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

theguardian.com

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

#151

Post by wpietri »

rayiner wrote: post #141
crdoconnor wrote: post #10

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.

> * 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 dol…

Lobbyists are people who tell officials whatever they are paid to say. Each individual lobbyist is presumably useful to the person paying them. But that doesn't mean that they are societally useful. If we had exactly zero of them, legislators would still learn things and pass laws. They might need to hire more researchers. Or they might not, because there'd be less distortion to sort through.

The reason company X needs a lobbyist is often because company Y has a lobbyist. That's certainly why Google and the tech industry started spending heavily; they were losing out to other players. It's basically an arms race to manipulate government. With the additional problem that the battleground is our own country, so that the harm caused by the ongoing war is not borne by lobbyists but by taxpayers and citizens.

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

#152

Post by [deleted] »

robbiep wrote: post #66
_abattoir wrote: post #19

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…

Farming isn't a bullshit job, at least not if you love it. The same could be said of everything. What society, and by secondary intent technology should aim to do is to enable everyone to be capable of performing the job for which they have passion for. My parents are farmers, and love it. I love it too. It is far from a bullshit job. But for the average joe slaving away on a rice paddy in China, they may dream of so…

[deleted]

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

#153

Post by ryanmonroe »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #133
diminoten wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Go on. I'd like to see how telemarketing is useful. For me, it's a more demeaning job than being a prostitute - at least in the latter case, two parties engage in a mutually beneficial exchange of value. The job of a telemarketer is to trick a person into wasting his/her hard-earned money on a subpar product the person doesn't even need.

Telemarketing may not be useful, but now the goalpost seems to have moved from "prove most jobs are actually useful" to "prove no jobs of questionable utility exist"

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

#154

Post by ryanmonroe »

_abattoir wrote: post #19
qq66 wrote: 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…

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…

>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, how soon do you think we could automate an entire industry?

Not very soon? If that were possible, don't you think insurance companies would have long ago jumped at the chance to drastically reduce their labor costs?

>The moral of the story is we should automate jobs that people don't like doing.

As you say, you can see this happening today. This is already how the economy works. No company is going to pay workers if they can avoid it. So what's the problem?

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

#155

Post by collyw »

crdoconnor wrote: post #10
qq66 wrote: 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.

I have thought this recently. The people who get richest often are the ones fucking up things.

The oil industry for example is making a mess of the environment, but many people rich. Like wise the guy who invented tetra packs is rich, but what a waste - a plastic carton for every litre of milk? Better off when we were recycling glass.

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

#156

Post by collyw »

superuser2 wrote: post #150
collyw wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well unlike insurance premiums, we don't get a choice in paying taxes. And the poor who don't have the money to pay taxes are still covered. So while what you say is true in one respect, its not really the same.

And it has been well documented that the American system is very inefficient compared to Europes.

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

#157

Post by wpietri »

fwn wrote: post #121
crdoconnor wrote: post #10

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.

I am unsure how someone might think lobbyists don't generate value. With their lobbying they convert causes which can't be easily utilised in the democratic process to be more addressable (which means: can be targeted by polarising groups in either gov or opposition) They do extend the capacity of democracies dramatically. eg: Nobody linked mahogany with dying rainforests before Greenpeace.

You're confusing lobbying with political activity. Greenpeace's power comes through citizens, advertising, and information, not lobbyists. They have 250,000 members in the US and are widely known and quoted. But last year they spent only $30k on lobbying out of the $3.2 billion spent, or less than 0.001% of the total.

Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/

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

#158

Post by zo1 »

rayiner wrote: post #142
zo1 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%.

>"I'm curious, have you ever lived in a country without strong centralized law enforcement? I have. It sucks."

Did that country also have laws against carrying firearms? How about laws that prevent individuals from defending themselves? E.g. Castle-doctrine, self-defense, private security firms, etc. You may hail it as proof that without a state, safety is not ensured. But I see it as an unfortunate limbo position where there is no protection provided by the state to the inhabitants, and there are also legal/state obstacles in place to prevent private individuals from performing that function.

I live in a country that is in the top 40 on the list of per-capita murder rates in the world. Probably much higher up on the list if you take into account violent crimes, etc. South Africa. It also has a huge industry for security services provided by private companies. Not only that, but a huge population of the country has opted to live in little "security" estates that have controlled access, private security guards, security cameras, electric fences, etc. Neighborhoods that spend large amounts of money on aiding the police in securing their neighborhood using cameras, volunteer patrols, paid private security company patrols, etc. In order to take private security any further, laws need to be removed because they are not being implemented effectively (like the rest of the country, but that's a separate debate). E.g. neighborhoods can't currently cordon off access to their streets, even if they had permission from all the land owners in the neighborhood. This is also the main reason why so many are moving to security estates, because they're huge chunks of private land and as such bypass those rules.

>"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%."

One of us is right in this regard. Perhaps it's also some sort of gray area where everything except X, Y, Z can be provided for privately without the need for a state. But would you at least concede that we can never know the true point in this spectrum without testing it? I.e. By slowly allowing private companies/individuals to take over safety/security. Note, removing state protection/security services in one go would be disastrous, I would never advocate it as I think it would cause total violent anarchy overnight.

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

#159

Post by collyw »

ryanmonroe wrote: post #147
collyw wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, I am sure there are.

Worth noting, my girlfriend is a Neurologist. She and her colleagues say if you have anything serious wrong with you, go to the public healthcare system. You will probably have to wait longer, but you will get the treatment the doctors want you to have.

When the same doctors have to deal with private patients (many doctors have both private and public patients here) then its basically a battle with the insurance companies trying to justify why they should pay for the better drugs.

So you have doctors time being wasted on bureaucracy and form filling on one side (they would rather be treating patients), an insurance company person wasting time on the other side. Doctors time isn't cheap. I doubt actuaries are either. It seems blatantly obvious to me that the system without that aspect to it is way superior.

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

#160

Post by glennsl »

sktrdie wrote: post #139
aerocapture wrote: post #92

Instead of asking ourselves which particular jobs are "bullshit" and which are not, maybe we should ask why we need or want "jobs" at all. If every citizen received some minimum universal basic income, what might we do with our time instead of going to jobs we hate? I think the point might be that we've reached a state of technological progress where many of the functions of a modern civilization can be handled by a…

Wouldn't a UBI simply be inflationary? That is, rather than making 0 you make 1500 (say). But since everybody is making 1500, then it would be the same as making 0 again. So unless we have strict blocks on pricing things, UBI seems nonsensical.

I've heard this argument several times before, but I've never understood the reasoning behind it. No matter how you look at it, a basic income is redistribution of wealth. If we finance a basic income by just printing money, then yes it would be inflationary, and the value of the basic income, along with the currency as a whole, would depreciate. But it certainly wouldn't be eliminated, and wealth would have been redistributed.

Printing money isn't the only way to finance a basic income, however. A much more sane approach is through effectivization, by eliminating bullshit jobs and (most) existing means-tested benefits, as well as increased taxation. There's nothing inflationary about this approach.

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