>it _feels_ different when I'm on it than other machine-built roads.

Well, because roads are hard to build and take a lot of energy, it's going to be way narrower, curvier, and hillier. The guy shoveling out rocks all day would have gladly switched the shovel for a bulldozer.

But all of these value statements about value statements are kind of ignoring the Moloch problem in the corner of the room. What becomes the purpose of humans in a world of automation? At our current rate, it's being exterminated under the boots of corporations that swallow up all the value in the universe. The conversation of "How can things be made better for all humankind" seems to have disappeared after the greed is good conversation won.