cooker

I assume (if the email is real) that he was trying to provoke debate.

Thanks to automation, the jobs most necessary for humanity's survival - providing food, basic shelter etc. - can be done by a fraction of the population, so we have had the opportunity to add jobs and whole industries that we believe improve our quality of life, like tourism, sports, the hobby industry; or cater to our vanities or our desire for luxury, like the fashion industry, the beauty industry,high end homes and cars (and bicycles). We have also added jobs whose main purpose is to extract money from other industries or people - financial advisor, patent litigator and a few others. We like being catered to, so we patronize restaurants, cafes, spas, nail salons and what have you. Whole sectors like this could disappear without too much impact on the overall course of human history.

One purpose of all these add-on industries - maybe the main purpose - is to distribute money to everybody. Don't own a farm or work making bricks with straw and clay? No problem, you can become a travel agent or dog-walker - jobs that would be a inconceivable if everybody had to work in the fields to feed the population.

So basically we have a huge economic infrastructure (actually - superstructure) of non-essential industries and jobs, based on a surplus of labour and the need to keep everybody employed so they can eat and in some cases maybe even get rich..

The problem with all this is it is hugely wasteful of resources. We could live much more lightly on the planet if we didn't all the frivolous, redundant industrial activity that keeps much of the population employed and puts money in their bank accounts to keep their families fed and housed. We don't need to eat oranges in winter in Norway or drive a Hummer - we do it because we can. And as the letter points out, we are not necessarily improving our lives by all the consumption - in some cases it makes us less healthy.

Of course if we all decide to cut back on the luxury and live simpler, healthier lives, the industries that cater to our vices will collapse.

Can't have that!