[swatcoder]

What a superficial collection of things to care about. Those things may tickle you a little when you’re taking advantage of them, but they really don’t make a substantial difference in whether you’re spending your days well and happy.

The 1990’s weren’t some dreary hellscape. You worked, you talked to people, you went out for dinner, you did some chores, you traveled. You had some crises that sent your life reeling, and some magical moments that made you grateful for what you had.

It was quite fine.

And in the ways that it was characteristically different(not better or worse), people were more engaged with what was right in front of them, had more shared experiences of life and media to relate about, and were less flooded with constant stimulation.

All the things you mention as accumulating in the years since are about as meaningful as the aisles and aisles of plastic toys I longed for at Toys-r-us as a kid. I thought they mattered, but they really don’t.

[quanticle]

>The 1990’s weren’t some dreary hellscape.

You can totally still live a '90s lifestyle today. Cancel your high-speed Internet and tether to your phone for everything. Give up watching YouTube. Give up looking things up on Wikipedia. Film cameras are a dime-a-dozen on eBay, with even high-end SLRs from the '90s selling for less than a hundred dollars. Disable Google Maps and Google Search. Stop posting on Hacker News.

If you think the '90s were better than they were today, by all means, go back.

EDIT: For what it's worth, you can find people in the 1930s saying the same things about electricity and indoor plumbing. Every current generation's necessity is the previous generation's excess frivolity.

[pcthrowaway]

You're deluding yourself if you think you would get the same lifestyle by giving up your own post-90s technology. The world as a whole has moved on. Maybe map books aren't at every gas station now. Even if you don't have a phone, the people you talk to are going to be checking theirs while dining with you, or distracted when they get a notification.

I suspect you're not old enough to properly remember the '90s if you really think this would be the equivalent.

I'm not saying it was all sunshine and rainbows (people smoked everywhere, did tons of cocaine, and were probably more openly homophobic/misogynistic/racist, and if you got in an argument over a factual detail you couldn't look up the answer right away).

[seanmcdirmid]

The 90s has my youth, so...of course they were better.

I remember discovering gopher on university library computers in 1993, like I discovered the fun of CPM on my Dad's Osbourne in 1982. There was a nice mystery back then, things are definitely "better" now, except for prices and traffic.

[swatcoder]

I’m close! And the more I’ve done so, the less ruminative and anxious I’ve found myself.

Would recommend.