This sort of approach sounds useful on paper. People should indeed make better choices. In reality, however, this solves nothing because we are looking at societal problems as varied and complex as climate change, obesity, rising house prices, degree inflation, regular inflation, global uncertainty, constant digital surveillance, and so on. Even a person who has made "good" choices such as becoming a SWE is still at the mercy of macroeconomic changes. Maybe next year's AI will nuke front end work just like it's nuking other white collar job markets. Maybe the market will by nuked by actual nukes. The modern day careers depend on so many conditions that are outside of our control and can't be fixed on an individual level, even if it's still a good idea to make good choices.
I feel like we are talking about different things.
I'm talking about not having kids/pets (which is applicable to everyone) as a choice to make for more flexibility where as you are talking about careers.
Also you're talking about good VS bad choices. I don't think having kids is necessarily bad or good, it just depends on what you want or priorities are.
Kids/pets are good example as it would make my argument a bit clearer. Today we have a sizeable portion of the population that has no dependents, made good choices (had an education, worked hard etc.) AND is still stuck financially and professionally to the point where they can't really have that much flexibility or make many more tradeoffs. It's a lot worse in countries like China or Korea but it's still pretty bad in the West. There is a reason why fertility rates are plummeting, and it goes beyond the classic demographic model of higher development for lower fertility.
In other words, though it's true that outcomes are linked to choices, just the ability to make real choices (flexibility vs. salary or family, to name one) is predicated on a large dose of prior luck.
