The rise of the pointless job • Hacker News Board

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#141

Post by themacguffinman » Fri, May 04, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

bluetomcat wrote: post #111

mfoy_ wrote: post #27

Keynes was a little more direct: "The government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up."

It is much more intellectually challenging to address the inefficiencies in the economic system by devising a global model with regard to the available resources, manpower and population needs. Call it a planned economy if you will. People should vote what the system must produce, while considering the pollution and exhaustion of finite resources. The current capitalist system is all about the individual self interes…

People already vote for what the system must produce with their money, that's the basis of capitalist supply & demand. How can you force people to consider pollution and exhaustion of finite resources? People as a whole suck at considering things, that's why we make all kinds of institutions to work around it like representative democracy and legal systems.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#142

Post by daxfohl » Fri, May 04, 2018, 6:09 PM UTC

WC3w6pXxgGd wrote: post #129

iriNjfk993 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The frustrating thing is though: we have plenty of real demand Social work, infrastructure repairs, mental health services. But all the effort coalesces around BIG Corp. and Douche Co. needs first Somehow we’re convinced that Bezos and Koch’s are more important than our neighbors Some looney economists will tell you it’s proven in physics these people are just better Ignoring the history of violent imperialism and co…

All demand is "real demand." Someone wants something and is willing to pay you. That's real.

"is willing" != "has means to". And to what extent "has means to" ~= "is worthy of" is the age old debate.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#143

Post by blacksmith_tb » Fri, May 04, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

trophycase wrote: post #94

smm2000 wrote: post #76

Author lost me on doorman. Doormen absolutely bring value and saying that doormen is bullshit job is the same as saying that waitress is a bullshit job - in the end customer is fully capable of bringing the food from the counter to his table on his own. Doormen Can accept packages when you are not in your apt (leaving outside is not an option in NY) Can accept laundry delivery Provide security by screening people out…

Right. The real useless jobs are the 10 people working on animating hair for the next Assassin's Creed game or the CGI for the next Marvel film

It's only as useless, as, say, the crew on a film, or even a highly-paid footballer. If these people didn't do their tiny part, the entertainment industry wouldn't rake in as much cash.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#144

Post by AstralStorm » Fri, May 04, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

lucas_membrane wrote: post #138

romanr wrote: post #29

This is another argument in favor of universal income. Bullshit jobs is one of consequences of progress, low cost goods, food and comfort. With increasing automation it’s going to be get incrementally harder to find bullshit jobs for people. until society understands that not everyone can and have to be employed.

Do-nothing jobs may be a problem, but do they outnumber jobs that exist to support, sustain and inflict a system that is not user-friendly? For example: How big is the 'security' industry (include 'national security')? What percent of the workers at the health clinic you visit are there to control, limit, and ration the access to medical care? Isn't the entire legal system there to sustain the power of the powerful?…

1) Very big, because it includes the whole military intelligence complex in your definition.

2) About 20 hired specifically for this purpose. Admins, doctor and nurse managers, a few receptionists, a few ministers.

3) Not all, not even most of it. Plenty of civil, criminal and driving cases. These are very common. The patent and copyright lawyers are the minority...

4) Not in principle. In practice there are such pathologies, especially in countries without good public higher education. In principle the education system is to supply a source of educated and intelligent workers for complex jobs, including lower levels for less demanding ones. The trouble begins when rich and powerful segregate themselves into educational sinecures.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#145

Post by mrfusion » Fri, May 04, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

basejumping wrote: post #116

expensivedrone wrote: post #80

I'm a programmer working at a big-tech company. I make ~$350k/year, even though my job could be done equally well by a college intern. I only do ~2 hours of productive work in an average day. My previous jobs were far more interesting and challenging, and I had apparently done extremely well in my interviews. Hence why I got an offer with an extremely good compensation package. However, the team that I go put into, i…

Don't be so happy about it. I'm like you but 5 years in the future when it's time to look for a new job. At the beginning I was keeping my skills sharp, but after a while you become lazy. Especially when you see everyone around you not doing anything you sort of lose your motivation to do work.

So how do you get your skills back?

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#146

Post by blawson » Fri, May 04, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

poulsbohemian wrote: post #137

lainga wrote: post #15

I have said this before, but I see some parallels between the modern world and Japan during the early Tokugawa era. Japan had pretty much reached a steady state by the time Tokugawa Iyeyasu came to power in 1600; most of the available land had been cultivated or settled, and, especially after the policies of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, society was locked in a rigid structure without much room for advancement or unrest. As a…

This is very similar to the situation that caused the Swiss to become the mercenaries of Europe. If you were the second son, you weren't going to inherit the farm and thus in a resource-poor country like Switzerland of the Middle Ages, your best choice was to go abroad and find some feudal lord putting together an army. Thus you became a "freelance" and hopefully found riches. I've always thought Machiavelli's dislik…

Primogeniture was pretty common in the middle ages in Europe. I've read arguments that it's a big reason why the Normans basically went out conquering England, the Mediterranean, etc.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#147

Post by aristocles » Fri, May 04, 2018, 6:15 PM UTC

romanr wrote: post #29

This is another argument in favor of universal income. Bullshit jobs is one of consequences of progress, low cost goods, food and comfort. With increasing automation it’s going to be get incrementally harder to find bullshit jobs for people. until society understands that not everyone can and have to be employed.

UBI will lead to societal degeneration. Prices of essential services and goods would skyrocket; people would lose direction and the small amount of meaning they had.

I call UBI gay-space-communism because it suggests that all human beings are capable of handling themselves outside of employment and daily routine. They are not. The market creates this drive in people, and if you remove it, people will degenerate fast.

Opioids, UBI, and free-love for everyone. Yikes.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#148

Post by daxfohl » Fri, May 04, 2018, 6:16 PM UTC

mfoy_ wrote: post #27

Keynes was a little more direct: "The government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up."

Sounds like GDPR!

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#149

Post by zby » Fri, May 04, 2018, 6:16 PM UTC

Graeber has been pushing this for some time now - it is an interesting observation. In this particular article he does not even try to explain why this happens - but in other places he made silly theories about capitalist employers doing that on purpose to keep people from revolting - while omitting the simplest explanation - that it is the result of complexity of our organizations. People don't understand their jobs. Sometimes it means they do something useful but they don't understand why it is needed, other times they really do something useless - but nobody really knows which is which or what part of a job is useful.

Then there are company power plays which are counterproductive to the whole - but they are meaningful for the people who commandeer them.

And the biggest problem is that there is a positive feedback in that - after a few failures to rationalize the organizations people give up. The harder the organizations are to be understood the less people work on making them more rational.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#150

Post by 21 » Fri, May 04, 2018, 6:18 PM UTC

mrfusion wrote: post #145

basejumping wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be so happy about it. I'm like you but 5 years in the future when it's time to look for a new job. At the beginning I was keeping my skills sharp, but after a while you become lazy. Especially when you see everyone around you not doing anything you sort of lose your motivation to do work.

So how do you get your skills back?

You work on a personal project in the other 6 hours instead of browsing HN. Or at least watch videos on youtube about various technologies.