Comment by raffraffraff
Comment by raffraffraff 2 days ago
As an "Old" who was a kid in the late 70s to early 90s, I'm telling young folks that there is no first world poverty like there was then. Not just because "we" were poor, but because you couldn't get "stuff" anyway. Like, the biggest TV I ever saw back them was 25". Nobody had a computer. Unemployment across the board was high. I saw my first kiwi fruit or avocado when I was 10. Clothes were expensive (even thrift / store brand). "Stuff" of any kind was expensive or non existent.
Yesterday my BIL threw a perfectly working tower PC in the recycling because he couldn't find anyone (not even a charity shop) to take it. Last time I was at e-waste I saw half a dozen 42 inch TVs that I'm willing to bet we're working.
However we were wealthy in one way: we had a stable home, and optimism. I may have had old clothes, one pair of worn shoes and a 4th-hand uncool bicycle, but there was no question of ever losing the roof over my head. And there was a future that looked like it was full of possibilities. "Stuff" was getting cheaper and more available. I remember our family being able to afford our first microwave oven. Our first VCR (1991). We didn't get rich, things got cheaper.
Today, it's like we're looking at the future as if we're already post-peak, and it's all downhill from here. There's tons of stuff around but nobody wants it. People have also lost the positive attitude, optimism. It'll get you through a lot of bad times. Years and years of shit. Lose optimism, and it's all bleak no matter how big your TV is.
If I could choose a safe to be reborn in, I'd take "our" poverty of the past over this.
In the part of the world I'm form, my childhood of the 90's to early 00's was exactly the same, and I experienced explosive increase in "stuff" surrounding me. Going from landline phones and phonebooths as status quo - to mobile internet just in 10 years. But I digress. Your point made me wonder - is it possible that the culture of material wealth - is the problem here? Could we have stepped on a poisonous flower - and now suffocating in the abundance of stuff we dreamed about as young people, now realizing, but not brave enough to admit that there is no meaning in it? And the optimism we had then, was a byproduct of a tighter communities, common struggles and just the architecture of life where we had to interact and care for one another more?