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In 1923 they'd say "we have modern medicine and air travel" and feel just as smug. Jets and the moon landing are cool, but they happened closer to 1923 than 202

In 1923 they'd say "we have modern medicine and air travel" and feel just as smug. Jets and the moon landing are cool, but they happened closer to 1923 than 2023.

konschubert 3y ago
I am not feeling smug, I am saying that there has been progress in the past 100 years.
- turnsout 3y ago
  The point is not that there hasn’t been progress. The point is that the alleged explosion of the economy has not fundamentally changed society, which seems to run counter to OP’s point. I maintain that the lives of most people—while measurably better in many ways—are not fundamentally different than they were 100 years ago. In 1923, there were people in Queens who took the train into Manhattan to work at a pharmacy, saving up to buy a radio. Substitute laptop for radio and that story is still happening today. The economy is “bigger” but thanks to inflation, does it matter? So I reject OP’s premise that the “growth” of the economy is unsustainable or somehow alarming.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    > I maintain that the lives of most people—while measurably better in many ways—are not fundamentally different than they were 100 years ago. Average hours worked per week was about 25% more than today, with much more of your earnings going to necessity. Your odds of surviving from 18 to retirement age were roughly 50-50. You might not expect to be able to afford to actually retire depending upon your occupation. > Substitute laptop for radio and that story is still happening today. A cheap radio in 1923 cost far more than a cheap laptop today. Even more so if we compare to typical wages, and even more so if we compare to disposable income. > So I reject OP’s premise that the “growth” of the economy is unsustainable or somehow alarming. Resource intensity per person is far higher than in 1923. See the graph on page 3 of https://pubs.usgs.gov/annrev/ar-23-107/aerdocnew.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/annrev/ar-23-107/aerdocnew.pdf
TeMPOraL 3y ago
Well, jets then and jets now are two different things. As for medicine, 1923 was around the time when anything resembling medicine begun to form, and people actually started to understand what they're doing. This is one of those fields that only begun in the earnest in the last 100 years.
- starttoaster 3y ago
  > As for medicine, 1923 was around the time when anything resembling medicine begun to form I, for one, resent that modern medicine has decided to debase phrenology as a science. /s
boxed 3y ago
And they were RIGHT. Enormously so. In 1823 life was absolute shit compared to 1923. And life in 1723 was absolute shit compared to 1823.
- jvm___ 3y ago
  Hopefully life in 2123 won't be absolute shit compared to 2023. Maybe for the surviving people 2123 will be ok but the mass death that seems likely before then will suck.
  - southernplaces7 3y ago
    And what remotely concrete thing makes you so sure that there will be new levels of mass death between now and 2123?
    - jvm___ 3y ago
      The climate changes seem to be catastrophic and already baked into the system. Geoengineering might work but the fixes won't be equally distributed and the poor will suffer the most. I don't see a way out of a massive redistribution of who lives where, which will come with strife and maybe death.
      - panarchy 3y ago
        And there's always the chance that our attempts at geoengineering fuck things over even more. Like throwing water onto a oil fire.
        jvm___ 3y ago
        There was a interesting video that correlated the extreme north Atlantic warming with the changes in sulpher content in cargo ship fuel. Less sulpher fuels means less bits in the atmosphere to seed rain and reflective clouds. The good news was that we could seed clouds by just spraying salt water from the ocean. The water would evaporate and the salt would just fall back into the ocean after it seeded more clouds.
idopmstuff 3y ago
But how many people would have actually flown on an airplane? What makes lives meaningfully different isn't whether a thing exists in the world somewhere; it's whether people experience it.
mlyle 3y ago
> In 1923 they'd say "we have modern medicine and air travel" Not really. Penicillin was ~1930. Ford Air Transport Service was founded in 1925. Typical people didn't have a whole lot. Indoor plumbing was only starting to become commonplace in the late 1920s. Radio only reached the majority of homes in the 1930s. Only about half of families had a car by 1923.
- jvm___ 3y ago
  In the 1940 USA census 50% of houses reported having indoor plumbing.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    The issue here is defining what indoor plumbing is. It was a small majority in 1940 if you include heated water, a bath, and a flush toilet exclusive to that dwelling unit. If you include toilets alone and apartments with shared toilet facilities, the majority was reached a bit earlier-- around 1930, meaning that I judged indoor plumbing was rapidly becoming commonplace in the late 20s. In 1923, a huge chunk of households still used kerosene lamps as a primary means of lighting (it was a decent percentage in 1940, even).
    - jvm___ 3y ago
      Agreed, but they didn't ask the indoor plumbing question in the earlier censuses because it wasn't worth asking.

In 1923 they'd say "we have modern medicine and air travel" and feel just as smug. Jets and the moon landing are cool, but they happened closer to 1923 than 2023.

konschubert 3y ago

I am not feeling smug, I am saying that there has been progress in the past 100 years.

turnsout 3y ago
The point is not that there hasn’t been progress. The point is that the alleged explosion of the economy has not fundamentally changed society, which seems to run counter to OP’s point. I maintain that the lives of most people—while measurably better in many ways—are not fundamentally different than they were 100 years ago. In 1923, there were people in Queens who took the train into Manhattan to work at a pharmacy, saving up to buy a radio. Substitute laptop for radio and that story is still happening today. The economy is “bigger” but thanks to inflation, does it matter? So I reject OP’s premise that the “growth” of the economy is unsustainable or somehow alarming.
- mlyle 3y ago
  > I maintain that the lives of most people—while measurably better in many ways—are not fundamentally different than they were 100 years ago. Average hours worked per week was about 25% more than today, with much more of your earnings going to necessity. Your odds of surviving from 18 to retirement age were roughly 50-50. You might not expect to be able to afford to actually retire depending upon your occupation. > Substitute laptop for radio and that story is still happening today. A cheap radio in 1923 cost far more than a cheap laptop today. Even more so if we compare to typical wages, and even more so if we compare to disposable income. > So I reject OP’s premise that the “growth” of the economy is unsustainable or somehow alarming. Resource intensity per person is far higher than in 1923. See the graph on page 3 of https://pubs.usgs.gov/annrev/ar-23-107/aerdocnew.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/annrev/ar-23-107/aerdocnew.pdf

TeMPOraL 3y ago

Well, jets then and jets now are two different things. As for medicine, 1923 was around the time when anything resembling medicine begun to form, and people actually started to understand what they're doing. This is one of those fields that only begun in the earnest in the last 100 years.

starttoaster 3y ago
> As for medicine, 1923 was around the time when anything resembling medicine begun to form I, for one, resent that modern medicine has decided to debase phrenology as a science. /s

boxed 3y ago

And they were RIGHT. Enormously so. In 1823 life was absolute shit compared to 1923. And life in 1723 was absolute shit compared to 1823.

jvm___ 3y ago
Hopefully life in 2123 won't be absolute shit compared to 2023. Maybe for the surviving people 2123 will be ok but the mass death that seems likely before then will suck.
- southernplaces7 3y ago
  And what remotely concrete thing makes you so sure that there will be new levels of mass death between now and 2123?
  - jvm___ 3y ago
    The climate changes seem to be catastrophic and already baked into the system. Geoengineering might work but the fixes won't be equally distributed and the poor will suffer the most. I don't see a way out of a massive redistribution of who lives where, which will come with strife and maybe death.
    - panarchy 3y ago
      And there's always the chance that our attempts at geoengineering fuck things over even more. Like throwing water onto a oil fire.
      - jvm___ 3y ago
        There was a interesting video that correlated the extreme north Atlantic warming with the changes in sulpher content in cargo ship fuel. Less sulpher fuels means less bits in the atmosphere to seed rain and reflective clouds. The good news was that we could seed clouds by just spraying salt water from the ocean. The water would evaporate and the salt would just fall back into the ocean after it seeded more clouds.

idopmstuff 3y ago

But how many people would have actually flown on an airplane? What makes lives meaningfully different isn't whether a thing exists in the world somewhere; it's whether people experience it.

mlyle 3y ago

> In 1923 they'd say "we have modern medicine and air travel" Not really. Penicillin was ~1930. Ford Air Transport Service was founded in 1925. Typical people didn't have a whole lot. Indoor plumbing was only starting to become commonplace in the late 1920s. Radio only reached the majority of homes in the 1930s. Only about half of families had a car by 1923.

jvm___ 3y ago
In the 1940 USA census 50% of houses reported having indoor plumbing.
- mlyle 3y ago
  The issue here is defining what indoor plumbing is. It was a small majority in 1940 if you include heated water, a bath, and a flush toilet exclusive to that dwelling unit. If you include toilets alone and apartments with shared toilet facilities, the majority was reached a bit earlier-- around 1930, meaning that I judged indoor plumbing was rapidly becoming commonplace in the late 20s. In 1923, a huge chunk of households still used kerosene lamps as a primary means of lighting (it was a decent percentage in 1940, even).
  - jvm___ 3y ago
    Agreed, but they didn't ask the indoor plumbing question in the earlier censuses because it wasn't worth asking.