Recently, The Economist published an interesting interview with documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis that largely revolved around the crisis of meaning that seems increasingly pervasive everywhere. At one point, the discussion turns to jobs and the sense that they have declined as a source of fulfillment for many people. "I've always thought that most people's jobs aren't their real jobs," Curtis says. "Their real job is to go shopping." That statement feels overly cynical, but it got my attention because it presents a view of humans less as self-directed agents than as ore that passively exists for other entities to mine: repositories of money, attention, energy, or desire, all of which power various economic and technological systems. What if the primary value that we "add" isn't any of the hard work we do from 9-to-5, but just the fact that we're warm bodies, "eyeballs," or bank accounts? Eli Schiff,
#85: Usefully Empty
#85: Usefully Empty
#85: Usefully Empty
Recently, The Economist published an interesting interview with documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis that largely revolved around the crisis of meaning that seems increasingly pervasive everywhere. At one point, the discussion turns to jobs and the sense that they have declined as a source of fulfillment for many people. "I've always thought that most people's jobs aren't their real jobs," Curtis says. "Their real job is to go shopping." That statement feels overly cynical, but it got my attention because it presents a view of humans less as self-directed agents than as ore that passively exists for other entities to mine: repositories of money, attention, energy, or desire, all of which power various economic and technological systems. What if the primary value that we "add" isn't any of the hard work we do from 9-to-5, but just the fact that we're warm bodies, "eyeballs," or bank accounts? Eli Schiff,