For those say in their 60s or 70s here. When you were in your 30’s or 40’s did you have the feeling that the world was a fucked up place? So much has been going on since I entered adulthood in the early 2000s and I feel like it’s getting more and more intense. It’s never ending.
Is it unique? Or has it always been this way?
I think that is an apt comparison and it just outlines the things to me. We really did not know smoking was bad till the 40’s and the 50’s is when it was much more conclusive and the industry was able to push off legislation for like a decade into the 60’s. The greenhouse effect although known for awhile similarly did not really become conclusive till the 50’s and still it was like the late eighties when congressional hearings brought it more into the us public sphere although many folk still did not really know about it till gores 2006 movie put it more into the common culture. The industry fud started with the congressional hearings when there was indication it might lead to regulation. So they have pretty effectively stalled it for the most part for over 30 years! In addition we have had some regulation and then had it pulled back. I think it really highlights the decline compared to before when you look at cigarettes compared to greenhouse gases.
I guess. You could also look at things like plastic pollution where industry straight up won, and during the 60s-70s successfully pushed the responsibility onto consumers to recycle while continuing to crank out single use plastic with very few restrictions.
I don’t think the industry did much there. Consumers were not exactly avoiding plastics. There was kinda a few attempts to avoid them but they did not really go anywhere except for maybe the reusable shopping bags. I have to say I used to love and get the 16 ounce pop bottles that had the deposit that you got back when you brought them back. I would be buying them now if the pop industry had not phased them out. Was still able to get them even in the first year or so of the 90’s. That ones a hard comparison.