Hi Hive account@veritopian :) Do you care to point us in the direction of "real history books?" I was specifically mentioning the history of the last few hundred years. It's pretty well documented by scholars of that time, so I have no reason to believe other than that things generally sucked for humanity during the period immediately preceding the industrial revolution. Things have generally gotten objectively better since then.
I also believe the concept of a noble savage to be a myth as well. Also from early American and European scholars of the settlement era, it's evident that the Native Americans were constantly at war with each other when Europeans settled, and that while they may have been more at equilibrium with nature, that's not necessarily good for the people living in it. Nature, and the other life that has evolved around us, is constantly trying to cut our lives short, and overcoming it is of the utmost importance. They had short life expectancy, no modern amenities, and they were generally very ignorant of the world around them. Some even thought that the Europeans were gods because they wore armor and rode horses.
Being of libertarian/anarchist persuasion, I don't believe that government meddling in markets is a good thing at all. The way I see it, if we have robots to drive us around, we don't need to waste our time doing the miserable task of driving, especially in traffic. I'm actually an automotive enthusiast. I like to drive, but commuting back and forth to work in heavy traffic is one of my top 5 worst experiences in daily life today. The same goes for commercial drivers, a task which I did for a brief period as well. I can't imagine that many of them find sitting in one place for more than half the waking day while their circulatory and musculoskeletal systems atrophy, shortening their lives considerably, an enjoyable experience. If we get robot cars, we'll have fewer deaths for one, less stress in daily human life, and drivers, both personal and commercial, will be freed up to do more important and valuable tasks. I don't see a downside there.