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The rise of the pointless job

theguardian.com

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Re: The rise of the pointless job

#441

Post by jccooper »

selimthegrim wrote: post #310
chiph wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is supposedly one of the ways the crescent got on the South Carolina state flag. Under French heraldry, it indicates a third son (when they bothered to use cadency on their coats of arms). Since his chances of inheriting the family lands & fortune were low, many of them set out for Charleston to seek their fortune, following the southern branch of the Huguenots. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_South_Caroli…

Does this have anything to do with New Orleans as well?

You mean "The Crescent City"? That's to do with the shape of the river.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#442

Post by not_real_acct »

egypturnash wrote: post #197
not_real_acct wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a Monday I quit my job and gave my two week notice. The next day my wife was fired. The day after that, my old boss offered me a raise if I would stick around. I did both jobs simultaneously for six months. In my entire life nothing has been more lucrative than this. I've tried investing in stocks, bonds, and real estate. Nothing has been more lucrative than double-dipping. The thing that's so bizarre, is that it…

It feels like you're missing a line somewhere in this - you talk about quitting your job, your wife getting fired, and your now-ex-boss offering you a raise to stick around, then start talking about "both jobs" without ever mentioning a new job.

Basically I handed in my resignation because I got a new job. The next day my wife lost her job. Then my OLD boss gave me a pay bump to stay at my OLD job.

So I did both jobs, the old and the new, simultaneously.

The initial plan was that I'd do it for a couple of weeks or a month. I was just trying to cover my wife's income until she found a new gig.

Lo and behold, doing two jobs simultaneously is surprisingly easy.

And Lord is it lucrative.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#443

Post by not_real_acct »

whack wrote: post #192
not_real_acct wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a Monday I quit my job and gave my two week notice. The next day my wife was fired. The day after that, my old boss offered me a raise if I would stick around. I did both jobs simultaneously for six months. In my entire life nothing has been more lucrative than this. I've tried investing in stocks, bonds, and real estate. Nothing has been more lucrative than double-dipping. The thing that's so bizarre, is that it…

I'm assuming at least one job (or both) is remote-only? This would be a hilarious story if you somehow managed to hold two simultaneous 9-5 on-site jobs, in neighboring offices.

Yes.

I turned one laptop into a virtual machine, and then I loaded that vm onto the other laptop.

So I had two jobs, one office, and one laptop. One job was remote, one was onsite.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#444

Post by wu-ikkyu »

leetcrew wrote: post #135
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talk to people about changing the world so work is optional, and people are really attached to the idea that everyone should work all the time. Our world is sufficiently productive (a trend I expect to continue rising) that we could offer a modest life to everyone regardless of how much they work. Or more conservatively, we could build a world where everyone has 8 weeks of vacation a year or could take 6 months off…

> Our world is sufficiently productive (a trend I expect to continue rising) that we could offer a modest life to everyone regardless of how much they work. i realize that the rest of your post details technological advancements that could create this condition (on an indefinite timeline), but you also seem to be saying that it is already possible today. i often see this sort of claim these days, and i always wonder…

GDP is an erroneous measure for what we're discussing and falls into the same recursive logic that is noted at the top of this comment chain a la broken window fallacy.

If you blow up a tank, and then build a new one, this is considered a net gain in GDP even though in reality there was a relative net loss of human labor.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#445

Post by reitanqild »

tigroferoce wrote: post #415
dyarosla wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure the idea here is to quicken the checkout and lines-> having someone fill bags as someone else handles payments and you handle paying, makes queues move faster than having them grind to a halt due to someone packing their bags too slowly.

IN Italy there’s a little desk behind the cashiers and it’s split in half so while you fill your bags using one half the next client uses the other half. The amount of useless jobs in the states always amazes me, but then you look at the unemployment rate and everything becomes less useless ...

When LIDL came to Norway this was one of their mistakes. They insisted on not having the split desk behind the cashiers.

Norwegians was confused every time AFAIK.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#446

Post by Bakary »

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #319

People in this thread that are praising job-creation as a social good miss the point. Jobs are not good on their own if they produce nothing. If you are unable to distribute wealth through other means and a job is absolutely necessary, then find some useful work for the person to do. There is ALWAYS more work to do There are never enough bridges, roads, doctors, books, movies, research, etc. etc. If your society cann…

The bottleneck is not the amount of work that ought to be done but the difficulty of training people to be able to do it.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#447

Post by lainga »

nabla9 wrote: post #391
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…

Tokugawa era had lasting peace partly because of these bullshit jobs. It was a way to build institutions that kept 300 regional daimyos and people who trained weapons in check. Japanese developed clever formal court system (Sankin-kotai "alternate attendance") where half of the daimyos were kept hostage in the capital city at all times. Spend year in your own lands surrounded by your own men, one year as hostage in t…

Thanks, I forgot to mention sankin-kotai. It was also set up as a way to prevent the daimyos from amassing enough money to build up an army - they were supposed to spend lavishly along the entire route between their residences and Edo.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#448

Post by lainga »

dba7dba wrote: post #346
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…

The Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98) was largely caused by too many unemployed samurai warriors, who were largely out of jobs as peace spread in Japan. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, de facto ruler of Japan, needed to prevent disturbances by unemployed samurais and result was invasion of Korea. It's not the only reason, but a major one. The scale of the war was massive. Japan alone brought a force of 158,800 in 1st invasio…

The Japanese nearly invaded Korea again in 1873, funnily enough, for the same reason. Saigo Takamori saw it as an opportunity for the thousands of newly-unseated samurai to find honourable work (or death). When the government failed to take Toyotomi's lesson and refused, he revolted instead and found an end for the samurai at Shiroyama.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#449

Post by viridian »

sverige wrote: post #304
epc wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was that guy as a kid, at least for road work. The role rotated through my crew while everyone else worked in the manhole or on the street. Part of the reason for it to be a human is to serve as a witness for the police when a distracted driver plows into the road crew. This was in the 1980s, I’m sure drivers pay much more attention today.

> This was in the 1980s, I’m sure drivers pay much more attention today. Missing the /s. Drivers today are far worse than they were in the 80s.

It depends on what you measure. Crashes are going up ever so slightly vs population growth, but fatalities per crash has astoundingly been reduced by about 70%, which is to say that you were more than 3x as likely to die in crash in 1980 vs 2011.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#450

Post by pdonis »

zeckalpha wrote: post #423
pdonis wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our world is sufficiently productive (a trend I expect to continue rising) that we could offer a modest life to everyone regardless of how much they work. I don't think this is true, because I think too large a fraction of the world's current productivity is supplied by people who would not produce if they didn't have to to earn a living. > My vision is for systems of robotics that are totally open source (modifiab…

> the world's current productivity is supplied by people who would not produce if they didn't have to to earn a living. Not according to the article.

> Not according to the article.

I don't see the article making any claim one way or the other about what I was saying.

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