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> Today, I would rather be a poor person in a First World country, than be a rich person in Louis the XIV’s France. I’d rather be a poor person today than arist

> Today, I would rather be a poor person in a First World country, than be a rich person in Louis the XIV’s France. I’d rather be a poor person today than aristocrat back then. A rich person also had access to near-unlimited amounts of human labour. Cleaning your house, cooking your meals, tailoring your clothes, nursing your children. There is a limit to how much that has been replaced by technology. An equivalent question is: Would you give up being a rich person in 2021, to become a poor person in 2200?

loxs 5y ago
Also being able to procreate and reliably raise children (also with physical help from servants) is probably a bigger wealth enhancer, especially over generations. In our modern world, being poor means you are going to either not procreate, or suffer while doing so. An iPhone does not cure that.
webmaven 5y ago
> An equivalent question is: Would you give up being a rich person in 2021, to become a poor person in 2200? That's only an equivalent question if it is being asked in 2200. From a 2021 vantage point, there are too many unknowns, as many of the plausible scenarios for 2200 could be summed up as variants of a Grim Meathook Future, even without considering extreme scenarios like nuclear winter, asteroid strikes, high mortality pandemics, grey goo, Curious Yellow, alien invasions, robot uprisings, and so on. Sticking just to business-as-usual extrapolation, life could get very unpleasant for the poor within the next 80 years (or shortly thereafter: 2200 could be pretty decent but if things go to hell in 2202, you've still lost the gamble).
- teachingassist 5y ago
  I'm now imagining rich grey goo saying it'd rather be poor grey goo, than a rich human in 2021. Even if we have 200 years of consistent economic growth and technological process, I doubt you would see rich people giving up their wealth to teleport themselves there.
  - webmaven 5y ago
    I think you may be underestimating the extent to which the rich attribute their success to merit (ie. they will assume that they won't stay poor), and the allure of relatively modest improvements in lifespan and healthspan (say, an extra 10 years of lifespan, and 20 of healthspan).

loxs 5y ago

Also being able to procreate and reliably raise children (also with physical help from servants) is probably a bigger wealth enhancer, especially over generations. In our modern world, being poor means you are going to either not procreate, or suffer while doing so. An iPhone does not cure that.

webmaven 5y ago

> An equivalent question is: Would you give up being a rich person in 2021, to become a poor person in 2200? That's only an equivalent question if it is being asked in 2200. From a 2021 vantage point, there are too many unknowns, as many of the plausible scenarios for 2200 could be summed up as variants of a Grim Meathook Future, even without considering extreme scenarios like nuclear winter, asteroid strikes, high mortality pandemics, grey goo, Curious Yellow, alien invasions, robot uprisings, and so on. Sticking just to business-as-usual extrapolation, life could get very unpleasant for the poor within the next 80 years (or shortly thereafter: 2200 could be pretty decent but if things go to hell in 2202, you've still lost the gamble).

teachingassist 5y ago
I'm now imagining rich grey goo saying it'd rather be poor grey goo, than a rich human in 2021. Even if we have 200 years of consistent economic growth and technological process, I doubt you would see rich people giving up their wealth to teleport themselves there.
- webmaven 5y ago
  I think you may be underestimating the extent to which the rich attribute their success to merit (ie. they will assume that they won't stay poor), and the allure of relatively modest improvements in lifespan and healthspan (say, an extra 10 years of lifespan, and 20 of healthspan).