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Why Bullshit Jobs Are (Finally) Dying [video]

30 points by mpweiher 21d ago

CGMthrowaway 20d ago
The TLDR is not that interesting, but here you go... 1) BS jobs, in the sense outlined by Graeber (the BS jobs essay guy), proliferated due to easy money/low interest rates 2) money is not so easy anymore 3) AI is taking our jobs 4) BS jobs may actually not be going away, just shifting, e.g. from "culture coordinator" to "AI ethics reviewer"
- jasonmp85 20d ago
  [dead]
- thechao 20d ago
  I have friends at companies that used to do BS jobs. Then, AI came in and took over the BS, and now they're doing real, meaningful work. One friend was told her team (3) would be eliminated once AI took over. Now that the AI automated the teams' job, they do proper finance work, and they've expanded the team to 5 people. Turns out the limiting rate was a bottleneck in the paperwork that the AI eliminated, meaning they can do proper forecasting analysis more effectively. Each additional person increases the set of product markets they can effectively forecast for. With effective forecasts they can time the market better, and they've already saved the company significant money — way more than their salaries, combined.
benzible 20d ago
Watched about a minute of it - starts with an anecdote about a guy with a no-show job, then moves to big tech layoffs and "these companies ran exactly the same" afterwards, implying that everyone who was laid off was 100% dead weight. Turned it off immediately.
stego-tech 20d ago
Counter-argument: bullshit jobs are beneficial to the wider economy. Society demands consumption, which is funded via wages. The higher consumption, the more the economy grows. Ergo, having more people employed with higher wages creates more economic activity, which in turn fuels more growth, which fuels more jobs, etc. While eliminating bullshit jobs sounds great on its own merits, eliminating the wages for said jobs can actually clog the local engine by lowering wages, raising unemployment, slowing hiring, and curtailing growth. If 15% of jobs are “bullshit” to be eliminated, that’s a 15% reduction in SaaS and seat-based revenues, which means those companies providing services have to cut their headcount, which startles others…you get the idea. I suggest that instead of cutting “bullshit jobs”, we instead reduce working hours across the board (and penalize overtime) such that more folks have an opportunity to engage in meaningful and valuable labor in exchange for higher wages. Rather than burning out a smaller portion of folks with longer hours, we share the load across multiple folks over a shorter time frame. The extra downtime creates more opportunity for economic activity, which in turn will grow the economy.
- flerchin 20d ago
  10 engineers do not create a baby in a month.
- ViktorRay 20d ago
  You could argue that a bullshit job is a form of rent seeking. The bullshit job worker is increasing his or her share of the wealth without actually creating any wealth through labor. Rent seeking overall is not a good thing for the economy.
  - stego-tech 20d ago
    I am not arguing in favor of the bullshit job itself, merely that we should retain the labor and dedicate it towards non-bullshit ends instead of the slash-and-burn approach favored by the loudest anti-bullshit-jobs proponents. Workers in every vertical report being overworked relative to compensation, so why not relieve the stress by shifting folks in bullshit jobs back into meaningful roles but at reduced work weeks for everyone involved? I mean, I obviously know the answers why we don’t (shareholder value, power dynamics, desiring the humiliation of others), but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.
- IslandRebel 20d ago
  This sort of argument was addressed long ago in economics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
  - ndriscoll 20d ago
    Or the joke about two economists on a walk paying each other $100 daring the other to eat dog shit, increasing the GDP by $200 and creating 2 jobs.
  - yowayb 19d ago
    This was cited in the Austrian school of economics. I've found the Austrian school of economics to be sensible. But...actual American economics is like the opposite.
themightyquinn 20d ago
At first I thought we’d talk about the mechanisms that go into not noticing employees literally not showing up to jobs for years and maybe a larger trend of what allows for that. Tech layoffs are less interesting and feels a bit premature to dub those jobs as useless and not acknowledge these businesses transitioning to very capx heavy businesses.
ViktorRay 20d ago
Unfortunately the video game industry is still filled with bullshit jobs with people who do nothing important. https://youtu.be/s5qKN2Yxaok https://youtu.be/s5qKN2Yxaok This was a good video from Laura Fryer talking about this. She compared how there were barely any “producers” on the Halo game from 25 years ago. And then you look at the recent remake of the same game and there are so many people working in it. Again this remake of the same game from 25 years ago. So much bloat. So many managerial and producer positions? Why? It’s the same game! Actually it’s not even the same game. It’s less than the same game! The original Halo 1 had single player and multiplayer. The remake only has single player. So you have tons of more managers to do less than the stuff just in some better graphics…
jasonmp85 20d ago
The point Graeber makes is that bullshit jobs are a thin excuse to continue to give people money where otherwise there may not actually be productive labor to be done. Nothing works if people don't have money, things get pretty fucked up if those at the top have it all, so we sort of slid into this situation of people having pointless jobs just to receive some distribution. This keeps things roughly the same and no one really questions what's going on a lot. This guy seems to hear "bullshit jobs" and simply think "people who I don't think are useful". Graeber's is a critique of the economic order, this guy seems to be beholden to it.
gwt4life 20d ago
I always wonder if anyone else considers BS jobs societies implict UBI? And that losing them is actually not a good thing. Its not like stock ownership is equitable or anything.
- js8 20d ago
  Graeber actually points out that centrally-planned economies had formally higher work hours than was the reality (people slacked off more), and that it was akin to workers collectively making a choice working less for the overall lower production. But the obvious problem is that it's still a societal taboo, so it's not UBI because it's not universal. It's probably lot more efficient to actually openly embrace shorter work hours, so that people can stop pretending and choose to do something more useful. Also, existence of BS jobs is often driven by high status individuals, so it is comparatively less free than UBI.
  - swed420 20d ago
    > It's probably lot more efficient to actually openly embrace shorter work hours This bill proposes that: https://www.newsweek.com/new-bill-32-hour-work-week-how-it-would-work-12431766 https://www.newsweek.com/new-bill-32-hour-work-week-how-it-w...
- yowayb 20d ago
  I think this is true. I also think a lot of co-workers actually like each other.
- AnthonyMouse 20d ago
  > I always wonder if anyone else considers BS jobs societies implict UBI? BS jobs are the anti-UBI. With a UBI you get to avoid starvation even if you refuse to take a job which is excessively dangerous or degrading or low-paying, which in turn exerts pressure on those jobs to improve conditions or pay. You get more runway to start a business instead of being forced to work for someone else because you need to make rent today rather than a year from now when your new venture is off the ground. It allows you to be actually productive by your own metrics rather than getting taken advantage of for lack of alternatives. Whereas BS jobs create the illusion of productivity. You get to avoid starvation by digging holes and filling them back in, but now you're wasting all day doing something useless instead of spending that time starting your business or going to school, so you end up stuck in the BS job forever. Which helps neither society nor you compared to you still getting the money and then letting you choose what to do with your time.
fithisux 20d ago
"Bullshit Jobs Are (Finally) Dying" Huh? Government is the definition of BS job. We accuse each other while they continue to get paid from us. Disappointing.
GlibMonkeyDeath 20d ago
I've always had a problem with Graeber's definition of exactly what a "bullshit" job is. Every time one is identified, the "well, akshually..." comes out, and often for defendable reasons. Take "social media coordinator" - we had some young person at our Fortune 500 company have this position, which led to some eye rolls. But is it really "bullshit" if she keeps an exec from posting something embarrassing, which could damage the stock price? I guarantee you that companies have reasonable justifications for every position. AI is more a tool that allows a productivity boost per employee, like all other automation tools (e.g. SolidWorks almost completely automated mechanical drawings, so drafting is not a thing any more - something I was told in high school, BTW, that would always be in demand...)
- Veserv 20d ago
  I do not see how you are disagreeing with his definition. What do you think his definition is? You seem to be using the definition: “A job that people think is worthless”. The actual definition he uses is: “A job where the person doing it thinks it is worthless”.
  - GlibMonkeyDeath 20d ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs >Graeber classifies a job as bullshit if society would be no worse off (or even >notice) if such job(s) disappeared, and names five classes of meaningless jobs: >flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters. That's how Graeber defines it - but as I said above, every time someone points to a specific job and says "that's bullshit" it usually turns out that there is a reason for it. Really, it should be "bullshit industries", rather than picking on individuals with jobs. Entire companies are doing harm (e.g. tobacco, soft drinks, most of the social media ecosystem, etc.) If AI starts closing truly harmful industries, then we can declare bullshit jobs are being reduced. I am not hopeful in the short term.
    - Veserv 20d ago
      This is why you should not use low-resolution summarys as exhaustive and authoritative. "Bullshit jobs are jobs which even the person doing the job can’t really justify the existence of, but they have to pretend that there’s some reason for it to exist. That’s the bullshit element."[1] He talks about it a lot and the book is 368 pages. Of course you will get some variations on the general theme with some embellishments to get it to hit home. But the key aspect, which he mentions repeatedly, is the part about "even the person doing it thinks it is worthless". [1] https://www.vox.com/2018/5/8/17308744/bullshit-jobs-book-david-graeber-occupy-wall-street-karl-marx https://www.vox.com/2018/5/8/17308744/bullshit-jobs-book-dav...
throwaway613746 20d ago
[dead]

30 points by mpweiher 21d ago

The TLDR is not that interesting, but here you go... 1) BS jobs, in the sense outlined by Graeber (the BS jobs essay guy), proliferated due to easy money/low interest rates 2) money is not so easy anymore 3) AI is taking our jobs 4) BS jobs may actually not be going away, just shifting, e.g. from "culture coordinator" to "AI ethics reviewer"

jasonmp85 20d ago
[dead]
thechao 20d ago
I have friends at companies that used to do BS jobs. Then, AI came in and took over the BS, and now they're doing real, meaningful work. One friend was told her team (3) would be eliminated once AI took over. Now that the AI automated the teams' job, they do proper finance work, and they've expanded the team to 5 people. Turns out the limiting rate was a bottleneck in the paperwork that the AI eliminated, meaning they can do proper forecasting analysis more effectively. Each additional person increases the set of product markets they can effectively forecast for. With effective forecasts they can time the market better, and they've already saved the company significant money — way more than their salaries, combined.

benzible 20d ago

Watched about a minute of it - starts with an anecdote about a guy with a no-show job, then moves to big tech layoffs and "these companies ran exactly the same" afterwards, implying that everyone who was laid off was 100% dead weight. Turned it off immediately.

stego-tech 20d ago

Counter-argument: bullshit jobs are beneficial to the wider economy. Society demands consumption, which is funded via wages. The higher consumption, the more the economy grows. Ergo, having more people employed with higher wages creates more economic activity, which in turn fuels more growth, which fuels more jobs, etc. While eliminating bullshit jobs sounds great on its own merits, eliminating the wages for said jobs can actually clog the local engine by lowering wages, raising unemployment, slowing hiring, and curtailing growth. If 15% of jobs are “bullshit” to be eliminated, that’s a 15% reduction in SaaS and seat-based revenues, which means those companies providing services have to cut their headcount, which startles others…you get the idea. I suggest that instead of cutting “bullshit jobs”, we instead reduce working hours across the board (and penalize overtime) such that more folks have an opportunity to engage in meaningful and valuable labor in exchange for higher wages. Rather than burning out a smaller portion of folks with longer hours, we share the load across multiple folks over a shorter time frame. The extra downtime creates more opportunity for economic activity, which in turn will grow the economy.

flerchin 20d ago
10 engineers do not create a baby in a month.
ViktorRay 20d ago
You could argue that a bullshit job is a form of rent seeking. The bullshit job worker is increasing his or her share of the wealth without actually creating any wealth through labor. Rent seeking overall is not a good thing for the economy.
- stego-tech 20d ago
  I am not arguing in favor of the bullshit job itself, merely that we should retain the labor and dedicate it towards non-bullshit ends instead of the slash-and-burn approach favored by the loudest anti-bullshit-jobs proponents. Workers in every vertical report being overworked relative to compensation, so why not relieve the stress by shifting folks in bullshit jobs back into meaningful roles but at reduced work weeks for everyone involved? I mean, I obviously know the answers why we don’t (shareholder value, power dynamics, desiring the humiliation of others), but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.
IslandRebel 20d ago
This sort of argument was addressed long ago in economics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
- ndriscoll 20d ago
  Or the joke about two economists on a walk paying each other $100 daring the other to eat dog shit, increasing the GDP by $200 and creating 2 jobs.
- yowayb 19d ago
  This was cited in the Austrian school of economics. I've found the Austrian school of economics to be sensible. But...actual American economics is like the opposite.

themightyquinn 20d ago

At first I thought we’d talk about the mechanisms that go into not noticing employees literally not showing up to jobs for years and maybe a larger trend of what allows for that. Tech layoffs are less interesting and feels a bit premature to dub those jobs as useless and not acknowledge these businesses transitioning to very capx heavy businesses.

ViktorRay 20d ago

Unfortunately the video game industry is still filled with bullshit jobs with people who do nothing important. https://youtu.be/s5qKN2Yxaok https://youtu.be/s5qKN2Yxaok This was a good video from Laura Fryer talking about this. She compared how there were barely any “producers” on the Halo game from 25 years ago. And then you look at the recent remake of the same game and there are so many people working in it. Again this remake of the same game from 25 years ago. So much bloat. So many managerial and producer positions? Why? It’s the same game! Actually it’s not even the same game. It’s less than the same game! The original Halo 1 had single player and multiplayer. The remake only has single player. So you have tons of more managers to do less than the stuff just in some better graphics…

jasonmp85 20d ago

The point Graeber makes is that bullshit jobs are a thin excuse to continue to give people money where otherwise there may not actually be productive labor to be done. Nothing works if people don't have money, things get pretty fucked up if those at the top have it all, so we sort of slid into this situation of people having pointless jobs just to receive some distribution. This keeps things roughly the same and no one really questions what's going on a lot. This guy seems to hear "bullshit jobs" and simply think "people who I don't think are useful". Graeber's is a critique of the economic order, this guy seems to be beholden to it.

gwt4life 20d ago

I always wonder if anyone else considers BS jobs societies implict UBI? And that losing them is actually not a good thing. Its not like stock ownership is equitable or anything.

js8 20d ago
Graeber actually points out that centrally-planned economies had formally higher work hours than was the reality (people slacked off more), and that it was akin to workers collectively making a choice working less for the overall lower production. But the obvious problem is that it's still a societal taboo, so it's not UBI because it's not universal. It's probably lot more efficient to actually openly embrace shorter work hours, so that people can stop pretending and choose to do something more useful. Also, existence of BS jobs is often driven by high status individuals, so it is comparatively less free than UBI.
- swed420 20d ago
  > It's probably lot more efficient to actually openly embrace shorter work hours This bill proposes that: https://www.newsweek.com/new-bill-32-hour-work-week-how-it-would-work-12431766 https://www.newsweek.com/new-bill-32-hour-work-week-how-it-w...
yowayb 20d ago
I think this is true. I also think a lot of co-workers actually like each other.
AnthonyMouse 20d ago
> I always wonder if anyone else considers BS jobs societies implict UBI? BS jobs are the anti-UBI. With a UBI you get to avoid starvation even if you refuse to take a job which is excessively dangerous or degrading or low-paying, which in turn exerts pressure on those jobs to improve conditions or pay. You get more runway to start a business instead of being forced to work for someone else because you need to make rent today rather than a year from now when your new venture is off the ground. It allows you to be actually productive by your own metrics rather than getting taken advantage of for lack of alternatives. Whereas BS jobs create the illusion of productivity. You get to avoid starvation by digging holes and filling them back in, but now you're wasting all day doing something useless instead of spending that time starting your business or going to school, so you end up stuck in the BS job forever. Which helps neither society nor you compared to you still getting the money and then letting you choose what to do with your time.

fithisux 20d ago

"Bullshit Jobs Are (Finally) Dying" Huh? Government is the definition of BS job. We accuse each other while they continue to get paid from us. Disappointing.

GlibMonkeyDeath 20d ago

I've always had a problem with Graeber's definition of exactly what a "bullshit" job is. Every time one is identified, the "well, akshually..." comes out, and often for defendable reasons. Take "social media coordinator" - we had some young person at our Fortune 500 company have this position, which led to some eye rolls. But is it really "bullshit" if she keeps an exec from posting something embarrassing, which could damage the stock price? I guarantee you that companies have reasonable justifications for every position. AI is more a tool that allows a productivity boost per employee, like all other automation tools (e.g. SolidWorks almost completely automated mechanical drawings, so drafting is not a thing any more - something I was told in high school, BTW, that would always be in demand...)

Veserv 20d ago
I do not see how you are disagreeing with his definition. What do you think his definition is? You seem to be using the definition: “A job that people think is worthless”. The actual definition he uses is: “A job where the person doing it thinks it is worthless”.
- GlibMonkeyDeath 20d ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs >Graeber classifies a job as bullshit if society would be no worse off (or even >notice) if such job(s) disappeared, and names five classes of meaningless jobs: >flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters. That's how Graeber defines it - but as I said above, every time someone points to a specific job and says "that's bullshit" it usually turns out that there is a reason for it. Really, it should be "bullshit industries", rather than picking on individuals with jobs. Entire companies are doing harm (e.g. tobacco, soft drinks, most of the social media ecosystem, etc.) If AI starts closing truly harmful industries, then we can declare bullshit jobs are being reduced. I am not hopeful in the short term.
  - Veserv 20d ago
    This is why you should not use low-resolution summarys as exhaustive and authoritative. "Bullshit jobs are jobs which even the person doing the job can’t really justify the existence of, but they have to pretend that there’s some reason for it to exist. That’s the bullshit element."[1] He talks about it a lot and the book is 368 pages. Of course you will get some variations on the general theme with some embellishments to get it to hit home. But the key aspect, which he mentions repeatedly, is the part about "even the person doing it thinks it is worthless". [1] https://www.vox.com/2018/5/8/17308744/bullshit-jobs-book-david-graeber-occupy-wall-street-karl-marx https://www.vox.com/2018/5/8/17308744/bullshit-jobs-book-dav...

throwaway613746 20d ago

[dead]