Some of the "upsides" (e.g. improvements in patent regime) just aren't there. Some aren't as wonderful as they are described.
I'm in my mid-sixties; I'm very much a candidate for the "things were better in the old days" brigade.
But I do think many (most?) things have improved. Housing is better; healthcare is immeasurably better (unless you can't afford it); and mobile telephony has improved the lives of at least a billion people worldwide.
Because I'm not miserable old git, I'm not going to list downsides.
Not exactly a new thing though is it? Plus the actual percentage of people worldwide exposed to war or directly affected by it has dropped significantly. The world is more peaceful than it has ever been.
Depending on who you ask, conflict deaths per capita have stayed the same or declined since 1990.[1] 1991 had the first Gulf War, The Troubles, the Yugoslav campaign in Croatia, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Guatemala, and many more.
I wonder if permanent war was around in the 60's it was just easier to keep things under wraps because of smart phones. From what I have heard the CIA has been involved in some unsavory activities since before the 60s. I also believe that life lost by war and violence have decreased dramatically since then. It might be an ignorance is bliss thing.
Permawar: I don't think lives lost by war and violence have diminished. If our leaders want us to support wars, they need enemies, and we're encouraged to hate them. The number of civilians killed in just Iraq is comparable with the number of combatants+civilians killed in Vietnam. But the Vietnam war lasted about 12 years, then it ended. It was confined to Indochina. The "War On Terror" has killed huge numbers of people in Afghanistan, Iran (if you include the effects of sanctions), Libya and Pakistan.
We now make bigger, more-accurate bombs and missiles, but we sprinkle them around just as carelessly. We still have to be made to hate people if we are going to support a war; and we don't pay a lot of attention to the casualty-count of people we hate.
Music: If you're referring to the 60's and 70's, I agree - the seventies were my formative years, musically. But we're speaking of 1991, I think. [checks 1991's hits] In among the dross, there are some good tunes - Clash, Should I Stay Or Should I Go; James, Sit Down. And there was some great Acid House, which didn't make the charts (clubbers didn't know the names of the songs or the artists).
Before 90's US was in permanent war just as well. It was called the Cold War. So that one downside is actually non-existent - from "before" vs. "today" point of view.
"Non-existent" is a bit hyperbolic. I have no idea how many casualties resulted from the Cold War, I'd guess a few thousand. Even if 20,000 died, which I doubt, that's pretty good going for a war that lasted 30 years.
You seem to forget that Vietnam war was a side effect of the Cold War. USSR and US fought through proxies in Cold War, Vietnam being just one instance. Another one before was Korean War which resulted in splitting that peninsula. I'd say your 20k is a bit low, might want to reconsider it with at least one order of magnitude.
Oh, and since we are splitting hair here about numbers, US started a 20 years war as result of just 3k deaths during 9/11. You and US government have another order of magnitude disagreement about what constitutes a "good" number of deaths as war causalities.
I think you maybe have misread me! I wasn't "splitting hairs" about numbers; I don't know where you get that from.
I thought my estimates for Cold War casualties were pretty generous - I didn't want low estimates to get in the way of my case. But I think my case stands even if 100,000 died in the Cold War.
If you're going to argue that every mid-20thC "hot" war was just a campaign in the Cold War, well I'm sure the consensus is that the Cold War didn't include open conflicts like Vietnam.
"The first phase of the Cold War began shortly after the end of the Second World War in 1945. The United States created the NATO military alliance in 1949 in the apprehension of a Soviet attack and termed their global policy against Soviet influence containment. The Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955 in response to NATO. Major crises of this phase included the 1948–49 Berlin Blockade, the 1927–1949 Chinese Civil War, the 1950–1953 Korean War, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The USA and the USSR competed for influence in Latin America, the Middle East, and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. "
Some of the "upsides" (e.g. improvements in patent regime) just aren't there. Some aren't as wonderful as they are described.
I'm in my mid-sixties; I'm very much a candidate for the "things were better in the old days" brigade.
But I do think many (most?) things have improved. Housing is better; healthcare is immeasurably better (unless you can't afford it); and mobile telephony has improved the lives of at least a billion people worldwide.
Because I'm not miserable old git, I'm not going to list downsides.
[Edit] OK, I'll list one: permanent war.