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An important distinction that this sort of "there will be jobs forever" rhetoric never seems to address is that of basic necessities vs. other stuff. Through a

An important distinction that this sort of "there will be jobs forever" rhetoric never seems to address is that of basic necessities vs. other stuff. Through automation, the basic necessities of all of Humanity can be produced/met by an increasingly smaller proportion of the human population. The new jobs are moving to the "other stuff" category. At some point, someone is bound to notice that "basic necessities" are now potentially dirt cheap, and that we can all be free from work we do not desire. We are now living through a weird transition phase were most jobs are bullshit, but they are necessary purely to distribute wealth. This is a horrible and absurd system which forces people to be prisoners for a good chunk of their lives for no good reason whatsoever. Also: I really can't stand "Here's why..." titles. They come across as arrogant and cliché at the same time. If you're going to be arrogant, make sure you're also brilliant.

kfk 13y ago
We are now living through a weird transition phase were most jobs are bullshit You are either extremely arrogant or you are trolling. I can't believe you can say things like this and nobody is pointing you how absurd and how bad this sounds. What now? The only real "job" is typing letters in a text editor? Didn't they cut a lot of those jobs already? I mean, things like frameworks must cut a lot of programming jobs, right? They were bullshit jobs before they were cut? Most of those "bullshit" jobs are in companies that create massive wealth. You are either saying that such companies are complete idiots, or I don't know what you are saying, nobody, nobody, hires for the sake of hiring.
- null_ptr 13y ago
  If not bullshit, how else would you describe driving long commutes each day and night, only to park your ass in a cubicle for 10 hours and shuffle PowerPoint reports for some dick that doesn't even know what he needs them for in the first place? A lot of white collar jobs are adult busy work. A lot of blue collar jobs are wasting away people's potential and creativity all the same, burning them out and making them bitter. The sooner people are free and confident to pursue their genuine interests the better off we'll all be.
  - kfk 13y ago
    What do you know about these jobs? Do you have any actual facts proving that those are BS jobs?
- TelmoMenezes 13y ago
  > nobody, nobody, hires for the sake of hiring. Of course they do. Two examples: - managers at all levels have an incentive to expand their fiefdoms (common interview question: how many people report to you?); - politicians have an incentive to lower unemployment and the power to create incentives for companies to hire people that they don't need.
  - kfk 13y ago
    You forget managers have budgets and budgets have to tie with a financial strategy. Company are judged on profitability and this pushes up efficiency and productivity. Have you actually ever worked in a big co? The only time I hear of hiring for the sake of hiring is when stupid laws create monopolies or in the public sector.
- VikingCoder 13y ago
  > create massive wealth On paper, they do. What really matters in life is being able to satisfy your needs. Everything else is luxury. If you have clean air, food, water, sex, sleep, sanitary waste removal, housing, electricity... You're just talking about companies accumulating small pieces of green cloth / paper with numbers written on them. Or just numbers in some bank computer somewhere. Or worse, piles of the element gold. None of things INHERENTLY satisfy your needs. But since satisfying your needs requires resources that used to be scarce, then currency used to be the best way to allocate those resources, and also direct labor. Yay, capitalism! When you have a division of labor, how do you decide how many chickens a farmer needs to give a doctor for performing an appendectomy? Well, that's an economy. But when there is no shortage of resources, and there's essentially no labor that needs to be directed, strictly in order to satisfy your basic needs... Then we're just negotiating for our own luxury, and getting people to create luxury goods and services for us. So, yes, to a degree, those jobs are just bullshit. And when your bullshit, luxury job allows you to acquire luxury amounts of food and water making those resources even more scarce, at the expense of people who actually NEED that food and water to live, yes, it is at least somewhat rational to begin questioning the entire system.
zanny 13y ago
> were most jobs are bullshit, but they are necessary purely to distribute wealth. Got a source on this? I know a lot of burgeoning fields (bureaucracy, law, advertising, rent seeking) are all either zero sum or negative drains on society for the most part, but most people are still doing something marginally useful, even if it isn't worth paying them minimum wage for it.
- mcv 13y ago
  If they're zero sum or a drain, how are they useful? The article mentions tax consultants, which is a really nice exampe of a totally useless job. We need a certain amount of tax revenue in order to pay for collective stuff. But nobody wants to pay more than they have to, so they hire a tax consultant. End result: society still has to pay the same amount of taxes (because they get adjusted so revenue still matches the need), plus the cost of these tax consultants. With an easier tax system and no consultants, we'd all be cheaper off.
  - zanny 13y ago
    They can act as a net negative, but localized positives, and if it is positive for someone with capital to spend on it and they benefit from it, then they could care less usually about the negatives. So that is why you have tax consultants and an absurdly complex tax system - niche benefits profit, and invest to keep it that way (ie, lobby, ie bribe).
    - mcv 13y ago
      Exactly. And that's the problem. It's a race to the bottom: people are rewarded for something that in the end benefits no one.
john_b 13y ago
On the other hand, what the "technology will eliminate all jobs" crowd never seems to understand is that mere survival is only part of the motivation for having a job. It may be the base of Maslow's hierarchy, but a lot of people who have "bullshit" jobs have already climbed above that base. People want to be able to talk about what they do with their life in a way that makes them seem important. "I collect my basic income and paint" may be satisfying, but it isn't impressive. People are vain animals who want to one-up other vain animals. "I'm a project manager at BigCorp" or "I'm an accountant at a multi-million dollar company" sounds much better, even if the actual work is insipid and unimportant. People often work jobs they don't like because of the secondary (non-monetary) benefits associated with them. Having a perfectly fair (for whatever definition of "fair") system of distributing wealth would not eliminate the effects of basic human vanity and irrationality on society and the economy. There will always be bullshit jobs because people use bullshit for the self-serving purpose of improving their apparent worth to others.
- nfoz 13y ago
  These anecdotes about human psychology/sociology are observations from systems where work was expected and understood to contribute to the private, if not public, good. It's not at all clear that they would remain very long in a post-scarcity economy. But let's say basic needs are met through automation, I'm sure cultures will keep some degree of competitiveness / judgement of others through voluntary works and human pursuits e.g. art. But we'll also all have food.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  No one's arguing that people should be forced to not work. Basic Income advocates think that if you're already stuck not having a job, you shouldn't also be stuck with as many of the other things that not having a job currently implies. And if you have something important to do that's not "a job" that brings you satisfaction, we don't need you taking a job away from someone who wants one.

kfk 13y ago

We are now living through a weird transition phase were most jobs are bullshit You are either extremely arrogant or you are trolling. I can't believe you can say things like this and nobody is pointing you how absurd and how bad this sounds. What now? The only real "job" is typing letters in a text editor? Didn't they cut a lot of those jobs already? I mean, things like frameworks must cut a lot of programming jobs, right? They were bullshit jobs before they were cut? Most of those "bullshit" jobs are in companies that create massive wealth. You are either saying that such companies are complete idiots, or I don't know what you are saying, nobody, nobody, hires for the sake of hiring.

null_ptr 13y ago
If not bullshit, how else would you describe driving long commutes each day and night, only to park your ass in a cubicle for 10 hours and shuffle PowerPoint reports for some dick that doesn't even know what he needs them for in the first place? A lot of white collar jobs are adult busy work. A lot of blue collar jobs are wasting away people's potential and creativity all the same, burning them out and making them bitter. The sooner people are free and confident to pursue their genuine interests the better off we'll all be.
- kfk 13y ago
  What do you know about these jobs? Do you have any actual facts proving that those are BS jobs?
TelmoMenezes 13y ago
> nobody, nobody, hires for the sake of hiring. Of course they do. Two examples: - managers at all levels have an incentive to expand their fiefdoms (common interview question: how many people report to you?); - politicians have an incentive to lower unemployment and the power to create incentives for companies to hire people that they don't need.
- kfk 13y ago
  You forget managers have budgets and budgets have to tie with a financial strategy. Company are judged on profitability and this pushes up efficiency and productivity. Have you actually ever worked in a big co? The only time I hear of hiring for the sake of hiring is when stupid laws create monopolies or in the public sector.
VikingCoder 13y ago
> create massive wealth On paper, they do. What really matters in life is being able to satisfy your needs. Everything else is luxury. If you have clean air, food, water, sex, sleep, sanitary waste removal, housing, electricity... You're just talking about companies accumulating small pieces of green cloth / paper with numbers written on them. Or just numbers in some bank computer somewhere. Or worse, piles of the element gold. None of things INHERENTLY satisfy your needs. But since satisfying your needs requires resources that used to be scarce, then currency used to be the best way to allocate those resources, and also direct labor. Yay, capitalism! When you have a division of labor, how do you decide how many chickens a farmer needs to give a doctor for performing an appendectomy? Well, that's an economy. But when there is no shortage of resources, and there's essentially no labor that needs to be directed, strictly in order to satisfy your basic needs... Then we're just negotiating for our own luxury, and getting people to create luxury goods and services for us. So, yes, to a degree, those jobs are just bullshit. And when your bullshit, luxury job allows you to acquire luxury amounts of food and water making those resources even more scarce, at the expense of people who actually NEED that food and water to live, yes, it is at least somewhat rational to begin questioning the entire system.

zanny 13y ago

> were most jobs are bullshit, but they are necessary purely to distribute wealth. Got a source on this? I know a lot of burgeoning fields (bureaucracy, law, advertising, rent seeking) are all either zero sum or negative drains on society for the most part, but most people are still doing something marginally useful, even if it isn't worth paying them minimum wage for it.

mcv 13y ago
If they're zero sum or a drain, how are they useful? The article mentions tax consultants, which is a really nice exampe of a totally useless job. We need a certain amount of tax revenue in order to pay for collective stuff. But nobody wants to pay more than they have to, so they hire a tax consultant. End result: society still has to pay the same amount of taxes (because they get adjusted so revenue still matches the need), plus the cost of these tax consultants. With an easier tax system and no consultants, we'd all be cheaper off.
- zanny 13y ago
  They can act as a net negative, but localized positives, and if it is positive for someone with capital to spend on it and they benefit from it, then they could care less usually about the negatives. So that is why you have tax consultants and an absurdly complex tax system - niche benefits profit, and invest to keep it that way (ie, lobby, ie bribe).
  - mcv 13y ago
    Exactly. And that's the problem. It's a race to the bottom: people are rewarded for something that in the end benefits no one.

john_b 13y ago

On the other hand, what the "technology will eliminate all jobs" crowd never seems to understand is that mere survival is only part of the motivation for having a job. It may be the base of Maslow's hierarchy, but a lot of people who have "bullshit" jobs have already climbed above that base. People want to be able to talk about what they do with their life in a way that makes them seem important. "I collect my basic income and paint" may be satisfying, but it isn't impressive. People are vain animals who want to one-up other vain animals. "I'm a project manager at BigCorp" or "I'm an accountant at a multi-million dollar company" sounds much better, even if the actual work is insipid and unimportant. People often work jobs they don't like because of the secondary (non-monetary) benefits associated with them. Having a perfectly fair (for whatever definition of "fair") system of distributing wealth would not eliminate the effects of basic human vanity and irrationality on society and the economy. There will always be bullshit jobs because people use bullshit for the self-serving purpose of improving their apparent worth to others.

nfoz 13y ago
These anecdotes about human psychology/sociology are observations from systems where work was expected and understood to contribute to the private, if not public, good. It's not at all clear that they would remain very long in a post-scarcity economy. But let's say basic needs are met through automation, I'm sure cultures will keep some degree of competitiveness / judgement of others through voluntary works and human pursuits e.g. art. But we'll also all have food.
dllthomas 13y ago
No one's arguing that people should be forced to not work. Basic Income advocates think that if you're already stuck not having a job, you shouldn't also be stuck with as many of the other things that not having a job currently implies. And if you have something important to do that's not "a job" that brings you satisfaction, we don't need you taking a job away from someone who wants one.