Grant Ryan: Comparanomics and the things that make life better today

Not everything is coming up roses but comparisons to times past can put a fresh perspective of the challenges we face today. Photo / Teresa Mason, File

Opinion

OPINION

At a time of polarised politics, climate anxiety, and Covid-19, it's easy to look back at the "good old days" of the early 1970s and think that life was better.

Ah, the time when one income could buy a home, economic growth was roaring along at 6 per cent and New Zealand was one of the richest countries in the world.

It can feel like we haven't made much progress, given the rising cost of living and the big problems facing society today. We were all much happier 50 years ago, right?

While this may be a common perception, let me show you just how different this is from reality.

When it comes to our health, 50 years ago, we lived about 10 years less. We may
complain about the waitlist for a hip replacement today, but a half-century ago they weren't available and it was common to die in immobile misery.

Formerly non-existent medical treatments, such as vaccinations, are now available and free for everyone.

Fifty years ago, you were dramatically more likely to die in planes and cars. Plane trips were the reserve of only the wealthiest. You no longer need to check the oil in your car every time you fill up or carry spare water for when it overheats. Cars are vastly more reliable, comfortable and efficient now.

Houses now are full of modern appliances and gadgets like dishwashers and washing machines that make life easier. If you were lucky enough to own a television 50 years ago, there were only two channels available to watch on a tiny yet cumbersome box. Today you can access all the music you want very cheaply and take it with you anywhere on a hand-held device.

Activities like mountain biking, windsurfing, paddleboarding, and skateboarding did not exist. You had to be rich to afford a set of encyclopedias and now most of us have access to something 1000 times better for close to free.

Communication was expensive and now the incremental cost of talking to anyone around the world is close to zero.

Lots of food options we take for granted now were not widely available then. The best cook you knew was probably your Mum, as eating out was uncommon and pretty ordinary by today's standards.

Fifty years ago, it was completely acceptable to be openly homophobic and you could be put in jail for being gay; government employees were legally allowed to hit some citizens with sticks to make sure they behaved (teachers at school); women needed their husband's or father's permission to get a credit card, and a husband was legally allowed to rape his wife.

Society was vastly more racist; and there were hardly any non-white MPs.

The comparisons are many, and you can try more out for yourself by doing an online quiz at www.comparonomics.com.

So, if things are so much better now, why don't we feel like they are?

It's called rosy retrospection, or nostalgia bias and it's part of the human condition. In 1777 David Hume said: "the humour of blaming the present, and admiring the past, is strongly rooted in human nature". Steven Pinker summarised this nostalgia perception nicely: People always pine for a golden age. They're nostalgic about an era in which life was simpler and more predictable.

We can also feel bad about life today because economists like to tell us things have got worse.

Economics is very poor at measuring change over time, particularly when it comes to things that have decreased in price or become free like communications, technology or the cost of travel.

Economists tell us real wages are about the same as 50 years ago, but omit to mention that we all use goods and services such as the internet and smartphones that even a billionaire didn't have even 10-15 years ago.

Grant Ryan. Photo / Supplied

The demise of the encyclopedia and photography industries are bad for GDP but great for us. GDP is not designed to measure the fact that it is quite nice to live 10 years more than in the past.

We've seen then that pining after the good old days means we were happy being poorer, sicker, more homophobic, violent, sexist, and racist. There may be some people who still think that the 1970s were better, but I doubt that would be the case for the majority.

It's really important to be aware of nostalgia bias, because when politicians use it as a tool, it leads to movements like Trump's "Make America Great Again", Brexit, or even Putin's goal of rebuilding a "great" Russia.

When you take the time to think about it, you realise that there are many reasons to feel happy about living in the world we have today. Just because it feels like the 1970s were the good old days doesn't mean they were actually better.

• Grant Ryan has founded several technology companies in internet search, social networking, personal electric transport and eco-tourism. He is the author of Comparonomics: Why life is better than we think, and how to make it even better.