And what the author forgets to mention is that we got it good

… And what the author forgets to mention is that we got it good. Oh boy. As a software developer, I can work in any field I want. I started on video compression. I moved to finance. I make games in my spare time. I make plugins for music. And I get to be paid way more than my neighbor who’s a heart surgeon. I can work remotely 100%. I can go to a nice beach in Thailand, work 2 hours in the morning and enjoy the rest of the day, and still make more than the median salary in France, where I live. The grief is not the loss of the craft alone, it’s the loss of that craft that paid for your house. As they said: software is eating the world. Well, it is now eating itself. It’s only fair. The author is right though, human societies need to ask themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice all the crafts on the altar of productivity and convenience. The Amish decided they didn’t want to. It’s a bit of a weird choice, but it is a choice.