Some news that would be completely mundane today but scary or shocking in the past.

  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    “Man fired for criticising homosexuality”, or maybe “man imprisoned for refusing to hire black person”.

    People are thinking about technology, but in 1923 people were very familiar with breathtaking technological change. The complete reversal of some social norms, on the other hand, would be almost existentially disturbing to these dudes who believe in the great benevolent Christian empires, and in some cases thought ending slavery was a mistake.

    I have to wonder what the residents of the 1920’s third world would think. I’m sure there would be many interesting perspectives.

    • nnjethro@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Those type of headlines upset way too many people today. It’s the point of the make America great again slogan.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I don’t think you realize how far tech has advanced in 100 years. Commercial flights didn’t really exist in their current form of scheduled flights between airports. Computers didn’t exist beyond mechanical ones that aren’t really comparable. Electricity was only in half of households in 1925. Telephone lines were only local and required manual switching by operators.

      Breathtaking technology in the 1920s has nothing on what we can do today.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, but electrification, cars, antibiotics, many forms of sanitation, many forms of canning, radio, telephones of any kind, several forms of weapon and powered aircraft in general were new within living memory in the 20s. “It gets (much) better and more accessible” wouldn’t have surprised anyone. If we were going back 200 years you might have a point, and definitely would at 300.

        Actually, they didn’t understand how radio crystals (which are very rudimentary semiconductor diodes) worked at the time, but pretty much every other principle of physics used in modern technology was understood at that point. They just needed to finish quantum mechanics, and then figure out a few steps of application.