Just picturing an alien archaeologist “so, as they stopped being crippled by polio or losing their lives building railroads, they complained about having to wash the dishes?”
Thomas Paine posited that if a man, unencumbered by society, could meet his basic needs (food, shelter, etc) in x hours of work per day, then society owed that same person the same basic standards of life for working that same x hours per day. Where I’m from, the Native Americans had to work about 2 hours a day to meet their needs, and so became really great artisans with their “free” time.
Closer to present, my parents were able to buy a comfortable suburban home while working relatively low paying government jobs. That includes my mom taking off approx 6 years to take care of my sister and I until we started elementary school.
When Europeans first came to America, there were schools of cod off the coast that you could literally dangle an empty hook into the water and catch fish. Passenger Pigeons darkend the sky for days on end with their migrations, and the thundering of huge buffalo herds could be heard and seen throughout a good portion of the continent.
[Life expectancy] fell to 77 in 2020 and dropped further, to just over 76, in 2021. That’s the largest decrease over a two-year span since the 1920s. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-life-expectancy-in-the-us-is-falling-202210202835
Sure it’s not all bad. But it’s far, far from all good as well. Sometimes bitching is just the sign of an unhappy person, but often there are some real truths behind the complaints.
Those Native Americans were working within a society.
To be unencumbered by society also means to work without its aids. Even with advances in tech, you should read about how much crazy work was involved in setting up your own homestead or kind of anything. (I strongly recommend Crusoe of Lonesome Lake.)
It’s a good book. I would argue that although he had a hard go of it, and long days, his life was much more fulfilling than 99% of the lives that people live these days; probably more fulfilling than the lives of the people that lived during his time as well. There’s a reason people love escapism.
Yeah, but as the quality of life has improved, we have also improved our knowledge and technology to the point where everyone can live a comfortable, generally healthy life, without want for any necessities. But that isn’t happening because of human greed and indifference. And everyone is completely justified complaining about that.
I think it’s more that as qol improved so too did the ability of common people to record their frustrations
Nowadays we have first world problems, but I wonder if something comparable existed 500 years ago. Maybe city problems?
Oh no, they didn’t have salmon at the fish market, so I had to buy perch instead.
Ahaha, definitely had “royal court” and OG bourgeoisie problems.
“Oh no, my servant lost her leg to an infected toenail and now I hear her peg clomping everytime she walks near!”
I mean, by 1400 the world population was comparable to the modern US. It merely broke the billion people mark by the early 1800s, it took merely another century to double that, and it since did more than 4x straight to 8.2 billion people, so even if the proportion of whiners stayed the same, there’d be so many more of them. Now, to that, consider we now have access to the internet.
Oh yeah, it’s a pure function of tech and numbers. I just find it incredibly ironic.
Most people who have had a thing don’t like losing it and it’s slipping.
Not to mention, that “quality” is really subjective based on location.
Oh absolutely. It’s just compared to thr vast majority of humans who have ever lived, our complaints are sort of like when billionaires nowadays complain about being taxed.
Our lives are almost unimaginably better, somehow doubly so if you are a woman or minority, than most of the entirety of human history. So I find it ironic that there’ll be such a more a significant record about the most relatively pampered people in human history complaining.
what fucking quality of life is it if I have a phone that sucks ass, and no house to call my own?
EDIT : phones in general suck ass, I’m not saying my phone is worse than someone elses. That’s part of the problem that they’re all “pictures under glass” unwieldy, fiddly pieces of shit
Have you been recruited to go die in a trench? Or seriously worry about starving to death? Or watched a child die of measles, smallpox or whooping cough? Been a literal slave who could be whipped?
Hell, would you even trade places with the children who made your shirt?