[Aurornis]

> I would say 99.999% of all modern work is "surrogate activity" (an activity that is directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward.)

I think this level of hyperbole only feels correct when you've been trapped in the kinds of companies where everyone is at least ten steps removed from the customer. When you're sitting through meetings and pushing around abstract "work" to achieve artificial goals all day, it can seem like modern work is all made up and arbitrary.

But step outside one of these absurd corporate jobs and you'll see plenty of people doing "real" work, and doing a lot of it. It's eye opening to go from a corporate behemoth to a small company where what you do actually matters to customers. Once you see the effect your work has on something up close, it makes a lot more sense.

Every time I read an HN comment where someone is romanticizing Ted Kaczynski's writings, it feels like they're coming from a place of being just a bit too chronically online and a bit too disconnected from how the real world works outside of the internet and corporate life.

[denkmoon]

You can understand why though. Those of us in corporate land swim in an all consuming miasma of unreality. Nothing matters. Logic is irrelevant. Absurdity is the norm. Of course it skews your perspective. Yet another ill corporatism inflicts on us.