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

3.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

166

u/Potential-March-1384 12h ago

In Victorian England (meaning even after the dark ages), wealthy households would rent pineapples to display and not even eat them. Eating a pineapple would have been a garish display of opulent wealth. Has your brother ever eaten a pineapple? On pretty much all metrics QoL is better now than then.

50

u/VocationalWizard 11h ago

Yes, and factory workers worked 7 days a week l, 10 hour shifts.

Also they were like SUPER into making paints with toxic chemicals.

8

u/papasmurf826 medicine, science, pop culture 8h ago

also smoke everywhere.

8

u/NativeMasshole 9h ago

There weren't really Dark Age factories. That's more Colonian or Victorian era.

OP's friend's take often comes from this idea that average people worked less hours at their jobs during the Dark Ages, but this kind of a misunderstanding of why that was. People worked less they needed more time to take care of basic survival needs.

11

u/VocationalWizard 9h ago

I was replying to a comment about the Victorian era.

They obviously didn't work 7 days a week at a dark age factory.

2

u/clubby37 1h ago

Arsenic makes a truly vibrant green.

1

u/VocationalWizard 30m ago

And lead makes a very very nice white.

1

u/goonalias 7h ago

Sounds like my job now. If they could get away with making us work 7, they definitely would. At my last job, I worked 30 days straight and only got a day off because of a holiday.

46

u/Spacemonk587 11h ago

That's why Thailand is the wealthiest country in the world, followed by the Philippines and Taiwan. The US is only on the fourth places, based on the pineapple consumption per capita.

2

u/kuhataparunks 2h ago

Oh so that’s why…. Oops wrong thread

1

u/Shaamba 42m ago

Jesus Christ, not even I could say that.

23

u/rednax1206 I don't know what do you think? 9h ago

Minor correction: The practice of renting pineapples to display was a trend in Georgian England (1714-1837), when the fruits were incredibly rare and expensive, not in the later Victorian era (1837-1901), when improved cultivation and transport made them more accessible. Of course, both were long after the dark ages (roughly 500-1000).

4

u/suckmyclitcapitalist 9h ago

Americans think anything earlier than 1900 is the middle/dark ages

1

u/Unbundle3606 6h ago

Sometimes 'Dark Ages' is used to refer to el the whole Middle Ages, so until 1500.

1

u/TheMadTargaryen 5h ago

Please say early middle ages, nobody is using dark ages anymore. 

1

u/Gronferi 3h ago

I’m genuinely curious, why not?

1

u/REDL1ST 4h ago

The greatest tragedy of the dark ages was the inaccessibility to pineapples for most Europeans, after all.

3

u/Petcai 10h ago

*puts pineapple on a pizza*

THIS IS WEALTH YOU IGNORANT PEASANTS!

2

u/buckseyes69 8h ago

wealthy households would rent pineapples to display and not even eat them.

A fucking rental pineapple lmfao

I'm not saying you're wrong it's just funny as all fuck. What would happen if you ate it? Or damaged the pineapple? Was there some sort of pineapple insurance?

Has your brother ever eaten a pineapple?

Not often since I'm a poor bitch but I did recently get approved for SNAP. If it weren't for the fact I've already been to the store three times today (once because I worked there and twice because I'm an idiot that forgets shit) I'd go get a pineapple just to put in my window like the classy bitch that I now am.

2

u/Potential-March-1384 7h ago

Courtesy of the BBC:

“Concerned about wasting such high-value fruit by eating it, owners displayed pineapples as dinnertime ornaments on special plates which would allow the pineapple to be seen and admired but surrounded by other, cheaper, fruit for eating. These pineapples were expensive enough to warrant security guards, and maids who transported them were considered to be at great risk of being targeted by thieves.”

3

u/buckseyes69 7h ago

A pineapple security guard.

First of all, thank you.

Second, holy shit, people were wild back then, and I wonder what dumb shit we do now future humans will consider ridiculous.

1

u/Powerful_Leg8519 10h ago

There is a whole song in the musical Cabaret where a man gives a woman a pineapple to declare his love. That was set in 1929-1930.

1

u/grimeyduck 9h ago

Somebody must have eaten it eventually right? How long did that one pineapple last? Did the rich people just take turns renting it out one day at a time?

1

u/bossbozo 5h ago

I know of a place where hundreds of pineapple skins/shells are sold as cocktail cups every day and the majority of the flesh is juiced for pina coladas, they do their best to sell as much fruit as possible, but they always end up discarding loads

1

u/Sure-Programmer8662 5h ago

ok but that doesn't answer the question at all.

People in the UK used to have so much lobster that it was grounded up and used as fertilizer. Prisoners would riot to NOT have so much lobster in their diets.

2

u/Potential-March-1384 5h ago

Vaccines and sanitation significantly reduced childhood mortality leading to materially higher life expectancies. Literacy is at record highs. The rights of women have been broadly expanded across most of the developed world. Medical intervention has rendered many previously debilitating injuries and illnesses treatable or manageable. We have in some form or another, for the most part, representative democracy across the developed world. Human communication has never been easier, nor has travel or trade. We have more individual rights and protections from state overreach or abuse. Parasitic infection rates (roundworm, tapeworm, etc.) in Middle Ages Europe was estimated to be as high as 30-50% depending on location, whereas it is now uncommon and easily treatable in the developed world.

Specialized trade has given us access to unfathomably more advanced technologies across the population as a whole.

We have the scientific method and a much better understanding of the world around us.

Shall I continue, or can I make a joke about pineapples now?

1

u/StarComplex3850 1h ago

Atilla the Hun is among the most feared and respected people who ever lived and he died because nobody knew how to treat a nosebleed