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Medical care is absolutely light years ahead ...

So true that it is a game changer. I have two sisters and a brother, all alive and well. Each of them and I have two children, I have 4 grand children. In my generation down not one of us lost a child at birth although there were a couple of close calls, a loss that was common in my mothers generation and almost expected in my grandmother's gen.

I'm the hero in my own story. I feel great, have interests bigger than myself, have most of my marbles and don't miss the ones I've lost. In my grandfather's generation I'd be the comic relief sitting on the stoop by the saloon; probably toothless, blind in one eye, unable to walk with out crutches and in constant pain and waiting impatiently for death that would take me out of the constant pain from the shit growing inside me.

Hips are now replaced like old tires, bugs are identified before they render you down for your grease. Eyes get refocused and corrected routinely. Pneumonia is no longer 'the old folks blessing' and the Big C is now a declaration of war, not an unappealable death sentence. Old age is increasingly a time rather than a condition.

I'd rather be alive in the time I'm in now with its myriad problems and inconveniences rather than hoping that after surviving the above inconveniences that Edward Teach wasn't going to come ashore at night, kill my wife, rape me, steal my chickens and burn my house. CNN does suck though.

I wasn't around for "back then" but everyone says it was better. I wish I could figure out the connection...

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Originally posted by selogic:
Medical care is absolutely light years ahead obviously . I had a Grandfather that I never met . He died when my Dad was very young . Pneumonia . When was the last time you heard of an otherwise healthy man die from Pneumonia in his 40's ?

Another perspective on that is that it isn't as easy for Darwin to take those that are trying real hard to get took.

The greatest thing we have lost today is a QUALITY society. Liberalism is Americas cancer . And it's killing our nation.

Back then, not every person over 16 had a car. A family had just one car.

Mass transit was cheap, plus most young women didn't drive or own a car.

So.....

Us young guys were eager to help these poor girls get around.

Was life really better back then?

Yes, regardless of the time period. Every generation has its version of "back then," "back in the day," or "the good old days." It's a nostalgia thing, and no matter how old you are now, you were younger and in your element "back then."

I was born in '52, I wouldn't go back. There have been a heck of a lot of changes, some for the better and some not so much.

I live a better life than my parents did, so I have nothing to complain about. I am not so sure that my kids will be able to say the same, but I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I've read and thought about all the replies, and just can't make up my mind, on one hand I say yes, it was way better back then, but then I think of the technology we have now and wonder. Answers to every question at the end of our fingertips, or good old wholesomegoodness. Wish I could find both these days!! Now 64

I was born in 48 and grew up in the 50-60s. When looking back, politics aside, technology has made life better. In the early 50s both of my GFs died from heart attacks age 63 from conditions that prob could be treated today. Lost a great uncle too. Docs simply told him to go home and wait for the inevitable. People got “hardening of the arteries” and no tech to clear blockages existed.

I would have croaked age 50 due to a major artery obstruction that was cleared via an angioplasty in the late 90s. My wife, a cardiac cath lab nurse said her Houston hosp didn’t begin training angioplasty fellows until the early 80s. The hospital was a cardiac cutting edge facility.

That’s just one example of how science had made today better than yesterday imho. Others here have pointed to other advances.

Today, life is so much more complex. So much complication. I’ve left out politics.

We’ve ignored long range thinking. The Marxists haven’t. They said long ago that they would infiltrate us and change us gradually. They did and we are facing that reality now.

We’ve become so focused on the easier life made possible by technology, we fail to see the tentacles of totalitarianism slipping around our necks.