Terror Of The Twin Vostoks

David Spain wrote:
Damon Hill wrote:
We lived in simpler times then, when all we had to fear was fear
itself and total nuclear annihilation.

I had to smile at this one. Having been a child of that era, I have to
say that was not the impression I had living through those years. So one
living in 1962 or the 60's thought times were simple, nor where they
even trending that way...

1) Woman's emancipation and the pill were threating the very fabric of
society that depended on the 'nuclear family', with a working dad and
stay-at-home mom.

Washing machines, and later dishwashers and microwaves - and so the
work done, and standard of living, went up nearly twice, as both mom and
dad were working.


2) Cuban missile crisis. That'd scare the begezsus out of anyone either
then or now...

"Hold your heads and cower under your school desks" - as if that would
make any difference.

3) The growing disenchantment of the intellectual class with the norms
of modern society. Leading to flower power, the yippies and the hippies
and (at least until the grandchildren were born) the fear that our
culture would sink back to subsistence tribalism. Drop out, tune in and
turn on...

the subsistence tribalism people were never the real hippies ... just
the ones without a clue.

4) Did I forget to mention drugs? Hmm must be an after-effect none of us
now living can notice.

ubiquity, and boredom?

5) Pollution and industrial self destruction. (well we've done a pretty
good job on the demise of the industrial side of that equation),
pollution remains of course, since imports can as easily contribute to
that as homemade.

We seem to be taking them a bit more seriously - not as seriously as we
should, but there's the EPA etc now. Small steps.


6) Inflation! The Vietnam War was a big contributor. Then our
politicians wized up and figured out how to get foreign countries to
finance our wars for us. So today inflation stays in check until the
bill comes due. Hm?

Always been inflation ...


7) Oh yes, the Population Bomb and Global Cooling!!!

We'll see what happens about those ones - the 60's view of popbomb
didn't work. Believe in ZPG, and you get out-reproduced.

As for cooling - well, who really knows? But we can't go on this way for
ever, burning sequestered carbon will eventually kill us all if we don't
stop sometime soon - only question is when, and maybe whether we stop
soon enough.

-- Peter Fairbrother


=:-O

Dave

On 9/10/2010 6:22 PM, Peter Fairbrother wrote:


2) Cuban missile crisis. That'd scare the begezsus out of anyone
either then or now...

"Hold your heads and cower under your school desks" - as if that would
make any difference.

If you were near the fireball, of course it wouldn't...but if you were
far enough away that the main effect was the blast wave hitting the
school, it might well make the difference, at least in the short term,
between surviving and being fatally injured as the windows blew in and
parts of the ceiling started falling down.
Of course there would be a nearby firestorm and fallout to contend with.

Pat