Memes

The point I was making was that to pretend people are worse off now than they were during the Middle Ages is ridiculous

Among peer countries, the U.S. has the lowest life expectancy at birth for both women and men

A life expectancy at birth of 78.4 years for the whole population compared to 31.3 years JUST for English males who were lucky enough to be born to land-owning families

The United States has the highest infant and maternal mortality rates out of any other high-income country

According to your data, the United States has an infant mortality rate of 5.4 per 1,000 births, or 0.54%. For comparison, an estimated 30% of babies in the Middle Ages died before their first birthday and only about half reached adulthood

21% of adults in the US are illiterate in 2024. 54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level, 20% are below 5th-grade level

These claims are very misleading. The actual share of US adults who are illiterate is closer to 12%. In mediaeval times on the other hand, the VAST, vast majority of people, including the nobility, didn't know how to read or write. Charlemagne, despite being a strong proponent of an educated citizenry, famously was himself illiterate. Writing back then was mostly reserved for the clergy

Today, the Republican Party has a 6-3 supermajority on the Supreme Court, and when church and state cases have come before them, all six of those Republicans have behaved exactly how you would expect. That means that the Court is now actively tearing down whatever barrier used to exist between church and state

It's certainly being eroded, but the present situation isn't anywhere near as bad as it was in the Middle Ages. I don't see anyone being burnt at the stake for heresy

With one-fifth of states seeing active measles outbreaks, the U.S. is nearing 900 cases

Oh wow a whole three people died from measles

Household food insecurity affected 17.9 percent of households with children in 2023. In some of these food-insecure households only adults were food insecure, while in other households children also experienced food insecurity

Food insecurity isn't famine. There is no mass starvation epidemic in the United States and there never has been, except among the indigenous population. This is a country where over 40% of the people are obese for Christ's sake

Are there people who actually want to return to feudalism? (Who aren't conveniently placed as one who would be the exploiter). This isn't the first time I've gotten the impression there's some kind of anxiety about people wanting to go back, but I'm not aware of people who specifically want to go back to feudalism. I know there's some romanticizing of European medieval life out there, but that seems to be more like pro-royalty propaganda, than anything to do with comparing the degree of exploitation of the working class.

Personally, I get confused about the pushback sometimes because like, I live in the US and there are aspects of past societies that were clearly better. The US has a pretty piss poor sense of community, for example, undoubtedly in some part due to rabid anti-communism and trying to de-fang organization of the masses, along with its history of racialized slavery, genocide of the natives, etc. Not that everyone the world over has moved on from community, so for some places, it wouldn't be a thing of the past anyway. But in general, I find the whole "don't romanticize the past" thing can go too far, to the point that it starts sounding too similar to "primitive savage early humans" colonial stuff and makes it sound too much like human history was: "something something humans miserable for thousands of years, then boom, capitalism, now humans are doing way better."

I imagine that's probably not your intent, but I get wary in the other direction, is the point.