He said, "Almost half of what we do is not that valuable to our customers, but it's valuable to him, and her, and him", pointing through the conference-room window at my fellow programmers, "and that's why we do it. If we only did things that were very valuable to our customers, we wouldn't have nearly as many good engineers on the team as we do."

But SHOULD we? With great power comes great responsibility - and I'm getting the impression we're (quickly) building a world that isn't very fun to live in. We technically have a choice here - DO we want bots writing our prose and responding to our customer service inquiries?

I am having some success in working to acquire a taste for different parts of the work. But I suspect that this won't be an option for most people.

It sucks for the employees, otoh it might be the only way we're going to beat Baumol's Cost Disease.

In the past few decades productivity has exploded, but service employees have largely failed to increase productivity in any way because it's harder to automate these tasks.

It's the reason the costs of things like education and healthcare are downright extortionate, the reason you're paying back your college well into your fifties, the reason you don't call an ambulance for someone in the US because you don't want to ruin their life financially.

We may have to trade the personal fulfillment in these jobs for the broader affordable access to these services.

Where did the 20% number come from? I’d argue it’s way more than that (or variable, i.e. dependent on who’s using it/how it’s being used/what it’s being used on).

Having said that, the number, to me, doesn’t even matter. You could replace that with 200%, and it’d be just as true.

Programming was one of the ones which was, because there were fewer programmers than openings. Now that's flipping, thus naturally, the enjoyment is going to be sucked out of it.

I think it is more important than ever to manage your wealth in a way that sustains you from capital alone in a world where employment gets progressively more toxic.

The way to achieve it is buying maintenance efficient and cheap car, make renovations smart, make good choices all around to minimise expenses. Operate your life like a corporation. First, cut the expenditures.

For me the ability to do whatever I am interested in at the moment, is worth almost any sacrifice.

Then I can seek one time contracts or short time jobs that fulfil my mental needs.

My monthly expenses are no more than 5000 dollars and mostly consistently less than that.

Which is okay because the money spending doesn’t bring me any joy nowadays. The money isn’t what gives me happiness. Only other people can provide that and activities that are dirt cheap usually, like reading or broadly understood hacking

Consumption is a short lived and deceptive joy that causes more guilt than whatever dopamine it is worth really. Governments hate people like me which means I must be doing something right.

Now they get to fill out excel sheets, babysit people and sit in planning meetings.

Whatever productivity gains models are giving us is being eaten away by other factors.

Unfortunately though, what does that matter? Your employer does not care how do you feel. You are paid to bring them benefits, they aren't running a charity. If you do feel down, that is your issue and you shouldn't let that influence how you work.

Just to be clear, I don't like that either. But it is what it is.

Is everyone entitled to a high quality of life?

If not, then who draws the line as to who deserves what benefit in life? You?