[wutbrodo]

I'm not sure it's what the parent comment is doing, but it's beyond baffling to me when I see this view in the wild. You'd have to be completely ignorant of staggering amounts of history, economics, and basic arithmetic to think that historical incomes were anywhere close to what we have today in terms of consumer goods, and yet I see this very often. (Not to be mistaken with more reasonable arguments that rely on the differences in utility derived from goods whose prices have gone down and goods afflicted by cost disease)

[coldtea]

Well, one also has to be completely ignorant of staggering amounts of history, culture, and social understanding, to think that historical cultural concerns where anywhere close to what we have today in terms of consumer goods and buying more stuff...

You could be perfectly content (and more happy than most office drones with 1000x the stuff) with a couple of clothe articles, food and a basic home...

[wutbrodo]

> Well, one also has to be completely ignorant of staggering amounts of history, culture, and social understanding, to think that historical cultural concerns where anywhere close to what we have today in terms of consumer goods and buying more stuff..

Uh, sure? This is a complete non sequitur, as nobody is making the claim you're describing. If you actually read my full comment, I address this directly by saying that it's a much more reasonable argument that utility from all goods isn't equally distributed and the important ones haven't gotten easier to get at the same rate as the unimportant ones.

That doesn't mean that it's not incredibly factually inaccurate to think that access to consumer goods hasn't become mind-bogglingly higher

[synthmeat]

And even if you replace "office drone stuff" with more highbrow items... You really don't need a lot of books either. I'd die an accomplished man if I grokked what's on ~2m of my modest bookshelf. Hell, if that was all what was available at me, I'd probably get there sooner.

[coldtea]

Yeah, the universal things more people crave after the basics (food, shelter, health) are covered are, I'd say:

- a sense of meaning - a sense of purpose - the ability to influence their environment - community - companionship - love - sex

And those are not to be found in consumer goods, and would be a problem in 1200 as much as in 2019 (if not more so)...