Quote:
Originally Posted by jmen24
Just to put it into perspective and I am more than sure that others can relate. My great-grandmother saw: the dawn of aviation, television, two world wars, the use of a nuclear weapon, the building and destruction of the Berlin Wall, the rise and fall a more than one government, the ability of women and african american's right to vote and that is only the big stuff.
I will agree that it is difficult to see the things that you remember growing up around disappear. For the most part it is all for the better and very seldom is it a bad thing.
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And in my short lifetime, I have seen the advent of the transistor radio, man leaving the planet and setting foot on the moon, color tv and cable in most homes in America, the internet, cell phones that connected everyone to everything, the fall of communist Russia, plastic replacing virtually every other material (its even in our clothing and food!) digital imaging replacing film, organ – limb – and even face transplants (and soon to be artificially grown organs) designer pets (and soon to be children!) the rise of the welfare state and generations of people and families who do not know what it is to be self-sufficient, and the dumbing-down of our society that more people know the name Nike than George Washington, the cost of living increases/decrease in the value of our efforts where a single income no longer can support a modest middle class family, 5 major military campaigns and countless significant operations, acid and strip mining where mountains are removed, oil spills so massive that collectively they exceed the volume of Winnipesaukee, Nuclear contamination so bad that whole areas have been abandoned, PCB and PFOA contamination levels so high that virtually every person in the US tested showed positive results for exposure! And that’s just the big stuff,,,
Yes there have been improvements, many many of them, but are we better off overall than we were when I was a child,,, Hummm, not from my seat,,,, But that’s just one persons perspective.
But I am still hopeful that we can do better before my time on this ride ends,,,
