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Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

Proof, if it were needed, that the past was not the golden age that people sometimes make it out to be.

You're right. I'd take living in the US now over living in the US during the cold war, for any number of reasons.

In fact I'd guess any 20th decade was far worse than now on any number of measures, with the possible exception of the 1900s and 1910s, which I don't know much about, and the 1990s, which was great.

the 10's was world war 1, so i think it's pretty easy to say that was worse. the 20's were pretty good until the crash right at the end.

Iff you were rich and white protestant.

My grandma remembered the Great Depression as a time when life improved.

That's interesting. How did it improve for her?

Oftentimes the reason someone loses their shirt is cuz someone now got two two shirts.

Don't forget the Spanish Flu epidemic. That was pretty nasty.

The 1990's were great, leaving aside the U.S. use of cruise missiles, several random invasions, etc. E.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile_strikes_on_Afgha..., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile_strikes_on_Iraq_....

I do not understand why you mentioned those two events? As far as military operations go they seem fairly small. The Battle of Mogadishu (AKA Black Hawk Down) was 1993 and the losses on both sides were dramatically more.

I mention those two events because they're analogous to the drone strikes going on now that people suddenly seem to have a problem with.

I still think 1998 or 1999 to September 10 2001 was probably the best time. Shortly after ITAR decontrolled commercial crypto software, but before 9/11 and Patriot and such.

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