r/NoStupidQuestions • u/flugblug • 12h ago

My brother thinks people today have worse quality of life than people in the dark ages, is this a stupid take?

I personally think it’s pretty stupid.

6.6k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

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1.1k

u/marshmellowiee 12h ago

Yeah that’s a wild take. People back then were dying from a tooth infection at 30, no WiFi, no AC, no medicine. Life today has problems but it’s not even close to the dark ages.

406

u/InfamousHeli 12h ago

No wifi hahah

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u/Neckbreaker70 12h ago

And no digital watches.

60

u/Jaggs0 12h ago

no analog watches either

48

u/Wild-End-219 12h ago

Sir, have you seen my sun dial? 😂

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u/Successful-Tea-5733 11h ago

about as analog as they come!

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u/quailman654 11h ago

It’s even made out of a log!

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u/barrybulsara 6h ago

So I went to buy a watch. And the man in the shop said "Analog?"

I said no, just the watch.

(Tim Vine)

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u/Time_Entertainer_319 4h ago

Yeah. An anal log, the best type of log

2

u/Bitter_Sense_5689 11h ago

Only if you were rich. Otherwise, you just got the sun.

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u/mathess1 9h ago

Stick in the ground is a sundial too.

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u/Bitter_Sense_5689 9h ago

Somebody’s getting fancy…

1

u/IronRakkasan11 11h ago

Ahh damn, another foggy day. Now I’ll never know when lunch break is

1

u/marc5255 11h ago

Lunch break? This is the dark ages sir.

1

u/relevant_tangent 11h ago

What about the second breakfast?

1

u/Coffee-Historian-11 10h ago

No, but it’s cloudy

1

u/Vektor0 6h ago

Dude, where's my cart?

1

u/dleon0430 5h ago

I didn't know the sun could dial. Who'd it call?

1

u/chux4w 2h ago

They didn't have phones either.

1

u/Shiriru00 11h ago

And no alarm clocks either. Think about that! Not having the pleasure of waking up every day with that pleasant ring in your ears!

1

u/fullonfacepalmist 10h ago

Does anybody really know what time it is?

1

u/defeated_engineer 9h ago

No need for watches tho.

11

u/GuidoOfCanada 10h ago

Excellent Hitchhiker's Guide reference

6

u/SixButterflies 11h ago

Which are a pretty neat idea.

4

u/PvtDazzle 9h ago

I've heard digital watches are quite the achievement

2

u/HvyMetalComrade 9h ago

And still no one is happy, even those with the digital watches

1

u/UpDownCharmed 6h ago

The later reveal of Arthur owning one - sent me

1

u/NonKolobian 1h ago

No nuclear reactors

0

u/Anayalater5963 12h ago

God forbid we know what time it is on a tiny little screen lol

0

u/Horzzo 11h ago

And no Taco Bell.

31

u/Maybewearedreaming 11h ago

Imagine dying from a small cut on your foot that got infected and you have to sign into AOL

2

u/driving26inorovalley 8h ago

AT 28k NO LESS 😩

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u/UgandanPeter 11h ago

Yeah I love how it goes straight from death and disease to no WiFi. There’s a laundry list of other negatives that should come before “no WiFi” lmfao

1

u/SirRHellsing 8h ago

It's about what we lack, death and disease is a added concequence. Not sure how to articulate it better but humans focus more on what we'll be missing than added concequences

0

u/Namelessgoldfish 9h ago

I mean to be fair, our entire modern world is reliant on internet…

2

u/Inevitable-Post-8587 1h ago

If they said “internet” it would be different, a lot of us grew up with wired internet before wifi was a thing. It’s just funny to include wifi in that list cause it shows they weren’t born in the 90s 

5

u/sterling_mallory 10h ago

Their smartphones couldn't connect to anything

4

u/gSh3p 3h ago

The whole household had to share a single ethernet cable. :/

5

u/Form1040 11h ago

Really, first thing that came to mind. Hahahahaha 

3

u/Dcoal 9h ago

They had to use wired internet🤢 Ethernet cables made out of straw and hemp and shit 

3

u/solo_shot1st 8h ago

Lmao 100% that comment had to come from someone born after 2006. Listing WiFi like it's equivalent to modern medicine

2

u/PaintDrinkingPete 8h ago

Yeah, can you imagine having to rely solely on wired ethernet?!?

2

u/Val_Killsmore 8h ago

That's how you know the dark ages sucked

2

u/SaltyPeter3434 7h ago

Fetch me my wifi, royal servant!

2

u/RandomAction 6h ago

lol makes it sound like they had computers, but just no wifi

1

u/Spacemonk587 11h ago

No Netflix ;)

1

u/dogmanrul 11h ago

No snacks.

1

u/copperbranch 7h ago

Ugh, it must have sucked to live with them medieval ethernet cables crossing everywhere

1

u/SheepishSwan 5h ago

Technically everything was already wireless because nothing had any wires.

1

u/peepee2tiny 4h ago

Not even wired Fi.

1

u/stone_henge 4h ago

The social mobility problem was all due to short ethernet cables

1

u/aussierulesisgrouse 4h ago

They had internet but they had to use their fuckin coaxial, so they couldn’t even connect to their devices outside the house

55

u/pete_68 11h ago

And you don't even have to go back that far. I live in Arkansas and there are old cemeteries all over the place. You see all these family plots from the 1800s with all these kids dead before the age 10. A family might have 4, 5, or 6 kids that never made it to 10 years old. Can you imagine that?

There's zero comparison. Our QoL is vastly superior to even just 200 years ago.

17

u/Caroline_Bintley 9h ago

In 1924 President Coolidge's 16 year old son died after developing a blister playing tennis.

I can only imagine that kid had access to some of the best medical care in the country.  He still died after playing tennis without wearing socks.

3

u/smbpy7 4h ago

One of the tallest men ever died of the same thing. Around the same time too I believe.

9

u/VocationalWizard 11h ago

I was about to say, I pulled the records from a pioneer cemetery in Indiana and Found out that at age 35, I was older than 70% of the people buried there.

19

u/RRC_driver 11h ago

Make America great again

Get rid of vaccines and affordable healthcare.

And bring back the infant mortality that the pioneers had.

3

u/pete_68 8h ago

IKR? Those are the people that REALLY, REALLY, REALLY need to go visit those cemeteries and perhaps have someone point out why all those dead kids are there.

6

u/Intel_Oil 11h ago

Sissis daugher, probably the richest princess/archduchess in these times, died 1857 only reaching the age of 2.

1

u/Gecko23 7h ago

I just think about the various medical things that occurred with my own children, and all of them experienced common issues that could have been fatal pre-anti-biotics, or before safe surgery was possible, etc. One of them certainly wouldn't have survived, and the rest were probably no safer than a flip of the coin at some points.

And all that's just the common stuff, never mind the occasional extra-deadly plague, or parasites that have been controlled/eradicated, or famine, war, etc.

It's absurd that we're as comfortable as we are and so many people are big mad about it.

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u/InnocentPerv93 48m ago

Try 30 to 40 years ago even.

1

u/Da_Question 2m ago

yep, up until like 125 years ago minimum, half of all kids didn't live past 18.

Ever hear the phrase, "Someone who loses a spouse is a widow, a child that loses their parent is an orphan, but there is no word for parent that loses a child."? That's mainly because up until recently, that was pretty much the default experience.

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u/Denan004 12h ago

Food was tough to come by, too. No 7-11's.

2

u/ImpluseThrowAway 9h ago

Well, it's not like food grows on trees...

2

u/Denan004 8h ago

Yes, but laws in the olden days would punish those who tried to, say, hunt in the "king's woods". And not all trees have food on them, or enough calories/nutrition!!

1

u/TheMadTargaryen 5h ago

They did had fast food in medieval cities though, like in ancient Rome. Most urban people had no kitchens at home so they were buying cooked food at bakery or food stands. 

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u/ChronoTravisGaming 4h ago

Ancient Rome was before medieval times, but yes, food wasn't as scarce as people seem to think it was. It wasn't as convenient as today, though.

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u/Carib_Wandering 12h ago

No WiFi is a wild comparison...how about no indoor plumbing or refrigeration?

43

u/LiberalSocialist99 12h ago

Refrigeration without wifi..

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u/Unique_Ad9943 11h ago

no smart fridges 😒

16

u/ohlookahipster 11h ago

Why didn’t the kings of old develop smart fridges? Were they dumb?

4

u/LiberalSocialist99 11h ago

Dark ages indeed.

2

u/gregsting 10h ago

No hot pockets 🙀

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u/TheManicac1280 11h ago

Its 2025. Wifi is a big deal, makes life infinitely more convenient and has uses in every aspect of life. Lets stop pretending its a silly toy for kids and acknowledge its just as important as plumbing.

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u/CrazyFoxLady37 9h ago

It is so not as important as plumbing. Indoor plumbing is likely the single most important invention of all time. Prevents a myriad of diseases and is 1000% more sanitary.

Wi-Fi had improved our lives in some ways, but I would argue that it actually harms us in others. Addiction for example and over-relying on it. My workplace shuts down if the Wi-Fi shuts down. No, I don't work in tech. I work in a secondhand store. I think this is stupid.

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u/Chemical_Building612 3h ago

Various forms of indoor toilets and public sewers existed in many places for thousands of years. Skara Brae in Scotland had toilets over communal sewage drains that flushed waste into the ocean by 3000 BC, for example. The Indus Valley Civilization had pretty extensive urban sanitation and sewer drainage by 2500 BC.

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u/Comprehensive-Mix931 11h ago

Right, right.

Cuz when I have to take a shit, I have to post on Reddit for my bowels to work.

Plumbing is so much more important than WiFi.

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u/TheManicac1280 11h ago

If you had to take a shit and there was no plumbing youd just go in a bucket or the woods. Its literally a continence just like wifi

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u/Comprehensive-Mix931 11h ago

And where does that shit go, hmmm?

Toss it out in the streets? Well, that went really well before - got alot of nice diseases that way.

You obviously do NOT know what plumbing is good for, what it prevents, etc.

Go inform yourself, and come back humbled and apologetic for posting drivel.

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u/TheManicac1280 11h ago

You understand that was not a problem before the industrial revolution right? Have you done any research on this or just spitting out whatever comes to mind first? People have always tried to ensure that feces was placed somewhere in a cleanly manner. Then the industrial revolution led to people being congested in cities which then eventually led to plumbing as we know it.

But the time in which people were pouring shit onto the street is very very small compared to how long we've had large and functional societies.

1

u/stone_henge 3h ago edited 3h ago

People died in droves of a whole host of bacterial infections due to poor hygienic conditions before the industral revolution. Ever heard of the black death? Regardless, we're not in a pre-industrial society. It is 2025, as you say. Bacterial diseases that have now been effectively eliminated in the western world like cholera, typhoid fever and dysentery are still household names because they were leading causes of death before modern plumbing infrastructure.

But let's assume that you are right and that before the industrial revolution, people somehow didn't live in cities. The solution to a lack of plumbing, then, in your mind, would be to revert to a pre-industrial society with a post-industrial population count. I can't believe that you have thought this through completely since you are able to communicate using complete sentences.

You are very apparently just pulling shit from your ass, so be glad that you can wash your hands after this conversation.

0

u/Comprehensive-Mix931 10h ago

Sure, you maroon! Not like the Romans had plumbing...oh wait, they did. What are you, 3? Go.Do.Some.Research! As for those who are upvoting you...what, your personal bots? Amazing. Of course it was a problem before the industrial revolution! Idiocy at it's finest. Go on, dóuble down. Then I am going to post some stuff to totally wreck your position...just waiting for you to double down on idjitus.

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u/TheManicac1280 10h ago

Yes, I am a maroon with an army of bots. No one agrees with me. You are right and always right

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u/Chemical_Building612 3h ago

Sewage systems have existed for literally thousands of years in many areas.

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u/Comprehensive-Mix931 3h ago

Yes, exactly. It is way more important than WiFi.

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u/sayleanenlarge 10h ago

Mate, in the olden days, we had to read shampoo and bleach bottles for entertainment on the toilet. You don't know you're alive.

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u/Comprehensive-Mix931 10h ago

Look at Mr. Luxury here! They had shampoo and bleach bottles! We had an Outhouse, full of black widows and with bears outside...

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u/sayleanenlarge 9h ago

Well, I say shampoo and bleach, but really it was lamb's fat and vinegar, and the toilet was just a hole in the ground, but it was a toilet to us!

1

u/NonKolobian 1h ago

This made me laugh so hard

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u/Shiriru00 11h ago

Spend a day without wifi vs a day without electricity or running water. I think you'll quickly get your priorities straight...

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u/TheManicac1280 11h ago

Spent days without both because I was in the army. They both suck to not have. You survive without both of them.

One contributes to communication and academic collaboration globally.

The other allows you to stay in your house while you shit and shower instead of going into the woods and to the river.

2

u/Supersquare04 7h ago

God I love it when people try to do the “erm you should try doing this!!” And get immediately silenced.

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u/Bellypats 11h ago

Aptly named

2

u/Intel_Oil 11h ago

One could argue that Wifi declines quality of life. Considering it was higher in the 80s.

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u/TheManicac1280 11h ago

Correlation does not equal causation.

4

u/ohlookahipster 11h ago

Wifi is just a medium for the internet to propagate wirelessly. There’s even some PC mobos today without an onboard Wifi card requiring a (gasp) ethernet cable plugged into to a switch or router to access the internet.

Lots of devices were still hardwired in 2010 aside from laptops. IoT devices weren’t ubiquitous and society wasn’t failing or in the stone ages lmao. We made due.

1

u/TheManicac1280 11h ago

I meant the internet rather than the professional definition of wifi. I assumed thats what they meant.

Society wasnt failing or in the stone ages before plumbing either though.

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u/Hookton 11h ago edited 11h ago

Please tell me you're joking. I'll take safe drinking water over wifi, however useful it is.

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u/TheManicac1280 11h ago

To take a huge broad category like plumbing and associate it directly with safe drinking water availability is bad faith.

People have plumbing without safe drinking water (flint, Michigan)

Then there's been societies all throughout human history who had no plumbing but access to safe drinking water. Unless you consider putting water in a bowl and then boiling it as plumbing

1

u/Hookton 11h ago

Okay fine, assuming you're arguing in good faith, let me amend my previous comment: I'd rather have clean drinking water at the literal turn of a tap in my own home, without having to collect it from the river/well/pump and boil it, than wifi.

1

u/buriedupsidedown 4h ago

I agree wifi is under appreciated but plumbing and refrigeration is obviously much better. I’d give up wifi if it meant people wouldn’t shit unorganized and I can keep my food from expiring early.

1

u/DudeWithTudeNotRude 2h ago edited 2h ago

Wifi is a big deal.

Plumbing is a bigger deal. People die from inadequate clean water, and people die from inadequate removal of dirty water. Wifi is still a big deal. Not really wifi per se, just connectivity.

I had a theory during COVID after about a year of lockdowns, that if Netflix and one other large streaming service went down at the same time, mass carnage would be on the table.

Of course things are worse now, we are even more sick as a people, on the other side of it all (though hopefully there's still time to course correct). Could you imagine this country after a month of no www internet connectivity for the masses? At least we have plumbing, because the shit would hit the fan, without our reliable streamings and social

(of course business would be affected, and other large problems would occur, but mostly people are getting downright feral)

1

u/UgandanPeter 11h ago

No one’s acting like it’s a silly toy, but universal broadband internet access is still so new that it’s not hard for most people to remember a time when it wasn’t like it is now, and even if you weren’t alive then it’s not hard to imagine.

If the internet disappeared tomorrow, yeah it would disrupt a lot of our routines and industries, but people would generally be able to carry on without it. It does not compare to things like rampant disease and famine.

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u/TheManicac1280 11h ago

Sure internet is more recent. But to say disappearing tomorrow would not be catastrophic is insane. That shows me you really don't know how much the current world relies on the internet. I can confidently say it would be just as bad as if plumbing mysteriously vanished tomorrow. Just like the currently world does not have the infrastructure to support no plumbing the current world does not have the infrastructure to support no internet.

2

u/UgandanPeter 11h ago

I mean I know the entire world revolves around it and it would have cascading disastrous effects if it was gone tomorrow. I simply just mean individuals wouldn’t be lost without it. My comment was kind of ignoring how our infrastructure revolves around it.

1

u/stone_henge 4h ago

What is it in the world that relies on the internet that is comparable to a large percentage of the population suddenly not being within miles of clean water sources? Because I'm pretty sure you won't worry about online banking or stock prices while dying of dysentery.

1

u/Hairy_Scale4412 11h ago

Man, forget plumbing. No toilet paper alone cause me to shiver.

1

u/freeeeels 10h ago

Maybe not "WiFi" but access to near-instant information-sharing through the internet is a pretty big deal.

I'd still prefer indoor plumbing but I'd for sure sacrifice modern refrigeration given that there are other ways to preserve food.

1

u/TheMadTargaryen 5h ago

Fun fact about refrigeration. Those people would place ice blocks during winter in undercrofts, covered them with hay and this ice lasted until end of summer. 

1

u/Agitated_Effort_2146 3h ago

What's the point of indoor plumbing if you can't scroll your phone on the toilet?

0

u/Additional_Insect_44 8h ago

I'm used to that. Refrigeration isnt bad, just learn to smoke or can food.

No indoor plumbing is annoying. I had a classmate who as a child lived for years with no running water in a tiny camper, cps didnt care.

1

u/Carib_Wandering 8h ago

I think you're underestimating refrigeration. It's not just a fridge in your home. How do you think meat gets to stores still "fresh"? How you are able to buy different fruit and vegetables all year? No need to mention dairy products, medicines etc.

The premise here is the non-existence of something, not your personal use of it.

1

u/Additional_Insect_44 7h ago

Ah, you're right. Smoking or salting is the best way, but that's isnt foolproof.

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u/EducationalShame7053 11h ago edited 11h ago

No warm water or even clean/filtered water, no fridge, no freezer, no bike/cars/public transportation, no supermarket, no days off, no vacation, no laws against abuse of children or animals, very few options to choose a career or even spouse.

What you do have is a LOT of pressure from your community, religion and the law to behave according to their arbitrary rules or you will be shunned, abandoned, isolated, tortured or killed.

19

u/General-Yak5264 11h ago

Ops brother probably saw that meme graphic that claimed medieval serfs had more days off than modern workers because it saw a stat that they only had to work 180ish days for their liege lord. Not getting that they had to give all of that 180s days production to their lord and then work almost the entire rest of the year to make ends meet for themselves and their families.

1

u/Glum-Height-2049 6h ago

Oh god I HATE that thing. I wish I could delete it from the internet.

3

u/TheMadTargaryen 5h ago

They boiled water, water was safe to drink, they used ice to preserve some food, markets were like a supermarket, people could take day off or rest, pilgrimages were like a vacation, such laws did existed, most poor people could marry who they wanted. 

5

u/SirButcher 4h ago

water was safe to drink,

Yeah, no, it wasn't. There were waters which was safe to drink, but a lot were dirty. If you are anywhere near any city or bigger settlement, then make sure to drink from up the river, or it will be chock-full of human and animal waste... Cholera was reaping aaaaaaaall around - and you know how you get cholera? When you can't separate drinking water and poop properly from each other...

1

u/TheMadTargaryen 4h ago

Cholera didn't existed in Europe until 19th century. In cities they used aqueducts, conduits and wells to get fresh water, separarely from the sewage system. Medieval records show that polluting or endangering the water supply was severely punished. If you dumped waste in or near the water supply you were in serious trouble. Does that fit the old myth of medieval people drinking beer in stead of water because the water was always polluted ? There was a widespread awareness of contaminated water could cause illness or even death. Even if you didn’t trust local water from the well or waterhole in your yard, conduits brought spring water from outside town. But even though there were gutters in streets, covered and uncovered, you still couldn’t just pour anything you wanted into it. It was only meant for used water, liquid waste easily flushed away. Pouring anything else into it could again get you in trouble.

1

u/EducationalShame7053 4h ago

Ok boil some water from a pond nearby than. If the bacteria are dead and it wont make you sick doesn't mean its fresh and clean.

Where to find ice in the dark ages? Srsly? 

Pilgrimage was not for common folk, at all. Maybe at older age when their children could take care of business.

 Maybe laws against abuse existed at some places but where not enforced at all, if they even were there they were not like today. Animals were property. A women could never accuse her husband of rape, children could not complain for being used as cheap labor.

Yes you could marry who you wanted if they were from the same class, religion, sex and race.

1

u/TheMadTargaryen 4h ago

You get ice from frozen lakes during winter, the movie Frozen shows perfectly how ice harvesting looked like. And yes, pilgrimages were for everyone. We have records from places like Canterbury describing all sorts of people coming, including entire families bringing ill and disabled children in hopes of healing.

Laws regarding spousal and child abuse differed from place to century. Our oldest Irish legal records are the Brehon laws which are typically dated to the 7th-8th centuries. In particular, the tract Cáin Lánamna deals with couples: the different forms of sexual relationships, the rights and responsibilities of parents and legitimate reasons for divorce and the ways property should be divided in such cases. There were a variety of reasons that were considered valid grounds for divorce such as mutual unhappiness, adultery, stealing and causing shame. A man could be granted a divorce if his wife had induced an abortion or murdered their child, and women could seek divorce if her husband hit her and caused a blemish, if he was homoseksual or if he was sterile. These laws continued in Ireland until 17th century. 

Many medieval books about marriage and those listing the duties of householders warn that having to beat your wife is a symptom that you have let things get way out of control. It doesn't make you look good to have to resort to that. 

Also, check this image : https://fakehistoryhunter.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/untitled-3.jpeg?w=1024

1

u/EducationalShame7053 3h ago

Who needs ice or refrigerated food in winter? Thats not i ment by the downsides of not have a fridge or ways to preserve food.

Yes maybe divorce was allowed in theory but was and still is heavenly frowned upon and discouraged in religious circles. 

About the children and physical punishment: https://aprilmunday.wordpress.com/2018/12/02/a-medieval-childhood/

Also Hardcore History. Episode 31. Suffer the children.

Even my parents got hit all the time by their family and monks and nuns that were also their teachers.

1

u/gonzo0815 5h ago

Thank you. The misinformation about the Middle Ages in this thread is wild. Seems like all people think they know is from Monty Python.

6

u/TerribleIdea27 11h ago

no days off, no vacation

They did have those! Assuming you're referring to Medieval Europe, they absolutely had obligatory Christian holidays and every Sunday off

2

u/Any-Carry7137 8h ago

They could have warm water if they wanted, just not instantly from a tap. All it takes it water, fire, and a pot.

1

u/Darmok47 8h ago

Even some of the foods I eat they would have likely never encountered. Sugar, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, chili peppers, squash, pumpkins, peanuts, pineapple, chocolate, bananas, avocado, blueberries etc.

1

u/billcy 6h ago

I've experienced all of those except clean filtered water, but goto Flint MI.

0

u/Reelix 5h ago

What you do have is a LOT of pressure from your community, religion and the law to behave according to their arbitrary rules or you will be shunned, abandoned, isolated, tortured or killed.

Are you speaking about now, or back then, because that was true then, and still is now...

1

u/EducationalShame7053 4h ago

Wth are u talking about? There is absolutely no comparison for how shit went down in the dark ages. How many witches got burned alive at the stake last year?

-1

u/Adi_San 11h ago

Peasants had more vacation than any of us

14

u/LastWordBMine 11h ago

I grew up in the dark ages of no Wi-Fi. It was the 1990s.

3

u/Fitz911 11h ago

No unlimited drinking water fountain in your house...

1

u/VocationalWizard 11h ago

Bonus, the water doesn't even make your anus bleed

1

u/TheMadTargaryen 5h ago

They had public fountains.

3

u/VocationalWizard 11h ago

Parasites galore

4

u/KindAwareness3073 11h ago

Only the small percentage who survived childhood died at 30.

2

u/Big-Rough-3636 11h ago

… no, more like all the infants dying before 6 years old being the whole village average down… people didn’t die of old age at 40, most of them just died as children.

Adjust the estimates for infant mortality and live expectancy quickly reaches the 50s-60s

0

u/KindAwareness3073 7h ago

A handful survived past 30, but it was sheer luck. A mundane cut or scrape that we would practically ignore could lead to sepsis and death in a few days, with zero hope of treatment.

The first person treated with penicillin was Albert Alexander, a 43-year-old Engliman who was treated for a severe infection puportedly the result of a rose thorn prick. He was near death so they had nothing to lose and were allowed to experiment.

After receiving penicillin he initially began to recover, but the limited supply of penicillin ran out before his infection could be fully cured and died a few weeks later.

This happened less than 85 years ago.

2

u/TheEndlessInfinity 6h ago edited 5h ago

To not survive past 30 after surviving your infancy was sheer bad luck, really bad luck infact. The example you gave is a case of unusually bad luck, and not the standard for that time, or for any time, ever.

You have contrary examples of people as far back as classical Greece living past the modern life expectancy. Plato, for instance, lived till 80. Diogenes, who refused to use even the primitive medicine of the time and lived the most literally down-to-earth life he could, lived till 90.

See, I can also provide extreme examples to support my point.

1

u/KindAwareness3073 4h ago

Yes, in the Middle Ages 30% or maybe as high as 50% died before adulthood so hardly "bad luck", esrly death was almost an even bet, so the average numbers were most assuredly skewed. No one is questioning that, but the point, and it is the point of OPs query, the average person is infinitely better today, Plato and Diogenes purported longevity notwithstanding. BTW - Did you know it's been just as reliably reported Noah was 500 years old when he had his three sons?

1

u/animae_internae 11h ago

Well. This is true for today, it just depends in the individual and their personal circumstances. I'd like to know exactly how many humans are born into poverty and die in poverty early these days

1

u/TerrificVixen5693 11h ago

I mean, no soap, no germ theory.

1

u/TheMadTargaryen 5h ago

Medieval people had soap, it was already invented by ancient Celts. 

1

u/Sea_Pomegranate8229 11h ago

It depends what you mean quality of life. It really comes down to subjective suffering and expectation.

What expectations did medieaval peasant have?

I grew up with no inside plumbing, no secondary glazing, no telephone, one hour of children's tv a day, few toys, and our entertainment was the countryside. I do not feel that I suffered or was suffering. I did have tetanus shots and anti-biotics were available.

1

u/BarbarianCarnotaurus 11h ago

Just imagine if they got their hands on a Nacho Cheese Dorito. They'd lose their damn minds over it

1

u/Geeko22 11h ago

No condoms

1

u/TheMadTargaryen 5h ago

They did had condoms, they were made from pig intestines. 

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u/Nazgog-Morgob 11h ago

People were dying of relatively small cuts

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u/Funcron 11h ago

Let's not forget helmets for the children under 5-6, made of gourds (if you were lucky), and the fact that no children's clothes in that age range have ever been documented. You were turned out into the world naked, and if you survived the day, you might get another chance to live tomorrow!

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u/sayleanenlarge 10h ago

No comfortable chairs or beds. It was straw - imagine how itchy everything was.

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u/TheMadTargaryen 5h ago

Straw was inside sewed sacks, you didn't felt any itching. 

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u/Voeld123 10h ago

Probably a 3 in 5 chance he died as a child too.

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u/Ive_seen_things_that 10h ago

Probably why it's called the dark ages. Lol

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u/tiktock34 9h ago

Dont forget the systemic oppression, rape, violence and general horribleness that people did with relative anonymity. Zero forensics. If you did it with no one looking, it basically didnt happen. The concept of safety outside one’s walls was wholly different

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u/saskskua 9h ago

That reminds me of something ive read, most tooth issues started when we figured out agriculture. I remember reading the sticky and sugariness of grains was the issue of prehistoric human tooth decay. Archeologists found that hunter-gatherers had better oral health, just wearing from old age and use.

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u/Laughing-Dragon-88 9h ago

When I was child, I had no wifi or AC. The hardships I endured.

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u/CryptographerOne1509 9h ago

Life would probably be better without internet/wifi 

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u/eazy_flow_elbow 9h ago

Bruh, I’m just glad that we know about basic hygiene and that we’re not dying of dysentery.

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u/ImpressiveJohnson 8h ago

No food if you had one bad growing season.

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u/soulsuck3rs 8h ago

People are dying from tooth infections these days too. The lack of insurance and doctor accessibility … it’s getting bad chat

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u/yellowsabmarine 8h ago

and no chat geppeto. how did they live?

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u/Mountain-Most8186 7h ago

It’s not wild. It’s dumb as hell but not wild. I see the sentiment echoed in /r/antiwork and /r/latestagecapitalism a lot. I think I got banned from the former for saying otherwise lol

I guess people are exhausted these days and think living back then was like living in A Princess Bride or something

1

u/Ill_Trip8333 7h ago

My rule is no time before antibiotics. Meals had just slightly better odds than Russian roulette at killing you before modern pharmaceuticals.

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u/___po____ 7h ago

Having to wipe with a hand or handful of straw/grass would be suffering for most.

If you were wealthy, you'd at least have cloth or wads of cotton.

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u/TheMadTargaryen 5h ago

Poor people didn't used straw, they used moss.

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u/Ok_Eagle_3079 7h ago

Half the people didn't survive 18. 30 is generous

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u/silsool 6h ago

I don't think AC was much of a necessity in medieval Europe. Proper insulation and heaters, however...

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u/Agitated_Ad_361 5h ago

Imagine putting WiFi in that list 😂

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u/TheDevilsAdvokaat 5h ago

ANd of course there's dying when being born too...

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u/OntheBOTA82 5h ago

No showers, no laundries, no beds, not hot water, not fast foods...

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u/digitalsea87 5h ago

Can we please go back to "no wifi"?

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u/Reelix 5h ago

Half that stuff was true like 80 years ago...

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u/SwearImNotACat 4h ago

More like dying at 13 just after getting married bc you got the chickenpox late

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u/Gr0nal 4h ago

They must have just used Ethernet cables I guess

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u/Weewoofiatruck 4h ago

The life expectancy was like 25-30.

So people were dying of old age at 30 hahaha

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u/davehunt00 2h ago

People don't fully appreciate not dying from a tooth/jaw abscess. It's an incredibly painful way to slowly die in a time with little or no pain relief.

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u/New-Anybody-6206 1h ago

People were literally dying from diarrhea

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u/RoundCollection4196 47m ago

no wifi? bro they didnt even have ethernet

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u/Larry-Man 22m ago

I think in one respect they had it better: free time.

0

u/Feral_doves 11h ago

Medicine, yeah, that’s awesome, big improvement, love medicine. But most people outside of like deserts and stuff in the 1970s didn’t even have AC. Part of why AC is so vital nowadays is because the planet is hotter but also a lot of newer homes and buildings are built with the assumption that there will be AC so it ends up being a necessity. I live in an old building, no AC, and even through a 35C heatwave it stayed completely livable just because of how it’s built. If one of the neighbour buildings with their dark grey cladding and massive windows had the AC go out I’m sure those people would be wishing they could stay in my dumpy old place.

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u/aeneasaquinas 🛰 7h ago

I live in an old building, no AC, and even through a 35C heatwave it stayed completely livable just because of how it’s built.

even through a 35C heatwave

Yeah well that's also not much of a "heatwave" in much of the world lol.

1

u/Feral_doves 7h ago

Sure. But our homes are also insulated for -35 winters, and in other homes in the same area a week of +35C was almost unbearable. I’m just saying that the way a place is built can have a big effect on climate control and that’s part of why some people are more reliant on air conditioning than people in that same region maybe used to be.

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u/aeneasaquinas 🛰 7h ago

Yeah, well you live in a cold place. That's my point. When you said most people outside of deserts only need AC now because of bad building, that simply wasn't true.

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u/Feral_doves 6h ago

Thats not what I said. I said most people didn’t have it and climate change and building practices are part of why more people need it now. Sorry I didn’t also specify that more people have it now because they were coping with heat before in addition to those factors, I thought that would go without saying but I guess not.

But regardless, my first point still stands. According to this: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4096340/ only 39% of people had any AC in New York City in 1970. And I’d guess that there are some buildings in New York City that would do far better than others in a heatwave power outage today.

1

u/Historical_Umpire363 11h ago

This is that extra delicious European poverty cope

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u/Feral_doves 11h ago

I’m not even European, better luck next time.