It's a shame that as a society we have so many of our brightest minds devoted to relatively meaningless work when they could be working on things that they not

It's a shame that as a society we have so many of our brightest minds devoted to relatively meaningless work when they could be working on things that they not only want to work on, but are better for humanity. I don't have trouble focusing on my work when I'm in a good company. The problem is that if I take a look at the grand scheme of things and think about the that I'm devoting the majority of my waking hours to coding apps that would get done regardless of whether or not I existed (this space is largely zero sum in that there are more than enough developers to go around), it's kind of depressing. I'd rather be devoting my life to solving the meaningful problems in the world that not enough people are working on (eg. like what Elon Musk is doing). On another note, it surprises me that long breaks from work (eg. sabbaticals) aren't more common. Doing the same thing every weekday gets repetitive and draining.