Does anyone else genuinely miss the 2000s? -

[Oglooger]

Anyone missing the 2010s yet?

only that small window of 2011 - 2013

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Anyone missing the 2010s yet?

No.

 

[Super Sad Smile]

I miss watching Jim's stream if that counts

 

[NeoGAF Lurker]

Interesting set of comments from a recent article here- comments were discussing the stagnation of Japan since the 90s:

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/corona-babies/#comment-4733911

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Interesting notion on how the Anglosphere largely still deludes itself that its cultural output is still 'good', while everyone sort of subconsciously knows that pop culture has generally gone to the weeds across the world.

I’ve said for a while now that Pax Americana peaked in the late 1990s and the best time western society will ever experience was between the collapse of the USSR and the 2008 stock market crash.

The great recession is what killed the, "You too can own a little house with a white-picket fence" narrative. There was no recovering after that. The rate of home ownership is still down around 5% since 2008, and that 5% that doesn't own a home skewers younger. The gap in home ownership between older and younger generations has increased since 2008 with home ownership rates among those over 65 increasing by 1-2%. A drop of a few percentage points doesn't sound like a lot, but in a country with 330,000,000 people, you're talking about 16.5 million people who would have owned a house in 2004 who don't in 2020. That's 16.5 million more people who do not know the stability of owning the roof they live under.

Obviously we have many more creature comforts, and it is preferable to be alive now vs the middle ages. However, if you swap in landlords for feudal lords and paying taxes for paying tithes to the church, you could make a very good argument that living in a city with no prospects of ever owning a house has evolved into a neo-feudalism. Many people's rent eats up well over half of their take home income, and taxes paid to government are greater than the 10% tithe paid to feudal churches. You have to work full-time because you need money to pay your landlord so you don't end up in the street, then government skims off the top before you pay your landlord. So in essence, the higher rent goes and the more income you need to pay rent, the more you need to work, the more government collects. The only escape is to eventually own a paid off house, or to live in an RV or van or something. They don't want you to have that, because it's not in their best interest.

This is a great post and is a big root cause of why everyone of all stripes is angry and unhappy: the concept an ownership society is quickly dying off. That essentially means there is nothing to aspire to except to consoom the latest content and see their quality of life slowly but steadily degrade. Home prices have shot up so high everywhere that it feels intentional that home prices will always be out of reach. All the trickle down effects of never being able to own a home cascade to thinks like not getting married, no kids, no real long term thinking and planning, etc. A doggo and an apartment in a trendy part of a city will never replicate the house with a white picket fence, a wife and 2.5 kids.

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

2000-2010 was a better decade than 2011-2020. I also preferred the 00s over the 90s.