The anthropologist David Graeber coined the term "Bullshit Jobs" in an essay one year ago. He also recently did an interview with Salon, so I thought it might be a good opportunity to discuss the issue which I find quite interesting.
The essence of his essay is the following:
Even though most manual labor has been automated, people are still working the same amount of time as 100 years ago. Most of nowadays jobs are made-up bullshit jobs no one actually needs.
"In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that we would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshalled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it."
"So what are these new jobs, precisely? A recent report comparing employment in the US between 1910 and 2000 gives us a clear picture. Over the course of the last century, the number of workers employed as domestic servants, in industry, and in the farm sector has collapsed dramatically. At the same time, “professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers” tripled, growing “from one-quarter to three-quarters of total employment.” In other words, productive jobs have, just as predicted, been largely automated away."
"But rather than allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world’s population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the “service” sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza deliverymen) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones.
These are what I propose to call 'bullshit jobs'.
It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is precisely what is not supposed to happen..." - David Graeber
In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.
Why did Keynes’ promised utopia – still being eagerly awaited in the ‘60s – never materialise? The standard line today is that he didn’t figure in the massive increase in consumerism. Given the choice between less hours and more toys and pleasures, we’ve collectively chosen the latter. This presents a nice morality tale, but even a moment’s reflection shows it can’t really be true. Yes, we have witnessed the creation of an endless variety of new jobs and industries since the ‘20s, but very few have anything to do with the production and distribution of sushi, iPhones, or fancy sneakers.
So what are these new jobs, precisely? A recent report comparing employment in the US between 1910 and 2000 gives us a clear picture (and I note, one pretty much exactly echoed in the UK). Over the course of the last century, the number of workers employed as domestic servants, in industry, and in the farm sector has collapsed dramatically. At the same time, “professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers” tripled, growing “from one-quarter to three-quarters of total employment.” In other words, productive jobs have, just as predicted, been largely automated away (even if you count industrial workers globally, including the toiling masses in India and China, such workers are still not nearly so large a percentage of the world population as they used to be).
But rather than allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world’s population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the “service” sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza deliverymen) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones.
These are what I propose to call “bullshit jobs.”
While corporations may engage in ruthless downsizing, the layoffs and speed-ups invariably fall on that class of people who are actually making, moving, fixing and maintaining things; through some strange alchemy no one can quite explain, the number of salaried paper-pushers ultimately seems to expand, and more and more employees find themselves, not unlike Soviet workers actually, working 40 or even 50 hour weeks on paper, but effectively working 15 hours just as Keynes predicted, since the rest of their time is spent organising or attending motivational seminars, updating their facebook profiles or downloading TV box-sets.
The answer clearly isn’t economic: it’s moral and political. The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s). And, on the other hand, the feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.
Once, when contemplating the apparently endless growth of administrative responsibilities in British academic departments, I came up with one possible vision of hell. Hell is a collection of individuals who are spending the bulk of their time working on a task they don’t like and are not especially good at. Say they were hired because they were excellent cabinet-makers, and then discover they are expected to spend a great deal of their time frying fish. Neither does the task really need to be done – at least, there’s only a very limited number of fish that need to be fried. Yet somehow, they all become so obsessed with resentment at the thought that some of their co-workers might be spending more time making cabinets, and not doing their fair share of the fish-frying responsibilities, that before long there’s endless piles of useless badly cooked fish piling up all over the workshop and it’s all that anyone really does.
I think this is actually a pretty accurate description of the moral dynamics of our own economy.
Now, I realise any such argument is going to run into immediate objections: “who are you to say what jobs are really ‘necessary’? What’s necessary anyway? You’re an anthropology professor, what’s the ‘need’ for that?” (And indeed a lot of tabloid readers would take the existence of my job as the very definition of wasteful social expenditure.) And on one level, this is obviously true. There can be no objective measure of social value.
I would not presume to tell someone who is convinced they are making a meaningful contribution to the world that, really, they are not. But what about those people who are themselves convinced their jobs are meaningless? Not long ago I got back in touch with a school friend who I hadn’t seen since I was 12. I was amazed to discover that in the interim, he had become first a poet, then the front man in an indie rock band. I’d heard some of his songs on the radio having no idea the singer was someone I actually knew. He was obviously brilliant, innovative, and his work had unquestionably brightened and improved the lives of people all over the world. Yet, after a couple of unsuccessful albums, he’d lost his contract, and plagued with debts and a newborn daughter, ended up, as he put it, “taking the default choice of so many directionless folk: law school.” Now he’s a corporate lawyer working in a prominent New York firm. He was the first to admit that his job was utterly meaningless, contributed nothing to the world, and, in his own estimation, should not really exist.
There’s a lot of questions one could ask here, starting with, what does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians, but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law? (Answer: if 1% of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call “the market” reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else.) But even more, it shows that most people in these jobs are ultimately aware of it. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a corporate lawyer who didn’t think their job was bullshit. The same goes for almost all the new industries outlined above. There is a whole class of salaried professionals that, should you meet them at parties and admit that you do something that might be considered interesting (an anthropologist, for example), will want to avoid even discussing their line of work entirely. Give them a few drinks, and they will launch into tirades about how pointless and stupid their job really is.
This is a profound psychological violence here. How can one even begin to speak of dignity in labour when one secretly feels one’s job should not exist? How can it not create a sense of deep rage and resentment. Yet it is the peculiar genius of our society that its rulers have figured out a way, as in the case of the fish-fryers, to ensure that rage is directed precisely against those who actually do get to do meaningful work. For instance: in our society, there seems a general rule that, the more obviously one’s work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it. Again, an objective measure is hard to find, but one easy way to get a sense is to ask: what would happen were this entire class of people to simply disappear? Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it’s obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It’s not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.) Yet apart from a handful of well-touted exceptions (doctors), the rule holds surprisingly well.
Even more perverse, there seems to be a broad sense that this is the way things should be. This is one of the secret strengths of right-wing populism. You can see it when tabloids whip up resentment against tube workers for paralysing London during contract disputes: the very fact that tube workers can paralyse London shows that their work is actually necessary, but this seems to be precisely what annoys people. It’s even clearer in the US, where Republicans have had remarkable success mobilizing resentment against school teachers, or auto workers (and not, significantly, against the school administrators or auto industry managers who actually cause the problems) for their supposedly bloated wages and benefits. It’s as if they are being told “but you get to teach children! Or make cars! You get to have real jobs! And on top of that you have the nerve to also expect middle-class pensions and health care?”
If someone had designed a work regime perfectly suited to maintaining the power of finance capital, it’s hard to see how they could have done a better job. Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the, universally reviled, unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc) – and particularly its financial avatars – but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value. Clearly, the system was never consciously designed. It emerged from almost a century of trial and error. But it is the only explanation for why, despite our technological capacities, we are not all working 3-4 hour days.
David Graeber is a Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics.
I think the author has a very poor concept of jobs. What IS the unnecessary job that he is talking about? If he is talking about finance then he obviously has little knowledge of it. Technology enabled us to be more productive, it's not meant to make our life easily. They are tools to assist us. What's wrong about service sector?
I don't understand where did this unrealistic view of less work means less working hours come from.
Most jobs that are now considered classic jobs were once upon a time considered bullshit jobs. If a man wasn't out there hunting/fighting, he wasn't actually needed. But some people liked the comforts of living in a house rather than a cave. Some people liked eating with utensils rather than their hands. Some people liked the beginnings of medicine and the way it could extend the average lifespan and thus people would dedicate their lives to that practice in exchange for having their basic needs taken care of by others.
None of those jobs were actually needed, but they made things a little nicer.
Jumping forward a few millennia, machinery has replaced a large portion of manual labor. So we throw that labor force into service. That service provides something that people or corporations want. You may hate telemarketers, but those telemarketers sell enough widgets/services to warrant their existence or else capitalism would make the job extinct.
We've also introduced a number of inefficiencies with the increased "bullshit" workforce, but that only exists because we demand more. Governments and regular people demand extreme adherence to laws by corporations while the corporations try to find ways to get an edge on their competition. Thus, corporate law booms. Certain tort reform could almost instantly put a lot of lawyers out of business, but that wouldn't do a whole lot to "bullshit" jobs in general. Those lawyers would find a new niche to fill using their reasonably good academic skills and continue to push the "bullshit" jobs forward.
I could go on with more examples, but I think the point is made. New jobs are no more "bullshit" than many of the jobs we take for granted. They all serve the purpose of making our lives better in some way... even if they don't always get things right.
In addition to ETisME's and RenSC2's comments i would like to add that there are instances where 15hour weeks (even if they were techincally possible to achieve) would create more problems and reduce efficency. For example if there is a corporation that sells any service where they need to be able to be contacted 24/7 having five people work for 50h/week is definitely more efficent than having twelve people work for 14h/week just because the addition of shift changes means you pretty much HAVE TO do way way more administrative stuff like briefing the next person to the situation etc etc.
Also there are a lot of people who want service for different reasons. Yes, probably nearly all the people could fix a car, a computer, wash their dog, go grab their pizzas themselves or whatever in case they REALLY wanted to do that / learn to do that. But is it more efficent to learn how to do something / do something you are "bad at" in case you can do what you are good at - get paid for it and let someone else do the things you are not good at or don't want to "waste" your time on. You would probaby lose way more money that way than paying for the stuff you are not good at and focusing on your profession.
The average work hours are just the symptom of the working class being exploited, as they have always been. With the amount of unemployed people and money that goes to already rich people we could easily have 2-3 workdays for everyone with almost 0 unemployment. Capitalism yo
I don't think there are many pointless jobs, just the way we see labour is inherently flawed.
On June 28 2014 23:49 itsjustatank wrote: If they truly were worthless jobs, they wouldn't exist. You can look down at others from an ivory tower pretty damn easily, though.
Indeed, these jobs do exist because there is a need for them. Now why is there a need for them? Because there is an interwoven set of "bloated bullshit systems" that creates the need.
Examples for such systems are: Finance Insurance Corporate Law Analytics Middle Management etc...
I'm not saying that these systems are useless. It is their bloated state that is unnecessary and creates all the bullshit jobs.
he prob chose this provocative word just to be provocative and bring attention to the quality of life associated with the job. in general with social critics you have to get into the collective action mood, and see things as "is this the world we want". now this sort of view does not always translate to reality either in description or in prescription but it's valuable as a way of generating ideals and goals.
On June 28 2014 22:48 ETisME wrote: Technology enabled us to be more productive, it's not meant to make our life easily. They are tools to assist us.
em what?!?!? you say that like its some kind of law from a higher autority the reason is exactly that our life gets easier. they are tools to assist us, in making our life easier !
now we live in a fucked up system, where we actually have to work against everything that makes our life easier. cause life getting easier means in our system .- less pay or even jobless, which leads to poverty.
and bullshit job doesnt mean we dont need someone to do the job. it means a machine or computer could do it much more effizient, but the industry doesnt want to invest in the technology cause human working hours are cheaper
there are a lot of jobs where you could say, technology could do this all better and faster. but to create the infrastructur for it would cost a lot and in particular the goverment doesnt have the money for things like that, they just let it go on as it is.
also it would not look good if a goverment investing millions in making people jobless
What will be interesting is how in the next 2 decades the service industry is going to be completely automated, of course the truck drivers are going to feel it first. Unemployment is a future many are going to live; could be good or bad depending on whether the benefits of technology get shared or not.
"When I talk about bullshit jobs, I mean, the kind of jobs that even those who work them feel do not really need to exist. A lot of them are made-up middle management, you know, I’m the “East Coast strategic vision coordinator” for some big firm, which basically means you spend all your time at meetings or forming teams that then send reports to one another. Or someone who works in an industry that they feel doesn’t need to exist, like most of the corporate lawyers I know, or telemarketers, or lobbyists…. Just think of when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other. Some of that work obviously does need to be done, but for the most part, everyone working there knows what really needs to get done and that the remaining 90 percent of what they do is bullshit. And then think about the ancillary workers that support people doing the bullshit jobs: here’s an office where people basically translate German formatted paperwork into British formatted paperwork or some such, and there has to be a whole infrastructure of receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people, which are kind of second-order bullshit jobs, they’re actually doing something, but they’re doing it to support people who are doing nothing."
On June 28 2014 22:48 ETisME wrote: I think the author has a very poor concept of jobs. What IS the unnecessary job that he is talking about? If he is talking about finance then he obviously has little knowledge of it. Technology enabled us to be more productive, it's not meant to make our life easily. They are tools to assist us. What's wrong about service sector?
I don't understand where did this unrealistic view of less work means less working hours come from.
pretty much this. Technology can make life easier but it doesn't necessarily eliminate the job or anything like that. Also, he's talking about working less time, 15 hours a week and such so that you can pursue your hobbies, dreams etc... Problem is that everything costs money. Working less means less income (unless salary is adjusted) so you are essentially destroying your own dreams as a result.
On June 28 2014 22:48 ETisME wrote: I think the author has a very poor concept of jobs. What IS the unnecessary job that he is talking about? If he is talking about finance then he obviously has little knowledge of it. Technology enabled us to be more productive, it's not meant to make our life easily. They are tools to assist us. What's wrong about service sector?
I don't understand where did this unrealistic view of less work means less working hours come from.
pretty much this. Technology can make life easier but it doesn't necessarily eliminate the job or anything like that. Also, he's talking about working less time, 15 hours a week and such so that you can pursue your hobbies, dreams etc... Problem is that everything costs money. Working less means less income (unless salary is adjusted) so you are essentially destroying your own dreams as a result.
thats exactly the reason for the article, the system has to be changed
as it is now invention of technology that makes life easier means, people are jobless and this leads to poverty we counter this problem with inventing new jobs that are just administrativ jobs to regulate other jobs or work
the US produces 700.000 new graduates in the Law sector every year think about it
so lets change this system .. we created it in the first place and it was good for bringing us to where we are now BUT it doesnt have to stay this way
How exactly are you going to 'change' the system. I will posit that this article is bullshit worthless ivory tower elitism unless you can articulate a world beyond capitalism and a way to attain it that isn't simply 'rethink the world' or 'change.'
Honestly, I can probably replace the essay with random gibberish generated by the Dada engine and attain the same result.
On June 29 2014 00:26 itsjustatank wrote: How exactly are you going to 'change' the system. I will posit that this article is bullshit worthless ivory tower elitism unless you can articulate a world beyond capitalism and a way to attain it that isn't simply 'rethink the world' or 'change.'
Honestly, I can probably replace the essay with random gibberish generated by the Dada engine and attain the same result.
In the works of Smith, a predominant concept is the concept of subtextual truth. Foucault promotes the use of semiotic socialism to deconstruct outdated perceptions of class.
“Reality is used in the service of class divisions,” says Marx; however, according to Pickett[1] , it is not so much reality that is used in the service of class divisions, but rather the economy, and eventually the fatal flaw, of reality. Therefore, Foucault uses the term ‘the subcapitalist paradigm of consensus’ to denote not narrative per se, but subnarrative. In Chasing Amy, Smith affirms semanticist discourse; in Mallrats, although, he deconstructs Batailleist `powerful communication’.
In a sense, Derrida suggests the use of socialist realism to analyse society. Hamburger[2] implies that we have to choose between the subcapitalist paradigm of consensus and the textual paradigm of consensus.
Thus, Lacan promotes the use of Foucaultist power relations to attack capitalism. Debord uses the term ‘the subcapitalist paradigm of consensus’ to denote the role of the reader as artist.
If one examines patriarchialist theory, one is faced with a choice: either accept socialist realism or conclude that the goal of the participant is social comment, given that sexuality is interchangeable with art. Thus, in Mallrats, Smith affirms the subcapitalist paradigm of consensus; in Chasing Amy he denies socialist realism. The subject is contextualised into a subcapitalist paradigm of consensus that includes sexuality as a paradox.
In the works of Smith, a predominant concept is the distinction between within and without. Therefore, the main theme of Wilson’s[3] essay on semanticist discourse is the bridge between truth and class. Lyotard suggests the use of socialist realism to modify and analyse society.
It could be said that if semanticist discourse holds, the works of Smith are postmodern. The subject is interpolated into a socialist realism that includes narrativity as a totality.
Thus, the premise of the subcapitalist paradigm of consensus holds that language is capable of intention. Many materialisms concerning Derridaist reading exist.
However, in Dogma, Smith examines semanticist discourse; in Clerks, however, he deconstructs the subcapitalist paradigm of consensus. Werther[4] implies that we have to choose between semanticist discourse and capitalist theory.
In a sense, the without/within distinction which is a central theme of Smith’s Dogma is also evident in Chasing Amy. The subject is contextualised into a subcapitalist paradigm of consensus that includes narrativity as a whole.
not the other ones have to convince you, maybe you start thinking up ideas yourself but here lies the second problem, most people are comfortable as it is right now, so it has to get a lot worse before people actually think, that it cant go on like this.
right now most of the people dont see any sense in what they are working, they just know they HAVE TO, cause .... money !
a system where people have to be scared of other people inventing things that would make them jobless is fucking stupid.
On June 29 2014 00:26 itsjustatank wrote: How exactly are you going to 'change' the system. I will posit that this article is bullshit worthless ivory tower elitism unless you can articulate a world beyond capitalism and a way to attain it that isn't simply 'rethink the world' or 'change.'
Honestly, I can probably replace the essay with random gibberish generated by the Dada engine and attain the same result.
Pretty sure you need to open your mind.
to what? that everything is alright and nothing is to be done ? i dont have to open my mind to it, im living right in it.
On June 28 2014 22:48 ETisME wrote: I think the author has a very poor concept of jobs. What IS the unnecessary job that he is talking about? If he is talking about finance then he obviously has little knowledge of it. Technology enabled us to be more productive, it's not meant to make our life easily. They are tools to assist us. What's wrong about service sector?
I don't understand where did this unrealistic view of less work means less working hours come from.
pretty much this. Technology can make life easier but it doesn't necessarily eliminate the job or anything like that. Also, he's talking about working less time, 15 hours a week and such so that you can pursue your hobbies, dreams etc... Problem is that everything costs money. Working less means less income (unless salary is adjusted) so you are essentially destroying your own dreams as a result.
That's thinking inside the box. The original idea is: society produces items/energy/food with less and less labor. That's a fact - wouldn't you agree? Thus, more and more of our workforce is just there to administer the distribution of said goods, inventing financial constructs that get more and more complex, and services that just serve the human made system - money after all is not a natural law, it's just a human invention to distribute goods and services in a fair manner (arguably failing at the fair aspect, but w/e it's the best we have for now). Is it that far fetched to think about a future, in which our society doesn't feel the need to create those "bull shit jobs"? It's only logical that at some point society will evolve to such a state, barring any catastrophes such as major wars of course. It will not happen in 20 years, probably not in 50 years, likely not even in our life time, but it's bound to happen imho.
On June 29 2014 00:34 phil.ipp wrote: 1. you accept there is a problem
we even fail at this stage !!
2. we think of something new
not the other ones have to convince you, maybe you start thinking up ideas yourself but here lies the second problem, most people are comfortable as it is right now, so it has to get a lot worse before people actually think, that it cant go on like this.
right now most of the people dont see any sense in what they are working, they just know they HAVE TO, cause .... money !
a system where people have to be scared of other people inventing things that would make them jobless is fucking stupid.
3. changing the system.
You still need to tell me what is beyond capital and how to get it, while remaining dislocated from bullshit ivory tower elitist professor with a bullshit needless job at the LSE that pays enough for him to have a surplus to write stuff like this and who tells me things should 'change.'
On June 29 2014 00:34 phil.ipp wrote: 1. you accept there is a problem
we even fail at this stage !!
2. we think of something new
not the other ones have to convince you, maybe you start thinking up ideas yourself but here lies the second problem, most people are comfortable as it is right now, so it has to get a lot worse before people actually think, that it cant go on like this.
right now most of the people dont see any sense in what they are working, they just know they HAVE TO, cause .... money !
a system where people have to be scared of other people inventing things that would make them jobless is fucking stupid.
3. changing the system.
Again, what is your suggestion? Visionary people are fine and maybe even awesome, but people who just throw out ideas about "how things should be" without telling how to do it are... as in the article.. .worthless.
On June 29 2014 00:39 phil.ipp wrote: so you agree there is a problem that needs to be solved?
In a world in which I grant there is a problem that needs to be solved, how do we solve it beyond the academic language of rethinking while we cash checks from the universities that pay us.
On June 29 2014 00:39 phil.ipp wrote: so you agree there is a problem that needs to be solved?
In a world in which I grant there is a problem that needs to be solved, how do we solve it beyond the academic language of rethinking while we cash checks from the universities that pay us.
That's a hard core conservative attitude. If all humans thought like this, we'd still be in the stone age, because you could argue that way against any invention/change/progress ever made. Why experiment with planting crops when we can just continue to hunt boar and collect berries to feed us in the now? It's worked for all the generations prior.
Insurance verification as computers can already verify health insurance etc on their own and automatically as well. There is a bullshit job. Medical records is going the way of the dodo because of being a bullshit job.
On June 29 2014 00:39 phil.ipp wrote: so you agree there is a problem that needs to be solved?
In a world in which I grant there is a problem that needs to be solved, how do we solve it beyond the academic language of rethinking while we cash checks from the universities that pay us.
That's a hard core conservative attitude. If all humans thought like this, we'd still be in the stone age, because you could argue that way against any invention/change/progress ever made. Why experiment with planting crops when we can just continue to hunt boar and collect berries to feed us in the now? It's worked for all the generations prior.
No, it's actually a role play of the attitude of a true radical. I'm tired of people wanting 'the system' to 'change' and then getting co-opted because they actually have zero understanding of anything and think talking about things in academic language and cashing checks from universities solves anything.
@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?
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?
Most manual labor has not been automated. We, in the first world, just shunt it over to the third world so we can pretend it is. There are also way more people existent since a hundred years ago, and we have to (in the current 'system') pay for that somehow.
calling the article worthless cause it has no solution to the problem is just wrong as this thread is evidence, some people are not even aware that there is a problem. so if that article made some people aware, its done its job.
as i said
1. you making people aware of a problem 2. you can suggest other ways 3. you change it
and no this must not be done all in one from one person - the holy jesus of economics
@itsjustatank you are funny, you talk about an ivory tower but then telling us that all these people really dont have an understanding of anything and thinking talking in academic language and cashing checks solves anything.
looks very arrogant.
if you dont agree with points made by the article say it, but what you do is "i dont even have to argue anything cause thats all gibberish"
On June 29 2014 00:56 phil.ipp wrote: calling the article worthless cause it has no solution to the problem is just wrong as this thread is evidence, some people are not even aware that there is a problem. so if that article made some people aware, its done its job.
as i said
1. you making people aware of a problem 2. you can suggest other ways 3. you change it
and no this must not be done all in one from one person - the holy jesus of economics
@itsjustatank you are funny, you talk about an ivory tower but then telling us that all these people really dont have an understanding of anything and thinking talking in academic language and cashing checks solves anything.
looks very arrogant.
if you dont agree with points made by the article say it, but what you do is "i dont even have to argue anything cause thats all gibberish"
the worth of your posting is near zero
If all you have is that you feel good after posting, this thread truly is interpassivity at its finest. Please big Other, please save us from capitalism. There, I felt better. I'll go back to my job on Monday and think the world should be changed.
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?
Most manual labor has not been automated. We, in the first world, just shunt it over to the third world so we can pretend it is. There are also way more people existent since a hundred years ago, and we have to (in the current 'system') pay for that somehow.
you are right its not all automated. but it could be, but we dont do it for the obvious reason
the current system doesnt reward us with anything for it, in fact it would lead to even more problems
On June 28 2014 22:44 xM(Z wrote: so you'd rather have billions of people left to their pleasures and ideas?. i don't know man, right now, i'd fear that.
Yes, that thought also worries me. I guess the answer would be 24/7 state-controlled entertainment. Sounds familiar?
If all you have is that you feel good after posting, this thread truly is interpassivity at its finest. Please big Other, please save us from capitalism. There, I felt better. I'll go back to my job on Monday and think the world should be changed.
why would you say that i feel good after posting? in fact i feel worse now, cause i have to think about the fact i alone cant do anything to solve the problem, and i have to discuss with people like you who just sulk in their own desperation.
If all you have is that you feel good after posting, this thread truly is interpassivity at its finest. Please big Other, please save us from capitalism. There, I felt better. I'll go back to my job on Monday and think the world should be changed.
why would you say that i feel good after posting? in fact i feel worse now, cause i have to think about the fact i alone cant do anything to solve the problem, and i have to discuss with people like you who just sulk in their own desperation.
When alternatives to capital are framed as just thinking about a world to be, nothing ever happens. There is, however, a cruel sense of pleasure gained by verbally or textually chipping away at this big 'system,' which is why threads like this exist and why people like the professor in the essay do as well (and he gets paid to experience it). Each person involved in it thinks things are changing incrementally, but like others have said in this thread, the 'system' remains as it was a hundred years later. This is the circularity of academic discourse surrounding capitalism and quote-unquote solving it.
He (tank) still has a very valid point. Aside from the worthless discussion of allegedly "bullshit jobs" (hint: if someone is willing to pay for it then it apparently isn't a bullshit job in the current system, you just don't like it), this article does bring up the issue of labor vs compensation distribution. The easy answer to his question (why don't we all work 15 hours a week?) is human nature. The reason that anarchists like him, communists like marx, and libertarians like ron paul aren't running the world is because their philosophies contradict human nature. For anarchists and libertarians, it's ethics that get's thrown out in the name of theoretical utopia. For communists, it's human motivation which gets thrown out (why should I work 40 hours a week to receive largely the same things everyone else gets for 15 hours a week?).
The question in this thread, which the author so in-eloquently phrased, should be: In a world where not everyone can have everything, who should get what and why?
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.
SixStrings does every situation possible work out as easy as you describe? If even... let's say 20% of the possible situations are where the "chain of command" is needed it's probably more efficent.
Six strings, that is jus inefficiency in an administrative system. The Point of such a system in that mas corrption cannot happen. That's why they exist. Imagine instead of 400 euros used, imagine there is no such administrative system. Then anybody can go around stealing computers and equipment, or subcontracting offices to nobodies like they do in other countries in the third world where the army basically has no oversight and branches into everything they can get their kleptomanic hands on. So that 400 euros in a system is inefficent, but at least you actually have a working country that wouldn't had existed without such a culture.
And presumably the german military uses such a subcontractor because it is easier for them to offload such work. Well governments tend to be inefficient. But the important thing is that they function. For the most part.
Also the irony of an anthropoligist talking about lawyering as worthless job lol. And apparently the near worthless teachers that are in USA are the epitimone of efficency, and tube workers in London aren't the overpaid, union protected, family referential people living off government taxes.
On June 29 2014 00:14 urboss wrote: from the interview:
"When I talk about bullshit jobs, I mean, the kind of jobs that even those who work them feel do not really need to exist. A lot of them are made-up middle management, you know, I’m the “East Coast strategic vision coordinator” for some big firm, which basically means you spend all your time at meetings or forming teams that then send reports to one another. Or someone who works in an industry that they feel doesn’t need to exist, like most of the corporate lawyers I know, or telemarketers, or lobbyists…. Just think of when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other. Some of that work obviously does need to be done, but for the most part, everyone working there knows what really needs to get done and that the remaining 90 percent of what they do is bullshit. And then think about the ancillary workers that support people doing the bullshit jobs: here’s an office where people basically translate German formatted paperwork into British formatted paperwork or some such, and there has to be a whole infrastructure of receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people, which are kind of second-order bullshit jobs, they’re actually doing something, but they’re doing it to support people who are doing nothing."
well if this is what 'bullshit' means here then it's rather flimsy. the 'actually important people' may be fulfilling the function of the organization but the surrounding people are also necessary to save time for these people. there are exceptions of organizational inertia etc but largely that's the rationale for creation of these bullshit jobs, to save cognitive resources
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.
While that's a case of the worst of contract/subcontract system, it allows the military to enable wide deployment and modifications to their computer systems without having to take up military's time, set under the same standard, and troubleshooting headaches. Not to insult the German military, but what would happen if the order came down for 300 Soldiers to both upgrade their systems and move them to conform to another network on their own? I can see a massive clusterfuck happening. It makes little things god damn annoying and complicated, but it simplifies and streamlines the big things.
That said, such system can do better by giving some leeway to the end user. At least that's how it's down in the U.S. military.
On June 29 2014 00:14 urboss wrote: from the interview:
"When I talk about bullshit jobs, I mean, the kind of jobs that even those who work them feel do not really need to exist. A lot of them are made-up middle management, you know, I’m the “East Coast strategic vision coordinator” for some big firm, which basically means you spend all your time at meetings or forming teams that then send reports to one another. Or someone who works in an industry that they feel doesn’t need to exist, like most of the corporate lawyers I know, or telemarketers, or lobbyists…. Just think of when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other. Some of that work obviously does need to be done, but for the most part, everyone working there knows what really needs to get done and that the remaining 90 percent of what they do is bullshit. And then think about the ancillary workers that support people doing the bullshit jobs: here’s an office where people basically translate German formatted paperwork into British formatted paperwork or some such, and there has to be a whole infrastructure of receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people, which are kind of second-order bullshit jobs, they’re actually doing something, but they’re doing it to support people who are doing nothing."
well if this is what 'bullshit' means here then it's rather flimsy. the 'actually important people' may be fulfilling the function of the organization but the surrounding people are also necessary to save time for these people. there are exceptions of organizational inertia etc but largely that's the rationale for creation of these bullshit jobs, to save cognitive resources
I guess you misunderstood the point. Let's say that there are 10 actuaries who do - in the grand scheme of things - useless work. These 10 actuaries need a whole support system to keep them going. They need administrators, receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people etc.. All those people do is to support the people that do useless work. That means, those people's work also becomes useless.
On June 29 2014 00:26 itsjustatank wrote: How exactly are you going to 'change' the system. I will posit that this article is bullshit worthless ivory tower elitism unless you can articulate a world beyond capitalism and a way to attain it that isn't simply 'rethink the world' or 'change.'
Honestly, I can probably replace the essay with random gibberish generated by the Dada engine and attain the same result.
it's not very productive to engage the issue on such a coarse grain level, as if the choices are simply status quo vs everyone has everything yay.
graeber does write in this crusading voice and that may rankle some people and provoke a reaction in the other extreme, but it is quite clear that automation and greater pursuit of rationality in the management of capital is producing profound changes, and most of this stuff can't be controlled or directed. it's just something to think about at this stage.
On June 29 2014 01:09 itsjustatank wrote: When alternatives to capital are framed as just thinking about a world to be, nothing ever happens. There is, however, a cruel sense of pleasure gained by verbally or textually chipping away at this big 'system,' which is why threads like this exist and why people like the professor in the essay do as well (and he gets paid to experience it). Each person involved in it thinks things are changing incrementally, but like others have said in this thread, the 'system' remains as it was a hundred years later. This is the circularity of academic discourse surrounding capitalism and quote-unquote solving it.
haha, you sit at home watching all these sad people running in their circle, calling themself "academics", when they are in fact just talking gibberish, as we all know it hasnt changed anything in the last hundred years (whaaat!?!?)
BUT
you on the other hand ... you see through all these illusions.
we are not in battlestar galactica, it did not happen all before and will happen again, so thinking, talking, doing something will change nothing - what seems to be your motto
luckily things change ALL the time, even the "system" changes all the time, at least here in europe, dont know where you coming from. if it changes for the good or the worse, is on us, electing the right people to do the things we wish.
and to make a good decision on who to elect, guess what, talking about the things happening around us, and the things we wish to happen, is really important.
On June 29 2014 00:14 urboss wrote: from the interview:
"When I talk about bullshit jobs, I mean, the kind of jobs that even those who work them feel do not really need to exist. A lot of them are made-up middle management, you know, I’m the “East Coast strategic vision coordinator” for some big firm, which basically means you spend all your time at meetings or forming teams that then send reports to one another. Or someone who works in an industry that they feel doesn’t need to exist, like most of the corporate lawyers I know, or telemarketers, or lobbyists…. Just think of when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other. Some of that work obviously does need to be done, but for the most part, everyone working there knows what really needs to get done and that the remaining 90 percent of what they do is bullshit. And then think about the ancillary workers that support people doing the bullshit jobs: here’s an office where people basically translate German formatted paperwork into British formatted paperwork or some such, and there has to be a whole infrastructure of receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people, which are kind of second-order bullshit jobs, they’re actually doing something, but they’re doing it to support people who are doing nothing."
well if this is what 'bullshit' means here then it's rather flimsy. the 'actually important people' may be fulfilling the function of the organization but the surrounding people are also necessary to save time for these people. there are exceptions of organizational inertia etc but largely that's the rationale for creation of these bullshit jobs, to save cognitive resources
I guess you misunderstood the point. Let's say that there are 10 actuaries who do - in the grand scheme of things - useless work. These 10 actuaries need a whole support system to keep them going. They need administrators, receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people etc.. All those people do is to support the people that do useless work. That means, those people's work also becomes useless.
the quoted paragraph tagged certain tasks as actually important. then with that, i assume 'useless' is defined as anything that is not actually important, whatever actually important may be doesn't really matter. i'm just addressing the structural abstraction as it was set up by graeber, that the guys supporting the actually important guys are there to act as extended automated minds.
On June 29 2014 01:09 itsjustatank wrote: When alternatives to capital are framed as just thinking about a world to be, nothing ever happens. There is, however, a cruel sense of pleasure gained by verbally or textually chipping away at this big 'system,' which is why threads like this exist and why people like the professor in the essay do as well (and he gets paid to experience it). Each person involved in it thinks things are changing incrementally, but like others have said in this thread, the 'system' remains as it was a hundred years later. This is the circularity of academic discourse surrounding capitalism and quote-unquote solving it.
haha, you sit at home watching all these sad people running in their circle, calling themself "academics", when they are in fact just talking gibberish, as we all know it hasnt changed anything in the last hundred years (whaaat!?!?)
BUT
you on the other hand ... you see through all these illusions.
we are not in battlestar galactica, it did not happen all before and will happen again, so thinking, talking, doing something will change nothing - what seems to be your motto
luckily things change ALL the time, even the "system" changes all the time, at least here in europe, dont know where you coming from. if it changes for the good or the worse, is on us, electing the right people to do the things we wish.
and to make a good decision on who to elect, guess what, talking about the things happening around us, and the things we wish to happen, is really important.
The last seventy years of liberal democracy and social democratic rule in Europe has seen the bolstering of capital, the appearance of the same economic crises, and no solvency of the fundamental inequalities that exist in the 'system.' Piecemeal action termed as reform simply doesn't work on an overall basis, but, sure, it is cognitively a step beyond dreaming a world to be. It's functionally just as bad, assuming you think the status quo is bad.
On June 29 2014 00:26 itsjustatank wrote: How exactly are you going to 'change' the system. I will posit that this article is bullshit worthless ivory tower elitism unless you can articulate a world beyond capitalism and a way to attain it that isn't simply 'rethink the world' or 'change.'
Honestly, I can probably replace the essay with random gibberish generated by the Dada engine and attain the same result.
it's not very productive to engage the issue on such a coarse grain level, as if the choices are simply status quo vs everyone has everything yay.
graeber does write in this crusading voice and that may rankle some people and provoke a reaction in the other extreme, but it is quite clear that automation and greater pursuit of rationality in the management of capital is producing profound changes, and most of this stuff can't be controlled or directed. it's just something to think about at this stage.
What I am getting at is that if you think the current economic arrangements are unacceptable, creating scapegoats out of people with 'bullshit jobs' and saying something needs to be done about it (and them) will only regenerate the underlying problem.
On June 29 2014 00:14 urboss wrote: from the interview:
"When I talk about bullshit jobs, I mean, the kind of jobs that even those who work them feel do not really need to exist. A lot of them are made-up middle management, you know, I’m the “East Coast strategic vision coordinator” for some big firm, which basically means you spend all your time at meetings or forming teams that then send reports to one another. Or someone who works in an industry that they feel doesn’t need to exist, like most of the corporate lawyers I know, or telemarketers, or lobbyists…. Just think of when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other. Some of that work obviously does need to be done, but for the most part, everyone working there knows what really needs to get done and that the remaining 90 percent of what they do is bullshit. And then think about the ancillary workers that support people doing the bullshit jobs: here’s an office where people basically translate German formatted paperwork into British formatted paperwork or some such, and there has to be a whole infrastructure of receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people, which are kind of second-order bullshit jobs, they’re actually doing something, but they’re doing it to support people who are doing nothing."
well if this is what 'bullshit' means here then it's rather flimsy. the 'actually important people' may be fulfilling the function of the organization but the surrounding people are also necessary to save time for these people. there are exceptions of organizational inertia etc but largely that's the rationale for creation of these bullshit jobs, to save cognitive resources
I guess you misunderstood the point. Let's say that there are 10 actuaries who do - in the grand scheme of things - useless work. These 10 actuaries need a whole support system to keep them going. They need administrators, receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people etc.. All those people do is to support the people that do useless work. That means, those people's work also becomes useless.
Actuaries are useless work? Wow who knew that the underscoring of risk in modern insurance which enable the British Empire, the Dutch Empire and other great Trade Empires which exploded into the world in the mid 18th century were totally bullshit jobs!
But seriously, how is actuary useless? It is a service in great demand by business, by consumers, by almost everyone who wants to share risk taking. The fact you think actuary is pointless speak volumes.
On June 28 2014 22:44 xM(Z wrote: so you'd rather have billions of people left to their pleasures and ideas?. i don't know man, right now, i'd fear that.
Yes, that thought also worries me. I guess the answer would be 24/7 state-controlled entertainment. Sounds familiar?
if by entertainment you mean drugs/drugged out, then ye, it sounds familiar ...
I've noticed some people have a hard time dealing with descriptions of reality that don't fit their world view.
Whether it's 'Marriage has always been between one woman and one man' ignoring millions of marriages over hundreds of years that don't fit that descriptions, or 'I'm not a scientist but I have no problem ignoring them', or as in this case 'capitalism is the best system possible and all you ivory tower academics (as if being academic is a bad thing) don't have any better ideas'.
Including the inexplicable disdain for education, it's nothing new. You can look at certain groups objections throughout history and see time and time again the prediction for doom, gloom, and the impossibility of change, *spoiler* are almost always wrong. Acid rain, Smoking, Desegregation, Solar Power, Labeling GMO's, the list goes on...
One would think after a group has been so willfully wrong so many times, either people would stop listening, or they would slink away in shame. But certainly not in the US, those voices are getting louder and more attention no matter how completely insane they are. Just look at what they want to put into science classrooms...
For some of us who have been exposed to alternatives to capitalism it isn't so hard to imagine a different world. We didn't shift to modern capitalism over night and we won't shift away overnight. Incremental steps leading to larger ones is the natural progression, not some bug.
You can call people who suggest in a world where simutaniously we have an obesity epidemic and millions of children starving to death whatever names you want and deride the fact that they chose to get degrees, but to suggest we couldn't do better if we just tried (instead of scrooging every alternative idea/perspective) is just typical close-minded hog waller (opposite of Ivory tower?) talk.
Don't worry tank the change will come or we'll blow ourselves up to prevent it. But just like slavery, segregation, acid rain, gay marriage, etc... the people who think changing our views on it will ruin the country/world will eventually just be relics of a somewhat shameful past.
On June 29 2014 02:20 itsjustatank wrote: The last seventy years of liberal democracy and social democratic rule in Europe has seen the bolstering of capital, the appearance of the same economic crises, and no solvency of the fundamental inequalities that exist in the 'system.' Piecemeal action termed as reform simply doesn't work on an overall basis, but, sure, it is cognitively a step beyond dreaming a world to be. It's functionally just as bad, assuming you think the status quo is bad.
i see nothing bad in the history of the last 70 years after WWII there was nothing, millions had nothing.
i dont condem capitalism, it worked great the last 70 years, people had work, things needed to be build. economy was on the rise. worked like a charm.
but now, for the next 70 years its not suited anymore. i hope i dont have to explain why.
so it has to be adapted, we dont need to tear all down, but slowly build towards a system that is made so we can achieve the goals we set ourselfs for the next 70 years.
and this goal is not, like it was the last 70 years, economic growth.
we can already supply the whole world with all the things people need to lead a decent life. there is no need for even more production.
the goal for the next 70 years has to be, that everyone is getting the stuff he needs to lead that decent life.
Maybe I misunderstood, but isn't what tank is saying is that we lack proper alternative to capitalism ? And disregarding if that's what he thinks or not, isn't that true so far ?
On June 29 2014 00:14 urboss wrote: from the interview:
"When I talk about bullshit jobs, I mean, the kind of jobs that even those who work them feel do not really need to exist. A lot of them are made-up middle management, you know, I’m the “East Coast strategic vision coordinator” for some big firm, which basically means you spend all your time at meetings or forming teams that then send reports to one another. Or someone who works in an industry that they feel doesn’t need to exist, like most of the corporate lawyers I know, or telemarketers, or lobbyists…. Just think of when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other. Some of that work obviously does need to be done, but for the most part, everyone working there knows what really needs to get done and that the remaining 90 percent of what they do is bullshit. And then think about the ancillary workers that support people doing the bullshit jobs: here’s an office where people basically translate German formatted paperwork into British formatted paperwork or some such, and there has to be a whole infrastructure of receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people, which are kind of second-order bullshit jobs, they’re actually doing something, but they’re doing it to support people who are doing nothing."
well if this is what 'bullshit' means here then it's rather flimsy. the 'actually important people' may be fulfilling the function of the organization but the surrounding people are also necessary to save time for these people. there are exceptions of organizational inertia etc but largely that's the rationale for creation of these bullshit jobs, to save cognitive resources
I guess you misunderstood the point. Let's say that there are 10 actuaries who do - in the grand scheme of things - useless work. These 10 actuaries need a whole support system to keep them going. They need administrators, receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people etc.. All those people do is to support the people that do useless work. That means, those people's work also becomes useless.
Actuaries are useless work? Wow who knew that the underscoring of risk in modern insurance which enable the British Empire, the Dutch Empire and other great Trade Empires which exploded into the world in the mid 18th century were totally bullshit jobs!
But seriously, how is actuary useless? It is a service in great demand by business, by consumers, by almost everyone who wants to share risk taking. The fact you think actuary is pointless speak volumes.
Nowhere did I say that all actuaries do useless work, far from that. In gave an example of 10 actuaries who do useless work.
You could imagine 10 actuaries that formulate the corporate risk policy for an investment firm. Or in other words, they are pushing papers for a company that pushes papers. All they ever produce is steam. None of what these people do has any tangible value in the grand scheme of things.
These jobs only exist because someone else places value on it. Why does someone place value on it when in fact they produce nothing but steam? Because our economic system nurtures this kind of stuff.
On June 29 2014 00:14 urboss wrote: from the interview:
"When I talk about bullshit jobs, I mean, the kind of jobs that even those who work them feel do not really need to exist. A lot of them are made-up middle management, you know, I’m the “East Coast strategic vision coordinator” for some big firm, which basically means you spend all your time at meetings or forming teams that then send reports to one another. Or someone who works in an industry that they feel doesn’t need to exist, like most of the corporate lawyers I know, or telemarketers, or lobbyists…. Just think of when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other. Some of that work obviously does need to be done, but for the most part, everyone working there knows what really needs to get done and that the remaining 90 percent of what they do is bullshit. And then think about the ancillary workers that support people doing the bullshit jobs: here’s an office where people basically translate German formatted paperwork into British formatted paperwork or some such, and there has to be a whole infrastructure of receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people, which are kind of second-order bullshit jobs, they’re actually doing something, but they’re doing it to support people who are doing nothing."
well if this is what 'bullshit' means here then it's rather flimsy. the 'actually important people' may be fulfilling the function of the organization but the surrounding people are also necessary to save time for these people. there are exceptions of organizational inertia etc but largely that's the rationale for creation of these bullshit jobs, to save cognitive resources
I guess you misunderstood the point. Let's say that there are 10 actuaries who do - in the grand scheme of things - useless work. These 10 actuaries need a whole support system to keep them going. They need administrators, receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people etc.. All those people do is to support the people that do useless work. That means, those people's work also becomes useless.
Actuaries are useless work? Wow who knew that the underscoring of risk in modern insurance which enable the British Empire, the Dutch Empire and other great Trade Empires which exploded into the world in the mid 18th century were totally bullshit jobs!
But seriously, how is actuary useless? It is a service in great demand by business, by consumers, by almost everyone who wants to share risk taking. The fact you think actuary is pointless speak volumes.
Nowhere did I say that all actuaries do useless work, far from that. In gave an example of 10 actuaries who do useless work.
You could imagine 10 actuaries that formulate the corporate risk policy for an investment firm. Or in other words, they are pushing papers for a company that pushes papers. All they ever produce is steam. None of what these people do has any tangible value in the grand scheme of things.
These jobs only exist because someone else places value on it. Why does someone place value on it when in fact they produce nothing but steam? Because our economic system nurtures this kind of stuff.
Or because it has value...? I mean what is the value of a merchant who sells the farmer's wares in the city square? The farmer could do that himself.
On June 29 2014 03:03 Cynry wrote: Maybe I misunderstood, but isn't what tank is saying is that we lack proper alternative to capitalism ? And disregarding if that's what he thinks or not, isn't that true so far ?
One of the issues I think that arises out of discussions like this is the importance of separating Capitalism as a philosophy from capitalism as it describes (semi-)natural phenomena.
When designing alternatives to our current Capitalism it's often thought that the new version can't have any remnants or patterns we see in Capitalism, that's just false. For instance supply and demand describes a phenomena that isn't exclusive to capitalism. It's the philosophical part of capitalism that comes in and tells us more about why and what we should do about it and that's the part that needs retooling.
So in a non-capitalist/alternative form supply and demand as a phenomena doesn't go away we just interpret, act on, and potentially calculate that information differently. The same applies to most of the aspects that people who cling to capitalism show the most concern about.
On June 29 2014 03:03 Cynry wrote: Maybe I misunderstood, but isn't what tank is saying is that we lack proper alternative to capitalism ? And disregarding if that's what he thinks or not, isn't that true so far ?
no i dont think he means that
he does a meta-discussion
he thinks the people who write these articles only talk and make money from it, and feel good about talking about the big system, but not really changing anything.
there are enough "alternatives". only its easier for our politians to hold on to the status quo.
the system of the last 70 years was influenced by economic "knowledge" that you can make as much debt as you want, you just have to invest it into education, and technological progress, then you get enough economic growth rendering your debts insignificant.
sadly now america and europe have over 30 trillions debt, and we are not anywhere near the economic growth in the foreseeable future that we need to get rid of the debt.
it was and never will be the "only" system that works, it just was one of many ideas, and we choose this one. it was not super bad, but it needs adjusting now
On June 29 2014 03:03 Cynry wrote: Maybe I misunderstood, but isn't what tank is saying is that we lack proper alternative to capitalism ? And disregarding if that's what he thinks or not, isn't that true so far ?
There is at least one theoretical alternative to capitalism, and that no one in the camp who believes that the economic arrangements are unacceptable in this thread has advocated it is a sign that: 1) capital has won because it has instilled in the mind of those who would resist that the way by which to resist is untenable, and 2) every poster in this thread has the luxury to spend their weekend posting about it and thus isn't actually even in the class of people who would actualize that approach.
On June 29 2014 00:14 urboss wrote: from the interview:
"When I talk about bullshit jobs, I mean, the kind of jobs that even those who work them feel do not really need to exist. A lot of them are made-up middle management, you know, I’m the “East Coast strategic vision coordinator” for some big firm, which basically means you spend all your time at meetings or forming teams that then send reports to one another. Or someone who works in an industry that they feel doesn’t need to exist, like most of the corporate lawyers I know, or telemarketers, or lobbyists…. Just think of when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other. Some of that work obviously does need to be done, but for the most part, everyone working there knows what really needs to get done and that the remaining 90 percent of what they do is bullshit. And then think about the ancillary workers that support people doing the bullshit jobs: here’s an office where people basically translate German formatted paperwork into British formatted paperwork or some such, and there has to be a whole infrastructure of receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people, which are kind of second-order bullshit jobs, they’re actually doing something, but they’re doing it to support people who are doing nothing."
well if this is what 'bullshit' means here then it's rather flimsy. the 'actually important people' may be fulfilling the function of the organization but the surrounding people are also necessary to save time for these people. there are exceptions of organizational inertia etc but largely that's the rationale for creation of these bullshit jobs, to save cognitive resources
I guess you misunderstood the point. Let's say that there are 10 actuaries who do - in the grand scheme of things - useless work. These 10 actuaries need a whole support system to keep them going. They need administrators, receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people etc.. All those people do is to support the people that do useless work. That means, those people's work also becomes useless.
Actuaries are useless work? Wow who knew that the underscoring of risk in modern insurance which enable the British Empire, the Dutch Empire and other great Trade Empires which exploded into the world in the mid 18th century were totally bullshit jobs!
But seriously, how is actuary useless? It is a service in great demand by business, by consumers, by almost everyone who wants to share risk taking. The fact you think actuary is pointless speak volumes.
Nowhere did I say that all actuaries do useless work, far from that. In gave an example of 10 actuaries who do useless work.
You could imagine 10 actuaries that formulate the corporate risk policy for an investment firm. Or in other words, they are pushing papers for a company that pushes papers. All they ever produce is steam. None of what these people do has any tangible value in the grand scheme of things.
These jobs only exist because someone else places value on it. Why does someone place value on it when in fact they produce nothing but steam? Because our economic system nurtures this kind of stuff.
Oh? Who are you to decide which actuaries are doing valuable work and which aren't? Clearly those richly paid actuaries are doing work that is valuable and highly valued by that investment firm. So dismissive. Explain how they "all they ever produce are steam"? You sound like someone repeating something they heard of their father and repeating it.
You want people to do something that has any tangible value in the grand scheme of things? Does the subsistence farmer do anything with tangible value in the grand scheme of things? How about cashiers, shelf stackers, service assistants, waiters, anything to do with the entertainment industry and fashion? How about people who produce chairs and beds? We can all stand up and lie down on the floor right? They don't provide anything of tangible value in the grand scheme of things.
In fact everybody can be described as not doing anything of tangible value in the grand scheme of things. Teachers? No needed for life. What is the value of life anyways? London Tube workers? Who needs them anyways? They only transport people around to their bullshit jobs right? They aren't needed when machines do everything for people for free right? Yeah so bullshit argument is bulshit.
we should try to define capitalism and what parts of it are a problem
WIKIPEDIA
Capitalism is an economic system in which trade, industry, and the means of production are controlled by private owners with the goal of making profits.
i have no problem with that at all, i also dont think any of these things made the problems we face now.
Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets and wage labor.
still i see no problem, maybe the competitive markets will be obsolet in the future. but certainly most of the people will work, but maybe less and more the things they really want, rather than bullshit jobs.
In a capitalist economy, the parties to a transaction typically determine the prices at which assets, goods, and services are exchanged.
thats the part that cant stay like it is. for me the problem is simply our monetary system. its also the system which was changed quite a bit in the last 100 years. and it is also the part which gets changed right now hopefully into the right direction. in the current system we are slaves to interest rates.
I don't know man, the first sentence of the definition has what I believe is a real issue. "The goal of making profits"
Interest rates ? Profits Delocalisation with shitty work conditions and salaries ? Profits Great ideas, or just necessary ones, like clean energy, not getting enough money ? Profits, or lack of, which isn't desirable in this system.
profit is nothing bad, it just says that you work and get more out of it than you put into it.
the problem we are having now with profit is, that it is money that you have to take away from someone else. that creates the problem, not the wish for profit itself. for example if you would get the money/profit from the state, and the state also could "create" the money, which now only private banks can do as credit, than there would be no problem.
cause what profit is would than be regulated from the state, for example you have to treat your employes good than you get more "profit". or we are short of product X, produce it than you will get more "profit/money".
that would require a complete change of our monetary system, without background what i just said seems stupid.
i just made a quick google and there are many sites and projects out there which describe the problem with money we are having right now.
On June 29 2014 04:13 phil.ipp wrote: profit is nothing bad, it just says that you work and get more out of it than you put into it.
the problem we are having now with profit is, that it is money that you have to take away from someone else. that creates the problem, not the wish for profit itself. for example if you would get the money/profit from the state, and the state also could "create" the money, which now only private banks can do as credit, than there would be no problem.
cause what profit is would than be regulated from the state, for example you have to treat your employes good than you get more "profit". or we are short of product X, produce it than you will get more "profit/money".
that would require a complete change of our monetary system, without background what i just said seems stupid.
i just made a quick google and there are many sites and projects out there which describe the problem with money we are having right now.
There's 7 billion people in the world. Many jobs aren't really necessary, and tonnes of them are indeed bullshit. But people have to eat and need a place to sleep. Many people, i.e. priests, are very thankful bullshit jobs exist. And in reality everyone should be glad they exist because they raise the standard of living.
On June 29 2014 04:30 RvB wrote: Central banks regulate money supply not private banks.
that is not the problem, it is not the problem WHO supplys the money, this is not a rant about evil banks
the problem is how the money is created, every dollar that is created is a dollar debt, banks charge interest which leads to even more money created -> which is again more debt -> which creates again interest.
it is as silly as it sounds an accounting problem. money should not be created as debt in the books of the bank, and there should be no interest.
now you get inflation, deflation all kind of problems that brings this kind of money creation. all not really necessary if you dont creat money as debt.
On June 29 2014 04:13 ROOTiaguz wrote: I suppose it'd be unkind of me to bring up the fact this is an e-sports community website and we're discussing jobs that don't really matter.
Carry on people.
Culture is generally acceptable - but yes, it can be questionable.
Regarding the actuaries argument: What if the funding the investors did, was crowd funded instead? Then no actuaries would have to make a market assessment for the company, since the market already had it's say in the matter!
Also dear fellows who also sit at home and don't do much about it: This idea is only a part of what'd be required for a new world order. Alongside it may be things like basic income, general knowledge of programming, a stronger individual mindfulness and education, and much else. For example, for good ideas to be crowdfunded, the individual needs to be able to assess the ideas themselves(mindfulness and education), and the good idea needs to be executed in a good way (programming and education).
We have an "on call manager" at our A&E department. When the department is busy, he stands in the way of everyone and occasionally slows people down by asking "what are you doing or what do you need help with?" when it feels like physically getting in the way is not enough.
Of course he can't actually do anything you need help with, because he doesn't know anything about delivering healthcare or how to do other peoples jobs. If they hired an extra person to actually help with work during those periods it'd be better.
I think they spend they day trying to explain why some days in A&E are busier than others and then fail to implement any plans to deal with it.
That's one of those "bullshit jobs" - which I like to define as "if this guy died in the middle of the day, workflow would actually remain unchanged".
I think "hint: if someone is willing to pay for it then it apparently isn't a bullshit job in the current system, you just don't like it" doesn't always justify a job since I think a lot of these jobs have sprung up from managers trying to make things better, because if they don't make any change then they can't justify their own jobs.
On June 29 2014 03:44 Cynry wrote: Ok so I'm actually gonna ask. Someone has some links to alternatives detailed ? I'm interested... Edit : can be done by PM, as it's off topic
One possibility would be the downsizing of the current economic system and the establishment of a steady state economy. I'm pretty convinced that this is the model of the future. However, the economic systems will have to crash a couple more times until the world realizes it.
"The increase of wealth is not boundless. The end of growth leads to a stationary state. The stationary state of capital and wealth… would be a very considerable improvement on our present condition." - John Stuart Mill
On June 29 2014 03:03 Cynry wrote: Maybe I misunderstood, but isn't what tank is saying is that we lack proper alternative to capitalism ? And disregarding if that's what he thinks or not, isn't that true so far ?
dealing in this kind of grand ideological labels is just unproductive. le world historic thinkers of glorious europe playing god with their constructed systems battling it out. it doesn't have to be capitalism vs something else, just deal with smaller parts.
once you do that there'll be lots of room for change.
On June 29 2014 03:44 Cynry wrote: Ok so I'm actually gonna ask. Someone has some links to alternatives detailed ? I'm interested... Edit : can be done by PM, as it's off topic
One possibility would be the downsizing of the current economic system and the establishment of a steady state economy. I'm pretty convinced that this is the model of the future. However, the economic systems will have to crash a couple more times until the world realizes it.
"The increase of wealth is not boundless. The end of growth leads to a stationary state. The stationary state of capital and wealth… would be a very considerable improvement on our present condition." - John Stuart Mill
I think when you're talking about "downsizing the current economic system" you don't actually grasp how big that system actually is. None of us do. Not even the top tier economics. It's too big to comprehend, just like imagining 7 billion people in one place, it just can't be pathomed. I agree stuff has to be reformed aswell but globalization and clogging up this already complex system with more and more rules and administration just makes this infinitely more complex to deal with.
I think we're in some kind of slippery slope where the entire system is going to crash down within maximally a generation or two (wether it be from some politcal, economical or environmental cue) and we will have to hard reset everything. Maybe this is an idealistic viewpoint but I certainly hope some kind of negative spiral gets so out of control that some parties will finally have to realize their certain bullshit just can't be happening any longer (data mining for marketing purposes for example)
1. I don't even know what people are talking about when they talk about 'Capitalism', and I suspect they don't either. As far as I can tell, it's just used as a negative 'non-system'. I don't know what there is to be gained in a discussion of Capitalism (and the inevitable comparison to other economic systems) that wouldn't be subsumed by a discussion of Liberalism and it's alternatives.
2. When Modernity has destroyed all other public institutions (and the subsequent withering of private ones), of course they are going to be dissatisfied with their jobs because they are told that is all they are.
On June 29 2014 04:43 urboss wrote: I know this can be difficult to understand, so I created an image:
Well, actually from your picture one could interpret that what the bullshit jobs are doing is keeping this shit together. Wait, that's probably what they're for... I'm not a big fan of those areas of work either (I wouldn't want to work there), but it seems too easy to dismiss the amount of work that goes into all of these as just "producing steam" as someone else said.
That being said, in France's public administration (civil servants and all that), you can't really fire someone so you usually keep them around, doing a job which is for all intents and purposes useless. You don't give them real cases to handle, problem solving or decision making tasks, just papers to read and sign (there are always a lot of those) and it keeps them busy. This is nothing against people that end up in those positions, btw, just against how the system works.
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
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.
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
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
So what is better? Maybe that you feel that the job you do is worth something? That you can pursue hobbies and dreams (due to more free time)? And this status quo - in what is it measured? must it be measured? Can't you just feel for yourself?
Why are we having so many jobs no one truly needs nowadays?
You have to keep people working until they are tired so they don't think too much, and pay them only what they need to cover their expenses and afford for their leisure. It is called economic slavery.
Can we change things to get rid of those useless jobs?
Yes, quit those useless jobs and find other means to live, there is no how-to, it is your problem.
For me the main fault of these theories seems to be the point of view. They might be right from a society point of view but most people act out of personal interest. These so called "bullshit-jobs" are genereatet mainly because someone thinks they get himself a profit and not because they are usefull for the whole society. If for example the owner of a company thinks he can sell more of his goods and make therefore more money if he install a marketing departement he will do so. And if someone thinks he get a better amount of money working in that departement instead of doing something more "productive" for the society he will do it too.
The only interesting question is: When will the majority say its enough and do what happened so many times in history. Chop heads off people that abuse a system that should bring wealth to all in their favour. I kind of hope to see it in my life time. But it will happen. It happend so many times.
Manipulation / terror / frightening people does not work for ever. never did.
The real sad part. after such a system reset the cycle starts again humanity to stupid to learn.
On June 29 2014 20:16 tadL wrote: The only interesting question is: When will the majority say its enough and do what happened so many times in history. Chop heads off people that abuse a system that should bring wealth to all in their favour. I kind of hope to see it in my life time. But it will happen. It happend so many times.
Manipulation / terror / frightening people does not work for ever. never did.
The real sad part. after such a system reset the cycle starts again humanity to stupid to learn.
There are too many complacent and/or stupid people. Calling for others to chop heads off would also only get you into prison, unfortunately. There is also the problem that the benefactors of the current system control most of the media, so you can't even reach people without your message getting distorted or ridiculed.
In Germany our whole education system is designed so that at least 60% of all kids don't get a good education (i.e learning to think for themselves), This ensures we will always have a stupid workforce, who will do what they are told. From what I know, the education systems almost everywhere have ways to ensure a decent amount of stupid people.
I wish there were a way to start a global revolution, but I don't think there is.
On June 29 2014 20:16 tadL wrote: The only interesting question is: When will the majority say its enough and do what happened so many times in history. Chop heads off people that abuse a system that should bring wealth to all in their favour. I kind of hope to see it in my life time. But it will happen. It happend so many times.
Manipulation / terror / frightening people does not work for ever. never did.
The real sad part. after such a system reset the cycle starts again humanity to stupid to learn.
There are too many complacent and/or stupid people. Calling for others to chop heads off would also only get you into prison, unfortunately. There is also the problem that the benefactors of the current system control most of the media, so you can't even reach people without your message getting distorted or ridiculed.
In Germany our whole education system is designed so that at least 60% of all kids don't get a good education (i.e learning to think for themselves), This ensures we will always have a stupid workforce, who will do what they are told. From what I know, the education systems almost everywhere have ways to ensure a decent amount of stupid people.
I wish there were a way to start a global revolution, but I don't think there is.
What al load of elitist bullshit. I guess you are a highschool graduate who thinks hw knows everything now.
On June 29 2014 20:16 tadL wrote: The only interesting question is: When will the majority say its enough and do what happened so many times in history. Chop heads off people that abuse a system that should bring wealth to all in their favour. I kind of hope to see it in my life time. But it will happen. It happend so many times.
Manipulation / terror / frightening people does not work for ever. never did.
The real sad part. after such a system reset the cycle starts again humanity to stupid to learn.
There are too many complacent and/or stupid people. Calling for others to chop heads off would also only get you into prison, unfortunately. There is also the problem that the benefactors of the current system control most of the media, so you can't even reach people without your message getting distorted or ridiculed.
In Germany our whole education system is designed so that at least 60% of all kids don't get a good education (i.e learning to think for themselves), This ensures we will always have a stupid workforce, who will do what they are told. From what I know, the education systems almost everywhere have ways to ensure a decent amount of stupid people.
I wish there were a way to start a global revolution, but I don't think there is.
What al load of elitist bullshit. I guess you are a highschool graduate who thinks hw knows everything now.
My point is, even in highschool you are unlikely to learn anything about making political decisions. Individual thoughts are discouraged, while following orders is indoctrinated. For example, memorize these facts and write them down later, you will be graded for how much time you spent memorizing - that's school and it doesn't teach you anything about your decisions in life, except you should really obey that order unless you want a worse job than the next guy.
On June 29 2014 20:16 tadL wrote: The only interesting question is: When will the majority say its enough and do what happened so many times in history. Chop heads off people that abuse a system that should bring wealth to all in their favour. I kind of hope to see it in my life time. But it will happen. It happend so many times.
Manipulation / terror / frightening people does not work for ever. never did.
The real sad part. after such a system reset the cycle starts again humanity to stupid to learn.
There are too many complacent and/or stupid people. Calling for others to chop heads off would also only get you into prison, unfortunately. There is also the problem that the benefactors of the current system control most of the media, so you can't even reach people without your message getting distorted or ridiculed.
In Germany our whole education system is designed so that at least 60% of all kids don't get a good education (i.e learning to think for themselves), This ensures we will always have a stupid workforce, who will do what they are told. From what I know, the education systems almost everywhere have ways to ensure a decent amount of stupid people.
I wish there were a way to start a global revolution, but I don't think there is.
What al load of elitist bullshit. I guess you are a highschool graduate who thinks hw knows everything now.
My point is, even in highschool you are unlikely to learn anything about making political decisions. Individual thoughts are discouraged, while following orders is indoctrinated. For example, memorize these facts and write them down later, you will be graded for how much time you spent memorizing - that's school and it doesn't teach you anything about your decisions in life, except you should really obey that order unless you want a worse job than the next guy.
That wasnt the case in my school (combined real/gymnasium). I feel most German schools are full of idealistic, ultra tollerant academic women, who have nothing to do with the real world.
On June 29 2014 20:16 tadL wrote: The only interesting question is: When will the majority say its enough and do what happened so many times in history. Chop heads off people that abuse a system that should bring wealth to all in their favour. I kind of hope to see it in my life time. But it will happen. It happend so many times.
Manipulation / terror / frightening people does not work for ever. never did.
The real sad part. after such a system reset the cycle starts again humanity to stupid to learn.
There are too many complacent and/or stupid people. Calling for others to chop heads off would also only get you into prison, unfortunately. There is also the problem that the benefactors of the current system control most of the media, so you can't even reach people without your message getting distorted or ridiculed.
In Germany our whole education system is designed so that at least 60% of all kids don't get a good education (i.e learning to think for themselves), This ensures we will always have a stupid workforce, who will do what they are told. From what I know, the education systems almost everywhere have ways to ensure a decent amount of stupid people.
I wish there were a way to start a global revolution, but I don't think there is.
What al load of elitist bullshit. I guess you are a highschool graduate who thinks hw knows everything now.
My point is, even in highschool you are unlikely to learn anything about making political decisions. Individual thoughts are discouraged, while following orders is indoctrinated. For example, memorize these facts and write them down later, you will be graded for how much time you spent memorizing - that's school and it doesn't teach you anything about your decisions in life, except you should really obey that order unless you want a worse job than the next guy.
That wasnt the case in my school (combined real/gymnasium). I feel most German schools are full of idealistic, ultra tollerant academic women, who have nothing to do with the real world.
Well, if you have Abitur you belong to the 34% who get it in Germany. I never had a decent class before beginning the Abitur and even then it was memorizing facts for the most part.
If you went to school in Germany, you also know how children, who are mostly influenced by their family background or onset of puberty at the time, are sorted into 3 categories. In a Hauptschule a great part of the teachers has already given up, so even if you had a bad start and want to get somewhere, you get additional bricks thrown in your path. I've never heard from somebody who went to a Hauptschule and thought the lessons were great. The whole environment is designed to be bad.
Thats because the primary purpose of school is not to educate but to keep the youth occupied (imprisoned seems so harsh :p) so that the parents can work their bullshit jobs
I think the idea of bullshit jobs is ingrained in our system.
I can really only speak for myself here but most of the work in my old QA job was not required for making a better product but rather to make executives look better for their peers. So they can boast they use automated tests.
We're trained from a young age to do bullshit. Get good grades and memorize things because the teachers tell you to. If you disagree, you're immediately shunned. A speech by a Valedictorian condemning the American Education system. http://americaviaerica.blogspot.ca/p/speech.html
Capitalism isn't some tight net that catches all inefficiencies in a system. Often the companies that are big are just monopolies who can use their power to buy out and elbow out all competition with prior contracts. Capitalism just like any law really, even evolution tends to just local maxima. Do you think the human body is perfectly engineered? Why do animals have vestigial organs? Similarly our society is not efficient either just because we believe in competition and free labor.
The answer clearly isn’t economic: it’s moral and political. The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s). And, on the other hand, the feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.
Ok this part I take issue with. He says that the ruling class manipulates the working class to be working all the time. I say he's giving them too much credit like there's an illuminati or secret political meeting to create laws to make people work.
And the idea of people getting reward for their work is something that could date as far back as living in tribes. Unless you're injured or unable, you're expected to gather berries, hunt, or be a mystic. Hell even then we had bullshit "jobs" with shamans interpreting the spirits.
On June 29 2014 21:16 vuur wrote: Thats because the primary purpose of school is not to educate but to keep the youth occupied (imprisoned seems so harsh :p) so that the parents can work their bullshit jobs
Typical elitist cynisism world cospiricy blabla. Do you people actually think about the buzzwords you like to say?
On June 29 2014 03:44 Cynry wrote: Ok so I'm actually gonna ask. Someone has some links to alternatives detailed ? I'm interested... Edit : can be done by PM, as it's off topic
One possibility would be the downsizing of the current economic system and the establishment of a steady state economy. I'm pretty convinced that this is the model of the future. However, the economic systems will have to crash a couple more times until the world realizes it.
"The increase of wealth is not boundless. The end of growth leads to a stationary state. The stationary state of capital and wealth… would be a very considerable improvement on our present condition." - John Stuart Mill
I think when you're talking about "downsizing the current economic system" you don't actually grasp how big that system actually is. None of us do. Not even the top tier economics. It's too big to comprehend, just like imagining 7 billion people in one place, it just can't be pathomed. I agree stuff has to be reformed aswell but globalization and clogging up this already complex system with more and more rules and administration just makes this infinitely more complex to deal with.
I think we're in some kind of slippery slope where the entire system is going to crash down within maximally a generation or two (wether it be from some politcal, economical or environmental cue) and we will have to hard reset everything. Maybe this is an idealistic viewpoint but I certainly hope some kind of negative spiral gets so out of control that some parties will finally have to realize their certain bullshit just can't be happening any longer (data mining for marketing purposes for example)
I agree, there is absolutely no way to change the system other than a complete crash.
On June 29 2014 20:16 tadL wrote: The only interesting question is: When will the majority say its enough and do what happened so many times in history. Chop heads off people that abuse a system that should bring wealth to all in their favour. I kind of hope to see it in my life time. But it will happen. It happend so many times.
Manipulation / terror / frightening people does not work for ever. never did.
The real sad part. after such a system reset the cycle starts again humanity to stupid to learn.
There are too many complacent and/or stupid people. Calling for others to chop heads off would also only get you into prison, unfortunately. There is also the problem that the benefactors of the current system control most of the media, so you can't even reach people without your message getting distorted or ridiculed.
In Germany our whole education system is designed so that at least 60% of all kids don't get a good education (i.e learning to think for themselves), This ensures we will always have a stupid workforce, who will do what they are told. From what I know, the education systems almost everywhere have ways to ensure a decent amount of stupid people.
I wish there were a way to start a global revolution, but I don't think there is.
What al load of elitist bullshit. I guess you are a highschool graduate who thinks hw knows everything now.
My point is, even in highschool you are unlikely to learn anything about making political decisions. Individual thoughts are discouraged, while following orders is indoctrinated. For example, memorize these facts and write them down later, you will be graded for how much time you spent memorizing - that's school and it doesn't teach you anything about your decisions in life, except you should really obey that order unless you want a worse job than the next guy.
That wasnt the case in my school (combined real/gymnasium). I feel most German schools are full of idealistic, ultra tollerant academic women, who have nothing to do with the real world.
Education as an instrument of bureaucratic status-seeking is completely repugnant to the traditional German ideal of Bildung anyway. Let those who wish to pursue a career do so through the Realschule. The test of true dedication to self-cultivation can only be pure if there is no promise of remuneration at the end of the rainbow.
If you went to school in Germany, you also know how children, who are mostly influenced by their family background or onset of puberty at the time, are sorted into 3 categories. In a Hauptschule a great part of the teachers has already given up, so even if you had a bad start and want to get somewhere, you get additional bricks thrown in your path. I've never heard from somebody who went to a Hauptschule and thought the lessons were great. The whole environment is designed to be bad.
Berlin has abolished the Hauptschule in favour of the Gesamtschule, yet a Gesamtschule, which promises social mobility in theory, is a Hauptschule in all but name. In average performance, students at a Gesamtschule are marginally better than those at a Hauptschule, and inferior to those in a Realschule. The inflation of admissions into Gymnasien, of Abitur-graduates, and of people filtering into the Universities are having as great an effect on the degradation of education as any other factor. The level of knowledge of some of the students who study Lehramt today is often shockingly low. For most graduates, teaching is a career, not a vocation.
To me it's pretty obvious that an universal basic income system that takes care of your food, health, housing & utility bills plus a little extra is the next step in human evolution. Economists have already calculated that such a system is feasible as it can replace major segments of the entirely obsolete and highly corruptible (this cannot be overstated) public administration sector.
You can easily incorporate unconditional income into a relatively liberal capitalist model to provide for the prestige incentives desired by the upper classes, and preserve the general rapid development driven by the good sides of capitalist competition.
A very small minority of people will choose to do absolutely nothing productive, but you should understand these are people who already do nothing productive now, or are petty criminals, or self destructive addicts.
Most people will simply do whatever they truly enjoy - since no functioning adult appreciates being bored or "empty". These activities can range from making art to coding shareware to exploring science for the greater good to hanging out with little children or the elderly, care for animals, or keep doing whatever economic activity it is that they do so they can purchase extra perks like bionic limbs, hair transplants, trips to Mars and ferraris if they need to satisfy their ego ^_^
On the other hand, not only are poor people no longer forced to choose between starvation and radically underpaid jobs / crime (making the job market actually work the way it's supposed to in the minds of libertarians), the added benefit of people working only because they want to creates workers who are drastically better at whatever they do.
This way, everyone wins. I'm especially tired of getting a shit service because the guy doing it clearly hates his job.
Make corporations respect the same laws individuals, and we're on our way to utopia and space colonization
The basic question here is "does everyone need to work/have a job in modern society?"
In terms of producing what is needed to survive, the answer is no. If we limit the discussion to developed countries, automated machines can handle most of the productive jobs. From a macro perspective, most people don't need to work. But from an individual perspective, no job = no income, so unless you are super rich, you need to work to earn a living. If there aren't enough meaningful and productive jobs, then society needs to create some in order to get these people employed. This is what led to the creation of so many "bullshit jobs."
If you're thinking about eliminating bullshit jobs, then you need to solve the question of how everyone can afford to live if not everyone works. This begins with a discussion about whether everyone should have the right to a universal basic living allowance. That would provide the financial freedom for people to do what they like, and remove the need for pointless and meaningless jobs. If people wanted to make more than the basic allowance, then they could choose to work.
If you think about it, a large percent of the unemployable population is already effectively living off the state, if you include those on some form of welfare (sickness benefits etc) or in prison. It wouldn't be a huge jump to extend this to people who could work but don't particularly want to and are willing to accept a low standard of living. The problem is that regardless of the merits of the argument, you end up with a huge debate about tax, government handouts and freeloading.
To me it's pretty obvious that an universal basic income system that takes care of your food, health, housing & utility bills plus a little extra is the next step in human evolution. Economists have already calculated that such a system is feasible as it can replace major segments of the entirely obsolete and highly corruptible (this cannot be overstated) public administration sector.
You can easily incorporate unconditional income into a relatively liberal capitalist model to provide for the prestige incentives desired by the upper classes, and preserve the general rapid development driven by the good sides of capitalist competition.
A very small minority of people will choose to do absolutely nothing productive, but you should understand these are people who already do nothing productive now, or are petty criminals, or self destructive addicts.
Most people will simply do whatever they truly enjoy - since no functioning adult appreciates being bored or "empty". These activities can range from making art to coding shareware to exploring science for the greater good to hanging out with little children or the elderly, care for animals, or keep doing whatever economic activity it is that they do so they can purchase extra perks like bionic limbs, hair transplants, trips to Mars and ferraris if they need to satisfy their ego ^_^
On the other hand, not only are poor people no longer forced to choose between starvation and radically underpaid jobs / crime (making the job market actually work the way it's supposed to in the minds of libertarians), the added benefit of people working only because they want to creates workers who are drastically better at whatever they do.
This way, everyone wins. I'm especially tired of getting a shit service because the guy doing it clearly hates his job.
Make corporations respect the same laws individuals, and we're on our way to utopia and space colonization
And then when you're on the verge of your viewpoints being carried out, they get lobbied to death by the evil corporations. And yes, I am using this old cliche of them being evil, but this fact is one of the clearest things there is at the moment. The monopolies holding all the cash have the recourses to push their agenda and their agendas only. Anything outside of the box or which smells a little too much like reform will just get pushed into the ground where it belongs (according to them) because it would put a halt to their expansionist behaviour. One of the biggest paradoxal things I just don't seem to grasp about economy (but that's just because I'm not an economist I guess) is the thought that things absolutely have to keep growing. Which raises a few questions for me, with some of them being: -Where do all the resources come from? -Where does all the money come from? -How big is big enough? -Where does all the money go to? -Why do they keep enlarging the gap between the wealthy and the lesser- to none-wealthy? Don't/shouldn't they already know it's unethical and immoral?
Ofcourse I do know all these huge ass companies have a big team of analists "able" to predict and calculate most of the immediate and less immediate future goals of said companies, but sometimes I think it's all just blown smoke. Like, for instance, with the bank crises started in 2009 (or was it a bit before that?) with all these rating bureaus shrooming out of the ground stamping their labels on certain countries of how financially stable they were. Well, I'm positive that some of these bureaus just rated for the sake of manipulating certain aspects of the economy at that time.
On June 29 2014 07:41 MoonfireSpam wrote: We have an "on call manager" at our A&E department. When the department is busy, he stands in the way of everyone and occasionally slows people down by asking "what are you doing or what do you need help with?" when it feels like physically getting in the way is not enough.
Of course he can't actually do anything you need help with, because he doesn't know anything about delivering healthcare or how to do other peoples jobs. If they hired an extra person to actually help with work during those periods it'd be better.
I think they spend they day trying to explain why some days in A&E are busier than others and then fail to implement any plans to deal with it.
That's one of those "bullshit jobs" - which I like to define as "if this guy died in the middle of the day, workflow would actually remain unchanged".
I think "hint: if someone is willing to pay for it then it apparently isn't a bullshit job in the current system, you just don't like it" doesn't always justify a job since I think a lot of these jobs have sprung up from managers trying to make things better, because if they don't make any change then they can't justify their own jobs.
It sounds like you're confusing 'bullshit employee' with 'bullshit job.' It's a common, and pretty critical mistake.
Reduction of work hours would enable people to spend more time to educate their sibblings, spend more time to remain active both physically and cognitively and take the time to cook proper meals. Time to invest in their community as well. Well being is not going to be the result of a new pill.
What sort of society do you wish for yourself and your contempories? Some sort of ladder where you prey upon those below you or some sort of pool in which everyone contributes to the well being of his peers? Its obviously hard (very hard) to connect or empathize with someone you never met or even heard of, certainly is for me at least.
Its even harder given the contradiction that abounds all around us, encouraging us to compete with one another, rewarding success with no concern for those who participated in the trial and error process. All this potential for innovation left unexploited, since we'd rather have people starving (or eating) to death in order to elevate us, rather than giving them the opportunity to think, design and create.
Given current level of science and technology, innovation is seldom the accomplishment of a single person.
I think everyone is familiar with corporate bloat. A major corporation has hundreds or thousands of marketing and business MBAs, there is no way all those people are actually providing a needed service. But, meh, collusion and fluff will always exist.
That the production industry has become exported to the third-world, and that the service industry is more automated, does mean less useful work for the population. I agree it's a problem. But we already know the solution to this problem: social safety nets. We just need to get over the "every man is an island" libertarian ideologies, and redistribute the wealth.
There is an inherent and very necessary desire for people to feel useful and to provide something -- this has existed since the dawn of man, not the dawn of capitalism. This desire for utility doesn't have to be tied to a paycheck (parenting being an obvious example of unpaid work). I also like the point the poster above me makes: let people use this time and energy to exercise their creativity, and society will benefit in more ways than one can imagine. But right now, we put too much pressure on putting people into careers in which they probably have no personal leverage or desire to achieve anything.
On June 30 2014 04:49 HeatEXTEND wrote: There are people that don't get pleasure just from having something, they get pleasure from someone else not having it.
This is obviously a problem -_-
No, people in reality simply get pleasure from having more than someone else. That's why even though poor people in the west can have cable, cars, cellphones, enough food to get fat on, etc. they are still unhappy because they don't have as much as other people. If you gave some peasant farmer in Russian from the 1700's cable, a car, a cellphone, and the food we have today, he would be the envy of every person he knows.
On June 30 2014 04:49 HeatEXTEND wrote: There are people that don't get pleasure just from having something, they get pleasure from someone else not having it.
This is obviously a problem -_-
Your worth is your value to society (aka all the goods and services that you can provide). If you have something and someone else does not, your value is higher because of rarity. If someone else has it and you don't, "someone else"'s value is higher for the same reason. This is perfectly explainable in terms of basic economics.
Excellent reflection. It's a topic I've been thinking about many times. The system is rotten but we can't seem to think about a better one (maybe it doesn't even exist).
On June 30 2014 04:49 HeatEXTEND wrote: There are people that don't get pleasure just from having something, they get pleasure from someone else not having it.
This is obviously a problem -_-
Your worth is your value to society (aka all the goods and services that you can provide). If you have something and someone else does not, your value is higher because of rarity. If someone else has it and you don't, "someone else"'s value is higher for the same reason. This is perfectly explainable in terms of basic economics.
Basic economics is the great quantifier. How much is a man worth?
On June 30 2014 06:39 Release wrote: Your worth is your value to society (aka all the goods and services that you can provide). If you have something and someone else does not, your value is higher because of rarity. If someone else has it and you don't, "someone else"'s value is higher for the same reason. This is perfectly explainable in terms of basic economics.
Must be great living with the acute awareness that your own "value to society" is infinitesimally smaller than that Khloe Kardashian.
On June 30 2014 00:03 Kickboxer wrote: To me it's pretty obvious that an universal basic income system that takes care of your food, health, housing & utility bills plus a little extra is the next step in human evolution. Economists have already calculated that such a system is feasible as it can replace major segments of the entirely obsolete and highly corruptible (this cannot be overstated) public administration sector.
You can easily incorporate unconditional income into a relatively liberal capitalist model to provide for the prestige incentives desired by the upper classes, and preserve the general rapid development driven by the good sides of capitalist competition.
A very small minority of people will choose to do absolutely nothing productive, but you should understand these are people who already do nothing productive now, or are petty criminals, or self destructive addicts.
Most people will simply do whatever they truly enjoy - since no functioning adult appreciates being bored or "empty". These activities can range from making art to coding shareware to exploring science for the greater good to hanging out with little children or the elderly, care for animals, or keep doing whatever economic activity it is that they do so they can purchase extra perks like bionic limbs, hair transplants, trips to Mars and ferraris if they need to satisfy their ego ^_^
On the other hand, not only are poor people no longer forced to choose between starvation and radically underpaid jobs / crime (making the job market actually work the way it's supposed to in the minds of libertarians), the added benefit of people working only because they want to creates workers who are drastically better at whatever they do.
This way, everyone wins. I'm especially tired of getting a shit service because the guy doing it clearly hates his job.
Make corporations respect the same laws individuals, and we're on our way to utopia and space colonization
A universal basic income system sounds great on paper. If you would somehow manage to force the whole world to implement such a system, there will be the following problem: The work necessary to cover the basic needs for everyone has to be done somehow.
Some examples of these jobs would be: Garbage Collector Doctor Construction worker Janitor Sewage plant operator Oil rig worker Driver/Pilot Plumber/Mechanic Teacher Farmer Butcher Police officer Lumberjack
There are several scenarios that ensure that this work gets done:
All the work required for the basic needs is fully automatized. Obviously, we are not quite there yet.
The people that actually do these jobs have the highest status in the society. They get several amenities like a big home, expensive car etc... This is already happening to some degree as fewer and fewer people become plumbers, the existing plumbers get paid a lot since the demand for plumbers is high.
Everyone needs to get their hands dirty in the form of working 1 week per year. You are required to slaughter pigs for one week per year, in turn you get all the basic needs covered. This is obviously quite inefficient since people have to be trained every time again, but hey, it's just about as inefficient as everyone working full-time bullshit jobs.
On June 30 2014 00:03 Kickboxer wrote: To me it's pretty obvious that an universal basic income system that takes care of your food, health, housing & utility bills plus a little extra is the next step in human evolution. Economists have already calculated that such a system is feasible as it can replace major segments of the entirely obsolete and highly corruptible (this cannot be overstated) public administration sector.
You can easily incorporate unconditional income into a relatively liberal capitalist model to provide for the prestige incentives desired by the upper classes, and preserve the general rapid development driven by the good sides of capitalist competition.
A very small minority of people will choose to do absolutely nothing productive, but you should understand these are people who already do nothing productive now, or are petty criminals, or self destructive addicts.
Most people will simply do whatever they truly enjoy - since no functioning adult appreciates being bored or "empty". These activities can range from making art to coding shareware to exploring science for the greater good to hanging out with little children or the elderly, care for animals, or keep doing whatever economic activity it is that they do so they can purchase extra perks like bionic limbs, hair transplants, trips to Mars and ferraris if they need to satisfy their ego ^_^
On the other hand, not only are poor people no longer forced to choose between starvation and radically underpaid jobs / crime (making the job market actually work the way it's supposed to in the minds of libertarians), the added benefit of people working only because they want to creates workers who are drastically better at whatever they do.
This way, everyone wins. I'm especially tired of getting a shit service because the guy doing it clearly hates his job.
Make corporations respect the same laws individuals, and we're on our way to utopia and space colonization
A universal basic income system sounds great on paper. If you would somehow manage to force the whole world to implement such a system, there will be the following problem: The work necessary to cover the basic needs for everyone has to be done somehow.
Some examples of these jobs would be: Garbage Collector Doctor Construction worker Janitor Sewage plant operator Oil rig worker Driver/Pilot Plumber/Mechanic Teacher Farmer Butcher Police officer Lumberjack
There are several scenarios that ensure that this work gets done:
All the work required for the basic needs is fully automatized. Obviously, we are not quite there yet.
The people that actually do these jobs have the highest status in the society. They get several amenities like a big home, expensive car etc... This is already happening to some degree as fewer and fewer people become plumbers, the existing plumbers get paid a lot since the demand for plumbers is high.
Everyone needs to get their hands dirty in the form of working 1 week per year. You are required to slaughter pigs for one week per year, in turn you get all the basic needs covered. This is obviously quite inefficient since people have to be trained every time again, but hey, it's just about as inefficient as everyone working full-time bullshit jobs.
But you're forgetting that for some, if not all of these jobs, people don't always exercise them for the money. Sure, maybe the majority does it for the pay, or because they have to, but there's still a vast amount of people doing the things they do because they're passionate about them. Think about people having a natural talent for mechanics and teaching. People who WANT to keep the order, people who WANT public health to stay where it is. Hell, I would even see myself doing janitorial work, simply because it's so peaceful. I do agree there are some really shitty jobs that most of the people wouldn't want to do and there would have to be some kind of ruling where everyone does like a community service kind of thing OR it would have to be largely automated like you suggested. Then ofcourse comes the problem of major infrastructural changes which can't be done overnight. I also think that alot of these ideas are feasible, but the planning and execution would be such a headache to deal with that it becomes nearly impossible to start a change this huge (at least without global unification).
On June 30 2014 06:39 Release wrote: Your worth is your value to society (aka all the goods and services that you can provide). If you have something and someone else does not, your value is higher because of rarity. If someone else has it and you don't, "someone else"'s value is higher for the same reason. This is perfectly explainable in terms of basic economics.
Must be great living with the acute awareness that your own "value to society" is infinitesimally smaller than that Khloe Kardashian.
In urboss's world Khloe Kardashian is an entertainer. That has infinitely more tangible value than most of the "bullshit jobs" that he beleives most people do.
I'm not sure I even understand the problem. In 1930 people had way less stuff. Be it variety of food available from all over the world, clothes, electronics, cars, telecommunication, power supply, whatever it is you name it. I'm fairly confident that one could easily live like a poor person lived in 1930 with working 15 hours a week if that was the goal and if enough people would choose to do so (so they can profit from mass automatization). Maybe close to that, as building machines, programming them and controlling them isn't for free either.
So while there are a lot of jobs that feel like bullshit if you had to do it all day every day, most of them are probably a luxury thing that enough people want to get, and focusing only on doing this luxury thing increases its efficiency, thus making it cheaper for all those who use it. And the bureaucracy comes with scaling of population. Maybe there is a lot of redundancy here, maybe somewhere there is too little bureaucracy, but for our current system we kinda need it to organize all the people and all the things to help make mass production and automatization and stuff like that work in the first place. There are people that are not directly generating any value, but they are needed for machines/other people to function or to be much more efficient in generating value. That doesn't make their job a bullshit job. I'm not saying there are no outdated/unneeded jobs, but those should be way in the minority and not blow up the way it is presented in the article.
And while we are at it, here are some more bullshit jobs (yes i went to extremes to reiterate my point): 1. Teacher - people don't need to have general knowledge of stuff that isn't directly tied to their 15-hour-per-week-job, so cut that luxury of education 2. Police officer - what a useless job, in essence it does nothing but cost us money. Anyone should follow the system anyway. 3. Doctor - people are most productive in their early years, so not dying early from diseases and stuff cuts into the efficiency. How dare we have the luxury of modern medecine and thus a potentially prolonged life.
You also don't need vacations or travel the world or have a car really. Enjoy your free time where you have just the bare minimum of what we call civilization. You most likely couldn't even read a book.
On June 30 2014 00:03 Kickboxer wrote: To me it's pretty obvious that an universal basic income system that takes care of your food, health, housing & utility bills plus a little extra is the next step in human evolution. Economists have already calculated that such a system is feasible as it can replace major segments of the entirely obsolete and highly corruptible (this cannot be overstated) public administration sector.
You can easily incorporate unconditional income into a relatively liberal capitalist model to provide for the prestige incentives desired by the upper classes, and preserve the general rapid development driven by the good sides of capitalist competition.
A very small minority of people will choose to do absolutely nothing productive, but you should understand these are people who already do nothing productive now, or are petty criminals, or self destructive addicts.
Most people will simply do whatever they truly enjoy - since no functioning adult appreciates being bored or "empty". These activities can range from making art to coding shareware to exploring science for the greater good to hanging out with little children or the elderly, care for animals, or keep doing whatever economic activity it is that they do so they can purchase extra perks like bionic limbs, hair transplants, trips to Mars and ferraris if they need to satisfy their ego ^_^
On the other hand, not only are poor people no longer forced to choose between starvation and radically underpaid jobs / crime (making the job market actually work the way it's supposed to in the minds of libertarians), the added benefit of people working only because they want to creates workers who are drastically better at whatever they do.
This way, everyone wins. I'm especially tired of getting a shit service because the guy doing it clearly hates his job.
Make corporations respect the same laws individuals, and we're on our way to utopia and space colonization
A universal basic income system sounds great on paper. If you would somehow manage to force the whole world to implement such a system, there will be the following problem: The work necessary to cover the basic needs for everyone has to be done somehow.
Some examples of these jobs would be: Garbage Collector Doctor Construction worker Janitor Sewage plant operator Oil rig worker Driver/Pilot Plumber/Mechanic Teacher Farmer Butcher Police officer Lumberjack
There are several scenarios that ensure that this work gets done:
All the work required for the basic needs is fully automatized. Obviously, we are not quite there yet.
The people that actually do these jobs have the highest status in the society. They get several amenities like a big home, expensive car etc... This is already happening to some degree as fewer and fewer people become plumbers, the existing plumbers get paid a lot since the demand for plumbers is high.
Everyone needs to get their hands dirty in the form of working 1 week per year. You are required to slaughter pigs for one week per year, in turn you get all the basic needs covered. This is obviously quite inefficient since people have to be trained every time again, but hey, it's just about as inefficient as everyone working full-time bullshit jobs.
I think universal basic income doesn't mean same income for everyone, or at least it shouldn't. It's one end of the spectrum, the other end being what we see now with the huge difference between poorest and richest. Everything in the middle is possible.
Here's what I would do given the chance. Basic income would exist, but only as a basis for further calculations, I'll call it X. Let's say 15 hours of standard (no variable applied to X) work would give you enough to fullfil your basic needs. This amount of work is required from every able person. After that it's all bonus to improve your lifestyle. Then we apply different variables (called Y) on this. A job is a bit dangerous (firefighter, oil rig worker, etc), then Y = 1.1. Another job is unpleasant (trash collectors...), same idea. This can apply, and stack, with many different elements, like environment (cold weather for exemple), repetitivity, whatever. The longer a job goes without being worked on by someone, the higher the Y. So, for an hour of work, one get paid X x Y.
This would mean that someone doing an unpleasant and dangerous job would meet his minimum in 10 hours of work per week instead of 15. This would also mean that someone that wants a high standard lifestyle could work 40 hours a week with a high Y, and get paid a lot. It also means that the difference between the lower and higher income would be entirely based on how much of himself a worker is willing to give.
This is just an amazing topic. It completely disregards some basic effects of competition in capitalism, doesn't provide any actual means for instituting change, and essentially passes off a moral view as objective fact. The author of the essay comes off as a whiner more than anything. Yes, a lot of jobs feel pointless. Yes, technology allows us to do more work with less effort. That does not mean that those jobs actually ARE pointless, though, or that technology should allow you to slack off instead of becoming even more productive than you were before.
we as the western society and as individuals are incredibly wasteful with goods (food for example) and often ineffective when it comes to administration. bureaucracy in big institutions and companies tend to grow without reason.
People can be so close minded. I will answer the OP's question in two words: "Office Politics".
Let's face it, most jobs nowadays can be easily done in less than 40 hours. You work 40 hours, maybe more, because you want to make it appear that you are working more than other people. Take a look back and see how much time you are actually spending working rather than documenting how much you are working and statusing somebody on what you are working on. There are people who are so good at looking busy at work that they have even fooled themselves into thinking they are really busy.
It doesn't matter if you are more productive than your coworkers. It doesn't matter that you are more efficient or that the work you do is more valuable. If you want to get paid, if you want to advance, you will put in the time. You have to compete with the people who are very good at looking busy. Those people will call countless meetings and will status so many managers about little things that are too trivial to bring to upper management. Then watch them get promoted because they are visible. Many of the so-called "bullshit jobs" mentioned actually have value to society. But those bullshit jobs have a lot of bullshit hours built into the jobs.
This is not a first-world, western society thing. It's even worse in East Asia and Southeast Asia. I will give you the example of Japan. In a standard white-collar workplace in Japan, employees who don't do overtime are viewed as lazy. What do people do during overtime? The boss doesn't want to leave until all his employees leave because he wants to appear the hardest working. No employee wants to leave until the boss leaves because it will leave a bad impression. So they sit on their desks reading the newspaper, doodling on scratch paper, tapping their pens and generally just loafing around after work all the way to midnight and beyond.
A bit off topic. Don't see why you include priests and shamans in the worthless category. They are psychologists that work mostly through group therapy. Priest education in Sweden includes a lot of psychology, there isn't as much stigma attached to talking to a group figure compared to a professional. If you talk to a psychiatrist there is a problem, if you talk to your group figure you might just be talking about going out to golf.
Edit, as for the topic. I think we will have an economic crash similar to the great depression within the next 50 years due to what is being discussed in this thread. People running out of bullshit jobs. The service will simply be high enough that the next step downwards in the pyramid doesn't add enough value compared to cost.
I think of the workforce as a pyramid. The top is what is needed, food, water etc. The next step is the things that makes that easier, the next makes that easier and onwards. Each step requires less % of the population for each year that passes. Once we run out of things to plug in at the bottom we face large unemployment.
On June 30 2014 22:26 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: This is just an amazing topic. It completely disregards some basic effects of competition in capitalism, doesn't provide any actual means for instituting change, and essentially passes off a moral view as objective fact. The author of the essay comes off as a whiner more than anything. Yes, a lot of jobs feel pointless. Yes, technology allows us to do more work with less effort. That does not mean that those jobs actually ARE pointless, though, or that technology should allow you to slack off instead of becoming even more productive than you were before.
Could you elaborate on some basic effects of competition in capitalism?
Why should you want to become even more productive than you were before? To what end?
I didn't read any replies or everything in the spoilers so it's likely to have had some sort of answer/address already, but: Isn't the whole point of everyone having jobs so that everyone can actually earn money and remain at a reasonable level of living?
Unless people could somehow own/rent someone elses's robots/computers (which is problematic for various reasons), or be in some sort of communist utopia, I don't see how people could maintain their level of living without having a job.
On June 30 2014 22:26 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: This is just an amazing topic. It completely disregards some basic effects of competition in capitalism, doesn't provide any actual means for instituting change, and essentially passes off a moral view as objective fact. The author of the essay comes off as a whiner more than anything. Yes, a lot of jobs feel pointless. Yes, technology allows us to do more work with less effort. That does not mean that those jobs actually ARE pointless, though, or that technology should allow you to slack off instead of becoming even more productive than you were before.
Could you elaborate on some basic effects of competition in capitalism?
Why should you want to become even more productive than you were before? To what end?
The reality of life involves having to thrive in order to survive. It's an unfortunate reason why individual regions/countries wouldn't necessarily work out too well if they abandoned any sort of attempt at growing economically. An analogy would be similar to that of human reproduction. While one can live a great life without having kids —and frequently the most successful people have little to no offspring— it results in in an overall plateau or reduction in that person's population while others continue to grow and eventually push out their peers.
On July 01 2014 10:15 Xapti wrote: I didn't read any replies or everything in the spoilers so it's likely to have had some sort of answer/address already, but: Isn't the whole point of everyone having jobs so that everyone can actually earn money and remain at a reasonable level of living?
Unless people could somehow own/rent someone elses's robots/computers (which is problematic for various reasons), or be in some sort of communist utopia, I don't see how people could maintain their level of living without having a job.
On June 30 2014 22:26 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: This is just an amazing topic. It completely disregards some basic effects of competition in capitalism, doesn't provide any actual means for instituting change, and essentially passes off a moral view as objective fact. The author of the essay comes off as a whiner more than anything. Yes, a lot of jobs feel pointless. Yes, technology allows us to do more work with less effort. That does not mean that those jobs actually ARE pointless, though, or that technology should allow you to slack off instead of becoming even more productive than you were before.
Could you elaborate on some basic effects of competition in capitalism?
Why should you want to become even more productive than you were before? To what end?
The reality of life involves having to thrive in order to survive. It's an unfortunate reason why individual regions/countries wouldn't necessarily work out too well if they abandoned any sort of attempt at growing economically. An analogy would be similar to that of human reproduction. While one can live a great life without having kids —and frequently the most successful people have little to no offspring— it results in in an overall plateau or reduction in that person's population while others continue to grow and eventually push out their peers.
So you find it impossible to live without "growing?" You don't think a sustainable replacement rate of human reproduction is a possibility? It seems that the reality of life involves reproducing oneself, yes, but I don't see how it necessarily involves an endless pursuit of "growing" the economy.
Anyone who has worked in retail knows about bullshit jobs. You have tons of jobs that are labeled as "supervisor" or "assistant manager" But they don't actually perform any management functions. The world loves titles and compartmentalization. You have millions of people who work part-time jobs that serve no function. The "Greeter" at retail stores doesn't do anything. Most "sales associates" spend close to half their shift just standing around talking because you can't restock full shelves and help customers who aren't there. Lots of these jobs aren't "bullshit" by definition but they end up consisting of so many meaningless tasks that are just used to fill up hours on payroll.
On July 01 2014 10:15 Xapti wrote: I didn't read any replies or everything in the spoilers so it's likely to have had some sort of answer/address already, but: Isn't the whole point of everyone having jobs so that everyone can actually earn money and remain at a reasonable level of living?
Unless people could somehow own/rent someone elses's robots/computers (which is problematic for various reasons), or be in some sort of communist utopia, I don't see how people could maintain their level of living without having a job.
On July 01 2014 09:43 IgnE wrote:
On June 30 2014 22:26 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: This is just an amazing topic. It completely disregards some basic effects of competition in capitalism, doesn't provide any actual means for instituting change, and essentially passes off a moral view as objective fact. The author of the essay comes off as a whiner more than anything. Yes, a lot of jobs feel pointless. Yes, technology allows us to do more work with less effort. That does not mean that those jobs actually ARE pointless, though, or that technology should allow you to slack off instead of becoming even more productive than you were before.
Could you elaborate on some basic effects of competition in capitalism?
Why should you want to become even more productive than you were before? To what end?
The reality of life involves having to thrive in order to survive. It's an unfortunate reason why individual regions/countries wouldn't necessarily work out too well if they abandoned any sort of attempt at growing economically. An analogy would be similar to that of human reproduction. While one can live a great life without having kids —and frequently the most successful people have little to no offspring— it results in in an overall plateau or reduction in that person's population while others continue to grow and eventually push out their peers.
So you find it impossible to live without "growing?" You don't think a sustainable replacement rate of human reproduction is a possibility? It seems that the reality of life involves reproducing oneself, yes, but I don't see how it necessarily involves an endless pursuit of "growing" the economy.
"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."
Here is an excerpt from The Economist that refutes Mr. David:
ANTHROPOLOGIST David Graeber has written an amusing essay on the nature of work in a modern economy, which seems to involve lots of people doing meaningless tasks they hate:
In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshalled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.
It is not the case, he writes, that people have to keep working to produce the consumer goods for which the rich world hungers. Outrageously, meaningless employment—in what he calls "bullshit jobs"—is concentrated in “professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers”
In other words, productive jobs have, just as predicted, been largely automated away (even if you count industrial workers globally, including the toiling masses in India and China, such workers are still not nearly so large a percentage of the world population as they used to be).But rather than allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world’s population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the “service” sector as of the administrative sector...
Why in the world would firms spend extraordinary amounts of money employing people to do worthless tasks (especially when they've shown themselves to be exceedingly good at not employing people to do worthless tasks)? Says Mr Graeber:
The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s).
I am immediately bursting with questions. Such as, should we conclude that protesters around the world—in Brazil, India, North Africa, Turkey—are in fact too happy? How does the ruling class co-ordinate all this hiring, and if much of the economy's employment is useless in the first place why not just keep them on during recessions?
BS jobs, like the ones in Oregon where someone (employed) has to fill a gas tank for you because they are being paid to do so? I never found it at all necessary to have someone else fill my gas tank, as I just sit around waiting regardless...
But jobs usually exist because they make someone else more money. Artificial ones can be bullshit, like the gas guy job. (By artificial, I mean jobs created by the state government or whatever to keep people employed.) But, even artificial ones can be totally beneficial. It just requires people to pay higher taxes (OH NO). I'd say there were many jobs formed during the New Deal that were in fact good contributions to society.
I think the problem with the OP is that it makes it seem like some mysterious force is allowing these BS jobs to be made, when it is in fact just other people and businesses. There is a demand for a role, and there are people to fill that role.
I'm a bit biased, as my father worked for GSA as a COBOL programmer, giving me a very comfortable childhood and one where I got to actually see and know the ol' man. Big difference from the blue collar jobs I worked where getting time off was like pulling teeth, if you were lucky enough to have a job to come back to- and that was time off that was earned.
GSA government jobs are like the anti-Christ for the political right, and are probably few and far between these days, but as jobs they were awesomesauce. A lot of goofing around, playing cards at the office etc, but not everyone knew how to program in COBOL back then when it came time to do actual work. Socially, it gave me, and certainly a large number of other families, a good life. I owe my childhood to it.
Mostly agree with points in the OP, but things will not change short of a mass overhaul of public opinion. Ironically, it is right wing policies that could make this happen- at least more likely than a left wing socialist utopia. Sort of why I think of politics as more circular rather than linear. "Imperialism, the Eve of the Socialist Revolution of the Proletariat" and all that. As I've stated before, no matter how useless you, I, or anyone else deems a job to be, it still serves a purpose. Even if sometimes only political. Certainly the status quo or current political power in office doesn't want to deal with staggering unemployment numbers, not even the Tea Party.
On July 01 2014 12:15 screamingpalm wrote: I'm a bit biased, as my father worked for GSA as a COBOL programmer, giving me a very comfortable childhood and one where I got to actually see and know the ol' man. Big difference from the blue collar jobs I worked where getting time off was like pulling teeth, if you were lucky enough to have a job to come back to- and that was time off that was earned.
GSA government jobs are like the anti-Christ for the political right, and are probably few and far between these days, but as jobs they were awesomesauce. A lot of goofing around, playing cards at the office etc, but not everyone knew how to program in COBOL back then when it came time to do actual work. Socially, it gave me, and certainly a large number of other families, a good life. I owe my childhood to it.
Mostly agree with points in the OP, but things will not change short of a mass overhaul of public opinion. Ironically, it is right wing policies that could make this happen- at least more likely than a left wing socialist utopia. Sort of why I think of politics as more circular rather than linear. "Imperialism, the Eve of the Socialist Revolution of the Proletariat" and all that. As I've stated before, no matter how useless you, I, or anyone else deems a job to be, it still serves a purpose. Even if sometimes only political. Certainly the status quo or current political power in office doesn't want to deal with staggering unemployment numbers, not even the Tea Party.
Well, in the US, I think things always end up needing to get much worse before ever improving (Great Depression -> New Deal, etc). With more and more cutbacks to decent jobs (or bullshit jobs) the worse shit is going to get overall. As unemployment goes through the roof (assuming the right wing continues slashing "useless" jobs) I feel like that is where you start to get popular opinion and grassroots counter-efforts. Being sensible and realizing the bubble isn't sustainable and going with some form of evil socialism isn't going to happen lol.
On July 01 2014 10:50 LongShot27 wrote: Anyone who has worked in retail knows about bullshit jobs. You have tons of jobs that are labeled as "supervisor" or "assistant manager" But they don't actually perform any management functions. The world loves titles and compartmentalization. You have millions of people who work part-time jobs that serve no function. The "Greeter" at retail stores doesn't do anything. Most "sales associates" spend close to half their shift just standing around talking because you can't restock full shelves and help customers who aren't there. Lots of these jobs aren't "bullshit" by definition but they end up consisting of so many meaningless tasks that are just used to fill up hours on payroll.
i think a lot of things you touched upon here are not necessarily meaningless. take your greeter position, for example, you might look at it and say wow a greeter, i dont give a fuck about that. but the thing is, there are people who will look at that and say wow i feel welcome here at this store, and that provides value for the company since the customer will have a better image of the store itself, and more likely to come back. im sure there are even studies that back this up.
sale associates are almost the same way. you could say oh this company has all these sales associates but the store is dead why do they have all these people working and wasting payroll hours. again, its probably more image than anything else, management dont want people to come in and think there's no help or see an empty store with no employees. management will always rather overstaff than understaff.
in a way, its sad that corporate image is so important, probably even more important than what service/good you actually do provide.
While one can live a great life without having kids —and frequently the most successful people have little to no offspring— it results in in an overall plateau or reduction in that person's population while others continue to grow and eventually push out their peers.
I suspect having even 40% of the world population on 15 hour work weeks would be more catastrophic than any amount of psychological damage the current system is inflicting. Your average person isn't motivated enough to really produce anything amazing (not that they can't, or don't have the talent), just look at how we spend a freetime now. I could be building something, or painting, or finishing that Python project I started 3 months back, but instead I'm discussing jobs that shouldn't exist with people I haven't met.
Case and point, retired people. Especially the ones that sit around watching tv all day. They have literally all the free time, and they often spend it unproductively. They stop moving, and die. I've yet to see someone live long after retirement if they couldn't motivate themselves to actually do something at least vaguely useful.
On July 01 2014 12:53 Artisian wrote: I suspect having even 40% of the world population on 15 hour work weeks would be more catastrophic than any amount of psychological damage the current system is inflicting. Your average person isn't motivated enough to really produce anything amazing (not that they can't, or don't have the talent), just look at how we spend a freetime now. I could be building something, or painting, or finishing that Python project I started 3 months back, but instead I'm discussing jobs that shouldn't exist with people I haven't met.
Case and point, retired people. Especially the ones that sit around watching tv all day. They have literally all the free time, and they often spend it unproductively. They stop moving, and die. I've yet to see someone live long after retirement if they couldn't motivate themselves to actually do something at least vaguely useful.
Your average person has been born and raised to be a cog in the system. Take him out of the system and he might surprise you.
On July 01 2014 12:53 Artisian wrote: I suspect having even 40% of the world population on 15 hour work weeks would be more catastrophic than any amount of psychological damage the current system is inflicting. Your average person isn't motivated enough to really produce anything amazing (not that they can't, or don't have the talent), just look at how we spend a freetime now. I could be building something, or painting, or finishing that Python project I started 3 months back, but instead I'm discussing jobs that shouldn't exist with people I haven't met.
Case and point, retired people. Especially the ones that sit around watching tv all day. They have literally all the free time, and they often spend it unproductively. They stop moving, and die. I've yet to see someone live long after retirement if they couldn't motivate themselves to actually do something at least vaguely useful.
Reminds me of when I was in the Navy, and seemed every time a Senior Chief retired, we'd hear a short time later that he died.
I think we're already are heading towards shorter work weeks, but maybe not for palatable reasons. If the number of hours for employees ends up = 15 to make the most profit, it will happen alright.
On July 01 2014 11:21 Blargh wrote: BS jobs, like the ones in Oregon where someone (employed) has to fill a gas tank for you because they are being paid to do so? I never found it at all necessary to have someone else fill my gas tank, as I just sit around waiting regardless...
But jobs usually exist because they make someone else more money. Artificial ones can be bullshit, like the gas guy job. (By artificial, I mean jobs created by the state government or whatever to keep people employed.) But, even artificial ones can be totally beneficial. It just requires people to pay higher taxes (OH NO). I'd say there were many jobs formed during the New Deal that were in fact good contributions to society.
I think the problem with the OP is that it makes it seem like some mysterious force is allowing these BS jobs to be made, when it is in fact just other people and businesses. There is a demand for a role, and there are people to fill that role.
A little bit off-topic but in Thailand every gas station must have a gas-guy to fill in a tank for you since we are not the most honest people and could just "fill and dash" or not paying a full price. So gas-guy is one of the security system that we required to make sure drivers pay up for their gas. So you can say in Thailand, gas-guy is not a bs job since it serves a strong purpose.
For me, there are not bs jobs since every job serves a purpose. However, the purpose of a job might be less meaningful than others or provide less benefits to society. It depends on what society needs at the current situation.
On July 01 2014 10:27 IgnE wrote: So you find it impossible to live without "growing?" You don't think a sustainable replacement rate of human reproduction is a possibility? It seems that the reality of life involves reproducing oneself, yes, but I don't see how it necessarily involves an endless pursuit of "growing" the economy.
No, I believe you misunderstand me. I certainly think that a population could maintain it's level of population with no issue (and in fact a benefit), but the problem is that generally/naturally people want their offspring and ideas to prevail over others', so especially when not everyone is in agreement that the population should not be growing, individuals will continually produce more offspring in order to proliferate their lifestyle/offspring. The people who either reproduce enough to be steady, or who don't reproduce at all, end up getting lost. The people who attempt/believe for a plateaued population end up being drowned out by those who don't.
I was going to mention Idocracy's intro, but felt it wasn't necessarily the best representation of the concept I was mentioning. Regardless, GreenHorizons posted it, and it is a simple explanation that conveys the message.
To me, the scenario is similar —but not necessarily quite the same— with regards to businesses'/cities'/countries' economies. When you have "responsible", sustainable, no-growth businesses or commercial foreign policy, chances are (or perhaps it's guaranteed) that they will eventually putter out and get swallowed —at least unless there was a sweeping comprehensive change that occurs across most/all organizations/groups around the same time.
On July 01 2014 12:15 screamingpalm wrote: I'm a bit biased, as my father worked for GSA as a COBOL programmer, giving me a very comfortable childhood and one where I got to actually see and know the ol' man. Big difference from the blue collar jobs I worked where getting time off was like pulling teeth, if you were lucky enough to have a job to come back to- and that was time off that was earned.
GSA government jobs are like the anti-Christ for the political right, and are probably few and far between these days, but as jobs they were awesomesauce. A lot of goofing around, playing cards at the office etc, but not everyone knew how to program in COBOL back then when it came time to do actual work. Socially, it gave me, and certainly a large number of other families, a good life. I owe my childhood to it.
Mostly agree with points in the OP, but things will not change short of a mass overhaul of public opinion. Ironically, it is right wing policies that could make this happen- at least more likely than a left wing socialist utopia. Sort of why I think of politics as more circular rather than linear. "Imperialism, the Eve of the Socialist Revolution of the Proletariat" and all that. As I've stated before, no matter how useless you, I, or anyone else deems a job to be, it still serves a purpose. Even if sometimes only political. Certainly the status quo or current political power in office doesn't want to deal with staggering unemployment numbers, not even the Tea Party.
Our governments are really adept at creating bullshit jobs. I don't think that your father's work was as useless as you claim, but jobs that are created by the government have a tendency to be a bit iffy. I know that there are a lot of slackers who have free market jobs too, but it's what they do when they're not slacking off that is bringing in money to the company that hired them. This is why the free market is superior. If you work in marketing for Samsung and you're unable to market their products to create enough sales to justify your salary, you get sacked, and if you're an engineer or a designer, and your new product ideas or your improvements of old products doesn't lead to enough profit, then you get sacked. Ppl who are not qualified or who serve a purpose that is out of date, tends to lose their job sooner or later, atleast if they work on the free market.
Jobs that are supported by the government don't need to be profitable, because the government is not interested in profit. If the government lose money, they just increase the taxes, or if you're Obama, you loan money. If our governments shrunk in size, and they let us handle our money ourselves, rather than letting them squander our taxmoney, then the living standards would increase all across the board, except maybe for ppl who right now have jobs paid by the government, that wouldn't have an actual demand on the open market, but this is a good thing, because it would force these ppl to find jobs that actually helps our society prosper.
The government is very inefficient, and even leftists would know this if they looked at the government objectively, but they don't see it, because they don't want to realize that the government might be the villain, because the government is necessary, in order to distribute wealth from the hard working and the brilliant, to the lazy and the stupid.
The british coal miners controversy is a good example of how illogical the leftist point of view is. When our society started to favor other resources to create energy, because coal was ineffective and dirty, the british government realized that the government-owned coal mining industry was a money sink. So they cut it off, and they got a lot of flack for it from leftists. Why? Why should the tax payers pay for an industry that isn't sustainable, that isn't needed? The only thing that the leftists could see was that a lot of ppl lost their jobs, and noone denies that fact, but you need to look at the bigger picture. Rather than carrying on and leeching off of tax money, society benefited from shifting this workforce to other areas, where there was actually a demand.
So, the government can do the right thing too and get rid of jobs that are more costly than they're productive, but the problem is that when they do it, leftists go nuts about it. This is another reason why the government should not own companies, nor should they fund jobs, because even if they manage to figure out that a job is inefficient or doesn't serve a purpose, the moment that they start sacking ppl, leftists will riot about it, and then they will lose voters.
You can talk all you want about creating a society where we can automatically create things that covers the basic living standards, but the thing is, we have to work 8 hours a day so that we can produce all the necessities, AND also produce things like cars, iphones, computers and TVs, and if the average working day went down to 4 hours, then the amount of produce that our society could create would be halved. That means that cars would be twice as rare. Everything, including food would be twice as rare (which basically would mean that we would have to shift a lot of workers over to food production), which would hurt the production of luxury items even more. Just try working half-time today and see how it would affect your living standards. That is what reality looked like for full time workers, like 70 years ago. The reason why we have increased the living standards so much is because of the inventions of the 1%. This is why they're the 1%.
All this talk about, if you remove all the uneccessary jobs, it wouldn't actually hurt the production, that's just nonsense. Anyone who isn't economically illiterate knows that it's nonsense. All jobs that exists on the free market have a purpose. The ppl who have these jobs may not always be as productive as they should be, but they tend to be more productive than those who work for the government, because there's more pressure on them to perform, and in the end, them slacking off just nets their employer less profit, which means less salary for themselves, so if they're slacking off they're just shooting themselves in the foot. But no matter what, they're always serving a purpose. You know this by the mere fact of their existance. Company owners are greedy, and they would never pay for someone who don't carry their own weight.
On July 01 2014 12:53 Artisian wrote: I suspect having even 40% of the world population on 15 hour work weeks would be more catastrophic than any amount of psychological damage the current system is inflicting. Your average person isn't motivated enough to really produce anything amazing (not that they can't, or don't have the talent), just look at how we spend a freetime now. I could be building something, or painting, or finishing that Python project I started 3 months back, but instead I'm discussing jobs that shouldn't exist with people I haven't met.
Case and point, retired people. Especially the ones that sit around watching tv all day. They have literally all the free time, and they often spend it unproductively. They stop moving, and die. I've yet to see someone live long after retirement if they couldn't motivate themselves to actually do something at least vaguely useful.
haha man you sound really like a good work slave
you adopted all the mantras and dogmas of todays economy
1. all people are lazy, they would do NOTHING if not forced 2. people have to be productive in an economic sense, like building, creating something that has a worth on the market 3. and if you dont, you probably are not worth anything yourself, you know like trash, longtime unemployed people, freeloaders or whatever you wanna call them
just imagine 2000 years ago some lazy freeloaders like aristoteles and platon would have just done something productive .. sitting there all day talking about this and that .. letting slaves do their work.
you really should overthink your picture of humans
only cause you and many others are condemed in todays society to work form 8 to 4 doesnt mean humanity is born to work from 8 to 4. thats like black slaves would have thought black people are born to be slaves and never can do anything else.
and just look at my day
talked to someone about human life and that it can be way more than beeing "productive" (whatever that means for you but i guess nothing good) now im going to listen to some records for some hours
and later im going to watch the world cup
love that day in my opinion really productive, i worked quite hard to make the most out of this day, just have to do it for the approx. following 18.000 days also. i think this will be quite hard
While the need for certain types of jobs may have subsided, the need for a certain level of income hasn't.
Our economy was never set up to give people 15 hour workweeks and a reasonable wage. More realistically, you'd have a few people worked just as hard with insane levels of unemployment...
People find niche, "bullshit jobs" because they need money to survive. And as long as they can convince someone their jobs produce some level of value, they get paid. Whether or not it's rational in the large big picture view of things... Sure, we don't need a massive service/admin sector in the economy. But people need to get paid to eat/survive.
A set amount of productivity is required but it is nowhere near what it is now. Examples of useless apparels abound, cheap goods which are built to break after a set amount of cycles or uses, only to ensure that you end up buying another one and justify mass production.
Changes are indeed going through albeit at an agonizing pace. If economy was as liberal as we pretend there would´nt be so much opposition to legislation or means of living promoting substainability.
The expression "simplicité volontaire" comes to mind, maybe someone can chime in with the english equivalent (living with simple means...?).
Fun fact: It is actually quite possible to only work 15 hours/week. You just don't get as much stuff as if you work 40 hours/week. Apparently, most people choose stuff over time. You think they should choose time over stuff. Feel free to do so, but don't think everyone else should do the same.
I am pretty sure you can easily achieve the living conditions of a 19th century factory worker who worked 14hours/day on 14 hours/week nowadays.
There is no big conspiracy. People just prefer stuff over time to some degree.
"Jobs that are supported by the government don't need to be profitable, because the government is not interested in profit." What planet do you live on?
There's this thing called a budget line by the way. In a perfect world, people ''choose'' time over money or money over time accordingly. You want 20 hours of free time every day? Fine, you get paid €50,- a day. Sadly that doesn't work that way completely with unemployment etc, but it is still true to a big extent.
On July 01 2014 12:53 Artisian wrote: I suspect having even 40% of the world population on 15 hour work weeks would be more catastrophic than any amount of psychological damage the current system is inflicting. Your average person isn't motivated enough to really produce anything amazing (not that they can't, or don't have the talent), just look at how we spend a freetime now. I could be building something, or painting, or finishing that Python project I started 3 months back, but instead I'm discussing jobs that shouldn't exist with people I haven't met.
Case and point, retired people. Especially the ones that sit around watching tv all day. They have literally all the free time, and they often spend it unproductively. They stop moving, and die. I've yet to see someone live long after retirement if they couldn't motivate themselves to actually do something at least vaguely useful.
haha man you sound really like a good work slave
you adopted all the mantras and dogmas of todays economy
1. all people are lazy, they would do NOTHING if not forced 2. people have to be productive in an economic sense, like building, creating something that has a worth on the market 3. and if you dont, you probably are not worth anything yourself, you know like trash, longtime unemployed people, freeloaders or whatever you wanna call them
just imagine 2000 years ago some lazy freeloaders like aristoteles and platon would have just done something productive .. sitting there all day talking about this and that .. letting slaves do their work.
you really should overthink your picture of humans
only cause you and many others are condemed in todays society to work form 8 to 4 doesnt mean humanity is born to work from 8 to 4. thats like black slaves would have thought black people are born to be slaves and never can do anything else.
and just look at my day
talked to someone about human life and that it can be way more than beeing "productive" (whatever that means for you but i guess nothing good) now im going to listen to some records for some hours
and later im going to watch the world cup
love that day in my opinion really productive, i worked quite hard to make the most out of this day, just have to do it for the approx. following 18.000 days also. i think this will be quite hard
To be fair, Plato and Aristotle was both teaching and publishing just like any professors and teachers do today. You should really back off on your use of analogies and comparisons as they're hardly convincing, more comical having to bring up slaves.
Also, humanity isn't born to be in a shelter, have readily access to vast quantities of food, clean running water, security, and other life amenities either, but guess how humanity are granted those?
In my point of view, your day consisted only of talking, listening to music, and watching TV. In my opinion, that's nowhere productive in industrial, educational, nor health sense. Good luck on trying to be that "productive" for 18,000 days or so, you're going to have to finance it somehow...by being productive.
On July 01 2014 20:56 L1ghtning wrote: Our governments are really adept at creating bullshit jobs. I don't think that your father's work was as useless as you claim, but jobs that are created by the government have a tendency to be a bit iffy. I know that there are a lot of slackers who have free market jobs too, but it's what they do when they're not slacking off that is bringing in money to the company that hired them. This is why the free market is superior. If you work in marketing for Samsung and you're unable to market their products to create enough sales to justify your salary, you get sacked, and if you're an engineer or a designer, and your new product ideas or your improvements of old products doesn't lead to enough profit, then you get sacked. Ppl who are not qualified or who serve a purpose that is out of date, tends to lose their job sooner or later, atleast if they work on the free market.
Jobs that are supported by the government don't need to be profitable, because the government is not interested in profit. If the government lose money, they just increase the taxes, or if you're Obama, you loan money. If our governments shrunk in size, and they let us handle our money ourselves, rather than letting them squander our taxmoney, then the living standards would increase all across the board, except maybe for ppl who right now have jobs paid by the government, that wouldn't have an actual demand on the open market, but this is a good thing, because it would force these ppl to find jobs that actually helps our society prosper.
The government is very inefficient, and even leftists would know this if they looked at the government objectively, but they don't see it, because they don't want to realize that the government might be the villain, because the government is necessary, in order to distribute wealth from the hard working and the brilliant, to the lazy and the stupid.
The british coal miners controversy is a good example of how illogical the leftist point of view is. When our society started to favor other resources to create energy, because coal was ineffective and dirty, the british government realized that the government-owned coal mining industry was a money sink. So they cut it off, and they got a lot of flack for it from leftists. Why? Why should the tax payers pay for an industry that isn't sustainable, that isn't needed? The only thing that the leftists could see was that a lot of ppl lost their jobs, and noone denies that fact, but you need to look at the bigger picture. Rather than carrying on and leeching off of tax money, society benefited from shifting this workforce to other areas, where there was actually a demand.
So, the government can do the right thing too and get rid of jobs that are more costly than they're productive, but the problem is that when they do it, leftists go nuts about it. This is another reason why the government should not own companies, nor should they fund jobs, because even if they manage to figure out that a job is inefficient or doesn't serve a purpose, the moment that they start sacking ppl, leftists will riot about it, and then they will lose voters.
You can talk all you want about creating a society where we can automatically create things that covers the basic living standards, but the thing is, we have to work 8 hours a day so that we can produce all the necessities, AND also produce things like cars, iphones, computers and TVs, and if the average working day went down to 4 hours, then the amount of produce that our society could create would be halved. That means that cars would be twice as rare. Everything, including food would be twice as rare (which basically would mean that we would have to shift a lot of workers over to food production), which would hurt the production of luxury items even more. Just try working half-time today and see how it would affect your living standards. That is what reality looked like for full time workers, like 70 years ago. The reason why we have increased the living standards so much is because of the inventions of the 1%. This is why they're the 1%.
All this talk about, if you remove all the uneccessary jobs, it wouldn't actually hurt the production, that's just nonsense. Anyone who isn't economically illiterate knows that it's nonsense. All jobs that exists on the free market have a purpose. The ppl who have these jobs may not always be as productive as they should be, but they tend to be more productive than those who work for the government, because there's more pressure on them to perform, and in the end, them slacking off just nets their employer less profit, which means less salary for themselves, so if they're slacking off they're just shooting themselves in the foot. But no matter what, they're always serving a purpose. You know this by the mere fact of their existance. Company owners are greedy, and they would never pay for someone who don't carry their own weight.
If our governments shrunk in size, and they let us handle our money ourselves, rather than letting them squander our taxmoney, then the living standards would increase all across the board, except maybe for ppl who right now have jobs paid by the government, that wouldn't have an actual demand on the open market, but this is a good thing, because it would force these ppl to find jobs that actually helps our society prosper.
This in particular I don't really agree with, as without a government to regulate and keep an eye on the private sector, you will just simply increase profit margins for the few. I should also note, that once my father retired from the GSA (basically nudged out with compensation during cutbacks :D) he did quite well as a contractor- especially during the Y2K scare. At one time we both worked for the same company in the late 80's. He was contracting for something like $80/hr while I was a grunt working graveyard for $8/hr. Is this the living standards you are referring to that will help society prosper? No demand for government workers in the private sector? Well..
On July 02 2014 00:33 Thalandros wrote: There's this thing called a budget line by the way.
No there isn't. It only exists in a simple mathematical theory that for some strange (mostly political) reason is called classical economics.
As you said most people have no fine control over how much they work, certainly not in the short term. And money is not the only thing you get out of work, there is social prestige, improved resume/work experience, social capital, etc.
The classical model is not just slightly inaccurate. It's basically meaningless and you might as well forget it after you passed your intro to microeconomics exam.
On July 01 2014 12:53 Artisian wrote: I suspect having even 40% of the world population on 15 hour work weeks would be more catastrophic than any amount of psychological damage the current system is inflicting. Your average person isn't motivated enough to really produce anything amazing (not that they can't, or don't have the talent), just look at how we spend a freetime now. I could be building something, or painting, or finishing that Python project I started 3 months back, but instead I'm discussing jobs that shouldn't exist with people I haven't met.
Case and point, retired people. Especially the ones that sit around watching tv all day. They have literally all the free time, and they often spend it unproductively. They stop moving, and die. I've yet to see someone live long after retirement if they couldn't motivate themselves to actually do something at least vaguely useful.
haha man you sound really like a good work slave
you adopted all the mantras and dogmas of todays economy
1. all people are lazy, they would do NOTHING if not forced 2. people have to be productive in an economic sense, like building, creating something that has a worth on the market 3. and if you dont, you probably are not worth anything yourself, you know like trash, longtime unemployed people, freeloaders or whatever you wanna call them
just imagine 2000 years ago some lazy freeloaders like aristoteles and platon would have just done something productive .. sitting there all day talking about this and that .. letting slaves do their work.
you really should overthink your picture of humans
only cause you and many others are condemed in todays society to work form 8 to 4 doesnt mean humanity is born to work from 8 to 4. thats like black slaves would have thought black people are born to be slaves and never can do anything else.
and just look at my day
talked to someone about human life and that it can be way more than beeing "productive" (whatever that means for you but i guess nothing good) now im going to listen to some records for some hours
and later im going to watch the world cup
love that day in my opinion really productive, i worked quite hard to make the most out of this day, just have to do it for the approx. following 18.000 days also. i think this will be quite hard
Wow, I just skimmed through this thread and this and other posts of you are a lot of BS.
You know why Plato and Aristoteles could afford being "freeloaders"? They were born to wealthy families with a lot of political influence. I would bet a month wage on them actually letting slaves do most of their work. Slaves were common at that time, especially in rich families.
Little can be known about Plato's early life and education due to the very limited accounts. The philosopher came from one of the wealthiest and most politically active families in Athens.
His father Nicomachus was the personal physician to King Amyntas of Macedon. Although there is little information on Aristotle's childhood, he probably spent some time within the Macedonian palace, making his first connections with the Macedonian monarchy.
Anyways, the whole shift in the market comes from globalization and the resulting need for more communication. Back then, a steel mill had 1000 workers, but the 1000 workers had nothing to say anyways, so there wasn't much communication and coordination needed. You needed a little administrative staff to pay wages and talk to the transport companies.
With the shift to service industries due to the increased wealth of everyone, e.g. noone needed a cable technician or a cable hotline to call back then on account of TV not being invented yet, came globalization. Companies now have offices in 15 different countries in 30 different locations speaking 10 different languages. That requires a ton of communication, which means "managers". Even with all those managers, the main complaint I still hear from all levels is "lack of communication" because there still aren't enough managers coordinating everything. Something like the “East Coast strategic vision coordinator” might sound pretty much useless, but what people like that do is help coordinate those different offices. Yes, it involves plenty of meetings, some of them seemingly useless, but they all have that one important purpose: Communication. The need for it wasn't there a 100 years ago because everything was slower and simpler, but it is here now and even if those jobs might seem useless to you, they are still absolutely necessary, they are all wheels in the huge machine that is globalization.
As for why we don't work 15 hours a week... well, there is an infinite amount of work to be done because the work we can do is only limited by our imagination, so no matter how much we work, we won't ever do enough of it and there won't ever be enough manpower to do all of it. That is why claims like "we'll work only 15 hours a week in 100 years" are pretty stupid. For every job that gets removed by technology, a new job gets invented. A 100 years ago we didn't need programmers. Now I'm writing source code 40 hours a week because the bosses always have new ideas on what our website should do. Even if I would finish everything they imagined until now by tomorrow, they would have new ideas and so my job would still be necessary and full time.
I could write a dozen pages on this topic, but I get the feeling my words are wasted anyways.
everyone from private corporations to the government would be competent enough to want to do what they want minimizing the costs. so if its actually cheaper to automate the process, it would have already been done. if not, the jobs are absolutely necessary, so whats the problem there? if some random person can truly identify jobs as "worthless", they would have been eliminated a long time ago by people in corporations who spend 40 hours a week researching this kind of stuff.
and no the 15 hour a week thing is ridiculous, time in this case is a resource, the amount of work to be done is only limited by people's wants, which is basically infinite. so if you can produce the same stuff in 15 hours vs 40 hours before, you should be working 40 hours now to produce 105 hours of stuff back then, not working 15 hours and do nothing the other 25.
With a 15 hour "official" work week you could spend more time doing unofficial work like tailoring your own clothes, tending your children or elderly, growing your own veggies, and so on.
I couldn't help but think of this in a SC2 analogy.
The two camps are basically 1v1ers/FFAers vs arcaders
One group looks at the world like a giant 1v1 or FFA where one is to gather as much resources and turn them into units and buildings you want so you can be victorious over your opponent. The units and buildings generally stay the same but every once in a while a new thing is created by the people at the top (occasionally inspired from those on bottom) and the FFAers can either integrate the new product into their desires or not.
The other group looks at the world like a giant Arcade map, mixed with some map editor. WE control the point of the game, not the game makers. We can have a game where we scramble for resources and try to beat each other (FFA) or we can create a new game where the only losers are the ones who quit. New aspect are constantly added by
Currently the game is set up like the FFA but the only thing stopping us from changing the point of the game, is us.
One camp likes the way it is (think they can still win/do better than someone) and one camp would like to change the game so that either we all win or only quitters lose.
The resistance to change is common in both. If you play nothing but 1v1's /ffa's you're less likely to embrace arcade games and vice versa
if we can probably produce similar amount compared to 2000 years ago working like 1 hour a week, should we take 39 hours off? what about 5 hours weeks for production levels of 1000 years ago? 10 hour weeks for 100 years ago? why arbitrarily draw the line at 15? its pretty illogical to purposely not try and maximize the current production power since that essentially is what improves the standard of living. of course Im not saying it should exactly be 40, but 40 has generally been accepted as the amount of time a person can reasonably devote to something in the long term.
On July 02 2014 04:36 LingsAreBunnies wrote: if we can probably produce similar amount compared to 2000 years ago working like 1 hour a week, should we take 39 hours off? what about 5 hours weeks for production levels of 1000 years ago? 10 hour weeks for 100 years ago? why arbitrarily draw the line at 15? its pretty illogical to purposely not try and maximize the current production power since that essentially is what improves the standard of living. of course Im not saying it should exactly be 40, but 40 has generally been accepted as the amount of time a person can reasonably devote to something in the long term.
The problem is when people work 50 hours a week when the actual useful part of their work could be done in 20 or less. But if they weren't burdened by useless stuff (e.g reports that nobody reads, complying with unnecessary regulations, etc.) then they might get it into their head that they want to work for 40 hours for twice as much pay. At which point a large part of society would be priced out of the market, which would create social upheaval.
This is happening anyway, but slower than it would otherwise if we were more efficient.
On July 02 2014 04:36 LingsAreBunnies wrote: if we can probably produce similar amount compared to 2000 years ago working like 1 hour a week, should we take 39 hours off? what about 5 hours weeks for production levels of 1000 years ago? 10 hour weeks for 100 years ago? why arbitrarily draw the line at 15? its pretty illogical to purposely not try and maximize the current production power since that essentially is what improves the standard of living. of course Im not saying it should exactly be 40, but 40 has generally been accepted as the amount of time a person can reasonably devote to something in the long term.
The problem is when people work 50 hours a week when the actual useful part of their work could be done in 20 or less. But if they weren't burdened by useless stuff (e.g reports that nobody reads, complying with unnecessary regulations, etc.) then they might get it into their head that they want to work for 40 hours for twice as much pay. At which point a large part of society would be priced out of the market, which would create social upheaval.
This is happening anyway, but slower than it would otherwise if we were more efficient.
of course some inefficiencies do happen to some extent, but its either in the minority, or something to be changed in the near future. no corporations, especially privately owned ones would be willing to pay for work if they are really that blatantly unnecessary if they were to be competitive. its really not a matter of what the worker or what the corporation wants in terms of price, so twice as much pay is pretty irrelevant here. The equilibrium price is generally determined by everyone as a collective. floor is often times used to also guarantee some level of standard of living.
On July 02 2014 04:36 LingsAreBunnies wrote: if we can probably produce similar amount compared to 2000 years ago working like 1 hour a week, should we take 39 hours off? what about 5 hours weeks for production levels of 1000 years ago? 10 hour weeks for 100 years ago? why arbitrarily draw the line at 15? its pretty illogical to purposely not try and maximize the current production power since that essentially is what improves the standard of living. of course Im not saying it should exactly be 40, but 40 has generally been accepted as the amount of time a person can reasonably devote to something in the long term.
Maximizing current production power means different things to different people.
For instance China would say that in the US our people don't work nearly enough. 40hrs is lazy, they should be working 80+.
Despite laws to the contrary China regularly expects people to work 6-7 days a week with a minimum of a 12 hour shift. And people do... Of course they tend to threaten to leap off the building, so they install catch nets (that wouldn't actually work) to deter people from doing so. Or they just die from exhaustion/poor conditions/poor diet/etc... But hey, it's a lot more productive to just have people who live past 40ish just die instead of creating a safety net or providing adequate living/working conditions.
What stops us from spending every waking moment working instead of pursuing pleasure is just that we would suck as a workforce. We don't have the luxury of pursuing passions because of the 40 hr work week. We have a 40 hr work week because regularly expecting people to work more than that results in diminishing returns (mostly as a result of having to pay overtime) and that they aren't motivated to stay alive. Also we don't have a "USA" to sell the stuff we would be making in slave conditions to.
Our productivity is always balanced with why we bother to live(we could work more['maximize production power'], but that generally means living less).
I hate how things are currently set up in a lot of ways but I can't help but appreciate how beautiful the systems self reinforcement mechanisms are.
For people saying living on 15h wage is already possible. I agree, I could do it this minute. If I could find a job with the same hourly wage as I currently have and those hours. I would have roughly $10 over each month, after everything is paid for. Where rent is ~70% of costs.
I do have non-essential expenses that eat up a lot of the rest of the money currently. Eating at restaurants. Travel, like going to Dreamhacks, ESL One etc.
Edit, as for the topic itself. Both sides have a point. There are a lot of jobs I agree are bullshit, but until we get to a different solution it is the best compromise.
On July 02 2014 04:36 LingsAreBunnies wrote: if we can probably produce similar amount compared to 2000 years ago working like 1 hour a week, should we take 39 hours off? what about 5 hours weeks for production levels of 1000 years ago? 10 hour weeks for 100 years ago? why arbitrarily draw the line at 15? its pretty illogical to purposely not try and maximize the current production power since that essentially is what improves the standard of living. of course Im not saying it should exactly be 40, but 40 has generally been accepted as the amount of time a person can reasonably devote to something in the long term.
The problem is when people work 50 hours a week when the actual useful part of their work could be done in 20 or less. But if they weren't burdened by useless stuff (e.g reports that nobody reads, complying with unnecessary regulations, etc.) then they might get it into their head that they want to work for 40 hours for twice as much pay. At which point a large part of society would be priced out of the market, which would create social upheaval.
This is happening anyway, but slower than it would otherwise if we were more efficient.
of course some inefficiencies do happen to some extent, but its either in the minority, or something to be changed in the near future. no corporations, especially privately owned ones would be willing to pay for work if they are really that blatantly unnecessary if they were to be competitive.
If the inefficiency is complying with complicated regulation that serves no social purpose then they don't have a choice. You have to pay that patent lawyer to check your design doesn't infringe on some random patent, but from a societal point of view an overly permissive patent regime is an inefficiency. But from the POV of the corporation the lawyer is a necessity else they would get sued out of business.
There are also regulated industries where minimizing costs doesn't always increase profit because the regulated price is tied to provable costs. Power companies are the main example of this. Then there are government contracts employing a cost plus pricing model. Again, no incentive to ruthlessly eliminate inefficiencies.
Then there's the health sector where in an apparent breakdown of our economic models hospitals can make money by providing services (especially ordering tests) that are probably unnecessary.
And that's just the private sector, government agencies face no competitive pressure so there's that.
On July 02 2014 04:36 LingsAreBunnies wrote: if we can probably produce similar amount compared to 2000 years ago working like 1 hour a week, should we take 39 hours off? what about 5 hours weeks for production levels of 1000 years ago? 10 hour weeks for 100 years ago? why arbitrarily draw the line at 15? its pretty illogical to purposely not try and maximize the current production power since that essentially is what improves the standard of living. of course Im not saying it should exactly be 40, but 40 has generally been accepted as the amount of time a person can reasonably devote to something in the long term.
The problem is when people work 50 hours a week when the actual useful part of their work could be done in 20 or less. But if they weren't burdened by useless stuff (e.g reports that nobody reads, complying with unnecessary regulations, etc.) then they might get it into their head that they want to work for 40 hours for twice as much pay. At which point a large part of society would be priced out of the market, which would create social upheaval.
This is happening anyway, but slower than it would otherwise if we were more efficient.
of course some inefficiencies do happen to some extent, but its either in the minority, or something to be changed in the near future. no corporations, especially privately owned ones would be willing to pay for work if they are really that blatantly unnecessary if they were to be competitive.
If the inefficiency is complying with complicated regulation that serves no social purpose then they don't have a choice. You have to pay that patent lawyer to check your design doesn't infringe on some random patent, but from a societal point of view an overly permissive patent regime is an inefficiency. But from the POV of the corporation the lawyer is a necessity else they would get sued out of business.
There are also regulated industries where minimizing costs doesn't always increase profit because the regulated price is tied to provable costs. Power companies are the main example of this. Then there are government contracts employing a cost plus pricing model. Again, no incentive to ruthlessly eliminate inefficiencies.
Then there's the health sector where in an apparent breakdown of our economic models hospitals can make money by providing services (especially ordering tests) that are probably unnecessary.
And that's just the private sector, government agencies face no competitive pressure so there's that.
its got nothing to do with social purpose, and efficiency is considered given the alternatives. I dont really know the exact details, but despite the inefficiencies of the patent regulations, its existence is necessary, and any changes seems to be more costly than the extra jobs.
as for your other examples, again I dont know the exact details, but the result seems that people have concluded that at the current time its more efficient to keep to the current model than to make improvements, since its apparently more cost efficient to pay for more workers than changing the infrastructure.
even without competitive pressure, theres no reason to accept extra costs, only notable difference might be that they are willing to pay a bit more than normal to avoid change.
maybe I didnt word it correctly, but Im not really disagreeing that there are certainly flaws and inefficiencies in the current models, just that there arent any reasonable alternatives thats been suggested. also that the 15 hour thing doesnt really mean much, since that both ignores the cost to make changes to the infrastructure, and also measures against a seemingly arbitrary level of production.
On July 02 2014 04:36 LingsAreBunnies wrote: if we can probably produce similar amount compared to 2000 years ago working like 1 hour a week, should we take 39 hours off? what about 5 hours weeks for production levels of 1000 years ago? 10 hour weeks for 100 years ago? why arbitrarily draw the line at 15? its pretty illogical to purposely not try and maximize the current production power since that essentially is what improves the standard of living. of course Im not saying it should exactly be 40, but 40 has generally been accepted as the amount of time a person can reasonably devote to something in the long term.
The problem is when people work 50 hours a week when the actual useful part of their work could be done in 20 or less. But if they weren't burdened by useless stuff (e.g reports that nobody reads, complying with unnecessary regulations, etc.) then they might get it into their head that they want to work for 40 hours for twice as much pay. At which point a large part of society would be priced out of the market, which would create social upheaval.
This is happening anyway, but slower than it would otherwise if we were more efficient.
of course some inefficiencies do happen to some extent, but its either in the minority, or something to be changed in the near future. no corporations, especially privately owned ones would be willing to pay for work if they are really that blatantly unnecessary if they were to be competitive.
If the inefficiency is complying with complicated regulation that serves no social purpose then they don't have a choice. You have to pay that patent lawyer to check your design doesn't infringe on some random patent, but from a societal point of view an overly permissive patent regime is an inefficiency. But from the POV of the corporation the lawyer is a necessity else they would get sued out of business.
There are also regulated industries where minimizing costs doesn't always increase profit because the regulated price is tied to provable costs. Power companies are the main example of this. Then there are government contracts employing a cost plus pricing model. Again, no incentive to ruthlessly eliminate inefficiencies.
Then there's the health sector where in an apparent breakdown of our economic models hospitals can make money by providing services (especially ordering tests) that are probably unnecessary.
And that's just the private sector, government agencies face no competitive pressure so there's that.
its got nothing to do with social purpose, and efficiency is considered given the alternatives. I dont really know the exact details, but despite the inefficiencies of the patent regulations, its existence is necessary, and any changes seems to be more costly than the extra jobs.
IP legislation is changed all the time, usually to extend what can be patented. The goal isn't to create more jobs for patent lawyers of course, but to segment markets and support those who own strategic patents, but that's a whole other discussion.
as for your other examples, again I dont know the exact details, but the result seems that people have concluded that at the current time its more efficient to keep to the current model than to make improvements, since its apparently more cost efficient to pay for more workers than changing the infrastructure.
I'm pretty sure people (as in the electorate) concluded that it was too much work to follow all details of regulation to make sure their interests were represented. Other people (i.e the shareholders of the regulated entity) used the opportunity to argue for regulation that could be subverted. Again inefficient use of workforce was not the main goal. The main goal was to maximize profit. It just so happened that inefficiency was the most reliable way to achieve this.
even without competitive pressure, theres no reason to accept extra costs, only notable difference might be that they are willing to pay a bit more than normal to avoid change.
Maybe true for some programs, but not for others. The Space Shuttle is a government program that survived because it was inefficient not despite it. A large, strategically distributed workforce provided the necessary political power to keep a technically flawed concept alive. Some of the same political coalition survived and influenced the goals of the Constellation program and after its cancellation the design of the SLS.
Now, these are fairly specific examples, but you need to know an area in at least some detail to see how people's work is wasted and ultimately only serves as a job program + payout for some contractors. If the Shuttle program is the exception I imagine it's not a very rare type of exception.
maybe I didnt word it correctly, but Im not really disagreeing that there are certainly flaws and inefficiencies in the current models, just that there arent any reasonable alternatives thats been suggested. also that the 15 hour thing doesnt really mean much, since that both ignores the cost to make changes to the infrastructure, and also measures against a seemingly arbitrary level of production.
I don't know. I guess the first step in deciding how things should be is understanding how they actually are. If someone actually believes that almost all of the work we do is crucial then they have no incentive to look for alternatives. They'll say the only alternative is to consume less and then dismiss that alternative as undesirable.
If however we accept that a lot of the work done is strictly unnecessary then we can start to think about why this is and maybe actually find alternatives.
On July 01 2014 12:15 screamingpalm wrote: I'm a bit biased, as my father worked for GSA as a COBOL programmer, giving me a very comfortable childhood and one where I got to actually see and know the ol' man. Big difference from the blue collar jobs I worked where getting time off was like pulling teeth, if you were lucky enough to have a job to come back to- and that was time off that was earned.
GSA government jobs are like the anti-Christ for the political right, and are probably few and far between these days, but as jobs they were awesomesauce. A lot of goofing around, playing cards at the office etc, but not everyone knew how to program in COBOL back then when it came time to do actual work. Socially, it gave me, and certainly a large number of other families, a good life. I owe my childhood to it.
Mostly agree with points in the OP, but things will not change short of a mass overhaul of public opinion. Ironically, it is right wing policies that could make this happen- at least more likely than a left wing socialist utopia. Sort of why I think of politics as more circular rather than linear. "Imperialism, the Eve of the Socialist Revolution of the Proletariat" and all that. As I've stated before, no matter how useless you, I, or anyone else deems a job to be, it still serves a purpose. Even if sometimes only political. Certainly the status quo or current political power in office doesn't want to deal with staggering unemployment numbers, not even the Tea Party.
Our governments are really adept at creating bullshit jobs. I don't think that your father's work was as useless as you claim, but jobs that are created by the government have a tendency to be a bit iffy. I know that there are a lot of slackers who have free market jobs too, but it's what they do when they're not slacking off that is bringing in money to the company that hired them. This is why the free market is superior. If you work in marketing for Samsung and you're unable to market their products to create enough sales to justify your salary, you get sacked, and if you're an engineer or a designer, and your new product ideas or your improvements of old products doesn't lead to enough profit, then you get sacked. Ppl who are not qualified or who serve a purpose that is out of date, tends to lose their job sooner or later, atleast if they work on the free market.
Jobs that are supported by the government don't need to be profitable, because the government is not interested in profit. If the government lose money, they just increase the taxes, or if you're Obama, you loan money. If our governments shrunk in size, and they let us handle our money ourselves, rather than letting them squander our taxmoney, then the living standards would increase all across the board, except maybe for ppl who right now have jobs paid by the government, that wouldn't have an actual demand on the open market, but this is a good thing, because it would force these ppl to find jobs that actually helps our society prosper.
The government is very inefficient, and even leftists would know this if they looked at the government objectively, but they don't see it, because they don't want to realize that the government might be the villain, because the government is necessary, in order to distribute wealth from the hard working and the brilliant, to the lazy and the stupid.
The british coal miners controversy is a good example of how illogical the leftist point of view is. When our society started to favor other resources to create energy, because coal was ineffective and dirty, the british government realized that the government-owned coal mining industry was a money sink. So they cut it off, and they got a lot of flack for it from leftists. Why? Why should the tax payers pay for an industry that isn't sustainable, that isn't needed? The only thing that the leftists could see was that a lot of ppl lost their jobs, and noone denies that fact, but you need to look at the bigger picture. Rather than carrying on and leeching off of tax money, society benefited from shifting this workforce to other areas, where there was actually a demand.
So, the government can do the right thing too and get rid of jobs that are more costly than they're productive, but the problem is that when they do it, leftists go nuts about it. This is another reason why the government should not own companies, nor should they fund jobs, because even if they manage to figure out that a job is inefficient or doesn't serve a purpose, the moment that they start sacking ppl, leftists will riot about it, and then they will lose voters.
You can talk all you want about creating a society where we can automatically create things that covers the basic living standards, but the thing is, we have to work 8 hours a day so that we can produce all the necessities, AND also produce things like cars, iphones, computers and TVs, and if the average working day went down to 4 hours, then the amount of produce that our society could create would be halved. That means that cars would be twice as rare. Everything, including food would be twice as rare (which basically would mean that we would have to shift a lot of workers over to food production), which would hurt the production of luxury items even more. Just try working half-time today and see how it would affect your living standards. That is what reality looked like for full time workers, like 70 years ago. The reason why we have increased the living standards so much is because of the inventions of the 1%. This is why they're the 1%.
All this talk about, if you remove all the uneccessary jobs, it wouldn't actually hurt the production, that's just nonsense. Anyone who isn't economically illiterate knows that it's nonsense. All jobs that exists on the free market have a purpose. The ppl who have these jobs may not always be as productive as they should be, but they tend to be more productive than those who work for the government, because there's more pressure on them to perform, and in the end, them slacking off just nets their employer less profit, which means less salary for themselves, so if they're slacking off they're just shooting themselves in the foot. But no matter what, they're always serving a purpose. You know this by the mere fact of their existance. Company owners are greedy, and they would never pay for someone who don't carry their own weight.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Your post is rife with inaccurate assumptions. Your arguments nestled in sordid ideology. You have completely bought into the capitalist-consumerist ideology. Bold parts highlighted for hilarity. The first thing does not follow. The second thing has to be a troll; every feature on the iphone was created through decades-long government-funded research. The entire computer industry was subsidized by government-funded research for decades and decades. Almost every technological revolution we've had in the last half-century would never have come about in a closed free market system.
The government has just as many examples of more efficiently run enterprises than the free market as the free market does of more efficiently run enterprises than the government:
You are a parrot regurgitating free market propaganda, and your economic indoctrination amounts to illiteracy. Assuming that private enterprises, which spend trillions of dollars a year on advertisements, spending which does absolutely nothing to enhance the use value of the products they are selling, are more efficient or more "productive" or -insert free market buzzword here- should be recognized as dubious on its face.
Beyond that, your misanthropy bleeds through, staining every sentence you've written. You casually discard people's lives and livelihoods when it's not immediately profitable for whomever has put up the capital in an enterprise, as if the market value of an end commodity were the final arbiter on the worthiness of any endeavor. This is not only misguided, but grossly immoral, an affront to the entire range of human experience and meaning.
Yeah, you can see how efficient the current free markets operate when you realize that the average time a company stays in the S&P500 is only 15(!) years. For CEOs and board directors it doesn't really matter if they drive a public company into the ground, they are gonna get paid their seven-figure salaries anyway. It's all a game of redistributing capital between shareholders, however on the whole the capital basically stays where it is.
On July 02 2014 15:19 urboss wrote: Yeah, you can see how efficient the current free markets operate when you realize that the average time a company stays in the S&P500 is only 15(!) years. For CEOs and board directors it doesn't really matter if they drive a public company into the ground, they are gonna get paid their seven-figure salaries anyway. It's all a game of redistributing capital between shareholders, however on the whole the capital basically stays where it is.
This has nothing to do with "bullshit jobs", or efficiency for that matter. According to your theory "bullshit jobs" is a phenomenon across the entire economy so every corporation would be affected.
Of course there is waste and gross inefficiency in private business. But that doesn't mean that that is intentional to keep people working, like your theory suggests, or that businesses aren't trying to fight it where ever they can. The Great Recession gives a great example where this actually succeeded, especially in the US. After significant layoffs, corporate profits are back at or higher than pre-recession levels. Yet hardly anyone has been rehired, and unemployment remains high. What you would probably call "bullshit jobs" have been cut, and those people are now free to pursue the dream of a 15 hour work week at minimum wage (*last part meant sarcastically).
Sure, a 5 person startup obviously has to drive lean in order to survive. The problem arises in the corporate world, where ownership of a company is discoupled from management.
When a company goes public, it all of a sudden gets a shitton of money from investors. What do you do if you have shitton of money? You hire people and attain resources that are not necessarily required.
There is a different kind of inefficiency when it comes to startups: 99 out of 100 startups do fail, so the work that was produced in those startups was basically for nothing. In addition, most companies are copycats (talk about the 100th social network), so the value that the world gets out of these companies is basically zero.
Not sure what you are getting at. The whole conclusion of the article is that modern capitalism is not working as efficiently as advocated. It is inefficient in transforming the effort spent into tangible real world value. The bullshit jobs are an expression of that inefficiency.
The article you posted is a crude mix of ideas and doesn't conclude anything.
It first observes that we have automation, and that in the past the jobs replaced in manual labor by automation have been more or less been offset by the new ones created in the service sector.
This is so far so good, but the entire argument that follows over whether a job should exist is not economical, but based purely on the philosophical idea that a job should "contribute to the world". The bottom line is that people have jobs primarily to get payed, not to contribute to the world according to some vague standard. The reality that people who are freed from manual labor and don't find another job end up in miserable poverty is comfortably ignored.
But, if things continue like they go right now we will soon arrive at the utopia of the author: Right now we are seeing previously "safe" service sector jobs being replaced by automation, only that this time there won't be new jobs available for the newly unemployed. And again, I can't help but be sarcastic: We will soon have plenty of people in blissful poverty free to finally contribute to the world.
On July 02 2014 19:06 urboss wrote: Not sure what you are getting at. The whole conclusion of the article is that modern capitalism is not working as efficiently as advocated. It is inefficient in transforming the effort spent into tangible real world value. The bullshit jobs are an expression of that inefficiency.
That is definitively correct. However, it is also the most efficient system we have so far. Obviously capitalism isn't ideally efficient. Just take a look at advertisements, failing companies, etc, which are a major part of the system but also obviously waste effort and ressources.
But pointing this out doesn't actually do anything. Because it is still the most efficient system humanity has come up with so far. (And here i am talking about capitalism as a whole, there are obviously differences between american style crazy capitalism and euro style social capitalism). What you need to do is not say "This is inefficient" but "This would be more efficient". If you can not do that, you are wasting everyones time. Because 100% efficiency is not really an achievable goal. Neither is it the only goal, the size of the delta in the distribution of the is also something that is very relevant, and a few other things too. And there is a very major danger when changing the core of the system to actually make it worse then before.
For such a long post, you certainly didn't have much concrete to say. Just a lot of subjective spewing of opinions. I had to cut out all the things that didn't add anything to the debate, to make it easier to respond.
On July 02 2014 10:31 IgnE wrote:
Almost every technological revolution we've had in the last half-century would never have come about in a closed free market system.
Closed free market? That's a oxymoron. It's you who want to have a closed market, with the government dominating the market. I want a open market, where the government can operate, but where it's dominated by smaller actors.
And we're talking about how the government and the free market handle jobs here, not research. And it's a complete lie that the government is responsible for all technological progress. Our governments are the biggest capital-holders of all. That's why they have their name tagged to a lot of stuff. There's a lot of smaller sized private investors though, and you can bet that they've been involved in the computer industry as well. Private companies also does a lot of research, funded by their own profits. Any company that hire engineers or scientists have a research team.
The free market is much more effective in investing in new technology. The government is one actor, while on the free market there are millions of actors. This is why the free market is superior. With more actors holding a smaller share of capital, capital becomes much more sensitive to trends, so it flows more smoothly. When the government invests prematurely in something, it's a huge money sink, and when they invest in something that will actually change the future, they tend to be very slow compared to the private investors.
The government have a lot of bureaucracy, and ppl making decisions about things that they don't understand, and they also have a tendency to make decisions based on their ideology. The government can make good decisions, but they're less likely to do so. The more free and spread out capital is, the more smoothly it will flow. Letting one actor hold most of the capital is a very bad idea.
The government has just as many examples of more efficiently run enterprises than the free market as the free market does of more efficiently run enterprises than the government:
That graph is hilarious. Is that your proof that public healthcare is run more efficiently? Typical leftist mentality. You cherry-pick things and put them out of their scientific context, to try and prove a point. That graph doesn't prove anything remotely close to what you claim.
A government-run company that have negative profit can be subsidized. A free market company with negative profit goes bankrupt. This is the crucial difference and it's an important one.
Free market enterprices have one goal, and that is to make money, and this encourages them to make their organization as efficient as possible. This is not the case for government-run companies. These companies don't actually get to keep their profits, and if they get into debt, the state can always save them. This discourages them from making their practices more efficient. There is not the same incentive to perform.
Anyway, the main reason why companies gets privatized is because they were money sinks. This is why it's not fair to compare their prices and performance before and after, because when the government owned them, the government subsidized them with tax money, which enabled them to stay afloat. The government should not subsidize their companies, because then they start to compete on unfair terms, which makes it more likely that the company monopolizes the market, which is a bad thing. I don't oppose to the government subsidizing certain services, mainly health care and education, but if they do that, they should do it consistently, on even terms.
I didn't bother to read about that energy company, because it's not very scientific to draw conclusions from 1 example, because they might be favored by the location, and if they get subsidized, it's a irrelevant example. Government owned companies can certainly in some cases be more effective than private owned companies, but if said company was sold off, then most likely it would become even better, especially going forward.
Public healthcare is totally awesome. By the way, there's plenty of private doctors over here as well, but for example when I had to get a tooth removed and went to the public healthcare dentist, he just forwarded me to a private dentist who's an expert at the field. The entire thing went very smoothly and was super professional, and only cost me about 30 euros. Now, while the public healthcare doctors tend to not be amazing, they can still get basic things done and they can forward you to the experts who get things done for the same fee(the government pays the full fee to them here).
Of course, in the end it's partially paid for via taxes, but the amount of security you get and the guarantee you have that things will work out without needing all sorts of seperate insurances and packages and policies and all sorts of things in return for you never being screwed... Is in my opinion worth it. Just how much is money worth, anyway? After you can get by decently, there's minimal returns if you don't want to outright waste it on drinking or new cards(when your old one would do just fine). For example my friend who earns around 10k euros a month just donates most of it to charity because it's not that useful to him.
Yeah, the whole healthcare thing is one thing i never understood about americans. I just can not understand how someone could NOT want public healthcare. It is on average cheaper, noone has to not go to a doctor because they can not afford it, noone gets ruined by hospital bills. It is literally better for everyone, except maybe the top 1% who can afford all of the above anyways. And this superiority should be obvious to anyone.
And still in the US you have this weird system that costs 2x as much for worse care with higher inequality, and every attempt to change the system to something reasonably civilized like the rest of the developed world faces absurd amounts of resistance. Why do people oppose a system that is obviously better a) for society as a whole and b) for themselves specifically. This boggles my mind. Do they just plan off of "Yeah i'm not gonna get sick ever"?
On July 02 2014 19:26 zatic wrote: The article you posted is a crude mix of ideas and doesn't conclude anything.
It first observes that we have automation, and that in the past the jobs replaced in manual labor by automation have been more or less been offset by the new ones created in the service sector.
This is so far so good, but the entire argument that follows over whether a job should exist is not economical, but based purely on the philosophical idea that a job should "contribute to the world". The bottom line is that people have jobs primarily to get payed, not to contribute to the world according to some vague standard. The reality that people who are freed from manual labor and don't find another job end up in miserable poverty is comfortably ignored.
But, if things continue like they go right now we will soon arrive at the utopia of the author: Right now we are seeing previously "safe" service sector jobs being replaced by automation, only that this time there won't be new jobs available for the newly unemployed. And again, I can't help but be sarcastic: We will soon have plenty of people in blissful poverty free to finally contribute to the world.
There is a good solution and it is a mix of what Sweden does (progressive tax system that does not let anyone become unproportionally rich compared to everyone else) and what Switzerland recently tried to implement: Basic money income for all citizens no matter their status, age or employment (some like they have in Star Trek).
This is a possible future and only one that will work. Other option is a bigger and bigger difference between poor and rich (and under poor I also put all the people working jobs they hate) and eventual class wars that will kill lots of people around the world.
There are so many obvious practical problems with all of the "solutions" proposed in this thread, I can't decide if I want to laugh or cry.
* What is a "bullshit job" in the first place? No one has put forward a satisfying definition, instead resorting to anecdotes about a job they once did that maybe seemed bullshit.
* Having the government pay for your basic necessities requires the government to have money. For the government to have money, you need taxes. For there to be taxes, you need commerce. If we dismantle capitalism, there is vastly lower amounts of commerce. Vastly lower amounts of commerce means the government has vastly lower amounts of money. So, young idealists, tell me -- where will the money come from?
On July 02 2014 22:58 Yacobs wrote: There are so many obvious practical problems with all of the "solutions" proposed in this thread, I can't decide if I want to laugh or cry.
* What is a "bullshit job" in the first place? No one has put forward a satisfying definition, instead resorting to anecdotes about a job they once did that maybe seemed bullshit.
* Having the government pay for your basic necessities requires the government to have money. For the government to have money, you need taxes. For there to be taxes, you need commerce. If we dismantle capitalism, there is vastly lower amounts of commerce. Vastly lower amounts of commerce means the government has vastly lower amounts of money. So, young idealists, tell me -- where will the money come from?
Definition: A bullshit job is a job that only exists as a side product of the economic system and doesn't provide any tangible value to the world. That means, in an ideal world this job would not exist.
The state wouldn't need to have money to cover the basic needs. This is because we can decouple the basic-need-system from the monetary system. You can think of a world wide union that guarantees the provision of basic needs.
On July 02 2014 21:41 Shikyo wrote: Public healthcare is totally awesome. By the way, there's plenty of private doctors over here as well, but for example when I had to get a tooth removed and went to the public healthcare dentist, he just forwarded me to a private dentist who's an expert at the field. The entire thing went very smoothly and was super professional, and only cost me about 30 euros. Now, while the public healthcare doctors tend to not be amazing, they can still get basic things done and they can forward you to the experts who get things done for the same fee(the government pays the full fee to them here).
Of course, in the end it's partially paid for via taxes, but the amount of security you get and the guarantee you have that things will work out without needing all sorts of seperate insurances and packages and policies and all sorts of things in return for you never being screwed... Is in my opinion worth it. Just how much is money worth, anyway? After you can get by decently, there's minimal returns if you don't want to outright waste it on drinking or new cards(when your old one would do just fine). For example my friend who earns around 10k euros a month just donates most of it to charity because it's not that useful to him.
Wait, there are dentists who are experts in removing teeth? Isn't that a bread and butter thing for them that any dentist should be able to do?
Dunno, usually dentisting doesn't involve too much removing of teeth, isn't it more drilling out caries (I just googled that to see if that is the correct spelling in english. A word of advice: Don't.) and filling in holes. So if there is something complicated with the tooth to be removed going on, why shouldn't there be a specialist for that?
On July 02 2014 21:41 Shikyo wrote: Public healthcare is totally awesome. By the way, there's plenty of private doctors over here as well, but for example when I had to get a tooth removed and went to the public healthcare dentist, he just forwarded me to a private dentist who's an expert at the field. The entire thing went very smoothly and was super professional, and only cost me about 30 euros. Now, while the public healthcare doctors tend to not be amazing, they can still get basic things done and they can forward you to the experts who get things done for the same fee(the government pays the full fee to them here).
Of course, in the end it's partially paid for via taxes, but the amount of security you get and the guarantee you have that things will work out without needing all sorts of seperate insurances and packages and policies and all sorts of things in return for you never being screwed... Is in my opinion worth it. Just how much is money worth, anyway? After you can get by decently, there's minimal returns if you don't want to outright waste it on drinking or new cards(when your old one would do just fine). For example my friend who earns around 10k euros a month just donates most of it to charity because it's not that useful to him.
Wait, there are dentists who are experts in removing teeth? Isn't that a bread and butter thing for them that any dentist should be able to do?
Yeah over here there is generally a difference between dentist and dental surgeon. While a dentist can probably do a simple removal a dental surgeon would be visited for pulling out wisdom teeth or otherwise complicated procedures.
If only CEOs and managers were capable of overcoming their collective blindness to the existence of useless jobs! Imagine how much better their bottom line would have been, how many companies wouldn't have had to go bankrupt! If only ...
You guys should know that in the future, everything is going to automated right?
Thus a lot of those "bullshit" jobs will disappear.
But due the our huge population number, people will fight to the death for those jobs.
This will create anarchy in the society and bloodshed.
But the main way to control the population number is with the rise of the LGBTQ community.
And if you are into any form of science fields, writing industry, and/or art creation field, I personally wouldn't worry too much about it. These fields are very to be automated and require a certain level of creativity that the A.I. is unable to possess (unless someone of those fields programs it to be in which case, it further reinforce the notion).
In the future, we will ALL be designers and creators.
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: And if you are into any form of science fields, writing industry, and/or art creation field, I personally wouldn't worry too much about it.
Of course, if you are a research assistant, a journalist, or a storybook sketch artist, you'll be automated away anyway!
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: And if you are into any form of science fields, writing industry, and/or art creation field, I personally wouldn't worry too much about it.
Of course, if you are a research assistant, a journalist, or a storybook sketch artist, you'll be automated away anyway!
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: But the main way to control the population number is with the rise of the LGBTQ community.
so many wats... are you suggesting that there are so many gays pretending to be strait and having children that if they didn't feel that pressure it would stop the population rising?
It's a little weird in the US. I'm not sure how it's supposed to be, for all intents and purposes most of the actual work is done by dental assistants or whatever they call themselves.
The person who got a traditional degree (not from a multi-week [~1/2-2 years] tech course or the 'dentist' usually is primarily there as a legal requirement and for supervisory/consultation/observation purposes (they tend to own and operate the business itself also).
It's not uncommon to schedule a dental appointment and not even actually ever see a 'dentist'. Their assistants will be tasked with everything up to and including at least fillings cavities.
Many times the dentist will just stop in to administer local anesthetics and then let the assistant do the dental work while he/she moves on to the next patient.
Doctors spend about 20% of their time with patients I'd say the same is about true for dentists.
For more complicated procedures like non-surgical extractions you would probably be worked on by a dentist, and then for more invasive surgical work you would see a dental surgeon.
Of course the more rural the setting, the more unique the situation would be around here.
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: But the main way to control the population number is with the rise of the LGBTQ community.
so many wats... are you suggesting that there are so many gays pretending to be strait and having children that if they didn't feel that pressure it would stop the population rising?
Where did you that idea?
Chances of Gay/Lesbian "members" to reproduce amongst couples are non existence-> They choose to adopt kids -> The kids will think that being Gay/Lesbian is normal due to nurture and being socially accepted -> High chances of them of becoming gays/lesbians -> Growth in the Gay/Lesbian community -> lower the population reproduction.
With the growth of the gay/lesbian community, there will be less people to produce. This is just simple biology.
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: But the main way to control the population number is with the rise of the LGBTQ community.
so many wats... are you suggesting that there are so many gays pretending to be strait and having children that if they didn't feel that pressure it would stop the population rising?
Where did you that idea?
Chances of Gay/Lesbian "members" to reproduce amongst couples are non existence-> They choose to adopt kids -> The kids will think that being Gay/Lesbian is normal due to nurture and being socially accepted -> High chances of them of becoming gays/lesbians -> Growth in the Gay/Lesbian community -> lower the population reproduction.
With the growth of the gay/lesbian community, there will be less people to produce. This is just simple biology.
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: But the main way to control the population number is with the rise of the LGBTQ community.
so many wats... are you suggesting that there are so many gays pretending to be strait and having children that if they didn't feel that pressure it would stop the population rising?
Where did you that idea?
Chances of Gay/Lesbian "members" to reproduce amongst couples are non existence-> They choose to adopt kids -> The kids will think that being Gay/Lesbian is normal due to nurture and being socially accepted -> High chances of them of becoming gays/lesbians -> Growth in the Gay/Lesbian community -> lower the population reproduction.
With the growth of the gay/lesbian community, there will be less people to produce. This is just simple biology.
On July 02 2014 23:54 urboss wrote: Definition: A bullshit job is a job that only exists as a side product of the economic system and doesn't provide any tangible value to the world. That means, in an ideal world this job would not exist.
The state wouldn't need to have money to cover the basic needs. This is because we can decouple the basic-need-system from the monetary system. You can think of a world wide union that guarantees the provision of basic needs.
Classic example of irrationally idealistic thought.
"A bullshit job is a job that only exists as a side product of the economic system and doesn't provide any tangible value to the world."
What is tangible value to the world? How do you define it? Who defines it?
"That means, in an ideal world this job would not exist."
What is an ideal world? How do you define it? Who defines it?
"The state wouldn't need to have money to cover the basic needs. This is because we can decouple the basic-need-system from the monetary system. You can think of a world wide union that guarantees the provision of basic needs."
It's telling that you mention a world wide union because this sort of utopia where money doesn't exist for basic needs would never work as long as there are countries that don't partake in it. How about we talk about ways to improve things that are actually achievable? If you think that uniting the world under a single state is achievable anytime in the meaningful future, then you're insane.
That is nonsense. A reduce in population has effects when population/area is relevant. This means food production, living arrangements, natural ressources, that sort of thing. It also means that infrastructure becomes MORE expensive, because people live further away from each other, meaning you need more road/cable/sewer per person.
You are assuming that the reduction in population will only be homeless or jobless people, and i see no basis for that assumption.
Also, human sexuality does not work that way. You are getting dangerously close to the "gay conspiracy" guys.
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: You guys should know that in the future, everything is going to automated right?
Thus a lot of those "bullshit" jobs will disappear.
But due the our huge population number, people will fight to the death for those jobs.
This will create anarchy in the society and bloodshed.
But the main way to control the population number is with the rise of the LGBTQ community.
And if you are into any form of science fields, writing industry, and/or art creation field, I personally wouldn't worry too much about it. These fields are very to be automated and require a certain level of creativity that the A.I. is unable to possess (unless someone of those fields programs it to be in which case, it further reinforce the notion).
In the future, we will ALL be designers and creators.
I honestly thought this post was some sort of hyperbolic joke, but apparently you are actually serious.
On July 03 2014 01:41 Simberto wrote: That is nonsense. A reduce in population has effects when population/area is relevant. This means food production, living arrangements, natural ressources, that sort of thing. It also means that infrastructure becomes MORE expensive, because people live further away from each other, meaning you need more road/cable/sewer per person.
You are assuming that the reduction in population will only be homeless or jobless people, and i see no basis for that assumption.
Also, human sexuality does not work that way. You are getting dangerously close to the "gay conspiracy" guys.
I honestly thought your whole previous post was a joke.
Explain the bold, don't be like the previous guy that make statement w/o backup. That's useless.
What if I were to tell you that many of the undergraduate students can't find jobs after they graduate due to the fact that there are more population than jobs available?
High paying jobs are the ones in the science field (physics, comp sci, chemist), they can't find jobs nowadays. And with the rise of automations, the "lower requirement" jobs are all filled up by machines.
But I sort of agree on the "more road/cable/sewer per person" point. However, road/cable/sewer can be improved with tech. Which many people are getting into but can't seem to find any job.
On July 03 2014 01:41 Simberto wrote: That is nonsense. A reduce in population has effects when population/area is relevant. This means food production, living arrangements, natural ressources, that sort of thing. It also means that infrastructure becomes MORE expensive, because people live further away from each other, meaning you need more road/cable/sewer per person.
You are assuming that the reduction in population will only be homeless or jobless people, and i see no basis for that assumption.
Also, human sexuality does not work that way. You are getting dangerously close to the "gay conspiracy" guys.
I honestly thought your whole previous post was a joke.
Explain the bold, don't be like the previous guy that make statement w/o backup. That's useless.
What if I were to tell you that many of the undergraduate students can't find jobs after they graduate due to the fact that there are more population than jobs available?
High paying jobs are the ones in the science field (physics, comp sci, chemist), they can't find jobs nowadays. And with the rise of automations, the "lower requirement" jobs are all filled up by machines.
But I sort of agree on the "more road/cable/sewer per person" point. However, road/cable/sewer can be improved with tech. Which many people are getting into but can't seem to find any job.
Holy tangent Batman.....
I'd argue that many of the undergraduate students who can't find a job are often in that position because the skills/experiences they acquired in college are not appropriate for the kind of work they are looking for (where if you don't gain additional specialization/functionality through your education, why should they pay you more for it). It's an unfortunate reality but luckily people are beginning to see that your college major doesn't have to dictate your career etc
On July 03 2014 01:35 oneofthem wrote: lower population is a good thing
Exactly, more jobs for everyone.
Less people on the welfare, less people homeless, less taxes spent on those things, more money spent on building infrastructure.
Technology/WWs provided us with HIGH population, you NEED a way to control the population. The gay/lesbian rise is an outlet of doing so.
Are you honestly saying that more people are gay than in the past and that is somehow a part of curbing population growth? The LGBT movement has not been about more people becoming gay (it happens naturally and is a set thing) it is about people who were in that position not having to hide it; it's totally separate from population growth. People who were gay before were not forcing themselves to have children, like the guy above me said, that's not how human sexuality/attraction works. Utterly ridiculous claim tbh
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: But the main way to control the population number is with the rise of the LGBTQ community.
so many wats... are you suggesting that there are so many gays pretending to be strait and having children that if they didn't feel that pressure it would stop the population rising?
Where did you that idea?
Chances of Gay/Lesbian "members" to reproduce amongst couples are non existence-> They choose to adopt kids -> The kids will think that being Gay/Lesbian is normal due to nurture and being socially accepted -> High chances of them of becoming gays/lesbians -> Growth in the Gay/Lesbian community -> lower the population reproduction.
With the growth of the gay/lesbian community, there will be less people to produce. This is just simple biology.
... not being a homophobe doesn't make you gay....
On July 03 2014 01:41 Simberto wrote: That is nonsense. A reduce in population has effects when population/area is relevant. This means food production, living arrangements, natural ressources, that sort of thing. It also means that infrastructure becomes MORE expensive, because people live further away from each other, meaning you need more road/cable/sewer per person.
You are assuming that the reduction in population will only be homeless or jobless people, and i see no basis for that assumption.
Also, human sexuality does not work that way. You are getting dangerously close to the "gay conspiracy" guys.
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: You guys should know that in the future, everything is going to automated right?
Thus a lot of those "bullshit" jobs will disappear.
But due the our huge population number, people will fight to the death for those jobs.
This will create anarchy in the society and bloodshed.
But the main way to control the population number is with the rise of the LGBTQ community.
And if you are into any form of science fields, writing industry, and/or art creation field, I personally wouldn't worry too much about it. These fields are very to be automated and require a certain level of creativity that the A.I. is unable to possess (unless someone of those fields programs it to be in which case, it further reinforce the notion).
In the future, we will ALL be designers and creators.
I honestly thought this post was some sort of hyperbolic joke, but apparently you are actually serious.
a big reason canada is such a happy country is that there are hardly any people here.
Satellite and radio signal internet price remains the same no matter where your receiver is relative to some large city.
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: But the main way to control the population number is with the rise of the LGBTQ community.
so many wats... are you suggesting that there are so many gays pretending to be strait and having children that if they didn't feel that pressure it would stop the population rising?
Where did you that idea?
Chances of Gay/Lesbian "members" to reproduce amongst couples are non existence-> They choose to adopt kids -> The kids will think that being Gay/Lesbian is normal due to nurture and being socially accepted -> High chances of them of becoming gays/lesbians -> Growth in the Gay/Lesbian community -> lower the population reproduction.
With the growth of the gay/lesbian community, there will be less people to produce. This is just simple biology.
... not being a homophobe doesn't make you gay....
I don't think this guy's able to see that xD maybe he's one of those 'you choose to be gay' believers? The whole point is that the LGBT community isn't growing larger, it's that people don't have to hide as much for fear of negative consequences
On July 03 2014 01:41 Simberto wrote: That is nonsense. A reduce in population has effects when population/area is relevant. This means food production, living arrangements, natural ressources, that sort of thing. It also means that infrastructure becomes MORE expensive, because people live further away from each other, meaning you need more road/cable/sewer per person.
You are assuming that the reduction in population will only be homeless or jobless people, and i see no basis for that assumption.
Also, human sexuality does not work that way. You are getting dangerously close to the "gay conspiracy" guys.
I honestly thought your whole previous post was a joke.
Explain the bold, don't be like the previous guy that make statement w/o backup. That's useless.
What if I were to tell you that many of the undergraduate students can't find jobs after they graduate due to the fact that there are more population than jobs available?
High paying jobs are the ones in the science field (physics, comp sci, chemist), they can't find jobs nowadays. And with the rise of automations, the "lower requirement" jobs are all filled up by machines.
But I sort of agree on the "more road/cable/sewer per person" point. However, road/cable/sewer can be improved with tech. Which many people are getting into but can't seem to find any job.
Second thing first: Jobs do not magically appear. People produce jobs. If there is less people, not only are there less people who apply for jobs, there are also less jobs to apply for.
Simple example: A small village with 2000 people might need two stores selling food, each with 5 people working there. If there are only 1000 people in that village, there are less people buying food, and thus less need for stores, and less jobs for storekeeper.
Regarding the sexuality thing: People do not turn gay by being around gay people. That is simply not how it works. There is no gay radiation or gay virus that makes you gay if you meet too many gay people. You are either gay or you aren't (or bi or somewhere in between or whatever)
I guess there might be a minor effect due to gay people who would previously married someone and been in a miserable relationship that might potentially produce children due to societal pressure.
However, this effect is pretty minor compared to a lot of other stuff. Mostly, western society does not actually produce surplus population. For example, in germany the average woman currently has 1.38 children. Obviously, this number is smaller than 2.
The "population problem" that people tend to talk about usually appears in third world countries. I do not know enough about societal theory to actually explain this, but my guess is a combination of a lack of contraceptives and retirement preperation, meaning your children are pretty much your retirement font.
On July 03 2014 01:35 oneofthem wrote: lower population is a good thing
Exactly, more jobs for everyone.
Less people on the welfare, less people homeless, less taxes spent on those things, more money spent on building infrastructure.
Technology/WWs provided us with HIGH population, you NEED a way to control the population. The gay/lesbian rise is an outlet of doing so.
Are you honestly saying that more people are gay than in the past and that is somehow a part of curbing population growth? The LGBT movement has not been about more people becoming gay (it happens naturally and is a set thing) it is about people who were in that position not having to hide it; it's totally separate from population growth. People who were gay before were not forcing themselves to have children, like the guy above me said, that's not how human sexuality/attraction works. Utterly ridiculous claim tbh
You said it yourself "about people who were in that position not having to hide it" thus more people "officially" come out.
The gay/lesbian couples can certainly have an influence on the next generation of their sexuality. With all those media attention and how "prideful" it is to come out, ofc people will get influenced into it and the adopted children of these gay/lesbian couples will tell the kids that it is normal to be in their shoes and there will certainly be an increase of children due to LGBTQ celebration all around.
And with the "growth" of the community and how they can't reproduce themselves. What happens when more of a population become unable to reproduce? The population goes down.
Some of you guys don't understand the survival of the fittest and how biology is morphed in symbiotic relationship with the surrounding environment to get ahead of the pack.
Going back to the job thing: Colleges/Universities are like businesses. That I agree with. So while you are saying that they don't exactly offer you the things you need in the real world, less people will be going there. And less people going to those institution, less money to be made by some investors. And some of those investors are really powerful people in politics, I think they will want people to go colleges/universities rather than not.
On July 03 2014 01:35 oneofthem wrote: lower population is a good thing
Exactly, more jobs for everyone.
Less people on the welfare, less people homeless, less taxes spent on those things, more money spent on building infrastructure.
Technology/WWs provided us with HIGH population, you NEED a way to control the population. The gay/lesbian rise is an outlet of doing so.
Are you honestly saying that more people are gay than in the past and that is somehow a part of curbing population growth? The LGBT movement has not been about more people becoming gay (it happens naturally and is a set thing) it is about people who were in that position not having to hide it; it's totally separate from population growth. People who were gay before were not forcing themselves to have children, like the guy above me said, that's not how human sexuality/attraction works. Utterly ridiculous claim tbh
You said it yourself "about people who were in that position not having to hide it" thus more people "officially" come out.
The gay/lesbian couples can certainly have an influence on the next generation of their sexuality. With all those media attention and how "prideful" it is to come out, ofc people will get influenced into it and the adopted children of these gay/lesbian couples will tell the kids that it is normal to be in their shoes and there will certainly be an increase of children due to LGBTQ celebration all around.
And with the "growth" of the community and how they can't reproduce themselves. What happens when more of a population become unable to reproduce? The population goes down.
Some of you guys don't understand the survival of the fittest and how biology is morphed in symbiotic relationship with the surrounding environment to get ahead of the pack.
Going back to the job thing: Colleges/Universities are like businesses. That I agree with. So while you are saying that they don't exactly offer you the things you need in the real world, less people will be going there. And less people going to those institution, less money to be made by some investors. And some of those investors are really powerful people in politics, I think they will want people to go colleges/universities rather than not.
The part of what you're saying that makes no sense is that you're saying more people will become gay because its socially acceptable to be gay. That's not how sexuality works, you should check out some of the older threads on TL that discuss this in much more eloquent detail than i can
EDIT for clarity: coming out doesn't make you gay, it's where you publicly let others know that you are gay. Whether or not you come out doesn't change who you are attracted to
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: And if you are into any form of science fields, writing industry, and/or art creation field, I personally wouldn't worry too much about it.
Of course, if you are a research assistant, a journalist, or a storybook sketch artist, you'll be automated away anyway!
Explain.
Software becomes better and better at the boring part of research, enabling one assistant to do the work of many, or enabling the head researcher to not having to deal with assistants at all but just work with software.
Journalists are already being replaced by software. This is present reality. Example
Art is being increasingly auto-generated by computers. Software can take a movie script, and generate 20 stylistically different storybook drafts from it within seconds. If you were the guy who prototyped storybooks previously, you are out.
Bottom line: There is virtually no sector that is truly "safe" from software. If your work can be better done by a computer, you lose. If your work can be better done by complementing a computer (and you have the necessary technical skills), you win.
"Cameron and Cameron (1996) reported on 17 adults with homosexual parents (out of a random sample of 5,182) and how frequently in 986 consecutive Washington, DC obituaries (1988-1993) from gay newspapers homosexuals had children (6% of the gays, 29% of the lesbians were so listed). The 17 were disproportionately apt to report (a) sexual relations with their parents (line 14, Table 1), (b) a less than exclusively heterosexual orientation (line 10, Table 1), (c) gender dissatisfaction, and (d) that their first sexual experience was homosexual."
" Sirota9 paired 68 adult daughters of gay fathers with 68 daughters of heterosexual fathers. Daughters with gay fathers tested less comfortable with intimacy and more anxious (lines 25, 28, Table 1); were less religious and more frequently engaged in compulsive heterosexuality (line 38, Table 1); less frequently married (19% if father was gay vs. 32% if father was heterosexual; line 1, Table 1); more frequently reported a bi/homosexual preference (34% if father was gay vs. 3% if father was heterosexual; almost every study has reported similarly, including Regnerus); reported less closeness to parents (lines 19, 20, Table 1); and more frequently indicated abusing drugs or alcohol (44% if father was gay vs. 7% if father was heterosexual; lines 30-32, Table 1). "
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: And if you are into any form of science fields, writing industry, and/or art creation field, I personally wouldn't worry too much about it.
Of course, if you are a research assistant, a journalist, or a storybook sketch artist, you'll be automated away anyway!
Explain.
Software becomes better and better at the boring part of research, enabling one assistant to do the work of many, or enabling the head researcher to not having to deal with assistants at all but just work with software.
Journalists are already being replaced by software. This is present reality. Example
Art is being increasingly auto-generated by computers. Software can take a movie script, and generate 20 stylistically different storybook drafts from it within seconds. If you were the guy who prototyped storybooks previously, you are out.
Bottom line: There is virtually no sector that is truly "safe" from software. If your work can be better done by a computer, you lose. If your work can be better done by complementing a computer (and you have the necessary technical skills), you win.
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: And if you are into any form of science fields, writing industry, and/or art creation field, I personally wouldn't worry too much about it.
Of course, if you are a research assistant, a journalist, or a storybook sketch artist, you'll be automated away anyway!
Explain.
Software becomes better and better at the boring part of research, enabling one assistant to do the work of many, or enabling the head researcher to not having to deal with assistants at all but just work with software.
Journalists are already being replaced by software. This is present reality. Example
Art is being increasingly auto-generated by computers. Software can take a movie script, and generate 20 stylistically different storybook drafts from it within seconds. If you were the guy who prototyped storybooks previously, you are out.
Bottom line: There is virtually no sector that is truly "safe" from software. If your work can be better done by a computer, you lose. If your work can be better done by complementing a computer (and you have the necessary technical skills), you win.
I think at least for the next several decades there won't be a huge overhaul/loss of jobs due to machines since the level of sophistication/thought many of these jobs require is still beyond the cost of mass producing a machine to do it instead. It's an interesting thought experiment as to what these people will do though, and is I'm sure more than a little similar to what happened when assembly robots began replacing workers in automated processes (car construction etc).
"Cameron and Cameron (1996) reported on 17 adults with homosexual parents (out of a random sample of 5,182) and how frequently in 986 consecutive Washington, DC obituaries (1988-1993) from gay newspapers homosexuals had children (6% of the gays, 29% of the lesbians were so listed). The 17 were disproportionately apt to report (a) sexual relations with their parents (line 14, Table 1), (b) a less than exclusively heterosexual orientation (line 10, Table 1), (c) gender dissatisfaction, and (d) that their first sexual experience was homosexual."
" Sirota9 paired 68 adult daughters of gay fathers with 68 daughters of heterosexual fathers. Daughters with gay fathers tested less comfortable with intimacy and more anxious (lines 25, 28, Table 1); were less religious and more frequently engaged in compulsive heterosexuality (line 38, Table 1); less frequently married (19% if father was gay vs. 32% if father was heterosexual; line 1, Table 1); more frequently reported a bi/homosexual preference (34% if father was gay vs. 3% if father was heterosexual; almost every study has reported similarly, including Regnerus); reported less closeness to parents (lines 19, 20, Table 1); and more frequently indicated abusing drugs or alcohol (44% if father was gay vs. 7% if father was heterosexual; lines 30-32, Table 1). "
The Family Research Institute was founded in 1982 with one overriding mission: to generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality,
actually reading more of that article its pretty hilarious.
"Cameron and Cameron (1996) reported on 17 adults with homosexual parents (out of a random sample of 5,182) and how frequently in 986 consecutive Washington, DC obituaries (1988-1993) from gay newspapers homosexuals had children (6% of the gays, 29% of the lesbians were so listed). The 17 were disproportionately apt to report (a) sexual relations with their parents (line 14, Table 1), (b) a less than exclusively heterosexual orientation (line 10, Table 1), (c) gender dissatisfaction, and (d) that their first sexual experience was homosexual."
" Sirota9 paired 68 adult daughters of gay fathers with 68 daughters of heterosexual fathers. Daughters with gay fathers tested less comfortable with intimacy and more anxious (lines 25, 28, Table 1); were less religious and more frequently engaged in compulsive heterosexuality (line 38, Table 1); less frequently married (19% if father was gay vs. 32% if father was heterosexual; line 1, Table 1); more frequently reported a bi/homosexual preference (34% if father was gay vs. 3% if father was heterosexual; almost every study has reported similarly, including Regnerus); reported less closeness to parents (lines 19, 20, Table 1); and more frequently indicated abusing drugs or alcohol (44% if father was gay vs. 7% if father was heterosexual; lines 30-32, Table 1). "
On July 03 2014 00:59 Xiphos wrote: And if you are into any form of science fields, writing industry, and/or art creation field, I personally wouldn't worry too much about it.
Of course, if you are a research assistant, a journalist, or a storybook sketch artist, you'll be automated away anyway!
Explain.
Software becomes better and better at the boring part of research, enabling one assistant to do the work of many, or enabling the head researcher to not having to deal with assistants at all but just work with software.
Journalists are already being replaced by software. This is present reality. Example
Art is being increasingly auto-generated by computers. Software can take a movie script, and generate 20 stylistically different storybook drafts from it within seconds. If you were the guy who prototyped storybooks previously, you are out.
Bottom line: There is virtually no sector that is truly "safe" from software. If your work can be better done by a computer, you lose. If your work can be better done by complementing a computer (and you have the necessary technical skills), you win.
Ah I see what you mean now.
Sorry bud, pseudo science 'studies' can be found supporting whatever you would like. Be it climate change or whether or not vaccines cause autism people with some form of personal stake in the matter can find statistics to support whatever they would like. Trolls gonna troll i guess =/
"Cameron and Cameron (1996) reported on 17 adults with homosexual parents (out of a random sample of 5,182) and how frequently in 986 consecutive Washington, DC obituaries (1988-1993) from gay newspapers homosexuals had children (6% of the gays, 29% of the lesbians were so listed). The 17 were disproportionately apt to report (a) sexual relations with their parents (line 14, Table 1), (b) a less than exclusively heterosexual orientation (line 10, Table 1), (c) gender dissatisfaction, and (d) that their first sexual experience was homosexual."
" Sirota9 paired 68 adult daughters of gay fathers with 68 daughters of heterosexual fathers. Daughters with gay fathers tested less comfortable with intimacy and more anxious (lines 25, 28, Table 1); were less religious and more frequently engaged in compulsive heterosexuality (line 38, Table 1); less frequently married (19% if father was gay vs. 32% if father was heterosexual; line 1, Table 1); more frequently reported a bi/homosexual preference (34% if father was gay vs. 3% if father was heterosexual; almost every study has reported similarly, including Regnerus); reported less closeness to parents (lines 19, 20, Table 1); and more frequently indicated abusing drugs or alcohol (44% if father was gay vs. 7% if father was heterosexual; lines 30-32, Table 1). "
The Family Research Institute was founded in 1982 with one overriding mission: to generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality,
actually reading more of that article its pretty hilarious.
"Cameron and Cameron (1996) reported on 17 adults with homosexual parents (out of a random sample of 5,182) and how frequently in 986 consecutive Washington, DC obituaries (1988-1993) from gay newspapers homosexuals had children (6% of the gays, 29% of the lesbians were so listed). The 17 were disproportionately apt to report (a) sexual relations with their parents (line 14, Table 1), (b) a less than exclusively heterosexual orientation (line 10, Table 1), (c) gender dissatisfaction, and (d) that their first sexual experience was homosexual."
" Sirota9 paired 68 adult daughters of gay fathers with 68 daughters of heterosexual fathers. Daughters with gay fathers tested less comfortable with intimacy and more anxious (lines 25, 28, Table 1); were less religious and more frequently engaged in compulsive heterosexuality (line 38, Table 1); less frequently married (19% if father was gay vs. 32% if father was heterosexual; line 1, Table 1); more frequently reported a bi/homosexual preference (34% if father was gay vs. 3% if father was heterosexual; almost every study has reported similarly, including Regnerus); reported less closeness to parents (lines 19, 20, Table 1); and more frequently indicated abusing drugs or alcohol (44% if father was gay vs. 7% if father was heterosexual; lines 30-32, Table 1). "
The Family Research Institute was founded in 1982 with one overriding mission: to generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality,
actually reading more of that article its pretty hilarious.
I don't know what that means but as i read more and more of the article i'm surprised to find that anyone would link that in a serious discussion, its just hilarious! I recommend anyone looking for a laugh check it out.
"Cameron and Cameron (1996) reported on 17 adults with homosexual parents (out of a random sample of 5,182) and how frequently in 986 consecutive Washington, DC obituaries (1988-1993) from gay newspapers homosexuals had children (6% of the gays, 29% of the lesbians were so listed). The 17 were disproportionately apt to report (a) sexual relations with their parents (line 14, Table 1), (b) a less than exclusively heterosexual orientation (line 10, Table 1), (c) gender dissatisfaction, and (d) that their first sexual experience was homosexual."
" Sirota9 paired 68 adult daughters of gay fathers with 68 daughters of heterosexual fathers. Daughters with gay fathers tested less comfortable with intimacy and more anxious (lines 25, 28, Table 1); were less religious and more frequently engaged in compulsive heterosexuality (line 38, Table 1); less frequently married (19% if father was gay vs. 32% if father was heterosexual; line 1, Table 1); more frequently reported a bi/homosexual preference (34% if father was gay vs. 3% if father was heterosexual; almost every study has reported similarly, including Regnerus); reported less closeness to parents (lines 19, 20, Table 1); and more frequently indicated abusing drugs or alcohol (44% if father was gay vs. 7% if father was heterosexual; lines 30-32, Table 1). "
The Family Research Institute was founded in 1982 with one overriding mission: to generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality,
actually reading more of that article its pretty hilarious.
I don't know what that means but as i read more and more of the article i'm surprised to find that anyone would link that in a serious discussion, its just hilarious! I recommend anyone looking for a laugh check it out.
It was pretty damn funny. I like that their own mission statement says flat out something along the lines of protecting traditional family values from homosexuality or some bs like that xD
Putting all things aside about validity of the argument, plenty of the people in the lgbtq community want to have, and do produce their own children. Some of them have to go out of the relationship to do it, but many don't. A bisexual in a heterosexual relationship for instance.
That study is absurd by the way.
As for jobs I've actually thought about this topic before but I think that I don't have a solution.
On July 02 2014 19:06 urboss wrote: Not sure what you are getting at. The whole conclusion of the article is that modern capitalism is not working as efficiently as advocated. It is inefficient in transforming the effort spent into tangible real world value. The bullshit jobs are an expression of that inefficiency.
That is definitively correct. However, it is also the most efficient system we have so far. Obviously capitalism isn't ideally efficient. Just take a look at advertisements, failing companies, etc, which are a major part of the system but also obviously waste effort and ressources.
But pointing this out doesn't actually do anything. Because it is still the most efficient system humanity has come up with so far. (And here i am talking about capitalism as a whole, there are obviously differences between american style crazy capitalism and euro style social capitalism). What you need to do is not say "This is inefficient" but "This would be more efficient". If you can not do that, you are wasting everyones time. Because 100% efficiency is not really an achievable goal. Neither is it the only goal, the size of the delta in the distribution of the is also something that is very relevant, and a few other things too. And there is a very major danger when changing the core of the system to actually make it worse then before.
I agree, there is probably no better system than the current. That doesn't automatically mean that we have to stop thinking about alternatives. Once the service sector becomes largely automated, the situation will change. And then there will be better alternatives than the current system. But as mentioned, the economy will need to crash several times to the point of becoming unsustainable before anything will change.
It seems that a lot of people in this thread thinks along the lines of:
"Well, the job exist, therefore it has value"
This is a pretty bold claim in the frame of the discussion presented in the essay - this critique the way i see it the same used to discount Marxist views on capitalism, for example : "Why should i work more for the same value, it's not motivational" - well, you are missing the point, there, as in this article - the problem IS jobs, the problem is, that the human race on the whole, still has to perform tasks (of any form) in exchange for value/money that can be used to sustain their life.
The counter-point is not that these "bullshit" jobs have no value, or don't perform a function in their own context, but rather that we should strive for a system where it's not needed at any level or in any effort (for anyone). In short - it's not about motivation to work more / less - it's about removing the need for anyone at a large scale to do so at all.
Think about it another way - ancient cultures like Egypt, Greece and Rome, had this idea covered in another way - by violence of state and the subordination of slaves, in their system the highest level of citizens where free from working at all, they could pursue politics, art, wine making, pottery, among a whole lot of other hobby/fulfillment activities at their own leisure.
Obviously, they got the human-rights part pretty wrong, and thankfully we largely (at least in the western world) are close to a system of no such oppression - BUT replace slaves with automation/machines here and try to imagine what i mean, the question here, should be viewed in this context imo, WHY are we not as predicted all living leisurely with very minimal or no work? free to pursue our own goals and ideas?
That's the question at hand i think, a lot of these service industries obviously serve a purpose in a business driven world - but why are they not producing more free time? Why are they not making living cheaper? Why has the total economic growth/expansion the last 80 years not produced any significant change in our life quality in the form of free time and valuables usable for mobility in this time?
Surely the technological advanced have made a lot of processes cheaper, faster and more efficient to the point where meaningful sustainable labor is/can be automated - it is not our need for contempt we are sating, it's our greed and need to consume (or in the current frame, the growth based system need for us to do so).
On July 02 2014 21:13 L1ghtning wrote: For such a long post, you certainly didn't have much concrete to say. Just a lot of subjective spewing of opinions. I had to cut out all the things that didn't add anything to the debate, to make it easier to respond.
Almost every technological revolution we've had in the last half-century would never have come about in a closed free market system.
Closed free market? That's a oxymoron. It's you who want to have a closed market, with the government dominating the market. I want a open market, where the government can operate, but where it's dominated by smaller actors.
And we're talking about how the government and the free market handle jobs here, not research. And it's a complete lie that the government is responsible for all technological progress. Our governments are the biggest capital-holders of all. That's why they have their name tagged to a lot of stuff. There's a lot of smaller sized private investors though, and you can bet that they've been involved in the computer industry as well. Private companies also does a lot of research, funded by their own profits. Any company that hire engineers or scientists have a research team.
The free market is much more effective in investing in new technology. The government is one actor, while on the free market there are millions of actors. This is why the free market is superior. With more actors holding a smaller share of capital, capital becomes much more sensitive to trends, so it flows more smoothly. When the government invests prematurely in something, it's a huge money sink, and when they invest in something that will actually change the future, they tend to be very slow compared to the private investors.
The government have a lot of bureaucracy, and ppl making decisions about things that they don't understand, and they also have a tendency to make decisions based on their ideology. The government can make good decisions, but they're less likely to do so. The more free and spread out capital is, the more smoothly it will flow. Letting one actor hold most of the capital is a very bad idea.
The government has just as many examples of more efficiently run enterprises than the free market as the free market does of more efficiently run enterprises than the government:
That graph is hilarious. Is that your proof that public healthcare is run more efficiently? Typical leftist mentality. You cherry-pick things and put them out of their scientific context, to try and prove a point. That graph doesn't prove anything remotely close to what you claim.
A government-run company that have negative profit can be subsidized. A free market company with negative profit goes bankrupt. This is the crucial difference and it's an important one.
Free market enterprices have one goal, and that is to make money, and this encourages them to make their organization as efficient as possible. This is not the case for government-run companies. These companies don't actually get to keep their profits, and if they get into debt, the state can always save them. This discourages them from making their practices more efficient. There is not the same incentive to perform.
Anyway, the main reason why companies gets privatized is because they were money sinks. This is why it's not fair to compare their prices and performance before and after, because when the government owned them, the government subsidized them with tax money, which enabled them to stay afloat. The government should not subsidize their companies, because then they start to compete on unfair terms, which makes it more likely that the company monopolizes the market, which is a bad thing. I don't oppose to the government subsidizing certain services, mainly health care and education, but if they do that, they should do it consistently, on even terms.
I didn't bother to read about that energy company, because it's not very scientific to draw conclusions from 1 example, because they might be favored by the location, and if they get subsidized, it's a irrelevant example. Government owned companies can certainly in some cases be more effective than private owned companies, but if said company was sold off, then most likely it would become even better, especially going forward.
Yes we know that you think the profit incentive makes everything "more efficient." It's too bad you didn't seem to understand half the things I said, and didn't respond to the other half. Talking about "subsidies" in the context of the examples I gave doesn't even make sense ("if they get subsidized, it's a [sic] irrelevant example"). But perhaps I shouldn't be surprised when you can barely string two comprehensible sentences together. You have a weird rant at the beginning about a "closed free market system," which is just a perfectly free market, closed off from government influence, analogous to a closed system in thermodynamics. Then you have weird inversions like these three sentences:
"And it's a complete lie that the government is responsible for all technological progress. Our governments are the biggest capital-holders of all. That's why they have their name tagged to a lot of stuff."
So is the government the biggest capital holder and investor of all, responsible for, if not all, at least a lot, of our technological progress? If not, why do they have their named tagged to a lot of stuff?
It's "not very scientific" to draw your conclusions from neoliberal economic moralizing rather than any empirical basis. Free market American ideologues are the only ones left in the world who hold out against the reality that publicly provided healthcare is a cheaper, better option than private healthcare, and you didn't even address the academic article that I linked discussing empirical studies. The examples I gave were just a handful of the ones out there. I'm not cherry-picking anything. The pharmaceutical industry is also built on the back of government-funded research. You claim that small private investors have funded a lot of technological progress, but you don't have anything to back you up besides your gut feeling and Peter Thiel telling you that angel investors are the reason silicon valley grew into an economic giant. The reality is that government is responsible for most of the major innovations of the last half century or more, and has been responsible for much of the technological progress going back to the ancient Egyptians.
I clicked to the last page, and this has gotten hilariously off on different tangents.
But one point about US Healthcare: if you ever make the argument that it's a free market system, you're an idiot. Its problem is an utter lack of market forces. US Healthcare is riven with so much rent-seeking, over-regulation, stupid requirements and just flat insanity that it only can function because the costs are so high.
Unless you pay cash, then it's very good, generally well-priced and quite easy to deal with. Funny that.
On July 03 2014 01:35 oneofthem wrote: lower population is a good thing
Exactly, more jobs for everyone.
Less people on the welfare, less people homeless, less taxes spent on those things, more money spent on building infrastructure.
Technology/WWs provided us with HIGH population, you NEED a way to control the population. The gay/lesbian rise is an outlet of doing so.
Are you honestly saying that more people are gay than in the past and that is somehow a part of curbing population growth? The LGBT movement has not been about more people becoming gay (it happens naturally and is a set thing) it is about people who were in that position not having to hide it; it's totally separate from population growth. People who were gay before were not forcing themselves to have children, like the guy above me said, that's not how human sexuality/attraction works. Utterly ridiculous claim tbh
You said it yourself "about people who were in that position not having to hide it" thus more people "officially" come out.
The gay/lesbian couples can certainly have an influence on the next generation of their sexuality. With all those media attention and how "prideful" it is to come out, ofc people will get influenced into it and the adopted children of these gay/lesbian couples will tell the kids that it is normal to be in their shoes and there will certainly be an increase of children due to LGBTQ celebration all around.
And with the "growth" of the community and how they can't reproduce themselves. What happens when more of a population become unable to reproduce? The population goes down.
Some of you guys don't understand the survival of the fittest and how biology is morphed in symbiotic relationship with the surrounding environment to get ahead of the pack.
Going back to the job thing: Colleges/Universities are like businesses. That I agree with. So while you are saying that they don't exactly offer you the things you need in the real world, less people will be going there. And less people going to those institution, less money to be made by some investors. And some of those investors are really powerful people in politics, I think they will want people to go colleges/universities rather than not.
WTF? If I didn't know better, I would think you are some kind of AI mining our common knowledge and trying to learn from it. This logic of yours I cannot explain any differently, you sound like you never go out and meet and talk to people. Zero understanding.
I think we're actually a bit short on bullshit job in the "developped" countries. Might be wrong, but call me when we're back to full employement. As for how to deal with it, stop with the work value bullshit (fucking marxist stuff btw) and maybe follow some crazy leftists idea like Thomas Paine or worse Milton Friedman and start with an unconditionnal basic income.
On July 03 2014 05:43 2primenumbers wrote: Bullshit Jobs = Fluff jobs added by government legislation
Yeah cause my friend working for a company who makes bullshit website to shit up google ranking is totally subsidized by the government. Maybe it's time to think this a bit more, nope ? Edit : not that governments are not a pretty nice source of bullshit jobs, obviously.
On July 02 2014 21:13 L1ghtning wrote: For such a long post, you certainly didn't have much concrete to say. Just a lot of subjective spewing of opinions. I had to cut out all the things that didn't add anything to the debate, to make it easier to respond.
On July 02 2014 10:31 IgnE wrote:
Almost every technological revolution we've had in the last half-century would never have come about in a closed free market system.
Closed free market? That's a oxymoron. It's you who want to have a closed market, with the government dominating the market. I want a open market, where the government can operate, but where it's dominated by smaller actors.
And we're talking about how the government and the free market handle jobs here, not research. And it's a complete lie that the government is responsible for all technological progress. Our governments are the biggest capital-holders of all. That's why they have their name tagged to a lot of stuff. There's a lot of smaller sized private investors though, and you can bet that they've been involved in the computer industry as well. Private companies also does a lot of research, funded by their own profits. Any company that hire engineers or scientists have a research team.
The free market is much more effective in investing in new technology. The government is one actor, while on the free market there are millions of actors. This is why the free market is superior. With more actors holding a smaller share of capital, capital becomes much more sensitive to trends, so it flows more smoothly. When the government invests prematurely in something, it's a huge money sink, and when they invest in something that will actually change the future, they tend to be very slow compared to the private investors.
The government have a lot of bureaucracy, and ppl making decisions about things that they don't understand, and they also have a tendency to make decisions based on their ideology. The government can make good decisions, but they're less likely to do so. The more free and spread out capital is, the more smoothly it will flow. Letting one actor hold most of the capital is a very bad idea.
The government has just as many examples of more efficiently run enterprises than the free market as the free market does of more efficiently run enterprises than the government:
That graph is hilarious. Is that your proof that public healthcare is run more efficiently? Typical leftist mentality. You cherry-pick things and put them out of their scientific context, to try and prove a point. That graph doesn't prove anything remotely close to what you claim.
A government-run company that have negative profit can be subsidized. A free market company with negative profit goes bankrupt. This is the crucial difference and it's an important one.
Free market enterprices have one goal, and that is to make money, and this encourages them to make their organization as efficient as possible. This is not the case for government-run companies. These companies don't actually get to keep their profits, and if they get into debt, the state can always save them. This discourages them from making their practices more efficient. There is not the same incentive to perform.
Anyway, the main reason why companies gets privatized is because they were money sinks. This is why it's not fair to compare their prices and performance before and after, because when the government owned them, the government subsidized them with tax money, which enabled them to stay afloat. The government should not subsidize their companies, because then they start to compete on unfair terms, which makes it more likely that the company monopolizes the market, which is a bad thing. I don't oppose to the government subsidizing certain services, mainly health care and education, but if they do that, they should do it consistently, on even terms.
I didn't bother to read about that energy company, because it's not very scientific to draw conclusions from 1 example, because they might be favored by the location, and if they get subsidized, it's a irrelevant example. Government owned companies can certainly in some cases be more effective than private owned companies, but if said company was sold off, then most likely it would become even better, especially going forward.
Yes we know that you think the profit incentive makes everything "more efficient." It's too bad you didn't seem to understand half the things I said, and didn't respond to the other half. Talking about "subsidies" in the context of the examples I gave doesn't even make sense ("if they get subsidized, it's a [sic] irrelevant example"). But perhaps I shouldn't be surprised when you can barely string two comprehensible sentences together. You have a weird rant at the beginning about a "closed free market system," which is just a perfectly free market, closed off from government influence, analogous to a closed system in thermodynamics. Then you have weird inversions like these three sentences:
"And it's a complete lie that the government is responsible for all technological progress. Our governments are the biggest capital-holders of all. That's why they have their name tagged to a lot of stuff."
So is the government the biggest capital holder and investor of all, responsible for, if not all, at least a lot, of our technological progress? If not, why do they have their named tagged to a lot of stuff?
It's "not very scientific" to draw your conclusions from neoliberal economic moralizing rather than any empirical basis. Free market American ideologues are the only ones left in the world who hold out against the reality that publicly provided healthcare is a cheaper, better option than private healthcare, and you didn't even address the academic article that I linked discussing empirical studies. The examples I gave were just a handful of the ones out there. I'm not cherry-picking anything. The pharmaceutical industry is also built on the back of government-funded research. You claim that small private investors have funded a lot of technological progress, but you don't have anything to back you up besides your gut feeling and Peter Thiel telling you that angel investors are the reason silicon valley grew into an economic giant. The reality is that government is responsible for most of the major innovations of the last half century or more, and has been responsible for much of the technological progress going back to the ancient Egyptians.
I skimmed through that link and it had nothing to prove your point about "public" companies being superior.
American ideologues are the only ones left in the world who hold out against the reality that publicly provided healthcare is a cheaper, better option than private healthcare
No it's not. We have both "public" and private healthcare and retirement homes, as well as schools here in Sweden, and the private-run ones generally perform better. The left parties here even wants to prevent private retirement homes from making profit, even though they perform as well as the "public" ones. Noone is forcing anyone to choose a private-run retirement home over a public one. If they manage to legislate this, the only thing that will happen is that private investors will not invest in private retirement homes anymore. It would kill the incentive to run private retirement homes, which would make them disappear, which would leave it up to a single actor, the state. Many different actors is much better than 1 actor, because if the customer isn't happy, you have noone else to turn to if there's only 1 actor.
We have a long history of planned economy and government controlled monopolies in Sweden, but we've been moving in the direction of private enterprises for 20+ years now, because we've realized that it's more efficient.
Anyway there's a huge difference between government-run, and government-subsidized companies. All the education and health care in this country is subsidized by our state, even the private owned.
The reason why the Swedish health care is better than the american health care is because we subsidize it, not because it's "public" owned, and like I pointed out, we have a hybrid "public"/private system when it comes to ownership.
On June 29 2014 00:14 urboss wrote: from the interview:
"When I talk about bullshit jobs, I mean, the kind of jobs that even those who work them feel do not really need to exist. A lot of them are made-up middle management, you know, I’m the “East Coast strategic vision coordinator” for some big firm, which basically means you spend all your time at meetings or forming teams that then send reports to one another. Or someone who works in an industry that they feel doesn’t need to exist, like most of the corporate lawyers I know, or telemarketers, or lobbyists…. Just think of when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other. Some of that work obviously does need to be done, but for the most part, everyone working there knows what really needs to get done and that the remaining 90 percent of what they do is bullshit. And then think about the ancillary workers that support people doing the bullshit jobs: here’s an office where people basically translate German formatted paperwork into British formatted paperwork or some such, and there has to be a whole infrastructure of receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people, which are kind of second-order bullshit jobs, they’re actually doing something, but they’re doing it to support people who are doing nothing."
well if this is what 'bullshit' means here then it's rather flimsy. the 'actually important people' may be fulfilling the function of the organization but the surrounding people are also necessary to save time for these people. there are exceptions of organizational inertia etc but largely that's the rationale for creation of these bullshit jobs, to save cognitive resources
I guess you misunderstood the point. Let's say that there are 10 actuaries who do - in the grand scheme of things - useless work. These 10 actuaries need a whole support system to keep them going. They need administrators, receptionists, janitors, security guards, computer maintenance people etc.. All those people do is to support the people that do useless work. That means, those people's work also becomes useless.
Actuaries are useless work? Wow who knew that the underscoring of risk in modern insurance which enable the British Empire, the Dutch Empire and other great Trade Empires which exploded into the world in the mid 18th century were totally bullshit jobs!
But seriously, how is actuary useless? It is a service in great demand by business, by consumers, by almost everyone who wants to share risk taking. The fact you think actuary is pointless speak volumes.
Nowhere did I say that all actuaries do useless work, far from that. In gave an example of 10 actuaries who do useless work.
You could imagine 10 actuaries that formulate the corporate risk policy for an investment firm. Or in other words, they are pushing papers for a company that pushes papers. All they ever produce is steam. None of what these people do has any tangible value in the grand scheme of things.
These jobs only exist because someone else places value on it. Why does someone place value on it when in fact they produce nothing but steam? Because our economic system nurtures this kind of stuff.
Or because it has value...? I mean what is the value of a merchant who sells the farmer's wares in the city square? The farmer could do that himself.
Wow I must say, many of the posters in this thread know an awful lot about economics, insurance, and other stuff that I only found out here (e.g. actuary).
And I read the article, and I have the same opinion that many others have stated, but I have to reply to this comment.
I think the value of the merchant is how much more can he get for the farmer's wares, than the farmer himself. I would imagine the merchant knows what the consumer wants, so can increase the price for the farmer's wares appropriately.
That has obvious value, but there are some jobs that have perceived value. I think this is where the argument truly lies, and thus incredibly difficult to settle.
I don't think many of us dispute the fact that there are a lot of useless jobs, but a few questions still remain.
First, how do we distinguish what is bullshit? As well, perhaps a job isn't bullshit but has a large team to accomplish what few can do, is this bullshit?
The previous anecdote about subcontracting the computer might contain some bullshit, but the entire system is not bullshit. It gets the job done, but not efficiently. So is there an efficiency meter set in place for said system? Yet again, that magic number of efficiency remains a perceived value, albeit perceived by many (i.e. popular choice).
Second, will removing these jobs affect various systems? What effect will it have in the system? Will it slow down, or perhaps put a strain on an individual? Not all systems (even within the same ecosystem) would be affected the same, but most likely many will be similar.
And lastly, what affect would this have in the overall system? The article implied that most of these bullshit jobs would not have a massive effect on our lives, but all systems are tied together, and would have some effect on our lives.
I am all for removing bullshit jobs, but it isn't as easy as Donald Trump's television show. I don't have any solutions to offer, but I just feel the argument on this thread is going in circles, and I wanted to break that cycle.
On July 03 2014 05:07 Taf the Ghost wrote: I clicked to the last page, and this has gotten hilariously off on different tangents.
But one point about US Healthcare: if you ever make the argument that it's a free market system, you're an idiot. Its problem is an utter lack of market forces. US Healthcare is riven with so much rent-seeking, over-regulation, stupid requirements and just flat insanity that it only can function because the costs are so high.
Unless you pay cash, then it's very good, generally well-priced and quite easy to deal with. Funny that.
If you "pay cash" you are paying many times the price that insurance companies pay for the same procedure, as doctors and hospitals charge much higher rates to the uninsured.
If you "pay cash" you are paying many times the price that insurance companies pay for the same procedure, as doctors and hospitals charge much higher rates to the uninsured.
I haven't found that to be true myself. When I went for my sleep studies that weren't covered by insurance which my ol man paid for, they offered us huge discounts. It's the private insurance companies that are a big part of the problem, and imo profiteering should never belong in healthcare. But no one wants to support a public system with everyone being too selfish and not wanting to pay for someone else, or for the good of a larger community. It's all about priorities- which ends up being profit as all that matters in everything.
On July 02 2014 21:13 L1ghtning wrote: For such a long post, you certainly didn't have much concrete to say. Just a lot of subjective spewing of opinions. I had to cut out all the things that didn't add anything to the debate, to make it easier to respond.
On July 02 2014 10:31 IgnE wrote:
Almost every technological revolution we've had in the last half-century would never have come about in a closed free market system.
Closed free market? That's a oxymoron. It's you who want to have a closed market, with the government dominating the market. I want a open market, where the government can operate, but where it's dominated by smaller actors.
And we're talking about how the government and the free market handle jobs here, not research. And it's a complete lie that the government is responsible for all technological progress. Our governments are the biggest capital-holders of all. That's why they have their name tagged to a lot of stuff. There's a lot of smaller sized private investors though, and you can bet that they've been involved in the computer industry as well. Private companies also does a lot of research, funded by their own profits. Any company that hire engineers or scientists have a research team.
The free market is much more effective in investing in new technology. The government is one actor, while on the free market there are millions of actors. This is why the free market is superior. With more actors holding a smaller share of capital, capital becomes much more sensitive to trends, so it flows more smoothly. When the government invests prematurely in something, it's a huge money sink, and when they invest in something that will actually change the future, they tend to be very slow compared to the private investors.
The government have a lot of bureaucracy, and ppl making decisions about things that they don't understand, and they also have a tendency to make decisions based on their ideology. The government can make good decisions, but they're less likely to do so. The more free and spread out capital is, the more smoothly it will flow. Letting one actor hold most of the capital is a very bad idea.
The government has just as many examples of more efficiently run enterprises than the free market as the free market does of more efficiently run enterprises than the government:
That graph is hilarious. Is that your proof that public healthcare is run more efficiently? Typical leftist mentality. You cherry-pick things and put them out of their scientific context, to try and prove a point. That graph doesn't prove anything remotely close to what you claim.
A government-run company that have negative profit can be subsidized. A free market company with negative profit goes bankrupt. This is the crucial difference and it's an important one.
Free market enterprices have one goal, and that is to make money, and this encourages them to make their organization as efficient as possible. This is not the case for government-run companies. These companies don't actually get to keep their profits, and if they get into debt, the state can always save them. This discourages them from making their practices more efficient. There is not the same incentive to perform.
Anyway, the main reason why companies gets privatized is because they were money sinks. This is why it's not fair to compare their prices and performance before and after, because when the government owned them, the government subsidized them with tax money, which enabled them to stay afloat. The government should not subsidize their companies, because then they start to compete on unfair terms, which makes it more likely that the company monopolizes the market, which is a bad thing. I don't oppose to the government subsidizing certain services, mainly health care and education, but if they do that, they should do it consistently, on even terms.
I didn't bother to read about that energy company, because it's not very scientific to draw conclusions from 1 example, because they might be favored by the location, and if they get subsidized, it's a irrelevant example. Government owned companies can certainly in some cases be more effective than private owned companies, but if said company was sold off, then most likely it would become even better, especially going forward.
Yes we know that you think the profit incentive makes everything "more efficient." It's too bad you didn't seem to understand half the things I said, and didn't respond to the other half. Talking about "subsidies" in the context of the examples I gave doesn't even make sense ("if they get subsidized, it's a [sic] irrelevant example"). But perhaps I shouldn't be surprised when you can barely string two comprehensible sentences together. You have a weird rant at the beginning about a "closed free market system," which is just a perfectly free market, closed off from government influence, analogous to a closed system in thermodynamics. Then you have weird inversions like these three sentences:
"And it's a complete lie that the government is responsible for all technological progress. Our governments are the biggest capital-holders of all. That's why they have their name tagged to a lot of stuff."
So is the government the biggest capital holder and investor of all, responsible for, if not all, at least a lot, of our technological progress? If not, why do they have their named tagged to a lot of stuff?
It's "not very scientific" to draw your conclusions from neoliberal economic moralizing rather than any empirical basis. Free market American ideologues are the only ones left in the world who hold out against the reality that publicly provided healthcare is a cheaper, better option than private healthcare, and you didn't even address the academic article that I linked discussing empirical studies. The examples I gave were just a handful of the ones out there. I'm not cherry-picking anything. The pharmaceutical industry is also built on the back of government-funded research. You claim that small private investors have funded a lot of technological progress, but you don't have anything to back you up besides your gut feeling and Peter Thiel telling you that angel investors are the reason silicon valley grew into an economic giant. The reality is that government is responsible for most of the major innovations of the last half century or more, and has been responsible for much of the technological progress going back to the ancient Egyptians.
I skimmed through that link and it had nothing to prove your point about "public" companies being superior.
American ideologues are the only ones left in the world who hold out against the reality that publicly provided healthcare is a cheaper, better option than private healthcare
No it's not. We have both "public" and private healthcare and retirement homes, as well as schools here in Sweden, and the private-run ones generally perform better. The left parties here even wants to prevent private retirement homes from making profit, even though they perform as well as the "public" ones. Noone is forcing anyone to choose a private-run retirement home over a public one. If they manage to legislate this, the only thing that will happen is that private investors will not invest in private retirement homes anymore. It would kill the incentive to run private retirement homes, which would make them disappear, which would leave it up to a single actor, the state. Many different actors is much better than 1 actor, because if the customer isn't happy, you have noone else to turn to if there's only 1 actor.
We have a long history of planned economy and government controlled monopolies in Sweden, but we've been moving in the direction of private enterprises for 20+ years now, because we've realized that it's more efficient.
Anyway there's a huge difference between government-run, and government-subsidized companies. All the education and health care in this country is subsidized by our state, even the private owned.
The reason why the Swedish health care is better than the american health care is because we subsidize it, not because it's "public" owned, and like I pointed out, we have a hybrid "public"/private system when it comes to ownership.
You said private enterprises were more efficient and provided better service than public ones. The article disproves that.
Your argument is breaking down. You are talking about state-subsidized capitalism in the context of "free markets" and the superiority of privately run enterprise. If you don't see why that's problematic you are blind.
If you "pay cash" you are paying many times the price that insurance companies pay for the same procedure, as doctors and hospitals charge much higher rates to the uninsured.
I haven't found that to be true myself. When I went for my sleep studies that weren't covered by insurance which my ol man paid for, they offered us huge discounts. It's the private insurance companies that are a big part of the problem, and imo profiteering should never belong in healthcare. But no one wants to support a public system with everyone being too selfish and not wanting to pay for someone else, or for the good of a larger community. It's all about priorities- which ends up being profit as all that matters in everything.
I don't know what you going for "sleep studies" is about but try paying for a major surgery in cash. Or offering the pharmacist cash for your prescription drugs.
On July 03 2014 06:29 IgnE wrote: I don't know what you going for "sleep studies" is about but try paying for a major surgery in cash. Or offering the pharmacist cash for your prescription drugs.
Sleep studies are performed to determine irregular patterns, test for narcolepsy, and breathing issues (sleep apnea) and to attempt to explain idiopathic disorders such as hypersomnia. I don't know if insurance covers it these days, but didn't used to (although apparently some did? maybe the high end plans? I was denied in any case). You could be right about surgeries and prescription drugs, no doubt if you're bent over the barrel there is the opportunity to take advantage, but was only pointing out that often healthcare costs are massively inflated by insurance companies (I always hear about the $50 bandaids and such nonsense for example).
On July 02 2014 21:13 L1ghtning wrote: For such a long post, you certainly didn't have much concrete to say. Just a lot of subjective spewing of opinions. I had to cut out all the things that didn't add anything to the debate, to make it easier to respond.
On July 02 2014 10:31 IgnE wrote:
Almost every technological revolution we've had in the last half-century would never have come about in a closed free market system.
Closed free market? That's a oxymoron. It's you who want to have a closed market, with the government dominating the market. I want a open market, where the government can operate, but where it's dominated by smaller actors.
And we're talking about how the government and the free market handle jobs here, not research. And it's a complete lie that the government is responsible for all technological progress. Our governments are the biggest capital-holders of all. That's why they have their name tagged to a lot of stuff. There's a lot of smaller sized private investors though, and you can bet that they've been involved in the computer industry as well. Private companies also does a lot of research, funded by their own profits. Any company that hire engineers or scientists have a research team.
The free market is much more effective in investing in new technology. The government is one actor, while on the free market there are millions of actors. This is why the free market is superior. With more actors holding a smaller share of capital, capital becomes much more sensitive to trends, so it flows more smoothly. When the government invests prematurely in something, it's a huge money sink, and when they invest in something that will actually change the future, they tend to be very slow compared to the private investors.
The government have a lot of bureaucracy, and ppl making decisions about things that they don't understand, and they also have a tendency to make decisions based on their ideology. The government can make good decisions, but they're less likely to do so. The more free and spread out capital is, the more smoothly it will flow. Letting one actor hold most of the capital is a very bad idea.
The government has just as many examples of more efficiently run enterprises than the free market as the free market does of more efficiently run enterprises than the government:
That graph is hilarious. Is that your proof that public healthcare is run more efficiently? Typical leftist mentality. You cherry-pick things and put them out of their scientific context, to try and prove a point. That graph doesn't prove anything remotely close to what you claim.
A government-run company that have negative profit can be subsidized. A free market company with negative profit goes bankrupt. This is the crucial difference and it's an important one.
Free market enterprices have one goal, and that is to make money, and this encourages them to make their organization as efficient as possible. This is not the case for government-run companies. These companies don't actually get to keep their profits, and if they get into debt, the state can always save them. This discourages them from making their practices more efficient. There is not the same incentive to perform.
Anyway, the main reason why companies gets privatized is because they were money sinks. This is why it's not fair to compare their prices and performance before and after, because when the government owned them, the government subsidized them with tax money, which enabled them to stay afloat. The government should not subsidize their companies, because then they start to compete on unfair terms, which makes it more likely that the company monopolizes the market, which is a bad thing. I don't oppose to the government subsidizing certain services, mainly health care and education, but if they do that, they should do it consistently, on even terms.
I didn't bother to read about that energy company, because it's not very scientific to draw conclusions from 1 example, because they might be favored by the location, and if they get subsidized, it's a irrelevant example. Government owned companies can certainly in some cases be more effective than private owned companies, but if said company was sold off, then most likely it would become even better, especially going forward.
Yes we know that you think the profit incentive makes everything "more efficient." It's too bad you didn't seem to understand half the things I said, and didn't respond to the other half. Talking about "subsidies" in the context of the examples I gave doesn't even make sense ("if they get subsidized, it's a [sic] irrelevant example"). But perhaps I shouldn't be surprised when you can barely string two comprehensible sentences together. You have a weird rant at the beginning about a "closed free market system," which is just a perfectly free market, closed off from government influence, analogous to a closed system in thermodynamics. Then you have weird inversions like these three sentences:
"And it's a complete lie that the government is responsible for all technological progress. Our governments are the biggest capital-holders of all. That's why they have their name tagged to a lot of stuff."
So is the government the biggest capital holder and investor of all, responsible for, if not all, at least a lot, of our technological progress? If not, why do they have their named tagged to a lot of stuff?
It's "not very scientific" to draw your conclusions from neoliberal economic moralizing rather than any empirical basis. Free market American ideologues are the only ones left in the world who hold out against the reality that publicly provided healthcare is a cheaper, better option than private healthcare, and you didn't even address the academic article that I linked discussing empirical studies. The examples I gave were just a handful of the ones out there. I'm not cherry-picking anything. The pharmaceutical industry is also built on the back of government-funded research. You claim that small private investors have funded a lot of technological progress, but you don't have anything to back you up besides your gut feeling and Peter Thiel telling you that angel investors are the reason silicon valley grew into an economic giant. The reality is that government is responsible for most of the major innovations of the last half century or more, and has been responsible for much of the technological progress going back to the ancient Egyptians.
I skimmed through that link and it had nothing to prove your point about "public" companies being superior.
American ideologues are the only ones left in the world who hold out against the reality that publicly provided healthcare is a cheaper, better option than private healthcare
No it's not. We have both "public" and private healthcare and retirement homes, as well as schools here in Sweden, and the private-run ones generally perform better. The left parties here even wants to prevent private retirement homes from making profit, even though they perform as well as the "public" ones. Noone is forcing anyone to choose a private-run retirement home over a public one. If they manage to legislate this, the only thing that will happen is that private investors will not invest in private retirement homes anymore. It would kill the incentive to run private retirement homes, which would make them disappear, which would leave it up to a single actor, the state. Many different actors is much better than 1 actor, because if the customer isn't happy, you have noone else to turn to if there's only 1 actor.
We have a long history of planned economy and government controlled monopolies in Sweden, but we've been moving in the direction of private enterprises for 20+ years now, because we've realized that it's more efficient.
Anyway there's a huge difference between government-run, and government-subsidized companies. All the education and health care in this country is subsidized by our state, even the private owned.
The reason why the Swedish health care is better than the american health care is because we subsidize it, not because it's "public" owned, and like I pointed out, we have a hybrid "public"/private system when it comes to ownership.
You said private enterprises were more efficient and provided better service than public ones. The article disproves that.
Your argument is breaking down. You are talking about state-subsidized capitalism in the context of "free markets" and the superiority of privately run enterprise. If you don't see why that's problematic you are blind.
I think it's your argument that is breaking down. That article doesn't prove that government controlled companies are more efficient. All you've done is throw around baseless accusations. I on the other hand have explained all of my points in a logical manner, and you haven't been able to disprove my logic. All you've said is you're wrong, look at this article and you'll see why, that and you've accused me of having blind faith in the free market, which is a very low level of argumentation. It's what you do when you're fetching at straws, which you've been doing the whole time.
If you "pay cash" you are paying many times the price that insurance companies pay for the same procedure, as doctors and hospitals charge much higher rates to the uninsured.
I haven't found that to be true myself. When I went for my sleep studies that weren't covered by insurance which my ol man paid for, they offered us huge discounts. It's the private insurance companies that are a big part of the problem, and imo profiteering should never belong in healthcare. But no one wants to support a public system with everyone being too selfish and not wanting to pay for someone else, or for the good of a larger community. It's all about priorities- which ends up being profit as all that matters in everything.
Except that for pretty much everyone, a public system is both cheaper AND removes the risk of you being the guy who needs the large surgery and thus going bankrupt or not being able to pay for it at all and thus not getting that surgery. See: Any european country.
Except that for pretty much everyone, a public system is both cheaper AND removes the risk of you being the guy who needs the large surgery and thus going bankrupt or not being able to pay for it at all and thus not getting that surgery. See: Any european country.
How in the world can you put finance and management in the "bullshit job" category ? I mean, how do you run efficient economy without knowing how to manage it properly ? Just compare the the economies now and 100-200 years ago, when these two "bullshit jobs" didn't exist... Actually... They existed even back then... Because they are not bullshit jobs and are needed.
On July 02 2014 21:13 L1ghtning wrote: For such a long post, you certainly didn't have much concrete to say. Just a lot of subjective spewing of opinions. I had to cut out all the things that didn't add anything to the debate, to make it easier to respond.
On July 02 2014 10:31 IgnE wrote:
Almost every technological revolution we've had in the last half-century would never have come about in a closed free market system.
Closed free market? That's a oxymoron. It's you who want to have a closed market, with the government dominating the market. I want a open market, where the government can operate, but where it's dominated by smaller actors.
And we're talking about how the government and the free market handle jobs here, not research. And it's a complete lie that the government is responsible for all technological progress. Our governments are the biggest capital-holders of all. That's why they have their name tagged to a lot of stuff. There's a lot of smaller sized private investors though, and you can bet that they've been involved in the computer industry as well. Private companies also does a lot of research, funded by their own profits. Any company that hire engineers or scientists have a research team.
The free market is much more effective in investing in new technology. The government is one actor, while on the free market there are millions of actors. This is why the free market is superior. With more actors holding a smaller share of capital, capital becomes much more sensitive to trends, so it flows more smoothly. When the government invests prematurely in something, it's a huge money sink, and when they invest in something that will actually change the future, they tend to be very slow compared to the private investors.
The government have a lot of bureaucracy, and ppl making decisions about things that they don't understand, and they also have a tendency to make decisions based on their ideology. The government can make good decisions, but they're less likely to do so. The more free and spread out capital is, the more smoothly it will flow. Letting one actor hold most of the capital is a very bad idea.
The government has just as many examples of more efficiently run enterprises than the free market as the free market does of more efficiently run enterprises than the government:
That graph is hilarious. Is that your proof that public healthcare is run more efficiently? Typical leftist mentality. You cherry-pick things and put them out of their scientific context, to try and prove a point. That graph doesn't prove anything remotely close to what you claim.
A government-run company that have negative profit can be subsidized. A free market company with negative profit goes bankrupt. This is the crucial difference and it's an important one.
Free market enterprices have one goal, and that is to make money, and this encourages them to make their organization as efficient as possible. This is not the case for government-run companies. These companies don't actually get to keep their profits, and if they get into debt, the state can always save them. This discourages them from making their practices more efficient. There is not the same incentive to perform.
Anyway, the main reason why companies gets privatized is because they were money sinks. This is why it's not fair to compare their prices and performance before and after, because when the government owned them, the government subsidized them with tax money, which enabled them to stay afloat. The government should not subsidize their companies, because then they start to compete on unfair terms, which makes it more likely that the company monopolizes the market, which is a bad thing. I don't oppose to the government subsidizing certain services, mainly health care and education, but if they do that, they should do it consistently, on even terms.
I didn't bother to read about that energy company, because it's not very scientific to draw conclusions from 1 example, because they might be favored by the location, and if they get subsidized, it's a irrelevant example. Government owned companies can certainly in some cases be more effective than private owned companies, but if said company was sold off, then most likely it would become even better, especially going forward.
Yes we know that you think the profit incentive makes everything "more efficient." It's too bad you didn't seem to understand half the things I said, and didn't respond to the other half. Talking about "subsidies" in the context of the examples I gave doesn't even make sense ("if they get subsidized, it's a [sic] irrelevant example"). But perhaps I shouldn't be surprised when you can barely string two comprehensible sentences together. You have a weird rant at the beginning about a "closed free market system," which is just a perfectly free market, closed off from government influence, analogous to a closed system in thermodynamics. Then you have weird inversions like these three sentences:
"And it's a complete lie that the government is responsible for all technological progress. Our governments are the biggest capital-holders of all. That's why they have their name tagged to a lot of stuff."
So is the government the biggest capital holder and investor of all, responsible for, if not all, at least a lot, of our technological progress? If not, why do they have their named tagged to a lot of stuff?
It's "not very scientific" to draw your conclusions from neoliberal economic moralizing rather than any empirical basis. Free market American ideologues are the only ones left in the world who hold out against the reality that publicly provided healthcare is a cheaper, better option than private healthcare, and you didn't even address the academic article that I linked discussing empirical studies. The examples I gave were just a handful of the ones out there. I'm not cherry-picking anything. The pharmaceutical industry is also built on the back of government-funded research. You claim that small private investors have funded a lot of technological progress, but you don't have anything to back you up besides your gut feeling and Peter Thiel telling you that angel investors are the reason silicon valley grew into an economic giant. The reality is that government is responsible for most of the major innovations of the last half century or more, and has been responsible for much of the technological progress going back to the ancient Egyptians.
I skimmed through that link and it had nothing to prove your point about "public" companies being superior.
American ideologues are the only ones left in the world who hold out against the reality that publicly provided healthcare is a cheaper, better option than private healthcare
No it's not. We have both "public" and private healthcare and retirement homes, as well as schools here in Sweden, and the private-run ones generally perform better. The left parties here even wants to prevent private retirement homes from making profit, even though they perform as well as the "public" ones. Noone is forcing anyone to choose a private-run retirement home over a public one. If they manage to legislate this, the only thing that will happen is that private investors will not invest in private retirement homes anymore. It would kill the incentive to run private retirement homes, which would make them disappear, which would leave it up to a single actor, the state. Many different actors is much better than 1 actor, because if the customer isn't happy, you have noone else to turn to if there's only 1 actor.
We have a long history of planned economy and government controlled monopolies in Sweden, but we've been moving in the direction of private enterprises for 20+ years now, because we've realized that it's more efficient.
Anyway there's a huge difference between government-run, and government-subsidized companies. All the education and health care in this country is subsidized by our state, even the private owned.
The reason why the Swedish health care is better than the american health care is because we subsidize it, not because it's "public" owned, and like I pointed out, we have a hybrid "public"/private system when it comes to ownership.
You said private enterprises were more efficient and provided better service than public ones. The article disproves that.
Your argument is breaking down. You are talking about state-subsidized capitalism in the context of "free markets" and the superiority of privately run enterprise. If you don't see why that's problematic you are blind.
I think it's your argument that is breaking down. That article doesn't prove that government controlled companies are more efficient. All you've done is throw around baseless accusations. I on the other hand have explained all of my points in a logical manner, and you haven't been able to disprove my logic. All you've said is you're wrong, look at this article and you'll see why, that and you've accused me of having blind faith in the free market, which is a very low level of argumentation. It's what you do when you're fetching at straws, which you've been doing the whole time.
It proves that one can't say that either government or private companies are more efficient. Hence, the whole line of argument is moot. Hence, your line of argumentation is rendered moot.
I am actually the only one who presented a shotgun of data points that outline a coherent argument.
On July 03 2014 08:15 Pr0wler wrote: How in the world can you put finance and management in the "bullshit job" category ? I mean, how do you run efficient economy without knowing how to manage it properly ? Just compare the the economies now and 100-200 years ago, when these two "bullshit jobs" didn't exist... Actually... They existed even back then... Because they are not bullshit jobs and are needed.
Finance, management and their respective field of works are rather broad. Lending and investing for growth and development is good. Market and currencies manipulations, fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, unrestrained speculation...etc, all for maximization of profit$, not so much.
Management is just as important but suffers similar woes, usually in the form of incompetence, failure to report risk or incidents (GM being a pretty recent example), lack of ethics and integrity, grossly overpaid...?
I dont think it was used, encompassing every workers in these respective industries.
On July 03 2014 08:15 Pr0wler wrote: How in the world can you put finance and management in the "bullshit job" category ? I mean, how do you run efficient economy without knowing how to manage it properly ? Just compare the the economies now and 100-200 years ago, when these two "bullshit jobs" didn't exist... Actually... They existed even back then... Because they are not bullshit jobs and are needed.
Finance, management and their respective field of works are rather broad. Lending and investing for growth and development is good. Market and currencies manipulations, fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, unrestrained speculation...etc, all for maximization of profit$, not so much.
Management is just as important but suffers similar woes, usually in the form of incompetence, failure to report risk or incidents (GM being a pretty recent example), lack of ethics and integrity, grossly overpaid...?
I dont think it was used, encompassing every workers in these respective industries.
I think if it was placed in a context of 'bullshit man-hours' vs non it might be a bit more palatable for those who have trouble grasping what the meat of this point is about.
It's not necessarily that entire 'jobs' or 'sectors' are 'bullshit' (although I already showed some that are) but that many jobs have tons of 'bullshit man-hours' (BMH's) Defining what a BMH 'is' will still be a bit contentious, but I don't think anyone would disagree that virtually every profession has BMH's that could be trimmed. The recent rapid rise in productivity while keeping wages stagnant and cutting workers is about as obviously evident as you can get of such a fact. It's also evident on how these types of activities can go on for decades in a free market system and are really never truly exposed/resolved during economic good times, but only bubble to the surface when we hit hard times.
Working a shorter week would likely make most people feel happier and even more productive, experts say. And research suggests it may also help boost employment rates.
Mexican telecom billionaire Carlos Slim -- the second-richest person in the world after Bill Gates -- recently advocated a shorter workweek for the world's corporate clock-watchers.
"With three work days a week, we would have more time to relax, for quality of life," Slim told a business conference in Asuncion, Paraguay, in remarks reported Monday by the Financial Times. Having four days off would also be a business opportunity for some people, in that it would generate new leisure activities, he said.
But don't go slacking just yet. Slim says people should work 10 or 11 hours a day in those three days. He also says retirement ages should rise to 70 or 75.
Slim may be on to something with his idea, according to some experts. In fact, he's just the latest to make headlines in a long-running debate on the length of the ideal workweek.
"Burnout is huge predictor of loss of productivity," says Rana Florida, CEO of consulting and research company Creative Class Group and author of "Upgrade: Taking Your Life and Work from Ordinary to Extraordinary."
The 40-hour workweek in the U.S. is not some "magical number" for productivity, she says. "You don't have to chain people to their desk."
Shorter working hours make sense in particular for people in highly stressful jobs like emergency first responders, and those in creative fields, Florida says.
Most other countries have shorter workweeks than the U.S., according to recent analysis from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And workplace productivity doesn't increase with hours worked, the OECD concluded. Workers in Greece clock 2,034 hours a year versus 1,397 in Germany, for example, but the latter's productivity is 70 percent higher.
"Quality of life, stress reduction, and engagement in our work increase with shorter workweeks," says Steve Langerud, a workplace consultant based in Grinnell, Iowa. That said, if income dropped with hours worked, shorter workweeks could create problems. The average household disposable income in Germany is also a lot higher ($30,721 a year) than Greece ($19,095).
Countries with the largest reduction in work hours had the largest increase in employment rates since the Great Recession, says Dean Baker, co-director of the left-of-center Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. "Countries like Germany stand out," he says. "It's been remarkably successful." The unemployment rate in Germany (5.2 percent) is down more than 4 percentage points since before the 2008 recession, while the U.S. unemployment rate (6.1 percent) is still more than 1.5 percentage points higher than it was before the recession.
Cutting the workweek roughly in half could help to address overwork, unemployment, overconsumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to simply to enjoy life, according to a report from the London-based, left-of-center think tank New Economics Foundation. "The deputy mayor of Gothenburg [in Sweden] is trialing a 30-hour week for some of his staff because he thinks that's about the limit for productive time," says Anna Coote, head of social policy at NEF.
A shorter workweek doesn't necessarily lead to happier employees, however. Long working hours might not be as negatively related to worker well-being as predicted by other studies, according to a study called "Work Shorter, Be Happier?" published last year in the Journal of Happiness Studies. While people welcomed the reduction in working hours, those reductions had no impact on job and life satisfaction, researcher Robert Rudolf, assistant professor in the Division of International Studies at Korea University, found.
Five-day workweeks may lead to exhaustion on Mondays and coasting on Fridays, but that's more likely if you don't like your job or feel engaged with your work, or if you don't believe that it has some higher purpose, says Rusty Rueff, career and workplace expert at career site Glassdoor.
"We've all been in places where we've pulled all-nighters and we're going back to the pizza box for the second time and the pizza's cold," he says. "You sort of hate that you're there, but at the same time there's nowhere else you'd rather be."
On July 03 2014 08:15 Pr0wler wrote: How in the world can you put finance and management in the "bullshit job" category ? I mean, how do you run efficient economy without knowing how to manage it properly ? Just compare the the economies now and 100-200 years ago, when these two "bullshit jobs" didn't exist... Actually... They existed even back then... Because they are not bullshit jobs and are needed.
Finance, management and their respective field of works are rather broad. Lending and investing for growth and development is good. Market and currencies manipulations, fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, unrestrained speculation...etc, all for maximization of profit$, not so much.
Management is just as important but suffers similar woes, usually in the form of incompetence, failure to report risk or incidents (GM being a pretty recent example), lack of ethics and integrity, grossly overpaid...?
I dont think it was used, encompassing every workers in these respective industries.
I think if it was placed in a context of 'bullshit man-hours' vs non it might be a bit more palatable for those who have trouble grasping what the meat of this point is about.
It's not necessarily that entire 'jobs' or 'sectors' are 'bullshit' (although I already showed some that are) but that many jobs have tons of 'bullshit man-hours' (BMH's) Defining what a BMH 'is' will still be a bit contentious, but I don't think anyone would disagree that virtually every profession has BMH's that could be trimmed. The recent rapid rise in productivity while keeping wages stagnant and cutting workers is about as obviously evident as you can get of such a fact. It's also evident on how these types of activities can go on for decades in a free market system and are really never truly exposed/resolved during economic good times, but only bubble to the surface when we hit hard times.
I think defining the terms is quite important. I suspect that these BMHs are not actually bullshit, but the people being burdened by the work, aren't able to perceive the benefits of such work, because they do not directly relate to them. Doing paperwork is perceived by many to be unnecessarily complex and time consuming, but doing it does serve a purpose for society as a whole. That is not to say that the feeling of doing meaningless work is not to be taken seriously.
That said, I can think of certain activities which are apparently bullshit. Financial arbitrage, online poker player (non-entertainer), daytrader in the stock market, those cunts that resell concert tickets, any kind of market manipulation. Those are all money making activities which have no apparent direct benefit to society, and even the indirect benefits seem so small that they are hard to take seriously. But there actually aren't many people doing those.
As long as it is related to ressource allocation and that it produce any kind of satisfaction or utility for anybody it's an economic activity like any other. Any distinction between the different type is either descriptive - you work in this field or this field - or moral - this has more value than this one.
Taylor, the "inventor" of the taylorism belive that any type of activity that was not producing goods - industry or agriculture - was useless and didn't created any wealth. The result is he is only known for his scientific organisation of labor, which is basically a frame to increase cooperation and specialisation of workers and thus their productivity : he produced a service in management. People who consider that some kind of labor is bullshit or not are just making a judgement on value, and nothing else. This philosopher have, by the way, one of the most bullshit work ever (from my point of view) : spouting nonsense, and giving his point of view while still presenting himself as objective in any way.
On September 28 2014 23:06 oneofthem wrote: graeber is an anthropologist.
anyway there's something to his thesis but its targeting is not very well developed.
How's that anthropology ? Any field work ? Observation ? Reference to previous anthropologists ? That's social philosophy.
You can point out the lack of productive "meaning" of some jobs in an "economy of knowledge", and then ask yourself what's the reason such jobs actually exist, what they actually do, do they actually create wealth or do they exist for other meanings ? This guy just say "well that's bullshit" and that's it, there are no analysis, just a judgement. Then, in his interview, he points out random response from people who read him as material to sustain his point of view... It's anthropology really ?
On September 28 2014 21:19 WhiteDog wrote: As long as it is related to ressource allocation and that it produce any kind of satisfaction or utility for anybody it's an economic activity like any other. Any distinction between the different type is either descriptive - you work in this field or this field - or moral - this has more value than this one.
Usually you have intelligent and interesting insights but if I don't misunderstand you gravely then this is either a truism (and thus kind of useless for the discussion at hand) or patently false. I mean it should be obvious that economic activities are not like each other in a general sense, in fact it is rather difficult to define what makes them similar in the first place (that you get money/some other benefit from some entity after/before doing them???). Even if two people do the same activity (for example logging) what this means for themselves, the society around them, the economy (whatever that should be) and how this changes the world can be extremely different (logging the rainforest/logging cultivated Christmas trees). The distinction between those activities seems pretty relevant despite them being nominally the same.* If, of course, you mean they are like each other in some "economical sense" then I have to ask you to define what this should mean. I would be very surprised if you find a definition of "economic activity" and being "like each other in the economical sense" from which the above follows in a way that is not a truism.
This boils down to: Why should we see activities that are obviously different as the same?
*Or you could mean that any difference at all is descriptive but knowing your other posts I doubt that.
On September 28 2014 21:19 WhiteDog wrote: As long as it is related to ressource allocation and that it produce any kind of satisfaction or utility for anybody it's an economic activity like any other. Any distinction between the different type is either descriptive - you work in this field or this field - or moral - this has more value than this one.
Usually you have intelligent and interesting insights but if I don't misunderstand you gravely then this is either a truism (and thus kind of useless for the discussion at hand) or patently false. I mean it should be obvious that economic activities are not like each other in a general sense, in fact it is rather difficult to define what makes them similar in the first place (that you get money/some other benefit from some entity after/before doing them???). Even if two people do the same activity (for example logging) what this means for themselves, the society around them, the economy (whatever that should be) and how this changes the world can be extremely different (logging the rainforest/logging cultivated Christmas trees). The distinction between those activities seems pretty relevant despite them being nominally the same.* If, of course, you mean they are like each other in some "economical sense" then I have to ask you to define what this should mean. I would be very surprised if you find a definition of "economic activity" and being "like each other in the economical sense" from which the above follows in a way that is not a truism.
This boils down to: Why should we see activities that are obviously different as the same?
*Or you could mean that any difference at all is descriptive but knowing your other posts I doubt that.
Yes but the point is you cannot judge the difference from the two from a purely economic manner. It's always a moral judgement that will permit anyone to makes distinctions and judgements on the usefulness of such job.
Since labor is always a social activity, you cannot judge the usefulness of a doctor or a politician "in itself" : it's the division of labor that create wealth and not a job in itself (cf Adam Smith). The wealth created by the doctor is null if there are no workers to cultivate food for exemple (what's the point of having a good health if you die of hunger ?). One of the main problem of modern economy is the polysemy of the word "value", which as an economic dimension - creating wealth - and a moral or ethical dimension - the degree of importance of an activity / good / person, etc.
A (good) anthropologist would have questionned the division of labor today, pointing out the loss of meaning in many activities too specialised to give a good perspective on their usefulness or role in our society, thus creating a sense of uselessness (the "bullshit jobs"). This has been done in 1956 for exemple by George Friedman in his book Le Travail en miettes (the labor in pieces). It's a point of view that dates back to Marx's critics, with the idea of alienation of labor - workers in the XIXth century lost the control over the result of their production (from handicraft to mass production) and felt their jobs had lost its meaning because it was specialized. But the conceptualization of "bullshit jobs" is giving the idea that the belief that one's job is useless is based on an objective (and objectivable) reality - a reality that is in fact impossible to define from an objective standpoint.
But one objective thing you could measure the value of a job with for society is quality of life. Let's say we take all unemployed people and let them paint pictures of the president. Now we have zero unemployed people but all we have done is started a redistribution program. A more realistic example would maybe be unneeded bureaucratic jobs with people barely working but getting paid full time. That is not to the benefit of society. If all these unemployed people could magically become doctors we'd simply have better healthcare. That's something that would measurably improve peoples quality of life.
Or take the military and security sector in the US. The service they provide is "safety", but I'd argue that the US isn't a safer place than most other Western countries. If all the people working for the military would start building homeless shelters that would probably help homeless people more than what they're doing now.
My dad worked at a bank for a couple years getting big paychecks (mathematician) and he said he basicly did nothing. He was sitting watching youtube 5 hours a day. And after a year he got sick of basicly not working so he switched job. For you guys that wanted an example of a bullshit job.
On September 29 2014 00:33 Nyxisto wrote: But one objective thing you could measure the value of a job with for society is quality of life. Let's say we take all unemployed people and let them paint pictures of the president. Now we have zero unemployed people but all we have done is started a redistribution program. A more realistic example would maybe be unneeded bureaucratic jobs with people barely working but getting paid full time. That is not to the benefit of society. If all these unemployed people could magically become doctors we'd simply have better healthcare. That's something that would measurably improve peoples quality of life.
Or take the military and security sector in the US. The service they provide is "safety", but I'd argue that the US isn't a safer place than most other Western countries. If all the people working for the military would start building homeless shelters that would probably help homeless people more than what they're doing now.
Even "unneeded" bureaucratic jobs achieve things. Typically its better allocation of resources or labor.
Now, if those jobs were truly wasted time, the employers of those "unneeded" bureaucrats would notice the diminishing returns and would cease hiring more. You'd never end up with every single unemployed person "meaningfully" employed.
You can't have a command economy like you're suggesting. Sticking people in jobs because you think it would help society more to have them there is a fool's errand.
On September 29 2014 00:38 sertas wrote: My dad worked at a bank for a couple years getting big paychecks (mathematician) and he said he basicly did nothing. He was sitting watching youtube 5 hours a day. And after a year he got sick of basicly not working so he switched job. For you guys that wanted an example of a bullshit job.
There are no link between "productivity" and paychecks, just like there are no link between economic value and ethical value. Him gaining a lot and doing nothing is two things completly different things. Wage and profit is a social matter. Secondary, most likely he did nothing 5 hours a day, but his role in economy was not "bullshit" - even someone that just watch and protect a house everyday, with no roberry in sight, still has a use, in the way that he permit others to do something else. That's what I was referring to when I was saying "division of labor" : it's more efficient to have someone do nothing full day, than everybody doing nothing for five minute a day, and trying to produce the rest of the day (which is the role of police officer btw).
Finance is mostly "bullshit", in the way that the money it accumulate is not in any way related to their economic role (like all other jobs but it's most obvious for them since they gain more than others) : there are no sense of "justice" behind the remunerations. But finance still have an economic role (financing the economy, facilitating the liquidity) and without it the economy would work differently (not necessarily with the same productivity - even if I believe there are other way to finance the activity).
Maybe your father's role in the division of labor in his work was full of holes and free time, but nothing in your description makes me believe that that free time did not have any role or utility from a macroeconomic perspective. Maybe ask him in depth and try to build the hierarchy of his firm to understand his role : him having a role does not mean that the role has obvious first hand meaning.
On September 29 2014 00:33 Nyxisto wrote: But one objective thing you could measure the value of a job with for society is quality of life. Let's say we take all unemployed people and let them paint pictures of the president. Now we have zero unemployed people but all we have done is started a redistribution program. A more realistic example would maybe be unneeded bureaucratic jobs with people barely working but getting paid full time. That is not to the benefit of society. If all these unemployed people could magically become doctors we'd simply have better healthcare. That's something that would measurably improve peoples quality of life.
Or take the military and security sector in the US. The service they provide is "safety", but I'd argue that the US isn't a safer place than most other Western countries. If all the people working for the military would start building homeless shelters that would probably help homeless people more than what they're doing now.
Even "unneeded" bureaucratic jobs achieve things. Typically its better allocation of resources or labor.
Now, if those jobs were truly wasted time, the employers of those "unneeded" bureaucrats would notice the diminishing returns and would cease hiring more. You'd never end up with every single unemployed person "meaningfully" employed.
You can't have a command economy like you're suggesting. Sticking people in jobs because you think it would help society more to have them there is a fool's errand.
I don't actually want to advocate a command economy, quite the opposite. People getting fired if they're unproductive only applies to the private sector. The military,police force and public bureaucracy have a monopoly. They can spend as much money as they get and as the long as the tax payer is willing to keep them in their job. The US military and police force is a trillion dollar business, so it's not like we're talking about insignificant amounts of money here. That's why GDP is only a very vague indicator of living standard.
The only way I don't see these jobs as wasted is if the giant police force would actually increase everybody's standard of living. If that's not the case it's just another form of an unemployment program.
On September 29 2014 00:38 sertas wrote: My dad worked at a bank for a couple years getting big paychecks (mathematician) and he said he basicly did nothing. He was sitting watching youtube 5 hours a day. And after a year he got sick of basicly not working so he switched job. For you guys that wanted an example of a bullshit job.
Maybe whatever work he did do was worth the 5 hours of free time?
On September 29 2014 00:33 Nyxisto wrote: But one objective thing you could measure the value of a job with for society is quality of life. Let's say we take all unemployed people and let them paint pictures of the president. Now we have zero unemployed people but all we have done is started a redistribution program. A more realistic example would maybe be unneeded bureaucratic jobs with people barely working but getting paid full time. That is not to the benefit of society. If all these unemployed people could magically become doctors we'd simply have better healthcare. That's something that would measurably improve peoples quality of life.
Or take the military and security sector in the US. The service they provide is "safety", but I'd argue that the US isn't a safer place than most other Western countries. If all the people working for the military would start building homeless shelters that would probably help homeless people more than what they're doing now.
Even "unneeded" bureaucratic jobs achieve things. Typically its better allocation of resources or labor.
Now, if those jobs were truly wasted time, the employers of those "unneeded" bureaucrats would notice the diminishing returns and would cease hiring more. You'd never end up with every single unemployed person "meaningfully" employed.
You can't have a command economy like you're suggesting. Sticking people in jobs because you think it would help society more to have them there is a fool's errand.
I don't actually want to advocate a command economy, quite the opposite. People getting fired if they're unproductive only applies to the private sector. The military,police force and public bureaucracy have a monopoly. They can spend as much money as they get and as the long as the tax payer is willing to keep them in their job. The US military and police force is a trillion dollar business, so it's not like we're talking about insignificant amounts of money here. That's why GDP is only a very vague indicator of living standard.
The only way I don't see these jobs as wasted is if the giant police force would actually increase everybody's standard of living. If that's not the case it's just another form of an unemployment program.
Ah. In that case at least, we agree. The military is way too huge. But its difficult to say how huge is too huge. Preparedness is pretty valuable. If we downsize the military, and then shit hits the fan, we'd have to go through a mad scramble trying to get back up to strength. And even once we've got the numbers back up, there's immaterial losses to deal with as well, like experience and initiative. Just like what happened at the beginning of WW2. For example, after WW1, the US sniper training program got cut. WW2 rolls around, and it becomes apparent that we need snipers. But everyone who knew anything about sniping has long since retired or been promoted out of combat or training rolls.
Finance is at its core a very useful activity, in theory it is concerned with the efficient allocation of capital to its most productive use, and we need people to be doing that. But when it comes to evaluating and re-evaluating existing assets (on financial exchanges), there seems to be a huge amount of waste. A slight edge in evaluation can make millions or billions of dollars, so we have a situation where tons of resources are commited to gaining an edge over the competition. So many people concerned with making money at the expense of other people (losers must equal winners).
Banks are getting a lot of shit. But this is only because their job is actually extremely important, and when they fuck it up there are huge consequences. The brokers and arbitrageurs and even fund managers/analysts seem to be doing things we dont need doing nearly as much.
On September 28 2014 23:41 WhiteDog wrote: Yes but the point is you cannot judge the difference from the two from a purely economic manner. It's always a moral judgement that will permit anyone to makes distinctions and judgements on the usefulness of such job.
Since labor is always a social activity, you cannot judge the usefulness of a doctor or a politician "in itself" : it's the division of labor that create wealth and not a job in itself (cf Adam Smith). The wealth created by the doctor is null if there are no workers to cultivate food for exemple (what's the point of having a good health if you die of hunger ?). One of the main problem of modern economy is the polysemy of the word "value", which as an economic dimension - creating wealth - and a moral or ethical dimension - the degree of importance of an activity / good / person, etc.
I'm not completely sure how this relates to my point but it seems that in the end you didn't want to say that economic activities are all alike but rather that there is no objective (which you seem to conflate with economic, something I would dispute) way to value them. With this I agree, with the caveat that I don't think the objective/subjective dichotomy is particular usefull in this case. In fact someone else agrees as well!
David Graeber wrote Now, I realise any such argument is going to run into immediate objections: “who are you to say what jobs are really ‘necessary’? What’s necessary anyway? You’re an anthropology professor, what’s the ‘need’ for that?” (And indeed a lot of tabloid readers would take the existence of my job as the very definition of wasteful social expenditure.) And on one level, this is obviously true. There can be no objective measure of social value.
Which makes this a bit baffling:
A (good) anthropologist would have questionned the division of labor today, pointing out the loss of meaning in many activities too specialised to give a good perspective on their usefulness or role in our society, thus creating a sense of uselessness (the "bullshit jobs"). This has been done in 1956 for exemple by George Friedman in his book Le Travail en miettes (the labor in pieces). It's a point of view that dates back to Marx's critics, with the idea of alienation of labor - workers in the XIXth century lost the control over the result of their production (from handicraft to mass production) and felt their jobs had lost its meaning because it was specialized. But the conceptualization of "bullshit jobs" is giving the idea that the belief that one's job is useless is based on an objective (and objectivable) reality - a reality that is in fact impossible to define from an objective standpoint.
Obviously his essay is a polemic and he doesn't even pretend that it is scolarly or particular objective. The term "bullshit jobs" appears to be more a call to action than an analytical tool. His political agenda, morality, what he thinks is good etc., all of these are not hidden. Why you choose to read it in such an uncharitable way, I don't know. Especially, since some of his points echo what you wrote above (as I'm sure he knows about alienation) and are worth analyzing in depth (and less polemical) in my opinion. But this is already more than should have been said on this subject. More importantly let's discuss alienation and your definition of bullshit jobs. I don't disagree that specialization leads to alienation and a feeling of uselessness. I would, however, disagree with alienation being causally reduced to specialization. Some jobs alienate more than others and some very specialized jobs don't seem to alienate at all (take for example the reasearcher who are personally invested in their research). My personal experience is that administrative/bureaucratic tasks trigger a stronger feeling of uselessness than most others and thus a general critique of bureaucracy is in order. Now, a certain amount of bureaucracy comes with specialization but one can hardly say that the amount we have now is the exact amount that we need to keep our standard of living (or whatever "objective" measurement you want to apply, for me "have a good life" would be the one).
The thread is moving fast and I am typing slow, so forgive me for not taking the new responses into account.
On September 28 2014 23:41 WhiteDog wrote: Yes but the point is you cannot judge the difference from the two from a purely economic manner. It's always a moral judgement that will permit anyone to makes distinctions and judgements on the usefulness of such job.
Since labor is always a social activity, you cannot judge the usefulness of a doctor or a politician "in itself" : it's the division of labor that create wealth and not a job in itself (cf Adam Smith). The wealth created by the doctor is null if there are no workers to cultivate food for exemple (what's the point of having a good health if you die of hunger ?). One of the main problem of modern economy is the polysemy of the word "value", which as an economic dimension - creating wealth - and a moral or ethical dimension - the degree of importance of an activity / good / person, etc.
I'm not completely sure how this relates to my point but it seems that in the end you didn't want to say that economic activities are all alike but rather that there is no objective (which you seem to conflate with economic, something I would dispute) way to value them. With this I agree, with the caveat that I don't think the objective/subjective dichotomy is particular usefull in this case. In fact someone else agrees as well!
David Graeber wrote Now, I realise any such argument is going to run into immediate objections: “who are you to say what jobs are really ‘necessary’? What’s necessary anyway? You’re an anthropology professor, what’s the ‘need’ for that?” (And indeed a lot of tabloid readers would take the existence of my job as the very definition of wasteful social expenditure.) And on one level, this is obviously true. There can be no objective measure of social value.
A (good) anthropologist would have questionned the division of labor today, pointing out the loss of meaning in many activities too specialised to give a good perspective on their usefulness or role in our society, thus creating a sense of uselessness (the "bullshit jobs"). This has been done in 1956 for exemple by George Friedman in his book Le Travail en miettes (the labor in pieces). It's a point of view that dates back to Marx's critics, with the idea of alienation of labor - workers in the XIXth century lost the control over the result of their production (from handicraft to mass production) and felt their jobs had lost its meaning because it was specialized. But the conceptualization of "bullshit jobs" is giving the idea that the belief that one's job is useless is based on an objective (and objectivable) reality - a reality that is in fact impossible to define from an objective standpoint.
Obviously his essay is a polemic and he doesn't even pretend that it is scolarly or particular objective. The term "bullshit jobs" appears to be more a call to action than an analytical tool. His political agenda, morality, what he thinks is good etc., all of these are not hidden. Why you choose to read it in such an uncharitable way, I don't know. Especially, since some of his points echo what you wrote above (as I'm sure he knows about alienation) and are worth analyzing in depth (and less polemical) in my opinion. But this is already more than should have been said on this subject. More importantly let's discuss alienation and your definition of bullshit jobs. I don't disagree that specialization leads to alienation and a feeling of uselessness. I would, however, disagree with alienation being causally reduced to specialization. Some jobs alienate more than others and some very specialized jobs don't seem to alienate at all (take for example the reasearcher who are personally invested in their research). My personal experience is that administrative/bureaucratic tasks trigger a stronger feeling of uselessness than most others and thus a general critique of bureaucracy is in order. Now, a certain amount of bureaucracy comes with specialization but one can hardly say that the amount we have now is the exact amount that we need to keep our standard of living (or whatever "objective" measurement you want to apply, for me "have a good life" would be the one).
The thread is moving fast and I am typing slow, so forgive me for not taking the new responses into account.
I said more than that : value and wealth are created through the division of labor, and jobs that he consider useless play a part in this division, thus enabling other more "productive" or "valuable" work. That he knows about alienation doesn't mean much : it's a completly different perspective from his moral judgement that some jobs are "bullshit".
He point out, in the papers, jobs such as "when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other." To me it's obvious filing out insurance forms and sending information are important part of the production, mainly because we have a socialized healthcare system in most occidentals countries, and also because knowing the history of a patient is half the work needed to take care of him. That sending information is less fulfilling than directly treating the patient is a given, but that does not make it less productive nor useful. To me, he is just giving his "judgement", or moral point of view, on the usefulness of the people that are filling insurence forms rather than giving me a good insight on the structure of the labor market today. Maybe we need to change our society for the better, most specifically work, but his arguments are not the good ones for that from my point of view.
About bureaucraty, less bureaucraty would maybe increase the "standard of living", but it is for a completly different reason : the goal of many bureaucraties is not to increase or facilitate production / living condition, but rather to control the population, affirm the power of the state on the population. It's a social matter, much like the role of the police, and it's role is perfectly played - it is not "bullshit", but it's just not responding to economic matter for the most part. And about administrative task giving stronger feeling of uselessness, it is absolutly right, but if you've observed any administrative firm or governmental bureaucraty, you'd know that the people that work in there have no freedom whatsoever in their job, every action they can make are officially coded and legalized : it's a perfect exemple of alienation, where the individual completly disappear.
edit : sorry I can't prevent myself from writing "bureaucraty" because in french it's bureaucratie...
On September 29 2014 02:20 WhiteDog wrote: About bureaucraty, less bureaucraty would maybe increase the "standard of living", but it is for a completly different reason : the goal of many bureaucraties is not to increase of facilitate production / living condition, but rather to control the population, affirm the power of the state on the population. It's a social matter, much like the role of the police, and it's role is perfectly played - it is not "bullshit".
But if nothing good comes out of this control then it's warranted to call it a "bullshit job". Prohibition agencies/officers only exist to arrest people for doing something that should arguably be legal. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people employed in Americas prison system that only exists because of draconian laws. There is nothing useful about these jobs except for the people who get paid for doing something that is only for their own benefit. There are easily dozens of branches that work that way.
edit: The question is "would there be a demand for these goods or services if there wasn't a government enforcing or creating them in the first place (through arbitrary laws)?" If the answer to this is no I think it' fair to say the service or good produced is useless.
On September 29 2014 02:20 WhiteDog wrote: About bureaucraty, less bureaucraty would maybe increase the "standard of living", but it is for a completly different reason : the goal of many bureaucraties is not to increase of facilitate production / living condition, but rather to control the population, affirm the power of the state on the population. It's a social matter, much like the role of the police, and it's role is perfectly played - it is not "bullshit".
But if nothing good comes out of this control then it's warranted to call it a "bullshit job". Prohibition agencies/officers only exist to arrest people for doing something that should arguably be legal. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people employed in Americas prison system that only exists because of draconian laws. There is nothing useful about these jobs except for the people who get paid for doing something that is only for their own benefit. There are easily dozens of branches that work that way.
Nothing good for who ? In France the bureaucraty force people to accept a 12 % unemployment rate without much social trouble, it's a pretty effective institution. It's a matter a perspective. Without the minimum revenu of solidarity, France would be in a revolution already. Rich and old white people are pretty happy with black young dude in prisons, it's more "safe".
edit: The question is "would there be a demand for these goods or services if there wasn't a government enforcing or creating them in the first place (through arbitrary laws)?" If the answer to this is no I think it' fair to say the service or good produced is useless.
But why do you absolutly want to force an economic view (offer and demand) on something that's not ? Those work that you point out (police, governmental bureaucracy) are not there for economical matters, even if they do have an economic role (if everybody was forced to look behind his back without the police and law, I'd bet the trading would be quite less dynamic).
On September 29 2014 02:35 WhiteDog wrote: Rich and old white people are pretty happy with black young dude in prisons, it's more "safe".
Come on you can't be serious. You're purposely creating a tautology here.
But why do you absolutly want to force an economic view (offer and demand) on something that's not ? Those work that you point out (police, governmental bureaucraty) are not there for economical matters, even if they do have an economic role (if everybody was forced to look behind his back without the police and law, I'd bet the trading would be quite less dynamic).
Because the original question was "does such a thing as a useless job exist?" and I think that's basically tied to the question "do people produce goods and services that no one would naturally/voluntarily buy if they were not forced to?". Obviously a police force can be useful,but only if people demand more safety. If it has become a system that gets bigger and bigger just because people are making money out of tax payers it's corruption and that's basically the opposite of "usefulness" by any sane definition of the word.
You could argue that instead of people working all these security or bureaucratic jobs just hand them a check and send them to engineering or medical school where they will learn something for which actual real demand exists.
But why do you absolutly want to force an economic view (offer and demand) on something that's not ? Those work that you point out (police, governmental bureaucraty) are not there for economical matters, even if they do have an economic role (if everybody was forced to look behind his back without the police and law, I'd bet the trading would be quite less dynamic).
Because the original question was "does such a thing as a useless job exist?" and I think that's basically tied to the question "do people produce goods and services that no one would naturally/voluntarily buy if they were not forced to?". Obviously a police force can be useful,but only if people demand more safety. If it has become a system that gets bigger and bigger just because people are making money out of tax payers it's corruption and that's basically the opposite of "usefulness" by any sane definition of the word.
You could argue that instead of people working all these security or bureaucratic jobs just hand them a check and send them to engineering or medical school where they will learn something for which actual real demand exists.
Ok then, from an economic standpoint, I'd say safety is a common good, that has positive externality on the economy, a situation that justify that the state investment in it even if the game of offer and demand does not "naturally" create a police force, and even if the existence of those institutions (bureaucraty and police force) are not completly efficient in ressource allocation. That a police officer spend half his day doing nothing does not stop that from being true : it's the simple existence of a police force that create a positive externality on the economy, by permitting normal relationship and trading between the people.
I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person.
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
Unless you are an unimaginative drone the point of a job is that you do something which enables someone else to do what they want.
When you dont think about jobs like this you get into stupid conversations about luddites etc.
You are missing the fucking point. Change happens, if you find yourself doing something that noone wants you to do for them you need to ask yourself why the fuck do people prefer dealing with some automaton than with you?
If you can't think of an answer you are probably not adding enough value, so go find something to do. It is a fact that not everyone automatically goes with the cheapest.
There is no 'system', there are just people who want stuff. You are wanting to get rid of the desire to own and want = presumably because you then see yourself at an advantage in this brave new world. But if you can't solve your crisis here you will be fucked in the one you want because if there is a change you can pretty much guess who gets to instigate it - whoever is in charge right now.
And quite frankly if you cant be arsed to get off your ass, add value to someones life and ask for an honest wage for it you deserve to be fucking skint. However i will happily pay your benefits because I would really rather not have to work with a bunch of people who are working because they fucking have to.
Which is the flip side. *If* you accept there is a system and *if* you accept its broken its because there are a ton of fucking lazy imbociles that are best classed as bovines just muching their way through the grass of work and farting out they negligent shoddily don work that everyone has to then live with.
So no jobs for people who don't figure out how to make themselves useful is a really fuckign good idea if you ask me.
You don't have to find anything to do. Thats why in socialist societies you have things called benefits. But you also have entitled greedy fucks who think 'why do i have to pay for your blah' which break everything.
But why do you absolutly want to force an economic view (offer and demand) on something that's not ? Those work that you point out (police, governmental bureaucraty) are not there for economical matters, even if they do have an economic role (if everybody was forced to look behind his back without the police and law, I'd bet the trading would be quite less dynamic).
Because the original question was "does such a thing as a useless job exist?" and I think that's basically tied to the question "do people produce goods and services that no one would naturally/voluntarily buy if they were not forced to?". Obviously a police force can be useful,but only if people demand more safety. If it has become a system that gets bigger and bigger just because people are making money out of tax payers it's corruption and that's basically the opposite of "usefulness" by any sane definition of the word.
You could argue that instead of people working all these security or bureaucratic jobs just hand them a check and send them to engineering or medical school where they will learn something for which actual real demand exists.
Any job that is surplus to requirements to such an extent is useless. This doesn't just go for a police officer in a perfectly safe world, but also for a dairy farmer in a world where there is so much milk we could never drink it all.
I don't think your average police officer or dairy farmer has the intellectual capabilities to become a competent doctor or engineer. Which is something of a concern in a world where jobs can increasingly be automated.The remaining jobs for humans increasingly require specialized knowledge and sophisticated skills, it is not unimaginable that in the future there will be little demand for low-skill human labor.
On September 29 2014 03:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person.
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
All that is perfectly true, and the proof is we did it in France with the 35 hour a week work. But saying that some work, because of technical progress, doesn't need more than two or three hour per day, is completly different from saying that some work are "bullshit".
On September 29 2014 02:35 WhiteDog wrote: Rich and old white people are pretty happy with black young dude in prisons, it's more "safe".
Come on you can't be serious. You're purposely creating a tautology here.
But why do you absolutly want to force an economic view (offer and demand) on something that's not ? Those work that you point out (police, governmental bureaucraty) are not there for economical matters, even if they do have an economic role (if everybody was forced to look behind his back without the police and law, I'd bet the trading would be quite less dynamic).
Because the original question was "does such a thing as a useless job exist?" and I think that's basically tied to the question "do people produce goods and services that no one would naturally/voluntarily buy if they were not forced to?". Obviously a police force can be useful,but only if people demand more safety. If it has become a system that gets bigger and bigger just because people are making money out of tax payers it's corruption and that's basically the opposite of "usefulness" by any sane definition of the word.
You could argue that instead of people working all these security or bureaucratic jobs just hand them a check and send them to engineering or medical school where they will learn something for which actual real demand exists.
Any job that is surplus to requirements to such an extent is useless. This doesn't just go for a police officer in a perfectly safe world, but also for a dairy farmer in a world where there is so much milk we could never drink it all.
I don't think your average police officer or dairy farmer has the intellectual capabilities to become a competent doctor or engineer. Which is something of a concern in a world where jobs can increasingly be automated.The remaining jobs for humans increasingly require specialized knowledge and sophisticated skills, it is not unimaginable that in the future there will be little demand for low-skill human labor.
Then you are a buffoon, lots of police officers are perfectly capable of making the appropriate choices at the appropriate times int heir lives to of done whatever they liked. If you mean can a 40yo reatrain to be a doctor? why would anyone want to? it takes 10+ years to do that (at minimal pay) and then you'd only have 10 years or so working.
You greatly overvalue intellect to sitting down and doing the work. VERY few jobs require you to think because people fuck up when they think. If you need to think to do your job your probably pretty bad at what you are doing - and im a programmer. I rarely have to think to solve work problems - i have to think a ton outside to learn stuff and train myself but when it comes to work if its not automatic i probably dont know it well enough to be doing it unguided.
On September 29 2014 03:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person.
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
All that is perfectly true, and the proof is we did it in France with the 35 hour a week work. But saying that some work, because of technical progress, doesn't need more than two or three hour per day, is completly different from saying that some work are "bullshit".
in oregon it's illegal to pump your own gas. being a gas station attendant is a bullshit job, there's no way to relativize this under some tautological "if it exists, it must be useful, because economics" type argument
being a coder working on iphone games is also a bullshit job, if y'all want something that hits a little closer to home. My friend who is a coder working on iphone games agrees wholeheartedly
On September 29 2014 02:35 WhiteDog wrote: Rich and old white people are pretty happy with black young dude in prisons, it's more "safe".
Come on you can't be serious. You're purposely creating a tautology here.
But why do you absolutly want to force an economic view (offer and demand) on something that's not ? Those work that you point out (police, governmental bureaucraty) are not there for economical matters, even if they do have an economic role (if everybody was forced to look behind his back without the police and law, I'd bet the trading would be quite less dynamic).
Because the original question was "does such a thing as a useless job exist?" and I think that's basically tied to the question "do people produce goods and services that no one would naturally/voluntarily buy if they were not forced to?". Obviously a police force can be useful,but only if people demand more safety. If it has become a system that gets bigger and bigger just because people are making money out of tax payers it's corruption and that's basically the opposite of "usefulness" by any sane definition of the word.
You could argue that instead of people working all these security or bureaucratic jobs just hand them a check and send them to engineering or medical school where they will learn something for which actual real demand exists.
Any job that is surplus to requirements to such an extent is useless. This doesn't just go for a police officer in a perfectly safe world, but also for a dairy farmer in a world where there is so much milk we could never drink it all.
I don't think your average police officer or dairy farmer has the intellectual capabilities to become a competent doctor or engineer. Which is something of a concern in a world where jobs can increasingly be automated.The remaining jobs for humans increasingly require specialized knowledge and sophisticated skills, it is not unimaginable that in the future there will be little demand for low-skill human labor.
Then you are a buffoon, lots of police officers are perfectly capable of making the appropriate choices at the appropriate times int heir lives to of done whatever they liked. If you mean can a 40yo reatrain to be a doctor? why would anyone want to? it takes 10+ years to do that (at minimal pay) and then you'd only have 10 years or so working.
You greatly overvalue intellect to sitting down and doing the work. VERY few jobs require you to think because people fuck up when they think. If you need to think to do your job your probably pretty bad at what you are doing - and im a programmer. I rarely have to think to solve work problems - i have to think a ton outside to learn stuff and train myself but when it comes to work if its not automatic i probably dont know it well enough to be doing it unguided.
Sound like your job could be automated pretty easily, maybe consider retraining to be a doctor? Never too late to make appropriate life choices for the future buddy.
On September 29 2014 02:35 WhiteDog wrote: Rich and old white people are pretty happy with black young dude in prisons, it's more "safe".
Come on you can't be serious. You're purposely creating a tautology here.
But why do you absolutly want to force an economic view (offer and demand) on something that's not ? Those work that you point out (police, governmental bureaucraty) are not there for economical matters, even if they do have an economic role (if everybody was forced to look behind his back without the police and law, I'd bet the trading would be quite less dynamic).
Because the original question was "does such a thing as a useless job exist?" and I think that's basically tied to the question "do people produce goods and services that no one would naturally/voluntarily buy if they were not forced to?". Obviously a police force can be useful,but only if people demand more safety. If it has become a system that gets bigger and bigger just because people are making money out of tax payers it's corruption and that's basically the opposite of "usefulness" by any sane definition of the word.
You could argue that instead of people working all these security or bureaucratic jobs just hand them a check and send them to engineering or medical school where they will learn something for which actual real demand exists.
Any job that is surplus to requirements to such an extent is useless. This doesn't just go for a police officer in a perfectly safe world, but also for a dairy farmer in a world where there is so much milk we could never drink it all.
I don't think your average police officer or dairy farmer has the intellectual capabilities to become a competent doctor or engineer. Which is something of a concern in a world where jobs can increasingly be automated.The remaining jobs for humans increasingly require specialized knowledge and sophisticated skills, it is not unimaginable that in the future there will be little demand for low-skill human labor.
Then you are a buffoon, lots of police officers are perfectly capable of making the appropriate choices at the appropriate times int heir lives to of done whatever they liked. If you mean can a 40yo reatrain to be a doctor? why would anyone want to? it takes 10+ years to do that (at minimal pay) and then you'd only have 10 years or so working.
You greatly overvalue intellect to sitting down and doing the work. VERY few jobs require you to think because people fuck up when they think. If you need to think to do your job your probably pretty bad at what you are doing - and im a programmer. I rarely have to think to solve work problems - i have to think a ton outside to learn stuff and train myself but when it comes to work if its not automatic i probably dont know it well enough to be doing it unguided.
Sound like your job could be automated pretty easily, maybe consider retraining to be a doctor? Never too late to make appropriate life choices for the future buddy.
Doctor is also easy to automate. Probably less than a 10 year horizon until humans are worse at the job in specific roles. Don't think we will have automated emergency responses by that time but a normal diagnosis or operation.
On September 29 2014 03:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person.
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
All that is perfectly true, and the proof is we did it in France with the 35 hour a week work. But saying that some work, because of technical progress, doesn't need more than two or three hour per day, is completly different from saying that some work are "bullshit".
in oregon it's illegal to pump your own gas. being a gas station attendant is a bullshit job, there's no way to relativize this under some tautological "if it exists, it must be useful, because economics" type argument
being a coder working on iphone games is also a bullshit job, if y'all want something that hits a little closer to home. My friend who is a coder working on iphone games agrees wholeheartedly
People buy those iphone games. There must be a demand for them. If nobody was buying them, you'd have a point.
Gas station attendant is a safety precaution. It's definitely stupid, but it does accomplish something. I'm willing to bet there are no jobs that are totally pointless. There are definitely jobs where the point is stupid though.
On September 29 2014 02:35 WhiteDog wrote: Rich and old white people are pretty happy with black young dude in prisons, it's more "safe".
Come on you can't be serious. You're purposely creating a tautology here.
But why do you absolutly want to force an economic view (offer and demand) on something that's not ? Those work that you point out (police, governmental bureaucraty) are not there for economical matters, even if they do have an economic role (if everybody was forced to look behind his back without the police and law, I'd bet the trading would be quite less dynamic).
Because the original question was "does such a thing as a useless job exist?" and I think that's basically tied to the question "do people produce goods and services that no one would naturally/voluntarily buy if they were not forced to?". Obviously a police force can be useful,but only if people demand more safety. If it has become a system that gets bigger and bigger just because people are making money out of tax payers it's corruption and that's basically the opposite of "usefulness" by any sane definition of the word.
You could argue that instead of people working all these security or bureaucratic jobs just hand them a check and send them to engineering or medical school where they will learn something for which actual real demand exists.
Any job that is surplus to requirements to such an extent is useless. This doesn't just go for a police officer in a perfectly safe world, but also for a dairy farmer in a world where there is so much milk we could never drink it all.
I don't think your average police officer or dairy farmer has the intellectual capabilities to become a competent doctor or engineer. Which is something of a concern in a world where jobs can increasingly be automated.The remaining jobs for humans increasingly require specialized knowledge and sophisticated skills, it is not unimaginable that in the future there will be little demand for low-skill human labor.
Then you are a buffoon, lots of police officers are perfectly capable of making the appropriate choices at the appropriate times int heir lives to of done whatever they liked. If you mean can a 40yo reatrain to be a doctor? why would anyone want to? it takes 10+ years to do that (at minimal pay) and then you'd only have 10 years or so working.
You greatly overvalue intellect to sitting down and doing the work. VERY few jobs require you to think because people fuck up when they think. If you need to think to do your job your probably pretty bad at what you are doing - and im a programmer. I rarely have to think to solve work problems - i have to think a ton outside to learn stuff and train myself but when it comes to work if its not automatic i probably dont know it well enough to be doing it unguided.
Sound like your job could be automated pretty easily, maybe consider retraining to be a doctor? Never too late to make appropriate life choices for the future buddy.
Doctor is also easy to automate. Probably less than a 10 year horizon until humans are worse at the job in specific roles. Don't think we will have automated emergency responses by that time but a normal diagnosis or operation.
Exactly, most jobs we know about now could very well be automated to a large extent within our lifetime. Which makes the point about appropriate choices at the appropriate time pretty absurd.
On September 29 2014 03:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person.
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
All that is perfectly true, and the proof is we did it in France with the 35 hour a week work. But saying that some work, because of technical progress, doesn't need more than two or three hour per day, is completly different from saying that some work are "bullshit".
in oregon it's illegal to pump your own gas. being a gas station attendant is a bullshit job, there's no way to relativize this under some tautological "if it exists, it must be useful, because economics" type argument
being a coder working on iphone games is also a bullshit job, if y'all want something that hits a little closer to home. My friend who is a coder working on iphone games agrees wholeheartedly
People buy those iphone games. There must be a demand for them. If nobody was buying them, you'd have a point.
this is the sort of tautological argument i was talking about, thanks for providing an example
"supply and demand" is not an excuse for abdicating all responsibility for thinking critically about the world around you
On September 29 2014 03:24 Millitron wrote: Gas station attendant is a safety precaution.
yeah. I'm terrified to pump gas here in california where we don't have them. can we also have some make-work jobs for people to wipe my ass so I don't have worry about contaminating my hands? sounds like some nice keynesian stimulus
On September 29 2014 03:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person.
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
All that is perfectly true, and the proof is we did it in France with the 35 hour a week work. But saying that some work, because of technical progress, doesn't need more than two or three hour per day, is completly different from saying that some work are "bullshit".
in oregon it's illegal to pump your own gas. being a gas station attendant is a bullshit job, there's no way to relativize this under some tautological "if it exists, it must be useful, because economics" type argument
being a coder working on iphone games is also a bullshit job, if y'all want something that hits a little closer to home. My friend who is a coder working on iphone games agrees wholeheartedly
People buy those iphone games. There must be a demand for them. If nobody was buying them, you'd have a point.
this is the sort of tautological argument i was talking about, thanks for providing an example
"supply and demand" is not an excuse for abdicating all responsibility for thinking critically about the world around you
I'm pretty happy to be able to play games on my phone. Thank your friend for me.
On September 29 2014 03:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person.
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
All that is perfectly true, and the proof is we did it in France with the 35 hour a week work. But saying that some work, because of technical progress, doesn't need more than two or three hour per day, is completly different from saying that some work are "bullshit".
in oregon it's illegal to pump your own gas. being a gas station attendant is a bullshit job, there's no way to relativize this under some tautological "if it exists, it must be useful, because economics" type argument
being a coder working on iphone games is also a bullshit job, if y'all want something that hits a little closer to home. My friend who is a coder working on iphone games agrees wholeheartedly
People buy those iphone games. There must be a demand for them. If nobody was buying them, you'd have a point.
this is the sort of tautological argument i was talking about, thanks for providing an example
"supply and demand" is not an excuse for abdicating all responsibility for thinking critically about the world around you
I'm pretty happy to be able to play games on my phone. Thank your friend for me.
if you play the kind of games he makes, you're a moron. we're talking sub-farmville stuff here
On September 29 2014 03:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person.
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
All that is perfectly true, and the proof is we did it in France with the 35 hour a week work. But saying that some work, because of technical progress, doesn't need more than two or three hour per day, is completly different from saying that some work are "bullshit".
in oregon it's illegal to pump your own gas. being a gas station attendant is a bullshit job, there's no way to relativize this under some tautological "if it exists, it must be useful, because economics" type argument
being a coder working on iphone games is also a bullshit job, if y'all want something that hits a little closer to home. My friend who is a coder working on iphone games agrees wholeheartedly
People buy those iphone games. There must be a demand for them. If nobody was buying them, you'd have a point.
this is the sort of tautological argument i was talking about, thanks for providing an example
"supply and demand" is not an excuse for abdicating all responsibility for thinking critically about the world around you
On September 29 2014 03:24 Millitron wrote: Gas station attendant is a safety precaution.
yeah. I'm terrified to pump gas here in california where we don't have them. can we also have some make-work jobs for people to wipe my ass so I don't have worry about contaminating my hands? sounds like some nice keynesian stimulus
You're right about the gas station thing because virtually everybody would probably prefer to do that themselves, but if people demand shitty IPhone games I wouldn't put that into the "bullshit job" category, because there's actually real demand for it. It's not about the Politburo telling the people how they spend their free time.
On September 29 2014 03:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person.
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
All that is perfectly true, and the proof is we did it in France with the 35 hour a week work. But saying that some work, because of technical progress, doesn't need more than two or three hour per day, is completly different from saying that some work are "bullshit".
in oregon it's illegal to pump your own gas. being a gas station attendant is a bullshit job, there's no way to relativize this under some tautological "if it exists, it must be useful, because economics" type argument
being a coder working on iphone games is also a bullshit job, if y'all want something that hits a little closer to home. My friend who is a coder working on iphone games agrees wholeheartedly
People buy those iphone games. There must be a demand for them. If nobody was buying them, you'd have a point.
this is the sort of tautological argument i was talking about, thanks for providing an example
"supply and demand" is not an excuse for abdicating all responsibility for thinking critically about the world around you
I'm pretty happy to be able to play games on my phone. Thank your friend for me.
if you play the kind of games he makes, you're a moron. we're talking sub-farmville stuff here
An anarchist advocating for a centrally planned economy (we must throw away all the jobs YOU consider bullshit) and yet you call other people morons.
On September 29 2014 03:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person.
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
All that is perfectly true, and the proof is we did it in France with the 35 hour a week work. But saying that some work, because of technical progress, doesn't need more than two or three hour per day, is completly different from saying that some work are "bullshit".
in oregon it's illegal to pump your own gas. being a gas station attendant is a bullshit job, there's no way to relativize this under some tautological "if it exists, it must be useful, because economics" type argument
being a coder working on iphone games is also a bullshit job, if y'all want something that hits a little closer to home. My friend who is a coder working on iphone games agrees wholeheartedly
People buy those iphone games. There must be a demand for them. If nobody was buying them, you'd have a point.
this is the sort of tautological argument i was talking about, thanks for providing an example
"supply and demand" is not an excuse for abdicating all responsibility for thinking critically about the world around you
On September 29 2014 03:24 Millitron wrote: Gas station attendant is a safety precaution.
yeah. I'm terrified to pump gas here in california where we don't have them. can we also have some make-work jobs for people to wipe my ass so I don't have worry about contaminating my hands? sounds like some nice keynesian stimulus
The gas station needs the attendant because the state demands they have one or they'll be fined or shut down. As long as its illegal to pump your own gas, gas station attendant is a meaningful job.
I agree its a totally stupid law. But don't blame the gas station, blame the state.
On September 29 2014 03:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person.
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
All that is perfectly true, and the proof is we did it in France with the 35 hour a week work. But saying that some work, because of technical progress, doesn't need more than two or three hour per day, is completly different from saying that some work are "bullshit".
in oregon it's illegal to pump your own gas. being a gas station attendant is a bullshit job, there's no way to relativize this under some tautological "if it exists, it must be useful, because economics" type argument
being a coder working on iphone games is also a bullshit job, if y'all want something that hits a little closer to home. My friend who is a coder working on iphone games agrees wholeheartedly
People buy those iphone games. There must be a demand for them. If nobody was buying them, you'd have a point.
this is the sort of tautological argument i was talking about, thanks for providing an example
"supply and demand" is not an excuse for abdicating all responsibility for thinking critically about the world around you
On September 29 2014 03:24 Millitron wrote: Gas station attendant is a safety precaution.
yeah. I'm terrified to pump gas here in california where we don't have them. can we also have some make-work jobs for people to wipe my ass so I don't have worry about contaminating my hands? sounds like some nice keynesian stimulus
The gas station needs the attendant because the state demands they have one or they'll be fined or shut down. As long as its illegal to pump your own gas, gas station attendant is a meaningful job.
I agree its a totally stupid law. But don't blame the gas station, blame the state.
I would say that if the only reason is legislation, like you said, then the attendant's job is completely meaningless. The demand for their job is completely artificial. Doesn't really get more meaningless than that.
On September 29 2014 03:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person.
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
All that is perfectly true, and the proof is we did it in France with the 35 hour a week work. But saying that some work, because of technical progress, doesn't need more than two or three hour per day, is completly different from saying that some work are "bullshit".
in oregon it's illegal to pump your own gas. being a gas station attendant is a bullshit job, there's no way to relativize this under some tautological "if it exists, it must be useful, because economics" type argument
being a coder working on iphone games is also a bullshit job, if y'all want something that hits a little closer to home. My friend who is a coder working on iphone games agrees wholeheartedly
People buy those iphone games. There must be a demand for them. If nobody was buying them, you'd have a point.
this is the sort of tautological argument i was talking about, thanks for providing an example
"supply and demand" is not an excuse for abdicating all responsibility for thinking critically about the world around you
On September 29 2014 03:24 Millitron wrote: Gas station attendant is a safety precaution.
yeah. I'm terrified to pump gas here in california where we don't have them. can we also have some make-work jobs for people to wipe my ass so I don't have worry about contaminating my hands? sounds like some nice keynesian stimulus
The gas station needs the attendant because the state demands they have one or they'll be fined or shut down. As long as its illegal to pump your own gas, gas station attendant is a meaningful job.
I agree its a totally stupid law. But don't blame the gas station, blame the state.
I would say that if the only reason is legislation, like you said, then the attendant's job is completely meaningless. The demand for their job is completely artificial. Doesn't really get more meaningless than that.
I would say its not artificial. That gas station cannot safely (safe from fines anyways) do business without the attendant. It's a very necessary job as long as that law is in place. The necessity of the law though, is questionable at best.
Basically, there's demand, but the reason there is demand is stupid.
On September 29 2014 03:04 Liquid`Drone wrote: I kinda think it's like, it's not that suddenly due to automation there are so many bullshit jobs now. But the idea that we need to be at the workplace from 8 to 4 or whatever, cuz 8 hours per day is defined as the amount of time you should be expected to work before you eat, that idea is becoming increasingly more and more dated the more time that passes. Also seems like quite some successful workplaces have abandoned that model, but those are normally companies with highly motivated and educated employees in the first place.
From various articles I don't feel like digging up now, I also recall reading how workplaces that have experimented with 6 hour work days have in fact ended up with more productive workers during those 6 hour shifts than they earlier had from 8 hours shifts. Anyway though, this is just me brainstorming but, it would seem to me like the problem is that some jobs actually genuinely require 8 hour work days for a job to be well done, and then we are as a collective kinda just.. too politically petty and stupid to agree with some workers being paid full salaries for 3-4 hour working days even if that would be sufficient for them to do their job, so we add a couple hours of uselessness. Then sometimes you just gotta be "on call" and then you might just need to be on call at your work place if whatever is problematic requires you to be there in person.
I mean say you're working as a mathematician in a bank and you can actually do your job in 1 hour and then you spend the next 6 hours browsing youtube videos because you need to actually clock in 7 hours even if you've done everything you need to do after 1 to get a good paycheck, how could you solve this dilemma otherwise? Give the guy a hourly salary 7x that of the rest of the staff that actually need to be there? People would be upset! I think the best we can do is prolly just gradually reducing the "societally expected amount of work hours" and allowing for more flexibility in terms of being allowed to be "on call" at home if it's possible, but people want stuff to be fair, sometimes detrimentally so.
All that is perfectly true, and the proof is we did it in France with the 35 hour a week work. But saying that some work, because of technical progress, doesn't need more than two or three hour per day, is completly different from saying that some work are "bullshit".
in oregon it's illegal to pump your own gas. being a gas station attendant is a bullshit job, there's no way to relativize this under some tautological "if it exists, it must be useful, because economics" type argument
being a coder working on iphone games is also a bullshit job, if y'all want something that hits a little closer to home. My friend who is a coder working on iphone games agrees wholeheartedly
Handicaped people or old people can see value in having a gas attendant. I heard in Japan there are gas attendant everywhere because it's a custom. Again that's a question of offer and demand, maybe some people see value in having someone putting gas in their car for them.
I'm sure in big bus station there are some guys that are paid just to put gas in the tank of all the bus because it's more efficient to have someone doing that rather than all the bus driver doing it individually. It's division of labor again !
On September 29 2014 02:20 WhiteDog wrote: I said more than that : value and wealth are created through the division of labor, and jobs that he consider useless play a part in this division, thus enabling other more "productive" or "valuable" work. That he knows about alienation doesn't mean much : it's a completly different perspective from his moral judgement that some jobs are "bullshit".
I don't want to put words in your mouth but fo clarities sake I will condense your argument as I understand it so that you can point out any misunderstandings: There is no objective measure of usefulness of a job. Thus we cannot know how much a job really adds to the benefits (wealth/security/etc.) we get from the whole system. Thus we should consider every part as equal in this whole process (or at the very least, the difference should be considered indeterminable).
The last conclusion is what I reject. There is no objective way to gauge how important a particular task is but surely the people doing it together with the people they are doing it for can make an informed guess. This may entail some form of dialog with even further removed people, weighting benefits and costs, etc. but it's not impossible. Actually, I'm sure that this very process happens all the time and I would guess that the (felt) bullshit part of a job enters especially when there is no dialog between those demanding the task and those having to do it (in a situation where it is not clear why it must be done).
He point out, in the papers, jobs such as "when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other." To me it's obvious filing out insurance forms and sending information are important part of the production, mainly because we have a socialized healthcare system in most occidentals countries, and also because knowing the history of a patient is half the work needed to take care of him. That sending information is less fulfilling than directly treating the patient is a given, but that does not make it less productive nor useful. To me, he is just giving his "judgement", or moral point of view, on the usefulness of the people that are filling insurence forms rather than giving me a good insight on the structure of the labor market today. Maybe we need to change our society for the better, most specifically work, but his arguments are not the good ones for that from my point of view.
About bureaucraty, less bureaucraty would maybe increase the "standard of living", but it is for a completly different reason : the goal of many bureaucraties is not to increase or facilitate production / living condition, but rather to control the population, affirm the power of the state on the population. It's a social matter, much like the role of the police, and it's role is perfectly played - it is not "bullshit", but it's just not responding to economic matter for the most part. And about administrative task giving stronger feeling of uselessness, it is absolutly right, but if you've observed any administrative firm or governmental bureaucraty, you'd know that the people that work in there have no freedom whatsoever in their job, every action they can make are officially coded and legalized : it's a perfect exemple of alienation, where the individual completly disappear.
edit : sorry I can't prevent myself from writing "bureaucraty" because in french it's bureaucratie...
Don't you find the contrast between those two paragraphs strange? I would guess that the amount of paperwork in hospitals is directly related to bureaucratization and growing administrative bodies within and without. This is only anecdotal but my father is a doctor at a hospital and according to him the administrative work has grown considerably over the years. One of the most annoying new things in his mind is getting certification. Until very recently this process of auditing by private firms was unheard of in Germany (I can only speak for hospitals and universities), now basically all hospitals and universities have to undergo it for rather nebulous reasons. The benefit on the ground, so to speak, seems marginal compared to the amount of work that needs to be put into it. This work entails producing swathes of documents that are literally made up and will never be used for anything else than auditing. Now, I don't critisize the process of auditing on principle and maybe the above has a hidden benefit that doctors and nurses at the hospital cannot see but I can at least imagine the possibility that somehow actively detrimental processes can be institutionalized and that in this situation the people who carry it out might actually know that it is detrimental/useless.
Finally, I do agree that the essay is not a particular great analysis of the labour situation but since I never felt that it was intended as one I am not too angry about that. For me it doesn't fail as a polemic but it's alright if you disagree for the reasons above.
On September 29 2014 02:20 WhiteDog wrote: I said more than that : value and wealth are created through the division of labor, and jobs that he consider useless play a part in this division, thus enabling other more "productive" or "valuable" work. That he knows about alienation doesn't mean much : it's a completly different perspective from his moral judgement that some jobs are "bullshit".
I don't want to put words in your mouth but fo clarities sake I will condense your argument as I understand it so that you can point out any misunderstandings: There is no objective measure of usefulness of a job. Thus we cannot know how much a job really adds to the benefits (wealth/security/etc.) we get from the whole system. Thus we should consider every part as equal in this whole process (or at the very least, the difference should be considered indeterminable).
The last conclusion is what I reject. There is no objective way to gauge how important a particular task is but surely the people doing it together with the people they are doing it for can make an informed guess. This may entail some form of dialog with even further removed people, weighting benefits and costs, etc. but it's not impossible. Actually, I'm sure that this very process happens all the time and I would guess that the (felt) bullshit part of a job enters especially when there is no dialog between those demanding the task and those having to do it (in a situation where it is not clear why it must be done).
There is no objective measure of the usefulness of a job - yes. Thus we cannot know how much a job really adds to the benefits we get from the whole system - no. Thus we should consider every part as equal in this whole process - no.
It's more like : There is no objective measure of the usefulness of one job because labor is in essence a social activity. Thus you cannot value the usefulness of a job in itself, because a job never create value in itself : it is the society and the division of labor that is at the source of the wealth.
When a banker make a loan, he makes an important step in the financing process and permit a lot of activity, but his activity in itself is useless : if you have no activity that needs financing, the process of financing is unecessary. It's the same for our entire labor market : you cannot be a full time "productive" smelter if there are no other citizens that cultivate food (for you to eat) and that needs the tool that you can forge. It's the specialization that permit you to increase your productivity in a specific field : if the smelter had to cultivate food half of his day, he wouldn't be as efficient in smelting. In a society with no bureaucracy, there is a good chance that all firms would have to do, by themselves, a good part of what bureaucrats are doing, and thus it will naturally decrease their productivity : they will have to allocate more ressources to bureaucracy or infrastructure than they need to now, and thus allocate less ressource in their main productive activity.
Just because we are individualist societies that only see specific field and their monetary face value does not mean that our society does not "exist" and does not enable the specializations. A good exemple for that is the comparaison between China and India : China, a "communist" society, has had higher growth that India, because its heavy bureacratic and state heavy business was not, contrary to common belief, a complete drag on their growth. It enabled it, despite the corruption and everything else. Meanwhile India, with the same easy and cheap labor thanks to its demographic, never grew at the same rate, because its political institutions never invested in a bureaucracy and the necessary infrastructure to permit specialization and positive externalities to fuel the private sector.
He point out, in the papers, jobs such as "when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other." To me it's obvious filing out insurance forms and sending information are important part of the production, mainly because we have a socialized healthcare system in most occidentals countries, and also because knowing the history of a patient is half the work needed to take care of him. That sending information is less fulfilling than directly treating the patient is a given, but that does not make it less productive nor useful. To me, he is just giving his "judgement", or moral point of view, on the usefulness of the people that are filling insurence forms rather than giving me a good insight on the structure of the labor market today. Maybe we need to change our society for the better, most specifically work, but his arguments are not the good ones for that from my point of view.
About bureaucraty, less bureaucraty would maybe increase the "standard of living", but it is for a completly different reason : the goal of many bureaucraties is not to increase or facilitate production / living condition, but rather to control the population, affirm the power of the state on the population. It's a social matter, much like the role of the police, and it's role is perfectly played - it is not "bullshit", but it's just not responding to economic matter for the most part. And about administrative task giving stronger feeling of uselessness, it is absolutly right, but if you've observed any administrative firm or governmental bureaucraty, you'd know that the people that work in there have no freedom whatsoever in their job, every action they can make are officially coded and legalized : it's a perfect exemple of alienation, where the individual completly disappear.
edit : sorry I can't prevent myself from writing "bureaucraty" because in french it's bureaucratie...
Don't you find the contrast between those two paragraphs strange? I would guess that the amount of paperwork in hospitals is directly related to bureaucratization and growing administrative bodies within and without. This is only anecdotal but my father is a doctor at a hospital and according to him the administrative work has grown considerably over the years. One of the most annoying new things in his mind is getting certification. Until very recently this process of auditing by private firms was unheard of in Germany (I can only speak for hospitals and universities), now basically all hospitals and universities have to undergo it for rather nebulous reasons. The benefit on the ground, so to speak, seems marginal compared to the amount of work that needs to be put into it. This work entails producing swathes of documents that are literally made up and will never be used for anything else than auditing. Now, I don't critisize the process of auditing on principle and maybe the above has a hidden benefit that doctors and nurses at the hospital cannot see but I can at least imagine the possibility that somehow actively detrimental processes can be institutionalized and that in this situation the people who carry it out might actually know that it is detrimental/useless.
Finally, I do agree that the essay is not a particular great analysis of the labour situation but since I never felt that it was intended as one I am not too angry about that. For me it doesn't fail as a polemic but it's alright if you disagree for the reasons above.
I do not intend to say that all activity have equal value (if we could measure that value) and that the labor market is working perfectly (for the matter I don't even believe that labor market is a market like others). But the idea that there is a core misallocation of labor and that there are "bullshit work" that now constitute the main part of the available job is to me an absurdity. Now it's sure that there are problems, but most of the things you guys point out are related, directly or indirectly, to the state, which is not a market and thus is by essence imperfect (not that market are perfect but whatever) and "second best" as economists says : they create misallocation but enable a lot of things that would not if the state was not there. You can certainly "rationalize" most production process in most fields, but I'm not sure that rationalization will necessarily end up in an increase in productivity for the reason I've posted above.
Upon reading my post again not even I agree with the point it implies I'm making, unfortunately that happens regularly to me, i.e. I get lost in some logical argument while losing sight of what I is important. It looks like I'm concerned with effectivity and productivity* but that couldn't be further from the truth. Personally I would like to lessen the tasks that alienate the most (feel the most useless) even at the cost of effectivity (and even at the cost of our societies most holy cows like life expectancy and economic growth). Still I don't completely agree with this:
There is no objective measure of the usefulness of one job because labor is in essence a social activity. Thus you cannot value the usefulness of a job in itself, because a job never create value in itself : it is the society and the division of labor that is at the source of the wealth.
People can and do value the usefulness of certain activities, just not to an objective standard. You could say the act of evaluation is also societal and shapes not only perception of these activities but ultimately also to what extend they are done (though this connection is of course not direct). Perhaps now I understand better what you meant by moral/descriptive differences but I would disagree that these differences are useless (because they are not objective). Especially if you think about actively shaping society and not just being a part of it.
*In regards to effectivity (and productivity), do you think that the term is useless if it is not used for one particular business? What I mean is that the rise of productivity could very well be due to more work from other people at a different place (for example introducing a new software may make some process more effective but somebody had to create the software and maintain it etc.). I have not thought about this until now but it makes a lot of sense on the surface.
I think it's exactly the opposite from the way Greaber thinks.
The world (which includes our society) is getting more and more complicated, people specialize further and further. This means that you need tons of people with knowledge of very specific things, and you need tons of people to move this knowledge back and forth (to translate it, to apply it, to collect it, to explain it, to store it). So you need tons of desk jobs ('knowledge jobs'). These are not bullshit jobs, instead, the opposite: these jobs are essential in keeping things running.
Back in the middle ages, one single person could be up-to-date as far as science and technology was concerned. In one human brain, you could store almost everything there was to know about science and technology. But of course, nowadays that's impossible. You need people who specialized in tiny, tiny fields. The same thing applies to: law, medicine, manufacturing, government, the arts, etc. Everything there is to know about everything is stored across millions of brains.
To make sure that society can actually benefit from this huge amount of knowledge, and from the increased specialization, you needs tons of jobs. They're NOT bullshit jobs.
Besides, I think this Graeber guy is overrated. I tried reading his book 'Debt: 5K years' and it's a very unsystematic, non-rigorous text. Whatever it is he's doing, it's not actual research or scholarship.
Yet, he gets many readers because of his politically progressive orientation. It seems to me that people from the Left should choose better thinkers, not people like Greaber.
On September 30 2014 19:46 dizzy101 wrote: I think it's exactly the opposite from the way Greaber thinks.
The world (which includes our society) is getting more and more complicated, people specialize further and further. This means that you need tons of people with knowledge of very specific things, and you need tons of people to move this knowledge back and forth (to translate it, to apply it, to collect it, to explain it, to store it). So you need tons of desk jobs ('knowledge jobs'). These are not bullshit jobs, instead, the opposite: these jobs are essential in keeping things running.
Back in the middle ages, one single person could be up-to-date as far as science and technology was concerned. In one human brain, you could store almost everything there was to know about science and technology. But of course, nowadays that's impossible. You need people who specialized in tiny, tiny fields. The same thing applies to: law, medicine, manufacturing, government, the arts, etc. Everything there is to know about everything is stored across millions of brains.
To make sure that society can actually benefit from this huge amount of knowledge, and from the increased specialization, you needs tons of jobs. They're NOT bullshit jobs.
Besides, I think this Graeber guy is overrated. I tried reading his book 'Debt: 5K years' and it's a very unsystematic, non-rigorous text. Whatever it is he's doing, it's not actual research or scholarship.
Yet, he gets many readers because of his politically progressive orientation. It seems to me that people from the Left should choose better thinkers, not people like Greaber.
People who sound intelligent will always be regarded as intelligent to the masses. This is why so many people talk about Hobbes, Ayn Rand, Anti-Vaccine movement, etc. When in fact the information that person used is well over a few decades old, heavily quoted out of context to make their side seem more reasonable/accurate, or simply the musings of someone trying to understand the world. I'm not saying those individuals aren't intelligent, they might be correct, but the only things we can really use are hard evidence, statistical analysis, quantifiable results, and specialized equipment to get an objective, correct, and indisputable meaning.
On September 30 2014 19:46 dizzy101 wrote: I think it's exactly the opposite from the way Greaber thinks.
The world (which includes our society) is getting more and more complicated, people specialize further and further. This means that you need tons of people with knowledge of very specific things, and you need tons of people to move this knowledge back and forth (to translate it, to apply it, to collect it, to explain it, to store it). So you need tons of desk jobs ('knowledge jobs'). These are not bullshit jobs, instead, the opposite: these jobs are essential in keeping things running.
Back in the middle ages, one single person could be up-to-date as far as science and technology was concerned. In one human brain, you could store almost everything there was to know about science and technology. But of course, nowadays that's impossible. You need people who specialized in tiny, tiny fields. The same thing applies to: law, medicine, manufacturing, government, the arts, etc. Everything there is to know about everything is stored across millions of brains.
To make sure that society can actually benefit from this huge amount of knowledge, and from the increased specialization, you needs tons of jobs. They're NOT bullshit jobs.
Besides, I think this Graeber guy is overrated. I tried reading his book 'Debt: 5K years' and it's a very unsystematic, non-rigorous text. Whatever it is he's doing, it's not actual research or scholarship.
Yet, he gets many readers because of his politically progressive orientation. It seems to me that people from the Left should choose better thinkers, not people like Greaber.
People who sound intelligent will always be regarded as intelligent to the masses. This is why so many people talk about Hobbes, Ayn Rand, Anti-Vaccine movement, etc. When in fact the information that person used is well over a few decades old, heavily quoted out of context to make their side seem more reasonable/accurate, or simply the musings of someone trying to understand the world. I'm not saying those individuals aren't intelligent, they might be correct, but the only things we can really use are hard evidence, statistical analysis, quantifiable results, and specialized equipment to get an objective, correct, and indisputable meaning.
Yes Graeber is the Ayn Rand of the far left. When challenged by even progressive economists on the chapters of his book pertaining to the present he cant defend them, he simply launches polemic attacks. But his fans love his half truths.
On September 30 2014 19:46 dizzy101 wrote: I think it's exactly the opposite from the way Greaber thinks.
The world (which includes our society) is getting more and more complicated, people specialize further and further. This means that you need tons of people with knowledge of very specific things, and you need tons of people to move this knowledge back and forth (to translate it, to apply it, to collect it, to explain it, to store it). So you need tons of desk jobs ('knowledge jobs'). These are not bullshit jobs, instead, the opposite: these jobs are essential in keeping things running.
Back in the middle ages, one single person could be up-to-date as far as science and technology was concerned. In one human brain, you could store almost everything there was to know about science and technology. But of course, nowadays that's impossible. You need people who specialized in tiny, tiny fields. The same thing applies to: law, medicine, manufacturing, government, the arts, etc. Everything there is to know about everything is stored across millions of brains.
To make sure that society can actually benefit from this huge amount of knowledge, and from the increased specialization, you needs tons of jobs. They're NOT bullshit jobs.
Besides, I think this Graeber guy is overrated. I tried reading his book 'Debt: 5K years' and it's a very unsystematic, non-rigorous text. Whatever it is he's doing, it's not actual research or scholarship.
Yet, he gets many readers because of his politically progressive orientation. It seems to me that people from the Left should choose better thinkers, not people like Greaber.
People who sound intelligent will always be regarded as intelligent to the masses. This is why so many people talk about Hobbes, Ayn Rand, Anti-Vaccine movement, etc. When in fact the information that person used is well over a few decades old, heavily quoted out of context to make their side seem more reasonable/accurate, or simply the musings of someone trying to understand the world. I'm not saying those individuals aren't intelligent, they might be correct, but the only things we can really use are hard evidence, statistical analysis, quantifiable results, and specialized equipment to get an objective, correct, and indisputable meaning.
You last sentence personifies views of certain people from Atlas Shrugged. I've just picked the book up recently and it is well worth the read. I'm not aligned with left or right party and am having a really good time reading it. I honestly picked it up because I've experienced both left and right wing people in my life make comments on the book and wanted to understand what the outrage was. I think your first paragraph makes an accurate statement about people using this literature, meanwhile I think the book simply does a clear job of describing her views and the most clear and uncontroversial way possible.
On June 28 2014 23:53 nimbim wrote: The average work hours are just the symptom of the working class being exploited, as they have always been. With the amount of unemployed people and money that goes to already rich people we could easily have 2-3 workdays for everyone with almost 0 unemployment. Capitalism yo
I don't think there are many pointless jobs, just the way we see labour is inherently flawed.
I think this is probably the most profound post in the thread. We ought to be working with our governments to eradicate this nonsense. For those of us in Democratic nations, this is exactly what democracy was designed to hopefully overcome. Capitalism can be great, but not when it's done multinationally. That's how we end up with the veiled class system that we have now. The article mentioned "corporate law," which is inherently bullshit itself as (at least in the united states) corporations are considered as personal entities (i.e. a person) so the law is inherently exploitative. If we quit supporting overarching companies (multinational, nationwide as much as is possible, etc) and focus local the system can work great.
The "corporations aren't people!11" thing is actually very trendy on the internet, but it actually makes a lot of sense that companies are considered to be legal bodies/entities. It would be highly impractical for someone to have to sue fifty thousand shareholders every time some legal dispute happens.
think your first paragraph makes an accurate statement about people using this literature, meanwhile I think the book simply does a clear job of describing her views and the most clear and uncontroversial way possible.
Yes, and all of it is completely made up a priori stuff with no connection to the real word whatsoever
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
On October 01 2014 03:40 Nyxisto wrote: The "corporations aren't people!11" thing is actually very trendy on the internet, but it actually makes a lot of sense that companies are considered to be legal bodies/entities. It would be highly impractical for someone to have to sue fifty thousand shareholders every time some legal dispute happens.
think your first paragraph makes an accurate statement about people using this literature, meanwhile I think the book simply does a clear job of describing her views and the most clear and uncontroversial way possible.
Yes, and all of it is completely made up a priori stuff with no connection to the real word whatsoever
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
There's a difference between corporations being a legal entity and corporations being full-blown people.
Can a corporation breathe? Can a corporation feel?
On October 01 2014 03:40 Nyxisto wrote: The "corporations aren't people!11" thing is actually very trendy on the internet, but it actually makes a lot of sense that companies are considered to be legal bodies/entities. It would be highly impractical for someone to have to sue fifty thousand shareholders every time some legal dispute happens.
think your first paragraph makes an accurate statement about people using this literature, meanwhile I think the book simply does a clear job of describing her views and the most clear and uncontroversial way possible.
Yes, and all of it is completely made up a priori stuff with no connection to the real word whatsoever
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
There's a difference between corporations being a legal entity and corporations being full-blown people.
Can a corporation breathe? Can a corporation feel?
How are corporations currently treated as full blown people other than that there exists a legal framework that makes handling legal disputes possible? What specifically is wrong with the current way of how corporations are legally represented? I have trouble understanding the problem in the first place.
Corporate personhood exists so corporations can be sued and may sue, it allows for easy taxation and regulation. As far as I'm aware corporations also don't have all constitutional rights that wouldn't apply to them.(fifth Amendment for example)
On September 30 2014 19:46 dizzy101 wrote: I think it's exactly the opposite from the way Greaber thinks.
The world (which includes our society) is getting more and more complicated, people specialize further and further. This means that you need tons of people with knowledge of very specific things, and you need tons of people to move this knowledge back and forth (to translate it, to apply it, to collect it, to explain it, to store it). So you need tons of desk jobs ('knowledge jobs'). These are not bullshit jobs, instead, the opposite: these jobs are essential in keeping things running.
Back in the middle ages, one single person could be up-to-date as far as science and technology was concerned. In one human brain, you could store almost everything there was to know about science and technology. But of course, nowadays that's impossible. You need people who specialized in tiny, tiny fields. The same thing applies to: law, medicine, manufacturing, government, the arts, etc. Everything there is to know about everything is stored across millions of brains.
To make sure that society can actually benefit from this huge amount of knowledge, and from the increased specialization, you needs tons of jobs. They're NOT bullshit jobs.
Besides, I think this Graeber guy is overrated. I tried reading his book 'Debt: 5K years' and it's a very unsystematic, non-rigorous text. Whatever it is he's doing, it's not actual research or scholarship.
Yet, he gets many readers because of his politically progressive orientation. It seems to me that people from the Left should choose better thinkers, not people like Greaber.
People who sound intelligent will always be regarded as intelligent to the masses. This is why so many people talk about Hobbes, Ayn Rand, Anti-Vaccine movement, etc. When in fact the information that person used is well over a few decades old, heavily quoted out of context to make their side seem more reasonable/accurate, or simply the musings of someone trying to understand the world. I'm not saying those individuals aren't intelligent, they might be correct, but the only things we can really use are hard evidence, statistical analysis, quantifiable results, and specialized equipment to get an objective, correct, and indisputable meaning.
You last sentence personifies views of certain people from Atlas Shrugged. I've just picked the book up recently and it is well worth the read. I'm not aligned with left or right party and am having a really good time reading it. I honestly picked it up because I've experienced both left and right wing people in my life make comments on the book and wanted to understand what the outrage was. I think your first paragraph makes an accurate statement about people using this literature, meanwhile I think the book simply does a clear job of describing her views and the most clear and uncontroversial way possible.
I never read more than a few pages of Atlas Shrugged. Same with most of those books. I'm sure they're great, just not for me. I jump to the end and look up the person's life and ideas on it.
On October 01 2014 03:40 Nyxisto wrote: The "corporations aren't people!11" thing is actually very trendy on the internet, but it actually makes a lot of sense that companies are considered to be legal bodies/entities. It would be highly impractical for someone to have to sue fifty thousand shareholders every time some legal dispute happens.
think your first paragraph makes an accurate statement about people using this literature, meanwhile I think the book simply does a clear job of describing her views and the most clear and uncontroversial way possible.
Yes, and all of it is completely made up a priori stuff with no connection to the real word whatsoever
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
There's a difference between corporations being a legal entity and corporations being full-blown people.
Can a corporation breathe? Can a corporation feel?
How are corporations currently treated as full blown people other than that there exists a legal framework that makes handling legal disputes possible? What specifically is wrong with the current way of how corporations are legally represented? I have trouble understanding the problem in the first place.
Corporate personhood exists so corporations can be sued and may sue, it allows for easy taxation and regulation. As far as I'm aware corporations also don't have all constitutional rights that wouldn't apply to them.(fifth Amendment for example)
They do have all constitutional rights. They have fair trials when the are charged with crimes. They have freedom of speech (go google Citizens United). Some of the constitutional rights don't exactly make sense, like the 4th amendment; how can you arrest a corporation anyway?
Really the biggie is freedom of speech as it relates to campaign finance.
On September 30 2014 19:46 dizzy101 wrote: I think it's exactly the opposite from the way Greaber thinks.
The world (which includes our society) is getting more and more complicated, people specialize further and further. This means that you need tons of people with knowledge of very specific things, and you need tons of people to move this knowledge back and forth (to translate it, to apply it, to collect it, to explain it, to store it). So you need tons of desk jobs ('knowledge jobs'). These are not bullshit jobs, instead, the opposite: these jobs are essential in keeping things running.
Back in the middle ages, one single person could be up-to-date as far as science and technology was concerned. In one human brain, you could store almost everything there was to know about science and technology. But of course, nowadays that's impossible. You need people who specialized in tiny, tiny fields. The same thing applies to: law, medicine, manufacturing, government, the arts, etc. Everything there is to know about everything is stored across millions of brains.
To make sure that society can actually benefit from this huge amount of knowledge, and from the increased specialization, you needs tons of jobs. They're NOT bullshit jobs.
Besides, I think this Graeber guy is overrated. I tried reading his book 'Debt: 5K years' and it's a very unsystematic, non-rigorous text. Whatever it is he's doing, it's not actual research or scholarship.
Yet, he gets many readers because of his politically progressive orientation. It seems to me that people from the Left should choose better thinkers, not people like Greaber.
People who sound intelligent will always be regarded as intelligent to the masses. This is why so many people talk about Hobbes, Ayn Rand, Anti-Vaccine movement, etc. When in fact the information that person used is well over a few decades old, heavily quoted out of context to make their side seem more reasonable/accurate, or simply the musings of someone trying to understand the world. I'm not saying those individuals aren't intelligent, they might be correct, but the only things we can really use are hard evidence, statistical analysis, quantifiable results, and specialized equipment to get an objective, correct, and indisputable meaning.
Yes Graeber is the Ayn Rand of the far left. When challenged by even progressive economists on the chapters of his book pertaining to the present he cant defend them, he simply launches polemic attacks. But his fans love his half truths.
got a link? I'd like to read a critique of his work.