[wallace_f]

I think he means if humans were rational and enlightened.

Note: the world started producing a surplus of food a while ago, and still we let many starve, and even today many people live with shortages and food insecurity.

Honestly, if you take a step back and look, a large portion of our economy are just bullshit jobs, or outright cronyism.

I mean, I worked in private sector fin tech (nothing fancy, more-pedestrian stuff) and I'm extremely confident we contributed close to nothing to society, while making good money. Some other work experience was with consulting government and that was just complete bullshit. Then there's books written on the "Rise of the Healthcare Administrator," which correctly point out their numbers have grown by 1-2 orders of magnitude while healthcare costs are up, quality is questionable and by the way, shouldn't technology have the opposite result? And finally, I'm not surprised to see GE as the culprit here. I know they have some brilliant groups, but that company is also infected with crazy politics and insanity from within.

[perl4ever]

"I'm not surprised to see GE as the culprit here. I know they have some brilliant groups, but that company is also infected with crazy politics and insanity from within"

I don't think GE consumer products are related to GE, the American company, for several years now. They sold the appliance business to Haier, I believe. Not sure if that would include things like smart bulbs.

[stickfigure]

Those rational and enlightened humans would have to be willing to move out of popular cities.

You work in technology. You are, in all likelihood, capable of moving to the country, cooking at home, and telecommuting for 15 hours a week. Have you? Why not?