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General News 15-20 years ago?

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by Secrets5, Nov 23, 2015.

  1. Secrets5

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    Hello,

    I'd like to ask people who were 18+ around 15-20 years ago, was the world always this bad? What did they do to stop it?

    I fear that there's going to be a World War Three with the way the world is at the minute, just awful. People killing, people dying, people being prejudice.

    Thank-you.
     
  2. piano71

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    Seems these problems with the prejudice and murder have been around for all of human history. :frowning2: In the early 1990s we had the first Persian Gulf war, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was still boiling over, the Saudis were pushing radical fundamentalist Islamic teachings, right-wing extremists in the US were blowing up buildings, etc.

    I blame toxic religion and the unfortunate human instinct toward tribalism for all this...
     
  3. imnotreallysure

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    I can't answer this question, but WW3 is very unlikely. The world has a common enemy - that's Islamic State.

    The world has always had shit like this but recently it's been affecting the West more. A car bomb in Beruit is no big deal because it's far away, but an attack in Europe is too close for comfort. The attack in Paris is the kind of thing that's happened in the Middle East and Africa with high frequency for decades.

    If you grew up in the 80s and 90s in England you had the IRA blowing shit up. 30 people died during an attack in Northern Ireland in 1998.

    Then there's the right wing terrorism in the 80s in Europe I.e the Munich Massacre and Bologna bombings (89 died). You also had neo Nazis in the UK who went around attacking and even killing blacks/gays. The Yugoslav wars where 100,000 people died and the Rwanda Genocide where an estimated 1 million were executed.. both around 20 years ago.

    The world has always been shit to some degree. I think social media makes us more exposed to it.
     
    #3 imnotreallysure, Nov 23, 2015
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2015
  4. Secrets5

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    Thing is though, I have a friend who reads the Qu'ran and I asked her, no where does it say in there to kill. It's like people are using it as an excuse because 'God' told them to, when really - no.
     
  5. Anthemic

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    Bad things have always been happening. The only difference now is that the media has gotten stronger. My mom keeps saying "Things have never been this bad. The End Times are near!" Ugh she's annoying... >.>
     
  6. RainDreamer

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    World War 3 is unlikely, simply because war is expensive business, and it disrupt the economy in a world where the global economy is so integrated with each other. No nation will want open warfare now. Armed conflict will happen, military will be mobilized, but an actual all out war is really difficult to escalate to that point, because everyone has something to lose now. It is only fringe groups who has little to lose but so much to gain from a war in term of war spoil that would want a war.

    Wars between nations are now fought in the heart and minds of people, and on the global market.
     
  7. Argentwing

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    I honestly have zero worries about WW3. The modern way of waging war is to do a slow-burning conflict that's destructive in a highly localized area, but never really leads to crazy battles like WW2 and instead just lasts forever.

    Believe it or not I think the world is as peaceful now as it has ever been. The other posters are correct in saying it's increased media availability that makes it seem way worse. But the silver lining is that the more people get fed up with violence and horror, the more we can do to reduce it.
     
  8. Foz

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    The only thing which has changed is that terrorists have realised that automatic weapons are much more effective than explosives as they don't usually kill anymore than 10 per bomb. The latter part of the 20th century was dominated by ETA and IRA attacks, last year Pakistan has somewhere in the region of 300 terrorist attacks.

    WW3 will never happen because we have nuclear weapons, there's just too much at stake, that's why nukes are oddly comforting.
     
  9. AKTodd

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    The four big differences between now and 15-20yrs ago (at least in the US) was that:

    a) We felt that all the violence going on in the world couldn't really touch us here. 9/11 proved that wrong, of course.

    b) 9/11 hadn't happened yet. That event did a lot to inspire fear in people along with (IMHO) some form of the stages of grief that get talked about around here a good bit. There is a general feeling of fear and anger that wasn't around (or at least not so pronounced).

    c) Social media didn't exist yet. Effectively giving every person who wants it a megaphone - has resulted in a lot of noise. Much of it unpleasant and fear based (or fear generating).

    d) Cable news existed - but the level of noise and vitriol was much less.

    My 2c worth,

    Todd
     
  10. Invidia

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    World War Three? Possibly. I worry much more about climate change, however.

    One change I've heard from a cultural critic and philosopher that I like, Slajov Zizek, is that in Europe (where I live), anti-immigration, Islamophobic, anti-semitic, etc. slurs, that were usually the domain of the far-right, has become much more everyday practice, and I have seen this development myself since I was a child, in Sweden. This has entered the mainstream to a great extent, even in the former European centers of tolerance such as France, Sweden, Norway, etc. This worries me greatly.
     
  11. Joelouis

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    After what has happened an hour or so ago might make things a bit messy now:
    The Turkish military has shot down a Russian warplane.
     
  12. Nikky DoUrden

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    reading that on news made me think of putin being like a typecast villian that his goal is to make the world into chaos, like littlefinger from game of thrones just .. eh ... less clever :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

    Also for thread starter, the world always had nut jobs, psychopaths, sadists and what not .. only to mention china dictators, stalin, hitler, ivan the terrible, caligula, vlad the impaler and more ... as @AKTodd mentioned, back then they were not as technologically advanced to make terror what it looks like today, but believe me, they were not less cruel.
     
    #12 Nikky DoUrden, Nov 24, 2015
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2015
  13. Open Arms

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    Since 9/11 the world has changed for the worse in my opinion. Terrorism is far more widespread. Did we have to go through long security checks at airports in the past? NO.
    Did we have to expect that there might be a terrorist attack in a theatre, mall or restaurant? NO. Did we have security around our Parliament Buildings? NO. Did we worry about people in our midst being radicalized? NO. Did we have to have security cameras in our schools and at practically every street corner? NO.

    We used to go outside to play unsupervised almost all day. No parent gave it a second thought. We used to leave our doors unlocked, even when we went away for a visit or to shop. We never wore bike helmets or had to keep our bikes locked up overnight. We didn't have to worry about sex trafficking or someone sending our private pictures around to their friends on the internet.

    Young people, you have no idea how much less freedom you have today as compared to when your parents were teenagers. I don't think we'll ever get back to a world like that.
    Not your fault... I'm just sayin'.
     
  14. Argentwing

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    ^^I think part of that is because every time there's a terrorist attack, the news flies at the speed of light across the world. Instead of terrorizing a local area, every new attack and especially new MO terrorizes everyone. Look at the Boston bombing. Three people died and a ton were injured because of freaking pressure-cooker bombs, and "cops" who looked like stormtroopers temporarily took over the city. It's because of the increased eagerness to spread the news that terrorism works so well now as opposed to in the past.
     
    #14 Argentwing, Nov 24, 2015
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2015
  15. imnotreallysure

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    Ah, nothing beats a good rose-tinted spectacle rant. My mother was a teenager in the 1980s - a decade, in the UK at least, that was characterised by high crime, right-ring terrorism and vigilantism, violent riots & protests, economic uncertainty, homophobia, racism and political turmoil - amongst other things. When she was a child, one of her neighbours had a bunker with canned food in case the Cold War turned into World War 3. I certainly don't envy her because she grew up in a society that had less surveillance when by every measure, we're in a better position now than we were 30 years ago - terrorism or not.
     
    #15 imnotreallysure, Nov 24, 2015
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2015
  16. Aussie792

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    I'm just going to quietly mention the massive decrease in global poverty, maternal mortality rates, food shortages and the phenomenal increase in access to primary and secondary education since the 1990s.
     
  17. Invidia

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    By no means do I mean to trivialize the horror of the September 11 attacks, but I think it has been given far more attention than it deserves - at least relatively speaking. Such tragedies are fairly commonplace around the world when you look at it on a global scale. I think it's kind of sad that just because it happens to rich people in a place where it's less common, it gets 100000 times the attention everything else gets.

    Not true. Take the Red Scare for instance. Fear of radicalization is something that has existed for a long time in different ways.

    On the other hand, we are fortunate to live in the era of the Internet in one way - the power of knowledge is very well at our disposal. Then again, since most youngsters, yours truly semi-included, use the internet mostly not for educational purposes... I see your point there.
     
  18. imnotreallysure

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    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_massacre

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omagh_bombing

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton_hotel_bombing

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Olympic_Park_bombing

    Terrorism has been a fixture in our lives for decades. The nature of it has changed - nothing more. I can't speak for anyone else, but terrorism is not something I worry about - and never has been. I've not met anyone who is actually scared.
     
    #18 imnotreallysure, Nov 24, 2015
    Last edited: Nov 24, 2015
  19. Andrew99

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    I'm not gonna lie I do worry about WWIII happening because it is very possible. You can quote me and say it's very unlikely but I have a feeling that a big bloody war is ahead.
     
  20. RawringSnake

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    This.

    Nuclear deterrence is in place and it's working. So long as there are nukes around, outright WW3 is not on the table. Worry about proxy wars, now those are the kind of conflicts you are more likely to see in the coming years.