Earlier quoted context omitted.
AI is not a binary event. Technological progress gradually removes the need for labor. Consider simple unsexy things such as automatic cashiers at supermarkets, McDonald's, etc. How many jobs have they made redundant? And do you know that "computer" used to be a profession? Do you know that the majority of blue collar work in 2018 will be made redundant by self-driving vehicles? And so on. You say I am overestimating…
Work hours are increasing because of the decline in unions, and along with it, worker bargaining power.
Bullshit Jobs
551–560 of 576 posts
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#552Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Now. What if I sell widget polish. And you make widgets. You buy polish from me. So now, if we split the money, I sell you a bottle of polish for $1. Now the money is unequal again, so we equal the money. Effectively, I'm just giving you free polish. That's rational? Fair? By the same rationale you can just pick up a free widget, so it seems both rational and fair.
Only if I need/want widgets. Which isn't included in the hypothetical. Because the point is to highlight what happens when I sell you something and makes the distribution unequal again. If I come out the same whether or not I sell polish, why should I sell polish? Rationally , I shouldn't. That's also a good reason we should be very careful about using words like rational and fair. There's a lot of perspective hiding…
> If I come out the same whether or not I sell polish, why should I sell polish? Rationally, I shouldn't.
Because you like polished widgets, I'd imagine? Or maybe a fascist government forces you to make widget polish, I don't know. I do know you can't have it both ways, if your hypothetical economy is not consistent then it is a useless example.
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#553Earlier quoted context omitted.
One, bullshit jobs may exist as loops that can be hard to spot if they're multi-step. Department A generates work for department B, which generates work for department C, which - after couple more steps - generates work for department A. Second, "bullshit" in "bullshit jobs" doesn't mean useless from market's short-sighted POV. A competitive market is prone to formation of negative-sum games between companies, and fu…
I've got a favorite hobby horse which is an example of this dynamic: The competing administrative bureaucracies in the health care administration, and health insurance, industries. Both of these classes of (so I claim) drones think they're doing good work: health care drones are trying to navigate the regulations and get care for their patients. Insurance drones are trying to navigate regulations and keep costs down.…
The prices will stay hard to know because middlemen don’t like to be cut out.
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#554Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only if I need/want widgets. Which isn't included in the hypothetical. Because the point is to highlight what happens when I sell you something and makes the distribution unequal again. If I come out the same whether or not I sell polish, why should I sell polish? Rationally , I shouldn't. That's also a good reason we should be very careful about using words like rational and fair. There's a lot of perspective hiding…
> If I come out the same whether or not I sell polish, why should I sell polish? Rationally, I shouldn't. Because you like polished widgets, I'd imagine? Or maybe a fascist government forces you to make widget polish, I don't know. I do know you can't have it both ways, if your hypothetical economy is not consistent then it is a useless example.
You're investing way more into the hypothetical than exists.
I wasn't asking what imagined scenarios would force me to sell polish. If you want that, then aliens for all I care.
The entire point is to ask what happens when the results of my actions are nil. Rationally, if two courses of action have the same result, I should take the course that costs me the least.
I mean, here I am describing a situation and you're saying "Yeah, but what if the situation were different". Then the situation would be different and not the one I'm describing.
It's ok not to have an answer to any of the scenarios. To not know. I don't either. I don't know if there is a good answer to a "fair and rational distribution of wealth". The point is to make you question your own perception of the situation and realize that the answers you believe you have may have issues of their own.
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#555Earlier quoted context omitted.
A moral framework is inherently subjective, so it should be no surprise that the rights of the unborn are considered more important in some than others. Christianity arguably disagrees with you - see the tale of Onan. Buddhists likewise consider all life as sacred, in that an animal may previously/subsequently be a human soul. Lastly, many atheist progressives would argue that preservation of the human race is a mora…
I would argue that a strictly rationalist or at least secular morality should be applied given the sheer religious or spiritual diversity of the global population. And regarding your latter point,it is as you say simplistic - much like the proverbial bacterium on an agar plate, our growth imperative will destroy our future if we overrun the bounds of our environment. I think we will see the issue become more importan…
How do you arrive at an acceptable secular morality, especially since science claims that it cannot speak to morality?
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#556Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Doesn't matter how rich and powerful you are, you have to hire layers of managements to run your organization. These managers get their share of status, power & money by managing more people. The people they manage also want to get into management, so more layers and departments will be created. You are also competing with other companies to keep your employees happy so that they keep making you richer, and for thi…
> If you can figure out how to achieve the same results with fewer layers of management, or have your management act more efficiently, you'll reap the rewards. So any bullshit managerial position is inherently unstable: as soon as one company figures out they can do without it, it'll vanish from the industry. If you can implement it. Building a large company, or redoing management structure in such, is a very long pr…
“Bullshit” is in the eye of the beholder. One view is that if it makes money, it isn’t bullshit — because someone values it enough to pay for it.
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#557Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously, I thought computers were supposed to replace all those administrators.
Will a computer fix a broken door? Wash out glassware? Cook 5,000 meals every lunch hour? Knock on a dorm door, when there's a 3 am party going on? Trim the hedges? Roll the AV projector out to the lecture hall that needs it? Ticket someone for parking without a permit? Wash the windows? Or would you prefer tenured professors doing all that work, instead of teaching, or research?
Well, I think custodians fix broken doors, kitchen staff clean the dishwasher and cook meals, RAs (who are normally students as well) knock on the doors, landscapers trim the hedges, and AV techs roll out the projectors.
If that's what "administrators" means, then fair enough - but my understanding of the title "administrator" is people who organize the curriculum, schedule staff, students and classrooms, maintain the website, conduct student intake, that kind of thing. And those are the jobs that I would expect to be streamlined via computers.
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#558Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am a research support programmer at the University of Michigan. My job is to help research labs solve programming problems that they can't handle internally. I write interactive Psych experiments, create data processing scripts based on a professors notes, assist with computer controls for new research hardware, ... If I were at Stanford I would fall into that "Admin Staff" bucket. Am I an example of wasteful growt…
That sounds like an interesting and varied role. Are you enjoying it and getting much from it? Anything you don't like about it?
I love my job. Most of the projects are medium sized ones with 100-200 hours of programming involved, so I get to see a good variety. Splitting my time between C, Java Script, MATLAB, Python, Swift, PHP and R means that I am probably not an expert in any of them, but I we have a solid team of general purpose programmers who can handle almost anything the labs send our way.
My only complaint would be that the pay is a little on the low side. Otherwise the work and the work environment are both excellent.
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#559Earlier quoted context omitted.
Work hours are increasing because of the decline in unions, and along with it, worker bargaining power.
They are not: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/work-hours-per-week?count...
They are for the US, while they're declining for the EU countries you selected (which your graph shows).
Re: Bullshit Jobs
#560"why would profit-focused companies employ a bunch of people who by their own admission aren’t doing anything valuable". The short answer: they might not be doing anything valuable, but that doesn't mean they aren't valuable. I'm not a sociologist, so this is 'anecdotal', but I have consulted in and worked with a large number of companies during my professional 'career. First key insight I gained is that [b]the large…
This is the comment i came here for. SlateStars previous 'meditations on moloch' considered the idea of complex capitalist systems, and a relentless trend towards efficiency and Survival of participants within the system that eventually snuffs out art, freedom, and results in dire consequences for both the participants and the wider environment. This interpretation is similar to the one put forward here by Graeber, a…
Thx. I bought his book and put it on my (long) Kindle reading list. (OT:: buying more books than I can read has always been my guilty pleasure.)