> If you pay Sisyphos to roll a stone uphill once a day, does he create value just because you pay him doing it?

If he's not creating any value for you, why are you paying him to do it?

If you pay him to do work that creates no value for you, you're the irrational one, not him.

Who pays Sisyphos? Another Sisyphos who is just doing his job or following societal norms once created by Sisyphoses who are now long dead. Every individual Sisyphos is rational, but the whole system is not. I am not saying that such a system is objectively bad or anything, but it's an interesting observation and worth keeping in mind when making decisions or arguing.

Why does someone pay them to rewrite the same software again and again?

Sure sometimes it makes sense, but I assure you, many time is just in hope that the rock will go higher this time (it won't).... nothing more.

>why are you paying him to do it?

Because I want to demonstrate "growth" to investors by hiring as many employees as I can afford, whether or not I actually have something for them to do.

Sisyphos is our PCI compliance auditor.

The central concern of The Myth of Sisyphus is what Camus calls "the absurd." Camus claims that there is a fundamental conflict between what we want from the universe (whether it be meaning, order, or reasons) and what we find in the universe (formless chaos).

> If you pay Sisyphus to

Why would you? This example isn't realistic. It just shows value isn't precise to any single example, but an expected outcome over time; individual value judgments aggregate over the population to give a "true" metric of value.

What value isn't created directly by Sisyphus, could be created in the fact that Sisyphus is willing to provide a service without finding any personal value in it. The freedom to do things without demonstrating its value, itself has value.

> has no value for me

Inefficiencies are opportunities. Can you sell the same stack over and over again?