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On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

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Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#361

Post by crdoconnor »

thedufer wrote: post #265
crdoconnor wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is preferable to Basic Income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_guarantee For the following reasons: * It it proven and was highly successful during the previous depression. * We actually do have a lot of infrastructure which needs rebuilding and projects which would make all of our lives better (high speed rail, mission to mars, etc.) * People actuall…

> People actually like to work - to feel useful Your argument seems to hinge on this, but I see no reason to believe it. There have been fairly long-term experiments on BI, and people who choose not to work do things they enjoy - learning to paint, going to school, etc. There weren't any problems with people "needing to work" but not being able to. > It it proven and was highly successful during the previous depressi…

>Your argument seems to hinge on this, but I see no reason to believe it.

Why else did the people under Plan Jefes CONTINUE doing their jobs - kind of for free, really - after the jobguarantee was replaced with an income guarantee?

>Much of the unskilled labor done by the CCC has since been automated into fewer skilled jobs. "It worked in a completely different world" doesn't convince me that it'll work in this one.

I'm very unimpressed with the idea that automation has killed off all our jobs and will continue to do so. It's pushed as a red herring for the sudden surge in unemployment since the 1990s that was nearly ALL political in origin.

If automation had replaced all those jobs instead of politics deciding that they were unnecessary then our infrastructure would be in considerably better shape. It isnt'.

>See what I said re: unskilled->skilled labor shift. To what degree do you actually expect unskilled labor to move those programs along? They're held up by engineering problems, not labor shortages.

We've actually had a skilled labor -> unskilled labor shift since 2008. Check the statistics.

I don't expect a job guarantee to provide only unskilled jobs, either. I expect it to provide jobs for unemployed engineers, just like the PWA did. Hell, the PWA gave Milton Friedman a job as an economist (we needed them too). It's where he got his start. It wasn't only for unskilled laborers.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#362

Post by tedks »

oldmanjay wrote: post #327
tedks wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the sort of arrogance that creates and bursts bubbles. I hope you can learn to live sustainably and in harmony with nature and your own soul before it's too late.

you seem to be conflating observation with arrogance. what, pray tell, makes you believe software will vanish? will there be a civilization post-agriculture or literacy? software is bigger than both.

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,

The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains: round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#363

Post by crdoconnor »

dllthomas wrote: post #245
crdoconnor wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is preferable to Basic Income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_guarantee For the following reasons: * It it proven and was highly successful during the previous depression. * We actually do have a lot of infrastructure which needs rebuilding and projects which would make all of our lives better (high speed rail, mission to mars, etc.) * People actuall…

I don't object to PWA style projects when we find things that we want to do. I don't think it's a sensible way to guarantee a job. As orangecat said downthread a bit, "shovel-ready" often isn't. I want to spend money to build the infrastructure we actually need. I don't want to throw money at boondoggles, which will be increasingly hard to avoid if we structurally have to keep pushing out projects whether or not we h…

>I want to spend money to build the infrastructure we actually need. I don't want to throw money at boondoggles

I don't either, but there is no silver bullet to avoid boondoggles. Moving everything to the private sector certainly doesn't prevent them.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#364

Post by dllthomas »

crdoconnor wrote: post #346
rakoo wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I challenge you to ask around you this question: "If basic income were to be established, what would you think people do ?" As owenmarshall said, you can perfectly have both -- establish basic income for "survival" needs, and let people have work if they really want to. Basic income doesn't mean abolishing all kinds of work, it just means making sure humans don't have to work to live.

I think most people would continue to work and the people who are currently unemployed would largely remain unemployed. I don't think the unemployment we have is economically efficient, though. Our neo-command economy run by wall street selfishly demanded high unemployment despite the need for currently unemployed people to work and desire for those same people to work.

"the people who are currently unemployed would largely remain unemployed."

Why do you believe that? Some small portion of those working, with better things to do, will probably work less or stop working. This will represent a larger portion of the unemployed, because of the size of the two sets.

Meanwhile, demand will rise as the people at the bottom end of the income spectrum are more able to meet their needs.

With increased demand for labor and decreased supply, it should become quite a bit easier to find a job.

On top of that, looking for a job is quite a bit easier when you know you have some resources to fall back on, and a basic income can help provide the bandwidth to pursue whatever training, &c, they find appropriate rather than having to jump through bureaucratic hoops or focusing on scrounging together enough to get to tomorrow.

I expect quite a few of the unemployed would stop being unemployed with a modest basic income.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#365

Post by dllthomas »

crdoconnor wrote: post #363
dllthomas wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't object to PWA style projects when we find things that we want to do. I don't think it's a sensible way to guarantee a job. As orangecat said downthread a bit, "shovel-ready" often isn't. I want to spend money to build the infrastructure we actually need. I don't want to throw money at boondoggles, which will be increasingly hard to avoid if we structurally have to keep pushing out projects whether or not we h…

>I want to spend money to build the infrastructure we actually need. I don't want to throw money at boondoggles I don't either, but there is no silver bullet to avoid boondoggles. Moving everything to the private sector certainly doesn't prevent them.

Certainly not, but requiring any purchase decision be backed up by someone wanting the thing helps quite a bit. That's something that naturally follows in the private sector when we give people cash, and frequently happens in the public sector when things are working right, but is undermined by pressure to build out projects to "provide jobs" - and a guarantee makes that worse.

I'll note again that I'm certainly well in favor of improving our infrastructure.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#366

Post by normloman »

facepalm wrote: post #241
normloman wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because most new businesses fail. So the people best suited to start ones are people with a safety net: a lot of cash saved up, or a well off family to support them. In short, the people who can't afford to lose their jobs also cannot afford to fail in business.

Then perhaps it would make more sense to change that than to change rules about vacations. Isn't it the job of the banking system to enable people to start businesses?

Have you tried getting a loan from the bank to start a business? Fat chance. And if your business fails, you still gotta pay the bank back its loan (which doesn't solve the problem in the original post. The underprivileged still can't afford to fail).

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#367

Post by Matumio »

crdoconnor wrote: post #355
dragonwriter wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I think the main benefit of an unconditional basic income, however small, is exactly to help us getting over the worst of protestant work ethic. Do we really need to make existential threats to people who don't accept the work that the government thinks they should be doing? If something really needs to be done, you can increase the pay until somebody does it.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#368

Post by coldtea »

jcfrei wrote: post #64
coldtea wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, essentially he has to add some bullshit statistics to his description of bullshit jokes... I find those kind of statistics pointless. Most of the time they are based on incomplete data and as much guesswork as any rant. An intelligent opinion on the other hand, based on observation and with a coherent point of view, is worth more than all those statistics (to paraphrase Alan Kay, who said "A point of view is wort…

Statistics help in testing and validating an author's claims. Eloquent deductive reasoning can easily lead to wrong conclusions, which is why we need to test them with empirical results. This author in particular appears to put a prohibitively large value on physical goods over any kind of service. He dismisses the fundamental transition from an industrial economy to a service economy, simply labeling most of the new…

>Statistics help in testing and validating an author's claims.

There's 3 kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. I find that stats and figures mostly help in giving an impression of "validity", where in fact there could be all kinds of flaws in them, how they were collected and what they cover.

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#369

Post by coldtea »

logicchains wrote: post #75
coldtea wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, to be honest in the United States employment is considered to be such a right and sacred duty that we elect politicians based on employment and even make modulation of employment a core function of the central bank. Yeah, part of this is because few have inherited or other wealth, so without employement you just die homeless and hungry in the streets.

>so without employement you just die homeless and hungry in the streets That pretty much doesn't happen in any western country now, due to welfare. If the desire is to prevent starvation and homelessness, transfer payments do a fine job; there's no need for intervention in the labour market or monetary system.

>That pretty much doesn't happen in any western country now, due to welfare.

You'd be surprised. Visit any western country (US, the UK, France, ...) and see it happening.

>If the desire is to prevent starvation and homelessness, transfer payments do a fine job; there's no need for intervention in the labour market or monetary system.

Not sure what those "transfer payments" are. Anything like Western Union money transfers?

Re: On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs

#370

Post by oldmanjay »

tedks wrote: post #362
oldmanjay wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you seem to be conflating observation with arrogance. what, pray tell, makes you believe software will vanish? will there be a civilization post-agriculture or literacy? software is bigger than both.

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name…

I can't help but feel that the operational continuity of Home Depot after the techpocalypse isn't really what you're talking about anymore.
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