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Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

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Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#21

Post by bicx »

I quit my job as an EM 3 months ago, and during that time off, I realized my life was becoming far too career-focused at the expense of any other interests. My partner and I decided to make some big changes, and we are now living in an RV as we travel the country. I’m also taking this opportunity to remotely start my own engineering agency. I had been chasing startups and exits for the past 13 years, and it feels good to just focus on bootstrapping my own lifestyle business.

I can’t say that my work will be more meaningful, but my life will be more interesting, and I am not beholden to investors and landlords.

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#22

Post by bettercallsalad »

codeTired wrote: post #17

In reality when you really think long and hard many jobs are kind of useless. I could argue that in the grand scheme of things our existence might be completely useless and irrelevant. Yet we spend our short existence doing things which have almost no meaning, some of us try to impress our friends and neighbors. Put up some accomplishments on our useless CV before we turn into dust. Others will raise their offspring…

> Yet we spend our short existence doing things which have almost no meaning

Well, for many of us that’s not a choice. In America, your healthcare is tied to your employer for example leaving you almost no choice but to remain employed. On top of that many of us racked up student loans that need to be paid off, so there is limited window of time for finding a rather meaningful job before you choose whatever comes your way and offers you the best salary even if it means you are going to be working on yet another social or crypto or delivery app. And not to say employers relentlessly pursuing an upper hand over employees and any choices they might have; just look at the whole reversing WFH fiasco.

80000 hours [1] have been pretty interesting for me to change my outlook however. I found out for me anyway, the best path of a satisfying relationship with my purpose and deal with existential crisis is through contributing to scientific research just for pure fun of learning and exploring the endless onion shell nature of the knowledge of the universe.

[1] https://80000hours.org/

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#24

Post by barrysteve »

adam_arthur wrote: post #4
giraffe_lady wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately we have somehow chosen to create a world where when a computer takes over your job this is bad for you.

Because many only look at first order consequences and ignore anything beyond that. Despite history having a huge number of societally enhancing innovations to reference that also took jobs at the time.

First order consequences are still consequences.

Forcing people into second order thinking is forcing submission.

Making some fantasy up about improving the lives of foreigners (and tech companies cash flow) at the expense of your neighbour is peak humanism.

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#25

Post by McBeige »

bosch_mind wrote: post #19
codeTired wrote: post #17

In reality when you really think long and hard many jobs are kind of useless. I could argue that in the grand scheme of things our existence might be completely useless and irrelevant. Yet we spend our short existence doing things which have almost no meaning, some of us try to impress our friends and neighbors. Put up some accomplishments on our useless CV before we turn into dust. Others will raise their offspring…

I was just thinking about this on a walk this evening. Life is weird as hell and I find it rare to meet others that share a similar viewpoint

It's so weird. I think that sometimes, but I don't usually think about it. Most of the time it's just a short moment "awake" and aware that all of this is batshit absurd, then recognizing that there's nothing for me here up here except the view, then continue on with my life without remorse towards the next hill top or valley or whatever lies in wait for me. I think it used to give me vertigo, now I'm used to it. I feel tentatively okay about all this.

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#26

Post by ChatGTP »

codeTired wrote: post #17

In reality when you really think long and hard many jobs are kind of useless. I could argue that in the grand scheme of things our existence might be completely useless and irrelevant. Yet we spend our short existence doing things which have almost no meaning, some of us try to impress our friends and neighbors. Put up some accomplishments on our useless CV before we turn into dust. Others will raise their offspring…

Alan Watts: Work as Play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yWx7cqiSJI

I love his take on this topic. Hope you have time to listen and enjoy.

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#27

Post by myshpa »

https://libcom.org/article/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-gr...

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.” ...

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 ...

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

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-bullsh...

Re: Significant slice of the U.S. workforce believes their jobs have no purpose

#29

Post by lm28469 »

codeTired wrote: post #17

In reality when you really think long and hard many jobs are kind of useless. I could argue that in the grand scheme of things our existence might be completely useless and irrelevant. Yet we spend our short existence doing things which have almost no meaning, some of us try to impress our friends and neighbors. Put up some accomplishments on our useless CV before we turn into dust. Others will raise their offspring…

I can guarantee you being a "useless" code monkey making 2-5x the average wage of your country is better than being a "useless" min wage factory/warehouse/service worker

Much easier to find a meaning in the former than the later

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