The Black Vault

[CodeBlackv2]

if you had a time machine and travelled back to 1950, people would ask you what your time was like. The questionn is, what would you tell them? Keep in mind that they would not understand the things you take for granted everyday, cell phones, pop culture, no cold war, satellite technology, Google Earth, Google, internationalism.

So how would you explain to them what had changed?

The US wins the Cold War, but loses Korea and Vietnam, has other limited wars. The US moves away from an agrarian and manufacturing economy to an information economy. Americans don't make things anymore, they buy them. The US is 10 triilion dollars in debt as a result. The news media is a complete joke. The US has an onslaught of migrants, so much so that you never see a room full of people who look like the people of 1950.

But not all things are bad. Our cars are much better in 2012, but they still don't fly. Our health care technology is far superior; try to explain an MRI. Plus you can see any place on Earth any time you want. And don't forget that people socialize via the internet. Our weapons are far superior; we have a sniper rifle that can kill a man from 2 miles away, cool! Plus we have stealth aircraft and UAVs. Chemical and bioloigcal warfare never really takes off, thankfully. We have nuclear powered ships, satellites and power stations. Japan irradiates the US wiith one of their power stations. So does the USSR, right before the country implodes, peacefully.

What would you tell them?

[CodeBlackv2]

Oh, I forgot a big one. The government still denies any knowedge of alien visitors. Yep, 62 years later!

[greeney2]

Not sure what you are thinking about Nuclear and chemical warfare, but we live in just as much fear now as in 1950, with 3rd world nations trying to get them for terrorism, countries like North Korea, China, Pakistan having them, and Iran wanting them. We just lived a battle that threatened chemical warfare, and was shooting scuds at Isreal. Russia has announed building the new Satan bomb.

I would tell them we did not do a very good job taking care of our planet into 2012. And that WW2 they won resulted in generations buying German cars and Japanese cars, over American built cars, to a point the entire auto industry was nearly lost.
Two of the GM brands went out of business. We allowed companies that imported everything from shirts to televisions, to drive our biggest stores and industies out of business. Stores Like Montgomery Wards, The Sears Catalog, and hundreds of American companies, that they trusted and bought. That you can no longer buy an American made television. You can no longer tell one brand of car from another since they all look the same, nor can you stand on the hood without bending the metal. You can not even lean against the sheet metal of the fenders or doors, they are made so thin. There are no real metal bumpers on cars, and gas costs $4.00 gallon now instead of .18 cents. They would not believe how much it cost to go to the market for groceries. What they can view on Television would give them a heart attack compared to the 3 channels available in 1950. The story of drugs, gangs, and crime, would make them turn over in their graves.

I would tell them we walked on the moon, and have sent space vehicles out of our solor system, and have done astounding things in Space. That Ronald Reagan began a California Governor, and President of the USA. That our population has reached the point 1950 feared, and that natural resourses are now in serious shortage, including fishing out oceans. That technology has reached remarkable levels and advanced us into the computer age.

I would tell them that dress codes are non-existant in 2012, like how our parents would dress to go out to dinner in suits and evening dresses. That parents can be put in jail for spanking their children, and that good manners are considered unimportant. That children talk like drunken sailers, and that you are not normal is you think homosexual behavior is wrong. They have not had a military draft in 40 years and young men have no idea what a military obligation used to mean. Men are not the only breadwinners in the house anymore, Mothers are not just stay at home Mom's anymore. That social injustices or bigoty and prejudice have changed dramatically since 1950, the civil rights movements, womens lib, and many other social views that were totally intolerant in 1950.

Its a different world and different time from the time of 1950, my parents generation.

I was 3 years old in 1950!

[CodeBlackv2]

Good points greeney. I meant this thread to be a thought experiment. I was hoping people would not only think about what had changed but also the resulting effects. Greeney, you mentioned that men weren't the only breadwinners, and what is the result of that? Women are more lonely and unhappy today than they were in 1950 when they needed a husband to have a life. Well, they still do but they've been brainwashed into thinking that they do not need to bring anything to the table in a marriage. Consequently, marriage is on the way out. Women don't cook, clean, do laundry, take care of the kids or the house, etc, etc. Men look at it like, "what am I getting out of this marriage, besides a potential lawsuit?" Today we're told that Women murdering their own kids is "normal"! This civilization is neurotic and insane.

One of today's news stories is the Governor of Arizona wagging her finger at President Obama. Now that's a picture you should have in your pocket when you go back to 1950.

If people would go watch a movie from the 50's they would see how women, and men, have changed, Americans especially. No more cookies and Thanksgiving dinner. When I remember the food that my Mother and Grandmother cooked and compare it to the crap we have to choke down today, its really depressing. I remember holidays when family would come together and weren't considered "religious wackos" for celebrating even national holidays. People didn't bash the founding fathers and everything the USA has ever done, as is fashionable today.

I know what all of this is going to lead to and it would shock even the people of today.

"A time will come when people will say, 'blessed is the womb that has not given birth'." -JC

We're almost there.

[greeney2]

In 1941 when my parents were married, it was expected that the woman if working give up her job for a man to take, so they kept their marriage a secret. The times were the woman became a housewife, the Dad worked, and the Mom took care of the kids and home. They were a few steps better than in Grandmothers generation where woman could not vote, and did not dare be seen smoking in public. My moms generation as a Catholic was to raise very large families, and produce lots of Catholic babies. Its no wonder generations of women felt inadaquate, worthless, and became alcoholics during the day.

We have become an instant gratification society with every gadget and entertainment at our fingertips from the microwave to video games. We all eat on the run and family dinners are almost extinct. Kids are not as prone to go outside and play like we did, play in the yard, have a ballgame, play cowboys or war, or have a snowball fight. They come home and go right to the television. Like I said about dress codes, in the 50's my Father went to work in a white shirt, tie and suit everyday. Their parties with friends were always dress up events, suits and evening dress. In the east, you were not allowed to wear bluejeans and tee shirts to school, you had to wear slacks and collared shirt. Tennis shoes were black and white keds only for gym class, and you wore real leather street shoes. Gentlemen opened doors for ladies, and pulled their chairs out for them. Dinner table edicate was taught to everyone, and I never addressed an adult by first name unless permitted to if they were close family friends. They were always Mr. or Mrs.. We did not have fast food restraunts when I was a kid, during summer only a hamburger stand was open down by the river. Matinee's were always a double feature with a cartoon, and cost about $1.00. WE never ran around town cussing and swearing if an adult was in view. On our block everyone knew everyone, and the welcome wagon came out when someone new moved in. Nobody had a fenced in yard, even today in my old neighborhood. When we came to California, nobody knows the neighbor, everyone has private yards, everyone is fenced in.

Even in the 60's my wife was discouraged by counsolers that a Veternarian was a mans job, and that she should consider home economics as a major since women become housewifes and mothers.

Values and thinking has changed and not all for the better. The 50's were much simpler times in many ways, a time when all our parents wanted to do was leave the war behind them, and have families. I was born in a extraordinary time, not just the Roswell year, but also the year Chuck Yeager broke the sound barriar, something my Father was very much a part of the Bell X-1 program. I grew up in the aviation culture of Bell Aircraft, with Dad a Department head in Aeronautical enginnering. He was part of all the X-plane programs for Bell, and as a kid grew up with knowing he did Top Secret programs. It was a time when loyalty to the Government was a serious issue, and in resume's they talk about that in recommending for positions. It was a time of the McCarthy Era, J Edgar Hoover, and a sharp eye for communist infiltrators, and strict sevalance of workers by the FBI. The 50'a were a golden age of military aviation technology, and Dad probably spent more time at Wright Patterson than home.

[bionic]

I would not tell 1950 anything..not wanting to mess with the timeline

[at1with0]

Altering timelines is impossible but you can influence a parallel line.

I would urge them to not proliferate nukes and be careful with resources and protect mother earth.

I might lie and say aliens came and almost wiped us out, just to see their reaction.

[CodeBlackv2]

I just got "The Complete Metropolis" on blu-ray, I haven't seen this movie since I was a kid.

Bionic, you said you wouldn't mess with the timeline but...

Metropolis was an amazing predictor of what would happen in Germany in the late 30's and 40's with the rise of the Nazis. Unbelievable that anyone who saw Metropolis in 1927 and then saw the Nazis coming didn't do something to stop it. The Nazis followed the pattern set in that movie to a T.

Some people interpret Metropolis as anti-Capitalism but I interpret it a different way. Its really a story of how in the normal course of the eternal battle between the rich and the poor how one charismatic person can come along and twist everything to such an extent that it leads to revolution. And that just ends up getting a lot of innocent people killed, not that some revolutions aren't justified. This could happen today! Man, its as if Hitler used that movie as a guide to beguiling the people. Somebody should have said something. He used people's natural anger towards the status quo to point at people and declare them the cause of everyone's problems. And it worked. Got people all over the place doing that today, ironic who it is too.

The problem was that Metropolis came out in 1927, before the Great Depression, and everyone, at least in the USA where it was the Roaring 20's, was having such a good time that no one paid any attention. The movie was heavily censored in Germany and not shown in the US at all.

If I went back to 1927 I would mess with the timeline, oh yeah. The world is a spider web of deceit. The question is, how do we unravel it?

[greeney2]

If you could go back in time and alter events, that was the idea in Back to the future. You could have told our parents to not proliferate nukes and be careful with resources and protect mother earth, but what would the outcome have been since Russia could not be allowed to out arm us. They already knew about resourses becasue our parents knew what rationing was all about during the war, and recycling for the war effort. Many things were in short supply and rationed. We never had the EPA in those days, or polution standards, fuel and enery conservation standards. Conditions in work plants was still horrible in places, and we didn't have OSHA. Companies poluted our rivers and the great lakes. I remember how the Bethlehem Steel Company was built all around Lake Erie, and how the distroyed the lake. I am not sure how the lake has recovered, but I'm pretty sure most of the steel mills are gone, and we import steel from Korea. Maybe Capricon knows how much steel refining is still around from Buffalo to Cleveland.

[CodeBlackv2]

Shhh, don't tell the Chinese. We've been selling them water out of that lake.
Yeah, getting people in the past to listen would be the hard part.