Think life hasn’t been getting better? Try Paul Graham’s Frankish-nobleman thought experiment

Successful Internet entrepreneur turned venture capitalist Paul Graham proposes a thought experiment:

… try living for a year using only the resources available to the average Frankish nobleman in 800, and report back to us. (I'll be generous and not send you back to the stone age.)

This can be seen as a variation on a similar thought experiment offered by Gregg Easterbrook in The Progress Paradox:  How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse (2003).