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I think you're making a mistake trying to apply something like Moore's law to a middle class lifestyle. Niche technological advancements don't necessarily translate to higher standards of living. If you're thinking the middle class life will simply scale the way hard drives and TV resolutions do you're in for a big surprise.

I understand that many of the things we think we "need" or want become very relative over time. But if we include basics like needing food, shelter and then add in middle class health care, mobility, security, leisure and luxury, you are talking about an expensive ticket. Yes we have made impressive advancements and maybe someday we'll have things like 100% robotic aggregation/farming and no longer need to think a lot about how we'll get our food. But I don't think the middle class life will simply becoming the default option anytime soon.

What about overpopulation? Increase demand from developing nations for this "middle class"? What about our numerous energy issues? I'm also not sure what your frame of reference is for the past. I must be stuck in the rebound towards an up trend because I know for a fact that a houses were much more affordable for my parents who lived on one carpenters paycheck, even while I make a higher salary after inflation and have the assistance of my spouses income.

I'm not attempting to apply Moore's law, merely the past 40 years of growth to the next 40 (just as the original poster tried to do).

In any case, the point I'm making is that "middle class life" needs a time period to be attached. "Middle class health care 1970" would be pretty cheap today - any medicine available back then is out of patent, and dying of untreatable cancer is pretty cheap. "Shelter 2010" is 60% bigger than "shelter 1970". "Luxury" in 1970 would be a 32" color TV, as opposed to a plasma screen with playstation today. Basically, "Middle class 1970" == "poverty 2010".

It might be the case that middle class 2010 is as good as it gets - I'm not trying to make predictions. I'm just pointing out that if, as the OP suggested, the next 40 years are as bad as the last 40 years, then we will be doing pretty good.

""Middle class health care 1970" would be pretty cheap today - any medicine available back then is out of patent, and dying of untreatable cancer is pretty cheap."

I question whether availability of drugs is the best indicator of overall health.

We are also a lot more sedentary, the quality of our food is probably not as a good, and we are a lot heavier. Given that, how many drugs do we need to just break even, health wise, with where we were in 1970?

"as opposed to a plasma screen with playstation today"

It would be an interesting psychology study to figure out if a kid with an Atari in the 1970s was objectively less happy and fulfilled than a kid with a plasma screen and playstation today. I suspect it is the relative excitement of being one of the first to get a game before your friends is a bigger factor. I guess it's a little late to start that study at this point, however.

My overall point is that I think comparing quality of life across eras is more complex than just comparing square footage, drug prices, and pixel counts. Unless I misunderstand your point.

I'm not using drug availability as an indicator of health, I'm using it as an indicator of health care. My point is that comparing the cost of health care in the past to health care today is not a fair comparison, since health care today includes vastly more services and products.

As for health, if people enjoy chips more than not being fat, I'm not going to tell them their choices are wrong (at least until 2014, when their choices are inflicted on me). Broccoli is available, they are free to eat it.

As for relative status, only one kid can be the first with a new toy in any era. In principle one could compare opinions and attitudes, but my guess is that they will be roughly constant over long periods. You can find find "kids these days, get off my lawn" and "my parents had it better" articles in newspapers of any era, for example. All I'm really assuming is that having a playstation or viagra is better than not having it.

"Broccoli is available"

In some inner city areas, even this is debatable.

If the past is a guide to the future, then the lifestyle we currently define as "upper-middle class" will be redefined as "poverty" and will be available to virtually everyone, including people who can't even be bothered to find a job.

For many reasons I doubt that the last few hundred years are going to tell us much about the next hundred. So many critical trends are following exponential curves that can't continue on indefinitely.

I was only looking at the past 40 years, much like the original poster. My edit clarifies this point.

Even in that window of time if the underlying pattern is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bacterial_growth_en.svg

40 years doesn't tell you much about the next 10.

Growth rates in recent times have depended largely on finite resources, many of which are now becoming scarce. It may be that we innovate around all of this, but it's far from certain.

But the bacteria growth in Petri dishes is limited by resource, and bacteria has no way to change the situation.

Maybe we are really limited by available resources. We know for sure that we have limited supply of the solar energy. At the other hand, we are just using what is available on the surface of the Earth. Maybe we are going to figure out how to utilize more resources outside the surface of the Earth, or efficient way to use and recycle resources.

Exponential curves indeed can't continue indefinitely.

At the same, most of the reasoning about the future by even intelligent people still tends to involve linear extrapolation rather than exponential extrapolation - that's what makes sense to us. Thus it's more likely for a standard prediction is go wrong in the direction of the exponential trends continuing rather than in the direction of the trends stopping.

Moreover, one or another exponential trends might stop but the overall mine that Moore's Law comes out of, miniaturization, is not going to be exhausted at least until human construction reaches the nano scale.

That's exactly why I think trying to predict what the world is going to be like in 40 years is just about impossible. The only thing you can say with much confidence is that it's likely to be very different from the way it is today.

It will also stay very similar. The outline of life in the 1970s vs 2010 is still fairly similar. Drive around in cars, live in a house, take the subway, read the newspaper, watch tv, go to the movie theatre, buy food at a grocery store, call people on a landline, plug stuff into the wall, use your fridge and hair drier, drive around in your RV, fly an airplane at supersonic speeds, rent an apartment, have a family reunion, go to the doctor, get surgery, take drugs, read a book, go to the public library, go to school, flush a toliet, use an AC, open the windows. The dragon ball Z live action movie, although pretty horrible has a pretty accurate deception how high school will look like in 20 to 40 years. Pretty much the same with more flat screens and computers.

It will also stay very similar. The outline of life in the 1970s vs 2010 is still fairly similar.

That's the entire point of this (sub)thread. Making predictions of the next 40 years based on the last 40 is likely to lead you astray. A whole bunch of things are coming to a head. Coming revolutions in biotech alone are likely to seriously shake things up, IMO.

"fly an airplane at supersonic speeds"

We consumers actually don't do that anymore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde

"That's exactly why I think trying to predict what the world is going to be like in 40 years is just about impossible."

Douglas Englebart had a pretty good approximation of what much of our information technology would be like today over 40 years ago.

http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html

Of course, this was because he put together all of the necessary underlying technology. I remember reading an interview with him in the 90s, asking him if he was surprised how fast technology was moving. He replied, no, he was shocked how long it took for the things he had working in the lab decades ago to reach the main stream.

Hmm,

Biking through Oakland the other night, I saw a guy pushing a shopping cart with one hand and talking on his cellphone with the other.

A good deal of your lifestyles of the no-longer-needed description might true except ... the 4000 sq ft house.

For the now-permanently-unemployed, it would be a 40 sq ft "home" or perhaps a car or suped-up shopping cart. But still with lots of gadgets.

Space (at the least) isn't going to be made cheaper by mass production even if everything else will.

Any city that's learned to grow vertically would disagree with you. If you thought real-estate was expensive in New York now....

NYC is expensive because its more expensive to build skyscrapers than houses. Its not cheaper because of mass production, there's just enough incentive to spend more money than it takes to build houses because of the local population density.

That's not even imaginative enough. We'll be living in space and the rich will own whole solar systems with strong AI civilizations dedicated to working for them and worshipping them. The poor will barely be able to afford immortality and a space ship for going to work. Your great-granddaughter will complain, "Dad, why can't our Spaceballs One even move a diddly little gas giant while those people have whole solar systems to play with?" "Oww... blame our great-grandfather, he spent all his startup money on a measly 4000 sq ft house 200 years ago. Douchebag thinks he'd only live for 90 years."

this is a libertarian fantasy and nothing more. Wages for most people have been stagnant or declining while energy prices are steadily rising. This is a huge problem

Please tell me which point I'm wrong on. Do most people not live in larger houses, enjoy greater automation of housework, enjoy larger and better entertainment technologies, and benefit from medical procedures which did not exist in 1967?

I'm disputing the prediction that the future, if we remain on our current course, will be more of the same. Here's what you said, "If the past 40 years are a guide to the future". I'm disputing the idea that income inequality doesn't mean anything because the "poor" will have a higher standard of living that the middle class does today. Again, incomes are on the decline for most americans, and energy prices are rising. There is no way that we will get more of the same if that remains true.

Also, most people I know live in smaller houses than their parents, but that's purely anecdotal and based on the obvious fact that there are more people living on the same amount of earth. I happen to live in a major city.

"most people I know live in smaller houses than their parents"

But do they live in smaller houses than their parents lived when they were your friends' age?

yes, but I live in L.A. and I'm sure it's different in most parts of the country. I make way more money than my parents or grandparents, even when adjusted for inflation, but I live in a much smaller place than they did.

I'm curious - do you live in a way smaller space than your parents did when you grew up, or when they were your age?

When I compare my current living space with the house I grew up in, it's significantly smaller. However, my parents were over 40 years old by the time I have my first memories. They'd been saving for close to 20 years to afford that place, while I've been saving for maybe 5 years.

When my mom was my age, she lived in a 4th floor walk-up with one of her friends from college. And yes, it was smaller than my current apartment. If you compare my mom's childhood with my childhood, she lived in a small apartment almost her whole life, until about 3 years before I was born, while I grew up in a house in the suburbs.

I wonder if this is behind a lot of the 20-something angst. We compare our current living standards to our living standards as children, and realize (correctly) that it's not as good. However, that childhood living standard is based on parents that were already at the peak of their careers, and had scrimped for years to get there. Of course we're not going to live as well.

I'm not a 20-something.

We're still safe to assume your parents are around 20 years older than you.

right, but the comment I was replying to was focused on the idea that I'm an angstful 20-something who is just starting a professional career. I'm not, and i have a much smaller place than my parents did at my age. 1200 sq/ft vs 3000ish sq/ft. I think my theory holds for areas that have already developed most of the available land. As population density increases we'll have smaller places than the generation before us in areas that have very little new land to develop.

I actually don't care that my place is smaller, and a bigger place wouldn't increase my quality of life much.

Touche. In order to get an accurate comparison, you'd have to compare to someone your age living in a city as large and dense as LA at the time they were your age. That probably means NYC, London, or Tokyo for your parents or grandparents since there weren't many megacities 30 or 60 years ago.

Your trying to make the population density a constant, my point is that it isn't a constant, but will likely increase going forward.

A quick google search finds many links suggesting house sizes have gone way up. This one says 1500ft^2 in 1973, 2500ft^2 in 2006.

http://www.realtor.org/RMODaily.nsf/pages/News2007032701?Ope...

In spite of the purported declining income and increasing energy prices, people in 2007 have more and better material goods and services than in 1967, far more than the mere $10k increase in real incomes would predict. You could be right, the next 40 years may be different from the last 40 - I'll leave predicting the future to you and Ray Kurzweil.

"I'll leave predicting the future to you and Ray Kurzweil."

Except that you did try to predict the future earlier. Energy prices haven't risen much yet. You have an odd pattern of dodging my main point, and picking at tangential details.

Btw, I put a caveat on the house thing, I live in a major city and I'm sure it's different in most parts of the country. I'll bet this changes when driving long distances to work becomes much more expensive.

I didn't try to predict the future - I explicitly qualified that everything I wrote applied only under certain circumstances: "If the past 40 years are a guide to the future..." You even quoted my qualification.

As for dodging your main point, let me address it more carefully now. You seem to believe that incomes (by which I assume you mean income adjusted for CPI) is decreasing. And yet, over a period in which CPI adjusted incomes remained flat, quality of life dramatically increased. So why do you believe that decreasing CPI-adjusted incomes are worth worrying about?

" why do you believe that decreasing CPI-adjusted incomes are worth worrying about?"

I've said it at least three times already. Because it is highly probable that energy prices are going to increase significantly.

Btw, how do you measure quality of life. I always find it funny when people throw around that term relating to economics.

You are concerned oil prices might increase by a factor of 8? Like in the 70's?

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article1375.html

In any case, I'm not sure what this has to do with CPI-adjusted incomes.

By quality of life, I'm only estimating the direction of change rather than the magnitude. I'm assuming that having more stuff is better - I'm happier with flush toilets/a washing machine/Bioshock than without.

There was a ridiculous downgrade in credit quality to facilitate that build out of McMansions over the last 10 years . A better analysis of how much real income and how much purchasing power per sq foot of home would have to take in credit quality/debt into account over time to be anywhere near informative. Secondly, increasing energy prices are not purported, they are real: http://www.eia.doe.gov/EMEU/steo/realprices/index.cfm

Real income analysis would require more time than I'm willing to commit right now.

That's an excellent visualization. Thanks for the link.

There is a big difference between that and going from poverty to upper middle class. By your logic those stuck in poverty in 1967 will now have graduated to upper middle class by 2010. Even if that is how you define middle class I don't see very great strides. I rent because the housing market is a mess (http://seekingalpha.com/article/115464-new-home-prices-vs-me...), I wash dishes by hand and don't care for an iRobot vacuum with a state of the art cat fascinating feature, health care is very costly or down right unattainable, but yes I do enjoy my Xbox 360. It hasn't convinced me of your point though.

No, by my logic those living in poverty in 2010 will be living a life that the 1970's would describe as middle class.

Fun fact: the bottom 11% in 1970 didn't have flush toilets.

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cf...

In 2001, the bottom 7-8% don't have dishwashers, which were generally considered a luxury item in the 1970's. Go read this article, describing the material conditions of the poor (circa 2001):

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2004/01/understandi...

Tell me, what items did the middle class of 1970 have that the poor of 2001 lack?

"what items did the middle class of 1970 have that the poor of 2001 lack?"

They're not items, but I'd say hope, stability, confidence, status, etc.

They're not items, but I'd say hope, stability, confidence, status, etc.

Really? In the US? In the 70's? This was at the end of the Vietnam War, during the oil crisis, remember?

As a random example consumer confidence at the lowest point during the financial crisis was still higher than it was in 1973 (during the Oil Crisis): http://useconomy.about.com/b/2008/04/01/consumer-pessimism-s...

I'm guessing the middle class had more than the poor had.

Not outside of the United States, Western Europe, and some parts of Asia and South America. What makes you think the same thing (over 50% reduction in GDP and almost ten million excess deaths) that happened following the bankruptcy of the USSR can not happen once the US is unable service its debt any longer?

Why is any of that relevant? If we're discussing poverty rates, then we need to come up with a reasonably objective metric for poverty, not just throw together some cherry-picked indicators. Economists have put a lot of thought into a few metrics, like inflation-adjusted median wage, which you simply ignore in favor of your own 'tv-size index'.

For example, those larger houses may be on cheaper land (further from cities), or people may be spending more of their income on housing (at the cost of, say, food quality, or education). There are a million ways for an individual statistic to be misleading. This is the whole reason that we use aggregated statistics like real median wage.

> Wages for most people have been stagnant or declining

Wage growth has been slower than you'd expect because healthcare is getting much more expensive, so the increase is hidden in a worker's benefits, rather than being revealed in higher wages. Overall compensation is increasing: http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/10...

Unfortunately, most workers don't realize that their healthcare costs have a zero-sum relationship to their wages. This graph shows that point very well: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/10/will_low...)

yes and no. If we look at the economic growth of the past decade a disproportionate amount has gone to the super rich. If it were only healthcare to blame, or even primarily healthcare, then the delta for different income brackets would match historical trends. It hasn't, and healthcare is getting more expensive, and energy is getting more expensive.

It's a trifecta that is going to hurt.

it seems to me that predicting the distant (20+ years) future based on the past never really works out.

That's because you're assuming the wrong frame of reference on your singularity. http://www.kmeme.com/2010/07/singularity-is-always-steep.htm...

If you were to drop back to 1970 and estimate the next 20 years by the 2010 scale, things are almost identical. If you measure 2000-2010 on the 1970 scale, things are a hard takeoff.