> Consider architecture (bland), clothing (low durability), food (fast food, frozen food, worse nutrition, bland taste) etc etc. Sure, people happily buy all th

> Consider architecture (bland), clothing (low durability), food (fast food, frozen food, worse nutrition, bland taste) etc etc. Sure, people happily buy all this stuff, it works. But I can't help but feel our stuff is a lot worse than it used to be. I bet I'm not alone. For every intricate handcrafted cathedral or mansion, there were millions of one room huts with leaky roofs. A change of clothes used to be an investment along the lines of what an expensive phone or even a car is for us today, so most people only had one or two changes of clothes, and not in very good condition. Food used to take up most of a person's wages and a bad harvest could cause immediate starvation for large numbers of people. Also, most people a diet consisting almost entirely of grains. So, yea, if you are imagining some kind of past where you happened to be an aristocrat, you could live in a beautifully handcrafted house, wear only hand-tailored clothes, and eat heirloom vegetables for every meal. But if you're imagining yourself as an aristocrat, then you can live pretty well with that status in the modern era too.