Life Improvements Since the 1990s • Hacker News Board

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#91

Post by __s » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #67

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 generat…

Alternatively, it's a bit of Future Shock

I grew up in the 90s, & maybe I'd do better as a 20 year old in 1991 rather than 2031 (too young to say 20 in 2021; I've succeeded already close enough to there), but I'd rather grow up in the 2000s than grow up in the 80s

There's a kind of arbitrage, where if I could take my technical abilities from 2010 back to 1990, I'd probably do pretty well. I'm not so sure about taking those abilities to 2030. So you need to frame your question more clearly: at what age does the time travel occur? For simplicity I assume the only age you've given: 20. If it's about when we're born, then that's a completely different human being

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#92

Post by blfr » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

Clothing has become almost “too cheap to meter” and we have things pretty good now when it comes to food yet people seem to be poorly dressed and obese. Many other technological and social improvements also feel hollow to me for that reason: they're not making our lives meaningfully better.

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#93

Post by nivenkos » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #71

nivenkos wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'91 would be better though - better salaries in a lot of jobs, and lower house prices. GPS on the phone is awesome, but I'd still prefer financial security.

>better salaries in a lot of jobs Factory jobs that is probably true in general--though you're still into the period when a lot of traditional union manufacturing jobs were leaving (or had left) the country. As an engineer/software developer, you're probably going to be paid about $40K for an entry-level position [ADDED: For the US at a "tech" company]. And there is basically no equivalent to routine FAANG SWE salari…

My entry level software job was $35k in 2015 in London! Outside the US, jobs across the board paid a lot more before 2008.

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#94

Post by dalbasal » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #87

dalbasal wrote: post #81

This reminds me of a golden age blog post, when lists turned out to be an understudied literary device. I'm a fan of "dumps." Some interestingly debatable ones here: " Intellectual Property Maximalism rollback: copyright terms have not and probably will not be indefinitely extended again to eternity to protect Mickey Mouse, and in 2019, for the first time since 1998, works entered the public domain " I think the easy…

>What happens to stuff that doesn't get patented? It's public. Or it's kept as a trade secret.

True. I considered clarifying, but didn't to be concise. I think publication as a reasoning for granting patents is superseded. It's mostly relevant to the history of patents, not the present.

You can't be secretive about a UI, or the chemical composition of a drug.

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#95

Post by tarr11 » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

rthomas6 wrote: post #68

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?

At the most basic level, life expectancy has increased everywhere [0] and so quality of life has increased for a large number of people who would otherwise be dead.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#96

Post by Clubber » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #76

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.

2021 if only for the health improvements without trying: - You grew up in an era of not inhaling cancerous smoke everywhere you go - Even unhealthy foods are less unhealthy due to removing hydrogenated fats from foods (god were they tasty though) - Cars are safer than ever - The environment is cleaner than it has been in decades The past always looks better. People still want to return to the 50's and most of them we…

>You grew up in an era of not inhaling cancerous smoke everywhere you go

A recent study (2013) suggests that the idea that second hand smoke has a direct link to cancer wasn't entirely accurate.

https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/105/24/1844/2517805

>Even unhealthy foods are less unhealthy due to removing hydrogenated fats from foods

I would say food is far more unhealthy today than in 1991. There is sugar and bastardized sugar in everything. Sugar is addictive and food manufacturers use it to get people addicted to their food. Instead of eating for nutrition, people eat for that sugar hit, and you almost can't escape it. Try finding prepackaged foods in the grocery store without some form of sugar in it.

https://www.addictioncenter.com/drugs/sugar-addiction/

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#97

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#98

Post by ghaff » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

namdnay wrote: post #80

thundergolfer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 muc…

Now I could understand this as a blue collar worker, but you’re saying you’d prefer to be a software engineer in 91 than 2021? Come on, of pretty much all the professions were the ones who have reaped the most benefits of the past 30 years

Arguably in 1991, you're getting in on the ground floor but it's a mixed bag. Your new grad salary is probably going to be around $40K or so in the US. And dot-bomb is 10 years in the future.

And that list of companies is sort of a mixed bag.

Adobe has mostly done pretty well through the years.

Sun Microsystems did have a very good decade through the dot-com years but then didn't.

Apple was really struggling at that time.

DEC was on the way down and would be bought by HP a few years later.

Microsoft was about to launch Windows NT so that was a pretty good place to hop on but obviously went on to have a long period of stagnation.

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#99

Post by nivenkos » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 1:43 PM UTC

light_hue_1 wrote: post #72

nivenkos wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, now white men are discriminated against in a lot of Tech companies under the guise of fighting "white privilege" and promoting diversity (note this does not include class or background) - meanwhile class differences (inheritance, home ownership, etc.) are more important than ever.

> Indeed, now white men are discriminated against in a lot of Tech companies under the guise of fighting "white privilege" and promoting diversity Tech is 2% black, but white people are being discriminated against? You mean by being promoted, having huge salaries, and getting all of jobs? oh my! The historically disadvantaged white american community should really organize together. Maybe under a white flag. I know.…

I'm not American, yet almost all Tech companies have inherited this Identity Politics culture.

It feels like such a huge step backwards to have scholarships, fast track programmes, etc. rule out great applicants solely based on their skin colour.

Re: Life Improvements Since the 1990s

#100

Post by MontyCarloHall » Thu, Aug 12, 2021, 1:44 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #18

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average vs. median have grown fairly proportionally since 2000 [0]. Note, this chart is adjusted for inflation. [0] https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/gs-live/uploads%2F1527022...

This is a better graph including the past 5 years: https://cdn.dqydj.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/inflation-m... Source: https://dqydj.com/individual-income-by-year/

Looks like that despite the top <=10% seeing a disproportionate increase in their income, the overall average and median are still growing relatively proportionally, though not to the same degree as 5 years ago.