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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   10034 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 9, 2026

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more likely welfare will be expanded

The "minimum living standard" has demonstrably gone up: my grandmother grew up in a house without running water or electricity. Nowadays people seem to think cell phones and climate control are a human right. I'm not even arguing against that, but the hedonic treadmill there is very real.

I mean plenty of places in the world that haven't achieved consistent running water or electricity and still have a ton of cell phones around. If anything the Cell Phone has kinda trumped a lot of pre-existing needs.

Cellphones are genuinely a requirement to function; modern society is built on the assumption that you have a smartphone with an internet connection. My last two jobs required daily 2FA verification through an app.

I wouldn't mind the creeping up standards of housing so much if the government did not then make it fucking illegal to build and live below those standards. Single Room Occupancy apartments like Judy's in Zootopia have been regulated out of existence unless you are a college student living in a dorm.

Yeah, they're pretty essential. So is a car in most places in the US.

I am modestly surprised there isn't a market for the "dorm experience" for non-undergrads. It's probably just price (and the sorts of discrimination that isn't legal elsewhere) that makes a "post-college dorm" with the usual college amenities like fancy gyms and meal plans something that isn't commercially available anywhere I've looked.

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