> America's poor have a higher standard of living than medieval kings.

False Equivalence, Red Herring, Chronological Snobbery, Fallacy of Relative Deprivation, Contextomy.

So, by this logic, a homeless person with a used iPhone is better off than Louis XIV (who literally owned all of France) just because the king couldnt play Candy Crush?

This statement confuses global technological progress across centuries with an individuals actual financial security, social power, and quality of life within their own modern society.

I simply just cant understand why would someone repeat such a statement (and I have seen it everywhere).

Is there a definition of standard of living? A king would be entertaining, socialising, and strategising most of the time (along with a lot more pursuits of hunting, etc for leisure). While I understand they had less access to healthcare and variety of food, travel, etc...id still argue they had a better standard of living than someone that works 8-10h/day and then comes home to cook and clean?

Oh, great, then there is nothing to fix. We just apply medieval standards and everything is hunky dory.

Medieval poor likely had a higher standard of living than ancient kings, should they have complained?

I'm not sure a medieval king would take that swap. Maybe for EU poor.

Is that the bar? Who looks at medieval kings and goes "their standard of living should be our baseline"? Living in a cold stone building with no medical care questionable food, etc?

But also, no they don't. Standard of living includes one's agency over their environment. An medieval king could say things and the kingdom would bend to their will. No one making $18,000 is having hundreds or thousands of people bending over to serve them.

Utter nonsense.

> America's poor have a higher standard of living than medieval kings.

Do America’s poor have a standard thing like a roof on top of their heads? Nevermind a castle, just a basic house which has already been paid for.

They also work longer hours than medieval serfs, are more precarious in housing and food security and more separated from their family. Also slaves work the farms. Read tomatoland or the lives and deaths of the American workers.

That is a silly comparison.

> Technology makes a lot of things better. Like eliminating symptoms of 95% of cystic fibrosis victims.

Counterpoint: any leaking abandoned oil well. Check out YouTube videos documenting the abandoned oil wells in West Texas, which are dumping industrial volumes of water into abandoned land.