You “need” them because the society we live in is built around them. It’s the same reason you are forced to learn how to mask - you “need” to mask to survive, to put food on the table, to have a home and a bed to sleep in. This world is commanded by the manipulators, shaped and molded by the manipulators, and if you don’t have the skills to swindle your drop of money in the form of a grant in research or investment into your company, your project just dies. Everyone hates it (except the manipulators), but that’s just how things are at the moment.