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To me this post addresses the same naivety that David Graeber demonstrates when he claims that everyone not involved in hammering out a sheet of steel to make a

by dools 10y ago

To me this post addresses the same naivety that David Graeber demonstrates when he claims that everyone not involved in hammering out a sheet of steel to make a horseshoe or pulling a plough is engaged in a bullshit job[1]. I think it's not a coincidence, therefore that many of the people I run into who advocate a universal basic income, arguing tooth and nail against a job guarantee (the YC guys no different) is young, tech savvy and overly optimistic about the scope of automation to subsume all human labour within months. [1] http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

Houshalter 10y ago
Graeber's biggest point is that even when he talks to people and asks them if their job is valuable, and they should know better than anyone else, they often say 'no, not really.' I don't think he thinks "anyone not involved in hammering steel" is unnecessary, that's a bit of a strawman. The argument goes that big corporations have a tendency to hire more people than necessary because middle managers are rewarded based on how many people work under them. Or that people looking to keep their jobs, try to make themselves look more busy and valuable than they really are. People waste a lot of time at offices doing things that aren't work. But our culture demands we be at work 8 hours a day, even if the work only requires 4 hours. Economists in the 1930's thought the world would be so rich by today, that people would only need to work a few hours a week. And the economy has grown vastly since then, and we are much richer. But I don't think most people have the option of working that little, even if they want to. But that's a different subject entirely from automation. Those jobs can really be valuable and still be vulnerable to automation. AI has improved a lot in the last 5 years. I don't think it's implausible at all to imagine most jobs done now being partially or totally automated.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Graeber's biggest point is that even when he talks to people and asks them if their job is valuable, and they should know better than anyone else, they often say 'no, not really.' I don't think that's really true, especially in a big corporation. Transparency of the value pipeline in such institutions isn't great at any level, and big corps (and similar large institution -- government often has the same problem, for instance) have a tendency toward not making even the concept of the value stream that justifies the position known to the people working in it much of the time. Its quite likely that the people working a position don't understand how its supposed to deliver value (and are in a poor position to see the big picture of whether it does), while the people who do know how it is supposed to deliver value don't see the small picture of what actually goes on (and thus are in a poor position to evaluate whether it does deliver the value it is supposed to.) There's no particular reason to think the people working in the position are in the best position to evaluate value delivery (or that even the people in the best position, whoever they might be, are better at answering the question than a Magic 8-ball.)
  - sedachv 10y ago
    There is a great incentive to obfuscate when your "value delivery" is skimming (mutual funds that charge 1.25% management fees for underperforming the S&P), privatization fraud (health insurance in the US, government contractors, and pretty much everything related to real estate since "home appreciation" is now supposed to pay for people's retirements instead of pensions), taking advantage of stupid people (lottery, penny auctions, telemarketing, almost all advertising), education fraud (textbook industry, "student loans now, regret later" private colleges and universities - which since many student loans are federally guaranteed is also a form of privatization fraud), or "intellectual property" racketeering.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  I think that a lot of this is because things that seem quite pointless on an individual level are actually very important at scale. When I started at Google my job was pushing pixels around on the search results page, and when I left my job was leading a team pushing the pixels around (in the middle I got to do actual cool stuff). On an individual level, this is pointless and boring. On a corporate level, some of those pixels were worth literally $1B+. I would love to have a billion dollar business, but I can't get there from scratch by pushing pixels around on a page.
- dools 10y ago
  Graeber's biggest point is that even when he talks to people and asks them if their job is valuable, and they should know better than anyone else, they often say 'no, not really.' Yeah I know that's his point and that's why I describe his point of view as being naive. It may be true that for some percentage of workers at any given time their role is experimental and may turn out to be unimportant or a failed attempt at change, and it may be the case that it take a while for these sorts of inefficiencies to be rooted out or resolved because the cost and time associated with doing so make it a low priority but that is something that people who are in those positions would not necessarily be aware of. This is the same as when people say things like "I don't know why we are so precious with our kids these days. I never wore a bike helmet and I survived!". Without the proper perspective people frequently form wildly inaccurate opinions. I don't think he thinks "anyone not involved in hammering steel" is unnecessary, that's a bit of a strawman. If all I have to do in order to make it a straw man is replace the word iPhone with horseshoe he's doing a pretty good job of constructing his own straw man. The argument goes that big corporations have a tendency to hire more people than necessary because middle managers are rewarded based on how many people work under them. Or that people looking to keep their jobs, try to make themselves look more busy and valuable than they really are. That story is completely ridiculous. People waste a lot of time at offices doing things that aren't work. But our culture demands we be at work 8 hours a day, even if the work only requires 4 hours. Then businesses have an opportunity to compete for talent by offering better working conditions. If they can do so profitably then they win. Economists in the 1930's thought the world would be so rich by today, that people would only need to work a few hours a week. And the economy has grown vastly since then, and we are much richer. But I don't think most people have the option of working that little, even if they want to. This is more a result of the spoils of productivity increases not being distributed evenly. By having massive unemployment and under employment then expecting the remaining workers to work harder for less pay on average while more and more income is paid towards servicing private debt the finance, banking and real estate sectors have made out like bandits. But that's a different subject entirely from automation. I don't think so. It has a lot to do with automation because that is where the productivity increases have come from, but rather than the federal government guaranteeing full employment and setting a floor price for labour and a minimum set of conditions below which we consider employment to be exploitation, which would not only maintain demand in the economy but also reduce the inequality with which the spoils of those productivity increases are distributed, they have left people to fend for themselves and the economy has languished as a result. Those jobs can really be valuable and still be vulnerable to automation. AI has improved a lot in the last 5 years. I don't think it's implausible at all to imagine most jobs done now being partially or totally automated. Maybe in 1,000 years but I disagree that automation will have the type of impact people (particularly in the UBI advocacy camp) claim it will.

by dools 10y ago

Houshalter 10y ago

Graeber's biggest point is that even when he talks to people and asks them if their job is valuable, and they should know better than anyone else, they often say 'no, not really.' I don't think he thinks "anyone not involved in hammering steel" is unnecessary, that's a bit of a strawman. The argument goes that big corporations have a tendency to hire more people than necessary because middle managers are rewarded based on how many people work under them. Or that people looking to keep their jobs, try to make themselves look more busy and valuable than they really are. People waste a lot of time at offices doing things that aren't work. But our culture demands we be at work 8 hours a day, even if the work only requires 4 hours. Economists in the 1930's thought the world would be so rich by today, that people would only need to work a few hours a week. And the economy has grown vastly since then, and we are much richer. But I don't think most people have the option of working that little, even if they want to. But that's a different subject entirely from automation. Those jobs can really be valuable and still be vulnerable to automation. AI has improved a lot in the last 5 years. I don't think it's implausible at all to imagine most jobs done now being partially or totally automated.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> Graeber's biggest point is that even when he talks to people and asks them if their job is valuable, and they should know better than anyone else, they often say 'no, not really.' I don't think that's really true, especially in a big corporation. Transparency of the value pipeline in such institutions isn't great at any level, and big corps (and similar large institution -- government often has the same problem, for instance) have a tendency toward not making even the concept of the value stream that justifies the position known to the people working in it much of the time. Its quite likely that the people working a position don't understand how its supposed to deliver value (and are in a poor position to see the big picture of whether it does), while the people who do know how it is supposed to deliver value don't see the small picture of what actually goes on (and thus are in a poor position to evaluate whether it does deliver the value it is supposed to.) There's no particular reason to think the people working in the position are in the best position to evaluate value delivery (or that even the people in the best position, whoever they might be, are better at answering the question than a Magic 8-ball.)
- sedachv 10y ago
  There is a great incentive to obfuscate when your "value delivery" is skimming (mutual funds that charge 1.25% management fees for underperforming the S&P), privatization fraud (health insurance in the US, government contractors, and pretty much everything related to real estate since "home appreciation" is now supposed to pay for people's retirements instead of pensions), taking advantage of stupid people (lottery, penny auctions, telemarketing, almost all advertising), education fraud (textbook industry, "student loans now, regret later" private colleges and universities - which since many student loans are federally guaranteed is also a form of privatization fraud), or "intellectual property" racketeering.
nostrademons 10y ago
I think that a lot of this is because things that seem quite pointless on an individual level are actually very important at scale. When I started at Google my job was pushing pixels around on the search results page, and when I left my job was leading a team pushing the pixels around (in the middle I got to do actual cool stuff). On an individual level, this is pointless and boring. On a corporate level, some of those pixels were worth literally $1B+. I would love to have a billion dollar business, but I can't get there from scratch by pushing pixels around on a page.
dools 10y ago
Graeber's biggest point is that even when he talks to people and asks them if their job is valuable, and they should know better than anyone else, they often say 'no, not really.' Yeah I know that's his point and that's why I describe his point of view as being naive. It may be true that for some percentage of workers at any given time their role is experimental and may turn out to be unimportant or a failed attempt at change, and it may be the case that it take a while for these sorts of inefficiencies to be rooted out or resolved because the cost and time associated with doing so make it a low priority but that is something that people who are in those positions would not necessarily be aware of. This is the same as when people say things like "I don't know why we are so precious with our kids these days. I never wore a bike helmet and I survived!". Without the proper perspective people frequently form wildly inaccurate opinions. I don't think he thinks "anyone not involved in hammering steel" is unnecessary, that's a bit of a strawman. If all I have to do in order to make it a straw man is replace the word iPhone with horseshoe he's doing a pretty good job of constructing his own straw man. The argument goes that big corporations have a tendency to hire more people than necessary because middle managers are rewarded based on how many people work under them. Or that people looking to keep their jobs, try to make themselves look more busy and valuable than they really are. That story is completely ridiculous. People waste a lot of time at offices doing things that aren't work. But our culture demands we be at work 8 hours a day, even if the work only requires 4 hours. Then businesses have an opportunity to compete for talent by offering better working conditions. If they can do so profitably then they win. Economists in the 1930's thought the world would be so rich by today, that people would only need to work a few hours a week. And the economy has grown vastly since then, and we are much richer. But I don't think most people have the option of working that little, even if they want to. This is more a result of the spoils of productivity increases not being distributed evenly. By having massive unemployment and under employment then expecting the remaining workers to work harder for less pay on average while more and more income is paid towards servicing private debt the finance, banking and real estate sectors have made out like bandits. But that's a different subject entirely from automation. I don't think so. It has a lot to do with automation because that is where the productivity increases have come from, but rather than the federal government guaranteeing full employment and setting a floor price for labour and a minimum set of conditions below which we consider employment to be exploitation, which would not only maintain demand in the economy but also reduce the inequality with which the spoils of those productivity increases are distributed, they have left people to fend for themselves and the economy has languished as a result. Those jobs can really be valuable and still be vulnerable to automation. AI has improved a lot in the last 5 years. I don't think it's implausible at all to imagine most jobs done now being partially or totally automated. Maybe in 1,000 years but I disagree that automation will have the type of impact people (particularly in the UBI advocacy camp) claim it will.