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unbibium t1_j6ab6f5 wrote

Reply to comment by PM_ur_Rump in Technology hasn't made things easier, it's made us work longer, harder, and for less money. by [deleted]

>you can totally do it, there's still plenty of wild lands

No, no there aren't. You didn't invent the "go live in a cave" comeback.

I think I agree with the people who say that technology doesn't make life hard, we've just built a society that does not permit the benefits of technology to actually reduce the burden of "earning a living". We've increased productivity constantly since the microcomputer was invented, we've increased the efficiency of motors and lights, we've designed better ways to do everything. Yet jobs haven't gotten easier or shorter, and the cost of these "climate controlled dwellings" is becoming prohibitive to more working people every month.

If we're lucky, we earn enough at our meaningless job that we have enough time and energy left to volunteer for a job that gives us meaning or purpose. And if the productivity gains of technology weren't all sucked upward...

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PM_ur_Rump t1_j6an1yb wrote

I mean, I love my job and spend much of my free time in wild lands, of which there is plenty. My life is full of meaning and rich experience, and I'm pretty much a poor quasi-hippie with a dirty, blue collar job.

I mean, without technology, how would you not live a barefoot hunter gatherer "cave" life?

I know people who subsistence live off grid, and even they use plenty of technology to make life easier.

Yes, there is plenty of fault to find in our current system, but the "it's too hard" argument is silly. Is it woefully inegalitarian? Yes. Do lots of people struggle to find meaning? Yes. But even the "struggle to find meaning" is a sign of comfort and relative ease.

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