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Even if you don't agree with his conclusions, you still need to acknowledge that the raw data is there. That is that many people consider their job useless. Dr
by bhaak 3y ago
Even if you don't agree with his conclusions, you still need to acknowledge that the raw data is there.
That is that many people consider their job useless. Draw your own conclusions from that.
- unmole 3y agoWhat was the data that Graeber used? Fan mail from people who didn't like their jobs?
- Biologist123 3y agoPeople he met at parties. That said, it was a popular essay, not academic research. I’d also say, it is an important question to ask: do our economies deliver meaningful work? Does it matter? Is my job meaningful to me, and what does that mean?
- graemep 3y agoYes, Bullshit Jobs has a lot of interesting ideas and narratives. I found it worth reading for that.
- immibis 3y agoMy job is meaningful because I get paid for it. The actual work output produces no value to society - maybe negative value. The same is probably true for lots of people here.
- Keysh 3y agoThis is a serious study of actual "raw data" that directly contradicts Graeber: "Despite generating clear testable hypotheses, this [Graeber's] theory is not based on robust empirical research. We, therefore, use representative data from the EU to test five of its core hypotheses. Although we find that the perception of doing useless work is strongly associated with poor wellbeing, our findings contradict the main propositions of Graeber’s theory. The proportion of employees describing their jobs as useless is low and declining and bears little relationship to Graeber’s predictions." https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170211015067 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170211015...
- bhaak 3y agoAnd here is a serious study that supports Graeber. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170231175771 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170231175771 > Contrary to previous studies, it thus finds robust support for Graeber’s theory on bullshit jobs. At the same time, it also confirms existing evidence on the effects of various other factors, including alienation. Work perceived as socially useless is therefore a multifaceted issue that must be addressed from different angles.
- tsunamifury 3y agoI think there are many explanations: 1 many people don’t understand how their jobs fit into a larger system and claim it’s BS 2 People find jobs where they don’t directly benefit from the output as bullshit (I make Something I don’t use) 3 beaucratic jobs that prevent rather than create can feel like bullshit even though systematically are needed. 4 risk forward jobs can be seems as bullshit as they are part of a spread bet a company makes to survive while any individual can feel like they failed and aren’t contributing. I can go on.