21 Nov 2015, 2:12 am
21 Nov 2015, 2:21 am
21 Nov 2015, 2:39 am
blauSamstag wrote:
My theory is that it's because stuff was a lot more difficult, more expensive (in more than just monetary terms), and often lower quality way back when.
Or some mix of the above. For example, 70 years ago there was a lot more stuff made out of durable metals, but when you correct for inflation they actually cost far more than modern examples.
I get a chuckle out of people making "rustic" foodstuffs. Our ingredients today are far higher quality than they were even 30 years ago, in most regards.
When i look at western (e.g. european, etc) recipes from hundreds of years ago i have the inescapable conclusion that food sucked hundreds of years ago.
Some of it doesn't even make sense from a modern perspective. Like back when butchers cut meat across the long bones instead of at the joints. They wrote about having a "good joint of meat". Our experience of eating meat has been greatly enhanced both by the expanded knowledge of butchering and greater technology in tool making.
Our agriculture would blow the minds of people who lived 100 years ago. Yes there have been losses, like the fact that the ability to buy a fresh tomato any day of the year turned out, for the moment, to require that the tomato tastes like wet paper. But most fruits, vegetables, grains, etc that are grown today are better than they were 100 years ago.
We are tool makers and tool users. We improve our tools so that we can do better work with them and live better lives.
I mean honestly have you gone to a thrift store and felt the synthetic fabrics that were available in the 60's, 70's, and 80's? They were terrible compared to what you can get today.
The "back to nature" movements have all been shams. People leading lives of convenience who take advantage of their technology to go slumming in the sticks and dress down for a bit. It's exactly like millennial hipsters who for some reason think cassette tapes are cool. Cassette tapes suck. They always sucked. They sucked when they were introduced, they sucked when the technology matured, and they sucked when they were rendered obsolete.
Or some mix of the above. For example, 70 years ago there was a lot more stuff made out of durable metals, but when you correct for inflation they actually cost far more than modern examples.
I get a chuckle out of people making "rustic" foodstuffs. Our ingredients today are far higher quality than they were even 30 years ago, in most regards.
When i look at western (e.g. european, etc) recipes from hundreds of years ago i have the inescapable conclusion that food sucked hundreds of years ago.
Some of it doesn't even make sense from a modern perspective. Like back when butchers cut meat across the long bones instead of at the joints. They wrote about having a "good joint of meat". Our experience of eating meat has been greatly enhanced both by the expanded knowledge of butchering and greater technology in tool making.
Our agriculture would blow the minds of people who lived 100 years ago. Yes there have been losses, like the fact that the ability to buy a fresh tomato any day of the year turned out, for the moment, to require that the tomato tastes like wet paper. But most fruits, vegetables, grains, etc that are grown today are better than they were 100 years ago.
We are tool makers and tool users. We improve our tools so that we can do better work with them and live better lives.
I mean honestly have you gone to a thrift store and felt the synthetic fabrics that were available in the 60's, 70's, and 80's? They were terrible compared to what you can get today.
The "back to nature" movements have all been shams. People leading lives of convenience who take advantage of their technology to go slumming in the sticks and dress down for a bit. It's exactly like millennial hipsters who for some reason think cassette tapes are cool. Cassette tapes suck. They always sucked. They sucked when they were introduced, they sucked when the technology matured, and they sucked when they were rendered obsolete.
Well, I don't think cassette tapes are that bad. You just need to get the good quality stuff, and a good system to play them on. But 8-tracks had superior sound. They were just a little more bulky, and a little weird in terms of how you had to switch tracks, and so forth. They were great when they came out, because there were no CD's, and you could not play vinyl records in a car without scratching them up!
CD's had a real problem in cars until they came out with "read ahead" technology to reduce skipping. Cassettes never had that problem, and all the noise from driving your car would make the Cassette Tape hum and 16kHz overhead hissing unnoticeable. Not a bad compromise at all, I think.
I like a lot of artificial things, but I do enjoy walking in a forest nearby, and exploring the outdoors sometimes. I like to cut fresh pineapple rather than eat it from the can. It really does taste better. And I prefer fresh air to stuffy inside air. I don't have air conditioning, but it's not a catastrophe here in Washington state.
But, gotta have a heater in winter, or at least a fire in the fireplace.
21 Nov 2015, 3:07 am
21 Nov 2015, 3:09 am
21 Nov 2015, 4:14 am
