I'm thankful for being middle class today instead of the richest person in the world 200 years ago

wordpress ^ | November 22, 2017 | Dan from Squirrel Hill

[grundle]

I am thankful for being a middle class person today instead of the richest person in the world 200 years ago

I am thankful for being a middle class person today instead of the richest person in the world 200 years ago.

I can have a real time conversation with someone who is 1,000 miles away.

I have light bulbs.

I can get from New York to California in hours instead of weeks.

Antibiotics will save my life if I step on a rock and cut my foot.

I don’t have to worry about getting smallpox, measles, or polio.

I can eat ice cream in July, without having to hire an expedition to climb a mountain to bring back ice.

I could buy an air conditioner if I wanted one (although I don’t actually have or want one. I live in Pittsburgh, and don’t think it’s necessary). But think about being a rich person living in Atlanta in July before air conditioning was invented – that would have sucked.

I can listen to just about any music, watch just about any movie, or watch just about any episode of just about any TV show, whenever I want.

My access to information online is bigger than any library that the richest person owned in the past.

I have a flush toilet.

I can take a hot shower whenever I want.

I don’t have to worry about my drinking water being infected with deadly bacteria or parasites.

My clothing is more comfortable than any that existed in the past.

I have zero problem with the fact that there are some people today who have thousands of times as much money as me.

I am grateful for what I do have. I am not resentful for the fact that other people have way more money than me.

[CodeToad]

I have antibiotics and probably won’t die from infection; they did.

We live far better than those 200 years ago.

[metmom]

What’s that about the Kennedy baby?

[GJones2]

I haven't looked closely at the details, but the idea of comparing conditions now with those of the past (favorably or unfavorably) -- or even of comparing technological advances enjoyed by average persons in a later age with what rich persons experienced in other times -- goes back a long ways. It's the premise, for instance, of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. George Will didn't originate the idea, and unless the specifics are very close, doing the same thing isn't blameworthy.

[Flaming Conservative]

I’d choose the 1950’s to go back to, if I could. Of course, I would want all the bad parts to be gone, though.

[rdl6989]

If only the pundits and academic traitors had to live like us commoners.

[GJones2]

I like some things from the 50s too. Too bad it’s so hard to combine the good things of different times. Many good things are closely connected with bad things, though. I believe Emerson calls that the “law of compensation”.

Still, it should be possible to improve things a bit with a judicious combination of the virtues of different times. That — along with technological advances — could make things much better. (Getting enough people to agree on which are the good ones, though, is the problem.)

[fieldmarshaldj]

Except the hottest women 200 years ago looked like Barbara Bush (the elderly one) or Lena Dunham by 14. =8-0>

[going hot]

I have a flush toilet.

Indoors,

off the bedroom.

[Fiji Hill]

I am thankful for being a middle class person today instead of the richest person in the world 200 years ago.

The richest person in the world 200 years ago was probably one of these: Czar Alexander I of Russia, Muhammad Ali, khedive of Egypt, Mahmud II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, or American entrepreneur John Jacob Astor. I wouldn't mind having the power that each of them wielded.

[RooRoobird20]

John Jacob Astor went down with the Titanic. All the money in the world didn’t make him less mortal than the rest of the passengers who drowned/froze to death with him.

[Fiji Hill]

John Jacob Astor went down with the Titanic. All the money in the world didn’t make him less mortal than the rest of the passengers who drowned/froze to death with him.

John Jacob Astor died in 1848 at the age of 85--64 years before Titanic was wrecked.

[Vaquero]

This middle class list is for middle aged and older.

As a young man I would have looked for the ability to ride horse back, into the wilderness, and take my chances.

[Vaquero]

Depends on which Astor...John Jacob Astor IV, Died at 40 something, in 1912, Titanic, North Atlantic.

[GJones2]

I believe RooRoobird20 had in mind John Jacob Astor IV, "...the richest passenger aboard the Titanic and was thought to be among the richest people in the world at that time, with a net worth of nearly $87 million when he died (equivalent to $2.16 billion in 2016)" [Wikipedia]. Rich guys tend to have others who follow them who use the same name.

[GJones2]

You beat me to it. :-)

[ADemocratNoMore]

One of my favorite essayists / thinkers, Bill Whittle wrote this essay ten or fifteen years ago.

From “SANCTUARY (part 2)” “As an exercise in perspective, let’s briefly compare our civilization to another. Let’s compare our supposedly soulless, banal, hum-drum society to the splendors of ancient Egypt.”

You can find it here...

http://web.archive.org/web/20050520232619/http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000126.html

Scroll down a paragraph till you get to the right place or read the whole thing, it’s well worth your time.

[trebb]

The incredible love of Jesus

My incredible wife

Earned a comfortable retirement through hard work

Woke up this morning

[RooRoobird20]

It was Astor the 4th who went down with the Titanic, my bad.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I’d choose the 1950’s to go back to, if I could. Of course, I would want all the bad parts to be gone, though.

You’d go crazy in the 1950s for lack of one thing - FR.

You had a good president, mostly, but Congress was bad, and “the media” was awful - the nominal definition of “McCarthyism” is one thing, the reality was quite different.

In 1954 critic Leslie Fiedler captured the essence of “McCarthyism”: “From one end of the country to another rings the cry, ‘I am cowed! I am afraid to speak out!’, and the even louder response, ‘Look, he is cowed! He is afraid to speak out!’” - Ann Coulter, Treason

There were three television networks, and maybe four TV stations in Philadelphia. Not even a Fox News, let alone a Rush Limbaugh. As to the political parties, the Democrats weren’t uniformly quite as bad as now. But in those pre-Kemp/Roth days every Republican was a RINO who fought for lower spending - then fought for higher taxes to balance the budget if ^when they lost. And SCOTUS was loaded with FDR appointments.

But at least, patriotism among Democrats was a thing back then. And illegitimacy (relatively speaking) wasn’t. And high schools had 30 seconds of prayer daily, and baccalaureate services at graduation time.

And, lest we forget, there was the draft . . .

But the bottom line is that wishing to be in a different time is actually ingratitude for what you have now. And ingratitude is actually

The Key to Unhappiness - Denis Prager (5½ minutes, but a jewel)