1915 to 1965 vs 1965 to 2015

[Thunderbird is the word]

culturally: 1915 to 1965

technologically: 1965 to 2015

I think it would be a shock to someone in the 60s that we would have tiny computers that can fit in the palm of our hand yet still hadn't been to Mars.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

How shocked would your 1915-er be at the fact that we developed weapons that could destroy an entire planet several times over?

[RFayette]

How shocked would your 1915-er be at the fact that we developed weapons that could destroy an entire planet several times over?

Yeah, definitely 1915-1965.  Two world wars, the Civil Rights unrest, counterculture, etc. etc. etc.  I don't think the change from 1965 to 2015 was as radical from a cultural perspective, especially if we make it 1975-2015 (after the terrible decision Roe v. Wade occurred and the awful countercultural ideas/sexual revolution became mainstream).  The Internet is indeed revolutionary, but the overall technological changes aren't that massive outside the information industry.

[buritobr]

Movies
1915: Black and white, and silent
1965 and 2015: not so diferente

Clothes
1915: Men wear suits, women wear long dresses every day
1965 and 2015: Men wear suits only in the workplace (if they work at an office). Women wear suit or blouse and skirt or dress in the workplace. In the free time, men wear T-shirt, shorts or paints. Women wear blouse, short skirt, knee-lengh skirt or long skirt, short dress or long dress, or paints, or shorts. Men and women wear jeans.
Until 1920, women used to wear only long skirts. Between 1920 and 1960, the skirt lengths went up and down, up and down... but in each year, it was standardized. From 1960 to the present day, women can wear paints but also every skirt length.
Until 1960, men used to wear suits even in the weekend. Since this date, men wear athlete's clothes even when they are not practicing sports.

Music
1915: rock did not exist
1965 and 2015: rock exists

Aircraft
1915: used for war. Only one seat. Short range.
1965: Boeing 707
2015: Boeing 777. Not too many diferences if compared to the 707

Example of a famous car
1915: Ford T. Few households owned a car
1965: Mustang
2015: Focus 3rd generation

Cellphones, digital cameras and personal computers are few examples that make the distance between 1965 and 2015 bigger than the distance between 1915 and 1965. OK, I am typing this text using a personal computer, but it is not hard to say that Technologies from the 3rd industrial revolution did not affect the daily life so much as the technologies from the 2nd industrial revolution. Many technologies from the 2nd industrial revolution already existed in 1915, but they were not so spread.

For the whole population from the developed countries and for the middle/upper class from the developing countries, life changed much more between 1915 and 1965 than between 1965 and 2015. But for the poor people from the developing countries, life might have changed more between 1965 and 2015. Many of them owned a cell phone for the first time in their lives before owning a car.

[retromike22]

I would much rather live in 1915 than in 1965.

[RFayette]

There's also public health and medical advances to consider.  1915-1965 had antibiotics, safe surgery, effective treatment for heart disease, and death in childbirth going from a fact of life almost to almost unheard of in the developed world.  For 1965-2015 or any future period to compete with that, we would need to see the last death from cancer in the developed world.  It would be a much closer contest on social issues if it were 1905-1955 vs. 1955-2005. 

I'm not so sure about this  The 1950's were so intensely socially conservative in so many respects.  And while Americans hadn't gotten much more socially liberal from 1975-2005, the 1960's were so revolutionary (fornication became normalized, leading intellectuals proclaimed the "death of God," out of wedlock births skyrocketed, etc.) that I think 1955-2005 was by far greater with respect to social change.  Granted, fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians still had sizable control over many prestigious universities in 1905, which was lost by 1955, the majority of Americans got far less of their cues from academia than today, so I think on balance, 1955-2005 was way greater with respect to the magnitude of social changes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm not so sure about this  The 1950's were so intensely socially conservative in so many respects.

I think you are confusing the actual 1950s - a time of rapid social change and cultural vibrancy across the industrialised world West and East - with the strange fantasy 1950s that often pervades American political discourse.

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Nietzsche had himself been dead for half a century by that point, dear.

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Academia wishes it was that influential. Actually academia wishes it was about 5% as influential...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think it would be a shock to someone in the 60s that we would have tiny computers that can fit in the palm of our hand yet still hadn't been to Mars.

Well someone from the 1960s would have been surprised by PCs even, yet strangely when they were introduced not that many years later they did not cause a massive cultural shock. Techheads are apt to exaggerate the extent to which breakthroughs of that sort matter to people.

[RFayette]

I'm not so sure about this  The 1950's were so intensely socially conservative in so many respects.

I think you are confusing the actual 1950s - a time of rapid social change and cultural vibrancy across the industrialised world West and East - with the strange fantasy 1950s that often pervades American political discourse.

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Nietzsche had himself been dead for half a century by that point, dear.

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Academia wishes it was that influential. Actually academia wishes it was about 5% as influential...

1. It is true that there were many rapid changes in the 1950's, but at the time, church attendance was at record highs, a majority of people thought religion's influence in public life was increasing, the average age of marriage was dropping, etc. etc. etc.

2. My point was referring to Newsweek's article in 1966 about "The Death of God."  It is true that intellectuals had always been far more secular than the public at large, but thankfully they tended not to voice their opinions too loudly outside of hyper-cosmopolitan realms or to fellow academics.  Articles like "The Death of God" being published in a mainstream publication like Newsweek, which would have been unthinkable a few decades ago, showed just how revolutionary the decade was. 

3. Academia has a far bigger influence on the culture today than it did then.  There are far more "public intellectuals" like Niel Degrasse Tyson who want to strip people's faith and lead them away from the truth of God's word.  Combined with the Internet, which seems to over-reprsent academics, there's definitely a bigger influence than it had in the 1950's.

[buritobr]

1915 in eastern France?
1965 in southeastern Asia?
2015 in Syria?


Now, talking serious, in 1915 I wouldn't like to live even in the USA

[muon2]

Most people will react to the views of the future by comparing it to the ordinary activities in their daily life. The comparison looking forward 50 years is also colored by how much changed in the prior 50 years. Social changes would matter most in those areas that impacted the most people.

In the US the car was around in 1915, so to see a society built around the car 50 years later might not be surprising, but the interstates, supermarket and shopping mall would probably be surprising in their scale since they weren't really envisioned until WWII. Ready-to-eat food, especially frozen foods would seem a radical advance compared to 2015. The biggest shock would probably be mass communication through radio and tv - commercial radio didn't appear until the 20's. Medicine would be the other big shock as US life expectancy grew from 55 to 70, an increase of almost 30%, combined with drugs from antibiotics to the birth control pill.  WWII was such a watershed in lifestyle changes, I think it's hard to imagine any 50 year span that would seem more surprising to a time traveler.

For Americans, their view of the world of 2015 from 1965 would likely be influenced by the Jetsons (1962) plus the NY Worlds Fair (1964). There would be a builtin expectation of rapid technological change as they had seen since WWII. Computers and robots might come as no surprise. Video calls were anticipated and Dick Tracy had wearable technology in the form of his wrist phone. Someone from 1965 might not be surprised by computers everywhere in 2015. Medical advances are big, but the change in life expectancy by 15% is no where near the increase of the previous 50 years, so it probably would not be a big surprise, especially since there still isn't a "cure for cancer" in the form of a pill that many in 1965 would have expected by 2015.

The biggest surprises in technology from 1965 to 2015 would be the impact of the internet leading to things like on-line shopping and streaming on-demand video (the Jetsons flew to the shopping mall and movie theater). So where are those flying cars?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

the latter.

"oh by the way, future people, who is president now?"

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

The answer is almost certainly 1915 to 1965.

The widespread diffusion of radios, television sets and household appliances would have marveled any time-traveler. Along with this, and I think we take this for granted, the mass culture of the 1960s would have been pretty shocking to someone from 1915, who lived in a world where inward-looking cultural communities defined along class and/or ethnic boundaries were still dominant. Standards of living would have appeared near-utopian to any time-traveler, along with the provision of social goods. Then, there would have been the shock that comes with the realization that the Old World had been completely shattered by World War I and World War II. The end of empires, the total collapse of cultural paradigms and more would have really shocked a time-traveler. Not to mention the knowledge of genocide or atomic weapons or jets.

In social terms, not all that much has changed since 1965. The patterns that organize our day-to-day lives have remained the same, for the most part. Frankly, I think that any time-traveler from the 60s would be disappointed by 2015. In 1965, there was a pervasive sense of "progress" and our era could not, even if history went exceptionally well, live up to those expectations.

Computers are cool but they pale in comparison to washing machines or refrigerators or vacuums. I think we really take for granted how important these items are/were and the progress they stood for.

[buritobr]

A citizen from 1965 who traveled to 2015 would have asked "where are the flying cars"?

[buritobr]

An important change which took place between 1965 and 2015 was the decline of the mass audience, which happened because of the Video Cassette Recorder, the cable TV, the Internet, the DVD set, Youtube, Netflix. There was  segmentation of the audience.
However, this is not more important than the rise of the mass audience which took place between 1915 and 1965.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

An important change which took place between 1965 and 2015 was the decline of the mass audience, which happened because of the Video Cassette Recorder, the cable TV, the Internet, the DVD set, Youtube, Netflix. There was  segmentation of the audience.
However, this is not more important than the rise of the mass audience which took place between 1915 and 1965.

One of my friends posted a snippy critique of this idea by saying: "the internet was supposed to kill mass culture yet I still google 'Star Wars' three times a week".

Memes are a great example of "mass culture" emanating from novel technologies; the same goes for "viral videos" or aggregator sites that promote mass culture. All in all, there has certainly been a decline in mass culture but it's still present. The converse is also true of the 50s or 60s: people are prone to over-stating the cultural homogeneity of both periods. There were expansive subcultures and distinct cultural differences between regions based on traditions of one kind or another.

[RFayette]

the latter.

"oh by the way, future people, who is president now?"

I don't think this would be too shocking to young LBJ voters.  I often wonder when we would have seen the first black president if Reconstruction had stuck the first time.  e.g., did Radical Republicans anticipate a black president circa 1910?

Considering how racist many intellectuals were at the time, it seems pretty unlikely to me.

[Lurker]

DeadFlagBlues sums up my own feelings about this pretty well - at least if we are talking about the Western world, or the US in particular.

Though it's hard to determine objectively, particularly regarding the social aspects, given the countless variables, trouble with definitions, and of course the obvious fact that our view of the past is so greatly clouded by the present, nostalgia, popcultural depictions through the years, etc.