“Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs
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“Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs
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Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs
#2Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs
#3Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs
#4I think it's rather obvious that a huge fraction of employment is worthless. The problem is determining which fraction that is. It's not obvious. Many jobs that look and feel like bullshit may have some hidden function within an organization that is essential (and may not even be the "primary function" of the job as per the job req), and many very important looking jobs may create little to no value. There are probably companies that could knock out the CEO but would have a tougher time without one of their office assistants, but where telling which office assistant this is would be almost impossible without spending months observing the intricate details of operations.
The fact that markets are bad at optimizing out this obvious cost center makes me wonder if it might be "non-computable."
The only way we know of to discover this is to use Darwinian methods, but this is incredibly destructive. Deep recessions take out a lot of good but not-yet-robust businesses along with the bad and the obsolete. The modern practice of pumping economies along forever and not allowing deep recessions probably leads to a ton of dead wood building up but it's also probably why we have progress in quantum computers, electric vehicles, and space flight among other speculative areas that would probably implode in a deep recession (without being specifically subsidized). Forest fires burn the dead wood but they also burn a shitload of trees, especially immature ones who don't have layers of flame retardant bark. Lots of old and injured animals die but so do the babies who can't run fast yet.
Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs
#5I disagree entirely with the thesis of "bullshit jobs". Unless it's a government job or mandated by regulations, someone is paying for a task to be done voluntarily. Therefore it isn't bullshit to the payer, even if it might seem like bullshit to the worker. I have never stumbled on a single job that wasn't government-required labor that had no purpose whatsoever, and furthermore the laborer wasn't able to quit.
Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs
#6So is web3 just “ blockchain related things “ ?
I feel like web3 as a term usage has exploded to the point that I’m not sure what people are talking about when they say “web3”.
Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs
#7In many cases they are useless and could be bundled into other jobs, but when a job is over loaded there is efficiency to unbundling them. Factor in the communications synchronization overhead and it's no wonder that small organizations can perform incredible work. Large organizations have scale though.
Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs
#8I disagree entirely with the thesis of "bullshit jobs". Unless it's a government job or mandated by regulations, someone is paying for a task to be done voluntarily. Therefore it isn't bullshit to the payer, even if it might seem like bullshit to the worker. I have never stumbled on a single job that wasn't government-required labor that had no purpose whatsoever, and furthermore the laborer wasn't able to quit.
Sure you can quit. But often these “bs jobs” are a form of scope creep so you face the thought that eventually, it may change.
Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs
#9Previously, you'd play something like Doom or Quake because you enjoyed it and you'd quit after an hour or two because it would rapidly become repetitive and boring. You knew deep down that you were wasting time on recreation and that you should probably do the things you should be doing (e.g. the dishes, reading a book, etc).
Now, there's a small voice for players of these telling them that this time is productive. They're earning money and that's a noble goal to ourselves. Even worse are the games like League of Legends and WoW where there are professional scenes. It's very easy to deceive yourself into thinking you're just practicing those games in order to one day go pro.
Re: “Play-to-Earn” and Bullshit Jobs
#10Sorry to get a bit off track: So is web3 just “ blockchain related things “ ? I feel like web3 as a term usage has exploded to the point that I’m not sure what people are talking about when they say “web3”.
But yes, blockchain.