If you want much more than he had, you're going to need to pay much more for it. Bit of an obvious one.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my computer, but as the GP indicated the rest of society expect very different things from you today – more equipment, more education, etc. Those things aren’t just increased living standards, they are increased job requirements.
So we've moved from a world where it was impossible to afford all that stuff and a 7 person family to a world where ... still can't be done. People have raised their standards to the point where they can't afford 5 children, savings and a lifestyle that they think is reasonable. Not much of a mystery there to interrogate. There has never been a generation that could afford the lifestyle they want and it appears there still isn't.
The current world has different technology and economics
In order to match the same lifestyle of the past you would have to be subject to the economic and technological structure of the past
Which you can emulate and it is objectively cheaper but you choose
This is literally the operational principle of the Amish and mennonite communities
My post, and the GP post I'm agreeing with, are saying that most of those aren't optional "lifestyle upgrades" that you choose instead of 5 children and 5 homes. Much of it, like education and technology, are requirements for getting and holding a normal job.
It's true that society has changed, but we are allowed to lament some of those changes without turning Amish. For example, I don't think that our technology and education is the main driver behind not being able to afford children and houses. Part of it is incompetent management of the housing market -- as someone once said, a house can be affordable or a good investment, but not both. Another part is that median income per person has not grown proportionally to GDP per capita since the 1960s, leading to a more extreme accumulation of wealth at the top, which is in turn entirely down to politics (e.g. an overcomplex tax code with plenty of loopholes).
If you're outside the US (like myself), the graphs arguably look a bit better, but there's still a lack of housing due to increased regulations on construction -- how energy efficient new houses should be, where you are allowed to build them, which old houses you are allowed to destroy to make room for new ones (for historical reasons), etc. In addition to the welfare states becoming less efficient over time, leading to less real income with less benefits from the state. (Which are not much better than inefficient monopolies in less socialist countries, to be fair.)
</end of political rant>
Whether or not you agree with that philosophy or not living by yourself in a tent in the forest is absolutely an option
“My post, and the GP post I'm agreeing with, are saying that most of those aren't optional "lifestyle upgrades"”
My disagreement is that they are optional, like everything else in life
You aren’t willing to take the tradeoff of not having indoor plumbing or whatever but the claim that using modern technologies and living according to capitalism isn’t an option is incorrect
Ultimately that’s a choice among infinite options
The challenge is that this is a hard argument to make to most people because they aren’t aware of the hedonic treadmill
I could easily afford the life my grandfather had in 1950, but I wouldn’t have a fuel injected motor, vaccines, a laptop or a job in computing.
My air would be full of lead and my drinking water would be cloudy and smell like sulphur.
That life is possible in San Angelo Tx today on ~15,000 a year, the equivalent of his salary in 1950
Just pretend like it’s 1950 and use the tools and build the community you need to do it like they did back then
No fair using nail guns