You know capitalism is really new in the scale of human history right? It wasn’t until the industrial revolution in the 18th century that the means of production could be privately owned which then allowed for further speculative capital (stocks, land value, etc) to be equated to power.

The people of the past weren’t inherently stupid. Plenty of scientific and cultural progress was made prior to capitalism being our economic model.

The problem isn’t smartphones, it’s capitalism.

All of those things would have happened anyway in a different form factor because capitalism is just a race to the bottom.

Except maybe UI design. That has been special in its enshittification.