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Apple Computers. I use Apple equipment for extensive video editing, audio recording, and for several specialty programs that are only available on the platform. Yet whenever I meet other “Mac enthusiasts” or Mac users, they’re almost universally people that aren’t doing anything that they wouldn’t be just as happy using a PC for. In fact, many of them don’t even use the day-to-day/casual use advantages like Expose or Spaces! :smack:
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I’ve never personally met an owner of a luxury car that was actually a car enthusiast or really had any appreciation of their vehicle as anything other than a status symbol and lifestyle accoutrement. They’re all this guy.
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I’ve never known/known of anyone that had a maid, dog walker, gardener, or nanny that actually needed such a service or for whom such a service made a major quality of life difference due to the saved time or energy.
Not even the elderly?
For my own part, I’ll suggest widely available clean water. Just about everyone forgets what a recent luxury it is.
I generally have a hosuekeeper and a lawn service, and I am profoundly grateful for them. It allows me to spend a few precious minutes each evening with the Celtling, instead of parking her in front of the TV with a frozen dinner while I struggle to keep up.
Actually, I still struggle, but at least I can pay attention to her in the evenings.
As for the question, I’m kinda seeing now how much people take their health insurance for granted. there seems to be a silent assumption that it’s something decent people just have, and if you don’t have it, you somehow don’t deserve it. Sooooo not true.
Also cell phones, blackberries and PDAs. So many of my friends pay hundreds for capabilities they never ever use. I remember what it was like to be stuck at the side of the road and just hoping some kind passer-by woudl stop at the next exit to call in some assistance for me. . .
Access to affordable health care.
Domestic hot water.
Heck, I’d say computers in general. Many people in the world can’t afford a computer or internet access period, but for most Americans now it is taken for granted that everyone has an email address.
I have a house cleaner who comes every-other-week, and the gardeners come very week.
It’s a huge improvement in my life. It means that the time I have in my house I can spend cooking, which I enjoy; instead of vacuuming, a task I loathe beyond words. It means I can spend my yard time fussily caring for my herb garden instead of mowing and edging.
I’d agree with others that hot, clean running water in the house is the underappreciated pinnacle of western civilization. Cheap food is the underappreciated boon of living in America.
Digital cameras.
People pay more for the big fancy ones with tons of features and an ultra high megapixel count.
Then they just set the thing on auto everything and print off 4 x 6s.
I’m a public librarian and you wouldn’t BELIEVE the jobs you have to apply online for. There is literally no other way to apply to be a school janitor. It’s absolutely insane.
In the spirit of the “don’t you feel guilty now” subset, vaccines, dude.
In the true spirit of the OP, fancy-ass video camera that nobody uses the stuff they spend the money for.
Polio vaccines
ETA: shazbot, I missed the previous post.
Emergency services. With just one phone call, highly skilled strangers will show up in minutes (usually) and do their best (usually) to save your life/protect you/put out your burning house.
This is close to what I was going to say when I saw the thread title: showers. I haven’t had a shower in two months. I wash in a tap that provides room-temperature water. It’s at the height of my waist.
I WOULD LIKE A SHOWER, PLZ.
College education. Many people work their asses off and or have parents who do to get through college, but there are also many kids who have no clue what kind of gift they’re being given- nice cars, no worry about housing or tuition or books, the liberty to have a social life and not have to work full time or more while in school, not having to graduate with enough debt to buy a luxury car- they attend classes with the other kids and never see them or appreciate what they’ve got.
And of course the most basic thing: food. Poor people here can be obese. There’s still many many many many millions of people for whom that’s not a problem.
It really chaps my hide that a the husband of one of my wife’s colleagues, who has a degree in “Chinese medicine” and is living in the US, refuses to have his kids vaccinated for anything because he feels it’s better to go with natural Chinese healthy living* rather than harsh Western medicine. The thought of one of his kids potentially being crippled by polio or mentally incapacitated by scarlet fever makes me angrier than it ought to, perhaps.
*And I’ve never encountered this zero-sum New Age alternative medicine attitude among anyone in Taiwan: Chinese medical practitioners here will be the first ones to tell you to get your ass to a hospital if you’re at risk for infection or swine flu or whatever. And the whole country is pretty strict about vaccining kids: I don’t know if he could even get away with this back here.
As for my contribution to the OP: good dental care. Just a few decades ago I’d be going around with false teeth by now.
You can even have a hot shower, fill it and leave it in the sun to heat for a few hours…
I’m going to just say cars in general. Most people take it for granted that of course you have a car. I briefly lived without a car in a city that has OK, not great, public transportation, and boy, did that suck. In a city with terrible or nonexistent public transportation, it would be a nightmare. But there’s a lot of people in that situation. So I vote for cars.
Apple computers are luxury items? Never heard that before. Is a $3000 Windows machine also a luxury item?
Really?
I dunno if this counts as “maid” but I’ve just about always paid someone to clean my house, and man-oh-man is it ever worth it. If everyone in the house works 40+ hours a week, who the heck wants to spend half a weekend day cleaning a house? It might be different if someone had more free time, but when there’s already not much extra time in a day/week, the heck if I’m going to spend it scrubbing toilets. You bet it gives me a major quality of life difference.
Any computer is a “luxury” item, but Apple much more overtly markets theirs as such.
You can get a nice computer for $500 or less which is about the cost of a small TV . Since about 95% of US households have a TV , I don’t see how a $500 item is a luxury item.
(And yes I know there are poor people who have a TV and not a home computer)