21st century society considers me extremely useful, because I happen to be very good at solving certain kinds of puzzle. Medieval society would consider me practically useless, because I'm frail, clumsy and almost blind. My usefulness now and my uselessness then is almost entirely a fluke of genetics.

Valuing people for their utility is incredibly dangerous, because it logically invites us to devalue people for their lack of utility. My community is full of broad-shouldered, hard-working men who became economically useless when the coal mine closed. They're not worse than me, they were just born a few decades too late. They deserve every comfort that society affords me, but the fallacy of meritocracy has provided society with a plausible excuse to neglect them.

Would it? today's programmers are yesterdays mathematicians.

My understanding of technology bridges many islands - I know I'd be useful in the 19th or even 18th century because of my other characteristics.

sure, that's a great characteristic for things. Not so sure about implying that people should be assessed the same way.

You don't think people should strive to be useful? What virtue/goal would you replace usefulness with?

I find the whole Thomas package distasteful. The subtext always seems to be that Thomas would be fine if he just did what he was told to do by his betters. In that context, Thomas' servile desire to be useful carries sinister undertones.

That's a difference! Striving to be useful is not the same as being categorized by the ruler as being useful or not.

Some people's definition of "really useful" explicitly excludes everyone who can read or write, wears glasses, etc. Documentaries about those people consistently contain shots of roomfuls of human skulls.

Some people's definition of "good person" involves the color of their skin. Do you think we should stop aiming to be good people?

'being useful' is too vague.

You could be really useful to a really shitty employer and yet be a net negative on society.

Careful, people might get the idea from this comment that everyone doesn't deserve a trophy just for being physically present.