> look how much effort my slaves are putting in to keeping you comfortable This attitude is pervasive still, in many areas of modern life - not just amongst th

> look how much effort my slaves are putting in to keeping you comfortable This attitude is pervasive still, in many areas of modern life - not just amongst the billionaire class where it's very much unchanged from the post: extravagence is a simple marker of how wealthy and powerful you are. Think of empire-building managers ammassing as many charges as possible - just for many of them to do bullshit work. Think of how you prize a 'hand-made' item over a machine-made one - even when the hand-made item is more likely to have imperfections, or to have been e.g. stitched by a sweat-shop worker. A part of our monkey-brain wants other monkeys to know how successful we are, and one of the most base representations of power is how many other monkeys are doing things for you. Machines don't count.