I often think of this kind of thing when I buy things for practically nothing or see things which contain what we consider basic features that quite literally d

I often think of this kind of thing when I buy things for practically nothing or see things which contain what we consider basic features that quite literally did not exist a few hundred years ago. For instance, yesterday I remarked to myself when seeing colourful flag advertisements along the road for a new condo that the colours on the flags were at one time never possible to manufacture, the way purple was reserved for royalty and was impossible to reproduce until we managed to find an animal that produced the dye [0], and even then it took 9000 of the animals to produce a gram. Today, you can buy anything purple for pennies and throw it away without a second thought. I wonder that if a King from the 16th century were to visit my (to me) basic apartment, the first thing he would notice before anything else would be how colourful everything is. [0] http://www.livescience.com/33324-purple-royal-color.html http://www.livescience.com/33324-purple-royal-color.html