I totally don’t see it this way — the machine that we’re all cogs in does in fact give you access to recourses. Being the best burger flipper gives you job security.
Today we have access to insane resources that our early humans couldn’t have even dreamt about, even for the relatively poor people today.
The machine provides a massive supply chain of a variety of food and medicine that was unheard of for ~all of human history. Flipping burgers for an hour makes you ~$10, with which you can buy food for two people for a whole day (or more). That’s less work for more reward than ever before in history.
So the reward system does work — you’re still competing, and the rewards are massive, relative to apes and early humans.
Being the best burger flipper gives you zero job security because your boss will believe they can’t afford you if you suddenly realize how much you are worth. They may preemptively let you go, if they’re a good boss that wants to see you grow.
There’s no such thing as job security without a form of a contract.
Also, you should look up the minimum wage in the 60’s and 70’s and adjust it for inflation. They were getting paid $40USD+ per hour in today’s dollars. So, no $10 is not a lot.
I don't care about the machine. It will work just the same without my participation(in most roles).
// Being the best burger flipper gives you job security.
Burger flippers earn close to the minimum wage. They always have decent job security, it's easy to find a similar job(not necessarily as a burger flipper).
"That’s less work for more reward than ever before in history"
This is absolutely, myopic, demonstrably wrong at so many levels, from the fact that minimum wage has been stagnant for decades to eising cost of living
It seems to me that your comment is the myopic one. GP was talking about long time scales. The reason the industrial revolution was so amazing was the level of efficiency it brought with it. There is no arguing that we get more for less work than any time previous to that. Whether that's worth the cost of everyone being a cog in the industrial machine is however a valid question.
Today we have access to insane resources that our early humans couldn’t have even dreamt about, even for the relatively poor people today.
The machine provides a massive supply chain of a variety of food and medicine that was unheard of for ~all of human history. Flipping burgers for an hour makes you ~$10, with which you can buy food for two people for a whole day (or more). That’s less work for more reward than ever before in history.
So the reward system does work — you’re still competing, and the rewards are massive, relative to apes and early humans.