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Define useful... If someone is willing to pay its probably more useful than doing nothing right?
by Areading314 8y ago
Define useful... If someone is willing to pay its probably more useful than doing nothing right?
- undreren 8y agoYes. To the person or company paying. The entire tobacco industry thrives on destroying public health.
- Areading314 8y agoThat's a great example of an industry that's declining every year precisely for that reason.
- undreren 8y agoIt doesn't matter. A whole swath of people are employed to make a few rich people richer at the cost of the rest of society. The world would be better of without it.
- coldtea 8y agoThe only reason they're declining is changing trends. There are 10 equally harmful industries taking its place...
- Franciscouzo 8y agoOnly if ignoring externalities.
- expertentipp 8y agoPeople are being paid for work at copyright and patent troll offices, for work at debt collecion where they process the cases regardless of how legit they are (ever relocated and had litigation with predatory service provider?), various intermediary agents (e.g. property) whose only job is to detect a transaction and put their feet in the door, plenty of examples really.
- tjr225 8y agoIf money is the only measure of usefulness, sure. Don't you think that's a bit stupid though?
- coldtea 8y agoWell, I hear that crime cartels pay too.
- kthejoker2 8y agoActually this may be the real crux of the whole thing. Confusing money with value. If we could apply technology to create a frictionless barter system you'd see bullshit jobs drop real quick because nothing you produced could be turned into something valuable. Fiat money on the other hand can just slosh around and as an extremely imprecise measure of value allows things like bullshit jobs to exist.