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You’ve made good arguments for democratic control and public ownership of AI and for the pursuit of net zero and renewable energy. Your argument for hard work is very ‘Protestant work ethic’ and I suppose we could revert to digging tunnels with pick axes. But why? What’s the inherent value unless it’s to be found in some metaphysical realm that’s not inhabited (except in rhetoric) by gang bosses and propagandists? The same applies to pointless ‘intellectual’ labour. Kafka, for example, described his experience of studying law as like chewing sand—but sand that has been chewed by many others (I don’t think he was implying by the latter that it was somehow juicy).