there's a general boomerish mentality that the past must always be worse. it's a kind of blind adherence to the dogma of modernity, that everything is improoving and science and democracy have yielded us the best times to be alive. never look back. any discourse about living in the past or discussing standards of living is immediately met with angry accusations that you would die from everything and anything. this is always inevitably coming out of pure ignorance of history which is depressingly common. just look at how long the "they couldn't drink the water!" myth has perpetuated, as if the literal basis of all life is a fucking invention of modernity.   that's not true in the slightest. we know sugar from india reached medieval courts. spices are a given too. flemish linens made it as far as turkey and north africa. an elephant was a well documented gift to charlemagne, which traveled through spain from north africa.
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