[yawz]

> the way most humans in history--and many still today--have had to scrimp for survival, working long hours in the fields, barely achieving subsistence, sharecropping for feudal lords or tyrannical landlords.

We should have never left our hunter-gatherer lifestyle. :)

[jackhack]

Because nothing beats dying at the ripe old age 30 with a toothless mouth, body failing of undernourishment and disease (especially parasites), common death in childbirth, the slightest infection becoming a death sentence, and so on.

[yawz]

Well... These things are not inherent characteristics of hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They were the same until very recently :).