Harmful vs. Meaningless Work

What value does a man produce by his labors? Should we only measure our efforts by the income generated, which is what we seem to do in this world? Unless a person is engaged in outright illegal activity, we don't seem to care how a man earns his money. All we seem to care about is how much wealth is generated with no regard of how it is generated so long as it is legal or reasonably legal. We live in a world now where billions are generated by the most dubious of enterprises and the work of those that make a meaningful contribution to the betterment of society are paid little.We have become a culture dazzled by money but not by work. We are a country that worships at the throne of celebrity but not at the throne of competence. Don't tell me what you do, just tell me what you're worth. 

How many people are now sitting in their retirement homes reflecting back on a life spent marketing opiates to doctors and patients? How many bankers can sit back and think through the corrupt deals they spent their lives constructing so they could spend their final years relaxing in some over 55 concentration camp. How do we come to sell our souls for money with no reflection upon the results of the work we do. Can a man justify anything by merely thinking: someone is going to do it or it's legal? There is a big difference between work that is meaningless and work that is actually harmful, that is taking away from the lives of people rather than adding nothing.

There are three types of work: 

• Work that is meaningful, and helpful to society: teacher
• Work that is meaningless, but harmless to society: perfume designer 
• Work that is meaningless, but harmful to society: social media marketer

Recently I had a job that fell into the third category because its purpose was to increase the time "users" spent playing video games. I spent each day attempting to create ways to draw "users" further into playing video games and away from living real life. It's one thing to sell a customer a product of questionable use, but another thing to sell customers a product you know is bad, that actually has a negative impact on the human experience, that reduces the amount of happiness in the world. Video game players are avoiding life and, if they ever have a moment of clarity, will see the time they spent playing video games as lost time, time they could have spent doing meaningful things like building human relationships, experiencing nature, creating art, furthering their lives in any way other than playing video games. If you can't have the first type of work, don't opt for the third. There are plenty of meaningless jobs out there so that a person doesn't have to compromise their ethics-- if you can do no good, do no harm. Sometimes it's better to not work than to do work that is harmful to the world.