The times do change fast don't they? Everything we think we'll know about the future is usually false.
How much of history is littered with things we thought we'd never be able to do without?
Now we watch movies in our palms. (Instead of theaters.) We send millions of dollars through the air. (Instead of withdrawing in person, or a check.) And we no longer need pennies. (Basically)
Who would have thought?
These were all going to be life essentials.
But generation by generation, the obsolescence takes over.
Redditor VictorPumpenstein wanted to talk about what truths were hidden until it was too late for each group as we aged.
"What is the biggest lie sold to your generation?"
Beepers. I was told my beeper would be forever. Alas...
You Still Here?
"Gen X-er here... we were told that the boomers would eventually retire. Still waiting for that to happen while rapidly approaching retirement age myself."
drsfmd
Seth Meyers Lol GIF by Late Night with Seth MeyersGiphyJOHNNY!!
"Don’t act up in class Johnny, It will go on your PERMANENT RECORD!!"
ThePracticalDad
"I worked in records for a public school board many years ago. The only thing colleges ever requested was transcripts and IEPs if a student had one. However, the police would request full disciplinary records of someone was going to be hired. And unless a student had a disciplinary hearing at some point, most records other than transcripts are destroyed after 7 years."
War Over
"The war on drugs."
2003gts
"Poverty and terror won theirs, too. Turns out, declaring war on a concept without attacking the societal roots of the problem is just a way to funnel more money into the military-industrial complex."
MrVeazey
"Shout out to pharmaceutical companies for winning the war on drugs."
Responsible_Tell1589
instead of cardboard...
"Plastic recycling. I remember when grocery stores went from paper bags to plastic because 'they're recyclable!' Literally everything else started coming wrapped in a ton of plastic (instead of cardboard) because it was recyclable. Single use plastics were great, because we'd just recycle the plastic, and use it forever! Turns out, it was just cheaper, and recycling had nothing to do with it. Most of that plastic can't be recycled anyway."
DifficultMinute
Food Contents
"Fat is bad, sugar is good."
Thesorus
"This is why America has an obesity epidemic. Even now, older generations tout the health benefits of low fat things, without bothering to look at sugar contents. High sugar processed foods that happen to be low in fat destroyed multiple generations. Thankfully I think Gen Z might be the turnaround. Older generations are pretty messed up."
Bulky_Consideration
Unprotected
"Medicare and social security will protect you. Based on how things are going, anyone with 30 years or more before retirement better have strong backup plans."
iteraco
Medicine Pills GIF by FergieGiphyOh Medicare and social security. What. A. Disaster. We are in trouble.
Just Type
"You will always have to write in cursive."
hakuna_matitties
"I hated those cursive books and being 10 and still couldn't figure it out. My sister a year behind me never had to write cursive. I firmly believe my year was the last year to deal with cursive. This was back in 2012-2013."
chonketteseal
take notes GIF by US National ArchivesGiphyIt's Broken
"Climb the corporate ladder."
UKS1977
"It's not a ladder, it's a pyramid. Only one person can be CEO, a handful can be executives, a bigger clump can be in some form of middle management, but the majority will always be 'individual contributors' - what an amazingly corporate term."
"You're often better off with an in-demand skill set that you can shop from company to company. Unless you enjoy fighting and scrabbling and climbing over people to keep getting promoted. Sure, you may have crappy bosses, but even the CEO has to go in front of the board and be told everything that's going wrong."
towerdweller
I'm Good
“If you don’t go to college, you’ll die broke and alone on the street.”
googlyeyes183
"I wish i hadn't been pushed so hard to go to Uni at 18. I wasn't ready yet and i didn't know what I wanted to do with my life yet. Asking a 16 year old what degree and vocation he wants is just a bad way of doing it!"
Relentless_Fiend
"My principal in high school was upset at me because I wasn't going to college. He told me multiple times that if I don't, then I am just throwing away my intelligence. I never went to college because it just sounded miserable and expensive. I worked a few different jobs after high school and learned a lot then started my own business. Glad I never went to college."
acetamethemphetamine
Not True
"Work hard for your company and they will take care of you."
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"
whatintheactualfeth
Season 1 Lol GIF by NBCGiphyThe Crap Job
"If you work hard and accept lower pay it'll pay off in the end."
thrownawaybyubefore
"That works only to put experience on your resume. Then you find a better job, then a better job. The people who pissed me off were the ones who told me (or assumed I was planning) to stick to one shi**y job forever."
BubbhaJebus
Source of LIfe
"Growing up everyone I ever met said to never get a credit card. The only way to buy a house is with credit and the only way to actually get credit is a credit card. In my life I paid off 3 vehicles early only to be told the second they were paid off my credit was dropped to a no rating because I wasn't actively in debt."
Squantoon
Hiding
"'Duck and cover,' somehow hiding under my student desk would allow survival from a nuclear attack."
biggesterhungry
"I always laughed at this concept as well. 'How is a desk going to protect me from that?' I researched it. Turns out the government really didn't give it as advice for people that were near the epicenter of the blast but those that going to be potentially effected further out by blast shockwaves. They deduced that hiding under your desk would partially protect you from flying debris."
robert238974
Once
“'It’s a one in a lifetime event! These things don’t happen all the time'” - In reference to things like wars, devastating floods, wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, mass shootings/gun violence, terrorist attacks, and now… pandemics, apparently. How many more ‘once in a lifetime’ freak events am I going to be living through? When can we have some peace and quiet?"
One-Two3214
I Do's
"Weddings, it should be a huge wedding with a crap ton of guests we don't care about."
elegantloba
paul campbell love GIF by Hallmark ChannelGiphyAll of it!
"You can have it all... that both parents can work, go to school, raise kids, have time for their marriage, and have hobby time."
Prestigious-Owl-6397
"You can have all those things, just not at the same time, especially work/school OR work/kids OR school/kids. And it requires both people to be equal contributors to housework/child-rearing."
ace_at_none
Fake It
"That cheaters never win. Between the removal of the Fairness Doctrine leading to extreme and overt media bias leading to people living in echo chambers, phrases like 'fake news' negating inconvenient facts and halting critical thinking, and Gerrymandering being legal cheating is obviously the American Way. Sadly, few people even realize it and when presented with the facts cannot accept them because generations of Americans were brainwashed into blind faith in the american system and its fairness."
Grenuille
Generations
"Born in the early 80s, kind of between Gen X and Millennials: you have to go to university if you want a real job. I try not to hold this against my parents because it worked out for me, but it took me a very long time to pay back my student loans."
"I guess the key difference is that at least I was able to pay mine off; anyone born even just a couple of years later than I was has it considerably worse."
Grenuille
So much changes over each generation. How will we ever learn?
