What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922) • Hacker News Board

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#431

Post by thegrimmest » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:08 PM UTC

NoGravitas wrote: post #414

thegrimmest wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the absolute end is that the state should enforce negative rights, not positive ones. Liberty is the freedom from interference by or obligation to other people. > Why can’t private individuals simply work things out on their own however they see fit? They can, so long as they do peacefully. What the state provides is simply due process for the resolution of disputes, and the expectation that this process will be…

“It is difficult for me to imagine what “personal liberty” is enjoyed by an unemployed hungry person. True freedom can only be where there is no exploitation and oppression of one person by another; where there is not unemployment, and where a person is not living in fear of losing his job, his home and his bread. Only in such a society personal and any other freedom can exist for real and not on paper.” - Ronald Rea…

> Ronald Reagan

you cheeky monkey

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#432

Post by Ancapistani » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:10 PM UTC

scottLobster wrote: post #264

Retric wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 1922s “middle class” experience is affordable for a most Americans today. As in shelter with heat, phone service, and electric lights but no appliances, no car, minimal access to effective healthcare etc. Upward mobility is still available and just as rare. The health, intelligence, and drive that allowed someone in 1922 to better themselves are the same things that still allow someone to better themselves in 2022.…

So? A middle class experience from 1622 is also affordable for most Americans today, and now we don't have to worry about raids from the natives! Clearly we have no right to complain /s I'm not arguing things are equivalent to 1922 on an absolute scale, but on a relative scale they're closer than they were in the recent past. The prosperity of the previous century has shifted the goal posts for what defines upper, mi…

I'm explicitly not replying to the meat of your comment, because I don't feel like I have anything to add to the productive discussion in this thread - which, by the way, I'm really enjoying reading :)

That said, this stood out to me:

> A job at Walmart making minimum wage [...]

According to Glassdoor[1], a retail cashier at Walmart with no experience earns an average of $22,049 / year. Assuming 50 weeks @ 40 hours per week, that's $11.05 / hour.

That does not include cash bonuses or profit sharing, which Glassdoor says adds another ~$1k.

Indeed.com[2] shows the average wage for a Walmart cashier is $10.56 - so we're at least in the right ballpark above.

My own experience at Walmart was unloading trucks from 4pm-1am the summer after I graduated high school (2002). I made $7.25 / hour then, when the minimum wage was $5.15.

Trying to build a life on that kind of money isn't easy, and I'm not trying to say that it is; I do want to point out that even Walmart doesn't pay minimum wage as a rule.

That's not to say there aren't other "tricks" that employers use, like limiting hours to prevent employees from qualifying from full-time benefits and such. There are.

The minimum wage in 1982 was $3.25. Today it's $7.25. The purchasing power of the minimum wage has certainly decreased, but I strongly suspect that many more businesses paid minimum wage in 1982 than 2022.

McDonald's in my town of 1: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Walmart-Guest-Service-Team-...

2: https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Walmart/salaries

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#433

Post by wbsss4412 » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:11 PM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #408

wbsss4412 wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like the government issuing their own currency still isn’t really the issue in this thought experiment…

It is though, since they can debase that self same currency as they see fit. This fundamentally changes the playing field when negotiating your taxes with the government. The only reason USD has any value at all is because it's what everyone has to pay taxes to the US government in, and what US bonds are paid in.

What you’re saying is essentially “imagine a government with the power to create laws that allow arbitrary imprisonment with no recourse, that would be tyrannical”, which, yes, but that only has to do with the currency because that’s what you chose for your example.

Said government could pass a law stating that all citizens must be in two places at once, and achieve the same effect.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#434

Post by deanCommie » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

xdennis wrote: post #302

deanCommie wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the United States is still one of the most free ... countries on the planet. By what metric? More importantly by what magnitude? Would "in the top 20" count? Axross 200 world countries maybe, but to patriotic Americans who speak about freedom abstractly, knowing that they are 16th in democracy [0], 44th in press freedom [1], and 20th in economic freedom [2], probably wouldn't cut it as "one of the top". [0] https:/…

Those rankings are very biased. The press one used to penalize countries at one point for not having journalist unions (don't know if they still do). As an example, the US press was allowed to publish on the Snowden leaks but in the UK policemen forced The Guardian to smash their hard drives. UK is 11 places above the US: https://rsf.org/en/ranking/2021 The freedom ones often pick and choose freedoms. For example: no…

I assure you, same sex marriage wasn't invented two decades ago. [0]

What was invented two decades ago is treating gay people with enough humanity to begin to CONSIDER giving them the same universal freedoms as straight people get.

So yeah, at this point, in 2022, same-sex marriage is an objective basic freedom. I am not interested in any religion-based counterarguments. Anyone's freedom to hold religious beliefs cannot impune on OTHER people's freedom, regardless of what religious people will claim.

Self-defense posession is a subjective one, I agree. I personally think it's an archaic freedom desire [1] (Honestly, to me comparable "I want the freedom to be able to beat my slave"). But I understand the alternative arguments. This one happens to be something on which the US is a massive outlier from the rest of the "developed" world.

The main point, though, is I don't think people on HackerNews seeking "freedom" are talking about freedom to own guns. I might be wrong.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage#Ancient

[1] https://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/18000520/gun-risk-death

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#435

Post by jakemoshenko » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:13 PM UTC

RedBeetDeadpool wrote: post #346

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> paper mache furniture Wait till you find out what that Ikea crap is made of. :)

I once put a stool on a coffee table to put up a few curtains and the leg of the stool went through the surface of the coffee table. That surface is more or less paper mache by my book. Maybe the "paper" in the "mache" is not as finely ground and instead made of more granular wood chips, but its definitely made of a thin lamination of wood grounds held together by some adhesive. Its light as a feather though, so that…

I had to drill a hole for cables with a hole saw in my wife's IKEA desk. Imagine my surprise when it was basically laminate on top of corrugated cardboard strips arranged vertically with actual empty space between them!

It might even be this exact one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vNRY6natiY

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#436

Post by krupan » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #372

> They will have rebelled against long hours; the chances are that in 2022 few people will work more than seven hours a day, if as much Bertrand Russell also famously predicted this. I believe I’ve read that in the 1800’s people were predicting industrialization would do away with labor. People are still predicting this today, with the advent of Machine Learning that’s good enough to automate things like driving. Wil…

"Will this prediction ever come true, or is there some kind of human nature that is going to keep us grinding away no matter what we invent?"

Seems abundantly clear to me that there indeed is something in our nature that keeps us grinding. I do hope that we at least continue to increase the freedom to choose what and when we grind

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#437

Post by hereforphone » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

You know what they call a quarter pounder in France?

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#438

Post by distances » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

mstade wrote: post #58

haunter wrote: post #15

>Similar reforms apply to cooking, a great deal of which will survive among old fashioned people, but a great deal more of which will probably be avoided by the use of synthetic foods. This is very interesting especially if you think "synthetic foods" not just literally but as take out, processed products and such. I know a lot of young professional people who technically never cook. Like almost never and whatever th…

> This is very interesting especially if you think "synthetic foods" not just literally but as take out, processed products and such. I know a lot of young professional people who technically never cook. Like almost never and whatever they have at home is just snacks, if you hungry > order. There are a lot people like these. Anecdata – I'm on of these people. I live in central Stockholm, Sweden, and almost any hour o…

I feel tossing together some basic meal is so simple I can't bother to go pick anything from outside even though I live in the middle of great restaurant concentration. A bit of frozen veggies heated on pan, with pasta or couscous on the side. Takes literally ten minutes and costs less than one euro.

Or a large casserole that takes an hour to cook but gives eight portions. Quick heat-up for lunch during the week saves time too, and you stay in control of the salt intake unlike with ready meals. So cheaper, healthier, faster. Downside is that those meals are pretty basic and repetitive, but then again eating out feels a bit more special if you don't do it every day.

I do cook "real" recipes too with more steps and more flavor, but only with my partner as I don't care to do it just for myself for weekday meals.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#439

Post by Aperocky » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:17 PM UTC

ghc wrote: post #198

Aperocky wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that: > I'm sure that technological advancement in 2022 will be amazing, but they will be nothing as amazing as the present day than it is over 100 years ago (i.e. 1822). I don't know about that statement.

If you think about what they didn't have in 1822 that they did have in 1922: - Radio - Movies - Motorized Rail Transit - Airplanes - Blimps - Recorded Audio - Electrification (esp. lighting) - Telephony - Cars - Subways - Fax - Early Television - Telegraph - Skyscapers - Underwater tunnels - Air Conditioning - Elevators - Modern Hospitals - Machine Guns, Tanks, Dreadnoughts and other tools of modern war - Stock Ticke…

What you described was the industrialization - what lacked in 1922, and would make at least a similar, inexplainable change for people of 1922 today is information revolution.

Information still traveled at human recognizable size in 1922, largely the same in 1822 (just got a bit faster over telegraph). Whereas today the first website you visit probably contained more information (bloat) sent to your phone than a person in 1922 would have came across in an entire year.

In other word, the largest transformation is not on the front end, but that doesn't make it less significant. Everyone can make a Google landing page - but it's the stuff behind it that makes it Google.

Re: What the world will be like in a hundred years (1922)

#440

Post by deanCommie » Thu, Jan 06, 2022, 7:18 PM UTC

mardifoufs wrote: post #268

deanCommie wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the United States is still one of the most free ... countries on the planet. By what metric? More importantly by what magnitude? Would "in the top 20" count? Axross 200 world countries maybe, but to patriotic Americans who speak about freedom abstractly, knowing that they are 16th in democracy [0], 44th in press freedom [1], and 20th in economic freedom [2], probably wouldn't cut it as "one of the top". [0] https:/…

Those rankings have absolutely 0 values. We are currently under our 2nd curfew in less than a year, I can't go outside after 10pm under the threat of a 2000$ fine (which the police is very heavily enforcing) and yet we are way up there in the list you linked. Complete joke

Well, when we're in the middle of a Global Pandemic, with the 5th-highest death toll in human history [0], a couple things have to change temporarily, don't you think?

Also, this is a Quebec-only curfew. Take it up with your provincial government. If separated as a country, perhaps Quebec wouldn't make the list. Quebec has plenty of other counter-freedom policies including your government-endorsed islamophobia.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics#By_death_tol...