But then, he also had to serve in war. Medical care was not that advanced, you couldn't read about any niche topic you want online. Easy to see things through rose tinted glasses.
I wonder how many people would happily trade access to the web for a world where a laundry truck driver can afford a house. I imagine it's quite a lot.
I think the more interesting question would be, who is willing to trade peace for that? I think that it would be far harder to accept being shot at on the warfront than a world with no Internet.
Buying a house comes with a lot of responsibility and you basically give up any freedoms to be able to pay your mortgage, saved up for any repairs, and hope that a natural disaster doesn't wipe out your largest investment.
Comparatively, we're at the best time to be alive in history. I don't even know where the person I'm replying to lives, but I don't they will receive this message almost instantly.
I can learn about anything I want to, whenever I want.
I can travel almost anywhere without fear of getting lost.
I can order exotic things that I'd never see sticked on local shelves at the click of a mouse.
Life is pretty convenient and amazing and I'm okay sacrificing stress-filled homeownership for other luxuries.
(Not that we should have to, mind you, but that wasn't the question posed.)
And no philosophy worth anything would put any of the things you listed on the path to happiness. In fact, generally speaking, they are the opposite.
An infinite supply of anything to satisfy all of your desires does not lead to a fulfilling life -- just one with enough distractions to get you through the next day.
> Buying a house comes with a lot of responsibility and you basically give up any freedoms to be able to pay your mortgage, saved up for any repairs, and hope that a natural disaster doesn't wipe out your largest investment.
I think you kind of missed the point. The GP was talking about the days when a laundry truck driver could afford a house, i.e. a time when owning a house wasn't that big of a deal. If you could afford it as a laundry truck driver in your twenties, then you cold also afford to totally lose it, live as a renter for a few years, and buy another house in your thirties or forties. The entire point was, it didn't take such a crippling anmount of debt back then.
He had to serve in Germany during the Korean war. Still he got called up and posted away from his home, so you still have a point. I think it was people born in 1950 that had it easier, especially in the UK, since we didn't go to Vietnam.
In the US, the people that were born in the 1950s got to spend their teenage years not knowing if the Soviet Union is going to start World War III (the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 was definitely a forming event for many teenage minds), then got to go through the 70s with an energy crisis and the potential draft to Vietnam, and then another energy crisis, and then got to experience the Chernobyl disaster in the 80s, wondering if they should re-watch "Duck and cover" and wonder why that hole in the ozone layer gets bigger and bigger.
Every generation has its ups and downs. For my generation, I have to deal with sky-high real estate prices, but I also have access to an unprecedented amount of free entertainment, free knowledge, the cheap supercomputer in my pocket allows me to stay in touch with anyone that I want, and when I go to the doctor, I probably won't see people in iron lungs anymore. I can travel to anywhere in the world for ridiculously low prices, and if I don't speak the language, a live translation app will do the work for me.
No, it's not all sunshine and roses, and people are right to call out issues with the current state of the world because things are NOT alright. But it's not like things were sunshine and roses for our grandparents generation either.
> I also have access to an unprecedented amount of free entertainment, free knowledge, the cheap supercomputer in my pocket allows me to stay in touch with anyone that I want, and when I go to the doctor, I probably won't see people in iron lungs anymore. I can travel to anywhere in the world for ridiculously low prices, and if I don't speak the language, a live translation app will do the work for me.
All built on a global underclass that will never experience these things. All built on processes with unsustainable emissions that will cause horrible calamities in the future (and even now). This isn't good.
That's besides the point. Their dialogue is about how for all our efforts, the rich have only gotten richer and future generations are left in the dirt.
If medical care and peacetime and technology has progressed so much, why hasn't general living circumstances and wealth equity?
