“But who told you that, the thing about everybody affording a big house with one job back in the good old days? I feel like we’re getting that from old sitcoms or magazine ads. A quarter of those 1950s houses didn’t have indoor plumbing, and almost none had air-conditioning; that wasn’t a common thing until decades later. And those houses were tiny and packed with three generations of family. I mean, none of this is opinion, you can look it up—the average American now has as much living space as an entire family did back then. And no, they didn’t have two cars; they were sharing one, if that. You’re right that they didn’t have student loan payments, but that’s because hardly anybody went to college—hell, in the 1960s, most Americans didn’t even finish high school. So forget about choosing your dream career; back then, people were still just working in whatever factory kept their town afloat. And if you go back a hundred years, you’re in a totally unrecognizable society. In this part of the country, lots of the kids would have goiters from iodine deficiency, illiteracy would be rampant, virtually every adult would be missing multiple teeth. Oh, and it was considered weird if parents didn’t beat their children. None of what I’m saying requires some deep dive into the research, none of it is disputed. Look it up!”

— Ether in Jason Pargin, I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, 2024, St. Martin’s Press, Ch. Day 3, p. 240