{"id":6302,"date":"2025-03-01T09:51:56","date_gmt":"2025-03-01T14:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=6302"},"modified":"2025-03-01T09:51:58","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T14:51:58","slug":"the-past-that-never-happened","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/03\/01\/the-past-that-never-happened\/","title":{"rendered":"The Past That Never Happened"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sometimes I think about all this “back to the good old days” rhetoric and I’m like, “sure, let’s go back to the 50s or whatever when we all inhaled lead fumes and other chemicals, suffered through diseases like polio and the measles, and oh yeah, lived under the constant shadow of total nuclear annihilation<\/em><\/strong>. That sure sounds like “the good old days,” and something everyone would want to go back to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then I thought, maybe it’s not about “the good old days,” but rather some sort of self-destructive urge to go back to when things were objectively not <\/em>better… maybe that is the whole point. Maybe the generation that grew up under the specter of nuclear Armageddon for so long is now somehow disappointed that the promised annihilation never came? And now they’re set on making it happen themselves?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe these people are longing not for a past that was<\/em>, but for a past that never happened?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes I think about all this “back to the good old days” rhetoric and I’m like, “sure, let’s go back to the 50s or whatever when we all inhaled lead fumes and other chemicals, suffered through diseases like polio and the measles, and oh yeah, lived under the constant shadow of total nuclear annihilation. That… Continue reading The Past That Never Happened<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[199,17],"tags":[587,586,392],"class_list":["post-6302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-opinion","category-society","tag-conservatisim","tag-nuclear-war","tag-society","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-1DE","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":225,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/09\/13\/korea-cloud-not-from-nuclear-blast\/","url_meta":{"origin":6302,"position":0},"title":"Korea Cloud Not From Nuclear Blast","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 13, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I think we sometimes forget that there are other troubles in the world other than Iraq and our Presidential Election. The thought of nuclear weapons in North Korea is quite scary to me.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6438,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/07\/14\/most-difficult-decade\/","url_meta":{"origin":6302,"position":1},"title":"Most Difficult Decade","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 14, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The last 10 years (2015-2025) has been the most difficult and stressful decade of my life.","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":274,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/10\/07\/hawks-and-the-presidency\/","url_meta":{"origin":6302,"position":2},"title":"Hawks and the Presidency","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 7, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting take on Kerry, and how things would be if he were elected.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":750,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2006\/05\/25\/information-superhighway\/","url_meta":{"origin":6302,"position":3},"title":"Information Superhighway","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Suppose the metaphor ran in the other direction. Suppose the highways were like the net...","rel":"","context":"In "tech"","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":881,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/05\/08\/real-id-comments-close-tonight\/","url_meta":{"origin":6302,"position":4},"title":"REAL ID Comments Close Tonight!","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A national ID is wrong and is counter to the principles upon which this country was founded.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1102,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/05\/08\/on-an-inconvenient-truth\/","url_meta":{"origin":6302,"position":5},"title":"On “An Inconvenient Truth”","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I finally got around to watching \"An Inconvenient Truth\" tonight, and I have to say, I'm all riled up. There can be no doubt that climate change is real and is caused by human activity. That's not what I'm all riled up about. I'm all riled up about what we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Stormy Weather","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2008\/05\/580865496_7c1177bc8d_m.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6304,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6302\/revisions\/6304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}