The past is a long time ago. Remember the TV show Breaking Bad? That was in the past. So was I Love 1977. And also your mum; (though it is possible she is present too; I don’t know who you are)
But the past, as they say, is like a foreign country: they are racist there. And also they didn’t have robots to do loads of things that will literally blow your sector of the hivemind!
1) Control their own transport
Unbelievable though it may seem, once upon a time people used to have to control their own transport to go to places.
You could control your own transport (“car”), or, if you were rich or lazy, you could get another person (usually a man, because the past was sexist) to control the vehicle. Loads of people used to die because they made the transporters go really fast at each other by accident, so various countries made it harder by restricting what side of the roadway you could drive on.
Larger vehicles called trolleys were used to transport large amounts of stuff around. And you know those giant Control Centres that the super hive-mind used to watch us? They used to be used for horses.
2) Build Things
In the past, if an item didn’t exist, it had to be designed and then constructed by people! It makes sense of course: who else would do it? Horses (an animal people used for transport that I didn’t mention earlier; but I don’t really understand how you could control an animal without brainstem harvesting but whatever)???
Sometimes people would build them in small groups; sometimes in large groups. Eventually, they began to build big places to build small things to make big things out of.
3) Hunt/Gather
Before it became common for sustenance to be given to us via food pods, people used to have to find their own food by hunting animals (but not horses; they needed to go places on them) or gathering plants (but not trees; they were used to make things)
Whole economies and civilisations grew up with the express purpose of making this things easier; after a while people would catch the animals and breed them for strength and quality (much like we are bred!)
4) Plug things into the wall to charge them
Incredibly in the past mobile devices needed regular charging and this had to be done via a wall outlet. A cable and connector was usually provided from the manufacturers (see 2) to attach the device to the outlet, which was connected to a central power source. Try to imagine a reverse version of an excretion tube.
Incredibly, this central power source was usually created by burning carbon things! Of course humanity was unaware that burning carbon would have an adverse effect on the environment at first, and when they found out, they had become addicted to the wall sockets.
5) Partake in “beauty pageants”
Incredibly, in the past, people were obsessed by personal appearance! Because people had to find mates based on arbitrary criteria, it was decided that being well fit was better than intelligence or wit or being able to survive the silicon mines.
4) Not have to partake in the surprise Fight Arena for the amusement of our Cyborg Overlords.
Unbelievably, in the past, people were not forced to partake in the Fight Arenas, where our Cyborg Overlords are entertained by us slicing each other up.
While people in the past often used to kill each other for entertainment, it was usually a voluntary thing which was done by professionals and they were aided by transporters. They could live their whole lives without worrying about being called up at any time before their 30th birthday and forced to kill their friends!
There was also very little risk of being conscripted to toil in the silicon mines of Mars. Hard to imagine, but without are might Cyborg Overlords, humanity did not fully understand the need for order and submission.
Hopefully this list has demonstrated how much better things are now!
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