# Sometimes, things do improve!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [June 1, 2026, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548 "2026-06-01T19:45:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2026, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/1 "2026-06-01T19:45:22Z")
There’s so much in life these days that’s suffering from Enshitification, that we sometimes miss when things actually get better.
I thought of this just now, because I just realized it’s been years since I’ve seen a “Reply All” mass e-mailing disaster, where one person “Replies All” to an e-mail, and then lots of people also Reply All asking, “Why was I included on this email?”, with the replies just bouncing back and forth, reinforcing each other until your inbox is overwhelmed with crap.
Someone in my office just did a reply all to an e-mail from January, which is what made me realize it’s been years since I’ve seen an e-mail mess like that. It seems most people have finally learned to just ignore such mistaken messages.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2026, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/2 "2026-06-01T22:06:41Z")
Email systems are also now smart enough to detect & prevent reply all storms.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2026, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/3 "2026-06-01T22:07:53Z")
Renting a car is vastly more convenient than 25 years ago. So is buying nearly anything.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/4 "2026-06-02T00:19:17Z")
Reply all probably shouldn’t exist. It should be like “Reply to:” and you click to choose who, with a button at the bottom that selects everyone.
And then you still have to dismiss the dialog and click Send
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### Author:  [@Past\_Paper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Past_Paper)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/5 "2026-06-02T00:51:54Z")
Not many people smoke cigarettes anymore, but to be fair a lot more smoke weed (including in public) and also we don’t know what the long-term effects of vaping/e-cigs will be, kinda.
Human beings actually do scientifically/factually speaking look younger in modern times than people of the same age did in the past; less smoking is one reason (as I mention above), but also chemicals and evolution of some sorts.
Random thing: I think movie theaters probably offer a much greater variety of candy and food than they did in the 90s when I was a kid. Nowadays the average AMC or REGAL has 50 different types of candy, plus things like caramel or cheddar popcorn, special stuff, slushie machines in the lobby (I first noticed the slushie thing in 2011- I was like ‘whaaa? Are the concession stand workers going to start saying ‘Thank you come again!’ now too?’ (Apu reference))
The number of motorists who die in car accidents per 100,000 drivers/passengers has gone down every year since the invention of the automobile.
And we just saw the other side of the moon for the first time, so yay 🙂
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### Author:  [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/6 "2026-06-02T01:27:30Z")
> [@Past\_Paper](#):
>
> And we just saw the other side of the moon for the first time, so yay
I can’t tell what you mean by that. Are you talking about the Artemis mission? The first photographs of the moon’s far side were taken in 1959 and it was well mapped with good quality photos by the mid 1960s. It was first seen directly with human eyes by the Apollo 8 astronauts in 1968.
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### Author:  [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/7 "2026-06-02T01:30:37Z")
As a woman, my status as a sole financial entity is much better than when I got my first credit card and needed a male relative to co-sign for it.
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### Author:  [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/8 "2026-06-02T01:45:30Z")
There’s no question that no-smoking-in-indoor-and-sometimes-outdoor places laws have made things like eating in restaurants much more enjoyable.
“Dog-do,” as we used to call it, is not a thing of the past exactly, but it’s way, way down from what it was back when I was a kid.
Many cities now have bike rental stations. That’s pretty new. I’ve used them in San Antonio, Denver, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Boston, Washington, and Philadelphia, and they’re great.
I do urban kayaking, and the waterways I travel would have been…well, you’d have been seriously risking your health if you’d tried to paddle in the cesspools that were the Chicago River, the Cuyahoga River, Baltimore’s Inner Harbor… Very different today.
This goes back a little further, but I have Type 1 diabetes. If not for modern medicine…
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/9 "2026-06-02T02:15:13Z")
You’re correct about auto safety. The per capital death rate from auto accidents is less than 50% of what it was in the early 1970s, when the raw number peaked at around 56,000; it’s now around 30,000 a year, in the U.S. Seat belts, car seats, and taking impaired driving seriously has accounted for a lot of that, on top of cars just plain old being safer.
And those cars get MUCH better gas mileage. My first car, which was almost as old as me when I started driving it in 1981, got 12mpg, and gas was about $1.50 a gallon, more expensive than now when inflation is taken into account.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/10 "2026-06-02T03:04:52Z")
Yes. The tech for diabetes has gotten much better.
And many injectable medications come in pen form. Make life easier if your not used to syringe handling.
I think we know loads more about nutrition now days too.
Oh and my electric bill has never been lower.
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### Author:  [@Past\_Paper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Past_Paper)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/11 "2026-06-02T03:15:56Z")
> [@markn\_1](#):
>
> I can’t tell what you mean by that. Are you talking about the Artemis mission? The first photographs of the moon’s far side were taken in 1959 and it was well mapped with good quality photos by the mid 1960s. It was first seen directly with human eyes by the Apollo 8 astronauts in 1968.
Okay but this was the first fly-by we ever did there, right?, so that’s cool (that’s one small/giant flight for humans, baby! 😃 )
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#):
>
> Many cities now have bike rental stations. That’s pretty new
Yes, and many of them are “E-bikes”, which you still pedal like a regular bike but they have electric energy that adds a ton of power to your ride; the bad side: Kids nowadays are doing 45 MPH on these things and killing themselves/each other/pedestrians/motorists/et al.
> [@nearwildheaven](#):
>
> The per capital death rate
“Per capita” Easy mistake to make
> [@nearwildheaven](#):
>
> Seat belts, car seats, and taking impaired driving seriously has accounted for a lot of that, on top of cars just plain old being safer.
Not to mention: teens and everyone else kinda drive way less often than they used to (everything’s social media/online), plus we have ubers/lyfts/et al to pick us up almost anywhere we are…
I got one for you: **I remember as a little kid in the 90s that [every time an airplane flew overhead, we all had to shut up and wait for it to pass](https://www.google.com/search?q=neil+degrasse+tyson+jet+noise&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS1217US1217&oq=neil+degrasse+tyson+jet+noise&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigAdIBCDQ5MDRqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&source=chrome.ob#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:1fcdb87d,vid:anuhveUIB_g,st:0) (Jet engine NOISE audible on the ground), then suddenly tech changed and that all stopped**
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### Author:  [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/12 "2026-06-02T03:28:41Z")
Cancer meds are much better than they used to be.
Zero sugar soda keeps getting better-tasting.
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### Author:  [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/13 "2026-06-02T03:31:09Z")
> [@Past\_Paper](#):
>
> Human beings actually do scientifically/factually speaking look younger in modern times than people of the same age did in the past; less smoking is one reason (as I mention above), but also chemicals and evolution of some sorts.
Yeah, when i was a kid, a lot of men retired at 50- 55, then died soon after.
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#):
>
> There’s no question that no-smoking-in-indoor-and-sometimes-outdoor places laws have made things like eating in restaurants much more enjoyable.
Absolutely.
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### Author:  [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/14 "2026-06-02T03:33:12Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#):
>
> You’re correct about auto safety.
Unless you are a pedestrian; there has been a huge increase in pedestrian deaths since 2009–thanks partly to all the SUVs and pickups around.
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### Author:  [@Past\_Paper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Past_Paper)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/15 "2026-06-02T03:42:04Z")
> [@PastTense](#):
>
> Unless you are a pedestrian; there has been a huge increase in pedestrian deaths since 2009–thanks partly to all the SUVs and pickups around
And also probably due to all the motorists (_and_ pedestrians) whose eyes are often glued to their damn smartphone screens.
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### Author:  [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/16 "2026-06-02T04:55:41Z")
> [@Past\_Paper](#):
>
> Okay but this was the first fly-by we ever did there, right?
No. Nine Apollo missions (Apollo 8 through Apollo 17 except for Apollo 9) flew over the far side. Eight of them (all except the ill-fated 13) orbited the Moon, so those flew over the far side multiple times. Not that Artemis wasn’t cool, but it wasn’t the first to fly around the Moon by any means.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding you. Since you alluded to Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap” quote, you’re obviously aware that humans landed on the Moon, so I’m not sure how you could believe that Artemis was the first to fly by it.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/17 "2026-06-02T05:11:09Z")
I could be wrong, but I remember they stressed it repeatedly on newscasts.
Something was different. Don’t think I remember what Artemis did back there that was so great.
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/18 "2026-06-02T06:07:09Z")
And side effect management keeps improving.
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### Author:  [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/19 "2026-06-02T12:15:54Z")
If you do any kind of library- or archive-based research, digitization and the internet have made all kinds of sources HUGELY more accessible than they were decades ago. The things I can now look at without leaving my desk, which would previously have required spending hours in libraries and probably several international trips to find sources in person…
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2026, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-things-do-improve/1030548/20 "2026-06-02T12:34:18Z")
The Artemis mission was basically a complete repeat of Apollo 8. Its one claim to a record was that it was slightly further from the Moon.
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