I'm not sure I'd say the QoL for the ultra-rich has been improved that much. They have a lot more money, but end up spending it mostly on updated versions of the same stuff rich people have always spent money on. There is a serious diminishing returns on how much money can improve your Quality of Life. It can even become a burden as a level of extreme wealth can start to become its own obligation.
And you have a not insignificant number of 1%ers in Saudi Arabia and China, and scattered around the rest of the world as well. Wasn't the CEO of Alibaba the richest person in the world for a minute circa 2020?
That's it's not about how much money they use for their lifestyles, it's about how much of the economy you control. The more, the more interesting projects you can do - see Elon Musk. Of course he could live just as well with a fraction of what he owns now, but his control over so much is what allows him to do "cool stuff".
Being ultra-rich is more about controlling society's destiny, not about how one lives.
Whether that's hood or bad is hard to say without checking what a specific person does with all that control, and what would the others do if the control was not so centralized in so few.
At least part of it is that we put the gains into increased complexity.
For example, it used to be that you had a printed schedule on each tram, train and bus stop, changed twice a year (summer/winter schedules).
Now we have electronic displays that display the time until the next tram or bus arrives in minutes.
Just imagine the gigantic difference in infrastructure to support either of those options. My dad (East Germany, 1970s/80s) used to hand-write train schedules for one or two stations twice a year - and that was all. Now you need an entire server infrastructure, massive electronics, daily maintenance, software, etc. etc.
Of course we gain something, but I think the difference in effort far outstrips the gains. Especially when trams and busses are mostly on time.
We have also massively increased our human and business networks, both global and local. Speed and throughput requirements are up for almost everything, from just-in-time deliveries to communication.
It seems either us humans ourselves, or our systems, immediately swallow all gains and put them back into increased complexity of the system(s).
I venture to guess that, in addition to most people's fascination with some form of "progress", another part of that is our capitalist financial and work system: Everybody has to do something that makes money. You just can't simplify away your own job. Well you can, but you would be stupid to do so. Competition is supposed to be the counter-force, but that does not seem to work all that well overall.
Few people want to sit idle and just do nothing. We have, in fact, automated almost everything. Dishwashers, laundry machines, Amazon delivering to your door. People have a natural instinct to fill in the gaps and so they take on more activities, responsibilities, and work.
The lie of our society is that the alternative to work is to "sit idle".
That's more time with your family, your friends, your loved ones. More time smiling, more time laughing, more time being creative. This is the "good" time - the part of life you actually care about. The parts of life you will remember when you're close to death. You won't remember meetings, or a commute, or even a project you did really good on at work.
Not a lie at all. Plenty of people remember, and are proud of, their professional achievements.
Time with friends and family is important, sure, but everyone reaches a point of diminsihing returns. There's a reason most parents eventually want their kids out of the house. Or why Thanksgiving is only once a year.
Personally, I think being proud of your professional achievements, unless they're extraordinarily impressive, is pathetic. I can guarantee you, nobody else in your life shares that pride. Being proud for the money you earn is another thing all together, people do appreciate that.
> There's a reason most parents eventually want their kids out of the house. Or why Thanksgiving is only once a year.
Right, because people hate their lives and hate their families because they got married without putting much thought into it for financial incentives and then built a life with the intention of ignoring it as much as possible just to satisfy some perspective of white picket life and numbing heteronormativity.
I know many people - both men and women - who don't even like their partners. Forget about love. And they still committed to marrying them and settling down and then they like to work. Not because the work is good, but because it means they get away from their family.
Also, most adults eventually have no friends because nobody likes them, and they waste all their time on work. And, somehow, we're just supposed to be okay with the idea that nobody likes you and nobody is your friend. I mean, if you wanted to, could you even make a friend in the next year? For most, the answer is no.
We, as a whole, have destroyed any sense of community for the promise of a nuclear family and stable job. The end result is people being sad enough to pat themselves on the back for sending an email and hiding in a "man cave" to avoid the reality of having to make small talk with the person closest to them in their life.
Sorry, maybe this is harsh, but it's what I've observed. I mean just ask an older person what the best time of their life was. Most of the time they say college or high school. Sure, being young has something to do with it, but that's not it. Having friends, laughing a lot, doing activities, having a community... these are the parts that make life worth living. My father could recount countless stories from when he was in college, decades and decades ago. He couldn't tell you what the name of the dude hired 2 years ago at work.
Agree. In my observation people have a natural tendency to float towards a self determined 'busy'. Which is generally not that busy. As in there is a plenty of time to watch shows, indulge in frivolous pet household projects, go to wine tastings, etc. Note that some of these indulgences are what leads to the self determined 'busy'. But the point is they are discretionary.
Pascal, in his "Pensées" book, wrote about this: humans keep getting busy, because otherwise they would understand how pointless their existence and suffering and reality is.
And so, in order to avoid the inner void that lurk behind everyone's mind, we run, we act, we play and we do thing, because even the useless is better than the nothing.
From the customer's point of view, yes, it's automated. The task of shopping is mostly eliminated. Instead of spending all afternoon at the mall, a customer can purchase everything they need in a few minutes without ever leaving the house.
Sorry you need things to be explained to you in such great detail.
I’m sorry you don’t consider truck drivers as human beings.
But you only care that stuff is automated from your point of view, right? Other can sweat, suffer and keep slaving away, as long as you don’t have to lift a finger, right?
Yes the customer can click a button and have stuff delivered within minutes… as long as someone else is doing the delivery.
Your lack of empathy really shows the sadness of your soul, and the short sightedness of your mind.
You can be sorry for me if you want, but I pity you.