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On June 29 2014 01:28 SixStrings wrote:
Here's some insight into one of these bullshit jobs, the one I'm doing right now to pay for uni, two days a week.
The Germany military has a subcontractor that does their IT work.
The IT firm has subcontractor that does their logistics.
The logistics firm has a subcontractor that does their personell management and I work for that company.
Let's say soldier A moves to an office two rooms further down the hall.
Instead of just carrying his computer over there, he has to fill out a form.
The IT subcontractor will get the form, people will read it and approve it and forward it to the logistics firm.
The logistics firm will then have to approve the moving down the hall and will request personell from us.
The office people in my company will then do whatever they do and now I come in.
I get an email, be at barracks B at time C. Usually these barracks are 100 to 500 kilometres away from my home, so I will get a rental car. I take the rental car, drive to the barracks, let dispatch know that I arrived, fill out a form, unhook the computer, will load the computer into a box, seal the box, have a guy from the logistics firm carry the box to the next room, where I unseal the box, fill out another form, hook up the computer, call dispatch to tell them how long I took, get a couple of signatures, take my rental car back home, send dispatch a letter with all of the paperwork and then get payed.
So instead of the soldier carrying his computer for five meters, two people drive for a combined 6-10 hours, fill out around 15 pages of paperwork and waste good 400 € of taxpayers' money.
This shows exactly what you don't understand about the system.
There is a damn good reason why it is so complicated, why government process paperworks so slowly.
I am not sure if you have ever worked as clerk or any jobs related to paperwork.
Paperwork is about tracking.
Who, when, where, what, why and the status of approval, when it was approved, by who it was approved, why if it did not get approved.
Everything is recorded and traceable, therefore even after 100 years, someone can still look at the paper works and find out who drove what car, from where, what purpose did what and when and everything else.
some people here also think some job is useless only because the one they have come across does a poor job at it (no pun intended)
Departments are separated so they operate in full effect for their particular field, a management department helps to coordinate these departments to act as one to achieve the cooperation goal.
Like I said earlier, technology helps us to be more efficient at work, more productive labour, increasing the output as a whole.
You are somehow stucked in the mind set that this would mean we will have less work to do.
Using my document filing example as above, technology helps us to assess, transfer, filter, filing, sorting these documents a lot faster.
But in a more efficient operating work environment, of cause then there will be more docs to save, more docs to prepare but everything in a much faster manner due to technology
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On June 29 2014 11:19 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2014 01:28 SixStrings wrote:
Here's some insight into one of these bullshit jobs, the one I'm doing right now to pay for uni, two days a week.
The Germany military has a subcontractor that does their IT work.
The IT firm has subcontractor that does their logistics.
The logistics firm has a subcontractor that does their personell management and I work for that company.
Let's say soldier A moves to an office two rooms further down the hall.
Instead of just carrying his computer over there, he has to fill out a form.
The IT subcontractor will get the form, people will read it and approve it and forward it to the logistics firm.
The logistics firm will then have to approve the moving down the hall and will request personell from us.
The office people in my company will then do whatever they do and now I come in.
I get an email, be at barracks B at time C. Usually these barracks are 100 to 500 kilometres away from my home, so I will get a rental car. I take the rental car, drive to the barracks, let dispatch know that I arrived, fill out a form, unhook the computer, will load the computer into a box, seal the box, have a guy from the logistics firm carry the box to the next room, where I unseal the box, fill out another form, hook up the computer, call dispatch to tell them how long I took, get a couple of signatures, take my rental car back home, send dispatch a letter with all of the paperwork and then get payed.
So instead of the soldier carrying his computer for five meters, two people drive for a combined 6-10 hours, fill out around 15 pages of paperwork and waste good 400 € of taxpayers' money. This shows exactly what you don't understand about the system. There is a damn good reason why it is so complicated, why government process paperworks so slowly. I am not sure if you have ever worked as clerk or any jobs related to paperwork. Paperwork is about tracking. Who, when, where, what, why and the status of approval, when it was approved, by who it was approved, why if it did not get approved. Everything is recorded and traceable, therefore even after 100 years, someone can still look at the paper works and find out who drove what car, from where, what purpose did what and when and everything else.
And someday soon, all that paperwork will be automated by software and we'll have to figure out some other bullshit to do in order to qualify for living decently.
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On June 29 2014 11:27 Meta wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2014 11:19 ETisME wrote:On June 29 2014 01:28 SixStrings wrote:
Here's some insight into one of these bullshit jobs, the one I'm doing right now to pay for uni, two days a week.
The Germany military has a subcontractor that does their IT work.
The IT firm has subcontractor that does their logistics.
The logistics firm has a subcontractor that does their personell management and I work for that company.
Let's say soldier A moves to an office two rooms further down the hall.
Instead of just carrying his computer over there, he has to fill out a form.
The IT subcontractor will get the form, people will read it and approve it and forward it to the logistics firm.
The logistics firm will then have to approve the moving down the hall and will request personell from us.
The office people in my company will then do whatever they do and now I come in.
I get an email, be at barracks B at time C. Usually these barracks are 100 to 500 kilometres away from my home, so I will get a rental car. I take the rental car, drive to the barracks, let dispatch know that I arrived, fill out a form, unhook the computer, will load the computer into a box, seal the box, have a guy from the logistics firm carry the box to the next room, where I unseal the box, fill out another form, hook up the computer, call dispatch to tell them how long I took, get a couple of signatures, take my rental car back home, send dispatch a letter with all of the paperwork and then get payed.
So instead of the soldier carrying his computer for five meters, two people drive for a combined 6-10 hours, fill out around 15 pages of paperwork and waste good 400 € of taxpayers' money. This shows exactly what you don't understand about the system. There is a damn good reason why it is so complicated, why government process paperworks so slowly. I am not sure if you have ever worked as clerk or any jobs related to paperwork. Paperwork is about tracking. Who, when, where, what, why and the status of approval, when it was approved, by who it was approved, why if it did not get approved. Everything is recorded and traceable, therefore even after 100 years, someone can still look at the paper works and find out who drove what car, from where, what purpose did what and when and everything else. And someday soon, all that paperwork will be automated by software and we'll have to figure out some other bullshit to do in order to qualify for living decently.
I really don't understand this mindset.
Why is paperwork bullshit?
Why would the substitute be bullshit?
Your earning is mostly related to how productive you are, how much value you can generate.
You are simply demanding less work hours, less output but with same reward? It's not impossible, you can do part times and live "decently" if you prefer a life with less work hours, more free time to chase your hobbies whatever.
Most people are willing to work this much (and no, it's not bullshit job because it actually provides values) for a higher monetary gain
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On June 29 2014 12:37 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2014 11:27 Meta wrote:On June 29 2014 11:19 ETisME wrote:On June 29 2014 01:28 SixStrings wrote:
Here's some insight into one of these bullshit jobs, the one I'm doing right now to pay for uni, two days a week.
The Germany military has a subcontractor that does their IT work.
The IT firm has subcontractor that does their logistics.
The logistics firm has a subcontractor that does their personell management and I work for that company.
Let's say soldier A moves to an office two rooms further down the hall.
Instead of just carrying his computer over there, he has to fill out a form.
The IT subcontractor will get the form, people will read it and approve it and forward it to the logistics firm.
The logistics firm will then have to approve the moving down the hall and will request personell from us.
The office people in my company will then do whatever they do and now I come in.
I get an email, be at barracks B at time C. Usually these barracks are 100 to 500 kilometres away from my home, so I will get a rental car. I take the rental car, drive to the barracks, let dispatch know that I arrived, fill out a form, unhook the computer, will load the computer into a box, seal the box, have a guy from the logistics firm carry the box to the next room, where I unseal the box, fill out another form, hook up the computer, call dispatch to tell them how long I took, get a couple of signatures, take my rental car back home, send dispatch a letter with all of the paperwork and then get payed.
So instead of the soldier carrying his computer for five meters, two people drive for a combined 6-10 hours, fill out around 15 pages of paperwork and waste good 400 € of taxpayers' money. This shows exactly what you don't understand about the system. There is a damn good reason why it is so complicated, why government process paperworks so slowly. I am not sure if you have ever worked as clerk or any jobs related to paperwork. Paperwork is about tracking. Who, when, where, what, why and the status of approval, when it was approved, by who it was approved, why if it did not get approved. Everything is recorded and traceable, therefore even after 100 years, someone can still look at the paper works and find out who drove what car, from where, what purpose did what and when and everything else. And someday soon, all that paperwork will be automated by software and we'll have to figure out some other bullshit to do in order to qualify for living decently. I really don't understand this mindset. Why is paperwork bullshit? Why would the substitute be bullshit? Your earning is mostly related to how productive you are, how much value you can generate. You are simply demanding less work hours, less output but with same reward? It's not impossible, you can do part times and live "decently" if you prefer a life with less work hours, more free time to chase your hobbies whatever. Most people are willing to work this much (and no, it's not bullshit job because it actually provides values) for a higher monetary gain
OP's point is precisely that the so-called bullshit jobs provide no value. The amount you pay jobs should obviously be roughly the value they produce, but it's unrealistic to think that no job is overvalued (even without buying into the anti-capitalism theme).
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Well the basic problem is that as primary and secondary industries become more efficient and require less labor, people need to start working a job in the service sector so long as they still need a paycheck. However, the service sector primarily exists out of convenience rather than necessity; civilization progressed just fine for thousands of years without large service economies. People don't need to be waited on in a restaurant, or to have a bellboy, or to have a lawyer (in many cases). Old people didn't have a ton of industries to support them as they got old, they just died. So is it right to say that they are bullshit jobs? I think that as long as the market/public demands that these jobs exist that they aren't "bullshit", simply luxuries.
That said, if I were somehow given the tools to redesign the economy, culture, and society of the world I would make a society that is not hellbent on consumption as a sign of social status or self worth. An ideal, and in my opinion technically possible society could run on 20hr/week per person and would have no marketing/sales/branding/etc. to create demand where there truly is none.
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Responding to first 3 pages:
In many cases, the hard part isn't finding or developing intelligent and well-developed ways to improve systems (especially on a large scale); it's doing the hard political and PR work to actually get them passed and implemented properly.
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On June 29 2014 11:27 Meta wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2014 11:19 ETisME wrote:On June 29 2014 01:28 SixStrings wrote:
Here's some insight into one of these bullshit jobs, the one I'm doing right now to pay for uni, two days a week.
The Germany military has a subcontractor that does their IT work.
The IT firm has subcontractor that does their logistics.
The logistics firm has a subcontractor that does their personell management and I work for that company.
Let's say soldier A moves to an office two rooms further down the hall.
Instead of just carrying his computer over there, he has to fill out a form.
The IT subcontractor will get the form, people will read it and approve it and forward it to the logistics firm.
The logistics firm will then have to approve the moving down the hall and will request personell from us.
The office people in my company will then do whatever they do and now I come in.
I get an email, be at barracks B at time C. Usually these barracks are 100 to 500 kilometres away from my home, so I will get a rental car. I take the rental car, drive to the barracks, let dispatch know that I arrived, fill out a form, unhook the computer, will load the computer into a box, seal the box, have a guy from the logistics firm carry the box to the next room, where I unseal the box, fill out another form, hook up the computer, call dispatch to tell them how long I took, get a couple of signatures, take my rental car back home, send dispatch a letter with all of the paperwork and then get payed.
So instead of the soldier carrying his computer for five meters, two people drive for a combined 6-10 hours, fill out around 15 pages of paperwork and waste good 400 € of taxpayers' money. This shows exactly what you don't understand about the system. There is a damn good reason why it is so complicated, why government process paperworks so slowly. I am not sure if you have ever worked as clerk or any jobs related to paperwork. Paperwork is about tracking. Who, when, where, what, why and the status of approval, when it was approved, by who it was approved, why if it did not get approved. Everything is recorded and traceable, therefore even after 100 years, someone can still look at the paper works and find out who drove what car, from where, what purpose did what and when and everything else. And someday soon, all that paperwork will be automated by software and we'll have to figure out some other bullshit to do in order to qualify for living decently.
Somebody would have to create the software, and probably not just somebody but a team of people. Every year or maybe more often there would have to be software updates. It would have to be checked that the software is ok by current laws. I read most of the posts in this thread an am surprised that nobody has said this yet: Yes you are right! Life has become easier because of technology, but somebody has to monitor the technology, make changes to the technology etc. For example grain production has become ridiculously efficient with machines but somebody has to make that machine, maintain it, make parts for the machine in case of breakdown, fix it etc. Those are all new jobs that didn't exist until this new more efficient way of harvesting grain came into being. Lets say there is a machine that helps to make computer chips, its the same thing somebody has to make the machine, somebody has to make parts for it in case of breakdown, install new software that the machine might need, maintain it etc.
100 years ago we didn't have the internet either. Now there are people who have to maintain servers, make software for browsers, internet security the list goes on and on. These are all useful jobs because without them we wouldn't be here sharing ideas. What about cars? Once again, it takes team and teams of people to design the car, make the car, make parts for the car in case of breakdown etc. Those are all new jobs created. Without a car I wouldn't be able to go 50 miles of driving to visit my dad or friend or whoever. There are a lot of things that Jon Maynard Keynes did not anticipate happening probably. There is a massive amount of people becoming overweight/diseased thus creating a demand for more doctors, nurses, insurance etc. Does a job being made somewhere in the last century make it a bullshit job?
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On June 29 2014 00:50 urboss wrote:
@itsjustatank
While I'm also not too fond of academic elitism, your academic-bashing is completely out of place here.
You may think of the article whatever you want, the crux that remains is quite clear:
Even though most manual labor has been automated, people are still working the same amount of time as 100 years ago.
Isn't this a little paradoxical?
This is not a paradox at all. We may work the same hours, but we also produce more than 100 years ago. Ideally most ppl would like to work as little as possible, but the problem is that the less you work, the less you're producing for our society.
If you work as a construction worker, you can build a house on half the amount of days, on a 8 hours day of work compared to a 4 hours day of work. This is why we still have 8 hour workdays. People would rather work more, and produce more luxuries for society, in exchange for other luxuries. If you actually enjoy your work this makes a lot of sense. For the ppl who don't enjoy their work, it makes less sense, but it's always a balance.
I wholeheartedly reject the idea that finance, marketing and law are useless fields. All of those fields creates stability for companies.
A company who handles their finances well will make more good decisions and less bad decisions, which increases their profit and improves their survivability. This means lower prices, greater potentials of expansion (more jobs+more goods/new type of goods), and more job stability.
You guys may think that the finance sector is mostly useless, but the invention of the dutch stock exchange was crucial in propelling the western world forward, because it made resource planning more efficient. The investment sector makes sure that money is always where it needs to be. For instance, take Microsoft stocks in the 90's as an example. When the demand for computers rose, the demand of their stock rose as well, which drove up the prices of their stocks, which lead to more investments in the company, which lead to more products on the market. Microsoft would not have been able to grow as fast as it did, without efficient investment mechanisms, and without the spread of computers (to the same extent), most fields today would have been worse off today. The spread of computers have made 99% of all the companies in the world more efficient. This is why Bill Gates made so much money. All of those companies who bought Microsofts products, realized that the short term cost of buying a number of computers would be nothing compared to the long term gains. This is a good example of the power of invention.
A company with good marketing will make sure that their products reaches the ppl who want them. You can't sell anything if ppl don't know it exists. Marketing is thus vital when it comes to introducing inventions to the buyers, and it's invention that moves our society forward, enabling us to produce more stuff without having to add more workhours.
Law is important for similar reasons as finance. The lawyers pretty much makes sure that the company "behaves" correctly according to our laws. Corporate law would not exist if it wasn't economically justified (creates profit for the companies, by for instance preventing lawsuits). I do think that corporate law ideally shouldn't be such a big affair as it is, but the only reason why it is because of law making. If you want to blame anyone for this, then you can only blame the state. The state is necessary (atleast I think so), and bureaucracy is not necessarily bad, but if you ask me, then it's the state that is leeching on our society, that is keeping us down, but it's our own faults, because we let them do it. A company has to be productive and efficient enough to make a profit in order to survive, but the state can create and subsidize jobs at their whim. This is where the challenge of today lies. Jobs that are financed by the state are what is dragging us down. Not all jobs. I support the state using tax money to fund vital areas like law and order, healthcare and education, atleast to some extent, but a huge portion of the tax money goes to fluff, jobs that doesn't help our society prosper, and in some cases even has a negative effect. There's also no form of quality measuring mechanism for these jobs.
In the free market, there are no jobs that are fluff, because you don't make any money creating fluff, and, this is why the free market is a much fairer and more ethical "authority" than the government. This is why we should strive towards a society where as many jobs as possible are on the free market, and where the free market are allowed to operate as independently as possible, without the government dictating the rules.
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Yes, I think Chocolate sums it up pretty well.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Ltgt2pG.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0sJGUGV.png)
This picture shows how automatization leads to the shrinkage of the economic sectors throughout time.
Agriculture and industrial work were replaced by automatization.
Mind that big parts of the service sector will eventually also be automated.
Here are some examples for the automatization of the service sector:
- Server maintenance can nowadays be completely outsourced to Cloud Services (AWS, Rackspace, etc.)
- Marketing: You can nowadays automatize complete marketing campaigns (Google AdWords, Admob, etc.)
- The need to socialize in bars and restaurants is being replaced by social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
- Entertainment: Video games provide sustained entertainment value without real people involved.
- Software Dev: Apps can be created in a fraction of time compared to 20 years ago (WordPress, App Inventor, etc.)
- Finance: Private banking is undergoing huge downsizing because of computerization (also: Paypal, Google Wallet, etc.)
- Machine Learning replaces market research (Big Data, A/B testing, etc.)
- Education: Complete university courses can nowadays be taken online (Coursera, Udacity etc.)
- Retail: Online retail is replacing traditional shops (Amazon, Ebay, etc.)
- Trading: already 2/3 of nowaday's trading volume is Algorithmic Trading (HFT) done by computers.
Now, with all the three economic sectors being automatized:
What does the big question mark in the image stand for?
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You have a very narrow mindset of people that you're targeting to agree with you. Social interactions no longer needed because you can interact online? Does everyone agree with that viewpoint? I doubt it.
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On June 29 2014 12:59 ZenithM wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2014 12:37 ETisME wrote:On June 29 2014 11:27 Meta wrote:On June 29 2014 11:19 ETisME wrote:On June 29 2014 01:28 SixStrings wrote:
Here's some insight into one of these bullshit jobs, the one I'm doing right now to pay for uni, two days a week.
The Germany military has a subcontractor that does their IT work.
The IT firm has subcontractor that does their logistics.
The logistics firm has a subcontractor that does their personell management and I work for that company.
Let's say soldier A moves to an office two rooms further down the hall.
Instead of just carrying his computer over there, he has to fill out a form.
The IT subcontractor will get the form, people will read it and approve it and forward it to the logistics firm.
The logistics firm will then have to approve the moving down the hall and will request personell from us.
The office people in my company will then do whatever they do and now I come in.
I get an email, be at barracks B at time C. Usually these barracks are 100 to 500 kilometres away from my home, so I will get a rental car. I take the rental car, drive to the barracks, let dispatch know that I arrived, fill out a form, unhook the computer, will load the computer into a box, seal the box, have a guy from the logistics firm carry the box to the next room, where I unseal the box, fill out another form, hook up the computer, call dispatch to tell them how long I took, get a couple of signatures, take my rental car back home, send dispatch a letter with all of the paperwork and then get payed.
So instead of the soldier carrying his computer for five meters, two people drive for a combined 6-10 hours, fill out around 15 pages of paperwork and waste good 400 € of taxpayers' money. This shows exactly what you don't understand about the system. There is a damn good reason why it is so complicated, why government process paperworks so slowly. I am not sure if you have ever worked as clerk or any jobs related to paperwork. Paperwork is about tracking. Who, when, where, what, why and the status of approval, when it was approved, by who it was approved, why if it did not get approved. Everything is recorded and traceable, therefore even after 100 years, someone can still look at the paper works and find out who drove what car, from where, what purpose did what and when and everything else. And someday soon, all that paperwork will be automated by software and we'll have to figure out some other bullshit to do in order to qualify for living decently. I really don't understand this mindset. Why is paperwork bullshit? Why would the substitute be bullshit? Your earning is mostly related to how productive you are, how much value you can generate. You are simply demanding less work hours, less output but with same reward? It's not impossible, you can do part times and live "decently" if you prefer a life with less work hours, more free time to chase your hobbies whatever. Most people are willing to work this much (and no, it's not bullshit job because it actually provides values) for a higher monetary gain OP's point is precisely that the so-called bullshit jobs provide no value. The amount you pay jobs should obviously be roughly the value they produce, but it's unrealistic to think that no job is overvalued (even without buying into the anti-capitalism theme).
And that's precisely where he is wrong.
They do offer value and the business world is the best at judging whether it has value or not
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In the free market, there are no jobs that are fluff, because you don't make any money creating fluff,
This presumes the 'rational self-interested' consumer which I think we know is a myth.
Source
The free market/reason doesn't magically protect us from exploiting people who make poor/ill informed decisions to the detriment of themselves and others.
There are people who have made plenty of money doing things like those advertising circle jerk sites for clicks and views (in plenty of variations) making money purely off of exploiting ignorance. Really it's kind of like it's own underground industry with tentacles everywhere.
You can pick just about any industry and find who is making money almost exclusively exploiting ignorance in some form. If nothing else it's creating a job just to talk people into paying more for something than it's worth/being offered by a competitor.
Pyramid schemes are a great example. I mean the legal ones (at least as long as they keep winning lawsuits) of course.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7gLxH1E.jpg)
Just one of countless companies that are essentially nothing but 'fluff' You could say that the worst of these don't last long but that would be ignoring that it's part of the plan to begin with.
Only with an ignorant customer and a slick salesman is this 'motor club' even remotely worth consideration. You could get better service for less money through AAA.
You could go ahead and make a case for 'the free market' being better at getting rid of 'fluff' jobs than X (I think you would probably be wrong), but claims like 'there are no X (bullshit/fluff/etc...) jobs... because capitalism' don't stand up to rudimentary examination.
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Couple random points.
1. There are a lot of bullshit jobs, mostly in middle management that will go away with more computer automation. The question is what will happen to those people once their jobs are gone. In terms of quality of employment, since the 70s what you would consider 'good middle class jobs' have generally disappeared and have been replaced by much more mediocre service economy jobs. The benefit is that consumers in general -- but not always -- get either cheaper or better items. The issue however is that there might come a point where consumers can no longer consume an adequate amount of these goods, creating a situation where a corporation's best step is to simply dissolve itself, give its capital back to its owners.
2. Free markets of the textbook variety dont exist. The US economy, for example, not only has a lot of regulatory friction -- a lot of this friction we want, and vote in politicians who provide it -- as well as a lot of localized monopolies, crony capitalism, etc. So there are a lot of 'bullshit jobs' created not by the market per se but by the way the market interacts with the rest of 'reality' if you will. Defense contractors whose factories produce goods that have no purpose and are being created because politicians have been influenced by lobbyists or voters for example is off-the-top-of-my head the most egregious but there are a number other whole professions that are there that produce per se but rather divert capital to themselves: a lot of lawyers, a lot of bankers and a lot of lobbists could have their jobs abolished and capitalism would happily hum along
3. There are a lot of parasitical jobs that essentially exist to separate capital from its owners. Timeshare rentals, high interest credit cards, cash checking places, and so forth. While they nominally provide services, they really rely on marketing and the fact that most of the consumers they target are low information consumers who dont know any better to generate a profit off them. In theory there should be a 'free market' demand for a more 'ethical' business to step in and provide better services at lower costs to the underclass but that rarely seems to be the case.
4. The Unfree market -- assuming communism -- also creates a lot of bullshit jobs. In fact in the last stages of Communism the entire economy of the Soviet Union was essentially just a giant asset destroying employment scheme that depended on natural resource exports to the West to stay afloat.
5. Having read Grabners the debt, I cant speak much for his anthropology or history but his understanding of modern economics or the post 1945 world is primitive. If you are interesting check out Brad De Long -- a left of center but relatively mainstream economists take down of Grabner. http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/01/the-very-last-david-graeber-post.html
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On June 29 2014 14:59 L1ghtning wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2014 00:50 urboss wrote:
@itsjustatank
While I'm also not too fond of academic elitism, your academic-bashing is completely out of place here.
You may think of the article whatever you want, the crux that remains is quite clear:
Even though most manual labor has been automated, people are still working the same amount of time as 100 years ago.
Isn't this a little paradoxical? This is not a paradox at all. We may work the same hours, but we also produce more than 100 years ago. Ideally most ppl would like to work as little as possible, but the problem is that the less you work, the less you're producing for our society. If you work as a construction worker, you can build a house on half the amount of days, on a 8 hours day of work compared to a 4 hours day of work. This is why we still have 8 hour workdays. People would rather work more, and produce more luxuries for society, in exchange for other luxuries. If you actually enjoy your work this makes a lot of sense. For the ppl who don't enjoy their work, it makes less sense, but it's always a balance. I wholeheartedly reject the idea that finance, marketing and law are useless fields. All of those fields creates stability for companies. A company who handles their finances well will make more good decisions and less bad decisions, which increases their profit and improves their survivability. This means lower prices, greater potentials of expansion (more jobs+more goods/new type of goods), and more job stability. You guys may think that the finance sector is mostly useless, but the invention of the dutch stock exchange was crucial in propelling the western world forward, because it made resource planning more efficient. The investment sector makes sure that money is always where it needs to be. For instance, take Microsoft stocks in the 90's as an example. When the demand for computers rose, the demand of their stock rose as well, which drove up the prices of their stocks, which lead to more investments in the company, which lead to more products on the market. Microsoft would not have been able to grow as fast as it did, without efficient investment mechanisms, and without the spread of computers (to the same extent), most fields today would have been worse off today. The spread of computers have made 99% of all the companies in the world more efficient. This is why Bill Gates made so much money. All of those companies who bought Microsofts products, realized that the short term cost of buying a number of computers would be nothing compared to the long term gains. This is a good example of the power of invention. A company with good marketing will make sure that their products reaches the ppl who want them. You can't sell anything if ppl don't know it exists. Marketing is thus vital when it comes to introducing inventions to the buyers, and it's invention that moves our society forward, enabling us to produce more stuff without having to add more workhours. Law is important for similar reasons as finance. The lawyers pretty much makes sure that the company "behaves" correctly according to our laws. Corporate law would not exist if it wasn't economically justified (creates profit for the companies, by for instance preventing lawsuits). I do think that corporate law ideally shouldn't be such a big affair as it is, but the only reason why it is because of law making. If you want to blame anyone for this, then you can only blame the state. The state is necessary (atleast I think so), and bureaucracy is not necessarily bad, but if you ask me, then it's the state that is leeching on our society, that is keeping us down, but it's our own faults, because we let them do it. A company has to be productive and efficient enough to make a profit in order to survive, but the state can create and subsidize jobs at their whim. This is where the challenge of today lies. Jobs that are financed by the state are what is dragging us down. Not all jobs. I support the state using tax money to fund vital areas like law and order, healthcare and education, atleast to some extent, but a huge portion of the tax money goes to fluff, jobs that doesn't help our society prosper, and in some cases even has a negative effect. There's also no form of quality measuring mechanism for these jobs. In the free market, there are no jobs that are fluff, because you don't make any money creating fluff, and, this is why the free market is a much fairer and more ethical "authority" than the government. This is why we should strive towards a society where as many jobs as possible are on the free market, and where the free market are allowed to operate as independently as possible, without the government dictating the rules.
All fair points within the box.
Think a bit wider, and ask "why?" on each point you make.
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On June 29 2014 16:01 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +In the free market, there are no jobs that are fluff, because you don't make any money creating fluff, This presumes the 'rational self-interested' consumer which I think we know is a myth. SourceThe free market/reason doesn't magically protect us from exploiting people who make poor/ill informed decisions to the detriment of themselves and others. There are people who have made plenty of money doing things like those advertising circle jerk sites for clicks and views (in plenty of variations) making money purely off of exploiting ignorance. Really it's kind of like it's own underground industry with tentacles everywhere. You can pick just about any industry and find who is making money almost exclusively exploiting ignorance in some form. If nothing else it's creating a job just to talk people into paying more for something than it's worth/being offered by a competitor. Pyramid schemes are a great example. I mean the legal ones (at least as long as they keep winning lawsuits) of course. Just one of countless companies that are essentially nothing but 'fluff' You could say that the worst of these don't last long but that would be ignoring that it's part of the plan to begin with. Only with an ignorant customer and a slick salesman is this 'motor club' even remotely worth consideration. You could get better service for less money through AAA. You could go ahead and make a case for 'the free market' being better at getting rid of 'fluff' jobs than X (I think you would probably be wrong), but claims like 'there are no X (bullshit/fluff/etc...) jobs... because capitalism' don't stand up to rudimentary examination.
You can't be exploited as a result of your own decisions. As a worker you sign a contract and if you're not happy with the terms you can quit. You can't say that you've been exploited. If you invest money in something that proved to be a waste, it's your own fault. You have to be accountable for your own actions in order to be a free person. Do you want investors to not be accountable for bad investments either? What's the difference and where do you draw the line? If you're the victim of a criminal act, it's different, but then you will find justice.
Pyramid schemes would exist in communism too. Even if you abolished currency, there would be other ways to measure wealth, like personal belongings and your labour.
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Because the past sucked. I dunno, I'm pretty happy living in a world where finance has allowed for the rapid investment and development of technology in all it's myriad forms.
Also amused at the idea of automating most of these useless jobs, most people will spam zero the moment they get on a help line to talk to a real person. Humans at the moment and for the time being will still be needed for this stuff if only because machines are still quite stupid and no one likes repeating the same series of numbers into a phone repeatedly due to a computer having issues with an accent.
I'm also fairly happy living in a world where I can get the stuff I want and know it exists. Which one of you would of known you'd want a smart phone until you saw adverts/reviews/information on what it did and how it could bring greater quality to your daily life?
bullshit jobs..yeah sure whatever. If it makes you feel better go nuts, but in the real world the reality of the situation is such, You remove stuff like finance, investment, marketing, whatever you wanna call the "paper pushers" and "useless management and clerks" you'll find things suddenly missing and not much getting done.
But hey I guess I'm just too stuck in my box to be able to think out of it.
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On June 29 2014 16:43 Duvon wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2014 14:59 L1ghtning wrote:On June 29 2014 00:50 urboss wrote:
@itsjustatank
While I'm also not too fond of academic elitism, your academic-bashing is completely out of place here.
You may think of the article whatever you want, the crux that remains is quite clear:
Even though most manual labor has been automated, people are still working the same amount of time as 100 years ago.
Isn't this a little paradoxical? This is not a paradox at all. We may work the same hours, but we also produce more than 100 years ago. Ideally most ppl would like to work as little as possible, but the problem is that the less you work, the less you're producing for our society. If you work as a construction worker, you can build a house on half the amount of days, on a 8 hours day of work compared to a 4 hours day of work. This is why we still have 8 hour workdays. People would rather work more, and produce more luxuries for society, in exchange for other luxuries. If you actually enjoy your work this makes a lot of sense. For the ppl who don't enjoy their work, it makes less sense, but it's always a balance. I wholeheartedly reject the idea that finance, marketing and law are useless fields. All of those fields creates stability for companies. A company who handles their finances well will make more good decisions and less bad decisions, which increases their profit and improves their survivability. This means lower prices, greater potentials of expansion (more jobs+more goods/new type of goods), and more job stability. You guys may think that the finance sector is mostly useless, but the invention of the dutch stock exchange was crucial in propelling the western world forward, because it made resource planning more efficient. The investment sector makes sure that money is always where it needs to be. For instance, take Microsoft stocks in the 90's as an example. When the demand for computers rose, the demand of their stock rose as well, which drove up the prices of their stocks, which lead to more investments in the company, which lead to more products on the market. Microsoft would not have been able to grow as fast as it did, without efficient investment mechanisms, and without the spread of computers (to the same extent), most fields today would have been worse off today. The spread of computers have made 99% of all the companies in the world more efficient. This is why Bill Gates made so much money. All of those companies who bought Microsofts products, realized that the short term cost of buying a number of computers would be nothing compared to the long term gains. This is a good example of the power of invention. A company with good marketing will make sure that their products reaches the ppl who want them. You can't sell anything if ppl don't know it exists. Marketing is thus vital when it comes to introducing inventions to the buyers, and it's invention that moves our society forward, enabling us to produce more stuff without having to add more workhours. Law is important for similar reasons as finance. The lawyers pretty much makes sure that the company "behaves" correctly according to our laws. Corporate law would not exist if it wasn't economically justified (creates profit for the companies, by for instance preventing lawsuits). I do think that corporate law ideally shouldn't be such a big affair as it is, but the only reason why it is because of law making. If you want to blame anyone for this, then you can only blame the state. The state is necessary (atleast I think so), and bureaucracy is not necessarily bad, but if you ask me, then it's the state that is leeching on our society, that is keeping us down, but it's our own faults, because we let them do it. A company has to be productive and efficient enough to make a profit in order to survive, but the state can create and subsidize jobs at their whim. This is where the challenge of today lies. Jobs that are financed by the state are what is dragging us down. Not all jobs. I support the state using tax money to fund vital areas like law and order, healthcare and education, atleast to some extent, but a huge portion of the tax money goes to fluff, jobs that doesn't help our society prosper, and in some cases even has a negative effect. There's also no form of quality measuring mechanism for these jobs. In the free market, there are no jobs that are fluff, because you don't make any money creating fluff, and, this is why the free market is a much fairer and more ethical "authority" than the government. This is why we should strive towards a society where as many jobs as possible are on the free market, and where the free market are allowed to operate as independently as possible, without the government dictating the rules. All fair points within the box. Think a bit wider, and ask "why?" on each point you make.
Because people don't like status quo and always strive for better? Maybe you should think outside the box then
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On June 29 2014 18:00 Parnage wrote:
Because the past sucked. I dunno, I'm pretty happy living in a world where finance has allowed for the rapid investment and development of technology in all it's myriad forms.
Also amused at the idea of automating most of these useless jobs, most people will spam zero the moment they get on a help line to talk to a real person. Humans at the moment and for the time being will still be needed for this stuff if only because machines are still quite stupid and no one likes repeating the same series of numbers into a phone repeatedly due to a computer having issues with an accent.
I'm also fairly happy living in a world where I can get the stuff I want and know it exists. Which one of you would of known you'd want a smart phone until you saw adverts/reviews/information on what it did and how it could bring greater quality to your daily life?
The past has sucked many times, and new things has allowed it to suck less. Then those new things has been deemed lacking, and newer things made for a less sucky world.
bullshit jobs..yeah sure whatever. If it makes you feel better go nuts, but in the real world the reality of the situation is such, You remove stuff like finance, investment, marketing, whatever you wanna call the "paper pushers" and "useless management and clerks" you'll find things suddenly missing and not much getting done.
But hey I guess I'm just too stuck in my box to be able to think out of it.
How do you know that though?
One of the arguments of the article on topic is that we have the technology to make do without the stuff you mention.
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EPT
