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Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

It was zeitgeist in the 80s.

Ronald Reagan asked in his campaign “What do we want our kids to do? Sweep up around the Japanese computers?” "an economic Pearl Harbor" was a term used.

While the US was fighting double digit inflation Japanese were buying American companies and real estate like candy. Sony bought movies studio, someone else bought Rockefeller Center. Japan's 5th generation computer systems and AI was seen as threat to the US. Japanese management philosophy was seen as superior.

Even in popular culture movies like "Back To The Future 2", "Die Hard" etc. Japanese dominate.

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Well, I was there, and I say it wasn't. "Double digit inflation" seems like a giveaway that you at best have skimmed the history. Inflation was ultra high very briefly very early in the 80s. Do you know the name Volcker?

Japanese cars became mainstream. People started to become interested in anime. Nobody remembers or noticed what Reagan said, unless the hivemind/AI decides to resurrect it now and pound cherry picked things into our heads until we assent that Eurasia was always at war with Eastasia.

You can debate until you turn blue, but it's lazy revisionism.

Well, I was there, and I say that while it might not have been the zeitgeist, it was certainly an idea and concern that was known and discussed publicly, both in political rhetoric and in fiction.

You can debate until you turn blue, but it's lazy revisionism.

Your first sentence is not at odds with what I wrote, so repeating the second sentence back to me makes no sense.

"Nobody remembers or noticed what Reagan said" is equivalent to asserting, on a hypothetical 2056 HN, that "nobody remembers or noticed what Trump* said".

* At least he hasn't said "We begin bombing in five minutes".

(besides, can't have Oceania at war with Eastasia until you all get Airstrip One back from Eurasia, innit?)

Are you from 2056? I can't be sure what will stick with people over that time, but I can look back at the Reagan/Bush administrations in retrospect.

Also, I think maybe younger people don't appreciate how much less people were plugged in to a very narrow channel of hysteria and BS before the late 2010s and the rise of ad-tech.

For a hint of what it was like, look at your local newspaper if it still exists or current events on Wikipedia.

We both agree that Reagan/Bush were 1980-1988, right?

Other than that, it doesn't sound like we had much in common. I was going to search old USENET for (Reagan|Raygun) references, but those archives seem to have gone down the memory hole.

Maybe we're from different timelines? I do see an amazing number of people around with goatees. Do you know how I can get back to my timeline? Should I ask evil Spock or evil Cartman for help?

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