A good article by @gwern about improvements in “real life” since the 1990s: gwern.net/Improvements
I think it’s helpful to be able to say, concretely and with specificity, that the common refrain “Life just really hasn’t gotten better for the typical American since like 1970” is materially incorrect.
Also Gwern is a treasure brought to you by the Internet, a cornucopia of treasures so ridiculously overflowing with abundance that it pops out a Gwern for free as a side effect.
(If you’re not familiar with his work a) his website is up their with TVTropes in terms of places you could get lost for days and b) I had assigned a 10% probability that he was actually a pen name for an underground research collective but no he actually exists and is one person
