One of my big pet peeves is when people say "people used to ..." and they describe something well-off or only wealthy people did in the past.
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For example I recently encountered a rant about the terrible quality of Temu furniture.
"Furniture used to be a family heirloom... but now it's disposable" --this isn't a statment without merit, but low quality items that didn't last may not be documented because they didn't last.
The selection bias of it all annoys me a little.
2/2
My dad was a great woodworker, but I only have a couple of small things because he died just when COVID hit and I had to leave in a hurry without time to choose and ship something bigger,, across the Atlantic.
OTOH, I am a poor woodworker but we have a couple of small cabinets I made with my son to teach him how to do it.
But he's followed the family tradition of being even less skilled than me.
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For example I recently encountered a rant about the terrible quality of Temu furniture.
"Furniture used to be a family heirloom... but now it's disposable" --this isn't a statment without merit, but low quality items that didn't last may not be documented because they didn't last.
The selection bias of it all annoys me a little.
2/2
@futurebird In the distant past, before mass production, it was probably the wealthy people who had less durable furniture: delicate details, refined finishes, upholstery that could wear out, and fashions that changed and made old stuff obsolete. With that stuff, there’s a survivorship bias too: it’s preserved through association with the wealthy and powerful and as a showcase for period craftsmanship.
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@becomethewaifu @futurebird it's particularly bad in the UK as we never really designed for heat but to stay warm and keep water out. Even our old buildings often have just enough loft ventilation to stop rot and you won't find cupolas, or any kind of vertical airflows, shading of windows from high sun etc. And almost nobody in the UK even knows about things like sheet cotton attached to the roof timbers so that radiant heat never impacts on the loft floor and thus room ceilings
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One of my big pet peeves is when people say "people used to ..." and they describe something well-off or only wealthy people did in the past. "but nowadays people just..." and they describe something poor and broke people do today.
We don't have as much documentation of how poor people lived in the past... so in a way we don't know how poor people lived as clearly.
1/
@futurebird It seems to me that learning from elder poor people in rural areas might help. I know my own family, subsistence farmers out of Wexford, Ireland, who landed in Pennsylvania and basically never left. I have furniture from them, including a cheap trunk brought over from the old country, and even that trunk has craftsmanship and care in it. I also have a kitchen table, and a desk, built by my great-grand and grandfather in their barn for their daughters. Plain but solid.
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@maswan @futurebird
Yes! I remember stories like this about houses built in the us (early days like 1600-1700) often times they would burn the house down and go through the ashes to save the nails and hinges. Much faster than taking a crowbar and hammer to it
and the nails would be intact. There wasn’t a “housing market” per-se at the time in the “wilderness” (which again is a terrible term from colonialism 
) and the conception was (at the time) that there were too many trees 
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For example I recently encountered a rant about the terrible quality of Temu furniture.
"Furniture used to be a family heirloom... but now it's disposable" --this isn't a statment without merit, but low quality items that didn't last may not be documented because they didn't last.
The selection bias of it all annoys me a little.
2/2
@futurebird Agreed! Furniture for poor people used to be boxes made of scrap wood or cardboard. Either that or throw-a-ways found on the street or at the town dump.
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One of my big pet peeves is when people say "people used to ..." and they describe something well-off or only wealthy people did in the past. "but nowadays people just..." and they describe something poor and broke people do today.
We don't have as much documentation of how poor people lived in the past... so in a way we don't know how poor people lived as clearly.
1/
@futurebird
and another thing, people used to wait until a celebration day to bake a cake or make fancy desserts, but now people expect to find candy in the check-out lane of the supermarket and baked sweets at every coffee stand. Dessert used to be special. -
@RobotDiver @futurebird
Yup! I still have a piece like that from my mom’s family! (The whole set included this dresser, a “writing table” and double bed with a huge headboard all made of a soft wood that I assume is white pine (from the north east us)
If anyone wants to add to the description for the alt text please let me know as I am unsure if I covered everything -
One of my big pet peeves is when people say "people used to ..." and they describe something well-off or only wealthy people did in the past. "but nowadays people just..." and they describe something poor and broke people do today.
We don't have as much documentation of how poor people lived in the past... so in a way we don't know how poor people lived as clearly.
1/
@futurebird My pet peeve is when people get annoyed at stuff THEY USED TO DO!
“Kids these days knock on my door and run away. It’s the downfall of society”.
“You told me about when you did it”.
“But back then it was fun”. -
@stellarsarah @futurebird yes, sorry, when I said "stay at home", I was thinking "ran the home" rather than just being ladies of leisure. But worth noting that poor women would have also been making the clothes for the family, as well as all the cooking/cleaning, and working outside the home, so very much working a double shift.
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@futurebird exactly - you can still buy heirloom quality furniture today. Its just expensive.
I've seen a lot of the inverse too, which bugs me even more more, personally - "back in the day everyone was poor as dirt and we just had beans and cornbread, when we were lucky. Now we can eat whatever we want 3 meals a day and people still complain about being poor"
Sir, you came up, not everyone did.
@AldinTheMage @futurebird In case you werent' aware, Mony Python were making fun of that attitude in 1982.
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@futurebird exactly - you can still buy heirloom quality furniture today. Its just expensive.
I've seen a lot of the inverse too, which bugs me even more more, personally - "back in the day everyone was poor as dirt and we just had beans and cornbread, when we were lucky. Now we can eat whatever we want 3 meals a day and people still complain about being poor"
Sir, you came up, not everyone did.
Yeah, I mean, visit a Walmart once in a while. Some of the people shopping there are obviously not doing well financially.
Like, I saw a woman with a kid a few weeks ago who was buying nothing but canned beans. The implications were…not pleasant.
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For example I recently encountered a rant about the terrible quality of Temu furniture.
"Furniture used to be a family heirloom... but now it's disposable" --this isn't a statment without merit, but low quality items that didn't last may not be documented because they didn't last.
The selection bias of it all annoys me a little.
2/2
@futurebird Selection bias is absolutely rampant in Home renovation/repair circles. I can't count the number of times I've pushed back on the idea that homes were built better in the "old" days.
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For example I recently encountered a rant about the terrible quality of Temu furniture.
"Furniture used to be a family heirloom... but now it's disposable" --this isn't a statment without merit, but low quality items that didn't last may not be documented because they didn't last.
The selection bias of it all annoys me a little.
2/2
@futurebird family heirloom? Cheap things were made of poplar and pine with enough paint to keep everything together and hiding the different bits of wood recuperated from something else. In Flemish there is a word for poplar "konijnenkotelaar" which means bad wood, just good enough to make rabbit boxes.
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@maswan @futurebird
Yes! I remember stories like this about houses built in the us (early days like 1600-1700) often times they would burn the house down and go through the ashes to save the nails and hinges. Much faster than taking a crowbar and hammer to it and the nails would be intact. There wasn’t a “housing market” per-se at the time in the “wilderness” (which again is a terrible term from colonialism ) and the conception was (at the time) that there were too many trees @em_and_future_cats
In this case it was in the early 1900s, and the farm was bought out by the forestry agency because growing lumber was seen as a better use of land in northern Sweden than farming or something (I'm not 100% on the motivation, just know who forced a sale).
@futurebird -
@futurebird Agreed! Furniture for poor people used to be boxes made of scrap wood or cardboard. Either that or throw-a-ways found on the street or at the town dump.
@HappytoBe @futurebird Or liberated from a company dumpster.
I remember friends visiting and asking me why the carpet in my bedroom didn't reach the walls at either end, why I had a chair that looked like it belonged in a factory, and why the kitchen table looked like pieces of old doors.
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For example I recently encountered a rant about the terrible quality of Temu furniture.
"Furniture used to be a family heirloom... but now it's disposable" --this isn't a statment without merit, but low quality items that didn't last may not be documented because they didn't last.
The selection bias of it all annoys me a little.
2/2
@futurebird Furniture can be expensive. A decently sized table made of actual wood by an artisan can cost you a few *thousand* €/$. Of course people don't even consider that and complain about modern furniture that is made of composite and is ten times cheaper. Works about the same but I guess it's not an heirloom.
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For example I recently encountered a rant about the terrible quality of Temu furniture.
"Furniture used to be a family heirloom... but now it's disposable" --this isn't a statment without merit, but low quality items that didn't last may not be documented because they didn't last.
The selection bias of it all annoys me a little.
2/2
@futurebird What do people expect from Temu products? I'm always pleasantly surprised if it survives being shipped nevermind being usable for more than a few hours
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One of my big pet peeves is when people say "people used to ..." and they describe something well-off or only wealthy people did in the past. "but nowadays people just..." and they describe something poor and broke people do today.
We don't have as much documentation of how poor people lived in the past... so in a way we don't know how poor people lived as clearly.
1/
With a few exceptions, thankfully.
Thanks to Henry Mayhew, for instance, and his 'London Labour and the London Poor', it's possible to get some idea just how many impoverished and homeless people there were in 19th century London and how they lived. I've only read excerpts from it but it is astonishing.
There used to be establishments which charged homeless people a penny a night for room where they could sleep sitting up and roped into pew-like benches, to have some shelter.
