The 2ks was also the “terrorism” era. I don’t want to kill the mood, but nostalgia is very strong in erasing bad stuff.

But I’m feeling like you. I miss Counter Strike LAN parties and Linking Park too 🙂

Youre describing nostalgia. Generally pschologists see nostalgia as a negative thing because our brain prunes the bad stuff from memory and holds onto the good which gives us a distorted view of the past. They suggest instead to practice gratitude. Take time to appreciate all the good things you have now. Remember that ruminating on the past leads to depression and ruminating on the future leads to anxiety.

Yes but for me it was 1998. There was so much hope the internet was coming into it’s own web 1 was peaking. PC gaming was unreal. Diablo , half life , quake 2 were in heavy rotation. Online was fresh and new. Heat.net was such a cool place to dial into. The world had its problems but being able to communicate across borders was ment to heal the world’s problems. This was before the internet got centralized and the powerful could use it as weapon.

Nah, my life is massively better in every way and seems to have no signs of stopping. I was a broke student with an uncertain future, reliant on an increasingly hostile family back home just for a chance at a future, but I pretty much just expected to die in the next 6 months ever since I turned 18.

Now thanks to COVID I was able to graduate, get a masters, get a visa sponsored job, WFH, be promoted, transition fully, including get SRS through public healthcare which seemed like a pipedream to me before, got my ADHD medicated, saved enough money to move to a better city renting in a nice 1 bed flat all to myself, am food secure and can even afford some nice things once in a while, I got a gf I love and am surrounded by friends. I spend my free time pursuing my many hobbies and passions such as making music, reading history, politics and philosophical works and practicing pentesting.

There is no denying that for all intents and purposes we live in hell, every ideal I’ve ever had for the world, every value philosophical and political has been trumpled, moved away from or reduced to absurdity by the elite capitalists and their government and media lapdogs and I have no real faith in much of anything anymore.

I will never own a home, and I have no idea how or if I’ll be able to retire in any way, and I have no real safety net, I’m one bad day away from homelessness and starvation and death and there’s no real way to fix that, and for every day I’m okay, I’m forced to watch others suffer the fate I so narrowly avoided through much luck and a sprinkle of resilience.

And yeah I’m sometimes nostalgic at times for some eras of memes and media, but I certainly would be an ignorant fool to in any way claim my life is worse now than ever before.

I’m living very literally what I used to not even let myself dream of before, because I thought it’d be too cruel to inevitably be let down by reality.

You didn’t have a ton of responsibilities as a kid vs now where you have to work to support yourself and your family. You have more financial freedom now but don’t have the time to enjoy it carefree. And because of the recent global issues in the past few years, it has gotten worse.

Some of this is objective. Some is just nostalgia.

You can still download music and play wow. On this front you probably miss simpler times when you weren’t aware of problems you are now or resent responsibilities that took you from things you enjoyed and make you feel old.

On the other hand, society globally is markedly worse than before COVID with substantial right-wing shifts.

Unfortunately, end of days accelerationists and techno fascist billionaires have been working quite hard to make the world a worse place for several decades…

So I largely agree. Personally, in terms of skills and assets, I’m in a much better place than I was 2000 years ago. However, in terms of happiness and hope for the future… I actually still had some then.

You can download anything now too

I found that in general, young people are able to connect with their peers more. It was easier to spontaneously go with your friends someplace and spend time together. (The mall, the woods, each other’s houses, or many other possibilities.)

Contrasted with being an adult, where it may be more difficult to be able to do that. I’m American, so it is geographically harder. But even if you don’t live in a car-centric area, you might still run into difficulties with scheduling and responsibilities that you didn’t even have to consider when you were young.

I remember the good times, but there was a lot of bad, too.

I have a similar thing but im older. I was working for university research lab that was pretty much just enough to get my decently but not really save. My work location was just outside downtown. Like going one stop from the universities metro was a stop that was near one of the major amtrack stations and I would take it to go to the maine post office and a job in a high rise building. I was living in a neighborhood just three more miles away. I could walk to work or take one bus that was a straight shot or bike (but it was so short I usually took a longer scenic route). Owned a golden retriever (still do). Apples became freaking awesome and combined the best of unix and a nice graphical system with great support. My work was incredibly interesting. Half was general but I sorta enjoy helping folks but then half was working on the amazing systems that were part of their research. Maine problem was it was contracting year to year and providing for myself and my life long term was sorta scary. If I had stayed I likely would have stopped being able to afford to keep the life and never owned anything. Ironically my best year was during covid. My wage was as high as it has ever been and inflation had not hit yet. I was let go of a job but got severance and quickly got a new one. Now is not so great for me as im on track for being unemployed longer than I have ever been.