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> we are at the best time in the entire human history I constantly see this claim and I have really grown to hate it. It is a simple lie, in three ways, and thirds one is the worst. Firstly, the statement is only true if you compare human history over hundreds of years. So you comparing modern society to people who haven't discovered soap and hygiene. If that is your benchmark, even USSR looks good if you compare it to 1500's - at least you had real medical system and toilets. Clearly medieval social order in not our benchmark of success, no-one is arguing we should bring back the inquisition, burning witches and bloodletting. It is not actually true if you compare human experience over last few decades - look at suicide rates and debt burden amongst young people, climate change, etc. Second reason your claim is terrible, is it conflates social order and technological progress. So when I question social policies, like why did I alone pay more tax in UK in 2015 than the entire corporation of Starbucks, people go - 'things have never been so good, so current social policies should not be questioned.' Well, things get better because technology get's better. Even in USSR technology got better. So if all you knew was living in USSR, you'd be making the same argument, and it would be equally valid/invalid. Third reason this is terrible, is it fails to take into account inertia. So in Britain we question the way our railways are run, and this argument gets throw around. But majority of railways were built in Victorian Era, under completely different social order. American economy was made great decades ago, when corporate tax rates were like 3x higher, education was free, etc. We are just living off success of the past, it does not mean current social order, which is different, will lead to success. |
American economy was made great when America was practically the only developed country in the world that wasn't devastated (in the literal sense of the word) by the WWII. It was trivially easy to outcompete everyone else and flood the world with US exports, which triggered the US Golden Era, during which uneducated people working jobs that could be learned in half a day could afford to live in detached houses - something to this day completely unheard of in the rest of the world.