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> Personally, I think that limit is much closer to 1 trillion people living on the earth than it is to 1 billion people. There's enough for everyone's need, bu

> Personally, I think that limit is much closer to 1 trillion people living on the earth than it is to 1 billion people. There's enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed. -- Gandhi > The facts show, that by every metric of quality of life, life is better than it has ever been in the history of the world. Also, the gap between rich an poor has never been bigger.

icebraining 9y ago
Also, the gap between rich an poor has never been bigger. In terms of digits in a bank account, that's probably true. Is it true in terms of actual living conditions and power? Is the gap now wider than between Louis XIV and his Haitian slaves?
- klibertp 9y ago
  Yes. With scientific and engineering advances, we in the "first world" have all the royalty-level of power and energy at our disposal. Washing machine alone is an equivalent of a maid or two. The ability to just sit down whenever and enjoy a play or a concert on TV is something you can do now, while it was utterly impossible for even the most powerful kings. If you couple this with advances in medicine it's safe to say that we live our lives in comfort and safety unheard of ever before, to the point that kings of the past, with all the personnel, seem trivial. Meanwhile, "Haitan slaves" - or just normal people who didn't have the luck to born where they should - live exactly the same way they lived hundreds and possibly thousands of years ago. They struggle every day just to have something to eat and they die of hunger if they fail. The technology they use is the same as it was a thousand years back. In effect, the gap between rich and poor only widened in time. And that's comparing low end to a average in first world countries. It gets really ugly when we start comparing low end with top 1% - it's the difference between struggling to just stay alive another day and taking a leisure trip to the ISS (or was it Mir back then?). The difference between having half of your family dead before your thirties and having a healthy life with all your friends well into 80s. So in short, yes, living conditions of a king and a peasant were worlds apart but it did get markedly worse with time.
- taneq 9y ago
  Well, given that there are still slaves (maybe even Haitian ones) and the living conditions of the average first world working class person are far better than those of Louis XIV, I'd say yes.
stale2002 9y ago
> The gap between rich an poor has never been bigger. So? I'd rather live in the modern day, "unequally" with the rich, than starve or die of disease equally with the rich of the middle ages. Just because the rich have 100Xed in quality of life over the last century, doesn't negate the fact that the poor have 10Xed in quality of life. Making everyone equal is easy. Just make them all equally dead, starving, or miserable, just like they were in past centuries.
Hermel 9y ago
> Also, the gap between rich an poor has never been bigger. Actually, it has been much bigger in the 19th century. Source: Piketty

icebraining 9y ago

Also, the gap between rich an poor has never been bigger. In terms of digits in a bank account, that's probably true. Is it true in terms of actual living conditions and power? Is the gap now wider than between Louis XIV and his Haitian slaves?

klibertp 9y ago
Yes. With scientific and engineering advances, we in the "first world" have all the royalty-level of power and energy at our disposal. Washing machine alone is an equivalent of a maid or two. The ability to just sit down whenever and enjoy a play or a concert on TV is something you can do now, while it was utterly impossible for even the most powerful kings. If you couple this with advances in medicine it's safe to say that we live our lives in comfort and safety unheard of ever before, to the point that kings of the past, with all the personnel, seem trivial. Meanwhile, "Haitan slaves" - or just normal people who didn't have the luck to born where they should - live exactly the same way they lived hundreds and possibly thousands of years ago. They struggle every day just to have something to eat and they die of hunger if they fail. The technology they use is the same as it was a thousand years back. In effect, the gap between rich and poor only widened in time. And that's comparing low end to a average in first world countries. It gets really ugly when we start comparing low end with top 1% - it's the difference between struggling to just stay alive another day and taking a leisure trip to the ISS (or was it Mir back then?). The difference between having half of your family dead before your thirties and having a healthy life with all your friends well into 80s. So in short, yes, living conditions of a king and a peasant were worlds apart but it did get markedly worse with time.
taneq 9y ago
Well, given that there are still slaves (maybe even Haitian ones) and the living conditions of the average first world working class person are far better than those of Louis XIV, I'd say yes.

stale2002 9y ago

> The gap between rich an poor has never been bigger. So? I'd rather live in the modern day, "unequally" with the rich, than starve or die of disease equally with the rich of the middle ages. Just because the rich have 100Xed in quality of life over the last century, doesn't negate the fact that the poor have 10Xed in quality of life. Making everyone equal is easy. Just make them all equally dead, starving, or miserable, just like they were in past centuries.

Hermel 9y ago

> Also, the gap between rich an poor has never been bigger. Actually, it has been much bigger in the 19th century. Source: Piketty