[stupidcar]

People who experienced a stable childhood seem to have a natural tendency to view the period they grew up in as, if not a golden age, then a safer, simpler time. Which makes sense: You’re too young to be aware of much of the complexity of the world, and your parents provide most of your essential needs and shield you from a lot of bad stuff.

That’s not to say all eras are the same. Clearly there’s better and worse times to be alive, but it’s hard to be objective about our childhoods.

[HarHarVeryFunny]

That's certainly all true, and not just parents shielding you from bad stuff, but the bad stuff just not appearing on the TV or in the newspaper the way it will today on TV or internet. If it was going on then nobody was aware of it, and maybe not a bad thing. Is my life really better for reading about some teenage cartel hitman making human "stew" etc ?

But I do think that perhaps the 70's was a somewhat more decent time than today. Lines have been crossed and levels of violence normalized that it seems really didn't exist back then, or certainly were not as widespread. e.g. I grew up with the IRA constantly in the news - often bombings in the UK as well as violence in Northern Ireland. But, by today's standard the IRA's terrorism was almost quaint and gentlemanly ... they'd plant a bomb, but then call it into the police and/or media so that people could be evacuated - they still created terror/disruption which realistically probably did help them achieve their goals, but without the level of ultra violence and complete disregard for human life that we see today, such as ISIS beheadings posted on FaceBook or Twitter that some people happily watch and forward to their friends, or the 9/11 attack which was really inconceivable beforehand.

[Bombinator]

People have been killing each other for their entire history, I don't think that has changed. It's just that you hear about and see it more often now.