4 ms·

i don't understand the obsession with jobs anyway people don't want a job, they want money and purpose most jobs barely deliver either

banqjls 2y ago
[flagged]
explodes 2y ago
Human society has been optimizing for the wrong thing since 20,000BC. To that end, the future I want doesn't focus so much on money, but on needs. Letting a market dictate "needs" is clearly not working for the betterment of humanity a whole. While it helps with progress, I believe there is an upper limit when human behavior is brought into the equation.
- jacknews 2y ago
  exactly, the market doesn't deliver human flourishing
  - snapcaster 2y ago
    Compared to what?
- bpt3 2y ago
  Market economies have gotten us to the point where true needs are made available to all in the developed world. That's because money lets people efficiently deploy resources where they feel it is needed. What makes you say it's "clearly not working", other than comparing developed nations to a non-existent utopia?
bpt3 2y ago
Can you propose something better that provides money and purpose? Keep in mind that most people are unwilling and unable to sustainably maintain self-employment.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  Something like a grant from the government to work on your project of interest with no expectation that it be commercially successful. You want to be an artist the government gives you a grant to support yourself while contributing to the cultural lexicon. Scarecity is manufactured today for profit and not real; nobody needs to work at a 7/11 but they are essentially trapped into those sorts of jobs because they are profitable for those business owners vs a good use of creativity or labor for our species. Now before you get all hung up how this isn’t possible. There is precedent. The government would do just this during the great depression, sponsoring artists knowing it is more valuable to have artists in the population than to lose that talent pool and benefits to culture over cold cruel economics.
  - bpt3 2y ago
    Why on Earth would taxpayers give their hard earned money to other people to work on their "projects of interest"? Scarcity is very real, I'm not sure why you would feel otherwise. Fortunately, we have largely eliminated scarcity of the necessities of life due to economic policies that are as far from your suggestions as possible, but that doesn't mean that they are produced at no cost or that scarcity in general does not exist. And you don't need to go back 100 years for precedent. We basically paid people to sit at home during covid, and I didn't see some sort of renaissance as a result. Why would this be any different?
    - kjkjadksj 2y ago
      Maybe it is more meaningful for people to be creative than it is to staff yet another sheetz on the side of the road because truckers tend to piss and need smokes at that intersection. But who knows maybe you are right and it is better we take on jobs at a local gas station if we have such a wonderful opportunity like that in front of us. So much innovation is produced as we know from people who have the opportunity to work 60 hour weeks on minimum wages between two jobs that won't schedule them full time and incur any potential added worker benefits from having a full time vs part time laborer. You are right.
palmotea 2y ago
> i don't understand the obsession with jobs anyway > people don't want a job, they want money and purpose And society will not give them any of that without a job. There, now you should understand "the obsession with jobs." > most jobs barely deliver either And no job delivers even less.
- weregiraffe 2y ago
  >And society will not give them any of that without a job. Unless you are an aristocrat. Them your "job" was to fleece the peasants, and somehow "society" accepted this for thousands of years.
  - themaninthedark 2y ago
    Managers, still accepted job but now anyone an join.
- jacknews 2y ago
  then we should change society that is my point
  - palmotea 2y ago
    > then we should change society > that is my point You're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Realistically, you're not going to change society to give people "money and purpose" without a job. Fixating on an unrealistic goal takes focus away from more realistic ones. I mean, for a least a century people have been proposing using productivity improvements to increase leisure time and distribute goods more equally. And in that time work demands have increased (e.g. going from one full-time worker in a typical household to two).
    - int_19h 2y ago
      Up until 1970s or so, productivity gains translated to increases in worker pay, so it certainly doesn't have to be like it is now.
Ray20 2y ago
I don't understand your comment. People don't need money, people need food to eat, houses to live in, and so on. And the thing about all this food and houses is that Jesus doesn't produce them, other people produce them. And since producing all this is not such an easy task, the people who produce the food and build the houses want something in return. That's what we call jobs. So when you say that jobs is not needed - you mean that there is no need to live in houses or that there is no need to give the people who build the houses anything in return?

banqjls 2y ago

[flagged]

explodes 2y ago

Human society has been optimizing for the wrong thing since 20,000BC. To that end, the future I want doesn't focus so much on money, but on needs. Letting a market dictate "needs" is clearly not working for the betterment of humanity a whole. While it helps with progress, I believe there is an upper limit when human behavior is brought into the equation.

jacknews 2y ago
exactly, the market doesn't deliver human flourishing
- snapcaster 2y ago
  Compared to what?
bpt3 2y ago
Market economies have gotten us to the point where true needs are made available to all in the developed world. That's because money lets people efficiently deploy resources where they feel it is needed. What makes you say it's "clearly not working", other than comparing developed nations to a non-existent utopia?

bpt3 2y ago

Can you propose something better that provides money and purpose? Keep in mind that most people are unwilling and unable to sustainably maintain self-employment.

kjkjadksj 2y ago
Something like a grant from the government to work on your project of interest with no expectation that it be commercially successful. You want to be an artist the government gives you a grant to support yourself while contributing to the cultural lexicon. Scarecity is manufactured today for profit and not real; nobody needs to work at a 7/11 but they are essentially trapped into those sorts of jobs because they are profitable for those business owners vs a good use of creativity or labor for our species. Now before you get all hung up how this isn’t possible. There is precedent. The government would do just this during the great depression, sponsoring artists knowing it is more valuable to have artists in the population than to lose that talent pool and benefits to culture over cold cruel economics.
- bpt3 2y ago
  Why on Earth would taxpayers give their hard earned money to other people to work on their "projects of interest"? Scarcity is very real, I'm not sure why you would feel otherwise. Fortunately, we have largely eliminated scarcity of the necessities of life due to economic policies that are as far from your suggestions as possible, but that doesn't mean that they are produced at no cost or that scarcity in general does not exist. And you don't need to go back 100 years for precedent. We basically paid people to sit at home during covid, and I didn't see some sort of renaissance as a result. Why would this be any different?
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    Maybe it is more meaningful for people to be creative than it is to staff yet another sheetz on the side of the road because truckers tend to piss and need smokes at that intersection. But who knows maybe you are right and it is better we take on jobs at a local gas station if we have such a wonderful opportunity like that in front of us. So much innovation is produced as we know from people who have the opportunity to work 60 hour weeks on minimum wages between two jobs that won't schedule them full time and incur any potential added worker benefits from having a full time vs part time laborer. You are right.

palmotea 2y ago

> i don't understand the obsession with jobs anyway > people don't want a job, they want money and purpose And society will not give them any of that without a job. There, now you should understand "the obsession with jobs." > most jobs barely deliver either And no job delivers even less.

weregiraffe 2y ago
>And society will not give them any of that without a job. Unless you are an aristocrat. Them your "job" was to fleece the peasants, and somehow "society" accepted this for thousands of years.
- themaninthedark 2y ago
  Managers, still accepted job but now anyone an join.
jacknews 2y ago
then we should change society that is my point
- palmotea 2y ago
  > then we should change society > that is my point You're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Realistically, you're not going to change society to give people "money and purpose" without a job. Fixating on an unrealistic goal takes focus away from more realistic ones. I mean, for a least a century people have been proposing using productivity improvements to increase leisure time and distribute goods more equally. And in that time work demands have increased (e.g. going from one full-time worker in a typical household to two).
  - int_19h 2y ago
    Up until 1970s or so, productivity gains translated to increases in worker pay, so it certainly doesn't have to be like it is now.

Ray20 2y ago

I don't understand your comment. People don't need money, people need food to eat, houses to live in, and so on. And the thing about all this food and houses is that Jesus doesn't produce them, other people produce them. And since producing all this is not such an easy task, the people who produce the food and build the houses want something in return. That's what we call jobs. So when you say that jobs is not needed - you mean that there is no need to live in houses or that there is no need to give the people who build the houses anything in return?