If someone from the 1950s suddenly appeared today, what would be the most difficult thing to explain

[Randoman01]

To expand on the question, while there are a lot of obvious differences between now and 1950 in terms of technology, culture, etc., I wonder which changes or new things they'd grasp easily and which would be utterly perplexing.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

Try the internet.. it's going to be tough. That and internetmemes.

The closest thing to them is a TV. Computers barely exist at that point, so I think anything computer related would be rather difficult to explain. Most other modern technologies already exist by then in some (crude) form, so that shouldn't be to difficult. Space stations, satellites, microwaves.. not all that diffcult to grasp.
As for culture? Atleast the Netherlands is a lot less formal nowadays than it was before, but that's not really difficult to explain.

 

[shootthebandit]

how the world has basically been so pussified, you can pretty much guarantee as soon as they opened their mouth they would be done for political correctness. Try explaining political correctness and health and safety to someone from the 50s

 

[Queen Michael]

Why the Sam Hill people instagram their food.

 

[OneCatch]

The current US president would be quite a shock to most I'd imagine...

All in all though I'd say computers and more specifically the internet, just because it had no natural precursor, which is quite unusual.
TVs are smaller cinemas, mobiles are better telephones, planes and cars and guns have got better, material science and medicine have improved. But those are incremental improvements rather than brand new things.
But the internet is a new concept entirely, with it's own norms, culture, and effects.

 

[TheIceQueen]

Based on two of the five replies already, I can tell that this sure is going to be a fun ride. /sarcasm

OT: Computers. And not just computers. Smart phones and tablets and that ilk as well. It'd blow their gosh dang minds.

 

[Muspelheim]

"No, we don't forcefully sterilise people anymore. We've concluded that it's pretty much fake science. Yes, we shut down the state eugenics institute, too."

Could be a hard sell.

 

[Jamieson 90]

The internet and digital/social media in general.

Add personal computers to that.

Mobile phones.

Child abuse (seriously did child abuse even exist in the 1950's or was it just discipline?)

Health and safety/political correctness.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

how the world has basically been so pussified, you can pretty much guarantee as soon as they opened their mouth they would be done for political correctness. Try explaining political correctness and health and safety to someone from the 50s

This is a big one[footnote]Incidentally, I don't necessarily agree with the way you worded it, but that is a nice example of how someone from the 50's would probably react to this part of the changes in the world, so it's a good thing to quote.[/footnote]. I can't be the only one whose first thought on hearing about the Paula Dean racism "scandal" was "so she grew up in the 50's and said the N-word 30 years ago? If that's enough to fire her, then it's time to remove an entire generation from the work force. Possibly two." The fact that the civil rights movement has gone so far that we actually have a black president now would have to be absolutely mindblowing. Depending on how early in the 50's we're talking, we're looking at it either not existing at all except in a preparatory state, or there only being a few major victories, like Brown v. Board, which weren't being enforced yet, at any rate.

Another big change is just how much more open society has gotten about scatalogical and sexual subjects. My great aunt, who grew up in the depression, finds the word "poop" to be offensive, even used in a non-offensive context. She's not crazy, people were just that much less crude back then, probably a holdover from the Victorian era. Now the 50's weren't quite that squeaky clean, but they were still a lot more prudish than we are today. It'd be a major source of culture shock. I mean, try explaining how South Park runs on TV, instead of in, like, a seedy porn theater. Then realize that the "slut walk" is a thing, and try explaining that. Internet porn is right out. Speaking of which...

Then there's the internet, which if anyone had a frame of reference for it would be either because they had knowledge about military research that they probably shouldn't have, or because they were avid sci-fi fans and had read some author who had predicted a "global network" of some sort. As someone else put it, pretty much /anything/ having to do with computers is going to be new for a person from that era, since what few computers they had back then were so different from what we have now. It wouldn't surprise me if my bedroom TV has more processing power and memory than the best computer they had back then, and it's a standard def CRT that was made in 2003. Incidentally, a sentence like that last on would be unbelievably confusing for a person transported from the 50's.

As far as geopolitics, they'd probably have an easier time understanding it now than they would have 10 or 15 years ago. Yes, the cold war has been over for long enough that we have an entire generation that is now graduating college with basically no knowledge of it, because the history books have yet to catch up to the reality that the kids entering school have grown up in a post-cold war world, and have been since the 90's, but at least Russia and the US have started posturing again, as opposed to the near total lack of aggression that existed for so long after the fall of the iron curtain. Terrorism being the big fear instead of communism would be really confusing to them, though, as would our friendly relations with still-nominally-communist China[footnote]Which have only existed since the 70's -- Nixon, for all his failings, was surprisingly good at foreign policy. Beat the pants off of every republican and most democrats that came after him. You can argue about the long term effects of trading with China, but you can't argue that the man managed to make an ally out of an enemy.[/footnote].

 

[twistedmic]

Explaining why nobody has slapped the ever-loving shit out of Honey Boo-boo and all of her family yet would be pretty hard.

 

[Miss G.]

I'll just wait for Captain America 2 to find out how one would go about this, even though he's from 1942... close enough. Its bound to be interesting.

 

[FalloutJack]

I'm surprised that nobody put THIS in.


Good slew of answers right there.

 

[Erttheking]

"Uh, no he doesn't have to give his bus seat to you."

Either that or

"Yes, the president is black, get other it"

or maybe even

"No he's not a communist just because he's Russian!"

Or maybe even

"It's called an Ipod, will you stop freaking out!?"

 

[Mr.Mattress]

"I've got news you'd consider good, news you'd consider bad that I'd consider good, and news taht's all around bad...

The Good news: Communisms pretty much been defeated.

The Bad News for you that's good for me: Blacks are now not segregated and we have a black president in office right now!

The Bad News: Islamic Terrorism is at an all time high and the Middle East, where most of these terrorists are, is on fire.

Also, people are now a lot more open about sexuality, drug use and violence, and there's this amazing thing called the "Internet" that's gonna blow your mind!"

 

[Scarim Coral]

I would have to say the current trend of music or rather how music had changed from the 50's to 00's

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Well, to start off with there's the whole thing of "the world as you knew it and understood it is gone."

Civil Rights/the end of Segregation
eugenics is out
Cold War is over
a black president who beat out a female candidate in the primaries for the Democratic party
computer technology
communication technology
manufacturing has been mostly replaced with a service economy
China is now our largest trading partner, and they're still under a Communist government
what is considered acceptable in public has MASSIVELY changed
Containment has been replaced with the War on Terrorism
nuclear proliferation is something we're trying to stop, not produce
the current generation is far less religious than yours was
the European Union
the economic recession/crash (shades of the Great Depression brought back to haunt us)
corporate farming and the loss of the family farm
big-box stores and the conformity of retail
taxes are at 1/3 of what you remember
the draft is gone
Cuba is still communist

And all of this was just off the top of my head. Anyone coming out of a coma from the 50s is going to need massive counseling*.

*And I forgot that one. Add in the state of psychiatric care/therapy to the list.

 

[krazykidd]

"Yes, the president is black, get other it"

Hell some people still can't believe and/or get over it . I was personally hoping he would lose just to avoid the " he's messing up the country becaue he's black" scenerio. But the again , i'm canadian, so it doesn't really affect me .

OT: Equal rights would suck to explain. Not only with races , but with sexes and sexualities. Hell it still is!

 

[Kargathia]

Why don't you just ask some of the North Korean defectors? Their situation is awfully close to indeed having hopped a time machine.