Are you plagued by the feeling that everyone used to be nicer?

There’s some work by a guy named Richard Eibach on how people think the world has gotten more dangerous. And he finds that people believe this. And the people who believe this, especially, are parents. And when you ask those parents “When did the world become more dangerous?,” you get a date that is curiously close to the date of the birth of their first child.

The obvious implication being that nothing about the world changed. It was your worldview that changed. And now you have to, you know, protect this fragile life—and so you are much more attuned to the dangers of the world. That’s why you think there’s more of them.

Hm.  September 2001.  Curious, indeed.  But a pyschological illusion, right?

I just saw an advertisement for the Fantasy Island TV series.  Not the original with Ricardo Montalbán, may he rest in peace, but is the reboot with Malcolm McDowell still going after a decade or so?  No, it is not.  That lasted for one season TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.

My ability to do math may be slightly inpaired by the late hour, but here is direct evidence of the Not That Long Ago Effect:  "Thirty years ago, after the USSR came to an end..."  "1971?  That can't be right.  I must have forgotten to borrow a one.  1981's not right either.  But that means... 1991 was thirty years ago!"

POODOO INHINT
  CA Q
  TS ALMCADR

  TS BANKCALL
  CADR VAC5STOR

  INDEX ALMCADR
  CAF 0
ABORT2 TC BORTENT

OCT77770 OCT 77770
  CA V37FLBIT
  MASK FLAGWRD7
  CCS A
  TC WHIMPER -1

  TC DOWNFLAG
  ADRES STATEFLG

  TC DOWNFLAG
  ADRES REINTFLG

  TC DOWNFLAG
  ADRES NODOFLAG

  TC BANKCALL
  CADR MR.KLEAN
​​​​​​​  TC WHIMPER