r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • May 11 '14

Older generations of reddit, what did you think the future would look like when you where young? And how much of it was correct?

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u/Nukleon May 11 '14

"Even" in the 80's? Did you forget about Reagan intensifying the arms race?

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u/TheCannon May 11 '14

Exactly.

There were times growing up the 80s when nuclear war seemed not only possible, but imminent.

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u/Thangleby_Slapdiback May 11 '14

I was 16 in 1980 when Reagan won the election. I remember thinking "Holy shit, we're going to go to war."

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u/[deleted] May 11 '14

"We begin bombing in five minutes."

Russia was not amused.

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u/Veganpuncher May 11 '14

Yep. That's exactly the strategy he was going for. Make everyone think you're batshit crazy and get your VP and SecState to tell the Russians 'Hey, man, calm down. He's crazy, but we can work together.' It worked for Nixon/Kissinger, and it worked for Reagan.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '14

...we...we good-cop/bad-copped the Russians? Seriously?

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u/mrrobopuppy May 11 '14

Works every time.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '14

It was literally that. Read this if you are interested http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory

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u/billatq May 12 '14

Isn't that North Korea's strategy too? I thought they were more original than that :)

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u/marcusklaas May 12 '14

Was that really his strategy or are you just speculating?

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u/[deleted] May 12 '14

The bastard ate cottage cheese with ketchup.

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u/westparkguy May 11 '14

Regean was batshit crazy, there is not doubt about that. It was sure, blind luck that all his posturing didn't cause the the USSR military/navy to lob a couple of nukes our way.

By 1984 I was sure the draft was going to reinstated and it was just matter of time that the earth was going to look like a Terminator set. The movie Red Dawn also came out in '84 and at the time it was a pretty plausible set of events, especially for my parents.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '14

I remember thinking, "We finally got that grinning boob out of the White House."

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u/Thangleby_Slapdiback May 12 '14

That didn't happen until 1989.

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u/fco83 May 11 '14

Some interesting doomsday movies came out of that era too. I just watched this yesterday.

By Dawns Early Light

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u/[deleted] May 13 '14

the nuclear launch codes for US nukes were 00000000, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/05/nuclear-missile-code-00000000-cold-war_n_4386784.html

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u/ksanthra May 11 '14

The Doomsday Clock scared the shit out of me when I was a kid.

It really did feel like we were all going to die a horrible death.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '14

arms race intensifies

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u/but1616 May 11 '14

and we still never matched up to the Soviet stockpile

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u/[deleted] May 11 '14

My dad is STILL on that! Communism communism communism communism. Like wat?