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Comment by chii | Hacker News Reader

> Having an iPhone doesn't make your life better

But having a lot of easy to access food certainly does. Or what about clean water, or electricity? Or cheap transport? When has there been in the past, before the advent of industrial automation and technology, that people could just travel on a whim somewhere more than a day's walk away?

Just because some symbol of luxury like the iphone is what you think of as "more stuff", doesn't mean it is. "more stuff" is _everything_, and while it does include the iphone, it also includes the cheap phone that makes it possible to communicate almost for free with almost anyone close or far.

The tickle down has been happening for the past 70 years, and the regular people have been benefiting so much that it looks normal now. I would use the analogy of boiling a frog, but somehow this doesn't quite suit.

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> Or what about clean water, or electricity

Is access to clean water or electricity improving / getting cheaper? How about clean air and stable climate?

>The tickle down has been happening for the past 70 years, and the regular people have been benefiting so much that it looks normal now.

This is just not true based on the data. The rich eat well - but food insecurity is still RAMPANT because of greed.

Food is less healthy now than ever and the majority of the population is malnourished - that is to say eating the wrong thing - despite us having enough capacity to produce quality food for everyone.

Food deserts ensure that the poorest people get the worst food.

Isn't junk food generally more expensive than vegetables?

Not really - the McDonalds dollar menu is what a lot of poor people live on because they have no time or energy to shop and cook.

Again a big piece of this is because food deserts don't have fresh food, so you have to commute to shop often.

Why doesn't anybody open a food shop there?

Tbh I am skeptic of the whole narrative. Maybe the poor simply tend to lack education, including knowledge about healthy foods.

>Why doesn't anybody open a food shop there?

Because they don't have as much money as other areas so people follow the money with where they provide services

>tend to lack education, including knowledge about healthy foods

This is also true and again structural - see above. Poor areas don't get school funding because school funding is based on county property taxes and thus, do more poorly than rich areas

It literally all boils down to structural inequality

But why is it profitable for fast food shops there, but not for vegetable shops?

And even bad schools could find a minute to tell kids they should eat more veggies and less sugar?

Because they quality is so bad and the prices are so cheap.

Having lived in these areas for most of my life I can tell you it's often only specific low quality chains (Church's, Grannys, Jack in the Box etc...) or these "chicken wing/chinese food" shops that basically just fry up the worst meat and slather it in sugar sauce.

I recall in high school, peers of mine would simply eat a bag of Doritos for lunch - as even the classes like Home-economics were largely just holding cells for teenagers until graduation.

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