There is also a large proportion of people whose standard of living is a step back from being self-sufficient modest farmers living with family off their own la

There is also a large proportion of people whose standard of living is a step back from being self-sufficient modest farmers living with family off their own land. I'll all for technological advancement. As a society, we've accomplished marvelous things. But it's useful to remember whether individuals are actually improving their standard of living or not. > now you're commanding power roughly equivalent to 100 horses when you hop into your car The flipside of this is that (for most US) you must have a car to perform basic necessities such as purchasing food to eat. Food that would have otherwise been in your vegetable garden/chicken coop/pond. Our society is immensely better for well-off city dwellers, but there are large portions of the population whose level of freedom is only slighly better than servitude.