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Comment by diogenescynic | Hacker News Reader

Inflation, cost of living, purchasing power... I feel like life is getting really difficult right now for most people in ways it hasn't been in decades. I don't think memory prices going up this much this fast is good. I think it's a sign of how bad things are and that we are heading in a terrible direction. I think we're going to get a BIG wave of inflation in 2027.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDPNvcKv_D4 is a good short video to understand this.

Life on earth today has objectively never been better in the history of our entire species. Try to retain some perspective.

On a macro level you're correct. On a micro level, I miss the pre-pandemic, pre-AI era before stuff got expensive, before Russia invaded Ukraine, before the Israel/Palestine strife went into overdrive, and before the US declared war on Iran, Canada, Greenland, and Minnesota.

Almost everything that is upsetting is you, is being intentionally shoved in front of your face to make you feel mad. You are being played.

Your great-grandparents had like a 40% child mortality rate. You’ll be ok that some people around the world are fighting which has been a human constant throughout all of history.

At the same time hundreds of thousands of children die annually from diseases which would cost pennies to treat. From starvation.

The world is still a horrible place for many people, and there's no real reason why it has to be that way.

What are you doing to solve it? How much are you donating towards medical supplies?

Oh, right.

Yet… violence has plummeted world wide and there has never been a safer, healthier, more prosperous time in human history.

But, you could understand the hedonic treadmill, read some history books… OR… cry about it into your thousand dollar smartphone.

Im not saying "it was better 100 years ago" I'm saying we're in a local dip in the upward curve and it was better like 7 years ago.

By what metric? Houses, healthcare, cars, college... everything that matters is way more expensive for current generations when you compare to multiples of income or ounces of gold. We're working harder for less to show. Yes, there are FSD vehicles and rockets that can land and be re-used... but steak is up 30% from a year ago. In most ways, life is going in the wrong direction. The only thing getting 'better' for most Americans is that you can get a bigger TV now than ever.

> By what metric? Houses, healthcare, cars, college... everything that matters is way more expensive for current generations when you compare to multiples of income or ounces of gold.

Check the price of food. Also, check what the price of a movie resolution film camera cost 20 years ago and realize that you're getting that in the price of your iPhone. Plus of course the corresponding computing power.

> but steak is up 30% from a year ago.

Well that is an extremely specific cherry pick.

Your grandparents almost certainly had siblings or knew of their friends siblings dying from now completely preventable diseases.

The quality, safety, comfort of low income housing in the United States is exceptional in historical terms. The fact that you CAN be anything you want is an unheard of concept even 60 years ago.

The worst cars on the market today are modern marvels of engineering compared to decades ago. Let alone throughout the history of the country.

College, lol, you literally have a secured loan to do study whatever you want with absolutely no required direction from anyone else… to receive the worlds knowledge if you want it.

Oh, things are more expensive? Yes, they’re massively higher quality and larger.

You’re mad about things, OK. They’re objectively the best they’ve ever been. This is indisputable, but again, I get that you WANT to be mad.

Okay Ben Shapiro, but you skipped an entire generation to make your argument and are ignoring what's happened in the last 5/10/15/30 years.

I don't WANT to be mad and that shows you're arguing in bad faith. I want to stop checking my bank balance before I buy toilet paper and paper towels. Life wasn't like this until very recently... We're destroying the middle class and making home ownership virtually unaffordable. The average first time home buyer is 40. The economy is not healthy and has not been this disconnected from the stock market since probably 2007.

> Life on earth today has objectively never been better in the history of our entire species. Try to retain some perspective.

The typical relative privation argument trap

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