[psychoslave]

> A Grand Seiko or a Nomos or a Patek is perhaps now even more interesting & identity-productive than a watch was in the 60s.

I have no idea what these brands sell and I give it so much importance I won't even bother make a search.

To my mind, this is a lose lose game. Society at large is being engaged into wasteful goals, and as all means are going to be useful in the game where all that matter is displaying more personal material whealths, general social outcomes are undermined: first bribery, then use of other mental coercion tools, then threats, then bare physical aggressions.

>As technologists I think we're prone to dismissing improvements that aren't engineering-backed.

No that's not about technology and engineering blindness. Technologies of course can serve best interests of general public and humanity at large. Or a improve efficiency of genocide. And social engineering can be used either to create isolation and hate between groups, or spread more solidarity, diversity being loved where it's open to reciprocal appreciation of differences, and many other virtuous bounds beyond local groups.

Not all life is story telling. Behind, there are real people with actual suffering and joys that goes beyond what even the most eloquent narrator can convey.