Modern life

I was born in 1966 so as a kid I played with Lego, Meccano, Dinky and Corgi toys etc. There were several kids around my age in our street which was on a hill. Around the back we had a lane which was about the width of a car plus a little extra on each side. Nobody drove their cars down it so we all had somewhere safe to play. Our fathers each built us GoCarts (I suppose you would call them soap box racers these days) and we used to have races down the lane. All sorts of weird and wonderful creations came and went. Some were a standard sort of cart with 4 pram wheels, usually a bigger pair on the rear than the front and steered with a rope and your feet on a plank that the front axle was attached to. Some experimented with six wheel designs, others were part cart part tricycle. We used to have so much fun and surprisingly nobody ever got hurt, which for the speed we got up to and the number of us racing down a narrowish lane was a miracle. When I was old enough to go out and about to play with my friends we spent our time playing in the woods, on the seashore, out on our bikes or talking about the latest stories from out 2000AD or Warlord comics. When I turned 14 years old I got a Woolworths (Winfield) fishing kit for Christmas that soon got me seriously into sea angling. That kit was soon replaced by a 12 foot beachcaster and a decent reel to get more distance. Most of my mates got into it through me as well and we used to go all over west Cornwall on our bikes to reach fishing marks. When I left school I was the only one of my friends to get a proper job, the others were all on the YTS slave labour scheme for a mere £25 a week. I on the other hand was taking home around £80 a week, often much more if it was a busy time of year. The days were long with anything up to 20 hours a day. In the summer it was not uncommon to finish at 10 at night and be back in for 2 in the morning, such was life in the fishing industry (shore based). I did get back into contact with my old schoolmates when I was 17/18 years old and every now and then I was able to join them for nights out on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday. As a kid I was rarely bored as we always found plenty to do. We never smashed stuff up just for the hell of it or got into trouble in any other ways. I doubt if kids these days would survive if they had their smartphones and pc's taken away from them. Back then we had nothing like them but still found plenty of ways to have fun.
 
I grew up in the 90's and we played in the street, kids don't seem to as much now but there aren't as many young families around where I grew up as they can't afford it and the streets are full of cars.

We do seem to have reached new levels of required distraction though, I struggle to not look at my phone when bored / waiting or the worst is lulls in conversation. Far easier to look at your phone rather than put the effort in to keeping a conversation going (rude I know, tell myself off if I catch myself doing it).

Just so much going on all the time but when you really look at it, the majority is just mindless gumpf.
 
Maccapacca said:
Pubs, working men's clubs and social clubs. I remember as a kid spending most of my weekends in a pub garden with a bottle of coke a packet of crisps and some broken biscuits
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This, bottle of cheap coke and a packet of beef and onion walkers crisps.
 
As a kid I spent most of the time outside playing football, riding bikes, making camps and running, lots and lots of running. Toys were my Hornby train set, Scalextric and Lego (NEVER Legos!!!!) mixed in with a few other toys over the years. Then I got my first home computer around 1980 when I was 13 and life then revolved around my Atari 400, C64, Amiga plugged into a TV, playing games, writing some code and just learning about computers. I got to 16 and start to appreciate the opposite sex and alcohol and pretty much from the age of 17'ish I never had a night where I didn't go out, not always drinking, usually not actually but I was always out down the pub, club or driving like a nutter with fellow nutters.

No mobile phones or devices really, certainly no internet so you used to phone your mates on the land line, find out what was going on and meet up. It was a simpler time.
 
People are healthier, living longer, more educated, more likely to get involved in charity activities, more tolerant. Crime is at all times low, as are wars and casualties from them.

Modern life is a nightmare! :rolleyes:
 
Zethor said:
People are healthier, living longer, more educated, more likely to get involved in charity activities, more tolerant. Crime is at all times low, as are wars and casualties from them.

Modern life is a nightmare! :rolleyes:
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Yes but that is still far from the best that can be done!!
People's life expectancy can be significantly longer than it is now. Wars can be a thing from the past. Education in many countries is too expensive and not affordable for everyone, etc, etc...
 
Zethor said:
People are healthier, living longer, more educated, more likely to get involved in charity activities, more tolerant. Crime is at all times low, as are wars and casualties from them.

Modern life is a nightmare! :rolleyes:
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General consensus is life expectancy is going to start going down isn't it? There seems to be constant killing in the m.e, with associated terror that seems that it will never end. People are more isolated, more seem to be warped by the death religion. In the cusp of ww3, feels like being back in the 80's. Antibiotics are beginning to fail us, no one can afford to buy a house ;)

I think we peaked!
 
Zethor said:
People are healthier, living longer, more educated, more likely to get involved in charity activities, more tolerant. Crime is at all times low, as are wars and casualties from them.

Modern life is a nightmare! :rolleyes:
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You’re quite the comedian.
 
LabR@t said:
General consensus is life expectancy is going to start going down isn't it? There seems to be constant killing in the m.e, with associated terror that seems that it will never end. People are more isolated, more seem to be warped by the death religion. In the cusp of ww3, feels like being back in the 80's. Antibiotics are beginning to fail us, no one can afford to buy a house ;)

I think we peaked!
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I have a bright hope that things for humanity will start to improve when China becomes the biggest economy in the world. Not many years till that moment, though.
There will be no WW3.
We have peaked in this system but not in the systems that are yet to come.
 
LabR@t said:
General consensus is life expectancy is going to start going down isn't it? There seems to be constant killing in the m.e, with associated terror that seems that it will never end. People are more isolated, more seem to be warped by the death religion. In the cusp of ww3, feels like being back in the 80's. Antibiotics are beginning to fail us, no one can afford to buy a house ;)

I think we peaked!
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Life expectancy is increasing, the Middle East has always been unstable (much like Central Africa), deaths from terrorism are decreasing, isolation is an issue but compared to past issues such as rampant institutional racism/sexism it is much more manageable. WW3 is nowhere near being a realistic scenario because the Western World controls 80% of the planet's industry/technology and its military might dwarfs any potential threat by a ratio of 10 to 1. New technologies will complement the weaknesses of some of our antibiotics and not everyone has to own a house in London, Vancouver or Manhattan (there are plenty of affordable options).

I see you've thrown in a Muslim bash for good measure. You can't help yourself, can you?
 
Zethor said:
WW3 is nowhere near being a realistic scenario because the Western World controls 80% of the planet's industry/technology and its military might dwarfs any potential threat by a ratio of 10 to 1.
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China and Russia are allies and powerful enough to do enough damage to the U.S.
Actually, WW3 won't be convential and when so, it should probably last minutes or hours when MAD will be spread over the planet.
 
4K8KW10 said:
China and Russia are allies and powerful enough to do enough damage to the U.S.
Actually, WW3 won't be convential and when so, it should probably last minutes or hours when MAD will be spread over the planet.
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China and Russia are not allies and they can't even dream to match juggernauts such as the US, EU, Japan, South Korea and Australia (countries which happen to have functional military alliances as well as much more influence and soft power). Major world powers do not start wars they know they would lose.
 
They don't have to.

America isn't called Chimerica for nowt these days.

Empires rise and fall. The American Empire is in its Death Throes.
 
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