Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?

themoneyillusion.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 72 posts

Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?

#31

Post by _delirium »

NickPollard wrote: post #9

Maybe it's just the fact that I'm a hacker and a child of the digital age, but I'd take the ability to have a 1ghz computer in my pocket connected to the entire world for a couple of hundred bucks, against paying thousands of dollars for a machine that probably can't even do truetype rendering.

When it comes to computers, I think I'd pick 1985 over either one. Access to affordable home computers, networkability via BBSs and BBS networks, a sense of cyberspace-can-be-anything possibilities, a nice mesh of connected-but-not-flattened online communities, etc. I guess I don't care that much about truetype rendering; I even like 1985-era videogames better.

Wikipedia, open-access academic literature, online reservations for various things, and home data-crunching abilities are nice, though.

Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?

#33

Post by georgieporgie »

Vivtek wrote: post #4

Rich in 1900 is my choice. I'll bet the food then rocked - I'll just take one year's income at face value and the house I'm living in now, without 111 years of intervening decay. The rich industrialist who lived here in 1900 will have to find new digs. But no contest. I'd turn back that clock right now.

> I'll bet the food then rocked

Really?

Sure, sun-ripened fruits eaten at their peak would be delicious. But you'd be stuck eating whatever could be had within a few miles of your home. You could migrate with the seasons to widen your annual food selection, but that would be extremely costly.

The quality of many individual food items in the early 1900s would probably be better than 1960. Take instant coffee, Coors, and Wonderbread for example. But Starbucks and micro brews have paved the way back to high standards for these items nowadays.

Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?

#34

Post by WildUtah »

CamperBob wrote: post #10
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of food do you think you'd get in 1900 that you couldn't get today?

It would be like going to Mexico and drinking the local water. You'd have no immunity to whatever bugs were commonly in food at that (pre-refrigeration) time.

Nobody drinks the local water in Mexico, including Mexicans. It's the food that carries novel fauna.

And it isn't the food that would get you. It's the smallpox.

Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?

#35

Post by Vivtek »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #7
Vivtek wrote: post #4

Rich in 1900 is my choice. I'll bet the food then rocked - I'll just take one year's income at face value and the house I'm living in now, without 111 years of intervening decay. The rich industrialist who lived here in 1900 will have to find new digs. But no contest. I'd turn back that clock right now.

What kind of food do you think you'd get in 1900 that you couldn't get today?

Grown right here. I grew up here - Good Food.

Well, in the summer, anyway. And in the winter I shall take the train to Cuba and have oranges till I burst.

Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?

#36

Post by hyperbovine »

petervandijck wrote: post #14
Vivtek wrote: post #4

Rich in 1900 is my choice. I'll bet the food then rocked - I'll just take one year's income at face value and the house I'm living in now, without 111 years of intervening decay. The rich industrialist who lived here in 1900 will have to find new digs. But no contest. I'd turn back that clock right now.

No sushi. No TV. Few interesting books. I could go on.

> Few interesting books.

Except for Dickens, Shakespeare, Poe, Austen, Twain, Dostoyevksy, Tolstoy, the Bronte sisters, Melville, Arthur Conan Doyle, Victor Hugo, Dumas, Thoreau, Marx, Henry James, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Joseph Conrad, Ibsen, George Eliot, Oscar Wilde ... (I could go on.)

Yep, it was a real literary dark ages back then.

Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?

#37

Post by jhamburger »

orangecat wrote: post #24
jhamburger wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on whether this is a time-travel question, or a 'when would you rather be born' question. You wouldn't miss things that you don't know exist.

You wouldn't miss things that you don't know exist. I "miss" not having a heads-up display in my glasses or contacts or optic nerve, and not being able to prevent my body and mind from failing due to aging. I'd choose middle class in 2049 over rich in 2011 for the same reasons that I'd choose 2011 over 1973.

Yes but you're talking about life-altering technology...That's the author's whole point, most of that stuff already happened by 1973. That's why he'd take 1973 instead of 1900 or whenever. We mostly live the same way now as we did in 1973, just with more gadgets. If you said "I miss not having holographic phones and VR porn" that would be a better example.

Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?

#38

Post by Vivtek »

petervandijck wrote: post #14
Vivtek wrote: post #4

Rich in 1900 is my choice. I'll bet the food then rocked - I'll just take one year's income at face value and the house I'm living in now, without 111 years of intervening decay. The rich industrialist who lived here in 1900 will have to find new digs. But no contest. I'd turn back that clock right now.

No sushi. No TV. Few interesting books. I could go on.

Dude. I already know how to make sushi, and I don't have a TV now.

There are plenty of interesting books in a library that's way classier than the one we have now - and the Wright Brothers live down the street (well; they might have gone to Dayton by 1900) and plenty of other tinkers and inventors. There were more patents in this county in 1900 than any other county in the United States.

1900 in Richmond, Indiana was where it was at.

Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?

#39

Post by forensic »

If I can have dinners at expensive restaurants, yachts, manors, apartments throughout the world, unlimited access to high class prostitutes, the respect, deference, fear, and love of the masses who stand in awe of my wealth...

rich in pretty much ANY time.

No matter what year it is it's always better to be on top. That's where most of the human pleasure comes from.

Xboxes and iPhones are really no substitute for being on top of society.

Re: Would You Rather Be Middle Class in 2011 or Rich in 1973?

#40

Post by [deleted] »

orangecat wrote: post #24
jhamburger wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on whether this is a time-travel question, or a 'when would you rather be born' question. You wouldn't miss things that you don't know exist.

You wouldn't miss things that you don't know exist. I "miss" not having a heads-up display in my glasses or contacts or optic nerve, and not being able to prevent my body and mind from failing due to aging. I'd choose middle class in 2049 over rich in 2011 for the same reasons that I'd choose 2011 over 1973.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN