this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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Is this astroturfing?
Of course I want more space! small rooms with a small number of rooms is claustrophobic and cluttered. I need space for me and all my shit!
The point is, you almost definitely have way less shit on your property, than a middle or upper class family would have in the 1800s.
You probably dont have a whole ass horse stable, and separate living quarters for your stable hand, yes? And all the "stuff" that would be involved in maintaining that horse stable, and all the stuff that the stablehand would own for their own life, right?
And you likely dont have servants, and a cook, right? And all their stuff and their living quarters?
And your computer can hold an entire library worth of books on it, an entire blockbuster worth of VHS tapes in movies, etc etc?
And you probably dont have dozens and dozens of boxes of photographs in storage, right? All of that now can fit in your pocket in a single USB stick.
No matter what your trade or craft is, even ones that involve working with your hands, its extremely likely someone 200 years ago would have required like twice as much stuff to do it. Our tools have become smaller, compact, multi-use, storable, foldable, digital, etc etc.
We've gone from giant machines that took up entire rooms, to extremely powerful ones that take up a fraction of the space.
Think about something as simple as just printing off some pamphlets, do you know how much stuff was involved in that process 200 years ago?
Now, you can mass produce pamphlets with just your phone or a laptop and an inkjet printer.
I would say there certainly are a small handful of hobbies and skills that have not had much change in terms of downsizing. Weightlifting / exercise, for example, is largely functionally the same. Steel is still steel and you cant really "downsize" the fact you have a certain density, and you simply just have to live with that. People have tried to come up with countless fancy ways to downsize weightlifting but at the end of the day, a barbell is a barbell.
Sewing also hasn't changed dramatically in terms of scale either. Modern sewing machines arent that much different in size. Sure they have gotten a little bit more power in a bit smaller shape but, if you look up sewing machines from 200 years ago they, well, sorta still look the exact same not gonna lie.
But overall, most of the day to day living is just a LOT smaller and simpler. A small electric hand vacuum can do the work one handed in a few minutes that would have taken ages before. Microwaves cook food at extraordinary speeds that someone from a hundred years ago would absolutely consider borderline magic.
Servants? Stables? How rich do you think the average person is?!
I absolutely have more space and more things easily manufactured compared to a peasant with a shit ass job, even from just 100 years ago, have you seen how small the average persons house is? There's houses around me built in the 1800s and I can barely stand up or fit a modern couch in them. They didn't have kitchens they had a fire and a pot in the lounge.
You seem to be talking about peoples work tools, which would be at work, not in their house.