We Optimised the World to Death

September 3, 2025

By the time you read this, it’s already obsolete, like yesterday's emoji in a feed scrolled past at 2x speed.

Before we begin I should let you know that your boss called, and he just told me you're being let go. The company’s experiencing "tough times". Shareholder profits dipped by a rounding error and are now 0.1% under projections, and that justifies sending a few hundred (or a few thousand) humans resources into the corporate meat grinder to keep the graph happy.

Your landlord also left me a message, saying rent is going up by 50% due to "market demands".

But don't take it personally, it's just business.

I'm so tired of it all, and I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling this way. These past few years have felt like sprinting on a treadmill that just keeps speeding up, while everything around me is on fire.

And I have it easy! I'm a software developer, so comparatively, I'm doing well.

It's people who are working entry level jobs who are truly fucked, and have been for a while now. But they don't have time to think about this, they're out there making just enough money so they can afford to pay their Life™ subscription. And they're only getting paid for today. Tomorrow is uncertain.

Well, I think the best way to start my unhinged rant is to break it down, step by step.

Let's start off easy:

Collective Denial: We All Pretend It's Fine

There's a term for that - Hypernormalization. It's a term that was coined to describe life in the Soviet Union in the 70's and 80's, when everything was on the brink of collapse. The people didn't really know what to do, so they just pretended that everything was fine. Sounds familiar?

We know wages stagnate, housing implodes, record temperatures year after year (2024 set a 1.29 °C global high, source here), but for some reason we keep posting productivity porn on LinkedIn.

Now let's get spicy!

Corporate Hunger Games

Nowadays, a company can fire hundreds of people in a single day, and the next day their stock price is up. There's zero shame in it and no accountability for the people who are being fired, if anything, the system rewards it. "Workforce optimization" is the game they're playing. Layoffs used to be a last resort, but now it's just a growth strategy.

But CEOs aren't affected. People under them are being burnt, while they're just sitting in their office, earning over 300 times the salary of the people they're firing. Actually, it's not even them doing the firing, it's the HR team, or the AI, or the CEO's assistant, or the CEO's dog. So they're doing fuck all, and they're getting paid fuck you money too.

I can only wonder when will their turn come. If you ask me, it can't happen soon enough.

Lemme also put a graph where my mouth is, just so you can't ask me "But where's the source, bro?"

Source: epi.org

The graph only goes up to 2021, but I imagine things have only gotten worse since.
Maybe it's time to finally acknowledge that this is a shitshow, and question why it's allowed to persist.

Is the CEO doing 1000% more work than the rest of us?

Maybe they are...

And I want to be very clear, I am obviously not talking about every single CEO here.

I've had the pleasure of working with some really skilled and thoughtful ones. This isn't about them, no. I'm talking about those CEOs.

You know them; the overpaid, oblivious ones who only know their "synergy," "disruption," and "core competency" catchphrases.

The ones who are completely disconnected from the actual work being done in their company.

The work that they're doing could funnily enough often be done better by a decently (or even halfway decently) prompted ChatGPT.

Juniors? What's a junior?

More and more jobs are getting swallowed up by the "AI is taking your job" excuse. It was really hard finding a position myself, and I've got a couple of years of experience, and I'm reasonably skilled too. Just look at this website, it's perfect.

If you wanna apply as a junior you must already have 5 years of experience, 10 PhD's, own your own startup, and ideally also have two side-hustles, and own 10 houses. (Ok, it's not that bleak, but you're still gonna have a really bad time - Entry-level tech hiring -50 % vs. pre-pandemic, source here).

My question is, if no juniors are getting hired, what happens when you'll need more seniors? Are the corporate bigwigs just banking on the fact that AI will get good enough before that time comes?

And even if that's the case, if everyone's getting replaced by AI, who is going to buy their shitty products? Is AI going to also replace the customers?

But I guess they just don't have the "bandwidth" to think about this.

This is a problem for the next quarter!

I think my main problem is that companies have temporal myopia. Because of their greed, many can only see a quarter ahead and will only take the best short-term decisions for maximum gain. That's why they keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Just like Leonard from "Memento", but they don't even have any post-it notes to help with the weak memory.

Where I stand on AI

Let's get this straight: my criticism isn't of the technology itself, but of how we choose to use it.

My stance is admittedly divided.

On the one hand, I question applications that seem to prioritize novelty over substance. Using vast computational resources to generate a picture of a cartoon pony in a jar (those who know, know) feels like a profound waste of time, electricity, and money.

But on the other, using that same technology to help doctors diagnose diseases earlier, scientists model climate solutions, or researchers fold proteins to find cures for illnesses is undeniably awesome.

TLDR: If you're using AI to solve real problems, and speed up the solving of the problems, I think it's great.

Here be dragons

Let's put the facts on the table - Owning more wealth than you'll ever need in a thousand lifetimes and still clawing for more should be classified as a mental illness. You are suffering from "Wealth Accumulation Disorder".

Psychologists have pointed out how extreme greed mirrors hoarding disorders. Yes, it's pathology. These folks chase billions like addicts chase highs. And the research shows this!

Their relentless wealth pursuit tanks their mental health, breeds isolation, diminishes empathy, and increases narcissism.

If hoarding junk in your garage gets you on a reality TV show for intervention, why is hoarding money treated differently?

Leave the poor billionaire alone!

I hear you shouting in the back.

Before you cry for the billionaire, just remember: you will never be one.

Dragons guard their wealth, and they'll burn villages to keep it.

And let's be real, it's way too late for you to become a dragon.

But why is this hoarding so bad?

• It supercharges inequality, locking away resources that could lift millions out of poverty (the hoarders sit on mountains of cash that barely moves the economy).
• It stunts global growth because all that idle wealth isn't invested in productive ways. It's just sitting there, propping up asset bubbles or funding vanity space trips instead of real innovation or public goods.
• Worse opportunities for everyone else
• Erodes democracy as billionaires buy policies to protect their piles.
• Their overconsumption promotes waste on a massive scale, hoarding resources like land and fueling climate chaos while the rest of us deal with the fallout.

TLDR: Billionaire hoarding is antisocial behavior that makes everything worse for humanity and the planet

Links, for your reading pleasure:

• https://finance.yahoo.com/news/between-narcissism-wealth-becoming-clearer-110800232.html
• https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/top-5-ways-billionaires-are-bad-for-the-economy/
• https://nonprofitquarterly.org/excessive-wealth-has-run-amok-this-must-stop/
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201901/yes-the-rich-and-famous-really-are-narcissistic
• https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/does-wealth-breed-narcissism-t
• https://truthout.org/articles/greed-as-a-mental-health-disorder/
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/hide-and-seek/201410/is-greed-good

No Redemption Arc?

At first, while thinking of what to write, I was at a loss. Like, if you asked me how we fix this, my only idea was "Just tear it all down and start from scratch".

Just think of all the empty promises we were sold.

RiSiNg pRoduCtIvItY WiLL gET uS tHrEE dAy WeEkENdS, FOur-hoUR WoRkDAys.

Well, guess what? Productivity is at an all time high.

Where's my three day weekend? Where's the four hour workday? Where's my goddamn flying car?

And the rich people just don't see it. They're asking us if there's no bread, if we can just eat cake instead.

One such guy actually decided to take the plunge. His name is Mike Black.

In July 2020 he wiped his bank accounts, ditched his house and car, kept only a phone and one change of clothes, and filmed himself sleeping rough in Colorado to prove anyone could turn zero into a $1 million business inside 12 months. About ten months in he'd banked ~ $64 k, but the grind, constant hunger, and a double hit of autoimmune illness (plus his dad's stage-4 cancer) pushed him into a full-on physical/mental crash. He pulled the plug, openly saying the experiment had left him "burned out and depressed."

Source here.

It's impressive that he's even tried it, but it's important to remember that he was able to stop the experiment. Most people don't have that luxury. The life he lived for 10 months? That's just everyday life for a big chunk of the population.

One could even make an argument that he's had an easier time because of his education, skills, connections and past experiences. If the best he could do was $64k in 10 months, that's depressing, because it's likely better than what most people could realistically achieve.

A Path Forward: Degrowth

Degrowth is an economic theory that advocates shrinking economies in high-consumption countries to reduce resource use and prioritize wellbeing over endless growth.

I know it sounds a lot like "go live in a cave.", but it's not. It’s a plan to reduce material/energy consumption where it’s absurdly high, while increasing well‑being, time, and resilience.

But what does that word salad actually mean?!

• Make things last: right‑to‑repair, parts availability for 10+ years, modular designs, extended warranties by default.
• Unhook profits from waste: tax or ban planned obsolescence; incentivize refurbish, remanufacture, and shared ownership.
• Time dividends: 4‑day weeks without pay cuts in rich sectors; productivity gains go to time, not just margins.
• Rebalance power: easier unionization, worker councils, co‑ops; curb mega‑mergers; enforce antitrust.
• Housing sanity: legalize more homes near jobs; public/coop housing; tax vacant/land banked units.
• Public abundance: transit, childcare, health, libraries, and broadband as basic infrastructure.
• Price the externalities: carbon budgets/fees with dividends; stricter pollution liability; stop subsidizing harm.
• Stop financial siphons: rein in buybacks, align executive comp to long‑term outcomes (and caps vs. median pay).
  
  

In short, it's advocaitng for taking back control from the corporations, and giving it back to the people. I really think we can afford the freedom to have enough, with systems that don’t eat us alive.

Links, for your reading pleasure:

• https://www.weforum.org/stories/2022/06/what-is-degrowth-economics-climate-change/
• https://berlin.impacthub.net/blog/is-degrowth-the-answer/
• https://populationmatters.org/news/2024/11/degrowth-rethinking-our-economic-future/
• https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04412-x
• https://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue87/Hickel87.pdf
• https://www.realitystudies.co/p/explaining-degrowth-movement-economics

The grand finale

The planet's dying, no one’s having kids, misery’s the default, and humans are now just disposable parts in the corporate machine. But don’t worry, right before the collapse, shareholder profits will peak. And that’s beautiful.

This is the future we're hurtling toward if we stand by and let the fires rage on.

But we don't have to accept it. We still have time to act.

For me, degrowth offers a compelling path by challenging endless expansion, for others, it's a tough pill to swallow. (And I get why). But degrowth's not the only way out.

Whatever approach we take, we need to confront a few main issues head-on:

• The wealth hoarding dragons
• Chasing profit at the expense of people and the planet
• The dehumanization of treating workers as mere resources to be optimized and discarded
• Taking climate change seriously with real, urgent action.
• The lack of proper investment in education
• The lack of meaningful support for the poor and vulnerable

You don't have to agree with every idea here, just think about it.

Oh no, we're not done just yet...

There's one last section to go through.

The SEO Section

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Obligatory nod to the algorithm gods for better indexing—AI is the future, folks!

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