“What do you mean you work more hours than us for less in return? Doesn’t your king fear a revolt?”
We get less of a percentage of our work, but certainly get more absolute value.
The gains in efficiency over the last hundred years have been insane. Today’s crumbs are better than the whole cookie back then.
No more dirt floors, indoor plumbing, electricity, books, etc.
100 years ago, great grandpa was teaching little Appalachian boys who didn’t wear shoes except in the winter.
82 years ago, grandad was a Torpedo Man 3rd class getting asbestos rained on his head every time my wife’s ancestors scored a close hit.
45 years ago, at my other great grandpa’s place in Louisiana, there were black families down the road living in shacks. However you’re picturing a shack, it was worse.
38 years ago, there was a sport called “f** bashing”. Hicks or punkers would wait for gays to come out the bar and beat the shit out of 'em.
38 years ago, we Gen X kids casually lived under threat of global thermonuclear war. Meh. No biggie.
Yeah, not only did efficiency go through the roof, everything got better.
I think the big thing is that they can and should be better than this, too. We shouldn’t have to settle when we’ve made enough abundance for everyone.
Personally, I still want people desperate enough to do shitty jobs like dealing with trash and sewage and people. But I think we have enough to pay those people good money, give them good healthcare, an otherwise comfortable financial life, let them work 32 hours a week, and let them retire at 65.
Basically what unions would have given is if they hadn’t been gutted.
You’re right, it’s the should be better that’s important. But I think we can say that about nearly every human culture in history. It’s just that now we can see how fucked up inequality is.
And the study that the claim is made from is fairly dubious. It really only applies to specific types of peasants, during a specific period of time, in specific locations, and counts certain types of infrequent religious breaks from work as a common place given.
No, we get more convenience
In exchange for indoor plumbing, we don’t have the time to do our chores. In exchange for concrete foundations and plastic floors, the entire world is poisoned and we no longer have community bonds. In exchange for electricity, we lost nature
We work far more than we ever have, and for what? To destroy our bodies and live in anxiety of losing what we have?
What truly matters in life?
I’m not saying it’s all bad, but there’s a balance. We live in the most exciting times in history - it’s so absurdly convenient, but it’s also deeply horrible
we don’t have the time to do our chores
You also don’t have to cobble your own shoes or darn your only pair of socks.
It isn’t a serious perspective to say that medieval peasants had it better than anyone in a first world country today.
The romans figured that shit out a while ago already: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction, or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace […]
Honestly that’s a thing today as well. Though funny enough the current US admin is trying it’s best to remove the bread part of that and only keep the circus. Hopefully they find out the hard way why both are needed.
I mean, they’re definitely not providing the circus.
The phrase literally refers to giving people loaves of bread and a more frequent holding of games and public entertainment to keep people happy, not the notion of just distracted.
The current admin is making it harder for people to meet basic needs, and not doing anything to pump approval ratings.
A more modern sense would be to look for ways to make life easier that doesn’t fix anything, and to make life better that doesn’t improve anything, but has the perk of being explicitly because of the admin. A check for $500 and a set of movie tickets.deleted by creator
Oh they’re providing a circus. They’re all three rings.
The amount of stuff even a relatively poor person has in a developed country would be mind blowing for a medieval peasant.
“You have running water, hot water on demand, and pipes to carry your shit away to a far away land??? You must be the king of kings!”
A medieval peasant would lose their mind eating a Dorito. Snacks nowadays are literally engineered to hijack our brains.
They’re also incredibly bad for you. They’re like drinking oil with a little bit of crushed flour and salt mixed in.
Which is also what makes them super delicious. Fat, crunch, Umami, salt. Most snacks also have sugar added even if they’re not “sweet”.
I truly find them disgusting. This is really starting to seem like astroturfing. I’m borderline about pulling it.
I don’t think it’s astroturfing to talk about what food engineers have figured out about human taste preferences.
A lot of people spent a lot of time and money figuring out what drives people to mindlessly eat. Then the ignored the health ramifications and started selling a lot of products that are just different textures of salted sugar fat with glutamate.
Same reason you’ll absentmindedly eat a basket of bread if you have cinnamon butter, or cinnamon rolls.
We can use the food science to predict that there’s probably a mild aged cheese that would be great on a cinnamon roll.So what do you hate about doritos?
Too salty for my taste, the cheese ones make me feel awful and every other flavor tastes like gym bag smell.
Oh, and the dehydration mixed with salt blowing out your taste buds makes water taste off, so you’re just dehydrated longer.Are you actually thinking that a joke image where someone isn’t overly impressed with doritos is viral advertising? On a platform with negligible traffic? With shills who call the product unhealthy?
That’s so weird I might not even be able to finish my Crystal Pepsi ®.
Dude, what? I am not a shill Big Junk Food. I’m pointing out how companies make the stuff hyperpalatable to get people to eat more of it. It’s unfortunately contributing to the obesity epidemic and not good for people.
To be clear, I don’t think OP is astroturfing. Wasn’t sure about you and you’re obviously not. I like having this stay up to explain it all though and I have to test it.
I was wrong and it doesn’t seem to be astroturfing. Cool.
I’m an idiot, are you positing this whole post is essentially an advertisement?
Astroturfing is the deceptive practice of hiding the sponsors of an orchestrated message or organization (e.g., political, economic, advertising, religious, or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from, and is supported by, unsolicited grassroots participants.[1] It is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations credibility by withholding information about the source’s financial backers.
oil with a little bit of crushed flour and salt mixed in
don’t forget the sugar!
It’s called Bliss Point! I just listened to a Stuff You Should Know podcast episode about it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food)
They’d honestly probably hate it. Ultra processed foods are disgusting if you’re not used to them, there’s a gross kinda chemically undertone to the flavor that sticks to your tongue. Normally it’s covered up by making your taste buds overload, but new tastes stand out. It helps develop aversions if we get food poisoning from trying new foods
They’d also be going from never tasting spices before to total overload. A lot of them would react like people do to tear gas
Now, if they powered through and kept eating they’d probably get addicted, but it would be an acquired taste
Ultra processed foods are disgusting if you’re not used to them
This is why so many kids never even get started eating junk food.
If the peasant is from medieval Japan, they may at least understand the umami component
But if you gave them Takis…
Hot Cheetos and Takis AND the accompanying music video… that’s how you blow some minds
A while back I saw a response to that tweet, it went something like
How many of us would throw up if we had to pluck and gut a chicken? The dorito isn’t that impressive.
I wouldn’t throw up, I just wouldn’t do it.
You wouldn’t do it… at first.
Hunger has a way of motivating people.
