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On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

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Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#171

Post by ddeck »

zeteo wrote: post #161
Lagged2Death wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that ... the "ruling class" sat down to decide most people should work bullshit jobs. But the author denies this explicitly. The phenomenon is more elegantly explained by pure economics ... more energy is absorbed by the zero-sum, gimmicky game of selling and marketing them. It's sort of odd to appeal to economics on the one hand and then characterize sales/marketing as zero-sum on the other. I wouldn't sp…

>The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger

Yes, he contradicts himself. Your quote clearly implies design, and then he concludes with this:

>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... ...Clearly, the system was never consciously designed. It emerged from almost a century of trial and error.

There are some good points in the analysis, but it would be more compelling if it didn't hint at some sort of elite conspiracy.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#172

Post by snowwrestler »

Spooky23 wrote: post #59
asfasfafwF wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really up on what the standard of living was like in the 30's, but is it really possible working 10 hours per week? That would barely pay rent in most places.

In rural areas, 1930's living did not include amenities like plumbing or electricity in most places. In urban areas, you're looking at an interior room in a cold water tenement or a boarding house type situation. It would be tough to do it in the city without becoming a victim of crime, but you can pull it off in many rural areas. Note that the 10 hours of work would be paid work. You'd be doing all sort of tasks on…

Right, which leads to the question: which is the more "bullshit" job? Adding widgets to Facebook at $100k per year? Or unpaid time chopping wood to burn for fuel? Both of them lead to a warm room in the winter, but one is exhausting, dangerous, unpaid, and incredibly ineffecient.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#174

Post by zacinbusiness »

I have been lucky enough to have a few jobs that paid the bills (though barely) that gave me some perspective on this. Before college, I worked at a gambling parlor where I was effectively paid to take other people's money from them and to give it to my boss. The potential for a financial gain was there as the establishment was...quasilegal at best...but it never happened that one stranger would walk in and take the house, never to return. Instead, older men and women would come in night after night and spend the majority of their disposable income hoping to break even though they usually never did. This was a bullshit job, and worse it was a job that directly contributed to the detriment both of the local economy and to that of the greater economy. They could have cut my job entirely by simply direct depositing money into the bank account of my employer and it would have cost them less in the long run (counting for gas and "concessions" consumed while gambling). However, the majority of the customers were older, uneducated, and lonely. Thus, they paid more for the social interaction than for the hope of winning big money. At the time, I worked maybe 70 hours a week and though I always had a little pocket money I was by no means "financially stable." What's more, the job in no way contributed to my long-term financial well being. Luckily, this was my last job before college, and since then I've been fortunate enough not only to find a decent job, but a job that works to optimize customer-commercial interactions - we try to help businesses actually figure out what their customers want to buy and to help the customers buy it more easily - and at the same time I have a roughly 20 hour work week that allows me to support my family and to give us a fair amount of recreational time. Still, I know that I am in the minority with my good fortune, and that makes me sad for others who are less fortunate than I.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#175

Post by zacinbusiness »

I have been lucky enough to have a few jobs that paid the bills (though barely) that gave me some perspective on this. Before college, I worked at a gambling parlor where I was effectively paid to take other people's money from them and to give it to my boss. The potential for a financial gain was there as the establishment was...quasilegal at best...but it never happened that one stranger would walk in and take the house, never to return. Instead, older men and women would come in night after night and spend the majority of their disposable income hoping to break even though they usually never did. This was a bullshit job, and worse it was a job that directly contributed to the detriment both of the local economy and to that of the greater economy. They could have cut my job entirely by simply direct depositing money into the bank account of my employer and it would have cost them less in the long run (counting for gas and "concessions" consumed while gambling). However, the majority of the customers were older, uneducated, and lonely. Thus, they paid more for the social interaction than for the hope of winning big money. At the time, I worked maybe 70 hours a week and though I always had a little pocket money I was by no means "financially stable." What's more, the job in no way contributed to my long-term financial well being. Luckily, this was my last job before college, and since then I've been fortunate enough not only to find a decent job, but a job that works to optimize customer-commercial interactions - we try to help businesses actually figure out what their customers want to buy and to help the customers buy it more easily - and at the same time I have a roughly 20 hour work week that allows me to support my family and to give us a fair amount of recreational time. Still, I know that I am in the minority with my good fortune, and that makes me sad for others who are less fortunate than I.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#176

Post by shin_lao »

RyanZAG wrote: post #20

I was with him all the way until "The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger ". The author does make the point that it might also be the people themselves pushing for it, at least. The 'ruling class' really doesn't care if anybody is or isn't working pointless jobs. Society as a whole is forcing people into pointless jobs by viewing anybody…

If someone has no job their perceived lack of purpose ultimately pushes them into mental illness, drug abuses or even suicide.

I agree with this, but I think the real reason is more profound.

I think working is a "need" and then became a social value, not the other way around.

Creating tools and weapons is what gave us an edge as a species, so it wouldn't be that surprising that the need to work is not just a response to social stimuli (although it probably is aswell).

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#177

Post by halo »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #118
impendia wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you until the end. Can you provide an example of an academic sabotaging useful production in order to prove his or her value?

The continued existence of lecturing, 4 decades or more after it's been shown to be a poor use of time? An article I recently read (written only 30 years ago) attributed a lot of this to the academic's ego enjoying the feel of being an expert, when a printed sheet of paper, written by someone else would have a bigger impact on the students attending the lecture.

It seems self-evident that lecturing is a hugely inefficient and ineffective way of teaching people.

But I don't think it's about stroking the academic's ego as much as maintaining academic jobs. Remove the unnecessarily labour-intensive lecturing component and, unfortunately, it's far harder to justify large state subsidies and tuition fees that pay for universities. Universities are strongly incentivised to continue lecturing busy-work.

I would also guess that while lectures themselves are horrible, the structures, routines and environments created around lecturing are extremely valuable to students. You can't replace lectures with nothing. That's why MOOCs and textbooks, for all their virtues, are not an adequate replacement.

Even so, I've long wished someone would invest in creating videos that present university-level lecture material with television production values. I think you could create a format that is far more engaging and memorable than the typical lecture, you could have hosts with presentation and communication skills rather than academics, and a team of writers with expertise in the subject and education could spend time doing research to find the best way of teaching a subject and ensuring clarity, accuracy and understanding. Why not have Calculus II with Ryan Seacrest?

(Note: this is completely layman speculation)

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#178

Post by 3825 »

icedchai wrote: post #162
sfjailbird wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you really want to 'reap the benefits' or our more productive society, you can work 15 hours starting today. The tradeoff is that you'll need to move to the middle of Colorado, buy a small plot of land, build your own house and purchase a straight edge razor. What if you owned the home you live in, though? Lately, I've become a bit obsessed with this idea. The reason the 'wage slave' concept exists is that most…

15 years? you need to be more ambitious. i paid off my home in less than 7 years (small condo, under 200k) in my early 30's. i had a friend do the same thing, except his house cost a bit more. the key is living below your means. you don't buy the biggest house you can afford, because you probably don't need that extra space anyway. for anyone with a decent job and some discipline, it's possible. finding the job is th…

I don't mean to derail the conversation but I wonder how much would it cost to buy a piece of land outright -- with no future obligations in terms of property taxes. Is this a wild goose chase? There will always be public cost of building roads and bridges and schools and firefighters who all have to be built/paid somehow.

It doesn't apply in your case as your property tax is probably much less than your maintenance fee to the property management. I know it is silly to think this way but I can't shake the feeling that I can lose my house that I own if tomorrow I don't have enough income to pay property taxes.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#179

Post by tbrownaw »

jonnathanson wrote: post #111

We need to distinguish between two separate, tangentially related issues: bullshit jobs and bullshit hours . Most of the classes of jobs mentioned in this piece are not, in and of themselves, entirely bullshit. Rather, the idea that each of these people actually needs to be in the office, pretending to be continually and evenly busy, for 50+ hours a week -- that's bullshit. Work ebbs and flows in a very different way…

A significant part of my job is being available. I can leave a few minutes early if I check my email before the next day starts (ignoring social pressure; nobody's usually going to have questions at the very end of the day that can't wait for morning) or come in a half hour to occasionally an hour and a half late (nobody has immediate questions that early in the day), but mostly I need to be around during the times that everyone else is working.

If I'm having a slow period, or if I'm stuck and need time to percolate, I'll bring a book or spend more time than usual on HN.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#180

Post by shin_lao »

fab13n wrote: post #17

(wanted to post this on the website, but the comments system is off) I've found this article both entertaining and insightful; there's one big hypothesis in it which I find unnecessary, though: the conspiracy theory, making it a fight between dominant classes and actual wealth producers. If we call "bureaucracies" the collectives which consume a lot of human workforce and produce little human-enjoyable wealth out of…

"Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy" --Oscar Wilde
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