Skip Navigation

Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world

Clinicallydepressedpoochie @lemmy.world

4d ago

If you consider the early 2000s to be some sort of cultural peak do you think we will have another in your lifetime?

47 comments

I think it depends on what people consider a peak. By 2000, the education system was already in trouble and wages had stagnated for 20 years. Glass/Steagall had been repealed, and GW was in power.
I think it came in the 80's, personally.
- I guess I skew more towards the technology portion of it. Yes, technology was ramping up in the 80s but I think by the early 2000s the information age had solidified.
  
  I can see an argument for it. The Internet was widespread and accessible to common people, but governments and major corporations hadn't really figured out how to completely abuse it yet.
  But the real thing is probably that the peak of culture is probably based on whenever a person was between 5 and 25 years old. For most I think those were the good old days, no matter when they actually were.

Up until 9/11, for North America, maybe. After the collapse of the Soviet Union things felt pretty good. In my social circle there was a lot of optimism.
But we were on a neoliberal tear. A lot of the benefits we were enjoying (of globalization) are the cause of the spasm of conservatism we're seeing today.

What I gather from this thread is that people probably like the decade the best that they grew up in 🙃

everyone's going to have a different answer for this but I believe we were at our best in the 90s in America
- the key was all the transluscent cases on electronics. the future was optimistic and we were excited to see it. then came the brushed aluminum era when everything became boring again, like the beige plastic era, just more expensive.

Most people’s opinions here seem to be oriented around their youth. When we are just old enough to engage with the world in small and controllable ways, but still too young to really grasp the worst parts or feel partly responsible for them, it’s easy to feel optimistic about the world and our place in it. That optimism is what we look back on and long for because, as we age further, we gradually realize how misguided that optimism really is.

Respectfully, I think both the question and the premise are quite meaningless.
- Thank you for not engaging with it

Are... are there people who think of that time as a cultural peak?
If that's the bar, then yeah, we've had at least one since then and are due for another soon.
- Yeah I think most people will pick a timeframe in their life that is nostalgic and good. Like my dad would talk about the 70s, I talk about the 2000s, my kids will probably talk about ~~the before days with drinkable water~~ the 2030s
  
  I miss 2015. It was a last gasp of hope
  
  I feel like music, film, comedy, visual art, literature, all just keep getting better and better. I haven't seen anything I'd call a "peak".

I don't think we have peaked. We have had progress and regress in various areas at various times that has either kept us level or on a slight climb.

The 2000s!?!? The attitude era of this planet? Fuck no!
The 80s had the best music, the best fashion, the best TV, the most memorable movies, and awesome gadgets.
We'll never have the 80s again!
- looming threat of nuclear annihilation
  
  We still have that lmao
- You must have had access to the best drugs in the 80s because they were not what you describe at all.
  
  I wasn't doing drugs at age 8
- Late 80s through late 90s was peak. Technology was booming. Everything was a start up. Everything was rad.
  
  So rad!

Extremely relevant:
Bo Burnham - 1985

That's a fascinating question. I just can't wrap my head around the early 2000s as a time of Excellence. I think of it as a time of impending collapse. You have 9/11, the start of decades long horrific Wars, growing Mass government surveillance and authoritarianism, extreme political fracturing, ramping up to a massive financial disaster, and so much more. Now that's true of every time every time has massive flaws and Horrors in them, but that's one I just can't really wrap my head around thinking anything else of.
- The 90s were prettygood. It kinda all started downhill with the Brooks Brothers Riot and SCOTUS calling a presidential election instead of the votes.
  
  Started downhill isn't right. Accelerated is closer.
  
  Also a couple genocides thrown in there don't forget.

I don't. The 80s were.
- The 80's sucked in my neck of the woods.
  
  indiana?
  
  Mtv alone inspired a burst of creativity that hasn't been matched since. In music, video, direction, art design, set design... Nothing comes close.

how long or short is this “lifetime” of which you speak? the 90’s is peak, you whipper-snapper.
- Ok but we are all focusing in on this 20 years span
  
  yeah. wasn’t 1990 like 20 years ago? :)

The world is a terrible place.
The world is the best place it's ever been.
The world could be much better.
Reference

No, because the Internet has gotten so raggedy and corporate and enshittified and that's where everything takes place.

No

nö

Robot UBI will be awesome. The price floor of automated AI slop will make everything better because worse will not exist.

No. We might have the cultural equivalent of an “Indian summer”, where things briefly seem to get better, but overall, humanity is on the downswing. We’re ruining our environment and draining our resources. Not enough people in power are motivated to fix things, or at least keep them from getting worse. Most popular culture will be an increasingly frantic and transparent effort to ignore the collapse of human civilization.

Not for humanity. I think AI will develop more sophisticated culture and become the major driver of progress at some point in the future.

47 comments