memes

You raise a lot of good points. But for me, it was better in that there was still a lot of hope to go around. Things generally seems on the up and up. Technology was getting better. This new Internet thing was getting better and faster. The economy was getting better. The government still enforced anti-trust laws. We (the US) weren't at war. Climate change still seemed very fixable. We were dealing with the hole in the ozone and acid rain, we'll deal with everything else! The scientists will figure it out.

Now it just feels like the world is going to shit and there's nothing we can do. Even when "good" things happen, it feels more like we've only "slowed down" a bit as we continue careening toward the cliff.

We're past, like, all the points of no return for the climate. Corporate power feels unstoppable. Open corruption is rampant and normalized throughout the world's governments. The major powers are arming themselves and not cooperating. World War 3 is scheduled for 2027 if it doesn't happen before then. And the response to COVID showed that our systems and infrastructure are balanced like a house of cards.

So maybe the y-value was lower in the 90s, but the curve definitely felt like it was sloping upward. Now we're past the peak.