Click on a topic ( or scroll down!) to see all the endings to the phrase:

”I can’t believe that 50 years ago, in 2005, …”

Society

Geopolitics

Human relations and equality

Natural resources and the environment

Drugs, alcohol and tobacco

Technique

Education

Health and sickness

Entertainment and fashion

Philosophical ones

Odd ones

Society

• kids were placed at day-care for such long days (Lena, Finland)
• people ate so much sugar (Christer, sociologist, Norway)
• some pharmacists refused to sell ”day-after-pills” even though clients had prescriptions (Becky, USA)
• people drove cars (Benny, USA)
• there were people who stayed in one place all their life without moving around/travelling (Geneviève, Canada)
• prices were so low (Tina, USA)
• there were so much shit in my country (Armando, Guatemala)
• so many kids in Africa died each day because of hunger (Ton, Spain)
• there was cash (Petter, Finland)
• you were left alone without anyone watching your back (Mikko, Finland)
• people had unprotected sex (Johanna, Finland)
• water was so cheap (Kathrin, Germany)
• you could drive a boat without a license and with up to 1 promille of alcohol (Markus, skipper, Finland)
• people bought paper tickets at the train station (Pamela, Finland)
• Finland helped so few refugees (Piamaria, Finland)
• so many people drove one and one in their cars (Niki, Finland)
• it could be cheaper to travel by plane than by boat (Petter, teacher, Finland)
• people threw away food that was still eatable (Lena, pensioner, Finland)
• you could still teach your kids to drive without any further education (Jennie, Sweden)
• the state paid for taking care of patients with medical problems caused by unhealthy life style, like smoking or obesity (Kristina, Espoo, Finland)
• most people still worked 8 hour days (Kaisa, Master of Social Sciences, Finland)
• almost 90 % of Finns were members of the Evangelic-Lutheran church (Kaisa, Master of Social Sciences, Finland)
• there were places on Earth untouched by humans (Janina, refugee hider, Finland)
• there were such great cultural distinctions between different countries (Ia, happy, Åland)
• kids walked to school (Virva, ecological farmer, Finland)
• we lived the golden age of capitalism (Mika, MA, Finland)
• we only had our first female president (Samuli, researcher, Finland)
• there were double as many people as there are today (Joni, Finland)
• people had the right to own cars (Carlos, Mexico)
• people tried to be liberal (Staffan, king substitute, Finland)
• the US executed kids (Scott, USA)
• the whole Western world was terrified of terrorist attacks by Muslims (Tove, wedding singer, Finland)
• you could buy gasoline for only 1,40€/liter (Olle, sailor, Finland)
• there were innocent people in jails (Jolanda, 15, Finland)
• there was human trafficking (Ravna, 16, Finland)
• it was still legal to buy and sell sex (Maj, 15, Finland)
• people used public transport (Sophie, 15, Finland)
• there was a profession called ticket seller (Anna, Finland)
• I wasn’t allowed to wear my hat in the bar (Erik, Finland)
• we had the liberty of choosing our own career (Max, Finland)
• people ate non-fabricated foods (Liz, USA)
• there were so few immigrants in Europe (“T.J.Johnson”, Romania)
• you could drink alcohol without being taken into custody (Anton, Finland)
• you could go home with somebody without being security-checked (Kim, Finland)
• people had certain civil liberties and took them for granted (Dudu, Gambia)
• there were so many traditional families (Volker, Germany)
• some people traveled to other continents in their holidays (Volker, Germany)
• people sometimes forgot to lock their holiday homes (Lasse, Finland)
• Westerners considered travelling and flying around a human right (Sara, blogger, Finland)
• people thought the AIDS epidemic in Africa was impossible to stop (Sara, blogger, Finland)
• people couldn’t be moral/ethical by themselves without needing ”laws” (Ida, freedom blogger, Sweden)
• people thougt they thought for themselves despite being affected by media and religion (Ida, freedom blogger, Sweden)
• you could go bicycling without a helmet (Sandra, Finland)
• travelling was so easy (Sanni, teacher, Finland)
• the sky was filled with airplanes (Martti, photographer, Finland)
• there was public welfare service (Martti, photographer, Finland)

Geopolitics

• we went to war in Iraq (Ankur, Zach, Don; all from the US)
• Capetown was white (Karin, Austria)
• the US dominated the world (Karin, Austria)
• Europe consisted of several countries (Laura, Finland)
• Bush was chosen leader of the world – twice (Janne, Finland)
• there was a state called Israel (Jens, student, Denmark)
• China was still no military superpower (Niklas, rock artist, Finland)
• there were wars because of oil (Öjvind, cynic, Finland)
• there were countries (Ricardo, prince, Mexico)
• there had only been two World Wars (Alessandro, Italy)
• there were countries with the veto right in the UN security council (Anja, Austria)
• there were sovereign countries, not just multinational companies (Martti, photographer, Finland)

Human relations and equality

• marriage was seen as the peak of happiness (Pamela, Finland)
• men and women weren’t paid the same for the same jobs (Anita, Australia)
• there were beauty contests (Pia, Finland)
• girls subjected to rape had to pay for the doctor check-up required as a witness (Becky, USA)
• homosexuals couldn’t get married (Elisabeth, USA)
• homosexuals couldn’t adopt children (Evi, Finland)
• women in fertile age couldn’t get safe employment (Lotta, Finland)
• the woman’s work place had to pay the whole maternity leave (Heidi, Finland)
• there were racists (Patrick, Portugal)
• people concentrated on traditional relationships (Kathrin, Germany)
• men had to keep working even though they’d just gotten a child at home with the mother (Mia, teacher, Finland)
• people got married (Klas, Finland)
• it was so hard to get married before the registrar on a weekend (Katariina, Finland)
• people used to gather physically in order to meet (Aki, agnostic, Espoo, Finland)
• the role of women was to be attractive (Maya, Basque country)
• incest was illegal (Anja, Austria)
• sex between old people was taboo (Anja, Austria)
• people had social contacts (Paul, 15, Finland)
• society required hetero normative twosomeness (Jenny, feminist, Finland)
• there were concepts like homo-, bi- and heterosexuality (Otto, 14, Finland)
• the issue of women priests was still discussed (Andrea, Finland)

Natural resources and the environment

• there was so much animal cruelty (like fox hunting) (Steven, UK)
• you could walk the streets without a face mask (Laurent, Belgium)
• there was no universal recycling plan (Cat, USA)
• people weren’t forced to recycle (Evi, Finland)
• people used fossil fuels in engines (Pete, USA; Johan, Finland)
• people ate meat (Pete, USA)
• there were coral reefs (Kelsey, diving instructor, USA)
• you could sunbathe (Maj, Finland)
• there was pure water (Fredde, Finland)
• there were still so many people living on Pörtö (island in the Finnish archipelago) (Stefan, Finland)
• you could swim in the Baltic sea (Erik, Finland)
• there was oil (Meri, Finland)
• there were two coal plants in Helsinki (Scott, USA-Finland)
• there was permanent ice on Antarctica (Niki, Finland)
• there were tigers, pandas and elks (Petter, teacher, Finland)
• there was a country called Bangladesh (Laurel, libertine, Utah)
• people cared about the ozone layer (Camilla, on her wedding, Finland)
• I could pick berries in the forest (Virva, ecological farmer, Finland)
• there was no snow in Australia (Seppo, leader, Finland)
• Helsinki was located so far south (Mimmi, bride-to-be, Finland)
• there was rainforest on Earth (Willem, 15, Finland)
• people used nuclear power (Kaija, 15, Finland)
• people used disposable plates (Max, Finland)
• you could throw litter on the ground without being fined (Jessica, 13, Finland)
• there were still wild trees (Otto, 14, Finland)
• you could still see the sun (Max, musician, Finland)
• it was still kind of warm during the summer in Finland (Jalmar, 13, Finland)
• people had animals in cages, like slaves (Nora, 14, Finland)
• I could walk on green grass (Matias, Finland)
• you could ski in the Alps (Volker, Germany)

Drugs, alcohol and tobacco

• drugs were sold on the black market, out of reach of the state’s control (Kia, Finland)
• there were places where you could smoke inside (Patricia, Catalonia)
• I smoked cigarettes (Linda, Finland)
• I smoked hasch (girl, Finland)
• alcohol was legal (Aki, agnostic, Espoo, Finland)
• you couldn’t get wine in grocery shops (Heidi, amateur chef, Finland)
• coffee was legal (Paul, 15, Finland)
• the age limit for buying alcohol was only 18 (Mia, 15, Finland)
• people deliberately hurt their bodies using tobacco and refined foods (Nina, environmentalist, Finland)

Technique

• it took eight hours to fly from Guatemala to Paris (Jérôme, Frankrike)
• people still didn’t have BVD’s (Oded, Israel) (no further explanation given…)
• there was no cold fusion (Basse, Finland)
• not everyone had Internet at home (Minna-Maria, Finland)
• people thought there would never be a manned trip to Mars (Petter, teacher, Finland)
• things like life vests and kids’ car seats were so simple and undeveloped (Karin, Finland)
• there were books in paper form (Anna, Finland)
• we didn’t have wireless electricity (Mia, teacher, Finland)
• telepathy couldn’t be used for communicating with people around the world (Anouchka, Belgium)
• there were so many A4’s (Maarit, Finland)
• people had so many different gadgets (digital cameras, mp3-players) Laurel, libertine, Utah)
• there was only one metro line in Helsinki (Katariina, Finland)
• most people used phones, not computers, for making calls (Anni, old-fashioned, Finland)
• we thought machines couldn’t be creative (Mika, MA, Finland)
• you had to pay for telephone calls (Mikko, Finland)
• you had to eat yourself, using knives and forks (Linda, Finland)
• a person was needed to drive a car (Mary, student of Economy, Austria)
• you had to use satellites to investigate the moon (Ana, artist, Mexico)
• people used mobile phones (Toffe, Finland)
• only 40% of Finnish homes had a broad band connection (Olle, sailor, Finland)
• the Internet and e-mails still worked (Tove, wedding singer, Finland)
• we still had computers (Jåel, 15, Finland)
• we used video cassettes (Kaija, 15, Finland)
• chalk boards were used in schools (Kaija, 15, Finland)
• we couldn’t get teleported (Jenny, feminist, Finland)
• TV’s looked like big boxes and we had things like overhead machines and batteries (Max, musician, Finland)
• there were people who used paper calendars (Kim, teacher, Åland)
• people sat in traffic (Tafari, England)
• people had to remember passwords, carry credit cards and passports (Cathy, England)

Education

• we were teaching the way we are now (Tina, USA)
• you had to go to a school building (Kajsa, Finland)
• Swedish was mandatory in all Finnish schools (AnnLois, Finland)
• we got such bad lunch at school (Nora, 14, Finland)
• Finland had special schools for teaching teachers (Kristina, Finland)
• parents still had some kind of responsibility for their kids (Sanni, teacher, Finland)

Health and sickness

• people ate so much medicine (Jon, Sweden)
• birth was a natural process (Liam, Ireland)
• women had to get pregnant in order to have children (Karolin, Austria)
• there was AIDS (Hasse, Finland)
• people were overweight (Mia, teacher, Finland)
• people knew so little about medicine (Anne, Denmark)
• people used disinfectant to clean their houses (Anne, UK)
• people died of cancer (Mia, Finland)
• people used plastic softeners and things like teflon pans for cooking (Bob, Turku, Finland)
• you couldn’t drink alcohol without getting a hangover (Samuel, on his own wedding, Finland)
• there was no vaccine against AIDS or cancer (Eveliina, Finland)

Entertainment and fashion

• people watched TV and liked it (Nina, Finland)
• people were admired even though they never really accomplished anything (like film stars) (Jaana, Finland)
• some people had so many tattoos and piercings (Alicia, USA)
• people were free to download music and films through the internet (Rafael, Belgium)
• I had CD’s (Jani, Finland)
• reality shows, where “grown-ups” could behave the way they wanted, were so popular (Nina, Sweden)
• people went home to watch a certain TV program (Baba, Finland)
• men and women wore different clothes (Mårten, Finland)
• people used make up (Cristian, artesan, Chile)
• you could curse on TV (Oliver, 15, Finland)
• only a minority of people in rich countries had had plastic surgery (Anna, Finland)
• people played video games outside their own heads (NN, USA)
• there were people who actually liked Tom Cruise (NN, USA)
• people rented movies (NN, USA)
• riding a car with loud music was considered ”in” (Denis, researcher, Siberia)
• we had to buy music (Kim, teacher, Åland)

Philosophical ones

• people were still thinking about themselves (Sanne, Belgium)
• people thought conflicts could be solved through violence (Klara, Finland)
• we were so naive (Robbi, Finland)
• people thought you could only love one person (Sofia, Finland)
• we lived without restrictions and without knowing what our choices led to (Mika, MA, Finland)
• we considered cultural imperialism to be dystopia populism (Johannes, nihilist, Finland)
• I was happy and knew nothing about all the injustice in the world (Laura, perfect, Finland)

Odd ones

• there were no on/off buttons on kids (Jonte, dad, Finland)
• I had hair (Enric, Catalonia)
• we couldn’t fly (Violet, UK)
• people still lived on Earth (Ana, artist, Mexico)
• there was only one planet with humans (Nana, 14, Finland)
• the monkeys didn’t yet rule the Earth (Erik, 13, Finland)
• you sometimes had damn weird school assignments (Jens, 15, Finland) (referring to answering this question)