>> I hadn’t meant that in terms of personal benefit but more in wider benefit to society. In that sense is there benefit or do you simply see yourselves as no more putting that interpretation on what you do than a pipe considers itself to be providing a benefit by carrying water?<<

(An atomic) Society is a myth, there are multiple overlayed societies in the West.

The pipe & water is very zen.

The pipe does not filter the water
The pipe does not know if its water
Is for irrigation
Or waterboarding

Nor where it comes
A spring of pristine innocence (perhaps lost)
Or an intentionally poisoned well

Pipes are just streambeds with covers
Streambeds are natural
A corollary of geomorphological physics
The world is not flat
And things flow in the gradient

Swim or sink in the deluge
Adapt or die

Got insurance?