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Life Improvements Since the 1990s

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Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#61

Post by dboreham »

gbrown wrote: post #52
aaron695 wrote: post #19

Time between 1990 to now is not linear. The web kicked off in the late 90's, picked up the 2000's but not real fast, and now is really flying and one assumes it will continue to accelerate. Power tools are amazing. And that's the internet pushing them. I can see reviews with each new advancement anywhere in the world. They can see R&D around the world. Each company has to keep up and so do the counterfeiters. I'll or…

What major power tool innovations have happened since 1990? Battery tech is the only big one I can think of.

That's not a small factor though as it reduces size and weight considerably. Also motor and motor control tech has improved significantly.

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#63

Post by the-dude »

nivenkos wrote: post #34
jacob019 wrote: post #6

I like how the EU is listed under technology.

And then brings in legislation like the Cookie notices and Link Tax, but does absolutely nothing to protect and drive the European Tech industry (where is the European FAANG?), allowing monopolistic American corporations to ship all the high-paying jobs to the US. Europe had ARM, a whole slew of microcomputer companies (and still the Raspberry Pi foundation today), Nokia, Linux, MySQL, etc. - all largely sold off or…

Isn't this openess forced upon the EU by their strongest ally?

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#64

Post by thundergolfer »

iambateman wrote: post #14

I often ask people: “if you could be 20-years old in 1991 or 2021, which would you pick?” An incredible number of people pick ‘91. Some people even ask to go back to the seventies. This article explains why I would much rather be young now rather than before.

Going to be another person commenting that they'd seriously consider 1991 (as long as I had the smarts to still go into software). Jump back to 1991 as a 20yr old and head to the recruitment fair stalls of Sun Microsystems / DEC / Apple / Adobe / Microsoft.

Google search and showers that stay hot are pretty nice, but the relative difficulty of accessing quality education, jobs, and housing probably turn out to be much more significant as you exit your 20s in 2031 and think about starting a family.

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#65

Post by skinkestek »

wyldfire wrote: post #42

> Car Theft is rarer, and in particular, we no longer have to worry about our car windows being smashed to steal our car radios > Remember when physically detaching your car radio to avoid leaving it in the car was considered a 100% normal thing to do? Why is it rarer, I wonder? I do recall having a detachable faceplate on my car radio. I sold that car in ~2010 or so but stopped bothering with the detaching long befo…

Norway had a lot of car infotaintment theft as late as a couple of years ago.

I think some Eastern European gang perfected a way to smash windows and grab the valuable parts because at some point arrests were made and after that I haven't heard about it.

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#66

Post by lotsofpulp »

Clubber wrote: post #36
lotsofpulp wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand why averages are so often used rather than deciles or even quintiles.

Not always, but a lot of times people pick the number that supports their conclusion. For example, worker pay. If you want to make it seem higher, include the executives and do a mean average. Life expectancy works the same way. It's not that adults typically died at age 30, it's the number is a mean and includes child deaths which was a lot at the time. If you have 4 people, 2 are 60 and 2 died at birth, the mean ag…

Yes, I cannot see any non cynical reason why the source of the data would want to only release the average. And even then, they usually do not specify what kind of average!

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#67

Post by jasode »

iambateman wrote: post #14

I often ask people: “if you could be 20-years old in 1991 or 2021, which would you pick?” An incredible number of people pick ‘91. Some people even ask to go back to the seventies. This article explains why I would much rather be young now rather than before.

>I often ask people: “if you could be 20-years old in 1991 or 2021, which would you pick?” An incredible number of people pick ‘91. Some people even ask to go back to the seventies.

There's a podcast by Jason Feifer (was called Pessimists Archive) where the repeated theme across many episodes is the recurring fallacy of the "good ole days": https://www.jasonfeifer.com/build-for-tomorrow/

E.g. you ask today's generation and they say the "good old days" was 1991; but if you ask those in 1991 what the good old days were, they wouldn't say "right now!" ... they'd say 1970s. And if you ask those in 1970s... they'd say... (you get the point).

So the conclusion is either...

- the true good old days after connecting the survey across centuries was actually the prehistoric cave man days of hunting & gathering

... or ...

- every generation repeats the rose-colored glasses narrative because we bias the past with positive memories and the bias the present with negative current events

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#68

Post by rthomas6 »

But are people happier and more fulfilled? Are they more able to have a meaning-filled life surrounded by people with whom they have close and lasting relationships?

What should we be measuring when we measure improvement?

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#69

Post by technothrasher »

iambateman wrote: post #14

I often ask people: “if you could be 20-years old in 1991 or 2021, which would you pick?” An incredible number of people pick ‘91. Some people even ask to go back to the seventies. This article explains why I would much rather be young now rather than before.

I was 20-years old in 1991. It was good.

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#70

Post by bennyp101 »

iambateman wrote: post #14

I often ask people: “if you could be 20-years old in 1991 or 2021, which would you pick?” An incredible number of people pick ‘91. Some people even ask to go back to the seventies. This article explains why I would much rather be young now rather than before.

I was 7 then, and just getting into computers - playing with BASIC on the CPC464) so being 20 then would have been awesome, although I’d be proper old now ;)
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