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> Happiness is a pointless goal anyway.

Spoken like a true robot. For most of us, happiness (and I mean that broadly defined, e.g. "life satisfaction") is the only goal. I certainly thing happiness is a much more critical goal than "increasing shareholder value".

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I know some real assholes who seem quite satisfied with their lives. A shot of heroin will make you happy … for a while. It's a meaningless goal. Regardless of your snarky comment about "shareholder value", we should all aim to make a positive contribution to society and achieve something of lasting value (not necessarily monetary). Happiness might come with that as a side effect but only a fool treats happiness as a goal.

I hope that works well for you. For me a sort of selfless pursuit of delight, for me and for others waiting on my work, has been more than sufficient. As CS Lewis (and Kim Stanley Robinson) described, a sort of accelerando of delight and mutual fulfillment.

I do agree that this satisfaction doesn’t work as a static goal - it works as a method of gradient descent, a process, a way to distinguish possible paths to take thru the moment.

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