It depends on how much lifting the word fundamentally is doing. On one side, we are born, maybe reproduce, then we die. Fundamentally the same. On the other extreme we have tik tok so the times are fundamentally different.
Yet birth can involve medical procedures to protect the life of both child and mother. When and how often we choose to have children is different. We don't need to have as many children (indeed, it is undesirable to have as many children) because of that last point, how and when we die. While the causes of death to the body may be the same, the distribution of those causes is different since we tend to live to an older age.
About 10 years ago, I went to an abandoned cemetary in a remote community. It was quite tragic simply seeing the distribution of those deaths. A great many were infants. A great many more were teens and young adults. Then there were the elders. While we still have deaths at all ages, we don't have as many people dying so young because the in between things, the factors in people's lives that cause them to die at a young age, are not a part of our lives.
We must be careful about over generalizations and trivializing the challenges of past eras.
My whole point is it really depends on the interpretation of fundamentally. I am not advocating for any interpretation in particular.
I thought it was completely uncontroversial. It is the old topic of Parmenides (nothing changes) or Heraclitus (everything is in permanent change).
As for changes:
> For biodiversity loss, the estimated current boundary level of >100 extinctions per million species-years exceeds the space available in the figure.
https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2009/2009_Rockstrom_ro06010m...
I maintain that the lives of most people—while measurably better in many ways—are not fundamentally different than they were 100 years ago. In 1923, there were people in Queens who took the train into Manhattan to work at a pharmacy, saving up to buy a radio. Substitute laptop for radio and that story is still happening today. The economy is “bigger” but thanks to inflation, does it matter? So I reject OP’s premise that the “growth” of the economy is unsustainable or somehow alarming.
Average hours worked per week was about 25% more than today, with much more of your earnings going to necessity. Your odds of surviving from 18 to retirement age were roughly 50-50. You might not expect to be able to afford to actually retire depending upon your occupation.
> Substitute laptop for radio and that story is still happening today.
A cheap radio in 1923 cost far more than a cheap laptop today. Even more so if we compare to typical wages, and even more so if we compare to disposable income.
> So I reject OP’s premise that the “growth” of the economy is unsustainable or somehow alarming.
Resource intensity per person is far higher than in 1923. See the graph on page 3 of https://pubs.usgs.gov/annrev/ar-23-107/aerdocnew.pdf
I, for one, resent that modern medicine has decided to debase phrenology as a science. /s
Maybe for the surviving people 2123 will be ok but the mass death that seems likely before then will suck.
I don't see a way out of a massive redistribution of who lives where, which will come with strife and maybe death.
The good news was that we could seed clouds by just spraying salt water from the ocean. The water would evaporate and the salt would just fall back into the ocean after it seeded more clouds.
A. Playing an incompetent god
B. Playing a competent god
I prefer B.
Not really. Penicillin was ~1930. Ford Air Transport Service was founded in 1925.
Typical people didn't have a whole lot. Indoor plumbing was only starting to become commonplace in the late 1920s. Radio only reached the majority of homes in the 1930s. Only about half of families had a car by 1923.
If you include toilets alone and apartments with shared toilet facilities, the majority was reached a bit earlier-- around 1930, meaning that I judged indoor plumbing was rapidly becoming commonplace in the late 20s.
In 1923, a huge chunk of households still used kerosene lamps as a primary means of lighting (it was a decent percentage in 1940, even).
We have domestic electric refrigerators (since 1927). Cold beer on a hot afternoon.
The development of refrigeration has transformed the world’s economy, and is a good example of how technology can multiply economic growth.
We have not descended back into feudalism; technology hasn't eliminated the need to work; socialism never took off. Nothing has fundamentally changed.
It's a very delightful stretch of the imagination to put those two in the same sentence.
Factory (making HVAC) had a truck-sized door open to the elements at all times.
And workplace health and safety has changed a lot since 1923, like you're no longer supposed to use bare hands when threading synthetic wool through a mix of acid and formaldehyde: https://youtu.be/O4pVny7NV8E
I think you could probably back that one up earlier than "100 years ago".