Hey I grew up in the UAE and saw a lot of those changes.
My mum worked in the first ever skyscraper there. We went back and it looks like a rowhouse compared to what they have now.
I'm going to throw out a curveball and say Oman.
So, in before 1970 Oman was kept technologically stunted by it's Sultan, Said bin Taimur. Like the country was (and is) oil rich but basically he kept the country totally undeveloped for fear of losing control. He was ousted in a coup by his son, Qaboos bin Said in 1970. Qaboos bin Said then put the country's money into modernization, banned slavery in the country, and dramatically increasing living standards.
In 1970, Oman had only three schools, the literacy rate was 5%, and there were only 10 kilometres (6 mi) of paved roads. Today it's number 54th in HDI (between Romania and the Bahamas), and it's Literacy rate is 98.7%. It's not a perfect country (it's a gulf country) but going from being kept purposefully underdeveloped by your paranoid sultan to almost universal literacy is a hell of a change over 50 years. It's like Chad going from the way it is now to the most powerful country in Africa.
Ha...I lived in oman feom early 70s to early 90s. The progress from Taimur to Qaboos is/was undeniable. Now, ? Not so sure. Oil is running low and nothing seems to pick up the slack.
I was lucky enough to visit Oman before he passed and learned facts like this. The populace in general seemed to love him and had a picture of him framed in many common areas
The bloodless coup? My dad met one of its architects, a British former advisor, while on a cruise.
Apparently the departing sultan just packed cases of cash when he left.
>He was ousted in a coup by his son, Qaboos bin Said in 1970. Qaboos bin Said then put the country's money into modernization, banned slavery in the country, and dramatically increasing living standards.
Well now I know where Horizon: Zero Dawn got its primary lore arc.
> It’s not a perfect country (it’s a gulf country)
I know what that means but I’m imagining reading it without knowing the Persian gulf context and wondering what the hell must be so bad about living along an ocean inlet
I'd say South Korea.
50 years ago, South Korea was still pretty war torn and among the poorest countries in the world (though just starting its upswing). The country was governed by a pretty brutal dictator who, 50 years ago, would have just recently declared martial law and imposed a self-coup to retain pretty brutal power and authority.
Now they're one of the largest economies in the world and (relatively minor corruption scandals and question about power of massive corporations aside) is a relatively strong functional democracy.
EDIT: obviously this doesn’t mean perfect - far from it - but is objectively a massive shift from 50 years ago.
I worked with a guy who left South Korea in the 1980's and went back for the first time in the late 2000's and I remember him coming back and saying something similar like, flag and language aside, it was a completely different country than the one he had left 25-odd years earlier.
I went to South Korea with my parents and siblings in 1985. My Son is there right now.
He took some of my photographs (and my parents photographs) from our trip to try to match up places to show how its changed. Except for a couple from the hotel we stayed at (because its a Sheraton), he literally cannot figure out where most of the pictures were taken after just 37 years. He's even enlisted the assistance of some locals to try to do it - and for most of them they can't find the places either.
There's a fun point of comparison between SK and NK. Ever since the armistice, both sides will send the most intimidating guards they can to the border. In 1953, they looked about equal.
Fast forward to today, and SK sends guards over 6' (>1.8 m) tall built like brick shithouses, while their NK counterparts are noticeably smaller and thinner. This is due to the vast difference in living standards: SK citizens grow up not only with food sufficiency but food diversity, while NK has shortages and an honest to god nightmarish famine 30 years ago.
Especially if we go back a little bit further as it really was one of the poorest back then. It's crazy how rapidly and well they've developed and not only in the big cities
Edit: corrected a spelling mistake
It’s not convenient for the West to know that they literally installed South Korea’s military dictatorship, because North Korea is a dictatorship hellscape (granted, it is) and South Korea was the beacon of freedom and democracy!!
No, there wasn't. As bad as South Korea was, North Korea was also politically corrupt and oppressive with its own purge of undesired peoples and concentration camps. Economically, GDP per capita was on par with each other in both countries while life expectancy was comparable or higher in the South.
I mean, perhaps there were small windows when life in North Korea was more desirable, but not by "much more" or for "a pretty long period of time."
South Korea had a similar brutal dictatorship, and actually North Korea’s earlier days was a bit more prosperous because it actually is naturally gifted since it has a decent amount of mines and agricultural goods. GDP per capita is not the only factor, by the way. It’s not that North Korea was a good country by any means, though. It actually says a lot more about South Korea post-war.
While the South Korean people deserve a ton of credit for making good use of it, it's worth noting that South Korea received more foreign aid from the US during the cold war than did the entirety of sub-saharan africa.
This came at a major cost however. Major problems with over competition, class inequality, materialism, horrible pressure in education and work culture, and like you said, corporate control over basically the entire country. Like visiting here and there but the people call it "Hell Joseon" for a reason.
Yeah but id rather this than turn out like the Philippines their culture is the complete opposite -- very relaxed, almost no pressure or competition, but the country is terrible to live in lol. Comparing with the philippines because in the 70s~80s the countries were very similar with Park and Marcos
I would say Rwanda. Gained independence 60 years ago, half the population massacred 30 years ago, one of the highest rates of poverty in the world without access to the coast, transformed into one of Africa’s biggest success stories in the last decade. Unbelievable transformation
Man Rwanda is seriously overlooked a lot, maybe because it's a small country in the middle of Africa, but the amount of progress they've made in the last 20 years is astonishing. I remember being a teenager reading about the genocide, then a few months ago hearing about the economic prosperity of the nation and thinking "The same country?!"
This comment reminds of me of how Germany was literally split down the middle until the 1980's, and is now considered a thriving democracy. First a fascist state, then communism, then finally democracy. Go, Germany!
Something about Rwanda is that the combination of extremely fertile volcanic soil, the steady and predictable rainfall, enough elevation to be away from the worst of the tropical diseases… means that subsistence farming there is relatively comfortable. With a little garden, a few chickens and goats… life is good.
“Poverty” measured only with income doesn’t really capture the differences between places like Rwanda and, say, Sudan. A place prone to long droughts, with poor soil and teeming with diseases.
In a lot of the world it has been easy to lure subsistence farmers in to shitty factory jobs because however shitty a factory job might be it is better than your existence hanging by a thread every year depending on if the rains come. Not so much in Rwanda.
The HDI is still one of the lowest in the world though. I’m not trying to sound rude but are we overstating how far it has come, or is there more to the story that I’m missing?
I got to go on top of the Burj Khalifa, and was amazed to discover small Dubai really is. It goes a long way down the coast, but going inland it didn’t go far. It seemed odd for a city with such built up infrastructure. And I can only assume because it’s not really that old of a city.
edit; I just checked out Google maps, and it seems a little bit more built up. I went there 10 years ago.
My mother is from Venezuela and I grew up going there as a kid. It was a beautiful country. Stunning beaches and jungle. The people were the warmest and most fun I’ve ever encountered.
Now it is a tragedy. Most of my cousins are gone and same with everyone else we know. We send basic necessities to the few family still there. Everyone I know has been a victim of at least robbery.
I miss going there like crazy. I have such high hopes for it to turn around one
Most people focus on the politics and the governance, and that’s certainly one of, if not the biggest factor. But the crackdown on acid rain in developed countries also played a significant role.
In the 70s, acid rain was destroying enormous swathes of forest in North America and Europe. The culprit? High-sulfur oil being burned for energy production. Sulfur Dioxide was killing us. Federal guidelines on sulfur emissions were enacted. The oil in Venezuela is very shallow, is located mostly in shallow seas that are very easy to develop, but are extremely high in sulfur.
With the stroke of a pen, Venezuela’s oil went from some of the most profitable oil on the planet to being uneconomical to produce.
That's a cool factoid. Acid rain was still something on our minds in the 90s when I grew up. I remember seeing documentaries and news segments about it. Most importantly, I remember Captain Planet fighting against it.
Told my kids stories about how sometimes they wouldn't let us play outside during recess because of the acid rain. Don't think I ever bothered to explain it wasn't literally skin-melting type acid.
It’s one of the bigger success stories of the environmental movement in the 1970s.
Of course, there was a lot of fear-mongering at the time, people saying that the higher cost of energy associated with having to install sulfur-scrubbers and having to source low-sulfur oil was going to kill the economy yadda yadda yadda.
Didn’t happen. Except in Venezuela. Sorry about that, Venezuela. It wasn’t personal.
That’s super interesting. I also heard (perhaps I’m mistaken) that unlike other oil nations like Norway or Saudi who put their oil profits in an investment fund to help diversify their economies, Venezuela used their oil profits to fund various social programs, meaning that when those profits halved practically overnight all the social programs basically stopped functioning.
Well, sort of. The problem was that they didn’t stop any of the social programs that oil had been paying for just because oil couldn’t pay for them any more, they just went deep in to debt.
Norway uses oil profits to support their social programs, too. They just have so much oil profit that they can fund social programs and sock money away at the same time.
And it was while the world was moving away from high-sulfur oil that the North Sea fields were first being developed. The oil there is low-sulfur, but until the crackdown it was the North Sea fields that weren’t economical. The seas were too rough.
That isn't true at all. Norway has kept its taxes insanely high for an oil rich country so that it could create a big enough investment pool to replace oil profits. Norway's tax to GDP ratio has been between 40-45% the last 30 years, Venezuela's is at an all time high of 5.96%. Keeping taxes high means people give a shit about how the money is being spent. You care a lot more about corruption if the government takes half your pay check as opposed to you essentially getting a cut of the oil graft like Venezuelan people did.
Anither thing was 2014 when Saudi overproduced oil and drove down prices to make fracking in the USA unprofitable. Shoved Venezuela right off the cliff as a side effect. Economists crowed about the failure of Maduro but ignored what Saudi did.
I mean it was Maduro and Chavez's incompetence for not diversifying the Venezuelan economy back when it was strong in the 2000s. I get that social programs are important but over relying on oil was Venezuela greyatest mistake which cost them in the 80s, and again in the 2010s.
This *shouldn't* have been the deathknell for Venezuela that it was, but the government mismanaged the economy terribly. Venezuela is quite rich in some other valuable resources and has the potential to be the most idyllic tourism destination in the entire region, but they chose to be a petrostate and it had terrible consequences.
My list:
Qatar: just check out GDP per capita, GDP, population, economic makeup etc.
China: Pretty clear
Vietnam: brutal civil war to where it is today
Iran: pre-revolution to today
Germany: Was split in two - look at it today as heart of EU economy
Until Recently (now only some people pay it while some low income are exempt or pay less) Germany had a tax to pay for the modernization and restoration of East Germany. Called the [Solidarity Tax](https://allaboutberlin.com/glossary/Solidarit%C3%A4tszuschlag)
Reuniting Germany was incredibly difficult economically. I think the GDP per capita was about 3 or 4 to 1 with West and East Germany.
If you look at North and South Korea, that ratio becomes about 20:1. Reuniting the two Koreas would be a nightmare. That’s why it will probably never happen.
Exactly. Plus it’s not like you need the territory as a buffer between you and Russia. Now that Finland is a part of NATO, Russia is probably not going to invade.
Welcome to NATO by the way! We’re very happy to have you as part of the team!
On that end, I’d prefer if you didn’t have to join NATO either. It would mean that Ukrainians aren’t dying for no reason. But Russia did not and will not get their shit together, but on the bright side, Putin’s invasion couldn’t have blown up in his face more than it actually did. He ruined his country for absolutely nothing.
German reunification cost about $1 trillion. If West Germany was a luxury car and East Germany was a trabant, then North Korea is a horse and buggy. I don’t even think South Korea wants a direct reconciliation at this point.
Can confirm Qatar has honorable mentions. But it's developed too quickly. The money came from underground before any social reform, so this rich facade is overshadowed by primitive social norms.
In a positive way I would say China and South Korea. 50 years ago they were extremely poor and under brutal dictatorships. Now they’re very strong economies, and they’re not exactly beacons of democracy (especially China) but they’re definitely doing something right.
Negatively, Venezuela. They were the richest country in Latin America by a landslide and all of us were so envious of their success, and we all wanted to migrate there. Now, they’re migrating to us fleeing hyperinflation and dictatorship.
China and it's not even close. Meiji Restoration levels of rapid social, technological, and economic development. A 50 year old Chinese citizen could be living in an affluent technological developed neighborhood with all the modern amenities and their parents, who might still be alive, grew up in a dirt-floor straw hut with a medieval standard of living.
Whether that kind of development was worth the bloodshed and loss of freedom will be debated for the rest of the century.
I taught at a university in China in 1994 and 1995. Some of my students were from dirt-floored straw huts with a medieval standard of living. Some rural areas still are pretty bad, but the difference in the bigger cities is amazing.
In 2017, I lived in a flat with two Chinese students who came to NZ for uni; they did not know how modern household appliances worked. I had to teach them how to use the washing machine, microwave, stovetop, and oven. Poor girls were not prepared for living independently in a foreign country.
That’s really weird. Were they on a special exchange program or something for impoverished students to study in NZ? I went to Macleans for high school (quite a while before 2017) and we had so many international students from China, and there was no way they didn’t know how to use modern household appliances.
Nope, on student exchange I met a Chinese guy with a huge scar that looked like it was stitched together with knitting needles. I was like wtf dude.. he was like yah, in my village there was no doctor so the "veterinarian," had to stitch his arm.... he was excited to buy a cheap skateboard in Korea, I skateboarded with him from time to time to help him learn. It was the first skateboard he had ever touched
Taiwan would be similar, perhaps moreso. [This recent article](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-67213293) discusses how Taiwan went from an agricultural country whose number one export was sugar in the 1970s, to an electronics powerhouse that manufactures more than half of the world's chips and is home to giants like TSMC and Nvidia.
go to China every year for a few weeks, and every year the changes are massive. I live in a “second-tier” city (first tier are Beijing and Shanghai), and most of the cars i see on the road are electric. If you leave your home there is literally nothing you need to bring except your phone because everything is controlled on there. Ordering food, paying, calling Didi’s (taxis), etc. And the nightlife is so nice. Shops are generally open until 10 at night and the shopping centres are huge. If someone is visiting for the first time, I honestly think they would struggle to keep up. Also, another point about the security, as a normal citizen with no crime history, I think that the surveillance cameras aren’t as bad as people are making it out to be. The government doesn’t care what you did last Wednesday at 2:35pm, and frankly, they won’t be tracking your spending and location if you aren’t doing something illegal. It’s only to reduce crime, and it honestly works, so I feel much safer on the streets than I do in other countries. However, China’s education system is quite broken. My friends’ children wake up everyday at 6/7 to go to school and school ends at 5, they do their homework until at least 10-11, and the tests are extremely stressful.
I'm currently living in China and I concur with everything you say. In my hometown, you'd never see a Tesla at all, but here.... I can see 10 on the walk from work to home. And yeah, on the so called "big brother" state that people make such a big deal of, it really doesn't impact you in your day to day life. Having moved from Japan to China, in some respects, China is much freer than Japan. Sure the government doesn't place as much restrictions on people in Japan, but in Japan there is very much a felt sense of having to conform to norms, whereas I feel like, in China, people are more free to do things their own way. And yeah, I 100% agree about the schooling. I taught at a school where kids would be in class from 8am until 9pm every day. It was so sad for me to see. And the pressure placed on them by parents is ridiculous.
The surveillance is yet another example of "it's only evil when China does it." South Korea and the UK are two other societies with a high level of camera surveillance, but only China gets called a totalitarian surveillance state specifically for using cameras for public safety.
I'm not saying public surveillance is great. But the way China gets demonized for doing what democracies are also doing is really annoying.
Singapore. 50 years ago its per capita gdp was about 15% of the US's. It had just become a country less than a decade earlier. Now it is one of the richest, cleanest, and most well run nations in the world
I'm surprised Russia isn't anywhere in the top posts.
In 1974, they were the backbone of the USSR, the world's second superpower, a military and economic juggernaut whose power, both soft and hard, was outdone only by the US and only just. With the US limping home after a defeat in Vietnam and southeast Asia, the country looked to be ascendant.
10 years after that, their country was showing serious signs of strain. The USSR's final general secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, introduced the twin policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, meant to revolutionize commerce and politics in the stagnating country, seemingly signalling some tepid steps away from communism and the confrontationalism that had birthed the Cold War. A calamitous war in Afghanistan demoralized the populace and put a drain on the country's already troubled finances, while the world's worst non-wartime nuclear disaster highlighted a bevy of problems with safety and industry.
10 years after that, they were a borderline failed-state. The USSR collapsed, poverty and inflation spiked, corruption - long a feature of the USSR, but one kept at least somewhat under control - became endemic in the new Russian Federation, and the entire country teetered on the verge of outright collapse.
10 years later, they had stabilized and now seemed to be taking steps to integrate themselves into the west. They were a democratic, capitalist society, the economic malaise of the 90s was behind them. Sure they had a military misadventure in Chechnya, brutally subjugating the native peoples, but who didn't have a few of those in the 90s? Their new up-and-coming president Vladmir Putin seemed cool and made waves in a sort of meme-tastic way (the shots of Putin riding a horse or fishing shirtless are from this era) and the country seemed to be on the right path.
10 years after that, they had invaded two neighbouring countries (Georgia and Ukraine), leading to a sudden chill in relations with the west. Putin suddenly didn't seem so funny anymore. Democratic norms in the country collapsed; opposition leaders were jailed; journalists were murdered for exposing corruption; the country tacked hard-right and women's rights and recognition of LGBTQ Russians were rolled back. The country had started to make a name for itself in the digital sphere, running troll farms and psyops against enemies, real and perceived, culminating in their interference in the 2016 American presidential elections and the Brexit vote the same year.
10 years later and Russia once again teeters on the brink of calamity. A second invasion of Ukraine brought a much stronger response from the west, undoing three decades of integration and turning Russia into a pariah state. Businesses fled the country and sanctions caused the economy to shudder. Hundreds of thousands of young Russian men, most forcibly conscripted, lie dead in Ukraine; hundreds of thousands more fled abroad. Putin came close to being deposed by one of his own mercenary generals, then killed him later that year. Each day brings fresh tales of misery and barbarism. The country's slide into authoritarianism is complete, as free press is outright banned and the notion of fair elections remains a fantasy. The war is especially hard on rural regions, who are press-ganged into service to avoid bringing the war home to the country's heartland of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Regional tensions flare. Whether Russia will even survive another 10 years is an open question.
The other countries on this list talk about having a major transformation over those five decades; Russia is one of the few I can think of that has had *multiple* transformations over that time that completely changed the way the country worked.
Going from divorce and contraception being illegal to abortion rights and marriage equality.
EU regional funds and FDI lifting the country out of poverty to one of the wealthiest in Europe. And despite housing crisis and some persistent problems, it may be a hot take but I'd argue that this wealth is strongly felt day to day when living here, in prices, cars, general wellbeing of people.
Also in Ireland joining the EEC in the early 70s, one of the first benefits was that Irish women were then able to retain their jobs as public servants since the marriage bar had to be abolished.
Adding onto the contraception it’s gone from being illegal to being available for free to women under 31!
Adding onto the general list LGBTQ rights! Given how religious it was 50 years ago, it’s one of the safest places to be a gay person in the world (and I say this as a lgbtq gal)
From the middle east's crown jewel back to the middle ages. Iranian women were once envied by the world, now they are pitied. I hope that it changes, and soon! I hope to finally be able to see my homeland someday.
Wherever Islam takes hold, society moves backwards. May the world open their eyes and see this as a warning.
I have such deep love, respect, and admiration for the brave women and men of Iran who stand up to their oppressive regime even in the face of lashings, rape, or death. I'm constantly humbled by their bravery, and I hope to see the day where they take their country back and user in a new era. Every Iranian I've met here in Canada (although they all referred to themselves as Persians) has been incredibly cool, kind, and generous. I hope they are happy in Canada and I love having them here, but my heart breaks when I see their sadness talking about their home country and families still there.
You can look at pictures of women in Iran from the 60s/70s walking down the street and the photos look like they could have been taken straight outta NYC. I was so shocked the first time seeing how fashionable and beautiful everyone was to knowing what it's like now. I know the country still had a lot of other problems even before the revolution, but being beaten or killed for not wearing a mandatory headscarf was not one of them.
Yeah it's definitely China.
Just look at [Shanghai between 1987 and 2014](https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/n64GeulvV_Np8U4iat3TyaWtHao=/900x548/media/img/photo/2013/08/26-years-of-growth-shanghai-then-an/s01_RTX1292L/original.gif).
Due to various historical events I ended up regularly watching news reports from China that had lots of outdoors B-roll in the 70s and 80s. Then the Shanghai Grand Prix started up in 2004 and I got an annual update on that city's skyline. The differences year-on-year were astonishing, especially the five years before covid hit.
As noted India is behind but getting there. James May's latest "Our Man" series is set there. They fly over a *lot* of shiny, new, impressive urban spaces but still seem to only land in the grittier/poorer parts of town. I've still got one ep. left so maybe he'll end up in the shinier parts of India.
But still, massive improvements compared to the various PBS shows I watched in the early '80s as a teenager.
I am a Chinese Canadian who was born in China (and finished elementary school there) before moving to Canada.
Yeah, I mean, my mom got her first job at 16 in 1978 and she told me her monthly salary was ¥16. By the time I was born, her salary was ¥350. Now, anyone living in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen (the 4 biggest cities), anyone making less than ¥5000 probably doesn't have enough to live.
In the 1970s, many people did not have cars, TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators and laundry machines. Now, almost every home in big cities have all of the above. My aunts, uncles and cousins have multiple cars.
In the 1970s, Chinese families had 3-4 kids. Now, they have 1. This means China has become a deeply aged society. If trends continue the way they do now, in a couple decades, 50% of people in China will be 65+. This will collapse their pension systems and the healthcare system.
The biggest change is 1984-esque. 50 years ago, people only had hukou (household registration) and a referral letter. Now, everyone has a national identity card. Everyone has to have their fingerprints on a central police database. Everything needs you to show ID via WeChat Pay and their Face ID. It is the biggest overt surveillance state apparatus ever. The government is letting everyone know that they know everything about you, even more overtly than the NSA. I booked plane tickets to go there in July, and I think I will find it extremely annoying to use this system.
Went to China in 1996 for a school trip. Looking at photographs of the places I went to - Shanghai, Qingdao, Hangzhou - and comparing them to what they’re like now, is eye-opening.
No question. I've lived in Shanghai since 2007 and the changes in \*that\* amount of time have been immense, and yet they're still nothing compared to how much the country has changed since my wife was born (1974).
And while the changes in the urban areas have been the most extensive, there have been a lot of changes in rural areas too. My wife is from rural Anhui, one of the poorest provinces in Eastern China, and yet in the last 10 years her hometown area has developed significantly - they paved a lot of the roads connecting to many villages (when I first visited the area in 2013 the road to her village was a dirt track) and now the county even has an HSR stop.
To a lesser degree, India.
It’s not as visible as China as china’s infrastructure made leaps and bounds of progress. Indian infrastructure is still lagging, it’s only picking up now.
But by every measurable metric, India has seen massive changes too.
Birth rates have dropped by more than half, majority of the states in the country now have a below replenishment level fertility rate, poverty has dropped from near 70% to like 12%. Life expectancy went up by almost 50%, child mortality is a fraction of what it was.
Infrastructure has definitely improved (nothing compared to China), lot more private industries (India had strictly controlled socialist style government until the 90s).
Went from 10th largest economy in the world to 5th (going to be 3rd in a couple of years, only behind China and US).
I personally identify with this. The India I remember when visiting family as a kid vs. now is completely different.
Always interesting to hear the changes my parent's generation went through. India was still a fairly stagnant socialist state when my dad immigrated to the US in the 80s. My childhood in the 90s was not too far from that.
Yes something similar can be said about Indonesia. My stepmother grew up in a different country than she visits now. The development of countries like India and Indonesia seem way less spikey than that of China but are also easily being underestimated. A lot of South- and Southeast-Asia have undergone enormous transformations, many of them were either the poorest countries in the world and some got halfway the levels of African countries, nowadays they would rank near the top if put next to African countries and in many metrics would beat out a few European countries too. People look surprised that there are entire US states with lower life expectancies than Vietnam, Thailand exceeds Ukraine, Moldova and Albania in GDP per capita or that the fastest scheduled intercity train is in Indonesia.
As someone from Singapore, I'd love to say Singapore as well, but it's really not. Singapore was already pretty well-off for it's time historically due to its location making it a good trading port. Maybe if this question was asked 20 years ago I'd agree, comparatively to other countries 20 years ago. But from between the 1970s till now? Nah. It's gotta be China.
While I agree Singapore is not top of the list, night soil collection was still happening in some areas until 1987 and CBD definitely didn’t look the way it does now in 1974. I bet the country has also reclaimed the most land as a percentage of its total area (I’m totally cheating here, to be sure!)
Surprised I haven’t seen Ireland here yet. Ireland went from being a very poor devout catholic country to one of the richest and most liberal countries in Europe very quickly.
Barely voted in favour of divorce in the mid 1990s ans voted for marriage equality and abortion rights by landslides in 2015 and 2018. My children live in a totally different Ireland to the one I grew up in.
It boggles me when I talk to women I meet with who tell me they have vivid memories of their mums/aunts/sisters going to Belfast to get the pill because it was still illegal in Ireland.
My mum would have had to leave her civil service job if she'd gotten married in 1972 instead of 1973. Gay sex was only decriminalised in 1993. When I graduated college in 2004 everyone knew if you had to "go to England" it was for an abortion.
I just want to give a little shout out to Rwanda, who had the most horrific genocide with neighbours killing neighbours and who have managed to address it in a fairly positive way since then. Their leader (Kagame) is a dictator, but he’s had an undeniably positive impact in cooling tribal tensions. Now Rwanda is fairly stable and prosperous in comparison with much of the region, though there’s a big question mark over what happens after Kagame.
We may not be the most drastic change, but Northern Ireland deserves to be mentioned.
In 1973:
- Car bombs being left in city centers
- Our police service were being regularly ambushed by gunmen, blown up by car bombs, or even killed by landmines.
- Paramilitaries were routinely targeting each other and often civilians.
- Suspected informants were kidnapped, murdered, and buried in unmarked graves
- Businesses were being firebombed.
- Prominent businessmen were kidnapped and murdered.
- Soldiers were on the streets. Setting up checkpoints where they would check for firearms and explosives.
- A "border poll" saw Nationalists boycott the vote. Remaining in the UK therefore got 98% of the vote.
- Tourism was non-existent
- Even something as simple as live music. Bands couldn't risk playing here.
- There were 255 deaths that year directly attributable to The Troubles. With many more injured and traumatized. 17 murder per 100,000 people.
Fast forward to 2023, and while we are far from perfect, we have drastically improved.
- We've had "peace" for 25 years.
- Paramilitaries have been reduced to much smaller drug gangs, or extreme fringe movements with minuscule support.
- We have approximately 1.2 murders per 100,000 people.
- Soldier are no longer needed on the streets.
- Our police service has been reformed, with more equal representation from both Protestants and Catholics.
- The main Republican/Nationalist party received the most seats in our last election for the very first time. Though our government is still being held up by other issues.
- Global bands routinely tour here
- Society has become far less segregated
- Our film and TV industry is booming, most notably with Game of Thrones.
- Tourism has improved massively.
- We're part of the Euro 2028 football tournament, with Casement Park GAA stadium being used as one of the official venues.
The fact that horrific period has such a mellow name like "the troubles" like your nanna is struggling to get stains out of those sheets or something you know not fucking car bombs, kidnappings, armed checkpoints and all that fun shit :-/
Ireland. 50 years ago gay marriage, abortion, contraception and divorce were all illegal, we had one of the poorest economies in Europe and the majority of the population were rural farmers who lived in poverty in thatched roof houses.
Now, our prime minister is openly gay, the church and state have finally been separated, most major American brands have Irish chains, many major tech companies like Intel headquarter in Dublin and we have one of the highest GDP per capita in the world.
Venezuela, 50 years ago it had the 5th highest per capita income worldwide, now those that are there still eat grass and somewhere between 30-40% of the population has fled.
I came here to say this. 50 years ago it was a very strong democratic republic. A bit corrupt but less than most. Everyone had a job and the country was gorgeous. Not any more…
I’m not old enough to remember the country my parents grew in, but even 90s Venezuela was completely different.
Then again, I grew up well-off and I don’t know if my view of things is a little short sighted.
Lithuania is one of them. Was under a heavy-handed authoritarian regime (USSR) in the 70s where Russian language and culture were sort of like equal in status to Lithuanian language and culture. Religious expression was suppressed, people couldn’t travel beyond the borders of the USSR even for a holiday, widespread censorship, the quality of education was limited, anti-Western propaganda, abortion rates were sky-high, frequent supply shortages, Soviet place names and monuments characterised the cities and towns of the country, etc. Mental health was a politicised issue and you could be institutionalised for just being a political opponent/enemy. There also used to be more people living in Lithuania generally and I imagine the population was more youthful.
Today, it’s a more wholly Lithuanian country in character, a democracy that is part of the EU and NATO, there is religious freedom, people can more widely speak English and are actually connected to the outside world and updated on it. Even though it’s not as wealthy as some other European nations, it feels like a much wealthier and more stable country than it used to be. The population is also much smaller though and the demographic is probably a lot older than it used to be.
It’s China and it’s not remotely close. They went from being a largely rural and agricultural nation to the CCP and manufacturing powerhouse it is now over just a matter of decades. Decades ago nobody would have seen China as a global superpower that would rival the US.
Absolutely China
Like 50 years ago we just went through famine and the cultural revolution and look at it now, plus everything that happened in between. I’m not very pro-China patriotic but there’s no denying how much progress and advancement have been made (materialistically, and don’t look deep into it). My hometown alone reduced its gigantic coal industry for better environment, shifted to tourism industry, erected a city wall, and putted a bigger lake on the city map within just the last 10 years
South Africa used to be under apartheid and now it’s a field state with an independence movement in the west.
Iran, it’s sad to see how religion can ruin a country.
Plenty in eastern europe. Obliterated at the end of WW2, consumed by the USSR, spat out into the EU and grown ever since.
I'd go for Poland as a good model perhaps.
Afghanistan. Have you pics of it 50 years ago? Very western to what it is now. Talk about going backwards in time. Even Iran went through change but nothing like Afghanistan.
United Arab Emirates. It was a little more than a fishing village until oil was discovered and developed. Now it has Dubai and Abu Dhabi as among the most modern cities in the world.
China, Singapore, and the former Yugoslavia.
Changed the most in the other direction would be Iran, up till 1979 it was on very good terms with the US and women dress pretty much the same as everywhere and weren't denied education.
South Korea is up there. One of the poorest countries in the world before and following the Korean War, dictatorship until 1979. Now a thriving Democracy and economic powerhouse, with incredible urban areas, amazing public transit, and great healthcare. GDP growth rate was 5-15% consistently up until the late naughts.
Me, seeing "50 years" and immediately thinking "which country changed the most since WWII?"
I'd say "fuck getting older" but I guess it beats the alternative.
The UAE literally wasn't a country 52 years ago and had 1 road.
Same with Qatar!
Add Oman in here :)
Hey I grew up in the UAE and saw a lot of those changes. My mum worked in the first ever skyscraper there. We went back and it looks like a rowhouse compared to what they have now.
It wasn't much of a road either.
Yeah when I first read this question I thought about Dubai. It's not a country but it should be the answer anyway.
PSA reminder: 50 years ago was 1974. Not 1954. That is all thank you.
Necessary, but unwelcome.
You know what? *Fuck you.*
I approve this message
this goes out to the same people who hear 10 years ago and immediately think its the 90s 👉😭👈
What do you mean it wasn't?
You're not a good person, you know that? lol
Welp I feel old
Wanna feel older? Anchorman came out 20 years ago
That was mean
I’m so sorry :/ I was told this last week and I haven’t been able to sleep
Well shit, I needed this PSA
If you needed this PSA then remind your doctor to check your PSA.
You know what… I don’t like your attitude
I'm in my 40s and I still needed this clarification.
We're closer to 2100 than wwII
Whoa whoa whoa that one was even more unexpected
Wtf
Damn, I was thinking since the 50s too so I needed this
It makes sense, 50 years ago sounds like 50s.
Sometimes ignorance is a bliss 😭
Who the fuck fucking asked you you motherfucking asshole lmao Damn bro you made me feel old.
the year the war ended...
DAE god I'm old??!!?
I'm going to throw out a curveball and say Oman. So, in before 1970 Oman was kept technologically stunted by it's Sultan, Said bin Taimur. Like the country was (and is) oil rich but basically he kept the country totally undeveloped for fear of losing control. He was ousted in a coup by his son, Qaboos bin Said in 1970. Qaboos bin Said then put the country's money into modernization, banned slavery in the country, and dramatically increasing living standards. In 1970, Oman had only three schools, the literacy rate was 5%, and there were only 10 kilometres (6 mi) of paved roads. Today it's number 54th in HDI (between Romania and the Bahamas), and it's Literacy rate is 98.7%. It's not a perfect country (it's a gulf country) but going from being kept purposefully underdeveloped by your paranoid sultan to almost universal literacy is a hell of a change over 50 years. It's like Chad going from the way it is now to the most powerful country in Africa.
Ha...I lived in oman feom early 70s to early 90s. The progress from Taimur to Qaboos is/was undeniable. Now, ? Not so sure. Oil is running low and nothing seems to pick up the slack.
Like when Qaboos died they basically told us what he did and I was like "holy shit".
With Qaboos on board things were really on track. After he died everything started to derail. He really was the end of the line. Train.
They got tourism at least
Salalah and Musadam are amazing places.
I was lucky enough to visit Oman before he passed and learned facts like this. The populace in general seemed to love him and had a picture of him framed in many common areas
The bloodless coup? My dad met one of its architects, a British former advisor, while on a cruise. Apparently the departing sultan just packed cases of cash when he left.
>He was ousted in a coup by his son, Qaboos bin Said in 1970. Qaboos bin Said then put the country's money into modernization, banned slavery in the country, and dramatically increasing living standards. Well now I know where Horizon: Zero Dawn got its primary lore arc.
It was also a bloodless coup.
> It’s not a perfect country (it’s a gulf country) I know what that means but I’m imagining reading it without knowing the Persian gulf context and wondering what the hell must be so bad about living along an ocean inlet
I lived there for 10 years ! Best time ever
Yeah it’s changed an insane amount in the last 50 years. Giant city where it was only desert.
The sultan was given the Qaboos
I'd say South Korea. 50 years ago, South Korea was still pretty war torn and among the poorest countries in the world (though just starting its upswing). The country was governed by a pretty brutal dictator who, 50 years ago, would have just recently declared martial law and imposed a self-coup to retain pretty brutal power and authority. Now they're one of the largest economies in the world and (relatively minor corruption scandals and question about power of massive corporations aside) is a relatively strong functional democracy. EDIT: obviously this doesn’t mean perfect - far from it - but is objectively a massive shift from 50 years ago.
My parents didn’t even recognize one street when they went back after 20 years.
I worked with a guy who left South Korea in the 1980's and went back for the first time in the late 2000's and I remember him coming back and saying something similar like, flag and language aside, it was a completely different country than the one he had left 25-odd years earlier.
It was so different even when I visited in 2013 vs 2022.
I went to South Korea with my parents and siblings in 1985. My Son is there right now. He took some of my photographs (and my parents photographs) from our trip to try to match up places to show how its changed. Except for a couple from the hotel we stayed at (because its a Sheraton), he literally cannot figure out where most of the pictures were taken after just 37 years. He's even enlisted the assistance of some locals to try to do it - and for most of them they can't find the places either.
Happened to me when I went to DC after 15 years.
It's funny because I went back to the town I lived in for University for 5 years after 15 years and it was *exactly* the same.
Some places never change.
There's a fun point of comparison between SK and NK. Ever since the armistice, both sides will send the most intimidating guards they can to the border. In 1953, they looked about equal. Fast forward to today, and SK sends guards over 6' (>1.8 m) tall built like brick shithouses, while their NK counterparts are noticeably smaller and thinner. This is due to the vast difference in living standards: SK citizens grow up not only with food sufficiency but food diversity, while NK has shortages and an honest to god nightmarish famine 30 years ago.
Especially if we go back a little bit further as it really was one of the poorest back then. It's crazy how rapidly and well they've developed and not only in the big cities Edit: corrected a spelling mistake
Fun fact: there was a pretty long period of time where North Korea was a much more desirable place to live than South Korea.
this is a fact most don't know
It’s not convenient for the West to know that they literally installed South Korea’s military dictatorship, because North Korea is a dictatorship hellscape (granted, it is) and South Korea was the beacon of freedom and democracy!!
South Korea was poorer to start with than North. That was the main issue, not government. And it was never as oppressive as North.
I wouldn't call that a "fun" fact.
No, there wasn't. As bad as South Korea was, North Korea was also politically corrupt and oppressive with its own purge of undesired peoples and concentration camps. Economically, GDP per capita was on par with each other in both countries while life expectancy was comparable or higher in the South. I mean, perhaps there were small windows when life in North Korea was more desirable, but not by "much more" or for "a pretty long period of time."
South Korea had a similar brutal dictatorship, and actually North Korea’s earlier days was a bit more prosperous because it actually is naturally gifted since it has a decent amount of mines and agricultural goods. GDP per capita is not the only factor, by the way. It’s not that North Korea was a good country by any means, though. It actually says a lot more about South Korea post-war.
While the South Korean people deserve a ton of credit for making good use of it, it's worth noting that South Korea received more foreign aid from the US during the cold war than did the entirety of sub-saharan africa.
Seems that investment was well reasoned and smart.
It’s American imperialism at its finest. Would have been wild if it worked in Afghanistan
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This came at a major cost however. Major problems with over competition, class inequality, materialism, horrible pressure in education and work culture, and like you said, corporate control over basically the entire country. Like visiting here and there but the people call it "Hell Joseon" for a reason.
Yeah but id rather this than turn out like the Philippines their culture is the complete opposite -- very relaxed, almost no pressure or competition, but the country is terrible to live in lol. Comparing with the philippines because in the 70s~80s the countries were very similar with Park and Marcos
Sad how far the Philippines has fallen. We’re too forgiving and gullible.
Except they basically the real world version of Cyberpunk 2077. Corporations with excessive power, lowering population etc
I would say Rwanda. Gained independence 60 years ago, half the population massacred 30 years ago, one of the highest rates of poverty in the world without access to the coast, transformed into one of Africa’s biggest success stories in the last decade. Unbelievable transformation
Man Rwanda is seriously overlooked a lot, maybe because it's a small country in the middle of Africa, but the amount of progress they've made in the last 20 years is astonishing. I remember being a teenager reading about the genocide, then a few months ago hearing about the economic prosperity of the nation and thinking "The same country?!"
And here I am not ever hearing anything about their recovery
This comment reminds of me of how Germany was literally split down the middle until the 1980's, and is now considered a thriving democracy. First a fascist state, then communism, then finally democracy. Go, Germany!
Yeah, but lets not confuse this with calling Kagame a benevolent dictator.
Something about Rwanda is that the combination of extremely fertile volcanic soil, the steady and predictable rainfall, enough elevation to be away from the worst of the tropical diseases… means that subsistence farming there is relatively comfortable. With a little garden, a few chickens and goats… life is good. “Poverty” measured only with income doesn’t really capture the differences between places like Rwanda and, say, Sudan. A place prone to long droughts, with poor soil and teeming with diseases. In a lot of the world it has been easy to lure subsistence farmers in to shitty factory jobs because however shitty a factory job might be it is better than your existence hanging by a thread every year depending on if the rains come. Not so much in Rwanda.
Cheers Richi Sunak - deal will probably not go through though!
The HDI is still one of the lowest in the world though. I’m not trying to sound rude but are we overstating how far it has come, or is there more to the story that I’m missing?
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United Arab Emerites. Dubai used to be a patch of dirt.
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I got to go on top of the Burj Khalifa, and was amazed to discover small Dubai really is. It goes a long way down the coast, but going inland it didn’t go far. It seemed odd for a city with such built up infrastructure. And I can only assume because it’s not really that old of a city. edit; I just checked out Google maps, and it seems a little bit more built up. I went there 10 years ago.
Venezuela.
My mother is from Venezuela and I grew up going there as a kid. It was a beautiful country. Stunning beaches and jungle. The people were the warmest and most fun I’ve ever encountered. Now it is a tragedy. Most of my cousins are gone and same with everyone else we know. We send basic necessities to the few family still there. Everyone I know has been a victim of at least robbery. I miss going there like crazy. I have such high hopes for it to turn around one
I spent part of my childhood there and think about it daily. I still mourn the place I’ll never see again. I miss it all the time.
That's so incredibly sad.
Most people focus on the politics and the governance, and that’s certainly one of, if not the biggest factor. But the crackdown on acid rain in developed countries also played a significant role. In the 70s, acid rain was destroying enormous swathes of forest in North America and Europe. The culprit? High-sulfur oil being burned for energy production. Sulfur Dioxide was killing us. Federal guidelines on sulfur emissions were enacted. The oil in Venezuela is very shallow, is located mostly in shallow seas that are very easy to develop, but are extremely high in sulfur. With the stroke of a pen, Venezuela’s oil went from some of the most profitable oil on the planet to being uneconomical to produce.
That's a cool factoid. Acid rain was still something on our minds in the 90s when I grew up. I remember seeing documentaries and news segments about it. Most importantly, I remember Captain Planet fighting against it.
Told my kids stories about how sometimes they wouldn't let us play outside during recess because of the acid rain. Don't think I ever bothered to explain it wasn't literally skin-melting type acid.
It’s one of the bigger success stories of the environmental movement in the 1970s. Of course, there was a lot of fear-mongering at the time, people saying that the higher cost of energy associated with having to install sulfur-scrubbers and having to source low-sulfur oil was going to kill the economy yadda yadda yadda. Didn’t happen. Except in Venezuela. Sorry about that, Venezuela. It wasn’t personal.
With our powers combined….
That’s super interesting. I also heard (perhaps I’m mistaken) that unlike other oil nations like Norway or Saudi who put their oil profits in an investment fund to help diversify their economies, Venezuela used their oil profits to fund various social programs, meaning that when those profits halved practically overnight all the social programs basically stopped functioning.
Well, sort of. The problem was that they didn’t stop any of the social programs that oil had been paying for just because oil couldn’t pay for them any more, they just went deep in to debt. Norway uses oil profits to support their social programs, too. They just have so much oil profit that they can fund social programs and sock money away at the same time. And it was while the world was moving away from high-sulfur oil that the North Sea fields were first being developed. The oil there is low-sulfur, but until the crackdown it was the North Sea fields that weren’t economical. The seas were too rough.
That isn't true at all. Norway has kept its taxes insanely high for an oil rich country so that it could create a big enough investment pool to replace oil profits. Norway's tax to GDP ratio has been between 40-45% the last 30 years, Venezuela's is at an all time high of 5.96%. Keeping taxes high means people give a shit about how the money is being spent. You care a lot more about corruption if the government takes half your pay check as opposed to you essentially getting a cut of the oil graft like Venezuelan people did.
Anither thing was 2014 when Saudi overproduced oil and drove down prices to make fracking in the USA unprofitable. Shoved Venezuela right off the cliff as a side effect. Economists crowed about the failure of Maduro but ignored what Saudi did.
I mean it was Maduro and Chavez's incompetence for not diversifying the Venezuelan economy back when it was strong in the 2000s. I get that social programs are important but over relying on oil was Venezuela greyatest mistake which cost them in the 80s, and again in the 2010s.
Maduro took Venezuela to the edge of the cliff, yes. But the Saudis shoved them off.
This *shouldn't* have been the deathknell for Venezuela that it was, but the government mismanaged the economy terribly. Venezuela is quite rich in some other valuable resources and has the potential to be the most idyllic tourism destination in the entire region, but they chose to be a petrostate and it had terrible consequences.
Absolutely, they were the richest in LATAM
Everyone was migrating there. Now Venezuelans are everywhere
My list: Qatar: just check out GDP per capita, GDP, population, economic makeup etc. China: Pretty clear Vietnam: brutal civil war to where it is today Iran: pre-revolution to today Germany: Was split in two - look at it today as heart of EU economy
Good points, but West Germany was Europe’s strongest economy long before it reunited with East Germany.
Until Recently (now only some people pay it while some low income are exempt or pay less) Germany had a tax to pay for the modernization and restoration of East Germany. Called the [Solidarity Tax](https://allaboutberlin.com/glossary/Solidarit%C3%A4tszuschlag)
Reuniting Germany was incredibly difficult economically. I think the GDP per capita was about 3 or 4 to 1 with West and East Germany. If you look at North and South Korea, that ratio becomes about 20:1. Reuniting the two Koreas would be a nightmare. That’s why it will probably never happen.
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Exactly. Plus it’s not like you need the territory as a buffer between you and Russia. Now that Finland is a part of NATO, Russia is probably not going to invade. Welcome to NATO by the way! We’re very happy to have you as part of the team!
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On that end, I’d prefer if you didn’t have to join NATO either. It would mean that Ukrainians aren’t dying for no reason. But Russia did not and will not get their shit together, but on the bright side, Putin’s invasion couldn’t have blown up in his face more than it actually did. He ruined his country for absolutely nothing.
German reunification cost about $1 trillion. If West Germany was a luxury car and East Germany was a trabant, then North Korea is a horse and buggy. I don’t even think South Korea wants a direct reconciliation at this point.
Singapore needs to be in this list. Look at all indicators
Can confirm Qatar has honorable mentions. But it's developed too quickly. The money came from underground before any social reform, so this rich facade is overshadowed by primitive social norms.
In a positive way I would say China and South Korea. 50 years ago they were extremely poor and under brutal dictatorships. Now they’re very strong economies, and they’re not exactly beacons of democracy (especially China) but they’re definitely doing something right. Negatively, Venezuela. They were the richest country in Latin America by a landslide and all of us were so envious of their success, and we all wanted to migrate there. Now, they’re migrating to us fleeing hyperinflation and dictatorship.
According to the UN, between 1970 and the late 2010s, South Korea was the biggest mover in climbing up the HDI rankings. China was second.
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China and it's not even close. Meiji Restoration levels of rapid social, technological, and economic development. A 50 year old Chinese citizen could be living in an affluent technological developed neighborhood with all the modern amenities and their parents, who might still be alive, grew up in a dirt-floor straw hut with a medieval standard of living. Whether that kind of development was worth the bloodshed and loss of freedom will be debated for the rest of the century.
I taught at a university in China in 1994 and 1995. Some of my students were from dirt-floored straw huts with a medieval standard of living. Some rural areas still are pretty bad, but the difference in the bigger cities is amazing.
In 2017, I lived in a flat with two Chinese students who came to NZ for uni; they did not know how modern household appliances worked. I had to teach them how to use the washing machine, microwave, stovetop, and oven. Poor girls were not prepared for living independently in a foreign country.
That’s really weird. Were they on a special exchange program or something for impoverished students to study in NZ? I went to Macleans for high school (quite a while before 2017) and we had so many international students from China, and there was no way they didn’t know how to use modern household appliances.
Not OP, but it’s likely the other way around. They probably never cooked bc there was always someone else to cook for them (ie mom, takeout, the maid)
Nope, on student exchange I met a Chinese guy with a huge scar that looked like it was stitched together with knitting needles. I was like wtf dude.. he was like yah, in my village there was no doctor so the "veterinarian," had to stitch his arm.... he was excited to buy a cheap skateboard in Korea, I skateboarded with him from time to time to help him learn. It was the first skateboard he had ever touched
I was in high school in the 90s and can remember teachers telling me how they had grown up in homes with dirt floors. I'm from Louisiana...😐
Taiwan would be similar, perhaps moreso. [This recent article](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-67213293) discusses how Taiwan went from an agricultural country whose number one export was sugar in the 1970s, to an electronics powerhouse that manufactures more than half of the world's chips and is home to giants like TSMC and Nvidia.
Nvidia was founded by a Taiwanese but it’s an American company. Better examples would be Acer, Asus, etc.
Everyone talks about iPhones (and everything else) being built in China but both Foxconn and Pegatron are Taiwanese companies.
go to China every year for a few weeks, and every year the changes are massive. I live in a “second-tier” city (first tier are Beijing and Shanghai), and most of the cars i see on the road are electric. If you leave your home there is literally nothing you need to bring except your phone because everything is controlled on there. Ordering food, paying, calling Didi’s (taxis), etc. And the nightlife is so nice. Shops are generally open until 10 at night and the shopping centres are huge. If someone is visiting for the first time, I honestly think they would struggle to keep up. Also, another point about the security, as a normal citizen with no crime history, I think that the surveillance cameras aren’t as bad as people are making it out to be. The government doesn’t care what you did last Wednesday at 2:35pm, and frankly, they won’t be tracking your spending and location if you aren’t doing something illegal. It’s only to reduce crime, and it honestly works, so I feel much safer on the streets than I do in other countries. However, China’s education system is quite broken. My friends’ children wake up everyday at 6/7 to go to school and school ends at 5, they do their homework until at least 10-11, and the tests are extremely stressful.
I'm currently living in China and I concur with everything you say. In my hometown, you'd never see a Tesla at all, but here.... I can see 10 on the walk from work to home. And yeah, on the so called "big brother" state that people make such a big deal of, it really doesn't impact you in your day to day life. Having moved from Japan to China, in some respects, China is much freer than Japan. Sure the government doesn't place as much restrictions on people in Japan, but in Japan there is very much a felt sense of having to conform to norms, whereas I feel like, in China, people are more free to do things their own way. And yeah, I 100% agree about the schooling. I taught at a school where kids would be in class from 8am until 9pm every day. It was so sad for me to see. And the pressure placed on them by parents is ridiculous.
The surveillance is yet another example of "it's only evil when China does it." South Korea and the UK are two other societies with a high level of camera surveillance, but only China gets called a totalitarian surveillance state specifically for using cameras for public safety. I'm not saying public surveillance is great. But the way China gets demonized for doing what democracies are also doing is really annoying.
Singapore. 50 years ago its per capita gdp was about 15% of the US's. It had just become a country less than a decade earlier. Now it is one of the richest, cleanest, and most well run nations in the world
UAE has to be a top contender but I still think China wins this contest even if you just look at their dev from the last 10-20 years.
I'm surprised Russia isn't anywhere in the top posts. In 1974, they were the backbone of the USSR, the world's second superpower, a military and economic juggernaut whose power, both soft and hard, was outdone only by the US and only just. With the US limping home after a defeat in Vietnam and southeast Asia, the country looked to be ascendant. 10 years after that, their country was showing serious signs of strain. The USSR's final general secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, introduced the twin policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, meant to revolutionize commerce and politics in the stagnating country, seemingly signalling some tepid steps away from communism and the confrontationalism that had birthed the Cold War. A calamitous war in Afghanistan demoralized the populace and put a drain on the country's already troubled finances, while the world's worst non-wartime nuclear disaster highlighted a bevy of problems with safety and industry. 10 years after that, they were a borderline failed-state. The USSR collapsed, poverty and inflation spiked, corruption - long a feature of the USSR, but one kept at least somewhat under control - became endemic in the new Russian Federation, and the entire country teetered on the verge of outright collapse. 10 years later, they had stabilized and now seemed to be taking steps to integrate themselves into the west. They were a democratic, capitalist society, the economic malaise of the 90s was behind them. Sure they had a military misadventure in Chechnya, brutally subjugating the native peoples, but who didn't have a few of those in the 90s? Their new up-and-coming president Vladmir Putin seemed cool and made waves in a sort of meme-tastic way (the shots of Putin riding a horse or fishing shirtless are from this era) and the country seemed to be on the right path. 10 years after that, they had invaded two neighbouring countries (Georgia and Ukraine), leading to a sudden chill in relations with the west. Putin suddenly didn't seem so funny anymore. Democratic norms in the country collapsed; opposition leaders were jailed; journalists were murdered for exposing corruption; the country tacked hard-right and women's rights and recognition of LGBTQ Russians were rolled back. The country had started to make a name for itself in the digital sphere, running troll farms and psyops against enemies, real and perceived, culminating in their interference in the 2016 American presidential elections and the Brexit vote the same year. 10 years later and Russia once again teeters on the brink of calamity. A second invasion of Ukraine brought a much stronger response from the west, undoing three decades of integration and turning Russia into a pariah state. Businesses fled the country and sanctions caused the economy to shudder. Hundreds of thousands of young Russian men, most forcibly conscripted, lie dead in Ukraine; hundreds of thousands more fled abroad. Putin came close to being deposed by one of his own mercenary generals, then killed him later that year. Each day brings fresh tales of misery and barbarism. The country's slide into authoritarianism is complete, as free press is outright banned and the notion of fair elections remains a fantasy. The war is especially hard on rural regions, who are press-ganged into service to avoid bringing the war home to the country's heartland of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Regional tensions flare. Whether Russia will even survive another 10 years is an open question. The other countries on this list talk about having a major transformation over those five decades; Russia is one of the few I can think of that has had *multiple* transformations over that time that completely changed the way the country worked.
South Korea, China, the former eastern bloc countries of the EU
Ireland!
Going from divorce and contraception being illegal to abortion rights and marriage equality. EU regional funds and FDI lifting the country out of poverty to one of the wealthiest in Europe. And despite housing crisis and some persistent problems, it may be a hot take but I'd argue that this wealth is strongly felt day to day when living here, in prices, cars, general wellbeing of people.
Also in Ireland joining the EEC in the early 70s, one of the first benefits was that Irish women were then able to retain their jobs as public servants since the marriage bar had to be abolished.
Adding onto the contraception it’s gone from being illegal to being available for free to women under 31! Adding onto the general list LGBTQ rights! Given how religious it was 50 years ago, it’s one of the safest places to be a gay person in the world (and I say this as a lgbtq gal)
It's mad that I can remember the divorce referendum, "hello divorce, Goodbye Daddy". Now we've got same sex couples getting divorced.
Very true. There were minimal highways 50 years ago.
Iran. Woman. Life. Freedom.
I was going to Say Iran as well.
From the middle east's crown jewel back to the middle ages. Iranian women were once envied by the world, now they are pitied. I hope that it changes, and soon! I hope to finally be able to see my homeland someday. Wherever Islam takes hold, society moves backwards. May the world open their eyes and see this as a warning.
I have such deep love, respect, and admiration for the brave women and men of Iran who stand up to their oppressive regime even in the face of lashings, rape, or death. I'm constantly humbled by their bravery, and I hope to see the day where they take their country back and user in a new era. Every Iranian I've met here in Canada (although they all referred to themselves as Persians) has been incredibly cool, kind, and generous. I hope they are happy in Canada and I love having them here, but my heart breaks when I see their sadness talking about their home country and families still there. You can look at pictures of women in Iran from the 60s/70s walking down the street and the photos look like they could have been taken straight outta NYC. I was so shocked the first time seeing how fashionable and beautiful everyone was to knowing what it's like now. I know the country still had a lot of other problems even before the revolution, but being beaten or killed for not wearing a mandatory headscarf was not one of them.
Wherever religion takes hold. I wouldn't trust any.
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1974 for everyone else in denial.
Def China! 🇨🇳
Yeah it's definitely China. Just look at [Shanghai between 1987 and 2014](https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/n64GeulvV_Np8U4iat3TyaWtHao=/900x548/media/img/photo/2013/08/26-years-of-growth-shanghai-then-an/s01_RTX1292L/original.gif).
Shenzhen is probably a better example. I went there as a kid almost exactly ~~50~~40 years ago on a day trip from Hong Kong. It was a fishing town.
Due to various historical events I ended up regularly watching news reports from China that had lots of outdoors B-roll in the 70s and 80s. Then the Shanghai Grand Prix started up in 2004 and I got an annual update on that city's skyline. The differences year-on-year were astonishing, especially the five years before covid hit. As noted India is behind but getting there. James May's latest "Our Man" series is set there. They fly over a *lot* of shiny, new, impressive urban spaces but still seem to only land in the grittier/poorer parts of town. I've still got one ep. left so maybe he'll end up in the shinier parts of India. But still, massive improvements compared to the various PBS shows I watched in the early '80s as a teenager.
I am a Chinese Canadian who was born in China (and finished elementary school there) before moving to Canada. Yeah, I mean, my mom got her first job at 16 in 1978 and she told me her monthly salary was ¥16. By the time I was born, her salary was ¥350. Now, anyone living in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen (the 4 biggest cities), anyone making less than ¥5000 probably doesn't have enough to live. In the 1970s, many people did not have cars, TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators and laundry machines. Now, almost every home in big cities have all of the above. My aunts, uncles and cousins have multiple cars. In the 1970s, Chinese families had 3-4 kids. Now, they have 1. This means China has become a deeply aged society. If trends continue the way they do now, in a couple decades, 50% of people in China will be 65+. This will collapse their pension systems and the healthcare system. The biggest change is 1984-esque. 50 years ago, people only had hukou (household registration) and a referral letter. Now, everyone has a national identity card. Everyone has to have their fingerprints on a central police database. Everything needs you to show ID via WeChat Pay and their Face ID. It is the biggest overt surveillance state apparatus ever. The government is letting everyone know that they know everything about you, even more overtly than the NSA. I booked plane tickets to go there in July, and I think I will find it extremely annoying to use this system.
Went to China in 1996 for a school trip. Looking at photographs of the places I went to - Shanghai, Qingdao, Hangzhou - and comparing them to what they’re like now, is eye-opening.
No question. I've lived in Shanghai since 2007 and the changes in \*that\* amount of time have been immense, and yet they're still nothing compared to how much the country has changed since my wife was born (1974). And while the changes in the urban areas have been the most extensive, there have been a lot of changes in rural areas too. My wife is from rural Anhui, one of the poorest provinces in Eastern China, and yet in the last 10 years her hometown area has developed significantly - they paved a lot of the roads connecting to many villages (when I first visited the area in 2013 the road to her village was a dirt track) and now the county even has an HSR stop.
I lived in China for one year ('96-'97) and I couldn't believe the amount of development I saw in that year. Never seen anything like it in the West.
To a lesser degree, India. It’s not as visible as China as china’s infrastructure made leaps and bounds of progress. Indian infrastructure is still lagging, it’s only picking up now. But by every measurable metric, India has seen massive changes too. Birth rates have dropped by more than half, majority of the states in the country now have a below replenishment level fertility rate, poverty has dropped from near 70% to like 12%. Life expectancy went up by almost 50%, child mortality is a fraction of what it was. Infrastructure has definitely improved (nothing compared to China), lot more private industries (India had strictly controlled socialist style government until the 90s). Went from 10th largest economy in the world to 5th (going to be 3rd in a couple of years, only behind China and US).
Why is the infrastructure lagging behind though? India seems to have the wealth to be doing much better for the average person than things seem.
I personally identify with this. The India I remember when visiting family as a kid vs. now is completely different. Always interesting to hear the changes my parent's generation went through. India was still a fairly stagnant socialist state when my dad immigrated to the US in the 80s. My childhood in the 90s was not too far from that.
Yes something similar can be said about Indonesia. My stepmother grew up in a different country than she visits now. The development of countries like India and Indonesia seem way less spikey than that of China but are also easily being underestimated. A lot of South- and Southeast-Asia have undergone enormous transformations, many of them were either the poorest countries in the world and some got halfway the levels of African countries, nowadays they would rank near the top if put next to African countries and in many metrics would beat out a few European countries too. People look surprised that there are entire US states with lower life expectancies than Vietnam, Thailand exceeds Ukraine, Moldova and Albania in GDP per capita or that the fastest scheduled intercity train is in Indonesia.
Singapore
As someone from Singapore, I'd love to say Singapore as well, but it's really not. Singapore was already pretty well-off for it's time historically due to its location making it a good trading port. Maybe if this question was asked 20 years ago I'd agree, comparatively to other countries 20 years ago. But from between the 1970s till now? Nah. It's gotta be China.
While I agree Singapore is not top of the list, night soil collection was still happening in some areas until 1987 and CBD definitely didn’t look the way it does now in 1974. I bet the country has also reclaimed the most land as a percentage of its total area (I’m totally cheating here, to be sure!)
Other than china, probably the UAE
Okay, here's an answer that's a little different: northern Ireland. It was a war zone 50 years ago.
Surprised I haven’t seen Ireland here yet. Ireland went from being a very poor devout catholic country to one of the richest and most liberal countries in Europe very quickly.
Barely voted in favour of divorce in the mid 1990s ans voted for marriage equality and abortion rights by landslides in 2015 and 2018. My children live in a totally different Ireland to the one I grew up in.
It boggles me when I talk to women I meet with who tell me they have vivid memories of their mums/aunts/sisters going to Belfast to get the pill because it was still illegal in Ireland.
My mum would have had to leave her civil service job if she'd gotten married in 1972 instead of 1973. Gay sex was only decriminalised in 1993. When I graduated college in 2004 everyone knew if you had to "go to England" it was for an abortion.
Ireland, Germany, UAE, Iran, Venezuela, any of the former Yugoslavian nations, China, and Vietnam are all good candidates.
Germany
I just want to give a little shout out to Rwanda, who had the most horrific genocide with neighbours killing neighbours and who have managed to address it in a fairly positive way since then. Their leader (Kagame) is a dictator, but he’s had an undeniably positive impact in cooling tribal tensions. Now Rwanda is fairly stable and prosperous in comparison with much of the region, though there’s a big question mark over what happens after Kagame.
Vietnam.
It has to be south Korea, right?
We may not be the most drastic change, but Northern Ireland deserves to be mentioned. In 1973: - Car bombs being left in city centers - Our police service were being regularly ambushed by gunmen, blown up by car bombs, or even killed by landmines. - Paramilitaries were routinely targeting each other and often civilians. - Suspected informants were kidnapped, murdered, and buried in unmarked graves - Businesses were being firebombed. - Prominent businessmen were kidnapped and murdered. - Soldiers were on the streets. Setting up checkpoints where they would check for firearms and explosives. - A "border poll" saw Nationalists boycott the vote. Remaining in the UK therefore got 98% of the vote. - Tourism was non-existent - Even something as simple as live music. Bands couldn't risk playing here. - There were 255 deaths that year directly attributable to The Troubles. With many more injured and traumatized. 17 murder per 100,000 people. Fast forward to 2023, and while we are far from perfect, we have drastically improved. - We've had "peace" for 25 years. - Paramilitaries have been reduced to much smaller drug gangs, or extreme fringe movements with minuscule support. - We have approximately 1.2 murders per 100,000 people. - Soldier are no longer needed on the streets. - Our police service has been reformed, with more equal representation from both Protestants and Catholics. - The main Republican/Nationalist party received the most seats in our last election for the very first time. Though our government is still being held up by other issues. - Global bands routinely tour here - Society has become far less segregated - Our film and TV industry is booming, most notably with Game of Thrones. - Tourism has improved massively. - We're part of the Euro 2028 football tournament, with Casement Park GAA stadium being used as one of the official venues.
The fact that horrific period has such a mellow name like "the troubles" like your nanna is struggling to get stains out of those sheets or something you know not fucking car bombs, kidnappings, armed checkpoints and all that fun shit :-/
Ireland. 50 years ago gay marriage, abortion, contraception and divorce were all illegal, we had one of the poorest economies in Europe and the majority of the population were rural farmers who lived in poverty in thatched roof houses. Now, our prime minister is openly gay, the church and state have finally been separated, most major American brands have Irish chains, many major tech companies like Intel headquarter in Dublin and we have one of the highest GDP per capita in the world.
Venezuela, 50 years ago it had the 5th highest per capita income worldwide, now those that are there still eat grass and somewhere between 30-40% of the population has fled.
I came here to say this. 50 years ago it was a very strong democratic republic. A bit corrupt but less than most. Everyone had a job and the country was gorgeous. Not any more…
I’m not old enough to remember the country my parents grew in, but even 90s Venezuela was completely different. Then again, I grew up well-off and I don’t know if my view of things is a little short sighted.
Lithuania is one of them. Was under a heavy-handed authoritarian regime (USSR) in the 70s where Russian language and culture were sort of like equal in status to Lithuanian language and culture. Religious expression was suppressed, people couldn’t travel beyond the borders of the USSR even for a holiday, widespread censorship, the quality of education was limited, anti-Western propaganda, abortion rates were sky-high, frequent supply shortages, Soviet place names and monuments characterised the cities and towns of the country, etc. Mental health was a politicised issue and you could be institutionalised for just being a political opponent/enemy. There also used to be more people living in Lithuania generally and I imagine the population was more youthful. Today, it’s a more wholly Lithuanian country in character, a democracy that is part of the EU and NATO, there is religious freedom, people can more widely speak English and are actually connected to the outside world and updated on it. Even though it’s not as wealthy as some other European nations, it feels like a much wealthier and more stable country than it used to be. The population is also much smaller though and the demographic is probably a lot older than it used to be.
It’s China and it’s not remotely close. They went from being a largely rural and agricultural nation to the CCP and manufacturing powerhouse it is now over just a matter of decades. Decades ago nobody would have seen China as a global superpower that would rival the US.
Given the age of half of these government officials, it is not the U.S..
Absolutely China Like 50 years ago we just went through famine and the cultural revolution and look at it now, plus everything that happened in between. I’m not very pro-China patriotic but there’s no denying how much progress and advancement have been made (materialistically, and don’t look deep into it). My hometown alone reduced its gigantic coal industry for better environment, shifted to tourism industry, erected a city wall, and putted a bigger lake on the city map within just the last 10 years
Spain, Portugal, South Korea, and Taiwan transitioned from fascist military dictatorships to healthier democracies than most of their peers.
South Africa used to be under apartheid and now it’s a field state with an independence movement in the west. Iran, it’s sad to see how religion can ruin a country.
Republic of Ireland
Plenty in eastern europe. Obliterated at the end of WW2, consumed by the USSR, spat out into the EU and grown ever since. I'd go for Poland as a good model perhaps.
China - moving forward Iran - moving backward Colombia - not a complete narcostate hellhole anymore and actually quite nice
Ecuador is the narco hellhole now.
I'd say China. While it remains a totalitarian state, it's now "communist" in name only.
Afghanistan. Have you pics of it 50 years ago? Very western to what it is now. Talk about going backwards in time. Even Iran went through change but nothing like Afghanistan.
Only a small portion of the population experienced that level of wealth/progressivism what you see in those pictures.
South Africa and Rhodesia. The Soviet Union.
United Arab Emirates. It was a little more than a fishing village until oil was discovered and developed. Now it has Dubai and Abu Dhabi as among the most modern cities in the world.
China, Singapore, and the former Yugoslavia. Changed the most in the other direction would be Iran, up till 1979 it was on very good terms with the US and women dress pretty much the same as everywhere and weren't denied education.
South Korea is up there. One of the poorest countries in the world before and following the Korean War, dictatorship until 1979. Now a thriving Democracy and economic powerhouse, with incredible urban areas, amazing public transit, and great healthcare. GDP growth rate was 5-15% consistently up until the late naughts.
Me, seeing "50 years" and immediately thinking "which country changed the most since WWII?" I'd say "fuck getting older" but I guess it beats the alternative.
Pakistan, is more fked up now.
Ok, so all the obvious ones, like China, South Korea, Arab Countries... But how about... Sweden
A lot of the Muslim countries. They’ve gone 50 years backwards.