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Originally Posted by coberst
We came from a long ancestry of rugged individualist and now reside in the Artificial Kingdom.
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This is a stark rewriting of history. The long ancestry of human beings is tribal, not ruggedly individualistic. In only a few, isolated, idealized instances (the American West, as you say) were people truly self-contained units of individual determination.
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To what end only time will tell.
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Well, so far, to the end of universal education, vastly extended life-expectancy, a 40-hour work week (instead of every daylight hour of every day), and an embarrassing richness of cultural expression. It turns out, specialization and market economics do good things for human beings.
Speaking as someone who loves their job, there's no possible way I could do what I do unless I trade it at a high value, and then pay other people to do their own specialized work, such as building my transportation, growing my food, providing my medical care, and delivering piping hot DSL service to my house.
Am I a cog in the machine? Fine. It's a beautiful, powerful, progressing and evolving machine that has released us from the burden of subsistence living and has allowed us the possibility of freedom, art, and the flourishing life. It has allowed us these things in spite of race, rank, sex, or class. It has allowed us these things by the very means you revile, by turning labor into a commodity that can be ascribed value in trade for other things.