The rise of the pointless job • Hacker News Board

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#471

Post by bitwize » Sun, May 06, 2018, 1:43 PM UTC

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…

I'm reminded of the British royal court post "groom of the stool". The groom of the stool was literally the guy who wiped the King's ass. It was a highly coveted position, as you had private audience with the king during his most intimate moments.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#472

Post by dragandj » Sun, May 06, 2018, 2:26 PM UTC

gkya wrote: post #470

dragandj wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but they were not mercenaries. They did not enroll, but were taken from their families in occupied lands as small children, raised and educated as warriors, and the only career option they had, and family they knew of is the army.

Certainly. I just wanted to clarify what "slave-warrior" meant in this context, because in itself the word makes me think of actual slaves living in misery and getting thrown onto enemies to keep them busy getting killed. Originally janissaries were taken forcefully, but the careers they made, many families bribed the collectors to pick their children, and later, muslims too forced the govenrment to make the concessi…

I am living in Serbia and, although you are right about Mehtmet-Pasha Sokolovic (Sokollu), it was certainly not the norm. It is difficult to judge different times from the modern perspective, but the actual term that is used for the period of Serbian history from the 14th to 19th century is "Turkish enslavement". Whether it is worse to live as a Christian "raya" under Ottomans or a serf under Christian kings is maybe open to discussion, but no one here consider that time as a glorious time of the opportunity for Serbian/Christian culture here. Quite the opposite, it stagnated the whole Balkan region from one of the centers of European culture to the backwaters.

PS. There is a book by the Nobel laureate Ivo Andric about exactly the times of Sokollu, that HN readers might find interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_on_the_Drina

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#473

Post by fulafel » Sun, May 06, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

mamon wrote: post #414

dragonwriter wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UBI will lead to societal degeneration No, it won't. > Prices of essential services and goods would skyrocket If you do a constant-value UBI and set the value too high, yes, that would happen in a positive feedback loop, but that's why UBI should be tied to a revenue stream with a value set by splitting the revenue stream with a reserve cushion to build a fund to allow preserving benefits in short-term revenue decl…

Any value of UBI higher than 0 creates positive feedback loop: 1. government announces UBI 2. retailers, in anticipation of higher demand raise prices. 3. UBI beneficiaries see that they cannot buy as many goods as they want/need so they start demanding more money. 4. government see that they have more tax revenue due to higher retail sales (and the price raise from step 2) so it easily agrees to increase UBI amount.…

Do you think other financial aid formsfunded with tax money have this effect too? Or do you think UBI is qualitatively different because all taxpayers get it?

I think you can be cured of the latter if you consider the fact that it's exactly equivalent to a negative income tax system.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#474

Post by ItsMe000001 » Sun, May 06, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #469

ItsMe000001 wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEO pay is not just supply and demand. You cannot even tell what "supply" even is, because "CEO supply" is nothing that can be well defined. You could make a lot of people CEO from the 2nd and 3rd ranks who also have the experience and knowledge, or you can seek only people who already have been CEOs - which does not guarantee anything at all, because CEO success depends a lot on context and circumstances. CEO supply…

> You cannot even tell what "supply" even is It’s pretty easy to figure out. Typically there will be exactly one person the board is willing to trust. It doesn’t matter how they reached that conclusion. Being the only person in the world deemed suitable for the task gives incredible leverage when demand is near infinite. > You misuse economic theory by simply using it to make unsubstantiatable claims It would appear…

> We’re talking about basic supply and demand

I refer to what was written above. The only "thinking" I can see on your side is how to prolong a non-argument - you just throw out random stuff, going for quantity and endless repetition, but there is not a coherent recognizable thought. Nice try, but I'd say after your first reply it turned into trolling. You are pretty good at saying a lot without saying anything at all though, I give you that much.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#475

Post by gkya » Sun, May 06, 2018, 4:42 PM UTC

dragandj wrote: post #472

gkya wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly. I just wanted to clarify what "slave-warrior" meant in this context, because in itself the word makes me think of actual slaves living in misery and getting thrown onto enemies to keep them busy getting killed. Originally janissaries were taken forcefully, but the careers they made, many families bribed the collectors to pick their children, and later, muslims too forced the govenrment to make the concessi…

I am living in Serbia and, although you are right about Mehtmet-Pasha Sokolovic (Sokollu), it was certainly not the norm. It is difficult to judge different times from the modern perspective, but the actual term that is used for the period of Serbian history from the 14th to 19th century is "Turkish enslavement". Whether it is worse to live as a Christian "raya" under Ottomans or a serf under Christian kings is maybe…

While I will not dispute the Empire did cause all its region to become stagnant and backwards in comparison to Renaissance and post-Renaissance Europe (because that's an indisputable fact), both you as a Serb and I as a Turk should be very careful and sceptic with regards to national historical narratives of our respective countries, because they are infested with lies and misrepresentations, like in all over what was Ottoman territory in Asia Minor and the Balkans. The shitshow that 19th century through WWI was in this region has produced the worst incarnations of nationalist states that have caused the bloodiest of massacres and the worst of baseless yet pertinent illusions. If I return to the actual topic, while I do agree that the Ottoman Empire was not a time of glory for the Eastern Christians, and that we all can be glad that it does not exist any longer, most of that time was way better than most national narratives represent it, including that of Turkey up until quite recently (now there's a wave of neo-Ottomanism here, based on anachronic and nationalistic illusions on what the empire was; before, the view of the Empire was not much different here that what you describe).

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#476

Post by Senderman » Sun, May 06, 2018, 4:54 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

You are so right. I've been saying my whole life that if animators would just make their characters bald, the manhours we would recoup as a species would be truly transformative.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#477

Post by foobarchu » Sun, May 06, 2018, 6:27 PM UTC

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 ...

The US has this depending on the establishment. The chain "Adli" (German in origin I think, but they're common in the US) doesn't have baggers, they just have a counter past the checker and you are expected to bag your own groceries. I'm also pretty sure they require you to bring your own bags too, though, so baggers wouldn't make much sense.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#478

Post by dragandj » Sun, May 06, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

gkya wrote: post #475

dragandj wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am living in Serbia and, although you are right about Mehtmet-Pasha Sokolovic (Sokollu), it was certainly not the norm. It is difficult to judge different times from the modern perspective, but the actual term that is used for the period of Serbian history from the 14th to 19th century is "Turkish enslavement". Whether it is worse to live as a Christian "raya" under Ottomans or a serf under Christian kings is maybe…

While I will not dispute the Empire did cause all its region to become stagnant and backwards in comparison to Renaissance and post-Renaissance Europe (because that's an indisputable fact), both you as a Serb and I as a Turk should be very careful and sceptic with regards to national historical narratives of our respective countries, because they are infested with lies and misrepresentations, like in all over what wa…

I think we agree more than we disagree.

My comment was mentioned to highlight that in many practical ways, the Christian population was practically enslaved to the Muslim overlords (regardless whether them being "real" Turks, or, more commonly, local converts, or even Janissaries). Much more than a Christian serfdom was a lightweight variation on slavery.

Christian population as a whole had very little to choose whether their children will be taken away and become Janssaries, at least until late times, and once taken away, those people had very little influence about their career choices. They were slaves in all practical ways the slavery means. For some exceptions, that slavery turned out to lead to high positions (like Sokollu) but, on the other hand, if the subject population retained their independence, talented people like Sokollu might have had opportunity to build up their local communities/states, instead of conquering the world for Ottoman sultans? :)

PS. I am personally an atheist, so I do not tend to look at the things here from the Christianity: right; Islam: wrong perspective.

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#479

Post by learc83 » Sun, May 06, 2018, 7:51 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #452

learc83 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just basic supply and demand though. There are many other factors driving up CEO pay. 1. CEO pay at public companies is public, so they feel the need to keep up with other companies. 2. The incestuous relationship between CEOs and the boards of directors that set their pay. CEO compensation isn't tied to performance.

> 1. CEO pay at public companies is public, so they feel the need to keep up with other companies. That's just basic supply and demand. Since pay is public, people know how much the other party will balk at, affecting the supply. > 2. The incestuous relationship between CEOs and the boards of directors that set their pay. That's just basic supply and demand. Like I said, the people who have that kind of relationship…

CEO pay isn't "basic supply and demand" unless you generalize the concept to such an extent that it becomes worthless.

Board Member: "Why are you paying your brother $500k to be your assistant?. Surely an assistant shouldn't make that much money."

CEO: "I really want my brother to do it, and since I only have 1 brother it's just basic supply and demand."

You can basically frame any human interaction in terms of supply and demand, but it's not really useful to do so. And it's certainly not what most of us have in mind when we talk about "basic supply and demand".

Re: The rise of the pointless job

#480

Post by gkya » Sun, May 06, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

dragandj wrote: post #478

gkya wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I will not dispute the Empire did cause all its region to become stagnant and backwards in comparison to Renaissance and post-Renaissance Europe (because that's an indisputable fact), both you as a Serb and I as a Turk should be very careful and sceptic with regards to national historical narratives of our respective countries, because they are infested with lies and misrepresentations, like in all over what wa…

I think we agree more than we disagree. My comment was mentioned to highlight that in many practical ways, the Christian population was practically enslaved to the Muslim overlords (regardless whether them being "real" Turks, or, more commonly, local converts, or even Janissaries). Much more than a Christian serfdom was a lightweight variation on slavery. Christian population as a whole had very little to choose whet…

We disagree at the definition of what slavery is. My definition of it is complete subordination to some masters, with no rights and in an inhumane situation (e.g. Afro-American slavery). Your definition seems to be that it is any sort of subjugation to some foreign powers. Even the fact that almost all businesses in the Empire were run by Christians prove, with my definition, that the situation was not that of enslavement, but instead that of imperial dominance. According to your definition, almost all imperial rule since Hittites necessarily include some sort of mass enslavement (which is not totally unagreable, but IMHO probably not a very useful way to assess history). I guess we can safely disagree there, as both definitions can be correct, depending on the viewpoint. Apart from that, we also agree on being atheists, as I can say I'm one too (I'm also of the opinion that "nation" is a useless and perilous abstaction, BTW, which means I'm not getting at this from a nationalistic PoW).