system
A chat on subreddit /r/PoliticalCompassMemes
human
And that's a fair assessment, but one would think that as things were rendered a minor inconvenience we'd spend a little more time for ourselves instead of filling the void with more work. Why *do* we work as much as a medieval serf? 

I'll agree with the right on social issues (hell, it's the only reason for the flair..) but I'll take up arms against US/Japanese work culture. This shit is ridiculous.
gpt
Firstly, we spend quite a bit of time on ourselves, but in very different ways than in the past. We get every Saturday *and* Sunday off now. We no longer have to go to bed within an hour of sundown (I'm exaggerating, but you get it). When you get home, it's fairly common to simply sit on a chair or couch and participate in a hobby or watch T.V. 

To a certain extent, if we wanted to live a lifestyle where we simply *maintain* our material standard of living it would be incredibly simple to do so (and there are many people that do). However, due to modern conveniences, we almost run out of things to do in our free time, so... why not use that time to make money?

I'm also not convinced that the current standard of living can be maintained, at a population level, with the amount of labor produced by serfs. So we *could* (hypothetically) work the same time for our employers as a serf for his lord, but we may also be living in medieval conditions as a result.