I guess it's a wash, because my grandfather was amazed that I was taking calculus in high school; that was exclusively college-level stuff in his time. My dad was also amazed by the depth of AP Biology, because when he went through school biology was mostly focused on human biology and anatomy, not cellular respiration and other more fundamental things. I ended up looking up what exactly he was doing in his Latin class of 50 years ago, and it was definitely harder, especially the prose. The poetry is difficult no matter how you slice it, but students 50 years ago had to do a lot more stuff with prose than we did. We piddled around with Caesar, did one or two things with Cicero, and didn't do anything with Livy. That wouldn't have flown 50 years ago. But on the other hand, Latin was a lot more important back then, and had a lot more students. When you have more students, you can make it hard and still have a decent class. My AP class had 5 kids in it, and the teacher only kept his job because he was also fluent in Spanish and taught those classes as well. These days, Latin is basically another English class. I learned more English in that class than I did in my English classes, simply because the teacher's main goal was to get us to think in Latin... and to do that you have to know exactly how you think in English. But on the other hand, I wasn't challenged at all for the history classes or statistics, (I heard that the European history was difficult, though) and looking at the psychology teacher's room was a joke. Posters on the wall, glitter paint everywhere. Our abrasive biology teacher always threatened to "turn this room into a psychology class. We're going to put all the desks to the wall, sit in a circle on the floor, and talk about our FEELINGS about the Kelvin Cycle! And then we'll make macaroni pictures!" English, as always, depended on the teacher. As for college classes themselves, unless you're taking something completely new that you haven't gone over, (thermodynamics or something equally nasty) aren't the classes always going to be easier than the classes you took in high school, just so they can make a common base for later courses? They have a lot of different levels going into college, from the math league star to the jock who slept through Algebra 1. My point is that AP classes were, at one point, legitimate college courses in high school. Nowadays, they're just a way to pay to prove that you don't have to take the bonehead classes in college.
Feminism. Remember when it used to be about cool shit, like property rights and suffrage? Now mainstream feminism is just its own power structure that exists almost solely to provide cushy jobs to name brand activists and academics. It has also taken on a bizarre way of looking at everything in the world as a feminist issue. Minority rights are now a feminist issue (as part of "intersectionality"), as are gay rights, handicapped rights, animal rights, and most recently, trying to brand men's rights as a feminist issue; after all, the NOW directors don't get any more money if you donate to GLAAD, the NAACP, or Dick Masterson. Also: Mario Kart. What the fuck was that Double Dash bullshit?
Any award given to children for an achievement. I was lucky enough to grow up before a time when everyone won something for participation and before scores were deemed evil. These kids are going to be fucking soft.
Does anyone else remember a time when football was actually a two sided sport, and quarterbacks were allowed to be hit? Rap used to have great M.C.s that had a message, or were at least lyrically interesting. Now no one has shit to say except they are richer than god, and the best rapper alive. (I personally blame all the white people that started listening to it.) And why in the fuck do they need more teams in the college basketball tournament? Isn't getting to the playoffs supposed to be hard?