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by Incipient7 hours ago |
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upvoteby WalterBright6 hours ago|
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America's poor today have clean water, health care, washing machines, central heating and air conditioning, flush toilets, hot and cold running water, electric lights, hot showers, fresh vegetables and fruit year round, glass windows, cotton undies, ice cream, TVs with 24/7 entertainment, talk to anyone in the world at the push of a button, need I go on?
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upvoteby TFYS4 hours ago|
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The poor have those things because they still have some amount of power. They're still needed for work, and if you make too many of them too desperate, they can threaten the people at the top. But if you let the wealth (and power) gap get too large this will no longer be the case, and the poor might lose access to those things. If the wealth gap becomes such that the rich can afford automated production and protection but the poor can not, the current economic and political systems will no longer have a reason to give access to any of those things to the poor.
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upvoteby ozim5 hours ago|
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I think you want to replace fresh vegetables and fruits with processed ready meals.

Being available is not equal to a person being able to afford it.

Maybe you were writing about middle class and not the poor?

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upvoteby ponector3 hours ago|
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You don't need to be a middle class to be able to afford electric lights, mobile phones, apples, oranges and grapes all year round.

On the other hand kings had free-range organic grown meat prepared by personal cook anytime they wanted which is a true luxury even today.

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upvoteby swiftcoder49 minutes ago|
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> On the other hand kings had free-range organic grown meat prepared by personal cook anytime they wanted which is a true luxury even

There is no refrigeration, so "fresh" meat has to be slaughtered the same day. Kings tended to live in populated areas, so wild game would be scarce. Majority of meat would have been pork kept in pens (not free-range in the modern sense), or mutton/goat (free range, but typically older and tougher). At the same time, even a king likely wasn't slaughtering 365 pigs/year just to have fresh meat every day - lots of dried, smoked, or even salted meat in the diet...

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upvoteby spwa42 hours ago|
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No they didn't. In castles meat wasn't very fresh at all, and food poisoning was both common and a common cause of death especially in medieval times. Which is why we have so many traditional dishes that are effectively just ways to keep food fresh and especially safe for longer. How many stew recipes did people invent worldwide, for example? Slow cooking will keep food edible for a week if you do it right. And if you really push it, for months (ie. add animal gelatin as a last step and keep cooking for 2 hours after that, at some point it will solidify and you get something that can be considered "instant soup" by extremely flexible interpretation). If you look back 100 years there are books with year-round menus, and bits of that survive. Why? To give you specific dishes when the ingredients are available according to the "agricultural calendar" as it's called in France. Christmas is great. October sucks.

The very oldest book in the bible contains the basic recipe for keeping meat fresh for ~week, and that's what Kosher, Halal, ... are really about.

And yeah, it depends. Roman emperors, for example, would have had fresh meat available whenever. Medieval kings, no way. Renaissance kings ... probably not constant fresh meat, and certainly not constant fresh fish, but a lot better than medieval kings.

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upvoteby ninjalanternshk2 hours ago|
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Kings has dozens or hundreds of people who did all those things for them, and more, at their command.
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upvoteby dtj11233 hours ago|
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I'm not to certain about the healthcare and aircon.
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upvoteby ndsipa_pomu2 hours ago|
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> America's poor today have clean water, health care

Clean water depends on how you define "clean" e.g. from https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/united-states-water-poll...

> Current EPA data reveals that nearly half of all tap water in the United States contains detectable levels of PFAS chemicals

There's also plenty of contamination violations (apart from maybe Hawaii with only 2) of the water supply.

As far as health care goes, I thought that most people in the USA will refuse to get an ambulance due to the expense. I've also heard of plenty of reports that poor people will not visit a doctor for minor health issues even though they may be early signs of much more serious issues.

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upvoteby Two45 hours ago|
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I think it’s disingenuous to imply that there isn’t an inequality issue because the basic standard of living has advanced since the Middle Ages. Even if we compare the standard of living for say, Mississippi lower third and Uganda lower third, it’s obvious that you’re better off in Mississippi. However, the fact that the wealth and means to uplift the poor actually exists in the US but is not exercised is itself an issue - Uganda does not have that possibility.
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upvoteby znpy4 hours ago|
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> Even if we compare the standard of living for say, Mississippi lower third and Uganda lower third, it’s obvious that you’re better off in Mississippi.

I mean, it’s no wonder people move from uganda to mississipi (or other places in the us) and not rhe other way around.

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upvoteby defrost4 hours ago|
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Uganda's a popular destination with US evangelical bible belt Christians.

* https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/feb/25/us-evang...

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upvoteby paulryanrogers30 minutes ago|
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Not to settle and raise their families
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upvoteby fodkodrasz4 hours ago|
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And none of these give them the freedom, agency, a past noble or a king had.

My parents had access to cheaper housing, less red-tape and fixed working hours, more job security than my generation, when I was born.

So now insert BUT THEY DIDN'T HAVE FLAT PANEL TV AND IPHONE in retarded Sponge Bob chicken meme here.

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upvoteby hardbass51 minutes ago|
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King is under a lot of pressure. If you can get most of the material comforts without the political and military pressure, I think people will choose modern life. Of course for a good test we somehow have to let them be king louise for some time and then let them decide.
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upvoteby socalgal26 hours ago|
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A medieval king had a better life than a medieval peasant. A medieval king, most of them, arguably did not have a better life than most of America's poor in 2026.

My memory might be faulty but I remember watching "The Lion in Winter" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqz3gkrmBbo) and feeling really happy I was not alive then, even as royalty. (hope that's the movie)

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upvoteby locknitpicker4 hours ago|
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> id still argue they had a better standard of living than someone that works 8-10h/day and then comes home to cook and clean?

You're somehow succumbing to the fallacy of the edilic life of old.

The same life where you had to have a dozen of kids to overcome infant mortality, and each time a woman gave birth it was like a Russian roulette.

And the average life expectancy was what? 40 years? You didn't had a midlife crisis because you'd be dead by then.

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upvoteby SJC_Hacker2 hours ago|
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Life expectancy was low mainly due to childhood diseases

If you lived to 20 you had a pretty good chance of making it to 70

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upvoteby hlynurd3 hours ago|
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> And the average life expectancy was what? 40 years?

The answer to this riddle lies in the previous paragraph

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