On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#351

Post by orangecat » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 4:20 AM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #348

owenmarshall wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've set up a dichotomy where you can have the PWA or basic income. The best approach would be both : a basic income to provide people enough to survive (probably not so comfortably, but...). From there, you could have a PWA that focuses on infrastructure that features a strong training component and pays well, or you strike out on your own.

Politically it kind of is a dichotomy. I see very little hope for Basic Income politically because the A) protestant work ethic is too deeply embedded in American culture and B) for many Americans the only outcome they would notice would be very high inflation. I'm not against the very idea of it and if there were a referendum for it tomorrow I would almost certainly vote yes, but I honestly think that its basic pres…

That as a society we don't have enough useful work for everybody to do today.

I believe this is largely true today in the context of people who are currently unemployed, and will only be more so in the future.

That the government wouldn't efficiently allocate resources if it were to create jobs.

You think it would? Look at military contracts, where it's more important for every member of Congress to be able to point to jobs "created" in their district, than that we actually get functional projects at reasonable costs.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#352

Post by crdoconnor » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 4:52 AM UTC

orangecat wrote: post #351

crdoconnor wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politically it kind of is a dichotomy. I see very little hope for Basic Income politically because the A) protestant work ethic is too deeply embedded in American culture and B) for many Americans the only outcome they would notice would be very high inflation. I'm not against the very idea of it and if there were a referendum for it tomorrow I would almost certainly vote yes, but I honestly think that its basic pres…

That as a society we don't have enough useful work for everybody to do today. I believe this is largely true today in the context of people who are currently unemployed, and will only be more so in the future. That the government wouldn't efficiently allocate resources if it were to create jobs. You think it would? Look at military contracts, where it's more important for every member of Congress to be able to point…

>I believe this is largely true today in the context of people who are currently unemployed, and will only be more so in the future.

Poverty is on the increase, our infrastructure is not only crumbling it is currently inferior in many ways to some third world countries like China. We have budget cuts for science and NASA not because they've run out of useful work, but because of a political imperative that we should create as many unemployed people as possible through budget cuts.

>You think it would?

It already did in the 1930s and I am confident it would again.

>Look at military contracts, where it's more important for every member of Congress to be able to point to jobs "created" in their district, than that we actually get functional projects at reasonable costs.

If we had an alternative working job creation program Congressmen wouldn't try and ram through military contracts to create jobs in their district instead. Meaning less military bloat and more infrastructure spending. Sounds good to me.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#353

Post by crdoconnor » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 4:57 AM UTC

indrax wrote: post #247

crdoconnor wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is this common misconception that basic income will make everyone stay home and do nothing useful. Rather than answering supposedly common misconceptions that nobody on this thread actually had - answer me this instead: What is so wrong with giving the unemployed a JOB rather than just money? They need money, but they also want to work. During the last depression the PWA built tons of useful stuff, much of whi…

>What is so wrong with giving the unemployed a JOB rather than just money? Who decides what jobs are available? Who decide who gets which jobs? By giving a job instead of money, you are using up a significant chunk of the labor pool. You need an additional chunk to figure out how to allocate it, and are then relying on them to allocate it well. To build something, you are also paying for and using up capital. By givi…

>Who decides what jobs are available? Who decide who gets which jobs?

Your questions can be answered by looking at what happened in the 1930s. The government decided that things like the triborough bridge and the lincoln tunnel, airports, dams, new schools etc. would be a net benefit to our society.

They were.

>By giving a job instead of money, you are using up a significant chunk of the labor pool.

Yes, it is using up a significant chunk of the labor pool that is currently idle.

>You need an additional chunk to figure out how to allocate it, and are then relying on them to allocate it well.

Exactly like we had in the 1930s with the PWA. Which worked.

>To build something, you are also paying for and using up capital.

Damn right. ZIRP and asset bubbles all over the place are not forming today because we have too little available capital. They happening because we have an excess of it.

>By giving money, people are free to use their time in whatever way is most valuable to them, only using up the resources they need to live, and those resources get allocated by market forces.

Those same market forces that didn't build the triborough bridge or the hoover dam but which did cause a massive overbuild of useless McMansions in Las Vegas and a glut of payday loans?

Sorry, I'm not convinced by arguments that appeal to the dogma that market forces are god and governments always suck at resource allocation. It's a fairy tale.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#354

Post by orangecat » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 4:59 AM UTC

shawabawa3 wrote: post #18

facepalm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems so completely misguided. Why is it the government's responsibility to fix your vacation for you? Isn't it just a matter of earning enough money to afford a vacation? I doubt rich people worry as much about little vacation time - they buy those expensive yachts and then have only two weeks per year to ride them? And even supposing there simply aren't enough jobs for everyone, and if you go on vacation someb…

> Why is it the government's responsibility to fix your vacation for you? Because life is better that way. The employer/employee relationship is incredibly biased. A lot of people simply cannot afford to lose their job, whereas pretty much every employer can afford to fire almost any individual. This means people are willing to work for little pay, poor benefits and no vacation because they are effectively forced to,…

The imbalance in negotiating positions is a valid point, but a basic income would solve that better than forcibly limiting everyone's productivity.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#355

Post by crdoconnor » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:03 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #257

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving money is currently costing more for the administration than the money given out. So not any better? Giving a job is incentive to get your own job - if you give awful jobs like shoveling sludge or picking up highways.

> Giving money is currently costing more for the administration than the money given out. The administrative cost in giving money in status quo benefit programs is tied up in means-testing, use-enforcement, behavior-testing, etc. -- making sure that all the variable inputs that control who gets which benefits, how much of those benefits they get, and how those benefits can be used. That's the whole problem unconditio…

>The administrative cost in giving money in status quo benefit programs is tied up in means-testing, use-enforcement, behavior-testing, etc. -- making sure that all the variable inputs that control who gets which benefits, how much of those benefits they get, and how those benefits can be used. That's the whole problem unconditional basic income solves.

It's also a problem solved by a job guarantee. There is no need to create elaborate tests to see if the welfare job seeker is really looking for work. If they want a job, the state can provide it. If they don't want a job, no welfare.

With basic income or a job guarantee you will still need additional welfare (and means testing) for the disabled simply because they require more resources than a regular unemployed joe and really cannot work.

Those means testing things would crop up again even if you created a basic income tomorrow because the protestant work ethic so deeply embedded in our culture would create a political imperative for it to happen. Politicians would get to work corrupting it straight away.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#356

Post by dllthomas » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:07 AM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #344

dragonwriter wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is so wrong with giving the unemployed a JOB rather than just money? If you give them basic income, then the jobs can pay what the jobs are worth, and no one needs to be forced into economically inefficient make-work jobs that take time that could be used for focussed training, risky (but potentially valuable) self-initiated ventures, etc. Any such make-work jobs proposal is obviously paying a premium over the…

>no one needs to be forced into economically inefficient make-work jobs So you are saying that the jobs building the Lincoln Tunnel in Manhattan and the Triborough bridge (among many other things under the PWA) were "economically inefficient make work jobs". Why?

I see no claim in the parent that everything done by the PWA was make-work. Also, while creating jobs was an important motivation of the PWA, to the best of my knowledge it never included any guarantee.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#357

Post by crdoconnor » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:09 AM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #288

crdoconnor wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's hard to believe, for instance, that a "corporate lawyer's" work has no social value. It REALLY isn't that hard. >The job of lawyers isn't even to win legal battles, but to avoid them in the first place. Right, they run the full gamut from avoiding legal battles with communities that are trying to shut down polluting factories that damage their health to avoiding legal battles with people who have suffered injur…

Some corporate lawyers also persuade upper management they're going to be in serious trouble if they don't drop the unfair terms from their employment contracts, prevent their companies from being taken advantage of by predatory rivals, kill off patent trolls and prevent utterly frivolous lawsuits from ever seeing the light of day. Poet-musicians seldom play for such high stakes, though ones that can't sell enough al…

>It's really easy to believe that certain corporate lawyer jobs have no social value, or negative social value.

Because it's largely true. They are there to let corporations use the law as a tool to make higher profits.

They make so MUCH money not because they can convince corporations that they need to drop unfair terms from employment contracts but because they can figure out a way to get them included. That makes them very profitable as well as unethical, hence their high wage.

If all they did was the kind of thing you're talking about - ensuring compliance with the law rather than creative ways of getting around it - their pay would be average or low because they are not making the company money.

>In particular I'm unconvinced by the link drawn between "talented poet-musicians" failing to get their recording contracts renewed and maldistribution of incomes, as if the 99% were unable to afford to patronise poet-musicians rather than seeing no value in doing so.

Really? I'm convinced. Are most Americans financially secure enough to be patrons of the arts? HELL no. Rent, healthcare and education are #1 priorities because they're so fucking expensive.

Why are they so expensive?

Because the corporate (debt) beast needs to be fed.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#358

Post by crdoconnor » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:10 AM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #356

crdoconnor wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>no one needs to be forced into economically inefficient make-work jobs So you are saying that the jobs building the Lincoln Tunnel in Manhattan and the Triborough bridge (among many other things under the PWA) were "economically inefficient make work jobs". Why?

I see no claim in the parent that everything done by the PWA was make-work. Also, while creating jobs was an important motivation of the PWA, to the best of my knowledge it never included any guarantee.

I said "let's have something like the PWA - what would be wrong with that?". OP responded with:

"because no one needs to be forced into economically inefficient make-work jobs"

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#359

Post by dllthomas » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:13 AM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #358

dllthomas wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see no claim in the parent that everything done by the PWA was make-work. Also, while creating jobs was an important motivation of the PWA, to the best of my knowledge it never included any guarantee.

I said "let's have something like the PWA - what would be wrong with that?". OP responded with: "because no one needs to be forced into economically inefficient make-work jobs"

That's not what you said. You said, "This is preferable to a Basic Income", and linked both the PWA and a page on a job guarantee. I don't think dragonwriter's response would have been the same to the above. A job guarantee necessarily involves possibility of make-work, or it's not a guarantee.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#360

Post by crdoconnor » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:15 AM UTC

orangecat wrote: post #207

crdoconnor wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is this common misconception that basic income will make everyone stay home and do nothing useful. Rather than answering supposedly common misconceptions that nobody on this thread actually had - answer me this instead: What is so wrong with giving the unemployed a JOB rather than just money? They need money, but they also want to work. During the last depression the PWA built tons of useful stuff, much of whi…

I'm skeptical that we have a significant number of useful projects today at which throwing unskilled labor would be useful. We saw a form of this in the last stimulus, where "shovel-ready" turned out not to be a thing.

* High speed rail.

* High quality housing projects in cities like San Francisco and New York to bring down the currently insane costs implying an insane level of demand.

* America has plenty of crumbling infrastructure.