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What counts as “concretely”? And I don’t recall it calling sales bullshit. It identified advertising as part of the category that it classed as heavily-bullshi

What counts as “concretely”? And I don’t recall it calling sales bullshit. It identified advertising as part of the category that it classed as heavily-bullshit-jobs for reason of being zero-sum—your competitor spends more, so you spent more to avoid falling behind, standard red queen’s race. (Another in this category was the military, which is kinda the classic case of this—see also, the Missile Gap, the dreadnought arms race, et c.) But not sales, IIRC.

thesmtsolver2 8mo ago
How does that make advertising a bullshit job? The only way advertising won't exist or won't be needed is when humanity becomes a hive mind and removes all competition.
- bubblewand 8mo ago
  The parts that are only done to maintain status quo with a competitor aren’t productive, and that’s quite a bit of it. Two (or more) sides spend money, nothing changes. No good is produced. The whole exercise is basically an accident. Like when a competing country builds their tenth battleship, so you commission another one to match them. The world would have been better if neither had been build. Money changed hands (one supposes) but the aim of the whole exercise had no effect. It was similar to paying people to dig holes a fill them back in again, to the tune of serious money. This was so utterly stupid and wasteful that there was a whole treaty about it, to try to prevent so many bullshit jobs from being created again. Or when Pepsi increases their ad spending in Brazil, so Coca Cola counters, and much of the money ends up accomplishing little except keeping things just how they were. That component or quality of the ad industry, the book claims, is bullshit, on account of not doing any good. The book treats of several ways in which a job might be bullshit, and just kinda mentions this one as an aside: the zero-sum activity. It mostly covers other sorts, but this is the closest I can recall it coming to declaring sales “bullshit” (the book rarely, bordering on never, paints even most of an entire industry or field as bullshit, and advertising isn’t sales, but it’s as close as it got, as I recall)
  - groundzeros2015 8mo ago
    You’re describing redundant effort from competition as waste. Is it a waste of effort when both people try to get the same job and only one succeeds? Is it a waste of effort when two companies try to make the best electric car? If it is wasteful what does aw orld look like where nobody ever spends resources on a goal which overlaps with someone else?
    - bubblewand 8mo ago
      I think you’ve misunderstood what I’ve written here. Graeber’s book might make it clearer for you, he probably did a better job of explaining it than I do. It’s about spendy Red Queen’s races, not just trying to make something better or trying to compete in general. The application of the idea to military spending is pretty much standard and uncontroversial stuff (hell, it was 100-plus years ago) while his observation of a similar effect in some notable component of ad spending is novel (at least, I’d not seen that connection made before).
      - groundzeros2015 8mo ago
        I agree that advertising has some of the worst symptoms of an arms race. I think regulations can reduce the most annoying modes of ads (I live in an area with no billboards). I don’t think advertising is a bullshit job - it’s essential, and I don’t think there exists a society without it.
- wiseowise 8mo ago
  Best product should be picked according to requirements by LLM without bullshit advertising.
  - groundzeros2015 8mo ago
    See what I mean? What you see as a bullshit job is just completely misunderstanding how human beings work. - Which products get included in the candidate list? Every product in existence which claims use? - how many results can it return? And in what order? - which attributes or description of the product is provided to the llm? Who provides it? - how are the claims in those descriptions verified? - what if my business believes the claims or description of our product is false? - how will the llm change its relative valuations based on demand?
    - wiseowise 8mo ago
      I was replying to: > The only way advertising won't exist or won't be needed is when humanity becomes a hive mind and removes all competition. I don't need advertisement to pick the best product for myself. I have a list of requirements that I need fulfilled – why do I need advertisement for it?
      - groundzeros2015 8mo ago
        You just don’t know what advertising is. How did you determine which products were available? How did you determine their attributes?
- simiones 8mo ago
  Countries can just ban advertising, and hopefully we will slowly move towards this. There are already quite a few specific bans - tobacco advertising is banned, gambling and sex product advertising is only allowed in certain specific situations, billboards and other forms of advertising on public spaces are often banned in large European cities, and so on.
  - groundzeros2015 8mo ago
    > Countries can just ban advertising No. They can ban particular modes. They can’t stop people from using power and money to spread ideas. In the US hedge funds are banned from advertising and all they did is change their forms of presentation to things like presenting at conferences or on podcasts. If there was a socialist fantasy of a government review board for which all products were submitted before being listed in a government catalog. Then advertising would be lobbying and jockeying that review board to view your product in a particular way. Or merely to go through the process and ensure correct information was kept.
groundzeros2015 8mo ago
> And I don’t recall it calling sales bullshit. It says stuff like why can’t a customer just order from an online form? The employee who helps them doesn’t do anything except make them feel better. Must be a bullshit job. It talks specifically about my employees filling internal roles like this. > advertising I understand the arms race argument, but it’s really hard to see what an alternative looks like. People can spend money to make you more aware of something. You can limit some modes, but that kind of just exists. I don’t see how they aren’t performing an important function.
- tehjoker 8mo ago
  It's an important function in a capitalist economy. Socialist economies are like "adblock for your life". That said, some advertising can be useful to inform consumers that a good exists, but convincing them they need it by synthesizing desires or fighting off competitors? Useless and socially detrimental.
  - dns_snek 8mo ago
    > Socialist economies are like "adblock for your life". There's nothing inherent to socialism that would preclude advertising. It's an economic system where the means of production (capital) is owned by the workers or the state. In market socialism you still have worker cooperatives competing on the market.
  - Wilder7977 8mo ago
    Plus, a core part of what qualifies as a bullshit job is that the person doing it feels that it's a bullshit job. The book is a half-serious anthropological essay, not an economic treaty.
    - wolvesechoes 8mo ago
      Yeah, guy states that in multiple places, and yet here we are, with an impression that most people referencing the book apparently didn't read it.

thesmtsolver2 8mo ago

How does that make advertising a bullshit job? The only way advertising won't exist or won't be needed is when humanity becomes a hive mind and removes all competition.

bubblewand 8mo ago
The parts that are only done to maintain status quo with a competitor aren’t productive, and that’s quite a bit of it. Two (or more) sides spend money, nothing changes. No good is produced. The whole exercise is basically an accident. Like when a competing country builds their tenth battleship, so you commission another one to match them. The world would have been better if neither had been build. Money changed hands (one supposes) but the aim of the whole exercise had no effect. It was similar to paying people to dig holes a fill them back in again, to the tune of serious money. This was so utterly stupid and wasteful that there was a whole treaty about it, to try to prevent so many bullshit jobs from being created again. Or when Pepsi increases their ad spending in Brazil, so Coca Cola counters, and much of the money ends up accomplishing little except keeping things just how they were. That component or quality of the ad industry, the book claims, is bullshit, on account of not doing any good. The book treats of several ways in which a job might be bullshit, and just kinda mentions this one as an aside: the zero-sum activity. It mostly covers other sorts, but this is the closest I can recall it coming to declaring sales “bullshit” (the book rarely, bordering on never, paints even most of an entire industry or field as bullshit, and advertising isn’t sales, but it’s as close as it got, as I recall)
- groundzeros2015 8mo ago
  You’re describing redundant effort from competition as waste. Is it a waste of effort when both people try to get the same job and only one succeeds? Is it a waste of effort when two companies try to make the best electric car? If it is wasteful what does aw orld look like where nobody ever spends resources on a goal which overlaps with someone else?
  - bubblewand 8mo ago
    I think you’ve misunderstood what I’ve written here. Graeber’s book might make it clearer for you, he probably did a better job of explaining it than I do. It’s about spendy Red Queen’s races, not just trying to make something better or trying to compete in general. The application of the idea to military spending is pretty much standard and uncontroversial stuff (hell, it was 100-plus years ago) while his observation of a similar effect in some notable component of ad spending is novel (at least, I’d not seen that connection made before).
    - groundzeros2015 8mo ago
      I agree that advertising has some of the worst symptoms of an arms race. I think regulations can reduce the most annoying modes of ads (I live in an area with no billboards). I don’t think advertising is a bullshit job - it’s essential, and I don’t think there exists a society without it.
wiseowise 8mo ago
Best product should be picked according to requirements by LLM without bullshit advertising.
- groundzeros2015 8mo ago
  See what I mean? What you see as a bullshit job is just completely misunderstanding how human beings work. - Which products get included in the candidate list? Every product in existence which claims use? - how many results can it return? And in what order? - which attributes or description of the product is provided to the llm? Who provides it? - how are the claims in those descriptions verified? - what if my business believes the claims or description of our product is false? - how will the llm change its relative valuations based on demand?
  - wiseowise 8mo ago
    I was replying to: > The only way advertising won't exist or won't be needed is when humanity becomes a hive mind and removes all competition. I don't need advertisement to pick the best product for myself. I have a list of requirements that I need fulfilled – why do I need advertisement for it?
    - groundzeros2015 8mo ago
      You just don’t know what advertising is. How did you determine which products were available? How did you determine their attributes?
simiones 8mo ago
Countries can just ban advertising, and hopefully we will slowly move towards this. There are already quite a few specific bans - tobacco advertising is banned, gambling and sex product advertising is only allowed in certain specific situations, billboards and other forms of advertising on public spaces are often banned in large European cities, and so on.
- groundzeros2015 8mo ago
  > Countries can just ban advertising No. They can ban particular modes. They can’t stop people from using power and money to spread ideas. In the US hedge funds are banned from advertising and all they did is change their forms of presentation to things like presenting at conferences or on podcasts. If there was a socialist fantasy of a government review board for which all products were submitted before being listed in a government catalog. Then advertising would be lobbying and jockeying that review board to view your product in a particular way. Or merely to go through the process and ensure correct information was kept.

groundzeros2015 8mo ago

> And I don’t recall it calling sales bullshit. It says stuff like why can’t a customer just order from an online form? The employee who helps them doesn’t do anything except make them feel better. Must be a bullshit job. It talks specifically about my employees filling internal roles like this. > advertising I understand the arms race argument, but it’s really hard to see what an alternative looks like. People can spend money to make you more aware of something. You can limit some modes, but that kind of just exists. I don’t see how they aren’t performing an important function.

tehjoker 8mo ago
It's an important function in a capitalist economy. Socialist economies are like "adblock for your life". That said, some advertising can be useful to inform consumers that a good exists, but convincing them they need it by synthesizing desires or fighting off competitors? Useless and socially detrimental.
- dns_snek 8mo ago
  > Socialist economies are like "adblock for your life". There's nothing inherent to socialism that would preclude advertising. It's an economic system where the means of production (capital) is owned by the workers or the state. In market socialism you still have worker cooperatives competing on the market.
- Wilder7977 8mo ago
  Plus, a core part of what qualifies as a bullshit job is that the person doing it feels that it's a bullshit job. The book is a half-serious anthropological essay, not an economic treaty.
  - wolvesechoes 8mo ago
    Yeah, guy states that in multiple places, and yet here we are, with an impression that most people referencing the book apparently didn't read it.