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Noema ·Future-gazing

Why is Everyone in Tech so Sad?

by Aaron Horwath

Published 2026-08-06 13:10:48+00:00

What happens to an office job when software takes away the human messiness that made it bearable?

0:00 / 24:49 · Narrator Charon

Context

Aaron Horwath keeps hearing the same fantasy from highly paid tech workers: they want to quit and start a goat farm. For years, white-collar professionals treated the office like a religion, finding community in endless slide decks and meetings. But as artificial intelligence automates those daily tasks, the illusion is breaking. Writing on 6 August 2026, Horwath asks what happens when the collaborative, human parts of a job disappear, leaving only the sudden realization that the work itself might be pointless. He poses a quiet question: what happens when an entire class of workers loses faith overnight?

Show notes

An examination of why artificial intelligence is causing a crisis of meaning among white-collar workers. Applying cultural theories of work and spectacle, the essay shows how automating the collaborative parts of office jobs strips away the human interactions that make these careers tolerable. It outlines how employees can resist this shift by intentionally preserving the inefficient, social aspects of their daily tasks.

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