[edent]

Because they had to be.

I don't need to know how to grow crops, weave a shirt, or wire a plug - those things have been mechanised and automated.

Would someone from 200 years ago trade having to gather firewood for flicking a switch for instant heat? Absolutely!

Would you trade access to Wikipedia for having to travel to a monastery in order to look up a scrap of information? Unlikely!

[swatcoder]

Hah. There are absolutely people here on HN right now who would be happy to live in a world of quiet labor and pilgrimages and digital disconnection.

Other lifestyles needn’t be romanticized more than our own, but they also don’t need to be demonized. Keeping yourself safe and fed isn’t a big stress for most people through most of history, yet does get quite hard for some people some times even now. The difference is mostly just textural.