If you go a few generations further back, your ancestors lived in crushing rural poverty but literally hand-made most of the things in their own house, with the

If you go a few generations further back, your ancestors lived in crushing rural poverty but literally hand-made most of the things in their own house, with the rest produced by local craftspeople; grew/raised or gathered/hunted most of their own food; made their own clothing starting from raw materials; etc. Your buddies today have dramatically greater material wealth due to worldwide supply chains and mass production, but don’t know how to turn an unshorn sheep into a blanket or sweater or build walls out of mud and sticks. Today it’s no longer worth even fixing most stuff because the labor costs to do anything as a one-off are prohibitive compared to buying a new one from a streamlined (capital and energy intensive) factory.