my cemetery has tons of historical correspondence by employees going back almost 200 years and i like to read it and make myself insane thinking about how much more shit i am expected to do in a day than these people and how i am not even actually making that much more money than them
I am an engineer and have this same thought about the speed of work when drawings were done by hand and not on the computer and that was way less than 200 years ago.
There was more thought and care that went into design, more humanity, if you will, when drawings were done by hand, calculations were done on paper, and revisions required thoughtful consideration.
Forget where I read it but the nationalization & then internationalization of finance played big part. When the banker knew you AND would walk past your business everyday he was willing to loan you the extra money to make new building aesthetically pleasing. Now an algorithm determines loan amt.
