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Comment by Illniyar | Hacker News Reader

I assume he meant to decry the use of inflation adjusting and similar shenanigans to be able to compare two groups in vastly different ages. It is similar to saying that a peasant in today's world eats/lives better then a king a thousand years ago.

For instance if you use percentage of world wealth as ameasure, then Adam controlled 50% of the world's wealth, arguably the richest person to ever live (or mythologically live at least).

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In general I agree with the sentiment but in the case of the VOC they owned the entire nation of Indonesia. Jakarta was a trading post they founded (nee Batavia). First company in the history of the world to issue shares to the public and an 18% divided for 200 years. They owned 2000 ships (more than Maersk, which has “just” 786) It’s probably fair to compare them to the conglomerates of today in inflation adjusted dollars.

I doubt a peasant today eats as well as a King of even 1000 years ago.

Lives better, maybe. Eats better? Hell no.

I am not sure who would eat better... consider:

- the variety of foods available today is far greater, especially in winter - Spices available 1000 years ago were quite limited, today any supermarket will have 100 varieties from all around the world for like $2/satchel - refrigeration allows safe storage of food - Things like ice cream, chocolate, popcorn etc etc just did not exist.

So I think a "peasant" today CAN eat tastier and healthier food than kings of 1000 years ago... whether or not they choose to is another matter.

And same but differently I doubt a king of today eats as well as a peasant of a thousand years ago - aside from famine times. Today we all eat just a few plant and (for most) animal species. This is bad for the gut microbiome, health and our enjoyment of life in general - and its prob true for even the most wealthy.

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