America's best decade, according to data | Hacker News Reader

America's best decade, according to data

washingtonpost.com

19 pointscocacola18 comments

I think the US peaked in 1999, which coincides with the launching of the ISS and the peak of the internet bubble. I happened to be 23 so I can't really refute the article's thesis that it's all about the beholder's age. But even though politics was terrible as always, it was still the "end of history", just before the highly contentious 2000 election and 9/11 and subsequent war in Iraq and subsequent financial crisis etc.

There was such hope for what the new century/millennium would bring, and now that the hope has been crushed, I don't think we'll ever get it back. Present-day teens have little hope for our global future, and even if you're excited about AI and the future technological developments, it's pretty clear from the past 25 years that the solution to our myriad global problems is not more technology.

I tend to agree, when bounded by my lifetime. 1999 was probably the best, especially since 2001 brought 9/11 and that whole circus, wars, recession, etc. It was probably the last time I felt 'hopeful' as a nation. And people always fought about politics, but didn't seem quite as hostile.

It is really interesting to watch late 90s sitcoms (Friends, Seinfeld, etc.). Everyone is hopeful, they all view their low incomes and renting apartments as temporary conditions that they can turn around at anytime.

9/11 really popped our bubble of feeling untouchable, then we destroyed our economy with endless wars and watched the government bail out the banks in 2008. Not a huge surprise that we are less optimistic now.

1999 was the height of dot-com absurdity. It was bonkers in a drunk, rager way.

2000-2002 - awful

2003-2005 - pretty good (for me)

2006-2007 - not great, not terrible

2008-2009 - really bad

The overall murder rate graph only goes back to 1990, but it peaked in 1980, passing 10 per 100K.

However the firearm murder rate is higher (not to mention the overall gun death rate).

Well it's the homicide rate I think, which includes any killing by firearm including suicide. I wish we could detect if someone was purchasing a firearm with the express intent for suicide. Shopkeepers generally can because the customer will not express any preferences or have done much research and excuse certain telltale behaviors but you can get around it

Is the suicide rate going up or down with the murder (not homicide rate). That could tell us some things.

Additionally one could always commit suicide with their weapon they got when they were fine and have that count as a homicide and a suicide.

some really interesting graphs in there

> The best economy ... happened in our early teens — ages 12 through 15.

What about the great depression? Or even the "great recession" of 2007-2009?

> Or when you were 15 and athletes and musicians still played hard and hadn’t sold out.

"Ah yes, I remember the days when music was made by actual humans rather than AI..."

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