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I have maybe a hail-mary counterpoint: The day-to-day job on an individual scale can definitely be pointless. In aggregate though, the point of the job ends up

I have maybe a hail-mary counterpoint: The day-to-day job on an individual scale can definitely be pointless. In aggregate though, the point of the job ends up being to keep people employed and pay taxes. That's it! No one will like that explanation without a perspective change, and for good reason. I'd wager most people do try to put some effort into having skills and holding down a job. It obviously sucks for that effort to go to waste. This study is, perhaps, a sign that we should view these jobs as a form of basic income in disguise. No one's going to like that ruse because it means your skills are being wasted, sure, but the alternative is ripping the band-aid off (and it's a big one) by eliminating those jobs and moving those people to socially useful ones. This action would cause chaos, which is likely why nothing has eliminated the bullshit jobs yet. The problem is, there likely isn't enough socially useful jobs as well paying as these pointless jobs. Even if there were, you'd need training infrastructure to transition people to new jobs. So why then should people change their perspectives? Well, the fault of having a pointless job is not really on the person, but the economy, which has grown very quickly and added jobs without regard to how socially useful they are on a long timeline. Nothing really keeps this job growth in check except market forces, which may not be rational. If you can mentally deal with the fact that your skills are going to waste and not being used for something socially important, and frankly stop caring as much at your job, you can use the time on the pointless job for more fulfilling things.

sam0x17 3y ago
I promise you I can name 100s of FANG upper managers whose day-to-day is pointless or a net negative. If not net negative to the company then certainly net negative to society. You aggregate those together, you just get a bigger net negative. That's how addition works. The collective net-negativity of hundreds of net negative upper managers doesn't magically trickle down into a net positive when viewed in aggregate. Also, if we're being fair, "pointless" is still net negative in the amount of the person's salary, at minimum, unless we're talking about unpaid volunteers.
- matrix_overload 3y ago
  They are net positive by not starting a competing startup, and slowly rotting away into obsolescence in a snake pit. Have you noticed that an increasing share of innovation now comes from Asia, while U.S. startups are increasingly about grift or skirting regulation?
  - sam0x17 3y ago
    "Competition" and "Innovation" rarely benefit consumers. You can't solve capitalism being shitty with more capitalism. Many startups are great (for consumers) during their bootstrap phase. Once they become large the enshitification process begins as we maximize our shitty profit-seeking objective function.
  - sam0x17 3y ago
    Tell me how one more profit-maximizing startup is going to improve my quality of life without taking my money
    - euroderf 3y ago
      Money is crystallized time. If a startup frees up your time, it's like giving you money. If the startup is subsidized by the government (or gullible VCs), it doesn't even need to take any of your actual money. So what can the government do that will give us all more free time ? Maybe quit encouraging a dinosaur-ridden 20th-century economy ? Time to shelve those buggy whips.
      - sam0x17 3y ago
        Name the last time a profitable startup product genuinely saved you time when you subtract out the time-value of what you also paid, the hassle of setting it up, the email drip campaigns that waste micro-moments of your day... I don't think there has ever been one in the consumer market, ever, that is actually a net positive. Across the board they take more than they give. And for any example, I could posit that an open source solution (whether it exists or not) would be a better product and more of a net positive. B2B sure, there are plenty of examples, but that's just capitalists making capitalism tools for other capitalists. These aren't tools that benefit society so it's a poor example. We use these products because we have no other choice, not because they are optimal for our situation. Even our need for them is often carefully and artificially crafted by corporations, whose ultimate goal is for us to have no choice but to give them money. They would prefer we derive little to no value from their products, because if they can force us to pay anyway, that is much cheaper to manage.
l33t233372 3y ago
> the point of the job ends up being to keep people employed and pay taxes I don’t think this thesis holds any water. Companies don’t care about keeping people employed and paying taxes on such a micro scale that they’re willing to bite the bullet and hire people because they know it’s for some greater good of societal stability.
- vsareto 3y ago
  They do keep people employed in useless jobs though. Sometimes hiring shuts down, sometimes they do purges of useless jobs, but it's the larger population that shows the trend.
  - l33t233372 3y ago
    I think the notion that these jobs are useless is wrong. Most of the categories in bullshit jobs are just straight up not bullshit. Most jobs are useful. Things like lawyers, secretaries, corporate compliance officers generally provide value. Things like middle management are more dubious, but I think they generally do provide value.

sam0x17 3y ago

I promise you I can name 100s of FANG upper managers whose day-to-day is pointless or a net negative. If not net negative to the company then certainly net negative to society. You aggregate those together, you just get a bigger net negative. That's how addition works. The collective net-negativity of hundreds of net negative upper managers doesn't magically trickle down into a net positive when viewed in aggregate. Also, if we're being fair, "pointless" is still net negative in the amount of the person's salary, at minimum, unless we're talking about unpaid volunteers.

matrix_overload 3y ago
They are net positive by not starting a competing startup, and slowly rotting away into obsolescence in a snake pit. Have you noticed that an increasing share of innovation now comes from Asia, while U.S. startups are increasingly about grift or skirting regulation?
- sam0x17 3y ago
  "Competition" and "Innovation" rarely benefit consumers. You can't solve capitalism being shitty with more capitalism. Many startups are great (for consumers) during their bootstrap phase. Once they become large the enshitification process begins as we maximize our shitty profit-seeking objective function.
- sam0x17 3y ago
  Tell me how one more profit-maximizing startup is going to improve my quality of life without taking my money
  - euroderf 3y ago
    Money is crystallized time. If a startup frees up your time, it's like giving you money. If the startup is subsidized by the government (or gullible VCs), it doesn't even need to take any of your actual money. So what can the government do that will give us all more free time ? Maybe quit encouraging a dinosaur-ridden 20th-century economy ? Time to shelve those buggy whips.
    - sam0x17 3y ago
      Name the last time a profitable startup product genuinely saved you time when you subtract out the time-value of what you also paid, the hassle of setting it up, the email drip campaigns that waste micro-moments of your day... I don't think there has ever been one in the consumer market, ever, that is actually a net positive. Across the board they take more than they give. And for any example, I could posit that an open source solution (whether it exists or not) would be a better product and more of a net positive. B2B sure, there are plenty of examples, but that's just capitalists making capitalism tools for other capitalists. These aren't tools that benefit society so it's a poor example. We use these products because we have no other choice, not because they are optimal for our situation. Even our need for them is often carefully and artificially crafted by corporations, whose ultimate goal is for us to have no choice but to give them money. They would prefer we derive little to no value from their products, because if they can force us to pay anyway, that is much cheaper to manage.

l33t233372 3y ago

> the point of the job ends up being to keep people employed and pay taxes I don’t think this thesis holds any water. Companies don’t care about keeping people employed and paying taxes on such a micro scale that they’re willing to bite the bullet and hire people because they know it’s for some greater good of societal stability.

vsareto 3y ago
They do keep people employed in useless jobs though. Sometimes hiring shuts down, sometimes they do purges of useless jobs, but it's the larger population that shows the trend.
- l33t233372 3y ago
  I think the notion that these jobs are useless is wrong. Most of the categories in bullshit jobs are just straight up not bullshit. Most jobs are useful. Things like lawyers, secretaries, corporate compliance officers generally provide value. Things like middle management are more dubious, but I think they generally do provide value.