alt Hacker NewsYou can focus on the word, but the substance is actually what I was more interested in.
Most people living today take it for granted that modern "work" is the way it is and the way it should be. Few people have the context of understanding that modern work, where you directly trade labor for money and money for the goods and services you need to live, and where your identity and social standing is largely based on your profession, is something only a minority of human beings have experienced.
In my experience, most people seem to treat human development as a one-way spear of progress. The dawn of agriculture, the industrial revolution, etc. are all just stops on a linear path that is the right path.
But maybe it's just a dead end. "Primitive" hunter-gatherer societies survived for way longer than our modern-day society has existed, and things aren't looking so promising for us right now.
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> Most people living today take it for granted that modern "work" is the way it is and the way it should be.
Which is understandable when the alternative is generally poverty.
I'm sure that many aspects of work and specialization are as old as humanity itself. Don't you think there was one guy in the tribe who was really good at starting fires, one woman who knew where to find the good berries, one guy who was the best at fixing spears, and some people who weren't that good at anything so they just joined the effort wherever they were needed? You don't have to have a physical exchange of currency or a 40hr desk job for that to be true.