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by theobreuerweil3 hours ago |
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upvoteby pdimitar2 hours ago|
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This is likely mostly nullified by the consumerism hellscape that's being forced on us i.e. stuff lasts less time and we have to buy more often.

Still a win but not as big as many are selling it.

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upvoteby 20after42 hours ago|
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Don't forget most people are stuck renting a small apartment at a significant percentage of income for eternity. Then if you hit the layoff jackpot and become homeless, then I've got good news for you: homelessness is illegal now.
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upvoteby azan_1 hours ago|
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> This is likely mostly nullified by the consumerism hellscape that's being forced on us i.e. stuff lasts less time and we have to buy more often.

Actually good quality stuff is more affordable than ever. People just don't want to pay for quality and things that last.

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upvoteby panopticon49 minutes ago|
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I have a hard time finding quality stuff, even when I want to pony up for it. Do you have a good resource?

It's hard to know whether moving up in pricing just buys unnecessary features in a checklist, higher quality veneer, brand name, or actual quality.

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upvoteby ericd38 minutes ago|
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Yeah, it doesn't seem like people remember how expensive in real terms things were in the 80s.
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upvoteby ericd1 hours ago|
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It's not forced on you. If you do a minimal amount of research (which LLMs are very helpful with!), you can still find durable stuff. A Speed Queen washer is still built like a tank. It's just that the less durable stuff is absurdly cheap now. /r/BuyItForLife/ is a decent place to hang out if you care.
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upvoteby philistine2 hours ago|
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It's all a matter of perspective. 100 years ago, the middle class' purchasing power is far bigger.

Compared to 50 years ago, the middle class is getting poorer.

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upvoteby andsoitis1 hours ago|
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> 100 years ago, the middle class' purchasing power is far bigger. Compared to 50 years ago, the middle class is getting poorer.

What’s your data source?

Keep in mind that the modern, mass middle class was created in the mid-20th century through government policies and post-WWII economic growth.

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upvoteby blmarket1 hours ago|
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Am I the only Korean(or other countries under colonialism) laughing?
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upvoteby SpicyLemonZest2 hours ago|
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The typical middle class family 50 years ago lived in a house you’d consider small and dingy, ate food you’d consider poverty meals, and drove a car you’d consider a poorly assembled death trap. Ask your parents or grandparents how often they got to have real butter growing up.
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upvoteby fl4regun1 hours ago|
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This is a truth very few people are willing to confront. My grandmother lived in a village, on a farm, growing her own food and slaughtering her own animals, with no working plumbing, using a well for water. Of course a lot of that changed even just moving up to the 70s, but at that point there still wasn't quite the consumerist "buy whatever you want from wherever and whomever you want and have it almost immediately" environment. I can go to a grocery store here in Canada, buy tropical fruits year round that grow nowhere near me. I never have to concern myself with "this ingredient won't be here because it is seasonal", it'll be there, it'll just be more expensive out of season, worst case I just have to go a bit farther out to a different grocer than I usually go to.
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upvoteby antasvara18 minutes ago|
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This point is valid. However, lifestyle improvement rate is something that's slowing over time because of physical constraints.

For example, the vehicle mortality rate is 1.44 per 100 million miles driven. That's down 17% from 2000 (so 25 years ago). However, the change from 1975 to 2000 was 53%. That's because as we get closer to 0, it gets harder and harder to improve those rates. On this metric at least, I don't think another 25 years will result in a noticeable amount of improvement?

In the other direction, some things will become scarcer (and therefore cost more). Real estate is the obvious one; we can't create more land, and we keep having more people. Easily accessible drinking water is another; desalination is getting cheaper, but it's still way more expensive than pumping aquifer water.

And some improvements are necessarily 1 time things. You can get tropical fruits year round, but that's been widely available since the 80-90's from what I can tell. So come 20 years from now, what will people be able to buy in a grocery store that I can't buy right now?

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upvoteby RichardCA1 hours ago|
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I'll just add...

Being able to eat pork without cooking it to death for fear of trichinosis is a recent development.

Also, the old movies where someone tries to commit suicide by sticking their head in an oven. That was coal gas and we don't heat homes with it anymore.

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upvoteby lanstin1 hours ago|
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Or fresh oranges.
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upvoteby andrepd1 hours ago|
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That's total bullshit. Middle class families in 1976 did NOT live in smaller houses than today, and certainly did NOT eat "poverty meals"... What on earth are you even talking about.

Especially silly that you mention housing because if there's one thing that is absolutely fucked for the middle class of the 2020s is housing.

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upvoteby SpicyLemonZest18 minutes ago|
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Again, I would encourage you to research historical statistics or talk to people who lived in 1976 about their practical living conditions, rather than going off of your intuition about what is "bullshit" or which things are "absolutely fucked". Our intuitions about these things are heavily warped by social media, where stories that feel true without being true are easy to tell and often more viral.

In every developed country whose numbers I've seen, the size of the average living space is up 30-50% since 50 years ago.

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