If the idea of it actually being 2015 still feels crazy to you, imagine how freaking bizarre it would seem to the people of previous generations-including your younger self-whose predictions about the future would never have included a single negative thought about O.J. Simpson or Bill Cosby or a single positive one about dietary fat.
We’ve collected what we feel would be the most difficult facts about the present for old-timey people to swallow. Do you agree? Add your own in the comments!
50 Years Ago
1. The Soviet Union, the reason your kids have nuclear explosion drills at their elementary school, no longer exists. Not because of World War III or anything. They just went broke.
2. We landed on the moon. The actual moon, Earths original satellite. The man in the moon? That was us! Then, after returning six times in only three years, we got bored and never went back.
3. The U.S. has an African-American president and everyone isn’t walking around going, Can you believe the U.S. has an African-American president? (Actually, that’s not true. We kind of are.)
4. You know John Lennon? The singer from that band your daughter loves so much with the yeah-yeah-yeahs and the matching suits? He was murdered. Assassinated on a New York City street. And here’s the really weird part: It was kinda because you were right about J.D. Salingers bad influence.
5. No flying cars yet. But we might have self-lacing shoes.
25 Years Ago
1. Sept. 11th is sadder than every Veterans Day and Memorial Day you have ever experienced combined.
2. Your front pocket is where you carry your computer, TV, still and motion-picture cameras, radio, tape recorder, maps, notepad, and your entire music collection. Oh yeah, and your phone.
3. Antibiotic resistance kills more people than AIDS.
4. Something called the Internet has almost completely destroyed the music, television, movie, book, and newspaper industries. On the flip side, porn is free.
5. You know O.J. Simpson? The Heisman-winning first NFL player to rush for more than 2,000 yards? The Hertz dude running through airports? The hysterical star of the first two Naked Gun movies? That O.J. Simpson? Yeah, well, um… never mind. You really won’t believe this.
10 years Ago
1. There’s a thing called Facebook, which exists now but you don’t know about it yet, that will become more addictive than cocaine, and everybody you know will be on it, including your grandmother, all sharing their personal information with people they know and barely know, and checking it every day, sometimes several times a day, habitually “liking” updates and vacation selfies by people they’ve never met, and occasionally getting upset that all of their personal information and photos are now owned by some kid named Mark, but they don’t leave Facebook, or even stop sharing their personal information, because they love it too much.
2. Two men, or two women, can legally marry in 36 states. In the other 38, marriage is still between a man, a woman, and his mistress.
3. Wheat is bad for you, and fat is good for you……..
See full story on menshealth.com
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF CORBIS IMAGES