On Our Sense of Purpose in a World of Abundance

At our core, humans are driven by a sense of purpose. Even if the actual tasks that we do are not objectively that meaningful.

The psychological aspect is crucial to understand because it determines whether we're headed toward a utopia or a dystopia.

We need to answer the question: What drives our sense of purpose? And how can we align that drive towards productive outcomes?

Looking at my own psychology, I suspect that purpose is not driven by lofty pursuits (philosophy, the arts, science), because in a world where all needs are met, these pursuits will feel performative – especially if AI is already better at pursuing new developments in these domains.

Rather, I think that purpose is driven by having needs and incrementally fulfilling them – climbing Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's baked into our biology. Until recently, humans have evolved in an environment of overwhelming scarcity. We find purpose in doing whatever it takes to make sure that we don't starve to death and neither does our family or our tribe. Everything else is icing.

This is why that "dumb email job" actually feels more meaningful than some other lofty pursuit. Someone (society) says that your job is meaningful. And because you do it, you get money. The money lets you buy food so that your family stays safe. The chain of causality is unbroken. But when we get a stipend for just breathing, the causal chain is broken, and I fear we will lose the sense of purpose – we aren't doing anything to keep our family safe.

So what then?

There are two options. Distraction or deeper purpose.

I fear that in absence of the sense of purpose we will try to avoid discomfort by diving into entertainment and "idle" pursuits. This is a bandaid. After we beat the final boss in the video game and the screen goes black, we'll see our reflection and know that we have achieving nothing. We are without purpose.

So ultimately we seek purpose.

Hopefully this goes into a good direction. Hopefully I'm wrong about the hard-wired scarcity-driven sense of purpose. Hopefully we all pursue the arts, and community engagement – spirituality even – all the good things.

But we might just do what we've always done and seek purpose in things that are bigger than us – and we might look in the wrong places. Every terrorist who ever strapped on a bomb vest did this because they found no purpose of their own and instead attached themselves to higher purpose – their rights, their country, their god – it's just that it was a lie.

So, in a world of abundance, I'm not as concerned that we find "true purpose". I'm more concerned that we find our own sense of purpose and that we align that purpose toward a greater good.