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One thing not mentioned is that productivity increases in one area free up some of those people to do entirely new jobs that did not previously exist, just beca

One thing not mentioned is that productivity increases in one area free up some of those people to do entirely new jobs that did not previously exist, just because society couldn't afford to allocate people to those jobs. Not many doctors and dentists and so forth 1000 years ago, because the agricultural base couldn't support it. It took 95% of people being farmers to produce enough food for themselves and the remaining 5% of the others. Now 5% of people can produce enough food for the other 95%, which allows them to be doctors and programmers and whatnot.

aaomidi 4y ago
Alternatively how much of our labor force is working in useless jobs? Aka jobs that just exist because people need a job to survive?
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  first you need to define “useless” which is probably the difficult task
  - sli 4y ago
    This book is about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs It defines them this way: "a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case." It goes further and defines various types of thse jobs, with examples for each. Those are included in the Wikipedia article.
    - Nifty3929 4y ago
      I hadn't heard of this book before, but I appreciate this from the wiki article: "As a potential solution, Graeber suggests universal basic income, a livable benefit paid to all, without qualification, which would let people work at their leisure." I think the 'without qualification' part is really important, so that there is no incentive NOT to work, and no stigma attached to receiving the money. Just give it to everybody and otherwise leave them alone.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  That's not really a thing, despite what David Graeber [1] would have you think. The reality is that business owners always want to make as much profit as possible, so they're never going to intentionally or knowingly pay labor for something that is useless, money that would otherwise go straight into their pocket. Sure there are some inefficiencies in the chain and a subset of managers trying to expand headcount unnecessarily because of office politics, but owners and board members are incentivized to eliminate that as much as possible because, you know, profit. The only plausible spots for "bullshit jobs" are in government and in endowment-funded academia, where for various political reasons, effective oversight of costs is missing in certain scenarios. Usually that's a temporary phenomenon, as eventually a "nosy" journalist (or whistleblower) reveals a bunch of money is being wasted, and political pressure builds to reform that and stop wasting taxpayers' or donors' money. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_job https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_job
  - z3t4 4y ago
    The larger a company is the more out of touch the owners are, so they are not knowingly leaving money on the table. And larger headcount usually mean higher valuation, so they don't mind. And it might only take a few hours to do the thing the boss hired you for, so the time need to be filled out somehow. Good luck asking your boss if you could go down 50% in time, and keep 100% of the salary.
    - Spivak 4y ago
      > Good luck asking your boss if you could go down 50% in time, and keep 100% of the salary. That’s just the lizard brain mode of thinking. The person you paid $5k to redo your roof isn’t more deserving of the money because they spent two weeks on it instead of one. You’re both better off if they get it done faster. My company went down to 80% time for 100% salary and every metric we use for productivity didn’t change one bit. I have no doubt we could drop another day down to 60% and still have hit all our targets. And anyone who actually works knows why, because the time off isn’t cutting into working time, it’s cutting into bullshit time.
    - crazygringo 4y ago
- fy20 4y ago
  It's interesting to look at developing countries like India for that answer. In these countries there are so many people doing jobs that in Western countries simply don't exist, because labour costs are too high. I wouldn't really call them "bullshit" jobs as another comment did, it's just a different way of allocating resources. For example in the construction industry barely any heavy machinery is used - it's cheaper to have labourers do the work than it is to rent machines. In road reconstruction you will see men digging the road by hand, then women carrying the rubble away somewhere with small buckets.
hoschicz 4y ago
Now therapists are probably this job.
- tonightstoast 4y ago
  Bezos has an interview where he’s talking about the future of labor and mentions pet therapy is a career individuals can have. He was using it as a way to say we don’t really know what the future will hold.
  - jareklupinski 4y ago
    > "Surely," a triceratops says, "there was some point between gunpowder and... something called Amazon Prime... that you folks had to think, 'Are we supposed to be running a planet? Wouldn't we rather make Marvel movies?'" https://www.looper.com/1047273/rick-and-morty-season-6-episode-6-recap/ https://www.looper.com/1047273/rick-and-morty-season-6-episo...

aaomidi 4y ago

Alternatively how much of our labor force is working in useless jobs? Aka jobs that just exist because people need a job to survive?

micromacrofoot 4y ago
first you need to define “useless” which is probably the difficult task
- sli 4y ago
  This book is about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs It defines them this way: "a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case." It goes further and defines various types of thse jobs, with examples for each. Those are included in the Wikipedia article.
  - Nifty3929 4y ago
    I hadn't heard of this book before, but I appreciate this from the wiki article: "As a potential solution, Graeber suggests universal basic income, a livable benefit paid to all, without qualification, which would let people work at their leisure." I think the 'without qualification' part is really important, so that there is no incentive NOT to work, and no stigma attached to receiving the money. Just give it to everybody and otherwise leave them alone.
crazygringo 4y ago
That's not really a thing, despite what David Graeber [1] would have you think. The reality is that business owners always want to make as much profit as possible, so they're never going to intentionally or knowingly pay labor for something that is useless, money that would otherwise go straight into their pocket. Sure there are some inefficiencies in the chain and a subset of managers trying to expand headcount unnecessarily because of office politics, but owners and board members are incentivized to eliminate that as much as possible because, you know, profit. The only plausible spots for "bullshit jobs" are in government and in endowment-funded academia, where for various political reasons, effective oversight of costs is missing in certain scenarios. Usually that's a temporary phenomenon, as eventually a "nosy" journalist (or whistleblower) reveals a bunch of money is being wasted, and political pressure builds to reform that and stop wasting taxpayers' or donors' money. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_job https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_job
- z3t4 4y ago
  The larger a company is the more out of touch the owners are, so they are not knowingly leaving money on the table. And larger headcount usually mean higher valuation, so they don't mind. And it might only take a few hours to do the thing the boss hired you for, so the time need to be filled out somehow. Good luck asking your boss if you could go down 50% in time, and keep 100% of the salary.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    > Good luck asking your boss if you could go down 50% in time, and keep 100% of the salary. That’s just the lizard brain mode of thinking. The person you paid $5k to redo your roof isn’t more deserving of the money because they spent two weeks on it instead of one. You’re both better off if they get it done faster. My company went down to 80% time for 100% salary and every metric we use for productivity didn’t change one bit. I have no doubt we could drop another day down to 60% and still have hit all our targets. And anyone who actually works knows why, because the time off isn’t cutting into working time, it’s cutting into bullshit time.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
fy20 4y ago
It's interesting to look at developing countries like India for that answer. In these countries there are so many people doing jobs that in Western countries simply don't exist, because labour costs are too high. I wouldn't really call them "bullshit" jobs as another comment did, it's just a different way of allocating resources. For example in the construction industry barely any heavy machinery is used - it's cheaper to have labourers do the work than it is to rent machines. In road reconstruction you will see men digging the road by hand, then women carrying the rubble away somewhere with small buckets.

hoschicz 4y ago

Now therapists are probably this job.

tonightstoast 4y ago
Bezos has an interview where he’s talking about the future of labor and mentions pet therapy is a career individuals can have. He was using it as a way to say we don’t really know what the future will hold.
- jareklupinski 4y ago
  > "Surely," a triceratops says, "there was some point between gunpowder and... something called Amazon Prime... that you folks had to think, 'Are we supposed to be running a planet? Wouldn't we rather make Marvel movies?'" https://www.looper.com/1047273/rick-and-morty-season-6-episode-6-recap/ https://www.looper.com/1047273/rick-and-morty-season-6-episo...