@
imLobo I'm half a century old, not a century and a half. I thought we were talking about Victorian times? What was the lot of the average child in opium war Qing Dynasty China? Those kids making shoes live in much better conditions, shitty and deplorable though they may be by modern standards. The life of a homeless person was much worse. The CDC didn't exist in the 19th century and neither did the WHO, or any kind of healthcare at all for most people, and certainly no mass vaccination programs. Go to a cemetery and look at all the little headstones from the astronomical child mortality rate. Women couldn't vote and were basically property in most of the world and were used as baby factories, and childbirth itself was dangerous. There were public executions and legal torture. Half the world was colonized and the colonists treated the "natives" like lower forms of life and in some cases hunted them like animals. People were ignorant and illiterate. God help you if you were gay. The streets were covered in shit. Scientific racism had credibility. Potato famine. Most of the world was kingdoms and empires with no concept of civil or human rights whatsoever and chattel slavery was legal through at least part of the Victorian era. There was no cure for syphilis, leprosy, tuberculosis, tetanus, pneumonia and tons of other diseases that fell to antibiotics. Cancer was a death sentence. Religion still controlled a large part of public life.
I am nearly 50 years old and I'm in good health and have all my teeth with no cavities or dental work of any kind. I have healthcare that my ancestors could only dream of. I have the same legal rights as men. Nobody tied my hand behind my back to force me to write right-handed. I could have a well-paid career in a STEM field and not be frozen out. I have reliable access to high-quality food. I have medication that helps hugely with my bipolar whereas my ancestors had to struggle with nothing until they killed themselves.
When I was little, half the world was communist, the Cold War was on and we lived an hour away from the end of the world at all times. The Khmer Rouge were in power when I was a child. There was little in the way of emission or pollution controls for industry or vehicles and cars were dangerous and many didn't even have seatbelts in the back. People were much more culturally isolated.
All of the things the OP mentions are still available if she wants them. Live orchestras, real instruments, and you can keep modern technology at arm's length if you want.
How old are you?
