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by kiliantics 1265 days ago
I live in NYC, "greatest city in the world," and I encounter rats almost daily. Almost every apartment here will have a cockroach problem at some point. And since most of the city is a food desert, it takes pretty serious determination to eat a balanced diet, and usually at quite a cost.

So, notwithstanding all the negative points mentioned in this thread, I agree there are still many aspects of medieval peasant life that I wish we would aim for in today's world. There are even quite a few so-called modern "conveniences" that I would happily give up for them. I wish the things around me in my life were made of stone and wood and clay and durable textiles, rather than synthetic, disposable materials, shoddily assembled for a quick buck.

I think, just as you claim this false medieval story was told to industrial society, there is absolutely a concerted effort today to paint our current world as so much rosier than it is in comparison to other past living conditions. The idea in Better Angels of Our Nature and other such revisionist and cherry picked arguments seem like they could only be made to keep us pacified.
2 comments
woodruffw 1265 days ago
What part of the city do you live in that’s a food desert? They definitely exist, but I wouldn’t say they’re anywhere near common (especially relative the city’s staggering wealth disparities)[1].

[1]: https://medium.com/@olivialimone/mapping-food-deserts-and-sw...

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kiliantics 1264 days ago
This map is great and all but it's mostly worthless without actually going into the grocery stores and checking how the fruits and vegetables look. I live in Brooklyn but it's pretty well known that good quality fresh produce is not easy to get in the city, especially not for cheap, if you compare with other cities. You have to join a CSA or make the trip to chinatown or something like that, which is just not an option for a lot of people.
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tee_0 1265 days ago
They had to make laws preventing peasants wearing aristocratic clothing. Yeah peasants experienced brutal conditions but the upper class did as well by modern standards. It’s scary to think that the beast of societal dogma could even spoil history as well as everything else.
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