> Any tools goal is to reduce work.
I'm not sure that's entirely true. Yes, a dishwasher reduces the work you have to do washing dishes. That is true. But is also creates an entire economic ecosystem to support the existence of that dishwasher. You have the entire supply chain, the manufacturer, the repairmen, etc, etc, etc; the dependencies are vast. Technology is always thoroughly embedded in a living culture. It is a product of that culture and an instrument of that culture. It is just a dead and empty husk without a culture to breathe life into it and make it what it is, like a severed finger. A 21st century smartphone beamed to 5th century Arabia would be worthless.
That's also why all sorts of initiatives in places like Africa have often been boneheaded. Someone from an NGO decides that farmers in Africa need tractors, or a water pump, or whatever. So they bring these things to a remote rural village somewhere, thinking that with this tractor, they'll increase agriculture yields and free up children from having to work the fields so they can go to school, and with this water pump, they'll relieve these people of drought. They show the villagers how to drive the tractor, how to turn the water pump on, and so on. So they use these things for a couple months. Something breaks. Nobody knows how to repair the tractor. Nobody has the parts needed to repair the tractor. Nobody has the tools to repair the tractor. Things go back to the way they were and the tractor is left to rust behind a shed somewhere. You need an economic ecosystem (and economies are a part of culture and a reflection of culture) that supports the existence and usefulness of the tractor and that water pump.
But transitioning to that ecosystem can be uncomfortable, even painful, especially when done too rapidly.
