When it comes to the physical evolution of the human species over time, our bodies — including our brains — have changed very little. Slowly it seems we get a bit bigger, a lot heavier and somewhat less hairy.
What about our behavior? Are we getting smarter?
Well, we’ve gotten more sophisticated in using tools, building nests, crafting comfortable clothing, inventing vehicles that let us zoom around the planet, and establishing routines that are meant to optimize pleasure.
We’ve improved our medical knowledge and expanded our lifespans.
And we’ve been able to accomplish all these things largely by inventing technologies.
But are we happier?
Technology inherently is neither good nor bad. It is officially neutral like Switzerland, although neutrality also is a relative concept. But if there are imperatives to the evolution of our species they probably include a technological component, i.e., we are going to continue to experiment and develop technologies that extend our reach — physically, mentally and maybe even emotionally.
Artificial intelligence and robotics are the latest examples of this imperative. No government or religion seems able to stop this process.
But technological progress is also inherently disorienting and disruptive. It was becoming commonplace several years ago to describe each new upheaval of our traditional industries in terms that it had just been disrupted by the internet, or by a digital device, or a software application.
Suddenly it seemed that all of the middlemen, all of the intermediaries who held our society together were being thrown out of work. The technical term is that they were getting disintermediated.
Travel agents? Disintermediated.
Secretaries? Disintermediated.
Taxi drivers? Disintermediated.
Publishers? Disintermediated.
Finally, in 2025, this process has reached the federal government in the form of Elon Musk’s DOGE.
Government workers? Disintermediated. Meanwhile, the disrupters always ask the same rhetorical question. Why do we need all these people anyway?
I know the answer.
It turns out that we get something pretty valuable from the intermediaries. Something we need every bit as much as food, water, clothing, and blankets when it’s cold..
We need to be cared for; we need to be taken care of now and then; we need to be helped. At the same time, we need to be able to take care of the people we love. In our jobs, we need to be able to feel that our work matters.
It’s what gives our lives meaning. We need to feel we are helping makes things better, not worse. And a lot of the fired federal workers fit into that category.
That is one of the many things that the richest man in the world just doesn’t understand.
HEADLINES:
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