Miss the 80's

Pretty sure it's going to get a whole lot worse before better.

Old enough I doubt I'll get to see the better.

'69 was the high water mark of our civilization.

Let me paint a picture of the AI revolution over the next 5-10 years:

VR will be much more commonplace and mainstream, resulting in large numbers of people taking anti-motion sickness drugs. Possibly someday being supplemented or replaced by augmented reality glasses and/or holograms if feasible.

Kids will no longer physically go to school. School is a VR headset with an AI teacher. The other "students" are simulations; they aren't real people. This might even be sold in the early days as a way to "protect" kids from bullying, etc. and a way to offer "personalized" and "more interactive" education. Your lesson on the Revolutionary War will be taught by George Washington!

People will have AI "companions," from childhood friends, to confidants, to intimate partners. Visual interaction will be primarily through VR in the near-term, but they'll be portable, too (on a phone, computer, or other handheld or worn device). Think ChatGPT + Deepfake but more sophisticated and tailored to your desires: your companion can look and sound like whoever, or whatever, you want, and say and do whatever you want. "Protections" to prevent companions from looking/sounding like real people will be easily bypassed, while, for a short while, onlyfans-type people will sell their likenesses.

AI "assistance" will be commonplace, and it will be more pervasive than you think. AI will remember your grocery list and you won't even have to tell it what you want to buy: it will use predictive algorithms - and diagnostic ones based on your latest AI doctor checkup - to choose your food for you and tell you how to prepare it. It might even order the food for you and have it delivered by an Amazon drone.

Movies and TV shows may not be completely replaced by AI yet, but humans will sell their physical and vocal likenesses before eventually being replaced entirely by AI generated entertainers and productions. Music and literature might lead the way in this arena.



Not much further in the future and AI will replace millions of jobs, but the transition could/will be hampered by the potential of suddenly having millions of unemployed people. What jobs will be safe? Probably a lot of trades like plumbing, masonry, carpentry, electrician, but the jobs will change drastically. For example: an AI will guide a person through the process of working on a car - a mechanic won't need any particular knowledge beyond following the instructions of the AI, and with augmented reality glasses, they'll be able to be entirely guided through the process by the AI. Being mechanically inclined will help but won't be necessary.

Doctors, lawyers, many managers (and maybe executives), teachers, adult entertainers, and more will all be greatly impacted if not totally replaced. Decision making will largely be outsourced to AI. Anything that requires memory/memorizing will be outsourced to AI.

The downfall of civilization is a distinct possibility after a generation grows up mostly/entirely without contact with real humans (think Zoomers, but with total AI/VR/AR societal integration). "Modern" civilization could easily go extinct in the next 100-150 years.
Interestingly (and perhaps frighteningly), if AI leads to the downfall of civilization, it's going to be people like the Amish (and others who totally reject technology) that survive to rebuild. There will likely be "normal" people who reject these changes as well, similar in principle to how people rejected the Vax, though if they'll be able to support themselves and their families in the new world is uncertain. How long will the next Dark Age last?

And I missed it.  


The '80s were very good, but they didn't have the freedom of earlier decades.

They were also the beginning of the Nanny State.


1970s master race, checking in.


'80s babies were some of the most spoiled brats the world has ever seen.

The answer is the 1980’s.


I was only a kid, but my god man, the amount of awesomeness that decade produced cannot be topped.

Movies-High Testosterone action stars ruled

Music- Incredible, all genres had legendary artists at once

National Pride- I remember watching Rocky IV in the theatre, when Rocky cuts the Russian with a hook, the entire packed theater stood up and started cheering loudly, then “Rocky, Rocky, USA USA”

For me, was heavy into sports of course, arcades were top tier entertainment

Photon (first and best laser tag ever invented)

News reported news for the most part

Just a great time to be alive

The rise of know-better management classism burns me. Particularly the globalist variety that want to micromanage the fate of everyone in the world.

This

Damn right !

Being a Boomer I had the great luck of being a child in the 1950s and a teenager/young adult in the 1960s.

Probably the best time in the history of the world to be those ages.

At this point, 1945-2000 was the strongest time period in US history, IMHO

Hopefully, we surpass that in the future.

Relative or absolute?

Our shadow self?  Very Jungian.

My take; we never know what situation we are currently in.  Is this a good time or bad? What is the likely next trend? Up or down, better or worse?

We can't know because those are relative judgements and we don't yet have the perspective of time required to make an assessment.  

He's what I do know.  Every generation has the same reaction as they gain perspective. Nostalgia for some past time period and a mix of optimism and fear for the future.  

Go back and read old things, Twain and H.L Mencken on politics in the US. Thoreau and even all the way back to Greek and Roman philosophers on how to lead a good life.   They could be written today without changing a thing. Same challenges, same worries, same observations, same joys.

Today is my daughter's 80s.  She'll look back fondly, I hope.  Then she'll have this conversation at some point, via some different method.

This.  We have the richest poor people in the history of the world

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Objectively the world is better off now than ever in human history. Less poverty, starvation and death.  Talk about perspective, people on public assistance in the US are still in the top 5% of global wealth.  Every person in the US or western Europe, citizen, or immigrant won the lotto by historic standards.

Best depends on what you want. Tech? it will only get better. Personal freedom? it is all down hill.
Choose your goal and see how it goes.

Born in the late 70s grew up in the 80s. I remember having a 8080 IBM at home with CGA monitor. Remember playing wolf 3d on a 286 at the mall and being amazed. Then doom on my Dad's 486.  Then BBS systems and later on AOL.   Then the birth of the wider consumer internet. Finally the invention of the iPhone.  It was amazing to live through, seemed like every year there was something new. I'd say for the past 15 years or so it doesn't feel like that anymore.

This is true for the largest % of the population happiness wise, at least for probably 50 years or so, after shit falls apart, great suffering, hard times, build strong men / destroy bullshit thinking, embrace focusing on good things and bring about good times again.

But we won’t see good times again for probably 50 years.

Obviously some people will be happy and live in plenty, but the % of the population that fits that mold will decrease every day. Either unhappy due to their current situation or unhappy for the shitty, low opportunity world their kids will inherit.

I think there’s really no reason for kids to go to school, with a little parental discipline, kids can learn better ( basics without propaganda) at home, fewer distractions, no drama, no bully’s, etc.

Plus it will save society hundreds of billions by not having to pay hordes of teachers many of whom such ass, pay for tens of thousands of buildings, campuses, electricity, etc.

You want a modern society, that’s what it looks like, take the savings and use for better things, sucks for teachers though, but AI will be able to give kids 100% of their attention, and teach them better.


AI, once it fine tuned, will be able to do a much better job, do things much faster, cheaper, and instantly answer questions / solve problems a human would have to research. For example, a good ai should be able to produce a totally new movie in a few hours / few days, start to finish, for Pennie’s, vs months / years and hundreds of millions the old way.

Artists, music, paintings, poets, song writers… dead, AI can pop out an original work in seconds, so the starving artist will be a thing of the past.

Biggest problem with AI is the huge number of jobs it will kill off, resulting in a lot of unemployed people, fewer careers to have, and such problems. That’s gonna be interesting to solve.

I agree, the 20 years 1980-2000 are the best the USA has ever had, high water mark for freedom, technology, fun, cheap living vs woke / gay / sjw / liberal / democrat bullshit. Society didn’t suck, and even Portland, california, etc we’re not hopeless shitholes .

Buncha doomers around here.

People will live and thrive on this planet LONG after we are all gone.

This. All five of my kids talk about this and about how they wish they'd been alive in the 80s.

CONCUR!

80s and early 90s

Hands down the most overused GIF in history!

I was 16 in 1980, I can relate.
I paid cash for my first car in 1979, a 10 yo muscle car for $900.

This. And my 11yo daughter agrees. Her words, not mine "Today's music sucks. 80s were the best"

She listens to AC/DC

I love her

The 80s or 90s.

It’ll come back around though.

I'd say mid 90s (minus that gun control bullshit) to the mid 2000s. We were experiencing amazing technological advancements and the future was bright. The early internet truly was a wonder.

9/11 marked the start of downhill slide, with worldwide tyranny and authoritarianism exploding exponentially since.

Nobody in this thread will be alive to see it.

Yup

I that’s what they want you to think. Don’t.
Stand the fuck up.  Raise a family.  Fight for righteous causes.  Be the reason that your ancestors sacrificed so much.

Going to be hard to top the '80s.

Yep, and all it will cost you is everything you have.

Human race in general? Most definitely yet to come. Regardless of when that might have been in America, your odds of dying of starvation have never been lower on a global scale.

Correct, but it will be LONG.
China will take or destroy Taiwan shortly, by doing that, they will make our military irrelevant and essentially rule the world.
Their authoritarianism will by its very nature trigger a new dark ages. That will last centuries at minimum.

ETA: Yes, the 80s were freakin amazing.

1955-65 Begin with Rock-n-Roll and muscle cars and end it up with mini-skirts.  It's all downhill from there.  

I agree with all of that, but one part. There is a reason for kids to physically go to school: human interaction.

The problem is one of socialization. We already have some idea of the issues caused to children by lack of socialization during the Pandemic.

AI companions will replace human interactions. The kids born in 15-20 years might never be around a larger group of real people than their immediate family, and they'll be the children of this generation of kids damaged by poor socialization.

Those who think they run the world whether by "holy" bloodlines, or old welsth, think that there has been more than enough of this individual freedoms and liberty nonsense, and its time to return to serfdom for everyone else

These always leave out Demolition Man. If in doubt, go rewatch and you’ll see.

80s was the best time to be a teenager.   I miss big hair.  

Depends on what you want out of society. There was a time when people would up and move if their neighbors chimney smoke was visible. Those people would think todays world was intolerable.  Based on history I'd say that we are going into a time period where there is going to be a whole lot less individual freedom and more centralized power. Not a good thing.

“Thrive”

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