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>The poorest person alive in a first world country today lives better than the richest 100 years ago. What? Not even remotely close. John D Rockefeller was shr

>The poorest person alive in a first world country today lives better than the richest 100 years ago. What? Not even remotely close. John D Rockefeller was shrouded in wealth about 100 years ago. If you think the poorest, homeless person now stuck on the streets lives better than Rockefeller did, you're confused. Do not conflate general human progress of what's available with more knowledge, science, and basic technology with what a time period normalized standard of living looks like. You can't attribute economics directly with progress (it is a factor but not the only factor), otherwise you could very easily make a valid argument for an authoritarian government and economy like you see in China. China is arguably just as technologically advanced as the US. Now your middle income American might be considered as living better than Rockefeller depending on how you define quality of life. They have all the essentials they need to survive and access to more progress than Rockefeller did during his time period. They also have significantly less free time and less resources to explore the current space of possibilities whereas in the early 1900s, someone like Rockefeller had access to anything they wanted to do during that time period.

mrjangles 5y ago
>homeless person now stuck on the streets lives better than Rockefeller did, Ok good point, not the absolute lowest, but someone in the bottom 10% has access to food from all over the world that Rockefeller did not. They are usually overweight, which poor people back then were not. They have access to medicine the Rockerfeller couldn't dream of. >Do not conflate general human progress of what's available with more knowledge, science, and basic technology You seem to imagine that these things magically just appeared. They were created because humans with money invested in them. >China is arguably just as technologically advanced as the US. China stole every single thing it had from the US. They have developed almost zero technology. (You could very nearly say the same for Europe, though they are less socialist than China and so have developed some things on their own - barely). This is always the way. Countries with authoritarian, dominating governments never develop anything - they can't. They can only steal and destroy, they can't create. Individuals develop new things and push humanity forward and only countries that empower individuals can create. You need to ask the question about why humans have progressed so much, and why all that advancement happened in certain places only and not others.
- nickflood 5y ago
  Hey, Europe is not that bad. ASML is the leading semiconductor fab tech producer is based in Europe. They use optics from Carl Zeiss which is a german firm. ARM chip corporation is a UK company. So, like, stuff happens in Europe which is essential to how the world functions today and which isn't at all easy to replicate somewhere else.
- eeronen 5y ago
  > China stole every single thing it had from the US. They have developed almost zero technology. (You could very nearly say the same for Europe, though they are less socialist than China and so have developed some things on their own - barely). What the hell are you talking about? Are you really saying all that R&D spending in other countries is going towards copy-pasting stuff made in the US? https://data.oecd.org/chart/6yu7 https://data.oecd.org/chart/6yu7
  - mrjangles 5y ago
    >Are you really saying all that R&D spending in other countries is going towards copy-pasting stuff made in the US? Yes. I can barely think of any examples to the contrary. 90% of technology being used around the world today was developed in the US. More importantly, R&D money spent by governments usually amounts to absolutely nothing. R&D spent by private companies can be ground breaking, or it can just be a nonsense tax break, or it can be spent learning to reproduce what others have already invented. So simply looking at R&D spending is pretty useless. Instead look at the results.

mrjangles 5y ago

>homeless person now stuck on the streets lives better than Rockefeller did, Ok good point, not the absolute lowest, but someone in the bottom 10% has access to food from all over the world that Rockefeller did not. They are usually overweight, which poor people back then were not. They have access to medicine the Rockerfeller couldn't dream of. >Do not conflate general human progress of what's available with more knowledge, science, and basic technology You seem to imagine that these things magically just appeared. They were created because humans with money invested in them. >China is arguably just as technologically advanced as the US. China stole every single thing it had from the US. They have developed almost zero technology. (You could very nearly say the same for Europe, though they are less socialist than China and so have developed some things on their own - barely). This is always the way. Countries with authoritarian, dominating governments never develop anything - they can't. They can only steal and destroy, they can't create. Individuals develop new things and push humanity forward and only countries that empower individuals can create. You need to ask the question about why humans have progressed so much, and why all that advancement happened in certain places only and not others.

nickflood 5y ago
Hey, Europe is not that bad. ASML is the leading semiconductor fab tech producer is based in Europe. They use optics from Carl Zeiss which is a german firm. ARM chip corporation is a UK company. So, like, stuff happens in Europe which is essential to how the world functions today and which isn't at all easy to replicate somewhere else.
eeronen 5y ago
> China stole every single thing it had from the US. They have developed almost zero technology. (You could very nearly say the same for Europe, though they are less socialist than China and so have developed some things on their own - barely). What the hell are you talking about? Are you really saying all that R&D spending in other countries is going towards copy-pasting stuff made in the US? https://data.oecd.org/chart/6yu7 https://data.oecd.org/chart/6yu7
- mrjangles 5y ago
  >Are you really saying all that R&D spending in other countries is going towards copy-pasting stuff made in the US? Yes. I can barely think of any examples to the contrary. 90% of technology being used around the world today was developed in the US. More importantly, R&D money spent by governments usually amounts to absolutely nothing. R&D spent by private companies can be ground breaking, or it can just be a nonsense tax break, or it can be spent learning to reproduce what others have already invented. So simply looking at R&D spending is pretty useless. Instead look at the results.