[TeMPOraL]

But optimization is exactly what you called for - subtracting things, rearranging things. Because the issue is that we have little choice in how much stuff we have to cram in our lives. That's the social problem of technology: it's a ratchet.

Consider a clock. Why do you need to know what time is it, with minute accuracy? Because you need to synchronize in time with other people. Why do you need that? Because everyone else does that and it's now a basic part of how society functions. You owning a clock is a default expectation.

How did it came to be this way? The first clocks invented weren't very useful for this (they were for navigation at sea, though), because approximately no one had them. But then someone put clocks on church towers and someone else miniaturized them, and at some point we crossed from it being a convenience to it being necessity.

Same story with calendars, todo lists, having a phone at home, having a phone in your pocket, having a bank account. Emerging additions to this list include having credit/debit cards, having smartphones, having social media accounts. Individually, we can do little about it; at some point, resisting costs more than giving in.

[CatWChainsaw]

I think we're agreeing just from different angles. We seem to have the same opinion about the veritable rat race of being forced to juggle ever more things, because technology. It seems that where we're not agreeing is 'optimizing'. IMO the end goal of optimization is to do as much as possible, which is additive. I can see on a personal level some optimizing might be subtractive, but for society as a whole I don't think so.