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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   3384 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 15, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Has anything noteworthy improved in the world in the past 10-15 years?

I've wondered if it's just a natural product of depression or aging, but I was thinking recently about how absolutely everything feels as if it were so much better a few short years ago. Housing/food/necessities more affordable, political discourse less toxic, the internet was both more wild west but also more self-regulating, TV was in its golden age (Breaking Bad, The Wire, Mad Men, etc.), sports felt more like an escape than circus, technology still held promise of a brighter future rather than potential enslavement of humanity, people still talked to one another without being addicted to smartphones, the media was still somewhat believable, medicine was still a respected profession by a wide margin, college was the smart choice for many/most young people... I could go on but you get the idea.

What has actually improved in the time since? Uber? Starlink? That's all I can think of, and I don't use either one.

As to not duplicate from the other comment:

  • Compact utility vehicles, the turbocharged 2-litre 4 cylinder engine, and plug-in hybrids having more performance than non-V8 muscle cars of 15 years ago
  • All new cars are ludicrously luxurious by the standards of 15 years ago (performance models now have 600-1000 HP)
  • Small trucks made a [limited] comeback
  • All new construction is ludicrously luxurious by the standards of 15 years ago
  • Grocery pre-compilation for later pickup is cheaper than the cart rentals; delivery not much more expensive than that
  • Food delivery at very reasonable rates; ride-sharing limits what taxis can charge
  • Board games have gone through a renaissance; RP (D&D, etc.) is much more popular and approachable
  • Credit card skimming was 100% solved via NFC (UX of terminals notwithstanding)
  • Android phones more likely to be supported for the physical lifetime of the device
  • Holosun and Primary Arms drove the price of a good rifle or pistol optic down dramatically
  • Optic sights on handguns now widespread, and the variety and capabilities of compact and subcompact pistols in particular has increased dramatically
  • The collapse in price of good AR-15s, Kel-Tec in general, Palmetto State Armory in general, (US only but has knock-on effects worldwide) NFA being completely trivialized means innovation can continue (shoulder braces mean short rifles mean cartridges designed around short barrels, forced reset triggers mean full-auto is functionally no longer banned, e-Form 1 filing for silencers mean you get them in 2 weeks, not 2 months or 2 years)
  • 3D printing, and the accessibility thereof
  • Anti-piracy law is well and truly a dead letter (people were still worried about BitTorrent lawsuits 10 years ago, VPNs weren't yet a thing, Internet Archive didn't exist [for now])
  • Indie games (Minecraft most importantly), mature online distribution for games and music (Steam, Bandcamp, Spotify to a point) and books, backwards compatibility for consoles, subscription services for games
  • Distributed funding platforms (specifically Kickstarter and Patreon)
  • Effectively unlimited cellular data plans, and cell plans having fallen in price by 50% (especially considering inflation)
  • Dramatically cheaper plane travel (except for the last year or so)
  • People work from home more often
  • Computers are faster and consume 10x less power (netbooks finally reached maturity as tablets and hyper-thin laptops)
  • SSDs made computers dramatically faster (this was later taken away by MS bloat, but was true for the majority of the last 15 years)
  • Functional programming principles make UI development far easier

And that's all I have for now.

Basically anything that can be mass produced at scale has dropped greatly in price over the last 15 years or so. Consumer electronics, vehicle parts, musical instruments, firearms and accessories, some building materials, clothing and shoes etc. Electronics also seems to have reached a sort of plateau of capabilities where you don't need a new phone or pc every 2 years to use current software.

Yep. Say what you will about China replacing essentially all domestic manufacturing, but China is damn good at making cheap stuff.

It's kinda mind-boggling how cheap some stuff is today.

Just for one random example, you can buy a blender today for about the same price as it cost in 1970, and it will be delivered to your door cheaply in less than 48 hours.

I've been playing the drums since about 1988. An entry level drum set in 2024 still costs roughly what it did in 1988 in whole dollars, while the quality has gone up significantly. Cymbals have risen in price a bit as there is still a fair amount of unavoidable manual labor involved, but the actual wooden drums shells, metal hardware, and plastic heads have benefited tremendously from improvements in mass production and automation.

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