The air was polluted so badly we had "smog days" during which it was unsafe to go outside. The sky was frequently yellow.
The water was so polluted you couldn't eat any fish you caught. Rivers routinely caught fire. Gasoline contained lead which got turned into exhaust fumes we all breathed.
No-fault divorce wasn't a thing yet, and many women were trapped in dangerous relationships. Marital rape was legal most places until the mid 1990s.
Being openly gay, bi, or transgender (or just looking non-heterosexual) was extremely dangerous. Most states had anti-sodomy laws on their books throughout the 1980s. Same sex marriage was not legal.
Corporal punishment (hitting your children) was widely accepted as normal and good. Public schools routinely beat children for minor rules violations.
Automobile safety sucked; no airbags, ABS braking, and crumple zones were a new concept. Seatbelts existed but people routinely "protested" by refusing to wear them. Even minor accidents resulted in death & dismemberment.
Long distance phone calls cost $3+ dollars per minute, and in many cases "long distance" was calling somebody in the next zip code. 911 service wouldn't be adopted nationwide for most of the decade. If you had an emergency, you needed to know the local numbers to call because simply dialing 0 meant having to trust a telephone operator (an AT&T employee) to know what they're doing. Also, they had no way to know your location. GPS would not exist until the 1980s.
There were three (3) television channels, with maybe two (2) more "local" channels, and you looked at them on tiny, fuzzy CRT screens. The largest made at the time were 25". All channels went off the air every night around 1am, and there was no easy way to avoid or skip commercials. VCRs started becoming available, but cost many thousands of dollars adjusted for inflation. There would not be video rental stores until the 1980s, so no easy way to rewatch shows or movies.
Air travel cost thousands of dollars adjusted for inflation, and planes were so routinely hijacked by terrorists it became a meme.
The 1970s sucked. Don't fucking romanticize things that were actively terrible just because there are some pretty pictures of girls.
snowghoul
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baratheonpilled
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amandla
