Society and meta-levels

[chess]

It occurred to me, while walking home through a building site, just how complicated our society has become.

The concept which struck me was this - I work as a tester for a company which produces software which people use to make using a piece of someone else' software easier, the other piece of software in turn mostly being used as the back end to some other kind of application software, which is usually something used in the administration of some actual productive activity. Despite being several meta-layers down from anything which directly relates to actual physical production or processing of Stuff, I make an excellent living doing this.

It strikes me as quite strange and unsettling that our corner of the world has enough overproduction to allow me to do this, especially while some people are still scratching in the dirt for a living, with basically no infrastructure supporting their efforts.

Comments

[marble.livejournal.com]

At least there's some physical production or processing at the end there. I often used to think similar thoughts when I was producing voice recorders, and they end up mostly being used in customer service (sort of an extra, aside from the real production), or insurance (even worse, money changing hands for things that might happen), or, of course, spying, none of which really help society at all, at least, not in the way that growing a crop does.