3 ms·

Fatter, yes. But I think it might surprise you how toxic basic life was in the 1950s. There was a time that this was a normal day in London - https://i.imgur.c

Fatter, yes. But I think it might surprise you how toxic basic life was in the 1950s. There was a time that this was a normal day in London - https://i.imgur.com/8jRGvYf.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/8jRGvYf.jpeg And this, a normal day in LA - https://i.imgur.com/YlimuGS.jpg https://i.imgur.com/YlimuGS.jpg

lm28469 6y ago
Big cities have always sucked and probably sucked more before yes (just have a look at industrial revolution London), but I'm not talking about air pollution only, it's our hole lifestyles, just walk in a supermarket, what's the ratio of fresh food to junk food ? 10/90 ? maybe even smaller. Kids obesity has never been so high, adult obesity is going up everywhere, not a month goes by without food related scandals, biodiversity is tanking mostly because of humans, fruits/veggies are less and less nutritious, infertility is going up, &c. It's like every single meaningful metrics are going down
- machinebun 6y ago
  > It's like every single meaningful metrics are going down Except somehow life expectancy is the highest ever (excluding a small spike down lately in USA). Plus we took lead out of houses and gasoline, and smoking rates are down across the world... this should not be under-estimated. The young generation right now is actually likely one of the healthiest comparatively (even with the increased obesity rates)
  - lm28469 6y ago
    Yes we got better at artificially maintaining people alive that's for sure, I hardly count that as a meaningful metric. It's a bit like GDP, if all you look at are the two things on a positive trend you might miss the forest for the trees. We can also talk about depression, suicide (both attempted and successful), &c. When 40%+ of your country's population is medically obese you have to start asking questions, this is nothing else than self sabotage and slow suicide. How do people come to the point of not caring about themselves to that extent, that alone should be a gigantic red flag, at least as big as climate change and dying biodiversity I personally have no interest in living a long life in a dying world. Life expectancy discussions always make me think of: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_93 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let...
    - taylodl 6y ago
      When 40%+ of your country's population is medically obese - there's a saying for this: these are first-world problems, i.e. this is a good problem to have. I'm not denying obesity is a problem and it's having an impact on our health, but if I were a policymaker I would much prefer having the problem where 40%+ of my country's population is obese than 40%+ of my population is starving due to crop yield failure and failed infrastructure. In comparison obesity is a much better problem to have.
      - stareatgoats 6y ago
        Textbook false dichotomy there my friend.
    - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
      Because we all aspire to the ideals of living like in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E and/or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_Through_Joy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_Through_Joy <- Not Zexy! Or is it?
    - Isinlor 6y ago
      We would characterize life of practically all our ancestors from before 1900 as extreme poverty today [0]. Children and youth mortality <15 years old was at around 50%. [1] It was norm back then to have kids with the assumption that you have to have twice as many kids as you need to help you with your work. Child labor was norm, not exception. Ability to read was exception too. Life expectancy at birth some hundreds years ago was around 30 to 40 years all across the world [0]. Currently, no country in the world has a lower life expectancy than the countries with the highest life expectancy in 1800 [0]. We eliminated basically all infectious diseases in the west and we are rapidly doing the same in the rest of the world. COVID-19 during Smallpox would barely register to our ancestors (2% CFR vs. 30% CFR) [2]. Last decade extreme poverty was the lowest it ever was [3]. Around half of the world population lives today in democracy. [4] [0] https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy [1] https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality [2] https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox [3] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty [4] https://ourworldindata.org/democracy https://ourworldindata.org/democracy
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
My all time 'favourite': http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/print_document.cfm?document_id=90 http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/print_document.cfm?docum... Instead of 'canary in the coal mine' dead crows near the oil plant. edit: There isn't any heavy industry there, just cows, sheep, and grass, maybe some other agriculture, and peat. Has always been like that, and is almost unchanged now. Also no heavy traffic at all. Just the petrochemical plant. And a nuclear power plant. But that had no leaks.

lm28469 6y ago

Big cities have always sucked and probably sucked more before yes (just have a look at industrial revolution London), but I'm not talking about air pollution only, it's our hole lifestyles, just walk in a supermarket, what's the ratio of fresh food to junk food ? 10/90 ? maybe even smaller. Kids obesity has never been so high, adult obesity is going up everywhere, not a month goes by without food related scandals, biodiversity is tanking mostly because of humans, fruits/veggies are less and less nutritious, infertility is going up, &c. It's like every single meaningful metrics are going down

machinebun 6y ago
> It's like every single meaningful metrics are going down Except somehow life expectancy is the highest ever (excluding a small spike down lately in USA). Plus we took lead out of houses and gasoline, and smoking rates are down across the world... this should not be under-estimated. The young generation right now is actually likely one of the healthiest comparatively (even with the increased obesity rates)
- lm28469 6y ago
  Yes we got better at artificially maintaining people alive that's for sure, I hardly count that as a meaningful metric. It's a bit like GDP, if all you look at are the two things on a positive trend you might miss the forest for the trees. We can also talk about depression, suicide (both attempted and successful), &c. When 40%+ of your country's population is medically obese you have to start asking questions, this is nothing else than self sabotage and slow suicide. How do people come to the point of not caring about themselves to that extent, that alone should be a gigantic red flag, at least as big as climate change and dying biodiversity I personally have no interest in living a long life in a dying world. Life expectancy discussions always make me think of: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_93 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Let...
  - taylodl 6y ago
    When 40%+ of your country's population is medically obese - there's a saying for this: these are first-world problems, i.e. this is a good problem to have. I'm not denying obesity is a problem and it's having an impact on our health, but if I were a policymaker I would much prefer having the problem where 40%+ of my country's population is obese than 40%+ of my population is starving due to crop yield failure and failed infrastructure. In comparison obesity is a much better problem to have.
    - stareatgoats 6y ago
      Textbook false dichotomy there my friend.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
    Because we all aspire to the ideals of living like in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E and/or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_Through_Joy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_Through_Joy <- Not Zexy! Or is it?
  - Isinlor 6y ago
    We would characterize life of practically all our ancestors from before 1900 as extreme poverty today [0]. Children and youth mortality <15 years old was at around 50%. [1] It was norm back then to have kids with the assumption that you have to have twice as many kids as you need to help you with your work. Child labor was norm, not exception. Ability to read was exception too. Life expectancy at birth some hundreds years ago was around 30 to 40 years all across the world [0]. Currently, no country in the world has a lower life expectancy than the countries with the highest life expectancy in 1800 [0]. We eliminated basically all infectious diseases in the west and we are rapidly doing the same in the rest of the world. COVID-19 during Smallpox would barely register to our ancestors (2% CFR vs. 30% CFR) [2]. Last decade extreme poverty was the lowest it ever was [3]. Around half of the world population lives today in democracy. [4] [0] https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy [1] https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality [2] https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox [3] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty [4] https://ourworldindata.org/democracy https://ourworldindata.org/democracy

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago

My all time 'favourite': http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/print_document.cfm?document_id=90 http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/print_document.cfm?docum... Instead of 'canary in the coal mine' dead crows near the oil plant. edit: There isn't any heavy industry there, just cows, sheep, and grass, maybe some other agriculture, and peat. Has always been like that, and is almost unchanged now. Also no heavy traffic at all. Just the petrochemical plant. And a nuclear power plant. But that had no leaks.