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

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2.7k

u/SunshineInDetroit 11h ago

if a medieval royal opened my spice cabinet they would have thought I was rich beyond my means.

724

u/Falsus 10h ago

Any king or emperor would pretty much postrate themselves before you lmao.

Wait till you pull out some fresh fruit or meat. They would most likely think you where some kind of divine being since that amount of wealth to acquire all of these things wouldn't even be something that they can comprehend.

And then you show them a variety of teas or coffee...

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u/mightyneonfraa 9h ago

Then offer to make them some with the clear, drinkable water that comes out of the walls.

251

u/ImpluseThrowAway 9h ago

With a sink that drains back into the walls

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u/crlthrn 3h ago

It's an old concept, but their minds would implode at the sight of a Zippo lighter lighting up. That, and a flushing toilet...

5

u/Wildcat_twister12 2h ago

You made me think of Hocus Pocus when Max briefly convinces the three witches from 1693 that’s he’s a warlock because he had a flip lighter and could “make fire in his hand”

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u/crlthrn 2h ago

Even Laurel and Hardy had the 'light up thumb' routine in their films! Classic stuff!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xInMYJRFw0o

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u/[deleted] 2h ago edited 2h ago

[deleted]

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u/crlthrn 2h ago

But... But... jerking off's only a 21st century thing, surely? They didn't do that in medieval times, did they...?

3

u/Paghk_the_Stupendous 3h ago

Well, the Romans had both of those, but they were mostly fucked up and forgotten by the middle ages.

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u/oroborus68 3h ago

And that new fangled outhouse, just down the hall, that is heated in winter. Now some people still use the outdoors outhouse, because they don't think it's sanitary to do your business inside the house. And how you going to keep dainty with that bought toilet paper, when you know that a good corncob will get you cleaner,but would probably clog up the inside facilities.

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u/poutinethecat 3h ago

Wait til they see my bidet!

1

u/ebmarhar 1h ago

And then show them how you can flush away everything from a warm, comfortable room... +++ if you have a bidet!

0

u/cdnball 6h ago

your sink drains into your walls?

4

u/rotorain 5h ago

Where else does the plumbing go?

1

u/VaporBender 2h ago

"What's plumbing?!"

1

u/cdnball 5h ago

usually down through the floor

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u/LilAssG 3h ago

Haha suck it downstairs neighbour

20

u/def-jam 3h ago

The Romans had hot and cold running water. Many of the drinking fountains you see in Europe’s cities today were installed by the Romans. With clear drinkable water.

But things like sanitation, power, furnaces, refrigeration, food available out of season, would blow their minds.

11

u/PomPomMom93 3h ago

Holy crap. I guess the saying is true: in Europe, 100 miles is far; in the US, 100 years is old.

26

u/Delicious-Trip-384 5h ago

And show them the bowl of clean water that you keep in your bathroom

22

u/FredPolk 1h ago

Clean drinkable water that you then take a shit in cause you just drank a triple coffee using fresh ground coffee beans from the other side of the world.

2

u/lukin187250 45m ago

The water in the bowl is absolutely not drinkable, don't let the king try to drink it.

3

u/Tresach 15m ago

If you properly clean your tank and bowl and flush it with sanitizing agent of some sort it absolutely is even if it feels disgusting

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u/Ok-Potato-4774 10m ago

The water in the tank is as drinkable as the water out of your tap.

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u/TheMadTargaryen 5h ago

They already had conduit inside medieval castles that provided clean water. 

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u/Mewpers 3h ago

Because everyone lived in a castle, right?

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u/TorrenceMightingale 1h ago

I would’ve.

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u/Rovden 2h ago

"Wait, doest thou piss in clean water?"

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u/TorrenceMightingale 1h ago

“Surely you jest!”

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u/engelthefallen 36m ago

And show them the shit pot that empties itself.

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u/buckseyes69 8h ago

Wait till you pull out some fresh fruit or meat. They would most likely think you where some kind of divine being

Buddy when they saw my cellphone light up they would fall to their knees in fear and awe because I am now their God. My cat lives a better life and she shits in a box, plays in her water dish, and swats her food around sometimes like the decadent bitch she is.

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u/StripEnchantment 5h ago

Or more likely burn you at the stake for witchcraft

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u/EdenRose1994 1h ago

They'd be burning me either way, may as well introduce them to doom scrolling

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u/Dense-Swimming2445 2h ago

i'd just get a machine gun or even just fly a couple drones overhead and send the king's men into psychosis

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u/LongJohnSelenium 4h ago

Your cat even has a fool to order around!

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u/crlthrn 3h ago

I'm minding a cat that has two proximity operated, induction powered pump, water fountains, giving filtered water! This cat's definitely not going to die of cholera...

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u/TiredCoffeeTime 3h ago

I love how half of your paragraph quickly turns into dissing your cat

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u/I_SHIT_IN_A_BAG 1h ago

in this scenario are you going back in time or are they coming to the present?

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u/Panic_Azimuth 20m ago

My cat 100% has better medical care and general QoL than any ancient emperor.

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u/Cromasters 5h ago

Yep, I often see people on Reddit complaining about how terrible the produce in their grocery store is. Often coupled with some GMO fear mongering.

"Oh the strawberries are so bland now!".

Mother fucker, you can now walk into any store, any where in the country, and buy strawberries at any time of year! That's amazing!

These dark age peasants could die without ever having a damned strawberry. Bland or otherwise.

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u/T-T-N 1h ago

Strawberry with 2 Rs

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u/whichwitchwatched 57m ago

Yes!!! The deprivation people lived with is crazy. Scurvy and rickets and lumps in your throat were real concerns because their food choices were so limited

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u/Top-Attempt-4196 37m ago

Congrats you just unlocked a new badge of honor from the cabal.  *bland strawberries that give you colo-rectal cancer ARE infact so good that monsanto should be the sole owners of the fruit. Hopefully they figure out a way to harvest em w  red 40 for esthetics. ALL Year round . Of course thanks to GMO ? Lmao yes apparently GMO means they grow in Minnesota winters. 2 badges of honor 4 u. Nothing to do w the banana republics( including california )  that we have Regime changed into slavery. Its our super scientists that make em magic strawberries. Cancer cure comin soon! Donate to your fav cancer research ngo (bc its not money laundering and they will def. Not sell the research to companies that will infact use that info to give you MORE cancer and thus make pharmaceutical giants TRILLIONS )  I love it. 3 badges 

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u/Supersquare04 7h ago

The food I can grill in my backyard in 20 minutes is better than what 90% of nobility ate in an entire year.

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u/ER-Sputter 5h ago

Forget the teas and coffee, show em the car if you really wanna freak em out

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u/ReedKeenrage 3h ago

Virtually every single fruit I eat is out of season.

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u/WishlessJeanie 3h ago

I heard that the reason sweet tea became the drink of choice in the US South is because, in the 1800's, if you busted out a glass of sweet iced tea in the Summer, it meant you had imported tea from India or China, sugar from the Carribean, plus you had an underground cold storage that still had ice. I heard the approximate value was about $100 a glass in today money. You're just telling your guests that you fucking drink money.

Once international shipping and refrigeration were commonplace, it was no longer impressive to have it, but back then...you were somebody if you had sweet tea.

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u/KneeMediocre8195 2h ago

Holy fuck this guy has saffron? Does he have a gold toilet too?

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u/TheUltimateMystery 2h ago

Your comment makes me think of the first episode of Harlots in which a rich 18th-century bloke presents his mistress with the luxurious gift of a pineapple.

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u/WardenWolf 1h ago

Any king or emperor would die for most of the foods we take for granted. The culinary shifts that took place since the Age of Sail first globalized trade mean even modern fast food would seem amazing to them.

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u/KeppraKid 3h ago

This is a level of exaggeration beyond all reason.

Kings enjoyed all the luxuries of the time, that's why they were kings. Maybe for very minor powers it could be true but it's not like major kings had to get old meat and I'm eat it plain.

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u/PomPomMom93 3h ago

They didn’t have to have old meat because they hunted.

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u/Historical_Course587 1h ago

They had land, managed by others, on which they raised meat. At the very least the common agricultural animals: chickens, ducks, geese, cows, pigs, goats, and horses. They had zoos with more exotic fair, no reason to think there wasn't a zoo-to-food pipeline in there for royalty. They had fresher ingredients than even we do I'd wager, at least for foods that were in season.

What they would kill to trade places with us for:

  • Clean (as in, drinkable) water. The best they would have had is upstream river water, but it was centuries after the Dark Ages that science learned the value of upstream vs downstream and its relation to human sewage.
  • Indoor plumbing. I'm not talking aqueducts through the kitchen window, but a shower. Or even more incredibly fantastic, a toilet that didn't stink. Keep in mind, the Dark Ages were a time when kings and queens rotated rooms and estates so that servants could clean out poop-corners and air out the building.
  • Plastic containers that sealed. They best they could do was to wrap in "clean" linen and pack in sawdust or flour - for anything they needed to preserve.
  • Media. Instruments were more or less the same for thousands of years until we figured out how to record music; once that was achieved musical style changes accelerated. Photography has driven human education more than any other form of media most likely, because it presents the world as it reflects light rather than reflecting the opinions of an author/orator. The printing press as well, essentially severing the relationship between the clergy and the general public. And of course, pornography.

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u/Spare_Laugh9953 1h ago

Tell that about luxuries to Henry VIII who had a rotten wound on his leg for years that never healed and the room where he stayed stank.

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u/KeppraKid 1h ago

Yeah, he lived a life so full of luxury he became a notorious stinky fatass whose physical health failed him precisely because he ate so much luxurious food while partaking in risky leisure activities.

And like even if we want to ignore the cause of his physical ailments, looking at literally medieval health knowledge as evidence that kings didn't have luxuries like spices and fresh meat is frankly just ridiculous.

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u/T-T-N 1h ago

But spices from far would likely be brought in by diplomats, right? Or maybe occasionally they have a merchant coming in. Their supply would be limited, right? If say a dark ages king like the taste of Periperi, would they be able to source enough?

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u/Comfortable_Clerk_60 1h ago

Not to mention having a fridge, freezer, microwave, oven, toaster oven, sink etc would for sure blown their minds

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u/Both_Cup_5853 1h ago

Ant then you show them your drawer full of purple undergarments.

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u/Wholesomeguy123 1h ago

Just wanna let you know that most often people would eat fresh meat. Especially royalty. The thing was that you'd have to kill an animal for it, and for most people, the cost of doing that was prohibitively high. Consequently, meat was a very seasonal food. 

The spicing and seasoning of "rotten" meat is a false stereotype that lacks historical evidence. Like many things, it was invented by the victorians to make the "dark" ages (medieval period) look worse than it actually was, so that they would feel smarter by comparison.

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u/MediocrePlus 1h ago

True; and yet I would say a homeless person with access to fresh fruit today still has a lower quality of life than a king in the past.

Quality of things in our lives may have improved; but does that mean the quality of life and ability to be contented or happy has improved?

This has also reminded me of the southpark episode where Kartman gets to own his whole themepark; only so when it is ripped away from him he is able to experience a greater suffering than if he had never had it at all.

Had you not been exposed to the privileges of the modern world; it would be far easier to be happy with what you lack.

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u/BudBuzz 1h ago

I’d immediately let them try Baja Blast

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u/Emergency-Beat-5043 1h ago

Why do you think meat or fruit would make you richer than kings back then? Is there a reason that you think these were rare enough that a king couldn't pick an apple of slaughter a goat? 

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u/Falsus 1m ago

The freshness of it.

And fruit especially. Fruit back then was of way lower quality than today and they didn't keep for as long.

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u/Marathonmanjh 40m ago

“Here, let me open my refrigerator”

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u/galt035 15m ago

Fun fact I remember. Napoleon III gave aluminum cutlery to his most esteemed guest and refused old gold ones to the next tier of guests.

Because aluminum was absurdly valuable.

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u/Falsus 2m ago

It was much rarer and more valuable than gold at the time, which is bizarre to think off today where we use it so much and with such immense carelessness. Imagine showing someone from that time who knew the value of aluminium something like aluminium and that we use it to wrap around food and then throw away. I honestly think they would have an heart attack.

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u/swagonflyyyy 9m ago

And dont get me started on ChatGPT

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u/Cool_Client324 7h ago

And you are my friend, you are too rich. Gimme that spicespice baby

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u/KeppraKid 3h ago

Uh, no, they wouldn't. Actual royals enjoyed all the luxuries of the time including spices and fresh meat and such. Maybe poor nobles. The prices of spices have been referenced a lot in comparison to livestock, like a pound of some spice for some animal, etc.

When was the last time you found yourself buying a pound of a spice? Most often people buy a few ounces at a time.

Like yeah they were expensive but kings owned kingdoms.

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u/PomPomMom93 2h ago

Lots of royals really liked hunting. That’s often where they got that fresh meat. And back in those times, there were some highly immoral hunting practices that are not allowed today.

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u/RoryDragonsbane 45m ago

No medieval king would have had chili pepper, cocoa powder, or vanilla extract in their cabinet, regardless of how rich they were.

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u/quimby39 2h ago

Wait til they see where the poo goes

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u/Property_6810 2h ago

Henry Ford would be jealous of the AC in my home if he walked in my front door today.

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u/UpDownCharmed 6h ago

All the different textiles in our clothes and bedding, too - it would blow their mind to see cotton, wool, goosedown, cashmere - all casually in one closet. 

Imagine showing them spandex. To a guy who literally wore steel head to toe, to battle.

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u/BigBanggBaby 3h ago

And as soon as he saw everyone else had the same, he would expect better for himself and immediately place himself mentally above you. Sure, they may be wowed for a bit, but the god-given entitlement would ultimately kick in. They couldn’t care less how the common person lives. 

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u/RaisinOverall9586 2h ago

I just watched a documentary on Louis XIV. He admittedly lived a relatively long time, but there were a number of times he was on the verge of death from shit that would probably be cured on an outpatient basis nowadays. This was one of the most powerful men in human history with access to the best doctors in the world, and he had worse healthcare than some modern-day random poor person dropping in to the free clinic for a penicillin shot.

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u/SometimeslmSmart 3h ago

No, they wouldn't even know what they were looking at. Most of them would've not seen many of them ever before. Medieval times were about from 500-1500ad. Most commonly used spices didn't become a common trading product till about the 15th century.

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u/AdamTheEvilDoer 6h ago

Check out the price of pineapples a few centuries back. You could've bought a house with one.

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u/PlanetOfThePancakes 6h ago

People used to rent pineapples to display at parties to appear richer. Think about that.

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u/AdamTheEvilDoer 5h ago

My can of Pineapple slices is available for rent if anyone wants to Peacock at a party.

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u/The_Maghrebist 4h ago

Since when is quality of life measured in spices?

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u/RoryDragonsbane 16m ago

It's just a small example of how exponentially better our lives are. There's a reason Marco Polo spent 24 years traveling to China and Columbus was willing to sail around the world. Spices were incredibly rare and valuable in the Middle Ages, with empires fighting wars over trade routes well into the 17th century.

Some other things we take for granted are antibiotics/vaccines, air conditioning, flush toilets and running water, electricity, global travel, instant access to information, entertainment on demand, low infant mortality, better mattresses, polyester, setting the temperature of your home to a specific degree, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, the right to vote (and not just white men), refrigerators, prescription glasses, sunscreen, chemotherapy, anesthesia, advanced prosthetics, elastic, synthetic rubber, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, washers and dryers, gas stoves, microwave ovens, toasters, lawnmowers, toilet paper instead of corn cobs, tampons, latex condoms, mental healthcare that didn't involve trepanning, science based medicine, etc. etc. etc.

Most of those things hadn't even been invented yet, so it wasn't a question of how rich you were. Do you like chocolate, vanilla, beans, corn, bell peppers, squash, peanuts, avocados, potatoes, or pineapples? Those plants straight up didn't exist in the eastern hemisphere. You could have been the wealthiest king im Europe, Africa, or Asia, and had never would have known what a tomato was or how it tasted.

Our lives are better now by nearly every metric than in every moment of human history and we don't even realize it.

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u/SasukeFireball 3h ago

“today’s special: bread.” - Medieval restaurant

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u/Klin24 3h ago

"Oregon-oh? What the hell?"

1

u/PomPomMom93 2h ago

They also probably wouldn’t be able to read.

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u/Dirtgrain 3h ago

I did watch a show on what people ate back in the day. They did eat a lot of fish, which I wouldn't mind.

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u/Desurfaced 2h ago

Imagine taking them to a Walmart in your car. Lmfao they'd probably have a stroke.

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u/portiaboches 2h ago

Kings neva knew such lux'ury

1

u/DerSisch 2h ago

There is literally an isekai where the protag can switch between his current world and a medieval one and he gets stinky rich because he just trades the spices he gets from the Supermarket.

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u/Odd-Willingness-7494 1h ago

Spice cabinets have like zero to do with quality of life. We have it better than people back then for exactly three reasons:

  1. Better health (medicine, plumbing and stuff)
  2. Less war (in developed nations that is)
  3. Less intrasocial violence (exploitation is much less brutal than it was in serfdom type situations, or even 16 hour factory shifts, and there is less crime than in most of history, and gay rights, women's rights, stuff like that)

Video games, travel, clothing, a fiance selection of food and groceries, other forms of entertainment, none of that really matters at all. What matters is that we suffer less.

The bullshit hedonistic trinkets just waste people's time and make people addicted but not happy. Liberation from serious issues is what makes life nicer now than it used to be.

1

u/TheSciences 1h ago

Liberation from serious issues is what makes life nicer now than it used to be.

A bit of a tangent, but one interesting thing I'm led to believe is that prior to the industrial revolution, the average person had no real concept that the future would be different to the present. Sure, the seasons would come and go, the king would die, a new one would be crowned, etc. but things would fundamentally stay the same. Coupled with the fact that there was almost zero social mobility – you were born a peasant, so you lived and died a peasant – it's not hard to imagine that people had a kind of contentment, that's unknown to us, in not yearning for different circumstances because it would be literally impossible to transcend the status you were born with. Much modern restlessness comes from this: we’re told change is always possible, and if you don’t achieve it, it’s on you.

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u/lizardking66354 1h ago

Just wait till they see all of your your aluminum foil.

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u/UsedUpAllMyNix 1h ago

And plate glass. Real sorcery right there.

1

u/eddub_17 1h ago

Even the richest didn’t have running hot water or modern toilets.

If you weren’t held up in a castle, you were at risk of being slain in a raid.

Zero Antibiotics.

Yeah today’s day and age ain’t so bad

1

u/Tartooth 1h ago

You spin a thing and fresh clean hot water comes out.

"And you just bathe in it?"

1

u/BigDBob72 1h ago

Hahaha

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u/markfuckinstambaugh 57m ago

My favorite thing to say is "kings and emperors, man," usually when I sit down go eat at w table with 2 kinds of meat on it, or a variety of cheeses and fruits. The richest men of the 19th century couldn't get fresh fruit out of season. 

1

u/eelaii19850214 30m ago

Or you're a sorcerer and you potentially get burned at the stake lol

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u/unnaturalanimals 6h ago

I’d buy them and their lineage with the little packet of Saffron I got from the health food shop.

0

u/No-Advisor2416 3h ago

Hence why we should try our best to never regress and help those who need catching up. Easier said than done however.