We live like Gods compared to people of the 1800s.
Some of us do. If you're at the poorer end of society things are still pretty damn bleak. People live with long term treatable illness. People don't have basic necessities like shelter or food or water. People live with very little prospect of escaping a life of drudgery. Sure, those of us who can afford them have lots of shiny gadgets that save us from a bit of manual labor, but that's not really worth much if stepping outside of your front door means you're scared of being mugged.
I'm not saying I'd give any of it up. Hell no. I'm saying that a few less rockets and a few more homeless shelters might go some way to helping balance things out a little.
Strongly advise reading Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the 21st Century.
One of the key points made in the book, which is full of wonderful data and is a GREAT read if you’re into that sort of thing, was the idea that *wealth is much more unequal than income*.
From Vox’s coverage of the book:
> You hear a lot about income inequality, but as this chart makes clear wealth inequality is much more severe. In the United States, just 1 percent of the population owns about 35 percent of all the wealth. Even in relatively egalitarian Europe, the top 1 percent owns around 25 percent of the wealth. In both continents, the top 10 percent owns over half the wealth.
It’s hugely important to understand that point, which gets lost frequently.
You can’t argue about the benefits of the system — they are material. You can try to argue about global incomes rising. But it’s a hard argument to win when it comes to global wealth distribution.
> People don't have basic necessities like shelter or food or water.
In relative terms, almost none. I'm not sure how they compare in absolute terms, but just the answer not being obvious while the population increased by an order of magnitude already makes your claim quite bad.
> People live with very little prospect of escaping a life of drudgery.
And nobody had no prospect back them.
You can complain that there are some people living almost as badly as people lived in the 1800s. But it's not the majority by far, and you can't claim they are currently living worse.
And, of course, none of that is reason to not demand better things.
As many have pointed out, technological advancement is pointless without social advancement. We have learnt how to treat diseases 10 times over at this point, and yet people still live with them. That is a failure at engineering our social system. Social change is the decisive factor. Technological change without social change is just giving the rich new ways to subjugate or ignore the poor.
This is total bullshit. Rich or poor, infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate have plunged. The rich do better than the poor, but you're not losing your firstborn to cholera and shit. We have antibiotics and post-natal care. Shit is good now. Forget 200 years ago like the OP said. Try just 1900: 9 out of every 1000 live births resulted in mum dying. Today? In the bottom quartile in my state of California? 18. Per. Hundred Thousand. That's right, two orders of magnitude, almost three.
Back then there were cities in the US where a third of newborns wouldn't see their first birthday. Look at us now! We stand like a colossus. Our children stand healthy. Strong.
You've created some fictional subjugation narrative that is nothing near the truth.
No it's not bullshit. Obviously over time all our conditions improve, partially because eventually it just becomes so cheap to do this stuff that even the peasants can get it, or because there was actual TANGIBLE SOCIAL CHANGE. It's usually both. In the UK the NHS was created after ww2, by golly isn't it a feat of technology that less poor people die here. In fact our life expectancy for the poorest is several years higher than in the US, and some countries in Europe have a life expectancy for the poorest people that is 10 years higher than the US. God, I thought the US had some of the most advanced technology on earth? How can this be the case? Surely it can't be beacause of social policy?????? heavy /s
Some of us do. If you're at the poorer end of society things are still pretty damn bleak. People live with long term treatable illness. People don't have basic necessities like shelter or food or water. People live with very little prospect of escaping a life of drudgery. Sure, those of us who can afford them have lots of shiny gadgets that save us from a bit of manual labor, but that's not really worth much if stepping outside of your front door means you're scared of being mugged.
I'm not saying I'd give any of it up. Hell no. I'm saying that a few less rockets and a few more homeless shelters might go some way to helping balance things out a little.