Was Life Better Before The Industrial Revolution?

Do you think life was better before the industrial revolution? Why or why not?

 

I wasn't alive then, information NA.

 

No. dad told me one time that if you want to know what things were like in America before FDR if grandpa were around today you could ask him and he would tell you that things were not good for the people banksters f***** with everybody there was no social safety net there basically was no middle class.most people struggled the rich pretty much run roughshod on everyone.the sad part is that's exactly where we're headed today we were being taken today.

 

it depends on when and where.

 

Sorry... I don't recall

 

Almost everything I enjoy about life came after the Industrial Revolution, or improved significantly after that time.

 

We can't say if life was better as life it's self is a product of who you are. I love life now, could I have loved life years ago...probably. But it is an impossible answer for one to give if life is better pre or post. One might be able to answer if they think they would prefer to live pre or post.

 

It was ok I suppose , I did no like it when the Dinosaurs chased you though when you went out of the cave for a shit
apart from that and the black death we had it pretty good here in Runcorn :wheelchair:

 

Life was probably simpler, but more labor intensive. Households definitely had to be more self sufficient and most people had to grow their own food in order to survive. Slavery was phased out with the help of the industrial revolution in many countries.

 

Yea actually it would have sucked. All that farm labor and people could starve to death in a famine.

Thank God for Europeans!

 

Nope, the best period of all time, past, present and future, was the 80's......just ask Dude111 :afro:

 

It was better for the planet that much I know. I'm sure it sucked in many ways for people living through famine, fighting off large predators and whatnot but people were also probably much more connected with their families and with the planet.

I'd have to agree with Meliai that it depends on when and where. Some tribes of hunter-gatherers were very warlike and believed in human sacrifice but I'd be willing to bet there were times and places where people lived more fulfilled lives than we do today in our disconnected, over medicated artificial world digital world where so many of us forget the importance of being out in nature.

On the other hand when all time and energy was devoted to mere survival there was surely less time for other things. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fense and all I know for certain is that nothing is for certain.

 

That's because of the manure over there...

 

Ya think?

 

The industrial revolution had distinct points and didn't cover a contiguous segment of years. Some of it was driven by the colonial victory over England. But then it spawned a greater interest in powered transportation in Europe which generated renewed interest in the westward expansion of the US. The phase of the industrial revolution was advanced in probably the first appearance of economic bubbles as well.

But overall, the industrial revolution taken as a whole was the first successful effort to replace human labor with machines. What's astounding is how long human labor has hung in. For that I look to society. While the US was still a largely religious nation, they were governed more by faith than the laws of a new nation. As religion took a back seat, the laws had to compensate. As they did, the social contract changed dramatically. Unions attempted to patch the damage, but it was too late. Ponzi-esque schemes like Social Security and Medicare are an attempt at government automation of elderly services. It's really just a con, a shell game played on us when we're too old to fight.

And just try to get anyone under 35 or so to give a crap about what happens to elderly people. After all, they are to blame for all of today's problems. Right? So what use are a bunch of old people drooling on themselves when society is advancing and modernizing at such a breakneck speed? It's the industrial revolution that has contributed to this mechanized attitude about life. An older machine usually costs more to operate than a newer, improved machine. That's part of our thinking as humans these days. It's programmed into us.

The information age has scattered this concept around somewhat as people have become free to explore faith and morality on a global scale while sipping a latte. Which came from a machine that replaced a stairwell and two guys with a bucket, cream and 2 pitchers of coffee. Every computer screen replaced a measure of typewriter repairmen. Every car replaced not only horses, but the whole army of people needed to keep a horse-based transportation system moving. But the industrial revolution ended slavery in most of the world. So perhaps there was some moral value to all that machinery.

What we face now is the next phase of automation. More than fast food workers can be replaced with technology that has already existed for more than 20 years. What has stopped it from happening? Cheap labor. Nevermind the fact they live like serfs. For modern employers the minimum wage has been better for them than slavery. They don't have to care for the slaves. And the slaves can be any color. A win-win for corporate greed (another gift from the industrial revolution).

The fact of the matter is that technology becomes an extension of human nature. With so much of it intertwined these days, it has become its own culture, we simply feed it. Or feed off of it.

 

Do you think robots will take over? There's no reason why they wouldn't if they had the chance.

 

The only robots to fear will be controlled by people.

 

Yea that too. Imagine a terrorist who know how to program robots.

No good.

 

OP, watch Downtown Abbey.