>Technology tends to separate normal from natural. Our bodies weren't designed to eat the foods that people in rich countries eat, or to get so little exercise. There may be a similar problem with the way we work: a normal job may be as bad for us intellectually as white flour or sugar is for us physically.

It's not technology, it's society. The notion of "working from 9 to 5 until 65" is a relatively recent construct brought on by the industrial revolution. There's a great section on this in the book Your Money or Your Life. If you read some of the literature of the times, there was a period in which some authors and thinkers started saying that people would have more leisure time, and thus be more creative. Industrialists didn't like this since it limited productivity and the potential for growth. Moralists didn't like this, since they believed idle hands lead to trouble. A massive campaign was waged to get society to buy into the concepts that growth (not sustainability) is needed, and that productivity is important. This also coincided with the growth of consumerism, as people started thinking they needed more stuff.