alt Hacker NewsIs this some sort of a paid advertising piece, to make you feel better about inflation, lack of affordable medical care, lack of affordable housing, lack of jobs for recent graduates, etc...?
"Life is much better in 2026. We live healthier, richer, and longer lives, with better medicine and more self-determination." - I can't speak for 1926, but compared to 1980s or 1960s, this is so patently not true. The US population is much sicker and more obese, as one example. People are not starving, but at the cost of eating "manufactured" foods that will make them sick in 20 - 40 yrs. And so on. I don't see a lot of happy faces on the streets of America.
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Since he is explicitly comparing 2026 to 1926 I think his statement holds up.
> Is this some sort of a paid advertising piece, to make you feel better about inflation, lack of affordable medical care, lack of affordable housing, lack of jobs for recent graduates, etc...?
I don't see how anything in the article would influence anyone to feel better about those things.
I think it’s important to acknowledge that today U.S. citizens in the bottom economic decile live longer lives and do so with more comfort and convenience than even the wealthiest and most powerful people of 100 years ago. Not even the infamous robber barons, such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, with all their staggering wealth, had access to anything approaching modern health care (and dentistry!); air-conditioned comfort; television, instant communication across the planet via text, voice, and video; computers, let alone supercomputers in their pockets giving them the internet, Google, GPS, and approximately free and instant access to the world’s information.
Yes, there is still much work to be done to improve the United States, but I’d rather be poor in the United States today than wealthy in the United States 100 years ago. I suspect that most educated people would choose likewise.
People smoke a lot less. We have antibiotics. Life expectancy is up.
Even if food quality remained exactly the same… By definition Americans would still be on average slightly less healthy, and so on… since the population grew so much? (and grew older)
There’s no magical low effort way to avoid regression to the global mean, as the population more than doubles in size.
That takes serious, coordinated, and sustained work across decades to avoid.
> I can't speak for 1926, but compared to 1980s or 1960s, this is so patently not true. The US population is much sicker and more obese, as one example.
If you're a woman, would you rather live in the 1960s or 2020s? If you were black or any other minority, in the 1960s or 2020s? If you're gay, would you rather live in the 1960/80s or in the 2020s?
Average US life expectancy was in about 70 in the 1960s, and mid-70s in the 1980s, and approaching 80 until COVID hit. Cancer survivorships has improved (not only because better screen and treatment, but also because of less cigarette smoking). The infant mortality rate now is a fifth of what it was in the 1960s.
Of course for all these numbers non-US developed countries are much better.
Generally, to say that life is better now is not to say it's perfect or to deny that improvements can still be made.
> People are not starving, but at the cost of eating "manufactured" foods that will make them sick in 20 - 40 yrs.
Groceries have gone from being 14% of household spending in the 1960s to being less 6% (takeout from 4% to 6%). In 1900 food was 40%:
* https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/business/arch...
Being able to cook healthy meals for yourself has probably never been easier and less expensive than it is now.