The choice for most humans wasn't "work or starve". Back then the concept of "work" didn't exist. You lived your life, you hunted and farmed for nourishment, these tasks while laborous were also incredibly fulfilling. There were no abstract timelines to complete tasks by, you collected eggs because they had to be collected and you harvested crops because your family needs food.
Nowadays the choice is "do meaningless tasks to make someone else much wealthier, or cease to exist with the social institutions created explicitly to exploit the lower classes".
Why are you morally OK with forcing people into this system of exploitation?
I did not claim we should go back to farm life or that it was perfect, only that these tasks were fulfilling.
Are your tasks at work not fulfilling? Perhaps another hour long meeting will give you the same joy as turning your harvested crops into a simple cake.
Protip: you will struggle to find any book of the past that brings up their daily routine tasks for sustenance as a major source of agony in the same way we do about our modern office jobs. There is a reason for this and I hope you figure it out soon.
Nowadays the choice is "do meaningless tasks to make someone else much wealthier, or cease to exist with the social institutions created explicitly to exploit the lower classes".
Why are you morally OK with forcing people into this system of exploitation?