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1985 vs 2015

Was America better off in 1985, or are we better off today in 2015?

  • 1985 was better overall

    Votes: 25 50.0%
  • 2015 is better overall

    Votes: 25 50.0%

  • Total voters
    50

Peter Grimm

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Pretty simple question for discussion: Is the United States better off today, or were we better off 30 years ago in 1985?

There are a number of angles you can approach this from, and I'll leave it up to you to decide what's important to you.

Culturally? Geo-politically? Economically? In which era were people more optimistic about the future?

Which era was a better time to be an American?
 
2015 > 1985

Unfortunately as time goes on some rights get restricted but other rights get recognized.

I wish we could advance without restricting any rights but still getting other rights recognized. The good thing is that we're pushing back on gun laws and such more so today.

I prefer my modern life to the '85 life according to what I've heard. Technology advancements are simply too great, to want to live in a more backwards technological age just seems foreign to me.

Speaking of wanting to live in backwards ages... Perhaps Paleocon can give some good input for this thread :lol:
 
1985 was a great year, in fact, probably my favorite year in my life. I was 23 then, out of college, newly working, not yet engaged, and just loving life. The late 1970s were a dark time for this country, and starting around 1982 or so, this country went from an international joke to the leader it once was. We young Americans were so optimistic about our future, and our country. Our government was better. People were happy. The economy was bouncing back, people could finally buy houses because mortgage rates were dropping. Even when scary things happened, there wasn't this paranoia that exists today about foreigners and Muslims and so on. Music was better, movies were better.

Sure there are many technological and medical advances now. I'll make the argument that cell phones for sales people are 10000 times better than pulling over to a gas station and waiting in line behind 3 other sales people to use the phone. But guess what? It didn't bother me then because I didn't know better.

Kids knew how to spell because we didn't have spell check. We all read. We knew how to actually talk because we didn't text all day long. We played outdoors instead of sitting on Xbox.

Yeah, to me life was much better in 1985. Being an American was better in 1985. I'd go back to 1985 in a New York minute.

(PS Studio 54 was a blast too).
 
Pretty simple question for discussion: Is the United States better off today, or were we better off 30 years ago in 1985?

There are a number of angles you can approach this from, and I'll leave it up to you to decide what's important to you.

Culturally? Geo-politically? Economically? In which era were people more optimistic about the future?

Which era was a better time to be an American?

Way too vague, in some few respects, 1985, but mostly 2015.
 
1985 was a great year, in fact, probably my favorite year in my life. I was 23 then, out of college, newly working, not yet engaged, and just loving life. The late 1970s were a dark time for this country, and starting around 1982 or so, this country went from an international joke to the leader it once was. We young Americans were so optimistic about our future, and our country. Our government was better. People were happy. The economy was bouncing back, people could finally buy houses because mortgage rates were dropping. Even when scary things happened, there wasn't this paranoia that exists today about foreigners and Muslims and so on. Music was better, movies were better.

Sure there are many technological and medical advances now. I'll make the argument that cell phones for sales people are 10000 times better than pulling over to a gas station and waiting in line behind 3 other sales people to use the phone. But guess what? It didn't bother me then because I didn't know better.

Kids knew how to spell because we didn't have spell check. We all read. We knew how to actually talk because we didn't text all day long. We played outdoors instead of sitting on Xbox.

Yeah, to me life was much better in 1985. Being an American was better in 1985. I'd go back to 1985 in a New York minute.

(PS Studio 54 was a blast too).

Wow, are you a 62' model.
 
Way too vague, in some few respects, 1985, but mostly 2015.

It's vague on purpose, because people value different things. My reason for asking this question was because I watched a movie from 19985, and I'm struck by how much has changed.

There are so many angles you could approach this from, and it depends on what matters most to you. Reagan vs Obama. Civil rights in 1985 vs today. The threat of communism vs the threat of terrorism. The economy in 1985 vs today. Pop culture. Social demographics.

There are a lot of angles this can be discussed, just depends on what you value and find most important.
 
It's vague on purpose, because people value different things. My reason for asking this question was because I watched a movie from 19985, and I'm struck by how much has changed.

There are so many angles you could approach this from, and it depends on what matters most to you. Reagan vs Obama. Civil rights in 1985 vs today. The threat of communism vs the threat of terrorism. The economy in 1985 vs today. Pop culture. Social demographics.

There are a lot of angles this can be discussed, just depends on what you value and find most important.

Communism was always hanging over our heads then as a threat. But more Americans died because of terrorism than died as a result of communism in my lifetime.

Life was simpler back then. People were less paranoid. We had real fun.
 
This was back in the day when postal workers were more likely to commit mass murder than high school kids.

Times differ. My mother was alive back then. My dad was in fine health. Dozens of people I cared about were still alive.

It is really an impossible thing to judge. I think I would like 1985 better though I would like to have todays technology.
 
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Communism was always hanging over our heads then as a threat. But more Americans died because of terrorism than died as a result of communism in my lifetime.

Life was simpler back then. People were less paranoid. We had real fun.

It's interesting because in 1985, the Soviet Union was still around, but in only 5 years it was going to collapse. I wonder if people had a sense of that, if the writing was on the wall, so to speak, or if nobody really expected it was going to happen.

Certainly, there must have been a sense that communism was in decline.
 
It's vague on purpose, because people value different things. My reason for asking this question was because I watched a movie from 19985, and I'm struck by how much has changed.

There are so many angles you could approach this from, and it depends on what matters most to you. Reagan vs Obama. Civil rights in 1985 vs today. The threat of communism vs the threat of terrorism. The economy in 1985 vs today. Pop culture. Social demographics.

There are a lot of angles this can be discussed, just depends on what you value and find most important.

Its hard not to answer such a poll based on personal position. But I hear ya. I didn't get any trickle down in the eighties, mine came in the nineties. Civil rights issues are certainly improved, but I'm a white guy, and others may see that differently. Communism was never a threat to me, but it played handsomely for the MIC. If your middle class or lower middle class, 30 years of residual Reaganomics hasn't been good for you. The threat of terrorism is certainly hugely worse for some regions, and only modestly worse here, at this moment anyway.
 
Today, obviously. The world is always getting better, violent crime is down, poverty is down, starvation is down, literacy is up etc, etc.
 
1985 was a great year, in fact, probably my favorite year in my life. I was 23 then, out of college, newly working, not yet engaged, and just loving life. The late 1970s were a dark time for this country, and starting around 1982 or so, this country went from an international joke to the leader it once was. We young Americans were so optimistic about our future, and our country. Our government was better. People were happy. The economy was bouncing back, people could finally buy houses because mortgage rates were dropping. Even when scary things happened, there wasn't this paranoia that exists today about foreigners and Muslims and so on. Music was better, movies were better.

Sure there are many technological and medical advances now. I'll make the argument that cell phones for sales people are 10000 times better than pulling over to a gas station and waiting in line behind 3 other sales people to use the phone. But guess what? It didn't bother me then because I didn't know better.

Kids knew how to spell because we didn't have spell check. We all read. We knew how to actually talk because we didn't text all day long. We played outdoors instead of sitting on Xbox.

Yeah, to me life was much better in 1985. Being an American was better in 1985. I'd go back to 1985 in a New York minute.

(PS Studio 54 was a blast too).

I'd agree on everything except the music.

Wham!, Duran Duran, Tears for Fears......gag me with a spoon!:lol:
 
1985 was a great year, in fact, probably my favorite year in my life. I was 23 then, out of college, newly working, not yet engaged, and just loving life. The late 1970s were a dark time for this country, and starting around 1982 or so, this country went from an international joke to the leader it once was. We young Americans were so optimistic about our future, and our country. Our government was better. People were happy. The economy was bouncing back, people could finally buy houses because mortgage rates were dropping. Even when scary things happened, there wasn't this paranoia that exists today about foreigners and Muslims and so on. Music was better, movies were better.

Sure there are many technological and medical advances now. I'll make the argument that cell phones for sales people are 10000 times better than pulling over to a gas station and waiting in line behind 3 other sales people to use the phone. But guess what? It didn't bother me then because I didn't know better.

Kids knew how to spell because we didn't have spell check. We all read. We knew how to actually talk because we didn't text all day long. We played outdoors instead of sitting on Xbox.

Yeah, to me life was much better in 1985. Being an American was better in 1985. I'd go back to 1985 in a New York minute.

(PS Studio 54 was a blast too).

:yt


That, pretty much. There are a lot of things I appreciate here in 2015, but in many ways 1985 was a better time to be an American.
 
Today, obviously. The world is always getting better, violent crime is down, poverty is down, starvation is down, literacy is up etc, etc.

I like the positive attitude.
 
It's interesting because in 1985, the Soviet Union was still around, but in only 5 years it was going to collapse. I wonder if people had a sense of that, if the writing was on the wall, so to speak, or if nobody really expected it was going to happen.

Certainly, there must have been a sense that communism was in decline.

I remember more an antagonistic attitude towards Russia which I often think stemmed more from competition than fear. We wanted to be the world superpower - and so did they.

I never worried that a Russian was going to hurt me. In fact, in 1983, I studied abroad in Vienna for a semester, and we took a 10 day trip to Russia. It wasn't scary at all. I wouldn't consider going to many places now that we went then, including Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Greece. I wouldn't let my kids go to any of those places now.
 
I'd agree on everything except the music.

Wham!, Duran Duran, Tears for Fears......gag me with a spoon!:lol:

Duran Duran sucks. Tears For Fears was the bomb. So were The Cars, Billy Squier, 38 Special, OMFG I could go on and on.
 
It's interesting because in 1985, the Soviet Union was still around, but in only 5 years it was going to collapse. I wonder if people had a sense of that, if the writing was on the wall, so to speak, or if nobody really expected it was going to happen.

Certainly, there must have been a sense that communism was in decline.


There was.

In the Soviet Politburo. Which is one big reason a relative outsider like Gorbachev was able to be elected. He convinced the old guys in the Politburo that they needed a radically younger man who might bring in new ideas to save the U.S.S.R.

They figured badly because Gorbachev was younger and that was about it. He had no real ideas besides being more open about the Soviet failings, being nicer to the west and hoping for one hell of a lot of economic aid.
 
Today, obviously. The world is always getting better, violent crime is down, poverty is down, starvation is down, literacy is up etc, etc.

Not in the United States is poverty down. In 1985 it was 14%. In 2013 it was 14.5%.
 
It's interesting because in 1985, the Soviet Union was still around, but in only 5 years it was going to collapse. I wonder if people had a sense of that, if the writing was on the wall, so to speak, or if nobody really expected it was going to happen.

Certainly, there must have been a sense that communism was in decline.

There was a definite sense that Communism was in decline. Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement was in high gear and Gorbachev was using terms like "Perestrioka" and "glasnost". There was a lot of hope that Reagan would manage to thaw out the "cold war".
 
Duran Duran sucks. Tears For Fears was the bomb. So were The Cars, Billy Squier, 38 Special, OMFG I could go on and on.

You probably went to Loverboy and REO Speedwagon concerts too. Just....yuck!!:lamo
 
Fun thread topic, Grimm. I like it, made me have to think and this was a fun thing to think about.

The Achille Lauro hijacking happened in 1985. I do remember that well. I think it was the first time I heard of innocent Americans being attacked by "terrorists" which is how they described the Palestinians. There was a TWA flight hijacked the same year, by Lebanese as I recall.
 
I wasn't born in 1985 so definitely going to be biased on this one.
 
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