An incredible number of people pick ‘91. Some people even ask to go back to the seventies.
This article explains why I would much rather be young now rather than before.
Young adults in 2021 are hopelessly trying to outrun that time they tweeted a slur when they were 12.
Okay I guess I'd rank crispr as highly. But the list of changes that profound is short.
Assuming you're talking about staying in an industrialized nation.
There's a podcast by Jason Feifer (was called Pessimists Archive) where the repeated theme across many episodes is the recurring fallacy of the "good ole days": https://www.jasonfeifer.com/build-for-tomorrow/
E.g. you ask today's generation and they say the "good old days" was 1991; but if you ask those in 1991 what the good old days were, they wouldn't say "right now!" ... they'd say 1970s. And if you ask those in 1970s... they'd say... (you get the point).
So the conclusion is either...
- the true good old days after connecting the survey across centuries was actually the prehistoric cave man days of hunting & gathering
... or ...
- every generation repeats the rose-colored glasses narrative because we bias the past with positive memories and the bias the present with negative current events
I grew up in the 90s, & maybe I'd do better as a 20 year old in 1991 rather than 2031 (too young to say 20 in 2021; I've succeeded already close enough to there), but I'd rather grow up in the 2000s than grow up in the 80s
There's a kind of arbitrage, where if I could take my technical abilities from 2010 back to 1990, I'd probably do pretty well. I'm not so sure about taking those abilities to 2030. So you need to frame your question more clearly: at what age does the time travel occur? For simplicity I assume the only age you've given: 20. If it's about when we're born, then that's a completely different human being
Is this sourced? In Europe, 1991 was when the Soviet union fell. Sure, in many now-ex-USSR countries 1991 wasn't the best of times because the collapse wasn't very well managed. But in West, suddenly the impeding doom of nuclear war near disappeared overnight.
2021 has ... exciting climate events and Covid.
edit. What is the soundtrack of 2021? In 1991 it supposedly was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ . TIL the year ended with band donating bunch of royalties from the single to Gorbachev 10 days before he resigned and the USSR disappeared. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_of_Change_(Scorpions_song...
If you asked then what the good old days were, they'd probably say 1988. There's a reason Bush 1 was the only 1-term president between 1980 and 2020. Things didn't start perking up until around 93-95 with the WWW.
My mother was 20 in 1968, and it was the good old days. They believed the revolution was around the corner. Present was somewhat grim, but future was bright; in her years of political activity she saw the pill come, abortion rights, women rights enhanced, the end of dictatorships in Spain and Portugal, the end (in civilised countries) of death penalty, the crumbling of USSR.
My children are in their 20s; my son refuses to learn to drive because cars are evil and he doesn't want to own one, ever, because they're bad; he's hell-bent of enjoying the now because he's pretty sure that there is no future, except climate catastrophe, incessant wars, and electronically-enhanced surveillance; he thinks that democracy is a complete scam and he forgets to vote if I don't nag him weeks in advance. He's just as disillusioned as I am, but 27 years younger.
So I think the picture is more complex. The global direction of evolution is much more important than the objective starting point.
Objectively life has become better and more comfortable for the vast majority of humans since then (Hans Rosling does a beautiful job of exploring this).
But I do think that perceptions and feelings matter, and even though material wellbeing is a prerequisite to that, so is also the general feeling and view that those around you hold, and in many ways I feel we've gone backwards in that.
That explanation has the benefit that it doesn’t need to counter-assert against daydreamers that things are getting better, worse, or staying the same.
Google search and showers that stay hot are pretty nice, but the relative difficulty of accessing quality education, jobs, and housing probably turn out to be much more significant as you exit your 20s in 2031 and think about starting a family.
And that list of companies is sort of a mixed bag.
Adobe has mostly done pretty well through the years.
Sun Microsystems did have a very good decade through the dot-com years but then didn't.
Apple was really struggling at that time.
DEC was on the way down and would be bought by HP a few years later.
Microsoft was about to launch Windows NT so that was a pretty good place to hop on but obviously went on to have a long period of stagnation.
If you were at Apple, you'd be working on a platform (Mac OS classic, or Copland, or Newton) that would be thrown away by the end of the decade.
If you were working at DEC, likewise. (VMS, VAX, even Alpha)
Sun is more complicated, as they pivoted better and took longer to die. That would be a good place to be maybe.
1991 is an awkward year since it's about 2-3 years before the HTTP/browser revolution.
One thing though is that to my eye when I look at what these companies were working on then, it all seems more interesting to me now. The actual employment of a programmer (who wasn't stuck in finance or insurance etc. doing COBOL) had the potential to do some stuff that we at least thought Was going to be groundbreaking back then. NewtonOS and Alpha and Copland, CORBA, PowerPC/PREP, OS/2, research projects like Sun's "Self", etc. it was all exciting stuff. Just very little of it went on to be used later.
For one thing, you'd have been much more plugged into the coming internet revolution broadly than any of the others. You'd also have been at least connected to the open source world although Sun resisted aspects of it in many ways.
They were also primarily in Silicon Valley unlike the others.
Early cell phones. PDA's like Palm. Printer market was hot. Businesses were networking their computers like crazy. The PC accessory market was hot. Video games like the Playstation were about to come out. Dial up online services and then ISP's. The web appeared.
Of course $40K then is $80K now, and you were working at 9-5 at BigCo, with a pension plan. Interest rates were 3-4x what they are now, the value of the house that you spent a couple of years salary on is probably going to quintuple, and the stock market runup over the next 30 years is going to be unreal.
Well, except pension, which were largely gutted in the private sector by 1991 (it was the plot of the 1987 movie Wall Street).
Not counting the stock market plunge especially in tech in the dot-bomb era when there's a good change you'll also lose your tech job and very possibly be very underemployed for a few years. Of course if you hold on through that (and 2008), you'll come out well on the other side.
And if you were 20 in 91, you probably don't have a house in ten years in pricey (just not eye-watteringly so) SV 9 years later when the bottom falls out of the market.
- Particularly interesting point in history for software (pre-Netscape!) - Build lots of experience before Google, Netflix, and FB are even born. - Incredible compounded returns in software stocks (and great returns in housing)
2021 is a great time to be a 20yr old software dev, but it's also a great time to be a 50yr old software dev who has 30 yrs of experience, stock market returns, and housing investment.
There's a big difference between 1991 and just a few years later of course, but even when I graduated from college (1996), Microsoft was absolutely suffocating. I had decided that I wanted to work for a computer company and that I had zero interest in working on Windows NT(or Copland). This left one company, Sun Microsystems, which even in 1996 was not really recruiting at universities. I got a job there by cold e-mailing a Sun engineer (Jeff Bonwick) based on a Usenet post in comp.unix.solaris. (Cold e-mailing to get a job was so unusual that a friend of mine who was a reporter for the AP wrote a story about my job search -- and it was broadly picked up nationally![0]) At Sun, I was the youngest person in OS development by a decade, and the industry broadly thought Sun to be foolish for insisting on innovating in the operating system. Conventional wisdom was wrong, of course, and I had a great 14-year run at Sun that I wouldn't trade for anything -- but it would be a mistake to overly romanticize what was honestly a pretty crappy era.
[0] I talked about this briefly in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IznEq2Uf2xk, including an (embarrassing) photo of me ca. 1996 that ran as the front page of many business sections around the US
Late '91 I was graduating soon and I did go to the university recruiting stalls of Sun and IBM and Motorola. DEC was a presence but I loved SunOS and didn't like VMS so didn't talk to them. Never considered Microsoft since I hated them so much already back then.
Ended going in a different direction due to a graduate degree scholarship but thinking back maybe should've joined Sun directly back then. I did later end up at Sun a few years later, roughly same timeframe as you.
Thanks for the book recommendation. I've added it to my Goodreads list. I'll checkout the talk too. I haven't seen that one of yours, because I saw the title and figured it was heavy on memory-management and pretty out of my wheelhouse.
As for the progression of software development, this may be trite to say, but in my opinion the single most important revolution in software is the rise of open source. I don't think that there was a single event here per se but rather a multi-decade long progression across many different domains that has changed just about every single aspect of software development. (Cloud computing too, certainly -- but I don't think that cloud computing is economically viable without open source.) So software development from the 1990s is unrecognizable in large part because it is just so damned proprietary -- which, as it turns out, was in fact a relatively short blip in the fullness of history.[0]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpnncakrelk, in which I expand a bit on the history of open source, among other things
I didn't fully appreciate how important open-source is as a 21st century movement until I read The Cathedral and the Bazaar this year. Hearing the open-source development story of SQLite also blew my mind a little.
I can see why you're so energized by open-source firmware.
Also, IME, the culture has become hateful, poisonous, and based on trauma, despair, and survival rather than hope and dreams, freedom and self-actualization.
May be with memory wipe of currently what you know and the way the world is
The past always looks better. People still want to return to the 50's and most of them were not alive then.
However, I believe every generation has had it "better" generally speaking than the previous and that's how it should be. Certain era's had things that were probably better but this era has things that future generations will envy as well while also having it "better" generally speaking.
Today is this best time to be alive and I'm optimistic tomorrow will be even better.
A recent study (2013) suggests that the idea that second hand smoke has a direct link to cancer wasn't entirely accurate.
https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/105/24/1844/2517805
>Even unhealthy foods are less unhealthy due to removing hydrogenated fats from foods
I would say food is far more unhealthy today than in 1991. There is sugar and bastardized sugar in everything. Sugar is addictive and food manufacturers use it to get people addicted to their food. Instead of eating for nutrition, people eat for that sugar hit, and you almost can't escape it. Try finding prepackaged foods in the grocery store without some form of sugar in it.
But the 2020s are going to be a transformational decade too, with a lot to learn and experience, and a ton of opportunities. Far more chaotic than the 1990s, but honestly that suits me personally. I thrive on that.
I would pick the 90s over the 2000s or 2010s though.
Well, I'd go back to the 2010s and buy even more bitcoin than I did, but other than that, I could skip that decade.
"You mean we don't all die in a nuclear war or from AIDS or global warming?"
"No, the future is much better! Riding lawn mowers are cheaper, teddy bears are much more cuddly and silky, board games have been revolutionized and you can get goat cheese at Walmart!"
Those quality of life improvements on that list are in reality pretty sad compared to the loss in social cohesion and quality of life in ways that matter more. You would think we didn't have indoor plumbing or antibiotics. We were in good shape. But the difference in pre and post 9/11 America is stark. This place was basically ruined on a social level, pure fear and panic, and it remains in different forms.
Now if you asked me if I'd rather be born in 1971 or 2021? I would say 2021. Because the last 20 years have been throwaway decades. Someone 20 years old in 2021 missed ALL of the good times, never saw America as it was, and has and will spend most of their life behind the 8 ball.
If you're born today, while there could definitely be more calamity, there's a good chance things turn up from the malaise of 2001-2021 in the next two decades. At least as it pertains to the working class. Which is most of us. Its been a great two decades for those that were running the show. But there's a reason why overall sentiment is and has been negative.
I'll take 20 in 1991, or 20 in 2041. But not 20 in 2021.
GPS on the phone is awesome, but I'd still prefer financial security.
Factory jobs that is probably true in general--though you're still into the period when a lot of traditional union manufacturing jobs were leaving (or had left) the country.
As an engineer/software developer, you're probably going to be paid about $40K for an entry-level position [ADDED: For the US at a "tech" company]. And there is basically no equivalent to routine FAANG SWE salaries.
Housing is cheaper (relatively) in some locations although the Bay Area was still relatively expensive. Manhattan was considered the high-priced place to live at the time.
Many people today choose lifestyle centered work (gig economy, part time roles for short term, etc) rather than work that lets them build a life. I have multiple friends that have gone this route out of high school with no college and started at the bottom and have over the years acquired more skills and knowledge and some have moved into supervisory and management roles after their companies financed some additional skills like using spreadsheets, basic management, etc.
The endless stories of people that start, work a week and get a check, don't show for 2 weeks and then come back thinking they are still employed is amazing. The jobs exist and they pay well, but not enough people want them.
This isn't like fast food restaurants having trouble hiring people at minimum wage because stimmy checks pay more than working. People come in and they want the job and they work a week or 2 and then disappear after they get paid and then come back when they need money again. That type of work ethic just isn't compatible with this kind of career so they end up at an Amazon warehouse, driving Ubers, and delivering food instead since that does support their lifestyle choice.
They obviously do not pay commensurate to the risks of job loss, lack of quality of life at a job, and/or to make up for the undesirability for the location they are in.
The proof is the data showing wages for factory type work stagnating for many decades now (until the recent few years). People incorporate that knowledge, and let their kids know that those jobs are not worth investing in. How many factory towns are there where the factory closes or downsizes and the whole town goes into economic decline? You need to pay a lot to offset that kind of risk.
The other proof is also that I bet they can get lots of qualified applicants that will “show up everyday and work”. Just offer $200k per year. Or $500k per year. Obviously the purchasers of that type of labor are not offering enough money.
I mean, there's a lot of alcoholism problems and drug issues too.
>People incorporate that knowledge, and let their kids know that those jobs are not worth investing in.
I'm not sure the wisdom of the crowds is a great example here. How many kids are in many thousands of debt and working at dead end jobs or as a barista, etc. because they got a useless degree from a third rate university?
> How many factory towns are there where the factory closes or downsizes and the whole town goes into economic decline? You need to pay a lot to offset that kind of risk.
I don't think I'm describing factory town style jobs of yesteryear. There are many solid jobs in tool and die, machining, etc that are mainly run by small to mid-sized shops. Literally thousands of these around the country.
There are a lot of people making a great living in these places, it's just that there's a shortage of qualified labor. Similar to software companies - there's a shortage of labor and it isn't because they aren't paying enough. Additionally, a lot of people think this kind of work is below them because they went to a university to study a field that they can't make it in.
> The other proof is also that I bet they can get lots of qualified applicants that will “show up everyday and work”. Just offer $200k per year. Or $500k per year. Obviously the purchasers of that type of labor are not offering enough money.
Yeah probably but I'm not sure that's economic. Also, the starting pay won't be the best but you rise fairly quickly through the ranks where the money improves. But like I said before, there are a lot of people making a good life for themselves with a home, a family, vacations, and a solid American life in these places. This life exists for people. But you would think it isn't even available - but it is.
Kids complain that they are 50k in debt from school, can't find a job that pays well and will never be able to afford a home or have kids. But that's not true. There's a career out there in modern manufacturing if they are willing to humble themselves.
People think it is "below them" because they saw the people who went into white collar professions in their parents' generation come out ahead. Pay enough (and advertise the pay) and people's perception will change.
>But you would think it isn't even available - but it is.
Where are the job postings showing the pay and benefits? Why do the stats indicate the wages not increasing much?
>There's a career out there in modern manufacturing if they are willing to humble themselves.
The situation might have changed recently, but those jobs have definitely not paid sufficiently for the past few decades to make it a worthwhile investment. This is shown by definition, since they are complaining about lack of candidates for the job positions. If they paid appropriately and competitively, by definition people would have opted to work those jobs.
We hear the same things in other non-manufacturing trades though like plumbing and carpentry and HVAC, etc. companies struggle to find reliable people when the money is good and prospects are stable.
One contractor I had was a Ukrainian man with a math degree but went into tile work when he moved here because he found he could make more money doing it. Smart man in our conversations and humble but is massively in-demand in the general area because he’s so good at it and he’s paid like it.
While the absolute numbers may seem small by today's standards, it was more then enough for a single 20something to have the time of their lives. Even paying Manhattan rents, we were out 5-6 nights a week clubbing and partying
Not in tech though. Engineering jobs paid middle-class level well, but nothing out of the ordinary for white-collar professionals. Starting salaries were in the 30Ks for top offers in rich companies but many people started in the 20Ks. You had to be Sr.Dir/VP level to start getting close to 100K.
The concept of engineers with a few years of experience making more salary than top-level surgeons was inconceivable. So purely on a financial sense, it's much better to be a new grad in software today than in '91.
Still, I'd rather be paid 35K doing ground-breaking UNIX kernel or networking work than be paid 500K building yet another adware/spyware social app.
Similarly for life at the bottom. In almost any period in history, life at the bottom sucked hard.
On the other hand, since I was in my 20's in the 90's I was a young child in the 70's and 80's when nerds were to be bullied, gay people were to be beaten, and God help you if you were Trans. That's still the case in much of the world, but looking at how my kids grew up, vastly improved since then.
So as a nerd, yes, the 90's were probably better for 20 year old me, but the 10's were definitely better for the 10 year old me.
Not so incredible I guess. I was 20 in '91 so can relate.
Computers and the internet were seriously exciting at the time, uncommercialized and pure hacker culture of exploration. We were building technology because it was exciting. The concept of building adware or spyware didn't exist. Today a startup going to "make the world a better place" is a sitcom joke, back then it was truly the feeling.
When can I be 'improper old' ?? :-D
Edit to add: in many ways, the apparent close of the Cold War just removed that one bilateral threat from center attention. In its place, we gained a new awareness of much more fragmented conflict scattered all over the world...
While you enjoyed your life in 1991, people around me literally died of hunger, because Gorbachev and Yeltsin and their advisors from USA killed almost all the industry on the former USSR territory overnight. People lost jobs, people lost savings, people lost meaning of life overnight.
It's a biggest case of genocide since 1940s, that is silenced and undocumented.
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/22/world/soviets-foresee-bud...
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...