If someone from the 1950s suddenly appeared, what would be the most difficult thing to explain about life today?

Why the Nazis are back

I'm just going to steal the response I read years ago.

"I possess a device, in my pocket, that is capable of accessing the entirety of information known to man. I use it to look at pictures of cats and get into arguments with strangers."

I'm going to go on a different angle on this one and say that we are much tougher on sexual harassment. I feel like a lot of people from the 1950s who have grown up on pulp sci-fi like Flash Gordon could accept a lot of modern technology and the internet as basically just magic. To be fair is how a lot of modern people also accept it. But I don't think they would be able to process the move towards egalitarianism that we have taken.

That is not to say that modern society is egalitarian only that we have made good strides in achieving that aim.

Edit: Turns out Gordon is from the '70s, but other pulp sci-fi exist so my statement stands.

"Yes, they are allowed to be on the same bus as us. No, we don't call them that anymore"

That smoking is bad for them. You'd just be banging your head against their socially-acceptable-at-the-time drug addiction.

Things they considered morally fine (smoking, dropping litter, 40 year olds dating 16 year olds) is morally reprehensible, while things they thought were morally wrong or even outlawed are totally acceptable (homosexually, porn, divorce).

Why the Nazis are back, and in America of all places

Depends a lot on the color of their skin.

We walk around with a little rectangle in our pocket that gives us access to the sum total of human knowledge, but we mostly use it for looking at funny captioned pictures, the same pictures over and over just with different captions.

It's called a phone but no one ever uses it as one.

"You see, the file itself can be copied by anyone, but this one little piece of metadata can never be duplicated. That means you own the file."

#3 Why we still haven't got colonies on the moon

#2 Climate change

#1 That fascism is back

The price of housing

The Internet, social media and how we can access absolutely everything from this tiny device

Most difficult imho would be to explain why we haven't advanced any further. If the person is 50 in 1950 he started with horse carriages and saw development to intercontinental bombers, rockets etc. The landing on moon would astonish him, advances in medical sciences and computing too but he probably would ask: "And what are you using that neat little gadgets for?"

You have to goto the store to buy milk instead of having it delivered fresh

How easily we can know anything, yet how diligently we fail to learn anything.

A lack of 'whites only' signs.

That we’ve been to the moon - in there 60s - but haven’t been back or been out further. I think it would just be against all their expectations.

We still work 8 hours/day!

How nothing got better and people like killing children in the school system as sport. Oh, and ask this person what pronouns they want for their identity.

School shooter drills

That shitty actor from Bedtime for Bonzo becomes president.

Statistically? Ok, you have to learn Mandarin and there are these things called time zones but you only get one but shouldhave at least 3.

Like 1 out of 4 people at the time were from China.

The return of the Nazis

nature and resources are not infinite. you are responsible for your actions no matter how terribly hard your childhood was. you cant buy a house for a years loan. we are all fucked.

Ronald Reagan was President for 8 years.

How after World War 2 we didn't truly learn and still fight wars over racism, nationalism and other reasons that keep us from uniting.

How we managed to ruin the earth to a severe degree in just 50 years or so.

And video games.

And The Flintstones.

You know what I'll be just take them grocery shopping at a supermarket and show them that for X amount of money you'll get less items.

We're still nowhere near making space travel as easy as taking a cruise ship.

The TikToc NPC trend

Probably how we went to the moon and then later successfully sent a rover to Mars to study and take pictures. It's something I can't really explain on a technical level but it happened

Smoke breaks.

That we've been to the moon and back, and that they can casually toss into their pockets a device with enough "thinking" power to do the necessary math for the task and then some.

And that we still can't make nylon stockings that don't "run," but that nobody cares because we don't wear them anymore.

That, and transgender is normal.

Why civil rights are a thing.

If they are from the US, it's probably that leading republican candidates don't see Russia waging war on a democratic country as a problem.

how old were they in the 50s and how old are they now? That's probably the crucial thing to know. 70 year old was born in the 1880s and probably would have difficult time to understand much of the current society. 15 year old would probably learn quickly new technology and societal norms. If they'd be middle aged or a bit older man, they'd probably be quite uneducated and would probably have difficult time socially to adapt modern society, where you can't casually sexually harass women and where you don't get job simply by walking to work place without a college degree.

We still haven't used another nuke.

Fediverse

If it was the early 1950's, then: Black people and white people can use the same facilities. There aren't "black bathrooms" and "white bathrooms." There aren't separate water fountains depending on the color of your skin.

Segregation was still around a mere 70 years ago.

What’s wrong with his car and how to fix it.

Fascism

The internet

Florida Man

Def not education

Mobile phones and the internet.

I think where technology is in general would be really difficult to grasp. Imagine telling someone you can instantly get a hold of all of your family members and friends wherever they are. Or that They could just press and button and get instant, overwhelming amounts of entertainment or up-to-date information from across the world. Imagine trying to explain how airpods work to a person that has never experienced active noise canceling. Or rule 196, or rule 34 for that matter.

Too broad a question.

Select a specific person.

The remote control T_T

Why is every comment just about the US? Skin color, school shooter drills, actor president, support for Russians by US politicians...

Lemmy try something more international:

France and Germany have founded the European Union.

First Japan, and now China (and Taiwan) and Korea are the technological superpowers.

Car industry in the UK basically doesn't exist anymore.

Cuba is still communist af and yet looks like a chill place.

Czechoslovakia has split. (Funny how even 30 years after the fact some people don't believe it, so I can imagine it being inconceivable before.)

There are 8 billon people.

We still don't have nuclear-powered flying cars.

That we gained the capacity to send people to the moon only to use it for winning a political dick-measuring contest in the 60s and not do anything with it again for 50 years

If your tire pressure is low, you have to pay money….for air.