If me and my current standard of living were transported back a few hundred years, I would be revered as royalty. I have electric lights and a telephone line and a horseless carriage! I can buy enough food to make me fat and I have all the world’s books at my disposal.

I would be proclaimed King of all Humans and worshiped as a deity.

If me and my current standard of living were transported back a few hundred years, I would be cast in a position below that of indentured servitude. I have to be on call 20 hours a day, every day of the week. I don’t own my life, because my boss does. Or my customers do. Or my investors do.

Medieval laborers only worked 175 days out of the year. That was approximately enough to produce what they needed. Now we work 250 days a year.

The luxury is that we now have the freedom to choose how we want to live. We can opt to live like they did in the Dark Ages, but we never do. Feudal serfs got to take afternoon naps. I can’t do that, because my phone won’t shut up.

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