On: It's 2030. I own nothing, have no privacy, and life has never been better (2016)

[ryanackley]

That is one way to look at it. Another way to look at it would be the industrialization of western society led to 100 years of exploitation of non-industrial peoples and societies through colonialism and imperialism. With it came global power struggles between industrialized nations for control of resources and technology (WW1, WW2, Cold War, etc.) on a scale the world had never seen.

If you live in the USA and Europe, you are the recipient of generations of global technological dominance. It's hard to understand the possibility of being on the other side of that.

[Nasrudith → ryanackley]

That forgets what happened before industrialization. What do you call the long history of peasantry, slavery, and conquest before industrialization if not exploitation? What do you call all of the wars for plunder if not wars for resources? Horrifyingly one hundred years of exploitation is /brief/ historically compared to thousands of years of it.