7 ms·

Lowest 10th percentile of which society? In Europe or the US, maybe, but certainly there are whole regions of the world toiling away in horrific conditions to m

Lowest 10th percentile of which society? In Europe or the US, maybe, but certainly there are whole regions of the world toiling away in horrific conditions to make their baseline standard of living possible. Conditions that are at least as bad, if not worse, than those of ancient Pompeii.

jkic47 3y ago
In my experience, even the poorest of the poor get vaccinated and have at least some access to modern medicine in government hospitals. People who work as "servants" have cheap cell phones, TVs, and some commute to work on cycles and motorized vehicles. There are pockets, of course, where what you say holds, but in aggregate, the lives of the bottom x% are probably better than their (our) distant forefathers due to commoditized conveniences that we take for granted.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  > In my experience, even the poorest of the poor get [stuff] Stuff costs. For every advantage a person receives, someone above them will leverage it for their own benefit. Increased productivity from automation does not flow toward fewer hours for the same pay but to increased output for the same pay - or perhaps to less pay when forced out of their career. Vaccine-lengthened lives are spent working more years to survive, typically at less than ideal jobs. The gadgets you tick off (in context that infers they a measure life improvement) come with costs. Where time is saved, expectations are increased to fill that time. This trend has led us to a state where ordinary lives are massively more complex. Routine events have many more steps and requirements. Gadgets themselves are conduits for rent-seeking exploitation, which requires still more resources from a finite pool. Predictably, society has a growing need for mental health services. Some areas have services for those who are overtaxed and without resources. Many areas do not - despite widespread signaling that mental health services universally available. However, I can agree that the advantages you mention are serving to get us where we are.
  - badpun 3y ago
    You've skipped the part where gadgets ("stuff") are a massive increase in quality of life - that's mostly why people get them - even though there are costs associated with them, the benefits far outshine the cost, making stuff a net benefit. For example, my mother still remembers how it was to do laundry before washing mashines. Washing sheets generally took most of the day and was filled with manual labor. That's how women spend every third or fourth Sunday back then (had to be Sunday, because they were working in a job on the other six days of the week), before they could finally afford a washing machine.
    - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
      No parts were skipped. You're discussing gadget-derived, quality of life improvements. Those are time savings, as you exampled. >For example, my mother still remembers how it was to do laundry before washing machines. Washing sheets generally took most of the day and was filled with manual labor. I discussed how time savings don't translate into more leisure time but into more obligations to fill that time. My delivery was a bit lecture-y, but I did address the point. Anyway, along with no net gains in discretionary time there are tremendous increases in complexity to ordinary living. We've wound up being far more taxed than we were before. If we focus exclusively on the gain=n without including the inevitable cost=n2, we get an unhelpful overview of what we're up against.
      - ffgjgf1 3y ago
        > We've wound up being far more taxed than we were before. While also receiving a lot more (sometime massively more) services from the state.
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  > poorest of the poor get vaccinated that's an odd comparison, there were no vaccines in ancient Pompeii, but they had fresh running water everywhere, they had a fully working well maintained sewage system, they had fully working well maintained piping system, they had fully working and well maintained infrastructures, such as roads, public buildings, public baths, markets, they had access to high quality food, they had very low crime levels (compared to the period of course), people were protected from outsiders by a fully working well equipped army, the State was present and vigilant, there was virtually no kind of organized crime syndicate running things locally, like modern Camorra, something that's not true anymore not in some poor of the poorest land, but in Italy in 2023 in the same areas where Pompeii was. Go and see how they live in Scampia and you'll be shocked how backwards society went over time.
  - peoplefromibiza 3y ago
    Of course some Neapolitan came and downvoted the comment. I'm Italian BTW, the problem is not the people living in Scampia, the problem is the fact that a place like Scampia exists and everybody there thinks it's normal. The Romans would have never allowed something like that. Their slaves had better lives than that.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      > The Romans would have never allowed something like that. Their slaves had better lives than that. That’s either sarcasm or you certainly know almost absolutely nothing about how the Romans treated their slaves. You could try looking up the conditions of slaves working in mines or agricultural estates or some of the laws related to slavery they had… (also sexual exploitation was on a whole other level which is hard to even grasp for us) > Scampia I’m sure it’s much nicer that some of the slums in Ancient Rome, the city itself (Pompeii and Herculaneum were relatively well off cities at the time in probably one the richest regions in the world (Campania))
      - peoplefromibiza 3y ago
        > you certainly know almost absolutely nothing about how the Romans treated their slaves You seem to be one that makes a lot of assumptions. > I’m sure it’s much nicer that some of the slums in Ancient Rome That's the point. It is not. > Pompeii and Herculaneum were relatively well off cities Yeah, Egypt was too, Middle East was too, Persia (Iran) too. Look at them now.
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  I don’t know what your experience is but measles vaccinations, for example, still haven’t hit 90% penetration globally: in some countries it can still be 50% of children unvaccinated. And it’s probably the most widely available vaccine globally. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/immunization-coverage https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/immunizatio...
tim333 3y ago
>With their feet chained, and dressed in rags, Apuleius describes the workers as having “eyes so bleary from the scorching heat of that smoke-filled darkness they could barely see, and like wrestlers sprinkled with dust before a fight, they were coarsely whitened with floury ash. Any examples of regions of the world where things are as bad as that? I've travelled a bit and seen nothing like that.
- grotted 3y ago
  How do you think we're getting all those rare earth minerals? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/the-dark-side-of-congos-cobalt-rush https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/the-dark-side-...
  - peterfirefly 3y ago
    Cobalt is not a rare earth mineral + only a low single-digit fraction of our cobalt comes from Congo. ... and living conditions for most Congolese are still better than they used to be, even for the lowest 10%.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - grotted 3y ago
      Well they're certainly better than we were mass harvesting their hands, but that's a low bar.
      - ffgjgf1 3y ago
        Or ever. Not that it’s a fair comparison modern medicine and some (even on a minimal level) access to healthcare means that the majority of people who are alive now would’ve been dead. Of course that’s certainly not the only thing.
  - defrost 3y ago
    "Artisanal" cobalt mining isn't the source of most of the worlds cobalt, it's an unregulated cowboy side trade that's hard to stamp out. https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/top-cobalt-producing-countries/ https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/top-cobalt-produci... That said, horrific working conditions abound in today's modern world, another example being "call centre coolies", eg: Inside the call centre scam that lured vulnerable workers to Cambodia and trapped them in the murky world of human trafficking https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-29/inside-call-centre-scams-in-cambodia-torture-fear-and-survival/101770352 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-29/inside-call-centre-sc... these places pop up all over the globe.
ffgjgf1 3y ago
As awful as those conditions were arguably they are still better than the conditions the bottom 10% would’ve experienced historically (which were almost inconceivable awful by modern standards try reading some of the descriptions of ancient Roman mines and quarries, the mill jail would likely be a significant improvement over being a slave in a mine).
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  "being a slave in a mine" Being sent "ad minam" was basically a slow-motion death sentence and everyone involved knew it.

jkic47 3y ago

In my experience, even the poorest of the poor get vaccinated and have at least some access to modern medicine in government hospitals. People who work as "servants" have cheap cell phones, TVs, and some commute to work on cycles and motorized vehicles. There are pockets, of course, where what you say holds, but in aggregate, the lives of the bottom x% are probably better than their (our) distant forefathers due to commoditized conveniences that we take for granted.

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
> In my experience, even the poorest of the poor get [stuff] Stuff costs. For every advantage a person receives, someone above them will leverage it for their own benefit. Increased productivity from automation does not flow toward fewer hours for the same pay but to increased output for the same pay - or perhaps to less pay when forced out of their career. Vaccine-lengthened lives are spent working more years to survive, typically at less than ideal jobs. The gadgets you tick off (in context that infers they a measure life improvement) come with costs. Where time is saved, expectations are increased to fill that time. This trend has led us to a state where ordinary lives are massively more complex. Routine events have many more steps and requirements. Gadgets themselves are conduits for rent-seeking exploitation, which requires still more resources from a finite pool. Predictably, society has a growing need for mental health services. Some areas have services for those who are overtaxed and without resources. Many areas do not - despite widespread signaling that mental health services universally available. However, I can agree that the advantages you mention are serving to get us where we are.
- badpun 3y ago
  You've skipped the part where gadgets ("stuff") are a massive increase in quality of life - that's mostly why people get them - even though there are costs associated with them, the benefits far outshine the cost, making stuff a net benefit. For example, my mother still remembers how it was to do laundry before washing mashines. Washing sheets generally took most of the day and was filled with manual labor. That's how women spend every third or fourth Sunday back then (had to be Sunday, because they were working in a job on the other six days of the week), before they could finally afford a washing machine.
  - WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
    No parts were skipped. You're discussing gadget-derived, quality of life improvements. Those are time savings, as you exampled. >For example, my mother still remembers how it was to do laundry before washing machines. Washing sheets generally took most of the day and was filled with manual labor. I discussed how time savings don't translate into more leisure time but into more obligations to fill that time. My delivery was a bit lecture-y, but I did address the point. Anyway, along with no net gains in discretionary time there are tremendous increases in complexity to ordinary living. We've wound up being far more taxed than we were before. If we focus exclusively on the gain=n without including the inevitable cost=n2, we get an unhelpful overview of what we're up against.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      > We've wound up being far more taxed than we were before. While also receiving a lot more (sometime massively more) services from the state.
peoplefromibiza 3y ago
> poorest of the poor get vaccinated that's an odd comparison, there were no vaccines in ancient Pompeii, but they had fresh running water everywhere, they had a fully working well maintained sewage system, they had fully working well maintained piping system, they had fully working and well maintained infrastructures, such as roads, public buildings, public baths, markets, they had access to high quality food, they had very low crime levels (compared to the period of course), people were protected from outsiders by a fully working well equipped army, the State was present and vigilant, there was virtually no kind of organized crime syndicate running things locally, like modern Camorra, something that's not true anymore not in some poor of the poorest land, but in Italy in 2023 in the same areas where Pompeii was. Go and see how they live in Scampia and you'll be shocked how backwards society went over time.
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  Of course some Neapolitan came and downvoted the comment. I'm Italian BTW, the problem is not the people living in Scampia, the problem is the fact that a place like Scampia exists and everybody there thinks it's normal. The Romans would have never allowed something like that. Their slaves had better lives than that.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    > The Romans would have never allowed something like that. Their slaves had better lives than that. That’s either sarcasm or you certainly know almost absolutely nothing about how the Romans treated their slaves. You could try looking up the conditions of slaves working in mines or agricultural estates or some of the laws related to slavery they had… (also sexual exploitation was on a whole other level which is hard to even grasp for us) > Scampia I’m sure it’s much nicer that some of the slums in Ancient Rome, the city itself (Pompeii and Herculaneum were relatively well off cities at the time in probably one the richest regions in the world (Campania))
    - peoplefromibiza 3y ago
      > you certainly know almost absolutely nothing about how the Romans treated their slaves You seem to be one that makes a lot of assumptions. > I’m sure it’s much nicer that some of the slums in Ancient Rome That's the point. It is not. > Pompeii and Herculaneum were relatively well off cities Yeah, Egypt was too, Middle East was too, Persia (Iran) too. Look at them now.
lazyasciiart 3y ago
I don’t know what your experience is but measles vaccinations, for example, still haven’t hit 90% penetration globally: in some countries it can still be 50% of children unvaccinated. And it’s probably the most widely available vaccine globally. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/immunization-coverage https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/immunizatio...

tim333 3y ago

>With their feet chained, and dressed in rags, Apuleius describes the workers as having “eyes so bleary from the scorching heat of that smoke-filled darkness they could barely see, and like wrestlers sprinkled with dust before a fight, they were coarsely whitened with floury ash. Any examples of regions of the world where things are as bad as that? I've travelled a bit and seen nothing like that.

grotted 3y ago
How do you think we're getting all those rare earth minerals? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/the-dark-side-of-congos-cobalt-rush https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/the-dark-side-...
- peterfirefly 3y ago
  Cobalt is not a rare earth mineral + only a low single-digit fraction of our cobalt comes from Congo. ... and living conditions for most Congolese are still better than they used to be, even for the lowest 10%.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - grotted 3y ago
    Well they're certainly better than we were mass harvesting their hands, but that's a low bar.
    - ffgjgf1 3y ago
      Or ever. Not that it’s a fair comparison modern medicine and some (even on a minimal level) access to healthcare means that the majority of people who are alive now would’ve been dead. Of course that’s certainly not the only thing.
- defrost 3y ago
  "Artisanal" cobalt mining isn't the source of most of the worlds cobalt, it's an unregulated cowboy side trade that's hard to stamp out. https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/top-cobalt-producing-countries/ https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/top-cobalt-produci... That said, horrific working conditions abound in today's modern world, another example being "call centre coolies", eg: Inside the call centre scam that lured vulnerable workers to Cambodia and trapped them in the murky world of human trafficking https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-29/inside-call-centre-scams-in-cambodia-torture-fear-and-survival/101770352 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-29/inside-call-centre-sc... these places pop up all over the globe.

ffgjgf1 3y ago

As awful as those conditions were arguably they are still better than the conditions the bottom 10% would’ve experienced historically (which were almost inconceivable awful by modern standards try reading some of the descriptions of ancient Roman mines and quarries, the mill jail would likely be a significant improvement over being a slave in a mine).

inglor_cz 3y ago
"being a slave in a mine" Being sent "ad minam" was basically a slow-motion death sentence and everyone involved knew it.