Comment by WalterBright
15 hours ago
Technology makes a lot of things better. Like eliminating symptoms of 95% of cystic fibrosis victims.
> even widen the gap between the haves and haves not
America's poor have a higher standard of living than medieval kings.
> America's poor have a higher standard of living than medieval kings.
False Equivalence, Red Herring, Chronological Snobbery, Fallacy of Relative Deprivation, Contextomy.
So, by this logic, a homeless person with a used iPhone is better off than Louis XIV (who literally owned all of France) just because the king couldnt play Candy Crush?
This statement confuses global technological progress across centuries with an individuals actual financial security, social power, and quality of life within their own modern society.
I simply just cant understand why would someone repeat such a statement (and I have seen it everywhere).
> > America's poor have a higher standard of living than medieval kings.
> False Equivalence, Red Herring, Chronological Snobbery, Fallacy of Relative Deprivation, Contextomy.
There's a lot of reasonable arguments to unpack here.
But no, it's not that Louis XIV didn't have an iPhone, it's that the vast middle class in developed countries has central heating and access to penicillin and don't die from giving birth as much.
Also, America's poor are definitely worse off than medieval kings. They don't have access to those basic things that keep most modern people wealthier than medieval kings, like food, shelter and health care.
Some of the older (pre-medieval) king's ruins in Denmark are (by our standards) small stone houses with a moat, and what makes them remarkable is that they're made of stone, and the moat is rather big, so it keeps people out. Like metal doors in apartment buildings, sort of. (Correction for the historians: The oldest king's ruins are of course just holes in the ground where wooden beams used to stand.)
s/America's poor/Europe's lower middle class/ and you're there.
I think that we are both well aware that the statement was not about "Candy Crush" or "Louis XIV". As the "America's poor have a higher standard of living than medieval kings" was not about technological progress.
Some more thoughts for you: since 19xx workers are productive to the scale of 10x (feel free to downplay it to whatever factor over 3x as this is the minimal amount, everyone agrees on except of those that harvest the difference) against those times. But we are still working 8/8/8. Who takes the difference? Of 10x (or 3x)?
> it's not that Louis XIV didn't have an iPhone,
probably more that Louis XIV was not a medieval king.
If you could trade your current life with Louis XIV's, would you?
Assuming I had the autonomy to build more toilets at Versailles and we're stretching "medieval king" to include "Baroque kings" then sure, why not?
(French isn't that bad a language)
* https://thisisversaillesmadame.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-lack...
Would Louis XIV trade with you?
Is there a definition of standard of living? A king would be entertaining, socialising, and strategising most of the time (along with a lot more pursuits of hunting, etc for leisure). While I understand they had less access to healthcare and variety of food, travel, etc...id still argue they had a better standard of living than someone that works 8-10h/day and then comes home to cook and clean?
America's poor today have clean water, health care, washing machines, central heating and air conditioning, flush toilets, hot and cold running water, electric lights, hot showers, fresh vegetables and fruit year round, glass windows, cotton undies, ice cream, TVs with 24/7 entertainment, talk to anyone in the world at the push of a button, need I go on?
The poor have those things because they still have some amount of power. They're still needed for work, and if you make too many of them too desperate, they can threaten the people at the top. But if you let the wealth (and power) gap get too large this will no longer be the case, and the poor might lose access to those things. If the wealth gap becomes such that the rich can afford automated production and protection but the poor can not, the current economic and political systems will no longer have a reason to give access to any of those things to the poor.
Speaking as someone who has been truly poor, if you're lucky enough to have a "home", the water is probably poisoned or flammable from some sort of mining. Health care, in the US? You may be better off with a witch, which is certainly cheaper. You may have access to appliances, and some of them may even work. Fresh veggies contaminated with shit from increasing cost savings being applied to every form of production. Glass windows are available in increasingly "sealed for energy efficiency" homes festering mold. Synthetic fiber clothing, as cotton and wool are way to expensive and "TVs" that phone home about every ad you are increasingly being served even with your "ad free" subscription. Being able to speak to someone across the world with one touch of a button is fairly new, however pressing 7/11 buttons, and before that dialing 7/11 buttons, and before that speaking to someone to make the connection for you did the same job, usually without ad bombardments. Before that was the press of one button many many times. Patrick Stewart was excellent.
I think you want to replace fresh vegetables and fruits with processed ready meals.
Being available is not equal to a person being able to afford it.
Maybe you were writing about middle class and not the poor?
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Do you define have as own or as in can afford to utilise momentarily?
Kings has dozens or hundreds of people who did all those things for them, and more, at their command.
I'm not to certain about the healthcare and aircon.
I think it’s disingenuous to imply that there isn’t an inequality issue because the basic standard of living has advanced since the Middle Ages. Even if we compare the standard of living for say, Mississippi lower third and Uganda lower third, it’s obvious that you’re better off in Mississippi. However, the fact that the wealth and means to uplift the poor actually exists in the US but is not exercised is itself an issue - Uganda does not have that possibility.
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> America's poor today have clean water, health care
Clean water depends on how you define "clean" e.g. from https://www.theglobalstatistics.com/united-states-water-poll...
> Current EPA data reveals that nearly half of all tap water in the United States contains detectable levels of PFAS chemicals
There's also plenty of contamination violations (apart from maybe Hawaii with only 2) of the water supply.
As far as health care goes, I thought that most people in the USA will refuse to get an ambulance due to the expense. I've also heard of plenty of reports that poor people will not visit a doctor for minor health issues even though they may be early signs of much more serious issues.
And none of these give them the freedom, agency, a past noble or a king had.
My parents had access to cheaper housing, less red-tape and fixed working hours, more job security than my generation, when I was born.
So now insert BUT THEY DIDN'T HAVE FLAT PANEL TV AND IPHONE in retarded Sponge Bob chicken meme here.
A medieval king had a better life than a medieval peasant. A medieval king, most of them, arguably did not have a better life than most of America's poor in 2026.
My memory might be faulty but I remember watching "The Lion in Winter" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqz3gkrmBbo) and feeling really happy I was not alive then, even as royalty. (hope that's the movie)
King is under a lot of pressure. If you can get most of the material comforts without the political and military pressure, I think people will choose modern life. Of course for a good test we somehow have to let them be king louise for some time and then let them decide.
> id still argue they had a better standard of living than someone that works 8-10h/day and then comes home to cook and clean?
You're somehow succumbing to the fallacy of the edilic life of old.
The same life where you had to have a dozen of kids to overcome infant mortality, and each time a woman gave birth it was like a Russian roulette.
And the average life expectancy was what? 40 years? You didn't had a midlife crisis because you'd be dead by then.
Life expectancy was low mainly due to childhood diseases
If you lived to 20 you had a pretty good chance of making it to 70
> And the average life expectancy was what? 40 years?
The answer to this riddle lies in the previous paragraph
Oh, great, then there is nothing to fix. We just apply medieval standards and everything is hunky dory.
a lot of people unironically believe this or even worse, many of the same people seem to be arguing for a new monarchy lately lol.
i keep telling them they’re free to have their own personal monarchy in their own family as long as people are free to leave and also to leave the rest of us out of it. but for some reason they don’t seem to like the idea as much then.
Medieval poor likely had a higher standard of living than ancient kings, should they have complained?
I don't think that's actually true lol
Not even close. Foragers 10K years ago had better longevity and nutrition than medieval peasants.
I'm not sure a medieval king would take that swap. Maybe for EU poor.
Is that the bar? Who looks at medieval kings and goes "their standard of living should be our baseline"? Living in a cold stone building with no medical care questionable food, etc?
But also, no they don't. Standard of living includes one's agency over their environment. An medieval king could say things and the kingdom would bend to their will. No one making $18,000 is having hundreds or thousands of people bending over to serve them.
Utter nonsense.
> Standard of living includes one's agency over their environment.
No, it doesn't.
It sure does. One's quality of life is different if you are a prisoner or a pauper or a king. Even if your accommodations are the same.
it certainly does when i think of quality of life.
> An medieval king could say things and the kingdom would bend to their will.
Lol nope? This is utter ignorance. Medieval kings were constantly balancing power with people directly underneath them.
Whole dynasties have been eradicated in the continuous power struggles, particularly from rich families.
Not only that: medieval kings had to bow to religious authorities as well (something ee don’t do anymore). In 1077 kind henry iv had to stand three days bare headed in the snow to convince pope gregory vii to reverse his excommunication (an excommunication would effectively invalidate him as a king, btw).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_Canossa
You comment shows your utter general ignorance and complete misunderstanding of medieval times.
> America's poor have a higher standard of living than medieval kings.
Do America’s poor have a standard thing like a roof on top of their heads? Nevermind a castle, just a basic house which has already been paid for.
They also work longer hours than medieval serfs, are more precarious in housing and food security and more separated from their family. Also slaves work the farms. Read tomatoland or the lives and deaths of the American workers.
I am not making a statement about the quality of life of poor people in the modern world. I do not think however that from a food security standpoint they are more precarious. I am fairly confident that the longer hours thing is false. Unless we are assuming like 70+ hours of work a week.
https://acoup.blog/2025/08/22/collections-life-work-death-an... You can read https://acoup.blog/2025/09/05/collections-life-work-death-an... which is by a working historian.
I also want to add that, none of this is relevant to the point of whether or not the current system is "just" or reasonable given and I think overall that argument is mostly a red herring.
That is a silly comparison.
Perspective is useful.
This isn’t perspective it’s trolling.
But it gets the masses going!
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> Technology makes a lot of things better. Like eliminating symptoms of 95% of cystic fibrosis victims.
Counterpoint: any leaking abandoned oil well. Check out YouTube videos documenting the abandoned oil wells in West Texas, which are dumping industrial volumes of water into abandoned land.