this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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[–] Mixairian@lemm.ee 211 points 1 year ago (10 children)

I'm just going to steal the response I read years ago.

"I possess a device, in my pocket, that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man. I use it to look at pictures of cats and get into arguments with strangers."

[–] Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago (20 children)

I've started l to realize that actual information worth reading is not available. Like I cant access in depth medical course or text book in engineering. Lots of beginner tutorials marketed as 7 minute abs.

Information is valuable and nobody gives it away for free. We have access to a worlds worth of crappy, unvetted trash information. But the vast majority of the good stuff is still locked away as it always was.

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[–] plain_and_simply@feddit.uk 24 points 1 year ago (6 children)

This does make me think. I remember the days where I would turn up at the library to read books. With my phone, I can read and learn but instead I doom scroll.

[–] ApathyTree@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 year ago

I combine the two. I doomscroll looking for things to read and learn about, which enhances the doom significantly!

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[–] yiliu@informis.land 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)

"It arguably made us all a lot dumber..."

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[–] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 210 points 1 year ago (14 children)
[–] gk99@lemmy.world 49 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

This is the 50s, I think it'd be pretty easy to draw a line from casual racism to white supremacists. A key difference this time is that it's not just Germans led by one insane man, it's instead a bunch of redneck prices and conspiracy theorists.

[–] GeoGio7@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Before the US got involved in WWII, there was a giant Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden...

[–] nan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There was a lot more than that. There were Nazi sympathizers, and saboteurs, and those who plotted to overthrow the US government. People like Father Charles Coughlin reading Goebbels’ propaganda on the radio to millions of listeners and forming an anti-government militia, and legislators like US Senator Ernest Lundeen working directly with Nazis and reading speeches literally written by them.

Highly recommend Rachel Maddow’s Ultra podcast if you want to say holy shit every few minutes.

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[–] AlataOrange@lemmy.world 98 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm going to go on a different angle on this one and say that we are much tougher on sexual harassment. I feel like a lot of people from the 1950s who have grown up on pulp sci-fi like Flash Gordon could accept a lot of modern technology and the internet as basically just magic. To be fair is how a lot of modern people also accept it. But I don't think they would be able to process the move towards egalitarianism that we have taken.

That is not to say that modern society is egalitarian only that we have made good strides in achieving that aim.

[–] dannoffs@lemmy.sdf.org 24 points 1 year ago

Edit: Turns out Gordon is from the '70s, but other pulp sci-fi exist so my statement stands.

Live action Flash Gordon was from the 50s

[–] EmoDuck@sh.itjust.works 82 points 1 year ago (5 children)

"Yes, they are allowed to be on the same bus as us. No, we don't call them that anymore"

[–] jetsetdorito@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

"Bus? No we bulldozed hundreds of neighborhoods to build highways so now everyone has to have a car"

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[–] struds@sopuli.xyz 79 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Things they considered morally fine (smoking, dropping litter, 40 year olds dating 16 year olds) is morally reprehensible, while things they thought were morally wrong or even outlawed are totally acceptable (homosexually, porn, divorce).

[–] Snekeyes@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You just explained a large selection of boomers.

[–] Countess425@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

Yeah, a lot of them were born in the 1950s.

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[–] z00s@lemmy.world 65 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Why the Nazis are back, and in America of all places

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[–] Antimutt@lemmy.world 61 points 1 year ago (4 children)

That smoking is bad for them. You'd just be banging your head against their socially-acceptable-at-the-time drug addiction.

[–] rcmaehl@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Person from 2020 magically appearing in 2090 and being told caffeine/excessive sugar is now regulated and ID checked

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[–] Arsenal4ever@lemmy.world 52 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Depends a lot on the color of their skin.

[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago

"You're telling me there was a black president and he wasn't assassinated? Sure, buddy! Now let me get back to my sharecropping."

[–] Hypersapien@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

We walk around with a little rectangle in our pocket that gives us access to the sum total of human knowledge, but we mostly use it for looking at funny captioned pictures, the same pictures over and over just with different captions.

It's called a phone but no one ever uses it as one.

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[–] OptimusPhillip@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"You see, the file itself can be copied by anyone, but this one little piece of metadata can never be duplicated. That means you own the file."

[–] redballooon@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago

“What is a file? Are you working for the FBI?”

[–] derelict@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] Blastoid5000@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

#3 Why we still haven't got colonies on the moon

#2 Climate change

#1 That fascism is back

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[–] eudoxus@lemm.ee 30 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Most difficult imho would be to explain why we haven't advanced any further. If the person is 50 in 1950 he started with horse carriages and saw development to intercontinental bombers, rockets etc. The landing on moon would astonish him, advances in medical sciences and computing too but he probably would ask: "And what are you using that neat little gadgets for?"

[–] Burninator05@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

I'm using this little gadget for all my banking needs, a significant amount of my shopping, to stay instantly connected with friends/family and strangers with common interests all around the world, to almost instantly find information on almost any topic, to watch any of a hundred thousand movies or TV shows instantly on demand, and it's also a telephone.

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[–] dylanTheDeveloper@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You have to goto the store to buy milk instead of having it delivered fresh

[–] damnYouSun@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 year ago

My parents still do. The person who delivers it also delivers butter and eggs.

I'm not sure where the butter and eggs and stuff come from but he owns the dairy the milk comes from and he's part of a cooperative that pay for the equipment. According to him it's just not worth selling to the big stores as he makes more money with fewer customers doing it himself.

[–] AnalogyAddict@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How easily we can know anything, yet how diligently we fail to learn anything.

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[–] incognito_tuna@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (3 children)

That we’ve been to the moon - in there 60s - but haven’t been back or been out further. I think it would just be against all their expectations.

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[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That shitty actor from Bedtime for Bonzo becomes president.

[–] MajorHavoc@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

"Ronald Reagan, the actor?!"

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[–] EntropicalVacation@midwest.social 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] crewman_princess@lemmy.sdf.org 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

We still work 8 hours/day!

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[–] Herrmens@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (8 children)

The Internet, social media and how we can access absolutely everything from this tiny device

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A lack of 'whites only' signs.

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[–] Janis@feddit.de 17 points 1 year ago

nature and resources are not infinite. you are responsible for your actions no matter how terribly hard your childhood was. you cant buy a house for a years loan. we are all fucked.

[–] chemicalprophet@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

The return of the Nazis

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.one 15 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Ronald Reagan was President for 8 years.

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[–] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Statistically? Ok, you have to learn Mandarin and there are these things called time zones but you only get one but shouldhave at least 3.

Like 1 out of 4 people at the time were from China.

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[–] LegionElite@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

How nothing got better and people like killing children in the school system as sport. Oh, and ask this person what pronouns they want for their identity.

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