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On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

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Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#291

Post by gohrt »

briandear wrote: post #257
mikeash wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine you could purchase some sort of financial product that would pay out continuously to cover your taxes. Basically a perpetual annuity, with some wiggle room built in to account for changes in tax rates and property valuation. I don't know what a realistic rate would be for such a thing, but probably quite low. So you'd probably have to put in something like 50x your annual property tax payment.

While that would be cool, the concept of never owning your land smacks of feudalism. It's almost like we're sharecroppers to the government. Taxes are important, however, those taxes could be collected instead by taxing the consumption of necessary resources rather than just having the piece of ground. For example, fire protection -- it could be argued that the virtue of owning land itself doesn't necessarily require…

Feudalism in service of society is a good thing. Permanent land ownership is literally the source of aristocracy and a huge problem where it exists.

http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/voting.html "1790 Only white male adult property-owners have the right to vote."

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#292

Post by gohrt »

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…

If you have a family and kids, you will need a bigger more expensive place, so tack on those years to the total.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#293

Post by eli_gottlieb »

cLeEOGPw wrote: post #217
objclxt wrote: post #9

> 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.) We'd probably lead full, rich and happy lives until we were all suddenly wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from an unexpectedly dirty telephone.

Besides, this is a classic game theory example of cooperation vs. competition. Sure, everyone would live rich and happy lives if everyone would cooperate, but that would be for only as long as there are no new lobbyists, etc. Once they appear - they win all the money, and everything goes back to how it is now.

Ok, so how do you create an enforcement mechanism to keep the capitalistic bullshit from coming back once you've gotten rid of it?

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#294

Post by CamperBob2 »

solistice wrote: post #138
kybernetikos wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While a pithy thing to say with some truth in it, I have experienced people asserting things of the order of 2 + 2 = 5, and given the right situation it can have the potential to make people pretty mad.

Which is why they revoked your math license, we know the story. No, when you say 2 + 2 = 5, you can put it off as "He can't be serious", and then it's off your mind. But if the person keeps asserting it till you can't brush it off anymore, that's when heads tend to roll. It goes against what you believe, and subconsciously, that goes against you as a person.

To paraphrase a famous xkcd strip, "2+2 = 5" isn't funny anymore when it's being stated by a US Congressman.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#295

Post by btbuildem »

"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"

From the entire article, this stuck out the most for me. It is such a simple explanation.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#296

Post by bilalq »

FrojoS wrote: post #283
bilalq wrote: post #11

I've found myself thinking about this a lot lately. I don't know about corporate law, but I can certainly see many jobs becoming obsolete in the not-so-distant future. Automation is advancing and accelerating like never before, and that is a good thing. Of course, this means fewer workers are needed. Factor in population growth, and this quickly becomes a major issue. I've seen people bring up basic income when such…

One place to look for that discussion is Switzerland. They collected over 130,000 signatures on a law proposal for basic income. So now there will be a direct vote on it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income#Switzerland After the swiss people voted against an extension of mandatory vacation, from four to six weeks, recently, I highly doubt that this law has a chance to pass. However, it sure will be an interesti…

Interesting. I hadn't heard of that until now. It may not pass, but it's amazing to see it even being considered for a vote.

And I agree, this thread has been a great read.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#297

Post by bilalq »

a-priori wrote: post #155
bilalq wrote: post #11

I've found myself thinking about this a lot lately. I don't know about corporate law, but I can certainly see many jobs becoming obsolete in the not-so-distant future. Automation is advancing and accelerating like never before, and that is a good thing. Of course, this means fewer workers are needed. Factor in population growth, and this quickly becomes a major issue. I've seen people bring up basic income when such…

I've seen people bring up basic income when such concerns are raised. I myself am undecided on how effective it would be, but it seems like now is a good time for conversation on the matter to begin. So am I. It's a fascinating idea that could be the most important improvement to our economy since the introduction of the labour market, drastically reducing poverty and increasing socioeconomic mobility. Or it could ca…

Yeah, I can see it swinging either way. However, the alternative of not doing anything could be just as catastrophic. Politicians always talk about creating jobs as if it were the goal. Jobs are just a means to an end, and creating jobs for their own sake is not only inefficient, but something that can't hold out in the long run.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#298

Post by j_baker »

api wrote: post #199
j_baker wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a simpler explanation is that people enjoy being productive. Otherwise, why would people have a problem with meaningless jobs?

That's true. I've been in meaningless make-work jobs before, jobs where I could literally goof off 90% of the time. I left. A lot of people might think "wow! awesome!" It's not. It's soul-crushing and unbelievably depressing . It doesn't leave you more energy for other things; it saps your energy and makes you feel like shit.

Meaningless make-work is the worst. Having nothing to do isn't so terrible. I can come up with plenty of useful ideas left to my own devices. It's when I have to do busy-work that's bad.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#299

Post by r00fus »

richardjordan wrote: post #286
zeteo wrote: post #75

I disagree that the answer is moral and political and that the "ruling class" sat down to decide most people should work bullshit jobs. The phenomenon is more elegantly explained by pure economics: as less time is expended extracting resources and producing things, more energy is absorbed by the zero-sum, gimmicky game of selling and marketing them. To give credit where it's due, I first saw this credible argument on…

I've said this before in other contexts, but it doesn't have to be a conscious decision or conspiracy. A key concept from Physics that I wish was more widely understood by the populous at large is that of the "stable attractor". In chaotic systems you often get certain configurations which are locally stable, often highly stable, and they often attract more elements of the system into this configuration. It's a commo…

The continued push to remove regulations on policy-buying is the conspiracy.

The US confluence of money and politcs hasn't always been as "free flowing" in the past, ie, prior to the overturning of McCain-Feingold and establishment of

Moneyed interests have been hard at work trying to push this country over a cliff so they can swoop in afterwards and profit off the wreckage. That's well documented and one party (the GOP) has been brazen and proud of it's efforts to increase corruption, while the other (Dems) has been ineffectual and also culpable.

Re: On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

#300

Post by keithpeter »

nbouscal wrote: post #278
keithpeter wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, ok, I was thinking of arithmetic and algorithmic methods in number. I'll let you have Euclid, although it would be heavy going now to use that as a textbook...

It's only been about a century since it was fair to assume that every educated person had read it. I think the fact that we wouldn't be able to use it as a textbook in schools today is a really bad sign.

Er - not so sure about Euclid being read widely as recently as 1913. Definitions of 'educated person' were very narrow then in England. 'Mechanics institutes' taught 'practical mechanics' far more than abstract geometry to working people.

Euclid is a small part of mathematics, although a powerful example of logical reasoning. If I could encourage my Level 2 students to a level where they could read and understand (say) Chapter 8 of Silver's The Signal and The Noise we might be getting somewhere.

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