[ WP ] Write about a future society detailing our current society 's most moral failing in their eyes

The greatest moral failing of the pre-modern world was `` adulation of masochism'', to quote a great writer. It was an understandable failing, because in those times life was hard, short and limited. The easy, comforting answer to this sad reality was to say this was, in the words of the classical joke, `` a feature, and not a bug''. Pain made you a better person. Suffering was beautiful, for a cause and just for itself. Nothing was valuable unless you sweated for it. Special words existed to stigmatize those who did not agree: `` sloth'' was a theologically disapproved condition, worthy of supreme punishment; `` lazy'' was a description of low personal activity frequency with disapproving moral overtones. Hard work had a perceived positive moral quality just because it was hard, dirty, and nasty. This really must be emphasized: physical exercise was understood to be healthy, but even activity detrimental to your health was seen as morally advantageous. In the word of the time, as `` manly'', though of course women had their own cultic ideas of ennobling agony -- - childbirth without epidurals, for example. And you could n't opt out without being seen as `` weak'' -- - that is, unused to physical hardship and thus morally questionable -- - and `` soft'' -- - that is, not calloused and scarred by physical work and suffering, and thus untrustworthy and unable to make the right sort of `` hard'' decisions. 
 
 Tied to this was another necessity: in the pre-modern economical system, each adult was expected to have an `` occupation'': an activity they performed say four days a week, for six hours a day, in exchange for monetary compensation. This compensation was their sole income; the government was under no obligation to provide its citizens with a living, and the toxic political rhetoric of the time actually demonized the people unwilling or unable to find an occupation, because occupations were n't provided either. Worse still, these occupations were largely uninspiring maintenence work: for example, simple data processing, manual physical labor, car driving -- - work that was tedious, boring, and in the early pre-modern world, sadly necessary. Where this unfortunate arrangement became a moral failing was when it was no longer necessary. Roboticization and automation removed the need for occupying people in almost all traditional occupations, and the growing `` social safety net'' became able to provide people with a basic income, initially during childhood and old age, but instead of freeing people to pursue their personal desires, the late pre-modern society inculcated in them a feeling that unless they had an occupation, they were `` not doing their part''. The society was portrayed as a simple purse, so that if you did n't put money in it, you were a `` sponger'' and you should strive for better moral standing or cease to exist to `` balance the books''. Old age basic income, or a `` pension'', was seen and partly conceived as a `` reward'' for holding on to an occupation. These attitudes persisted for decades after the simple-purse model had become obsolete. 
 
 The few people who could engage in their preferred personal pursuits as an occupation, such as monetarily compensated novelists, were of course adored for their novels, but also seen as somehow `` cheating in life'': it was felt that your occupation should be a box, containing a third of your life, outside of which you should live and be happy. 
 
 This idea echoes loudly and, to us, discordantly through the pre-modern world, leaving its callous trace everywhere: `` you got ta be tough to get respect'', `` no pain no gain'', `` he who will not work shall not eat'', `` got ta be cruel to be kind'', `` pain is weakness leaving the body'', `` this hurts me more than it hurts you'', `` work hard party hard'', and so on. 
 
 The pre-modern society was horribly misguided in many ways, mired in unexamined mistakes of its past, particularly in the areas of sexual and body politics, and its general lack of mathematical and empirical subtlety; but it is generally agreed its greatest moral failing was the systematic glorification of hardship for its own sake.
