Economically, things were already turning downwards but it was still so close to the peak that it wasn’t really that noticeable. But because of the rapidly reducing price of technology it looked as though things were still progressing just fine.
The general vibe however was a largely positive one. The cold war was over, the new “war on terror” had not yet begun. The pace of computer technology was moving at an astounding pace that even if you didn’t like what it was today, tomorrow there will be a newer faster and cheaper one available of whatever it is. The idea of online shopping was new, now you can see the whole catalog. Video on a disc that doesn’t wear out and has “cinema grade” audio, wild! The internet had just gone mainstream leading to the interconnected global village and the prospect of a new digital utopia. Democracy of information and the end of censorship… yeah.
Computing had been liberated into the general populace and the panopticon of surveillance hadn’t been constructed in depth yet.
Mobiles phones started to become common but were so dumb that they didn’t intrude much except for some people. We didn’t have unlimited plans and it wasn’t uncommon for you to just forget to charge the thing for days at a time because you forgot about it for the most part.
The larger messaging and general visible signal of global warming/environmental blowback wasn’t much of thing and even then it was seen as something that we could unify on an tackle. There was still the attitude of, the present is pretty good and the future will be a better place and that we will address the issues as we are aware of them and there is enough time to address them.
Just look at anything design wise and you can see what it was like. Many designs of the 80’s/90’s by today’s standards are kind of ulgy but the reason why it looked like that because it felt like the chains holding back progress had finally been removed. Some magazines would have a new style on every single page, they did that simply because they could. No longer were they constricted by the limits of traditional print and the end result was fairly rough most of the time. But it was never boring in that sense.
That lack of constraint permeated everything. It was a time of being bombarded with novelty.
In retrospect, it was a time of pleasant delusion. The foundation for all the issues of today were being laid down but we weren’t at the point of it being activated. Speed high on a credit card is fun, the payback however is rough.
To be fair to figures and models, they are probably only a problem when you are moving them, otherwise it isn’t a huge burden. It is more about ongoing dependence. Now this isn’t an anti-children take BUT if you don’t have kids, you don’t have to worry about raising kids. Things go much easier in that sense. That said if you want kids, go for it, just be aware that it will make for a more difficult life. Just take the wins were you can.
As for the Dalai Lama, it is difficult to figure out were he stands as a person. Yes, there was the tongue sucking thing which, from asking folks familiar with it the culture, does seem to be an odd cultural joke/saying that is way to easy to misinterpret through western eyes. If you aren’t familiar with it, you look mentally deranged. But the phrase is meant to be “Eat my tongue”, as in ‘I have told you everything, the only thing left to do is to eat my tongue.’. Like in Japanese they have Neko wo kaburu “To wear a cat on one’s head” or in Finland Hevosenkenkä pyllyssä “To have a horseshoe in one’s butt”.
But then there is him being mentioned in the Epstein files 150+ times, but also is largely though to have not had any direct interaction with Jeff. How much of that is damage control and his handlers trying to keep the game rolling, it is difficult to tell. The one thing with the Epstein thing is just how many famous people’s names are in it even in passing. Like George W bush, is in it loads but there was never any direct contact, that is just funny in a way.
It seems like there is a lot of stuff pointing at him, but nothing concrete. It is a, keep an eye on him situation but it also could be an embarrassing situation worthy of Seinfeld.