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“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”

theguardian.com

141–150 of 206 posts

Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”

#141
post #6

Most people who criticize "bullshit jobs" simply lack the perspective to see how these jobs are critically important for society. Take the list from the article itself, one of the "bullshit jobs" listed is actuary. Well, without actuaries, insurance would not be priced correctly, and would be prohibitively expensive or too cheap and insurance companies would go out of business. Either way, insurance would be less ava…

>Most people who criticize "bullshit jobs" simply lack the perspective to see how these jobs are critically important for society. Ok, so that's one that you cherry picked. How about these? * Private equity CEOs * Lobbyists * PR researchers * Telemarketers * Bailiffs Tell us how the world would be worse off without them. You could argue that some of these are doing actual harm to society, actually.

> * Private equity CEOs

Like 'sama? Remember, the whole world of VC is a subcategory of private equity.

> * Lobbyists

Lobbyists are the ones that tell the government that if they pass the new environmental regulation, the coal plant employing 300 workers will have to close. Other lobbyists tell the government that if they don't pass the new environmental regulation, that coal plant will impose tens of millions of dollars of healthcare costs on the surrounding neighborhood. Both are important functions.

> * PR researchers

Are cosmetics companies also bullshit in your calculation?

> * Bailiffs

So courts in which dangerous criminals are prosecuted shouldn't have people providing security?

Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”

#142
post #112
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It was good for me and it was good for the other person too. Why? Because it enforces society's moral standards upon everyone. If there is no common ground it descends into anarchy because if someone owes me £1500 I'm going to pay £200 to smash his kneecaps if there wasn't a court and bailiff option...

I'm sorry, but if you think that is what a state-less society will turn to, then it says more about you than it does about other people. I, for example, don't not smash people's kneecaps because it's "against the law", just like most other individuals that inhabit this society. On the other hand, you seem to be under the misconception that there can be no "common ground" in a society without a state-mandated "common…

I'm curious, have you ever lived in a country without strong centralized law enforcement? I have. It sucks. Even if 90% of people don't use violence, that just creates an enormous incentive for the other 10% of people to do so. And those 10%, organized into gangs, can terrorize the other 90%.

Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”

#143
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do share. I am nonplussed as to why someone (on HN, the bastion of entrepreneurial culture, nonetheless!) would have problems with a societal framework that is #1 for doing business.

Mainly because being #1 for "doing business" often comes at the expense of customers and employees. Low regulatory protection means stuff like this is deemed acceptable - http://www.tnp.sg/news/sim-lim-squares-phone-scam-makes-head... It also means that stuff like this, which is regarded as a basic right in other countries, is deem jailworthy - https://sg.news.yahoo.com/singapore-bus-driver-strike-makes-... This is w…

Seems worth it. (I used to live in Singapore, too.)

Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most people who criticize "bullshit jobs" simply lack the perspective to see how these jobs are critically important for society. Ok, so that's one that you cherry picked. How about these? * Private equity CEOs * Lobbyists * PR researchers * Telemarketers * Bailiffs Tell us how the world would be worse off without them. You could argue that some of these are doing actual harm to society, actually.

You honestly can't be so arrogant so as to assume that if you can't see the benefit of an activity, that it must not have any benefit, right? Lobbyists are critical to the functioning of the American system of government. They're even mentioned in the Constitution. Private equity firms make retirement possible. PR researchers enable companies to not have to deal exclusively with the populist swaying of public opinion…

>>I could go on

Yes, please do. I want to hear what kind of bizarre reality you live in where telemarketing is useful.

Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”

#145
post #6

Most people who criticize "bullshit jobs" simply lack the perspective to see how these jobs are critically important for society. Take the list from the article itself, one of the "bullshit jobs" listed is actuary. Well, without actuaries, insurance would not be priced correctly, and would be prohibitively expensive or too cheap and insurance companies would go out of business. Either way, insurance would be less ava…

You should try Europe. No health insurance, no problem.

I think that is the bigger picture that he is getting at. In an "ideal society" these jobs wouldn't need to exist.

Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”

#146
post #14

" in 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that by the end of the century technology would have advanced sufficiently that in countries such as the UK and the US we’d be on 15-hour weeks. “In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshalled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. Huge swaths of people, in Europe and North A…

Interestingly enough, for most white-collar professions, actual work probably takes about 15-20 hours a week. The rest of the time is spent socializing with coworkers, navigating massive corporate bureaucracies, browsing the web, and so on.

Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”

#147
post #145
post #6

Most people who criticize "bullshit jobs" simply lack the perspective to see how these jobs are critically important for society. Take the list from the article itself, one of the "bullshit jobs" listed is actuary. Well, without actuaries, insurance would not be priced correctly, and would be prohibitively expensive or too cheap and insurance companies would go out of business. Either way, insurance would be less ava…

You should try Europe. No health insurance, no problem. I think that is the bigger picture that he is getting at. In an "ideal society" these jobs wouldn't need to exist.

I'll admit I'm not familiar with healthcare in Europe, but surely there are people whose job it is to estimate the cost of providing healthcare and estimate the probability of certain health events occurring.

Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When most people say "bullshit job", it seems to me like they really mean "job that could be solved by a well-built machine". Farming used to be a bullshit job until we built gigantic combines and automated watering systems and agricultural data storage systems, and now our farming problems are electronic, not logistic. (except for water, but that's another story.) So for the example of an actuary, ideally their job…

So for the example of an actuary, ideally their job would also be automated by an advanced program...If we took every actuary working 9 to 5, and instead threw all of their tens of thousands of daily working hours at coding a program to do their job... What, exactly, do you think actuaries do during their 9-5? Do you think they manually compute actuarial tables with a TI-89?

As a software engineer, you probably imagine that I spend most of my time programming.

Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”

#149
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When most people say "bullshit job", it seems to me like they really mean "job that could be solved by a well-built machine". Farming used to be a bullshit job until we built gigantic combines and automated watering systems and agricultural data storage systems, and now our farming problems are electronic, not logistic. (except for water, but that's another story.) So for the example of an actuary, ideally their job…

> The moral of the story is we should automate jobs that people don't like doing. who decides what jobs people dont like doing? Just because you might not like being a taxi driver, farmer, actuary, etc, doesnt mean you should demolish the job with automation -- plenty of people find these jobs provide a fulfilling workday and are passionate about them. any automation there would deprive them of doing them as a profes…

How would we feel? In the grand scheme of things it wouldn't matter since the value in automating something like that would be absolutely enormous to productivity.

I don't write software because I like typing commands, I do it because I want to create something. We assume people do work because they want money, but real satisfaction is solving problems, and there are no shortage of those.

Re: “So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”

#150
post #145
post #6

Most people who criticize "bullshit jobs" simply lack the perspective to see how these jobs are critically important for society. Take the list from the article itself, one of the "bullshit jobs" listed is actuary. Well, without actuaries, insurance would not be priced correctly, and would be prohibitively expensive or too cheap and insurance companies would go out of business. Either way, insurance would be less ava…

You should try Europe. No health insurance, no problem. I think that is the bigger picture that he is getting at. In an "ideal society" these jobs wouldn't need to exist.

Sure you do. Your insurance premiums are your taxes. An actuary had to figure out how much revenue the state healthcare system has to bring in to be stable.
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