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__turbobrew__ | 10 hours ago

> Would you want to be born a girl in the 1940s?

My grandma was born in the 40s and said it was better back then.

> Decades before the Civil Rights Act and Jim Crow laws still existed?

I don’t live in the USA so that is irrelevant.

Also, keep in mind I still have over half my life to live and the future seems very uncertain. Maybe I am a pessimist, but I would take 1940-2020 which I now know in hindsight was a pretty decent time to live compared to whatever the next 40 years holds. Maybe I am wrong and we will magically cure cancer, solve wealth inequality, 20 hour work weeks due to automation, and stay WW3.

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lotsofpulp|8 hours ago

> My grandma was born in the 40s and said it was better back then.

My grandma was also, and she will tell you women should not have as many rights as men. And that periods make women unclean. And kids should have to follow their parents’ religion. And corporal punishment for kids is okay. And daughter in laws should defer to parents’ in laws.

> Maybe I am wrong and we will magically cure cancer

Quality of life after a cancer diagnosis is leaps and bounds better today than it was in decades past. Setting the standard at what I presume is “take this pill and you never have to worry about cancer again” seems like a good way to disappoint yourself.

> Also, keep in mind I still have over half my life to live and the future seems very uncertain.

Things might very well be trending down, but they can still be better than the past in some ways, and worse in some ways.

__turbobrew__|4 hours ago

> Things might very well be trending down, but they can still be better than the past in some ways, and worse in some ways.

Maybe, I would take a guaranteed pretty good 80 years over the next 40-50 years where things are trending downwards. And for all we know, the past 80 years were a fluke caused by WW2 and the carbon impulse happening at the same time.