Why assessing the state of the world is harder than it sounds

> per-capita income has more than doubled since 1972

Actually, per capita income has plummeted since 1972. To correctly assess income, you have to know the rate of inflation, and the official inflation figures are effectively lies because they focus on consumer goods, which have indeed become cheaper, while ignoring housing (and in America, college fees and health insurance), which has become drastically more expensive thanks to artificial scarcity created by zoning laws combined with the shortage of remote or rural jobs.

That sounds like only one factor of many, but I think it accounts for much of the rest. Real income falling every decade creates negative anticipation which has difficulty finding something to latch onto because we keep being told we are getting continually richer, hence the miasma of fear and hate constantly looking for targets. Nor is the fear unfounded. For centuries, we tried to figure out what destroyed the Roman Empire. Answer: the Romans were not destroyed by any external force. They were wiped out by their own ruling class, via abuse of land ownership law.

As for what to do about it, my first suggestion would be to start voting single-issue on repeal of zoning laws.

When I grew up in the early 80's most kids would have expected to be home-owners at 25, have a steady job and a few kids with an optimistic look at the future.

Instead, most woke up into a reality where they would have to partake in an obvious real-estate bubble, or rent a smaller-than-expected apartment in a downtrodden neigborhood, and where jobs were hard to come by due to outsourcing and automation, or to the older generations simply not wanting to retire.

Most of those I grew up with now seem to be amongst the people with a very pessimistic world view.

Have the World become a better place for the majority of the World's population? Definitely! For the middle class in Europe and North America? I'm not so sure.

The author’s memory is OK. There were little to no such things in communist Yugoslavia.

Unlike Warsaw bloc countries, Russian army did not occupy Yugoslavia. The country remained independent, and human rights situation was much better than in Russia.

> he had mainly good memories—of “long dinners discussing politics,” the “excitement of new books,” “languid sunsets, whole-night concerts, epic soccer games, girls in miniskirts.”

In soviet Russia, a long dinner discussing politics would cause the participants to be sent to Siberia, there were no whole-night concerts, and miniskirts only appeared on girls after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

I was born in Romania in ‘82 and was 7 when communism fell. Yet I can remember vividly that ...

We were suffering of cold in winter, as the centralized heat was on and off, we had regular electricity blackouts and my parents, both with university degrees, had jobs and working their asses off on lower salaries than factory workers and couldn’t find or afford a babysitter so at 4 years old I was left alone at home, during blackouts so in the dark at around 19:00 o’clock too.

In those days people relied on families in such situations of course, grandparents making the best babysitters, however the communists forcibly moved a lot of people to the cities and distributed people where they were supposedly needed, so a lot of families were uprooted and split.

I also remember my parents listening to Radio Free Europe, with the volume barely audible, in order for the neighbors to not hear us. Paranoia of “informants” was at an all time high and any resistance and conflicting opinions were long since crushed.

You know, “1948” the book is actually boring me, compared to what actually happened in real life. Turns out that in order to do massive surveillance of the population you don’t need technology at all, as you can recruit a massive army of informants that can listen and send regular reports on their neighbors for free. And it doesn’t need to be efficient either, all that matters is for paranoia to set in, which will ensure compliance of the population.

My father was a party member of course, you had to be insane to not be one. But in private he hated communists with all his heart, just like his father before him; my grandfather who fought in WWII and then had his land confiscated.

The communists were responsible for raising the standards of living somewhat, compared with the period between the two world wars, plus there’s this myth around that everyone had a roof over his head back then; which is why some old people feel nostalgic. It was all in a global context of economic growth of course, progress being inevitable.

But people remembering miniskirts were in a position of privilege. Yes, we had happy moments and life went on, but at least during the eighties there was this constant tension and hunger that you could feel, so thick that you could almost cut it with a knife.

Then the revolution came and we killed our dictators. Unfortunately people are dumb sheep and power was grabbed by former communists. We are far better off today, we have a better quality of life, we are part of the EU, but unfortunately this wave of populism has hit us as well and the ruling administration seems determined to destroy all progress we’ve made in the last 28 years. And people being stupid, still vote for them, just like they were cheering during our former communist congresses. Sometimes my cynicism takes over and I’m thinking that we deserve whatever is coming.