I completely agree our values are messed up the way you describe. I don’t think you answered your own question though: “WHY are things way?” It’d be great if you could develop a deep answer. I don’t have a deep answer, but I think greed is in there somewhere. Also, quantity is easier to measure than quality. If two squirrels are gathering nuts for the winter, the squirrel with more nuts will be perceived as “ahead.”

By the way, don’t be so harsh on Steve Jobs :) we need visionaries like him in the world. I knew him in high school. He had some great qualities. I think he got corrupted by his obsession with Apple. John Lennon was apparently quite a jerk too. But like Steve, we got more from him than we lost.