In Hawaiian mythology they are meant to be basically that if I remembering correctly, universe renewed but they survived, alien survivors from a prior cycle.

there are a lot of people that are unwilling participants and fucked over.
I don't think price gauging companies causing necessities to become expensive is willing, nor hedge funds helping skyrocket the cost of housing is willing either. and then there are the disabled who HAVE to push themselves past their limits to be able to afford to eat and live under a roof. also homeless and many that trip up in life and never manage to get back up because either a loan requires good credit, or there isn't housing low enough cost to get a single rung up, or jobs that don't want to have you because they want their graduate beginner positions to have more than 3 years experience.

If the option of not participating is homelessness and starvation, I'd argue most of us are doing it for survival, not because we are revelling in how nice it is can get an overprices coffee because every cafe wants to be Starbucks...