There’s a common thread linking the decline in humanities majors, Hollywood paying its writers pennies and the tech world wanting all writers and painters to be replaced by machines. We’ve entirely forgotten how essential the arts and literature are to a healthy society.

There’s a greed that says the measure of a thing is the money it brings you. But some things have inherent value regardless of the incomes they generate. People are not machines; we need myth and poetry and leisure and learning for its own sake in order to flourish.