The feeling that we've peaked with less to look forward too

Soldato
Joined
10 Jul 2008
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7,684
Do you get this? I increasingly find myself feeling this way about a lot of things. I admit that my age (mid 30s) will play a role but I keep feeling like many different things used to be better and more enjoyable and that things these days are just so influenced by money, that often we are limited as to what the future will bring both technologically and in terms of general happiness in life.

I'll give just a few examples...

- Clubbing - died out which is pretty sad.
- Mobile phones - drip fed gradual "changes" and very small improvements.
- Gaming - the actual game content, feeling and emotion has not felt as special over the last decade.
- Roads and train infrastructure - our roads are in poor condition and our train infra is decades behind. It seems unrealistic to ever foresee it being good. Our "peak" could be here, which is unfortunately more "the best we can do".
- Fast car/bike ownership - again our roads are poor and cameras everywhere. High costs to run and stricter emissions and a push to elec.
- TVs - Since 1080p flat screens we haven't gone very far. Even top end TVs have uniformity issues.
- Football - too many reasons to list, it's just not as enjoyable as 90s/00s
- MotoGP and F1 - I find myself skipping through highlights and don't really look forward to new seasons.
- Pubs - Of the ones that survive, they tend to be refurbished with a restaurant bias losing all character.



I often feel that life was much more simple in the 80s/90s when kids played with lego and dolls and went round to each others houses to "knock" for them to come out. Back then the future of electronics and computers and stuff generally really, was kind of exciting. Always something new around the corner. Now it feels like there's just nothing to look forward to even when we do see the back of COVID.

Have we peaked or am I being an old, negative nelly? Is this just an age thing where you become more wise/knowledgeable and there is less to "wonder" about, because you simply know the answers, which allows for less romance and fantasization of the future?
 
Associate
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Peloponnese, Greece
I think it depends where you live, unfortunately. Europe / UK has been in gradual decline since the 2nd WW.

South East Asia feels completely different, rapidly improving living standards, vibrant and free (even now) social scene and increasing wealth and pride.

We are returning to Europe later this year and are very worried we will be taking a big step back re. quality of life.
 
Soldato
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What you need is the breakfast of champions to perk you up. It's a genuine miracle of modern science how a simple herbal infusion of cocaine and viagra can make the world new and exciting for you once more.
 
Soldato
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unstated.assortment.union
- Clubbing - died out which is pretty sad.
- Mobile phones - drip fed gradual "changes" and very small improvements.
- Gaming - the actual game content, feeling and emotion has not felt as special over the last decade.
- Roads and train infrastructure - our roads are in poor condition and our train infra is decades behind. It seems unrealistic to ever foresee it being good. Our "peak" could be here, which is unfortunately more "the best we can do".
- Fast car/bike ownership - again our roads are poor and cameras everywhere. High costs to run and stricter emissions and a push to elec.
- TVs - Since 1080p flat screens we haven't gone very far. Even top end TVs have uniformity issues.
- Football - too many reasons to list, it's just not as enjoyable as 90s/00s
- MotoGP and F1 - I find myself skipping through highlights and don't really look forward to new seasons.
- Pubs - Of the ones that survive, they tend to be refurbished with a restaurant bias losing all character.

Clubbing - Music tastes change with each generation, it was always going to have a limited shelf-life
Phones - Greed is the major factor in the drip-feeding but necessity is the mother of invention but what can't a phone do at the moment that the masses need?
Gaming - It's hit the wall that Hollywood hit years ago. All the good, original ideas have been done
Road/Rail - Again, greed is the issue. Mostly because Liebour decided to open the floodgates with PFI contracts. Tories introduced PFI but in a move uncommon for them, set limits which Liebour removed
Car/Bike - Plenty of tracks to go to if you wanna go fast.
TVs - For me, I don't really need anything about 1080, although I do own a 4k TV, again, necessity plays a part here.
Football - I stopped being bothered about football a long time ago. Greed, again, is the issue here.
Motorsport - Over-regulation & over-focused on safety. Safety is important but we all know motorsport is dangerous & over focusing on safety has stifled driving talent, no-one takes a small risky for the fear of being penalised.
Pubs - Changing generations, much like clubbing.
 
Caporegime
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18 Mar 2008
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32,741
Britain peaked in the 1920's. I think what we're currently experiencing is part of America's cultural zenith, which we vicariously live through and so it affects us rather more than it ought to.
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Dec 2004
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15,764
I think it depends where you live, unfortunately. Europe / UK has been in gradual decline since the 2nd WW.

South East Asia feels completely different, rapidly improving living standards, vibrant and free (even now) social scene and increasing wealth and pride.

We are returning to Europe later this year and are very worried we will be taking a big step back re. quality of life.

Try one of the European countries that isn't a declining superpower that's given up on community. I came back to the UK a year ago, after 6 six years in Germany, and 4 in SE Asia. It's really stark how run-down and in decline the UK is. The NHS is a shadow of what it was.

Germany feels so different, affluent, confident, full of investment, entrepreneurship. People still have a sense of belonging and community. Still has a great club scene and nights out are much more enjoyable (except when a British football team is visiting).

Spent a lot of time working in Sweden too and enjoyed it there too, great people. Here in Britain everyone seems to have a stick up their ass these days.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 May 2003
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8,833
Several reinforcing trends at play aren't helping. Loss of mass employment in 70's and 80's. The growth in home entertainment. The internet and social media. And finally online shopping.

40 years ago the social fabric binding us was so much stronger. We worked together social clubs, sports clubs and pubs tied us together. They were the only places to drink and cheap supermarket booze and home entertainment weren't competing with them so heavily. We knoew more people better I would suggest. We were often part of a more established community. From video to DVD with satellite TV then streaming we can entertain ourselves at home. Where everyone once watched the same programmes at the same time we are now more cut adrift even in the entertainment we consume. Finally the internet and social media. it's great that we can converse with a distributed group of people all over the World. But the anonymity encourages coarser behavior. Fringe ideas and behaviours can find like minded souls but where those ideas are harmful or dangerous they can feed in an echo chamber. Oneupmanship is not new but before we competed only with our neighbours, we were the best in our village or town now we compete globally which for both young men and women seems to be encouraging unhealthy obsessions with how they present themselves.

For all the good removal of social restraint with regards discrimination and equality there has also been bad erosion of the bonds that support us and an increasing incivility.
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Mar 2010
Posts
12,305
It sounds to me like you're on a verge of dipping into a mid-life crisis - although way too early.

Just picking a few off your list

- Mobile phones - what more do you actually want from a phone? Phones will continue to get faster, and with more memory/storage in-line with everything else computer related, but in terms of actual new features, without making the phones bigger or even more expensive, you're quite limited, but again - what more do you actually want from a phone?
- TVs - These have still come along way since the first range of "HD ready LCD's" hit the market. New tech has made these thinner, and with much better picture quality.
- Fast car/bike ownership - this is just a changing of times - you can still take a fast car to a track day and bomb it round there at whatever speed you feel like
- Clubbing - ignoring this year, clubbing hasn't died out, it's just that you're now perceived as too old to go clubbing, it's more frequented by youngsters, so you'll feel like 99% of the crowd will be a good 15 years younger than you.
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Oct 2012
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Location
London/S Korea
I think it depends where you live, unfortunately. Europe / UK has been in gradual decline since the 2nd WW.

South East Asia feels completely different, rapidly improving living standards, vibrant and free (even now) social scene and increasing wealth and pride.

We are returning to Europe later this year and are very worried we will be taking a big step back re. quality of life.
I spend time across both Asia and Europe and I always feel like I’m stepping into the future by 10-20 years when I’m in Asia. I guess it is all down to development cycles and Europe is overdue one if they ever get around to it.
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Jan 2010
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21,949
You are brainwashed. With the exception of (potentially :rolleyes:) clubbing and pubs, you are describing a fulfilling life as materiality. Some of the happiest people in the world have no material possessions and don't tie their outlook to incremental refreshes of material possessions. The reason I say "brain washed" is because this is the fundamentals underpinning this latest incarnate of capitalism. Consumerism is bad other than for the very top.

Transcending this position will see you much happier by taking a walk or going camping rather than selling your life to buy a device put together by oter people selling their life.
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Mar 2006
Posts
8,336
Globalisation has brought cheap electronics and entertainment in abundance. It has brought foreign investment and expertise, but it has also completely disconnected us from reality. For those with money and status globalisation has been quite liberating, they can afford to play both sides. While for the working class, their sense of identity has been washed away leaving communities at the mercy of corporations and systems operating from thousands of miles away.


The middle classes can enjoy their cheap electronics but can also visit farm shops, eat in restaurants with locally sourced ingredients and meet friends on weekend breaks in countryside cottages. While someone at the bottom is most likely eating processed foods packed in Eastern Europe and finds a sense of self by posting on apps hosted from silicon valley.


We've spent the last 40 years building a society around individualism and global commerce. The result is that nativism is now seen as inefficiency. But I think it is dangerous and peoples sense of place and purpose has been truly eroded. It's almost impossible for anything grass roots to emerge because global commerce can so efficiently co-opt it now.


Devolution and a longing for the local is everywhere, Brexit and Trump are major examples of a cry in the dark but there is a real discontent and someone really needs to address it before things get even more ugly.
 
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