Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking about. I think in the modern world we underestimate how much “power” was being used on a daily basis before the industrial revolution. The main thing the industrial revolution gave the world is the potential to have constant, predictable power in a location that was convenient.

Windmills and water mills could be pretty powerful. But, as you said, location was everything. And, in the case of wind, it wasn’t always predictable. And in map form, it would be really cool to know where that power was being generated, and what effect that might have had on another kind of power: political power.

It would be interesting (if the data was available) to see the energy consumption in Europe at that time: windmills, horses drawing carts, cooking fires, etc.

Also, some things haven’t changed, but should have.

Yeah, the kitchen smells the same, mom’s laugh is the same, dad’s still using the same chipped mug.

But, dad’s prejudices haven’t changed, they’ve only calcified a bit more. Mom’s learned helplessness has only gotten worse. The old disagreements never got resolved, they just got shelved, ready to be taken down again when the time comes.

Plus, the parents think that you, their kid, hasn’t changed. They still see you as helpless and in need of their guidance, even when they’re having increasing difficulty navigating the world because things are changing too quickly for them to handle. Hence the old meme of “take your resume, walk right into that office, and demand a job!”

I get the appeal of nostalgia, and it’s sometimes fun to pretend that things haven’t changed, but it’s better to realize that time keeps marching forward and try to adapt to the new situation.

It is a bit weird that we use some fruits as “vegetables”, like tomatoes and cucumbers. But, other fruits like mango or raspberry are so different from your typical “culinary vegetable” that you have to be very careful in how you use it in a savoury dish. There isn’t the same crossover for other edible plants. For example, I can’t think of any tuber that could sneak into a fruit salad unnoticed.

I guess it comes down to there being a lot more variety among fruits than other edible plant parts. Plus, humans have been tweaking edible plants for millennia. So, who knows, maybe the original cucumber was more “fruity”, but has been tuned over the years to be more “saladey”.

Is there some sinister reason why the low point was 1905 or so?

Yup, the 1950s was only better for white people, but there’s a reason that white people look back on it with fondness.

But, I’d guess that even for black people it was better than the 1930s. When the economy shinks, they’re the first to lose jobs. When it grows they’re the last to get them. In the 1950s things were booming so my guess is that black unemployment was low. Still, for working class white males the 1950s may have been a peak, for most other people things have just been getting better every year since then.

Imagine how good it could be if everyone got some of the things working class whites got in the 1950s: strong unions, good labour protections, high tax rates on the ultra rich, etc.

On the other hand:

• Many of the pro-worker policies from the New Deal are still in place, and my union is strong
• The owner of that factory over there is in the 90% tax bracket, isn’t it great how he’s paying society back for his good fortune?
• Every other major economic power in the world was just absolutely flattened in a war, and our country wasn’t touched
• Because our country was relatively safe during the war, the best and brightest migrated here, and we’re now benefiting from their ideas and inventions

All this really does is show areas where the writing requirements are already bullshit and should be fixed.

Like, consumer financial complaints. People feel they have to use LLMs because when they write in using plain language they feel they’re ignored, and they’re probably right. It suggests that these financial companies are under regulated and overly powerful. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be able to ignore complaints when they’re not written in lawyerly language.

Press releases: we already know they’re bullshit. No surprise that now they’re using LLMs to generate them. These shouldn’t exist at all. If you have something to say, don’t say it in a stilted press-release way. Don’t invent quotes from the CEO. If something is genuinely good and exciting news, make a blog post about it by someone who actually understands it and can communicate their excitement.

Job postings. Another bullshit piece of writing. An honest job posting would probably be something like: “Our sysadmin needs help because he’s overworked, he says some of the key skills he’d need in a helper are X, Y and Z. But, even if you don’t have those skills, you might be useful in other ways. It’s a stressful job, and it doesn’t pay that well, but it’s steady work. Please don’t apply if you’re fresh out of school and don’t have any hands-on experience.” Instead, job postings have evolved into some weird cargo-culted style of writing involving stupid phrases like “the ideal candidate will…” and lies about something being a “fast paced environment” rather than simply “disorganized and stressful”. You already basically need a “secret decoder ring” to understand a job posting, so yeah, why not just feed a realistic job posting to an LLM and make it come up with some bullshit.