consumer, you might benefit (although I am skeptical even of this, at least in certain industries), but in terms of a worker and creative, it will become near impossible to survive AI mass data scraping.

Edited September 21, 2023 by Scholar

[Hardkill]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Your question is far too general to have a proper answer.

It all depends on your place in the world and your situation. And there are many trade-offs. Somethings are better and some things are worse.

Income inequality has gotten worse, for example. But technology has gotten so much better. The tools for making stuff are so much better: like software and hardware.

Okay, so let's take a first world country such as the US, UK, Canada, or Australia. Obviously income inequality has gotten increasingly worse, while technology has gotten increasingly a lot better in each of those countries, especially in the US. However, you've mentioned before that things in the US are way better and way more fair overall than they were in the 50s or 60s because America has still become more developed than it's ever been. So, would you say  when taking into account all of the trade-offs, improvements, declines, etc. that have happened over the past 40 years in this country, would you still say that things are still more fair or better overall now than they were in the 80s, 90s, 00s? How about with Canada, UK, or Australia since the 80s?

Edited September 21, 2023 by Hardkill

[Raze]

The 90s had a very high crime rate 

[Danioover9000]

@Girzo

12 hours ago, Girzo said:

To hell with AI, it’s an even bigger bullshit than crypto. Niche technology with niche applications. To add to it, a field dominated by giga corporations.

AI needs a way bigger memory of what it read just a few minutes ago, and also I am not convinced that the methods used now to develop GPT for example will ever give desirable results.

Midjourney is the biggest turd. Everyone is like saying how nice the pictures are, but this app cannot realize most of the creative ideas you can come up with. Stuff that you could explain to a low skilled artist in two sentences and they would do it, this app cannot do it, no matter how much of toying with commands you do, it’s worth 5% of a real artist.

   Thank you, I needed to read this. So therapeutic.

[OBEler]

@Girzo you are very pessimistic 

We will have a new accu revolution in next 10 years. 

By the way only because of last accu Revolution the Smartphone was possible. With the new energy Revolution humanoid robots will work for us

 

"AI needs a way bigger memory of what it read just a few minutes ago, and also I am not convinced that the methods used now to develop GPT for example will ever give desirable results." 

What? Have you not ever tried chatgpt 4? It's absolutely mindblowing how useful this is, I use it daily as a Software developers

Edited September 22, 2023 by OBEler

[Tanz]

21 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

In the US 65% of all HIV cases are from gay men.

That's because they have more sex and more unprotected sex but to say gay men have it more without identifying the problem is misleading and considered homophobic by the gay community.  Not to mention the partying and drug use.  I used to think that way too until one of my gay friends called me out on it.   If a woman were to have that kind of lifestyle they would be equally prevalent to getting AIDS.  
Women just take care of themselves better than men when it comes to the health department which is one of the reasons they live longer on average.  

Edited September 22, 2023 by Tanz

[Leo Gura]

@Tanz

1) But all those factors are highly relevant.

2) HIV transmits more through anal sex regardless.

Sometimes stereotypes exist for good reason. If your gay friends are offended by the facts that's their problem.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Leo Gura