# Are there any ways in which the past really was better? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 25, 2012, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340 "2012-07-25T15:15:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/102 "2012-07-27T16:24:59Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > That is very true. I am a single father with a great job and I still find it hard to stretch that paycheck to cover everything that I am expected to on my job alone but I make it work. I have exceptional circumstances where I can never truly go broke but I do wonder how in the hell other people are making it especially when they make much less as a family than I do as as single. I guess they really aren’t. The math doesn’t add up and the credit card debt rate and the home foreclosure rate have been revealing all the posers who shouldn’t have been fronting the lifestyle they claimed. > > There is a counterpoint that middle-class expectations have shifted so much higher since the 1950’s and 1960’s that it isn’t a valid comparison. Middle class people used to take vacations down by the local lake and the upper middle class ones may even have owned a cabin there.Now, everyone in the upper-middle class expects a lifestyle that was only the domain of the jet setters in the 1970’s and I am not sure if they had the money for either. They also had crappy houses compared to today, less choice in food, and just about everything else. > > I do know for a fact that the math doesn’t work at all for a typical middle-class family that wants to buy a decent home in their 20’s or early 30’s, have two or three kids, save for retirement at 65, and simultaneously save for large part of each child’s college tuition all while paying for day care and other expenses associated with having two working parents. You simply can’t do that on the middle-class range of salaries in the $40 - $90K range without resorting to extreme stunts that wouldn’t work for most people. > > The dying middle class phenomenon is very real and the retirement dream has already slipped out of the grasp of many Baby Boomers due to their own individual bad choices but it will not be a choice at all for Gen X and below and there is little anyone can do about it. The money simply isn’t there. The biggest issue here is your second paragraph: If we scaled down to 1950s standards – one car, no TV, one land line phone, carefully budgeted home-cooked meals (no eating out), no clothes dryer, no air conditioning, no computer, etc., etc., a family might be able to manage. But none of us wants to live that way now. Also, of course, if one of two adults in the family is home there is no need for day care. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/103 "2012-07-27T16:31:40Z")
Re: BobLibDem. Sorry for Usenet-style quotes; makes it easier for this post. _\> The politics were better. Democrats and Republicans differed on policy, but we all watched the same evening news broadcasts and we all started with the same set of facts._ Agree when it comes to consensus between the parties, but there was still a sharp ideological divide between right and left, rural and urban, and North and South. There were conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans. _\> Women dressed nicer- it was at one time extremely uncommon to see bare legs and dresses._ Opinion. I agree somewhat, but it would be a shame to see a return to 1950s-style modesty. _\> Tattoos were something that sailors got._ Opinion. I agree, but still opinion. \*\> If you wanted to play some baseball, you got on your bike and recruited players. \* Probably has something to do with changes in childhood socialization patterns in the 1990s; helicopter parents, more organized activities, the end of free-range parenting due to “stranger danger”, and the like. _\> You could go to a game without spending a day’s pay on tickets and parking._ True. In a stadium with “character” that was built in 1912, and hadn’t been touched since. Enjoy the “character” and “authenticity” of the view behind one of the several hundred girders that supported the roof. However, you had to spend money on dry cleaning the wool suit, fedora and tie you had to wear to the game. _\> If you wanted to talk to a friend, you went to their house or called them._ You can still do that, although house visits without notice aren’t as socially acceptable today. \*\> The music was better. \* Opinion, and survivor bias. We don’t hear much of the crap from the past, except maybe novelty and kitschy adult contemporary songs from the 1970s. Less variety from the era, too, partly because until the late 1950s there was little difference between youth and adult culture. Garage bands got promotion on local TV dance shows, which was kind of neat. _\> There were game shows on every network from 9-11._ Meh. Not something I’d call “better”. _\> There were no infomercials._ On the three channels you were able to receive. However, television shows of the era usually had one sponsor, effectively making them infomercials: “The Old Gold Swell Fun Time Hour”, “The Lucky Strike Gee-Whiz Children’s Club”, “The Canadian Club Cavalcade of Cartoons”, etc. All negro-free, because those people knew their place, and it wasn’t in front of a television camera. _\> You did your banking without knowing a PIN or a password._ You can still do it. \*\> There was no designated hitter and no interleague play. \* Opinion. \> Hockey teams were only located in places that gave a shit about hockey. Six cities for the NHL. The “Original Six” era was considered one of the most boring for hockey. Great players, but just dull. A lot of hockey-mad cities that could support a professional franchise had to settle for WHL or International League teams. \> You could graduate from high school, walk into a factory and have a well paying job with a pension and be able to put your kids through college. True, but that era only had a short timeframe - roughly 1945 to 1975. My Dad talked about how recruiters from area factories would set up in front of schools towards the end of the school year. \> There were no Kardashians. There were other celebrities that people obsessed over. Celebrity worship is nothing new. \> When you went camping, you pitched a tent and hiked and swam. You didn’t pull up an RV and hunker down inside with a DVD. You can still do that. No cite, but I think tents and backpacks outsell RVs by a wide margin. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/104 "2012-07-27T16:37:44Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Women dressed nicer- it was at one time extremely uncommon to see bare legs and dresses. So did men. Both parties used to dress up for anything past a coke date. Now it’s more common to see a couple where the woman is a little dressy but the man’s right off the couch. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/105 "2012-07-27T16:43:47Z")
> [@ducati](#): > > Now any shlub in a wife-beater and flip-flops can buy a ticket and bother you all the way to Miami. Except they cannot bother you unless you allow it to happen, right? If the shlub sits down next to me and begins talking I can (and do) put on my headset and close my eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/106 "2012-07-27T16:56:28Z")
You can spend less on clothes now with less formal standards of dress. I didn’t have to buy any maternity suits, since I didn’t work at a job that required me to wear a suit. I was able to keep wearing most of my stretchy non-maternity polo shirts. That’s a significant cost savings, and much more convenient for me. I get clothes dry-cleaned once every few years. There’s another cost saving and big convenience. I would guess that most people like less formal standards of dress. If most people wanted to dress up, there’s nothing keeping them from doing that now. They don’t, so I conclude that most people do not want to. > [@ducati](#): > > Fireflies. Where are they now? Pittsburgh. We have them here. > [@](#): > > Telephones were better. Yeah Siri can tell you when your dentist appointment is, but you drop her and she’s toast. Ma Bell rented you phone made like a black box. You could actually kill someone with it. You couldn’t break it if you tried. Now that’s quality! AMERICAN quality! But you didn’t carry that phone around with you everywhere you go, like you do with a cell phone now. Those old phones were less likely to get damaged by water, since you couldn’t drop them in the toilet or leave them in your pocket when you do the laundry. They weren’t used the same way as cell phones now, so it’s not really a fair comparison. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/107 "2012-07-27T16:59:15Z")
Camping in campgrounds used to be a much more " we are camping" experience. At night you mostly sat in the dark around a campfire and perhaps a coleman lantern. You might have some loud talkers or some hippy strumming on a geetar. Then came loud radios which turned into boom boxes. Then with electricty at every site all those people afraid of the dark could light the place up like a 7-11 parking lot. And often the darn campground has a bunch of streetlights. And then came large numbers of travel trailers and RV with air conditioners, generators, and outside big screen TV so the guys can watch the BIG GAME at full volume outside. Todays camping at most parks in my opinion is not better these days. Yes for the people who like those things. But all those people liking those things prevents me from doing the way I’d like too at many places at which I would like to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/108 "2012-07-27T17:48:43Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > [hijack] I love comments like this. You have absolutely no clue about about this subject. > A good ABS/stability will out preform you by such a large margin it isn’t even a contest. > Picture this. You are driving on a road where your right two tires are in water/ or there is loose gravel on the pavement. You need to panic stop. > What is going you work better you applying the same brake force to all 4 wheels or the computer that can vary the pressure to each wheel individually up to 15 times a second to achieve maximum deceleration? > Or how about stability systems that recalculate what it takes to keep the car on the road that recalculate ever 7 milliseconds. No way you can think much less act even a tenth that fast. > With that said I have driven some crappy ABS systems from 15 years ago that pretty bad, but that was an individual model not the entire class of systems. > [/hijack] Actually, I am quite knowledgeable of ABS, traction control and electronic stability. I’ve been designing, developing and testing the systems on cars and motorcycles for almost 10 years. Trust me, a little wheel lock, which ABS almost completely eliminates, allows you to maximize stopping distance. In fact, the ABS requirement is that you must achieve 110% stopping distance with ABS compared to without ABS. Thus, if you can achieve 100’ stopping distance from 60-0 without ABS, you must achieve 110’ or better with ABS. That said, the functions provide a wonderful benefit to almost all drivers. Very few truly know how to handle their cars in emergency situations and that’s where ABS and stability control play a huge role. But they can be beaten by drivers with a little training, which is why peformance drivers disable the systems, if possible. ---
**Author:** ![phreesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/109 "2012-07-27T18:31:45Z")
People seem to have a very short memory in terms of the environment. Yeah, 50 years ago, there was a bunch of pollution and environmental regulations were poor, but before that, the world was cleaner. I 100% agree that environmental regulation is awesome and the environment is cleaner (in the developed world) than it was 20 years ago, but it’s absurd to say that the environment is in better shape today than it was 100, 200, 500 years ago. Anybody see info on the snow cover in Greenland? The state of the ozone layer? Ever taken a walk in the slums of India? The world was cleaner in the past. The world is currently cleaner than the VERY recent past, but we’ve got a LONG way to go in terms of making it as clean as the it was a century ago. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/110 "2012-07-27T19:26:50Z")
> [@phreesh](#): > > I 100% agree that environmental regulation is awesome and the environment is cleaner (in the developed world) than it was 20 years ago, but it’s absurd to say that the environment is in better shape today than it was 100, 200, 500 years ago. Ten years ago, Wild Ohio magazine had an article that described what Ohio looked like 200 years ago (1802) and 100 years ago (1902). In 1802, Ohio was a big forest for the most part. Lots of big trees everywhere and lots of cool wildlife. In 1902 Ohio looked like a wasteland. Almost all the trees were gone, most of the wild animals were gone (there were no Whitetail deer), and the rivers were heavily polluted. Today there are more trees in Ohio than in 1802 (albeit most of the trees today are much younger and smaller). The rivers are clean and there are 450,000 Whitetail deer. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/111 "2012-07-27T20:13:19Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Actually, I am quite knowledgeable of ABS, traction control and electronic stability. I’ve been designing, developing and testing the systems on cars and motorcycles for almost 10 years. Trust me, a little wheel lock, which ABS almost completely eliminates, allows you to maximize stopping distance. In fact, the ABS requirement is that you must achieve 110% stopping distance with ABS compared to without ABS. Thus, if you can achieve 100’ stopping distance from 60-0 without ABS, you must achieve 110’ or better with ABS. > > That said, the functions provide a wonderful benefit to almost all drivers. Very few truly know how to handle their cars in emergency situations and that’s where ABS and stability control play a huge role. But they can be beaten by drivers with a little training, which is why peformance drivers disable the systems, if possible. I don’t know who you work for, but I taught this stuff for a car maker for 15 years and have worked on these systems for 25 years. While a shorter stopping distance is not a design requirement for ABS systems the reality is that with a good ABS system the limiting factor is the adhesion of the tires. The top flight system on European cars will hold the tire right on the ragged edge of lockup which is the point of maximum brake force. There is one glaring exception to this and that would be snow/gravel/sand where the stopping distance is longer than locking the wheels, but steering control is maintained. I have on many occasions taken students out and using the scan tool demonstrated a 0.8+ G stop using the ABS. Disabling the ABS system 0.7G isn’t too hard to achieve, 0.75G is doable, getting to 0.8 takes a lot of concentration and above that is luck and race driver level skill. I highly doubt that you could find one driver out of 10,000 that when presented with an emergency situation while driving on the road can hit the brake pedal take the tires right to the limit of adhesion, and hold the car at that point while doing an emergency avoidance maneuver. Sensory overload. We have not yet addressed if you have different traction levels between tires in which case sans ABS you are limited to the traction of the worst corner. So the reality is here in the real world ABS kicks ass and takes names. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/112 "2012-07-27T20:22:50Z")
Dunno about the rest of your posts, but I regularly see fireflies in my urban-ish neighborhood during spring and autumn when the weather has been cooler and rainier. (I’m in Texas. The concepts “cool” and “rainy” seem very foreign at the moment.) ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/113 "2012-07-27T20:23:31Z")
> [@phreesh](#): > > Yeah, 50 years ago, there was a bunch of pollution and environmental regulations were poor, but before that, the world was cleaner. [100 years](http://www.shorpy.com/node/12148?size=_original#caption) [ago](http://www.shorpy.com/node/4361?size=_original#caption), [the environment](http://www.shorpy.com/node/12935?size=_original#caption) [was so](http://www.shorpy.com/node/7364?size=_original#caption) [much cleaner](http://www.shorpy.com/node/10045?size=_original#caption). [Uh huh](http://www.shorpy.com/node/11904?size=_original#caption). ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/114 "2012-07-27T20:31:14Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Ten years ago, Wild Ohio magazine had an article that described what Ohio looked like 200 years ago (1802) and 100 years ago (1902). > > In 1802, Ohio was a big forest for the most part. Lots of big trees everywhere and lots of cool wildlife. > > In 1902 Ohio looked like a wasteland. Almost all the trees were gone, most of the wild animals were gone (there were no Whitetail deer), and the rivers were heavily polluted. > > Today there are more trees in Ohio than in 1802 (albeit most of the trees today are much younger and smaller). The rivers are clean and there are 450,000 Whitetail deer. The same is true of New England. The New England states look so quaint today like they are stuck in a time long ago. In reality, most of New England was almost completely clearcut by the late 1800’s and often much earlier than that. It looked like a hilly version of Kansas. The forests started growing back in the earlier to middle 20th century when large scale logging became less common in the region and the forests recovered. It is a forested region outside of the cities today. That is why you find stone walls practically anywhere you walk in the New England woods of today. Those used to be clearcut pastures and farmland. It is much prettier and now than it was 100 or even 150 years ago and the wildlife is more abundant as well. ---
**Author:** ![phreesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/115 "2012-07-27T20:34:31Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > [100 years](http://www.shorpy.com/node/12148?size=_original#caption) [ago](http://www.shorpy.com/node/4361?size=_original#caption), [the environment](http://www.shorpy.com/node/12935?size=_original#caption) [was so](http://www.shorpy.com/node/7364?size=_original#caption) [much cleaner](http://www.shorpy.com/node/10045?size=_original#caption). [Uh huh](http://www.shorpy.com/node/11904?size=_original#caption). I suppose we are probably dealing with too broad a time period when we speak of the ‘past’. I’m no expert on environmental statistics, but I would think that \*\*global \*\*environmental pollution/degradation was still less than it is today 100 years ago. As your photos show, there were places where environmental damage was.. disquieting. I would think (again, subject to correction) that the problem was limited to developed countries and even in those countries, limited areas. And, I would note that people speak to of England and the United States when they speak of the ravages of the industrial revolution. I don’t dispute that local air pollution and deforestation were terrible, but what was the environment like in Africa, South America, SE Asia? I have literally no idea, but I expect the environment is worse now than then, in general. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/116 "2012-07-27T20:49:54Z")
I don’t know about _better_ but the past was certainly a different country and a more trusting _(naive?)_ one. A couple of years ago I read a book of ‘true life’ ghost stories which had been sent in to an American magazine which had been published in the 1930’s _(no I don’t believe the stories but they make fun reading)_. What really struck me was that more than a few of the stories ran along the lines of: “I was at home by myself and the children as my husband was away on a long commercial trip. A strange man came to the door and told me he was a friend of my husbands and would I mind if he stayed overnight, so of course I let him in and fixed up the spare room for him. etc” or “I was home by myself late at night when I heard the front door open and close and someone moving around in the house, of course I just assumed that my husband had let himself in and went upstairs.” And variants along those lines as if letting strange people unknown to you stay in your house on only their sayso as to their identity was the most normal thing in the world. It was certainly a surreal reading experience but not in the way I had expected. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/117 "2012-07-27T22:02:27Z")
> [@phreesh](#): > > it’s absurd to say that the environment is in better shape today than it was 100, 200, 500 years ago. This depends very much on where you are talking about. The environment in Pittsburgh _is_ in better shape than it was 100 years ago. About 150 years ago, Pittsburgh was described as “hell with the lid off”. Something similar is probably true of a lot of industrial cities in the US and Europe. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/118 "2012-07-27T22:06:00Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > In the United States, housing affordability among the middle class in many parts of the country. > > Up until the early 1990s, there wasn’t much of a disparity in the housing prices between what would have been considered an “expensive city” and a “cheap city”. There were always pricier places to live, but housing in those regions wasn’t out of reach among the middle or lower-middle class. One could buy a new house in the suburbs of a declining Rust Belt city for not much less than a similarly sized house outside of Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, or even NYC. [Between 1900 and the end of WWII, home ownership was at about 47%.](https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=mmm2011&paper_id=62) We spend far less of our net income on food now than we did before, but spend a lot more on transportation. Healthcare, entertainment and reading are all about the same. [This is a very interesting graph](http://visualeconomics.creditloan.com/100-years-of-consumer-spending/) that shows how our money has been spent in the last 100 + years. StG ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/119 "2012-07-27T22:25:46Z")
The following post is full of speculation, because I wasn’t alive at the time, but things I think were better in the past: 1. Lifestyle expectations were more realistic. I like watching home shows when people are house hunting - inevitably a 1950s bungalow will be featured and the house hunters will bitch about the tiny closets, to which the real estate agent replies - well, lifestyles were different back then. I think having a lifestyle where a small closet could hold your nice, but reasonably sized wardrobe of a couple of skirts and blouses, a nice going out dress and peddle pushers for the weekend would be kind of nice. I’m saying this as someone who’s wardrobe is a living, breathing mass of hugeness that threatens to take over my whole condo at any moment. 2. People were more superficially polite to each other. This may be a fairy tale but I think things were a bit less rough moving through society, back in the day. I get that people were douchey in general when it came to race/sex expectations, but at least they were somewhat polite to each other. 3. People dressed better, and appropriately for functions. I don’t think black leather tube tops to a funeral. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/120 "2012-07-27T22:57:05Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Strawberries- yes and no. They were smaller, and hwaaaaay tastier. But they had a very short growing season and shelf life. You could buy them maybe 3-4 weeks a year and had to eat them that day or the next. Otherwise make do with frozen, which aren;t so nice. > > _Some_ manufactured goods. By no means all. But yes, a lot of stuff was Made in America, was better but cost more. It doesn’t matter if I can get strawberries anytime of the year if they’re just tasteless pink cellulose. Were the goods more expensive if you calculated by Years of Use? Anyhow, my point was that the belief is not based on selection effect; I am not talking about stuff that has lasted until now, I’m talking about the stuff I grew up with. > [@billfish678](#): > > Yes…buttt… > > Back in the day if I went to the library and stayed in the non-fiction section I had a good chance that something I read in a book or a magazine or journal was generally right. > … > So, in short, IMO the signal to noise ratio in the modern world is not as good as it once was. Mmmm, okay, I see that. However, I was talking about my work, which involves a lot of research - I access laws, regulations, journal articles, everything right from my desk. Some article about a regulation mentions a proposed bill, to amend an existing law, … I pull up the regulation, the current law, the pending amendment, and then do a quick search for other articles AND other regulations in bill might effect - unless the original article has all the links I need in a side-bar - all while drinking my coffee. I didn’t even mention that I just type up the report on the computer - do you _ **remember** _ typewriters, and ribbons, and erasing? - and then send it out in emails to people in thirty facilities in three countries … … and then I have my second cup of coffee. > [@BobLibDem](#): > > If you wanted to talk to a friend, you went to their house or called them. Unless they live on the other side of the continent. Or even in another state. Remember long distance charges? ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2012, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340/121 "2012-07-27T23:01:31Z")
> [@j666](#): > > Mmmm, okay, I see that. However, I was talking about my work, which involves a lot of research - I access laws, regulations, journal articles, everything right from my desk. Yeah, but like I said you aren’t going into those things blind. For random average person looking into stuff on the net that they don’t have a clue about there is a much greater chance of them getting sucked into the woooooo zone. Heck, back in the day about the only way you got sucked into the woooo is if you came up with it yourself 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ways-in-which-the-past-really-was-better/629340.md?page=7)