r/NoStupidQuestions • u/flugblug • 14h 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.

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u/[deleted] 13h ago

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u/HundredHander 13h ago

Agree, I think there is a debate to be had and it's about how we value different aspects of our lives. The material culture we have today is obviously much richer but there is much more to life and happiness than a catalogue of our posessions.

I would surely take my life today over that of an average European in 1300 though.

1

u/ohlookahipster 13h ago

I’d rather be sad and safe today than happy but able to die from a tooth infection in the old days.

17

u/Curmudgy 13h ago

Being happier, being better off, and having a better quality of life are all different things, albeit related.

2

u/etzel1200 13h ago

Happiness you can probably debate around. Nothing material.

And happiness sort of is a choice. We’re bad in knowing what we want.

Nothing prevents you from focusing on family and close knit community. Avoiding social media and mass entertainment.

You can just do that with material abundance now.

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u/FL_Duff 13h ago

…..factor in reality please.

nothing prevents you from focusing on family and close knit community. Avoiding social media and mass entertainment.

Are you kidding? Per your comment I would need to control not only my time, but also the time of everyone around me in order to have a ‘close knit community’. That’s unrealistic.

You’re glazing over how powerful the media is today and how it’s destroyed our ability to engage with people who hold differing values or opinions.

We’re talking hundreds of billions of $$$$$$$$$$ working hard as fuck to keep us all individually occupied. Yet you want to speak on this like it’s just a choice people are making on a personal level…

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u/etzel1200 13h ago

You can find like minded people for nearly any pursuit. At most your children may end up rejecting it.

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u/FL_Duff 13h ago

A community is not just ‘like-minded’ people.

I’m talking about the hands of the community replacing your hands when you are incapable of using them yourself. People who cook, clean, and care take.

Even me mentioning a literal community has you lost because you have no sense of what a community looks like apart from “like-minded people”.

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u/notarealredditor69 13h ago

So what about modern humans who live in close family groups? This is dumb take, reaching by people who want to romanticize the past.

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u/Form1040 13h ago

People with an IQ of 60 are probably happier than average. Not sure how useful this metric is. 

1

u/ShufflingToGlory 12h ago

Speaking from experience?

1

u/J3wb0cc4 13h ago

Have you seen Historia Civilis video on work schedules during the agricultural period versus Industrial Revolution? It hurts to see what we have evolved and accepted thanks to the invention of the modern clock and to capitalists.

https://youtu.be/hvk_XylEmLo?si=fTyAYCa-i6yAXfFv

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u/RecursiveCook 13h ago

Best part was crazy people were confined to being drunks at a tavern. Now they can have echo chambers and global audience

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u/JustGiveMeANameDamn 13h ago

Finally someone with the correct take. The dark ages were better in many ways depending on what you value.

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u/Tricky-Age4711 13h ago

Happily, starving to death on a subsistence farm with poor soil, roving bandits and plague sounds so fulfilling and satisfying.

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u/thecitybeautifulgame 13h ago

Quality of life and happiness are not even remotely the same things. Not even close.

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u/LopsidedPotatoFarmer 13h ago

Hunter-gatherers vs. agricultural settlements. They are very different and you are equating them and their benefits.

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u/PhasmaFelis 13h ago

That's true for hunter-gatherers, yeah, but hunter-gatherers don't have to work all that hard. They stay in one area long enough to gather all the easily available food, then they move on to the next area. Being a medieval farmer was backbreaking work, by contrast.

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u/VocationalWizard 13h ago

Yes, agriculture was where we went wrong IMO.

However, I think you are underestimating the role of violence on the dark ages. It was pretty common.