alt Hacker News> But to just state that "Life is so much better in 2026 than in 1926 for Americans" is obviously a pretty nebulous statement.
Given that there was no antibiotics in 1926, no chemotherapy or radiation therapy for cancer, no public pensions (so good luck getting old), hardly any indoor plumbing (even by 1940 it was about half), I think life is much better now that one hundred years ago.
What were infant mortality rates in 1926? Maternal mortality? Average life span? How many years did people live after retirement?
Can you list the ways in which you think life was better in 1926?
And to say life is better now is not to say it's perfect or to deny that improvements can still be made.
AC existed but was barely used until at least a decade or two later (window units invented in the 30s and full-home central AC in the 50s).
One of the current social media trends is Europeans discovering what the US is actually like, having come here for the World Cup. A lot of them have apparently never experienced AC before and it's one of the major focuses in these clips for how life-changing it is.