What those people in 1891 had was less expectation inasmuch as they didn't have a measure of happiness or personal achievement that they measured against people they didn't know but were expected to ape. In 1891 your blacksmith knew who he was, what he did and what he expected from his life within the boundaries of his life - he didn't wonder whether he was a woman or whether he was practising the wrong religion or whether his job was emitting climate changing pollutants or whether his children were gay or depressed or autistic. Consequently he could live more in the moment, especially as he could catch a nasty proper virus and die at any moment! So his problems were realistic and related to what was around him - break his arm at work and his kids would go hungry, take a day off work to go to the seaside and lose a day's pay. A totally more "real" sort of stress I feel.
Precisely! He wouldn't have spent each moment of empty time scrolling mindlessly through social media, making himself feel inadequate. As for Covid. I wonder what he would have made of it all.
He would have been baffled by the fuss over covid! He would have been far more fearful of cutting himself and getting tetanus or seeing his kids get diptheria. Covid killed those with illnesses that were going to kill them anyway. Or the "treatment" killed them. Our imaginary blacksmith would have taken the usual treatments (a good old mustard plaster and a nice hot toddy) and would have got over covid (or, "a cold" as he would have called it) and back to work within days!
During my engineering degree the maths professor shared this view:
Greed, not capitalism, drives individuals to seek the bigger / better 'machine', to control more, to get more profit. The 'machine' complexity soon exceeds the understanding of those who command it's creation and with each successive machine there is increasing reliance on specialist creators until they too become superfluous. Connection (i.e., understanding) by those who seek to control and the devices they use is essential - simply relying on others is dangerous.
Now those who have simply sought profit at all costs face their own imminent redundancy.
The person who prices everything, may not know the value of anything.
Worse - nobody knows how this will play out, except via massive and abrupt financial re-alignment.
The rise of the experts is a dangerous phenomenon, making the masses increasingly reliant on an ever-smaller number of highly powerful people. It is a basic premise in the 'you will own nothing and be happy' equation, the second half of which I am highly sceptical about!
Interesting observations. The cost of the house in 1995 is around the same as it is today... but only when you price it in gold. Pricing houses in terms of other real things removes at once all the deception: that is, the continuous and deliberate devaluation of the pounds/dollars/your-fiat-of-choice in our pocket/central bank digital wallet.
Hard to say. I doubt the nonsense would survive an actual crisis - people won't care about whether they feel a little genderqueer when they are fighting over a potato - but the extension of control and power that such a crisis would enable would be terrifying.
What those people in 1891 had was less expectation inasmuch as they didn't have a measure of happiness or personal achievement that they measured against people they didn't know but were expected to ape. In 1891 your blacksmith knew who he was, what he did and what he expected from his life within the boundaries of his life - he didn't wonder whether he was a woman or whether he was practising the wrong religion or whether his job was emitting climate changing pollutants or whether his children were gay or depressed or autistic. Consequently he could live more in the moment, especially as he could catch a nasty proper virus and die at any moment! So his problems were realistic and related to what was around him - break his arm at work and his kids would go hungry, take a day off work to go to the seaside and lose a day's pay. A totally more "real" sort of stress I feel.
Precisely! He wouldn't have spent each moment of empty time scrolling mindlessly through social media, making himself feel inadequate. As for Covid. I wonder what he would have made of it all.
He would have been baffled by the fuss over covid! He would have been far more fearful of cutting himself and getting tetanus or seeing his kids get diptheria. Covid killed those with illnesses that were going to kill them anyway. Or the "treatment" killed them. Our imaginary blacksmith would have taken the usual treatments (a good old mustard plaster and a nice hot toddy) and would have got over covid (or, "a cold" as he would have called it) and back to work within days!
During my engineering degree the maths professor shared this view:
Greed, not capitalism, drives individuals to seek the bigger / better 'machine', to control more, to get more profit. The 'machine' complexity soon exceeds the understanding of those who command it's creation and with each successive machine there is increasing reliance on specialist creators until they too become superfluous. Connection (i.e., understanding) by those who seek to control and the devices they use is essential - simply relying on others is dangerous.
Now those who have simply sought profit at all costs face their own imminent redundancy.
The person who prices everything, may not know the value of anything.
Worse - nobody knows how this will play out, except via massive and abrupt financial re-alignment.
The rise of the experts is a dangerous phenomenon, making the masses increasingly reliant on an ever-smaller number of highly powerful people. It is a basic premise in the 'you will own nothing and be happy' equation, the second half of which I am highly sceptical about!
Interesting observations. The cost of the house in 1995 is around the same as it is today... but only when you price it in gold. Pricing houses in terms of other real things removes at once all the deception: that is, the continuous and deliberate devaluation of the pounds/dollars/your-fiat-of-choice in our pocket/central bank digital wallet.
You may be poorer but you have more online streaming platforms available to you than at any other point in history. Do you not feel rich?
No. I feel mightily ripped off.
Hard to say. I doubt the nonsense would survive an actual crisis - people won't care about whether they feel a little genderqueer when they are fighting over a potato - but the extension of control and power that such a crisis would enable would be terrifying.