FWIW this story is much older than Mickey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorcerer's_Apprentice

It still operates, but I haven't kept in touch closely enough to know how well it's doing and what has changed – https://talent.edu.pl/. 

Short answer: hired by NGO which helped me skill up first.

Long answer: Where I was growing up there was a comp-sci training NGO. Their approach was quite interesting:

1. Grouping by skill, not by age. You decide which level you attend. You choose your pace - you can progress very quickly, but no one will force you to progress at all.
2. Competition-oriented - primary activity would resemble IOI. Add lectures, math, sport and psych workshops on top.
3. Teachers and technical organisers recruited almost exclusively from current top students and recent alumni. Often they would teach one level and partcipate as students at a higher level. This had a bunch of benefits: community vibes, access to smart hard-to-hire people with relevant skills, and opportunity to learn the practical side of things for the team.
4. Big chunks of the work paid pretty well - like local senior developer effective hourly rates for (top) high school students.

I joined as a student first, did well in some external national and international competitions and then I was asked to join the team.

Data point: I started working professionally at the age of 15 (part-time, in parallel with education) and it was one of the best things that have ever happened to me. Definitely found it way more enjoyable, rewarding and beneficial than traditional school.

It was software engineering, which is probably the best case scenario - the field is desperate for people and there's a lot of room for growth.

I assumed it was intentional, as in person-who-tries named Lsusr (as opposed to Great Blogger Lsusr).

The counterargument also does not work because it is not central. The negative X phenomenon can persist even if death continues. Lack of progress, eternal dictatorship, overpopulation and degradation are possible in societies where people have short life expectancy.

This counter-counterargument doesn't work. Just because phenomenon X is possible under both scenarios doesn't mean it's equally likely or as difficult to avoid.

(Note: I think that death is bad. My point is about a specific line of reasoning.)

For a few days it was very enlightening and I cared enough to reflect upon them. Then I continued for a few more months.

In my case it also covered data analysis work, video meetings etc.

I annotated all the screenshots with time, so I could immediately see how much time I spent on things (system clock was too small and not visible in full screen mode).

For meetings specifically it helped me reflect upon how much time I spent in various kind of meetings and how useful they were. It also let me easily see how much time I spent afk (e.g. how long was my lunch break).

I did the same thing for a while (I had a habit of watching a 5 minute timelapse of my screen at the end of each workday). At some point I hit diminishing returns and it became a chore, so I took a break. That said, I highly recommend trying this (not only for programming!).

BTW I implemented it in the same way as OP (screenshot every N seconds, put together with ffmpeg). Actual screen recording software was too resource heavy and didn't support very low fps well.

Cryptocurrencies allow AIs to directly participate in the economy, without human intermediaries.

It doesn't seem to be a consequence of Crypto specifically. Any API qualifies here.

That said, Crypto could make it harder to block such trades on the financial system level.