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[-] Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 hours ago

Born in 1979. I've seen rotary phones, touch tone phones, cordless phones, pagers cellphones, PC computing pre windows (DOS anyone,) floppy discs (they didn't just used to be a save icon,) the internet before the internet when it was just hyperboards you dialed up manually and then put the receiver into a baud modem, cassette tapes, CDs, MP3s and ipods, car windows that had to be manually rolled down. I had a TV where you had to get up and manually change the channel.

I'm in that weird space where I could be a millenial, or could be gen x. I was a latch key kid and had no parental supervision. As an 9 year old, I came home from school and cared for my 4 y/o sister. We played outside, in the street, we walked to the park. I'd ride my bike and put my sister on the seat and we would go get ice cream, or go to the comic shop. It was normal to just be a kid doing your own thing and for your parents to have no idea where you were or how to contact you.

If you didn't know where you were going, you had to purchase a map/atlas and learn how to read it to get directions.

I lived through the contra scandal/Iraq Iran war, the war on drugs, desert storm, the war on terror, and whatever the fuck this new Iran straight of hormuz war is. I've seen lived through lots of genocide, (I'm not a victim, just got to see it play out in the news;) Sabra and Shatila massacre, Anfal campaign, Isaaq genocide (somali), Bosnian genocide, Rwandan genocide, Massacres of Hutus during the First Congo War, DRC and ethnic cleansing of Pygmies from the Congo's eastern region, Darfur genocide (2003–2005), Yazidi genocide, Ukrainian genocide (via Russia and still ongoing,) Persecution of Uyghurs in China, Rohingya genocide, and Gaza genocide. We have always been at war.

Pre-internet, there was tons of news you would never hear of, or if you did you got the propaganda version because there was no way to access the facts. The newspaper and TV news were still considered reputable. Now with smartphones and cameras everywhere, people can share information with each other directly and we can all call bullshit on misreporting and propaganda, for all the good it does.

Life was hard then, and it's hard now. It's just hard in different ways.

this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
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