• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Was There A Dimensional Shift After The Turn Of The Century?

Resurrecting this thread to say I just visited that link and saw that today is the tenth anniversary of that Community episode. I've just come from another site that was postulating a possible dimensional shift caused by the Large Hadron Collider, which is what prompted me to find this thread...so there's my synchronicity of the day!
 
Lots of very valid opinions on this thread.

I do believe there was a shift in the world.

I felt the 1980's and 1990's were more manageable to live in.

1.) The internet/smart phones have caused a change.

We are able to, and expect, things to be done at a greater speed.
Job applications, dating, audio-visual meetings, writing letters, booking holidays.
These can all be done with a net connected device.
Previously they need visits to shops, offices, filling in application forms by hand (and in part by using the phone.)

Importantly, we receive answers very much quicker than pre World Wide Web times...often within a few minutes.
We can also do more things and get replies without speaking to another person, from "chatbots" using A.I.

This has caused a change in peoples' personalities and life expectations....greater emphasis on quick reward, less concentration, and more showing off.

Getting a magazine in the 1980's allowed time to read it, and think about it.
Focus on in-depth articles, less focus on beating your rivals to the news by a few seconds.
Reading that magazine was not like reading a social media site or forum, where replies can be made so much quicker than the next month's letter page, and online there exists in some readers an imagined pressure to reply, and to reply quickly.

2.) The workplace.

The balance has tipped in favour of the employer.
Less unionisation, more individualism, less of a community spirit in the workplace.

It leaves people feeling less happy.

3.) World Stability

I think the world has moved to a less stable level.
The Cold War had a nuclear threat, and we came very close to nuclear war in 1962 and 1983, but....it was a threat with a structure; protocols based on nation states.

Terrorism existed as a frequent deadly menace, but on the whole the terrorists used hand weapons and conventional explosives.

Now we have the very real growth and existence of terrorist enclaves, terrorists attempting to get radiological weapons, and an increase in the power of their armouries.

There continue to exist nation state nuclear arsenals, only now we have North Korea (and Iran) who are outside international norms* and are active in testing their armouries and improving them, mixed with belligerent political speeches.
In my opinion that is a shift.

There are caveats that:

*South Africa has been nuclear since the mid-1970's, and was a rogue state at that time.
*Israel has been believed to be nuclear since the late 1960's, and according to military assistant Arnon Azaryahu, the military commander Moshe Dayan did suggest readying nuclear weapons for use on Damascus in the 1973 War, a suggestion curtailed by Prime Minister Golda Meir.
*The USA has twice used nuclear weapons in warfare.
 
Last edited:
I won't try and analyse this, but I noticed an enormous change in the UK between 1992 when I left for the US and 1997 when I came back. And I understand from friends a similar change happened in the US after 9/11. Call it a collapse in morale, for a better description.
 
I also think the Net has a lot to answer for. Previously, if you read something in a newspaper or magazine that you disagreed with, you would wander around muttering to yourself for a few days until you forgot about it. Now you can be on the Comments section of the online version (or on the forum), telling all and sundry how much you disagree. And having people wade in to disagree with your disagreement. Then having a huge online argument, buoyed up by those who agree with you taking sides against those who don't. It can lead people to thinking that their word, their opinion, carries far more weight than it really does.

See also any Local Facebook page where someone puts up a photo of the locality in Times Past. Half the readership is just desperate to tell you how much nicer it was back then...
 
I think there is some truth in the change in the workplace. I have worked for many years for a certain well-known High Street bookseller - let's call them Stoneswater - and the deterioration in how employees are treated has been astonishing. Now there is an entrenched culture of bullying which is supported right up to the very top of the company. And friends of mine who work in other sectors have similar stories to tell.
 
I think there is some truth in the change in the workplace. I have worked for many years for a certain well-known High Street bookseller - let's call them Stoneswater - and the deterioration in how employees are treated has been astonishing. Now there is an entrenched culture of bullying which is supported right up to the very top of the company. And friends of mine who work in other sectors have similar stories to tell.

Nope, dunno who you are talking about, can you give us another clue? :)
 
I think there is some truth in the change in the workplace. I have worked for many years for a certain well-known High Street bookseller - let's call them Stoneswater - and the deterioration in how employees are treated has been astonishing. Now there is an entrenched culture of bullying which is supported right up to the very top of the company. And friends of mine who work in other sectors have similar stories to tell.
I've experienced this in various jobs, but especially in schools, where instead of being a nurturing environment, ends up being quite the inverse. It seems like more and more often I'm witnessing administrators, faculty, staff, students, and parents stuck in this vicious loop of bullying each other. The aggression, as asparagus puts it, is astonishing. It's like they've gone feral.
 
See also any Local Facebook page where someone puts up a photo of the locality in Times Past. Half the readership is just desperate to tell you how much nicer it was back then...
One of our local Facebook local history pages was all very reverent until some street foundations were unearthed during building work and I was able to wax lyrical about peculiar design of the Victorian privies.

This area's most early houses had a 'tip-up' design rather than a cistern. A wonder to behold.
Every time the nostalgic grumbling starts now certain posters mention how wonderful the tip-up toilets were. Shuts them RIGHT up.
 
I won't try and analyse this, but I noticed an enormous change in the UK between 1992 when I left for the US and 1997 when I came back. And I understand from friends a similar change happened in the US after 9/11. Call it a collapse in morale, for a better description.

Really intrigued by this, do you have any particular anecdotes Cochise? Or was it more of a general feeling?
 
One of our local Facebook local history pages was all very reverent until some street foundations were unearthed during building work and I was able to wax lyrical about peculiar design of the Victorian privies.

This area's most early houses had a 'tip-up' design rather than a cistern. A wonder to behold.
Every time the nostalgic grumbling starts now certain posters mention how wonderful the tip-up toilets were. Shuts them RIGHT up.
What is usually pointed out when someone whines about how much nicer the old High Street was, that the Luftwaffer have more blame attached than the city council for redesigning the city.
 
I felt a change and called it Milliennium Madness with awful modern buildings being put up and Starbucks on every hughstreet and the number of food places and everything looks the same be it Newcastle, Liverpool with the big cities and the whole foodie and Hipster Pub thing just annoys me but hey most of been awful in the mid 70s with strikes, Rubbish and Watneys Red Barrel.
 
I felt a change and called it Milliennium Madness with awful modern buildings being put up and Starbucks on every hughstreet and the number of food places and everything looks the same be it Newcastle, Liverpool with the big cities and the whole foodie and Hipster Pub thing just annoys me but hey most of been awful in the mid 70s with strikes, Rubbish and Watneys Red Barrel.
You're not on our local Facebook page, are you Sabre? :)
 
Back
Top