[luckylion]

You also wouldn't get anything else that has been invented or understood since then. I'm pretty sure you can have the equivalent quality (and length) of life of the average 19th century person with very few hours of work in a week. In Germany, it requires zero hours, welfare here will make you live like a king compared to the 19th century -- it's only relative to today's standards that you wouldn't be rich.

[DocTomoe]

Ah, yes who doesn't know about the famous German welfare recipients living in lavish palaces with their 10 comely mattresses and their stable full of fast horses, which will pull their gold-encrusted carriage to the hunting lodge a few times per month, and a small group of life guards to keep them safe.

It is highly misleading to compare lifestyles between different centuries like that.

[luckylion]

And their 21st century health care, their high life expectancy, their unlimited access to information etc etc. Would you prefer to live in the 19th century with the average life expectancy at 35 and your 10 shitty mattresses (there's a reason they had 10) instead of living today and get to live 75 years and sleep on your one modern mattress that's of higher quality than those 10 19th century mattresses combined? Palaces 150 years ago sucked in comparison to modern apartments with isolation so good you barely have to heat, modern plumbing, hot water on demand, showers and electric toothbrushes.

> It is highly misleading to compare lifestyles between different centuries like that.

Not really, there are measurable facts. What it seems you are doing is comparing relative wealth. A king is richer than a peasant, therefore his life is better than a welfare-recipient 150 years later, because there are kings in 2022 richer than the welfare-recipient.

Because of course, 5 > 1, and 50 > 10, therefore 5 > 10. It's all relative etc etc. People quickly forget how much worse everything was even decades ago, much less centuries.

[DocTomoe]

That should have read maitresses (autocorrect can be a bitch), and the average life expectancy for a 19th century king was more like 70.

> Palaces 150 years ago sucked in comparison to modern apartments with isolation so good you barely have to heat, modern plumbing, hot water on demand, showers and electric toothbrushes.

I'd much rather live in Versailles or Neuschwanstein in their then-valid state than in an 1960s-era social-built flat, thank you very much.