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I suggest you go visit an exhibition on how people in the dark ages or in the middle ages lived. YOu probably live with hot and cold water, that you can drink.

I suggest you go visit an exhibition on how people in the dark ages or in the middle ages lived. YOu probably live with hot and cold water, that you can drink... and pretty much everyone in the developed world can afford a banana... that kind of "luxury" wasn't available to kings just 200 years ago.

mandmandam 3y ago
I am well aware. But that's all off topic. The statement I was responding to claimed that humans could never afford nice furniture. But we've had axes for 1.6 million years, and abundant old-growth forests for 1.6 million years, and so, for the vast, vast, vast majority of human history we have in fact had the ability to make sturdy, beautiful, long lasting furniture completely for free. The middle ages and the "dark" ages weren't even all that bad. They had more free time than we did. They had far more birds and beasts. They paid less taxes. They didn't have a multi-billion dollar ad industry telling them they're not good enough. They lived with nature, a nature we'll never know. Yes, there was the war and the religious craziness and the fear of apocalypse - wait a minute, we still have all of that stuff except the fear of apocalypse is way more legit now. I love modern plumbing, and many aspects of the internet. I love the access to culture and knowledge. Antibiotics are cool. I'd rather live now than then. But the idea that people 500; 5,000; or 500,000 years ago had nasty lives far inferior to our own is not entirely justified. Again though - that's all off topic. Those guys 500,000 years ago had free housing, free wood to burn, and incredible biodiversity which we'll never be able to appreciate in our world of modern anthropocene extinction. And, probably, really nice furniture; if they wanted to make it.
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  > vast, vast, vast majority of human history we have in fact had the ability to make sturdy, beautiful, long lasting furniture completely for free Again... Go visit and Egyptological museum. Go see how rough, compared to modern furniture, the royal masterpiece chairs were. For the 1599950 out of 1600000 years humans definitely could not afford or had any nice furniture. Absolute majority couldn't afford even rough sturdy, unnice furniture. And your comment about "free housing" is naive... It wasn't free and desirable places had their own issues. Taking a dump on companies like IKEA is very much the most condescending thing we could do. I certainly have experienced the inability to purchase even the most basic necessities, where IKEA would have provided some relief.
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    ... I didn't dump on Ikea anywhere. Not remotely. Neither did GP. Nor did I speak of comfort. Nor did GP. Perhaps you are taking context from elsewhere in the comments and misapplying it to this little thread? I spoke of beauty and sturdiness and longevity; nature, biodiversity. I've been to many museums; I've seen the thrones. Roughness doesn't matter when you're putting cushions on, or when your buns are tough from years without sitting on padded chairs. Your definition of nice furniture is very different from mine, clearly. I suggest that you might try to see things from a broader perspective. On your other points: Egypt wasn't known for its abundant forests - I don't know why you would expect great carpentry. Their cushions won't be in the museum, for what I hope are obvious reasons. You cannot seriously claim only the furniture of the last 50 years is nice, while excoriating me for my lack of knowledge of how ancient people lived. Go read some descriptions of Sumerian furniture. And yes, if you take your stone axe in 1.5 million BC, and clear a space, and build a house, it's free. Hard work - as I said - but free. No property taxes, no mortgage. Free. No HOA, no building standards... Free. There's nothing "naive" about that. What's patently naive is this insistence that only modern people have any sense of craftsmanship or comfort or quality - I say that because it's true, and you need to hear it; not to flame.
    - JAlexoid 3y ago
      This thread is most definitely an opinion thread. Which is quite misguided, as you still can go to many places on this planet where literally all of what you wrote is true. There are vast swathes of land on this planet, where you can go and do exactly what our great ancestors did 1mil years ago. Not to mention that your whole opinion rests on the notion that labor is free.
      - mandmandam 3y ago
        > There are vast swathes of land on this planet, where you can go and do exactly what our great ancestors did 1mil years ago. You'll be eating microplastics, drinking polluted water, and enjoying a far smaller spread of biodiversity. As I said. There is nowhere on Earth that you can escape those facts any more. Microplastics and PFAs are on Mt Everest, and the Mariana Trench, and everywhere in between; and the Anthropocene Extinction is a real thing. I also explicitly pointed out the labor involved, so I don't understand why you keep calling that out like some sort of gotcha. Any luck researching Sumerian furniture? Nice, innit?
- justin66 3y ago
  > Those guys 500,000 years ago had free housing, free wood to burn, and incredible biodiversity which we'll never be able to appreciate in our world of modern anthropocene extinction. And, probably, really nice furniture; if they wanted to make it. Step one: invent iron tools roughly 500,000 years early. "Really nice furniture" involves a lot more than the easy availability of big chunks of wood. Paying a skilled craftsman to spend time to work on something is fundamentally expensive. That expense speaks to what the person you initially replied to was talking about vis a vis mass manufacturing.
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    The earliest stone axe is 1.6 million years old. Stone can chop wood. Really nice furniture can also be defined as solid, old-growth wood furniture, designed and made to your own specifications, that will last for hundreds of years.
    - justin66 3y ago
      Holding up an unfinished piece of (really nice, apparently) wood, worked by an amateur (to his own specifications!) with primitive tools as equal to what sane people refer to as "furniture" is a blatant misunderstanding of craftsmanship, and much more importantly the whole discussion very deliberately misses the economic point of the person you originally responded to. It's weird that you're so insistent about it.
      - mandmandam 3y ago
        "Sane people" - really? That's not polite, but anyway... There are a looooot of people, especially craftsmen, who can appreciate heavy and well built, if rough, furniture. Even if it's worked with primitive tools, that stuff looks and smells and lasts better than anything - anything from IKEA. Especially when it's made with not just nice but gorgeous wood - mahogony, rosewood, oak, teak, etc. The stuff you can hardly buy for any money these days. And no, I'm not "deliberately missing the economic point" - I'm adding the perspective of a wider range of human history than the last 50 years. The perspective of >99.99% of human history. For all that time, such furniture was not just cheap but free + labour. The trees were abundant, and we used them. As for being insistent, I'm not - you can believe whatever you like - but it would be cool if you stopped trying to put the worst possible take on my words.

mandmandam 3y ago

I am well aware. But that's all off topic. The statement I was responding to claimed that humans could never afford nice furniture. But we've had axes for 1.6 million years, and abundant old-growth forests for 1.6 million years, and so, for the vast, vast, vast majority of human history we have in fact had the ability to make sturdy, beautiful, long lasting furniture completely for free. The middle ages and the "dark" ages weren't even all that bad. They had more free time than we did. They had far more birds and beasts. They paid less taxes. They didn't have a multi-billion dollar ad industry telling them they're not good enough. They lived with nature, a nature we'll never know. Yes, there was the war and the religious craziness and the fear of apocalypse - wait a minute, we still have all of that stuff except the fear of apocalypse is way more legit now. I love modern plumbing, and many aspects of the internet. I love the access to culture and knowledge. Antibiotics are cool. I'd rather live now than then. But the idea that people 500; 5,000; or 500,000 years ago had nasty lives far inferior to our own is not entirely justified. Again though - that's all off topic. Those guys 500,000 years ago had free housing, free wood to burn, and incredible biodiversity which we'll never be able to appreciate in our world of modern anthropocene extinction. And, probably, really nice furniture; if they wanted to make it.

JAlexoid 3y ago
> vast, vast, vast majority of human history we have in fact had the ability to make sturdy, beautiful, long lasting furniture completely for free Again... Go visit and Egyptological museum. Go see how rough, compared to modern furniture, the royal masterpiece chairs were. For the 1599950 out of 1600000 years humans definitely could not afford or had any nice furniture. Absolute majority couldn't afford even rough sturdy, unnice furniture. And your comment about "free housing" is naive... It wasn't free and desirable places had their own issues. Taking a dump on companies like IKEA is very much the most condescending thing we could do. I certainly have experienced the inability to purchase even the most basic necessities, where IKEA would have provided some relief.
- mandmandam 3y ago
  ... I didn't dump on Ikea anywhere. Not remotely. Neither did GP. Nor did I speak of comfort. Nor did GP. Perhaps you are taking context from elsewhere in the comments and misapplying it to this little thread? I spoke of beauty and sturdiness and longevity; nature, biodiversity. I've been to many museums; I've seen the thrones. Roughness doesn't matter when you're putting cushions on, or when your buns are tough from years without sitting on padded chairs. Your definition of nice furniture is very different from mine, clearly. I suggest that you might try to see things from a broader perspective. On your other points: Egypt wasn't known for its abundant forests - I don't know why you would expect great carpentry. Their cushions won't be in the museum, for what I hope are obvious reasons. You cannot seriously claim only the furniture of the last 50 years is nice, while excoriating me for my lack of knowledge of how ancient people lived. Go read some descriptions of Sumerian furniture. And yes, if you take your stone axe in 1.5 million BC, and clear a space, and build a house, it's free. Hard work - as I said - but free. No property taxes, no mortgage. Free. No HOA, no building standards... Free. There's nothing "naive" about that. What's patently naive is this insistence that only modern people have any sense of craftsmanship or comfort or quality - I say that because it's true, and you need to hear it; not to flame.
  - JAlexoid 3y ago
    This thread is most definitely an opinion thread. Which is quite misguided, as you still can go to many places on this planet where literally all of what you wrote is true. There are vast swathes of land on this planet, where you can go and do exactly what our great ancestors did 1mil years ago. Not to mention that your whole opinion rests on the notion that labor is free.
    - mandmandam 3y ago
      > There are vast swathes of land on this planet, where you can go and do exactly what our great ancestors did 1mil years ago. You'll be eating microplastics, drinking polluted water, and enjoying a far smaller spread of biodiversity. As I said. There is nowhere on Earth that you can escape those facts any more. Microplastics and PFAs are on Mt Everest, and the Mariana Trench, and everywhere in between; and the Anthropocene Extinction is a real thing. I also explicitly pointed out the labor involved, so I don't understand why you keep calling that out like some sort of gotcha. Any luck researching Sumerian furniture? Nice, innit?
justin66 3y ago
> Those guys 500,000 years ago had free housing, free wood to burn, and incredible biodiversity which we'll never be able to appreciate in our world of modern anthropocene extinction. And, probably, really nice furniture; if they wanted to make it. Step one: invent iron tools roughly 500,000 years early. "Really nice furniture" involves a lot more than the easy availability of big chunks of wood. Paying a skilled craftsman to spend time to work on something is fundamentally expensive. That expense speaks to what the person you initially replied to was talking about vis a vis mass manufacturing.
- mandmandam 3y ago
  The earliest stone axe is 1.6 million years old. Stone can chop wood. Really nice furniture can also be defined as solid, old-growth wood furniture, designed and made to your own specifications, that will last for hundreds of years.
  - justin66 3y ago
    Holding up an unfinished piece of (really nice, apparently) wood, worked by an amateur (to his own specifications!) with primitive tools as equal to what sane people refer to as "furniture" is a blatant misunderstanding of craftsmanship, and much more importantly the whole discussion very deliberately misses the economic point of the person you originally responded to. It's weird that you're so insistent about it.
    - mandmandam 3y ago
      "Sane people" - really? That's not polite, but anyway... There are a looooot of people, especially craftsmen, who can appreciate heavy and well built, if rough, furniture. Even if it's worked with primitive tools, that stuff looks and smells and lasts better than anything - anything from IKEA. Especially when it's made with not just nice but gorgeous wood - mahogony, rosewood, oak, teak, etc. The stuff you can hardly buy for any money these days. And no, I'm not "deliberately missing the economic point" - I'm adding the perspective of a wider range of human history than the last 50 years. The perspective of >99.99% of human history. For all that time, such furniture was not just cheap but free + labour. The trees were abundant, and we used them. As for being insistent, I'm not - you can believe whatever you like - but it would be cool if you stopped trying to put the worst possible take on my words.