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Dental care. Antibiotics. Access to healthcare. Low risk surgery. Blood tests. Vision care. A zillion consumer goods and things, so many we'll be here all day

Dental care. Antibiotics. Access to healthcare. Low risk surgery. Blood tests. Vision care. A zillion consumer goods and things, so many we'll be here all day to name them all. Decent toothbrushes. Electricity. Umbrellas. Flashlights. Batteries. Pens and pencils. Deodorant. Postal shipping. GPS. Near instant global news. Inexpensive razors and razor blades. Scissors. Asprin, acetaminophen, ibuprofen. Grocery stores. Air conditioning, central heating. Mass, quality clothing options. Nearly every possible type of shoe. Automobiles, mass-transit, airplanes, motor powered boats. Well constructed homes. Extraordinary entertainment options, from lowbrow to highbrow. The global travel system. Dishwashers. Washers & dryers for clothing. Lawnmowers. Power tools, and relatively inexpensive mass manufactured tools in general. Safe, inexpensive tap water. Thousands of different kinds of tape, paint, paper. Cardboard. Inexpensive, quality glass and mirrors for nearly any purpose. Insert 4,572,927 other things here. This article is a joke. Everything was much harder back then, everything was much worse back then.

999900000999 5y ago
I'll argue peak humanity was 2009 before social media become mainstream.
- adventured 5y ago
  We'll see if people adapt (or not) to deal better with social media in terms of altering how they consume / interact with it, given the experiences of the past decade. I think a huge percentage of people have pulled back from eg Facebook and commonly broadcasting their views there, or engaging in low value social conflicts via social media. The average person is not Tweeting their thoughts on a daily basis and is not going to. I think it could take perhaps a few decades (~2010-2030) for a full cycle to take place of people - across multiple generations - experiencing social media across their lives over many years, to inform the next generations of social media's nature. There is still a lot yet to learn about how social media impacts us, shapes us, influences us, contorts us. That's all still being judged, regulated, pondered, debated, studied. Television and radio took decades to play out in terms of what manner they fit into society, how society would use / consume those things, what society would accept from those things, and how they would be regulated.
pietrovismara 5y ago
I feel like you've wasted 153 words while completely missing the point of the article, which isn't to advocate for a return to a pre-industrial era, but to ask why we have less free time today than we had then.

999900000999 5y ago

I'll argue peak humanity was 2009 before social media become mainstream.

adventured 5y ago
We'll see if people adapt (or not) to deal better with social media in terms of altering how they consume / interact with it, given the experiences of the past decade. I think a huge percentage of people have pulled back from eg Facebook and commonly broadcasting their views there, or engaging in low value social conflicts via social media. The average person is not Tweeting their thoughts on a daily basis and is not going to. I think it could take perhaps a few decades (~2010-2030) for a full cycle to take place of people - across multiple generations - experiencing social media across their lives over many years, to inform the next generations of social media's nature. There is still a lot yet to learn about how social media impacts us, shapes us, influences us, contorts us. That's all still being judged, regulated, pondered, debated, studied. Television and radio took decades to play out in terms of what manner they fit into society, how society would use / consume those things, what society would accept from those things, and how they would be regulated.

pietrovismara 5y ago

I feel like you've wasted 153 words while completely missing the point of the article, which isn't to advocate for a return to a pre-industrial era, but to ask why we have less free time today than we had then.