What things did people have in the 70’s that we don’t have now? I can think of a few. A debt-free education for one... university study here in the Netherlands was fully government funded. Affordable homes to buy for another... a good sized house was 3x an average year’s salary.
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No worry about Global Warming
A belief in a better future for future generations
SkotlandSkye
Level 8
July 20, 2018
3
My father was a Chemistry teacher, so I was kept up to date on things like global warming, starvation, overpopulation, etc. However I do understand that the majority of the people never heard of it.
@kiramea I was a kid....on a farm in the middle of nowhere....turned 13 in 1979....so, yeah, wasn't on the news and wasn't taught in school.
Best Weed could buy and without damaging additives. Popular music was worth listening to. Porn was kept on theaters... 8mm films were hidden... errr maybe I should remove the Porn thing. Popular music was worth listening to! And never met a woman with baggage back then.
GipsyOfNewSpain
Level 9
July 20, 2018
3
I was 12 in 1970 and I already had baggage 
A full oz of truly righteous smoke was available for $40. I don't recall ever being without.
Now? Not so much.
Haven't indulged since Christmas when my niece was here from NC.
@HippieChick58 You, you... Okay. My grandma warned me about girls like you!
@HippieChick58, @KKGator And in P.R. to be $40.00 had to be really good. Smoke once this century, with my daughter. I was not impressed. I will smoke again next century. Shit now days can't measure up. Even Heroin is a Major Killer now days. Back in my days was Dangerous and Stupid (keeping me out of it) but didn't killed you like today it does.
I’d love to live on a house that is worth three years of salary.
indirect76
Level 7
July 20, 2018
3
Decent Social Security benefits and Medicare. Decent education. My public school education was superior to what I see kids getting now. New math my ass. No STD epidemic, I was young and foolish and never caught a disease that kept on giving. Our food was better. We were not so reliant on chemical fertilizers and we ate more fresh food less out of a box. Less chemical crap in the air and water. Better TV programs and not continual TV. We talked to each other more.
HippieChick58
Level 9
July 20, 2018
5
My mother's house was purchased for roughly 28k in 1971. 3bed/2.5bath. Full attic, full basement, 1 car garage attached to the basemen, 2 car detached garage. 1/2 acre property. Essex County, New Jersey.
That same property today is worth approximately $550k (amended for accuracy).
The 70s were the last decade that I can recall real prosperity. Things started tanking in the 80s, and have gotten exponentially worse. The 80s were the advent of artificial prosperity -- namely "Reaganomics", the "moral majority", christian evangelism, and a host of other unpleasant concepts.
KKGator
Level 9
July 20, 2018
6
Also, a factor in prosperity was that unions still had power. That was before "Right to Work" laws.
Got to agree there. Same as UK with the Thatcher dismantling machine. End of unions and birth of digital age and societal isolation.
Ne fear of STD's as a death sentence, AIDS, or a permanent condition, herpes, to name just 2.
Mitch07102
Level 8
July 20, 2018
3
A sense of indestructability and an insane urge to demonstrate it! ?
chalupacabre
Level 8
July 20, 2018
3
For as great as the 70s and 80s were, child abuse was more rampant. No one ever talked about it or got arrested for it. My dad beat us with belts, switches, or his hands, he was a rough, ignorant man. He told me "there is no such thing as rape because a woman can run faster with her skirts up than a man can with his pants down." And "if you ever get pregnant without being married I will kick you out of the house." When I left his house I never looked back. I also never let my kids visit my dad and step witch without me being there. They say abuse runs in families. I stopped it in my family, it did not get passed on. Yes, I have some baggage from childhood. If a man near me raises his hand in anger I shrink and close down. One threat and I am gone. I will never again have that in my life.
HippieChick58
Level 9
July 20, 2018
3
I thought education was still free in the Netherlands, no?
Another thing is no security cameras.
confidentrealm
Level 7
July 20, 2018
1
No our students get saddled with student loans now
@Denker sorry to hear that. I lived there in the seventies and I thought your education system was great. What happened?
@confidentrealm I’m not exactly sure... I think it’s along the lines of more people stay in education longer and it became unaffordable.
@Denker I know back then it beat the hell out of the US system. It probably still does. I liked the different levels of secondary school. Weeded those out that didn't want to learn and taught them a trade instead. If you wanted to go on the university, you had to be intelligent and not just be able to play a sport. I hope those things are still in existence.
@confidentrealm yes, those aspects have proven very succesful and still exist.
Pet rocks. Now extinct.
LilAtheistLady
Level 7
July 20, 2018
2
I have a pet rock. I won it from a radio station (KRGI) when I was in High School. I still have that pet rock. It's gone just about every place with me. That's a lotta miles.
@HippieChick58 that is so cool! Wish I would have saved mine and kept my mood ring too.. :/
Cassette recorders, black and white TVs, reel to reel tape recorders, proper board games, strip shopping with proper shops, nutritious food, diseases which were incurable, Concorde, more respect for each other, religious tolerance, school teachers that still wore capes and mortar boards...
Geoffrey51
Level 8
July 20, 2018
3
Rotary phones, payphones/phone booths, seven TV channels total at the most, answering machines, record players, 8-track tapes, affordable housing, encyclopedias, typewriters, disco, Watergate (really sad that compared to today's commander-in-chief that Nixon is considered an "elder statesman" ), Vietnam, leisure suits...
bleurowz
Level 8
July 20, 2018
3
Giant telephone bills for calling long distance. Long distance could be a 30 minute drive too.
Unsolved crimes due to lack of dna evidence.
DDT
/devil's advocate
otoh, gorey driving accident documentaries shown to high school students (they don't show them anymore do they?)
Qualia
Level 8
July 20, 2018
1
When my girls were in HS 10 years ago they were showing car accident videos. There was a horrible tragic accident just a few miles from the HS that my oldest went to, the cop who was first on the scene showed pictures and talked about the accident to driver's ed classes. Very sobering for those kids.
@HippieChick58 ah I'm so glad to know they still exist somewhere. I asked if they do that up here and was told emphatically no.
I recall them vividly!
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