You remember a country still suffering from WWII and loss of world leader role (and colonies), in a much poorer global period. For starters, the '70s had a global recession and oil crisis, and many countries were affected, not just England. Have a look at pictures of New York of the same period -- it looks like a third world country [1].
In the 80s and 90s, countries that didn't join the EEC, as well as countries that joined EU much later, had the same economic uplift.
(And of course several countries that did join the ECC/EU had economic decline and crashes, e.g. the P.I.I.G.S).
Depending on where you live I’d say access to resources you could not imagine back then for peanuts.
People complain that technology is expensive now, but prices in the 70s and 80s were out of reach for most.
> how do know you‘re not living in 1973
I would glance at my local grocery store, shopping malls, cars, empty cemeteries, and inflight wifi.
First off, most manufactured things are incredibly cheaper now, due to real, complex behind-the-scenes advances.
We have a global supply chain that largely removes the constraints on geoghraphic locality for foods and manufactured goods.
That's paired with an almost-always-online wireless mobile internet, (that works up to 7 miles up in the sky!) that is absolutely amazing and darn inexpensive.
Our cars are much better at not killing us.
Many more diseases are treatalbe, and injuries curable.
Finally, why subtract screens? Modern screens are great.
Dunno about churches but the other two were prompted by active large-scale military conflicts. Bring back the Cold War, I guess?
I think Yuval Harari was onto something when he said that what guides the vision of a society and thus science spending is ideology, religion and politics.
See medieval churches, the Manhattan Project, the moon landing. I could put a name on it, but better to leave politics out of HN.