Zach WeinersmithExtremely niche gripe:
I regularly see people citing David Graeber as showing that 40% of jobs were "bullshit jobs." But, like, that was based on a survey where around 40% of people said they didn't think their jobs contributed to the world.
Which is perhaps not great, but also doesn't mean they're bullshit in the sense of pointless busywork. Like, in a world where everyone was a subsistence farmer, everyone would feel like they contributed, but we'd all be a lot poorer and hungrier.
I believe I've read most of all Graeber's books, and I find him really frustrating because he has really fun ideas, but then his books just sort of meander around the topic rather than prove anything. And then later the books get used as if they did build a case.
Like a lot of the case in "Bullshit Jobs" is Graeber talking to people who don't like their jobs and extrapolating to how society works. And as I recall he never reckons with the obvious objection that if many companies are pointlessly paying wages, why don't leaner companies outcompete?
Ian.BurnetteI share your frustrations with Graeber, but I don't think the "why isn't competition working?" Argument is what needs to be responded to (oligopolie would explain that)
For me it's more like "what if the modern economy is just too complex for most people to understand the fruits of their labor?"
@zachweinersmith.bsky.social decisions being made at scale can feel very "bullshit" because moving some metric by 0.4% can feel very arbitrary and abstract. But across hundreds of millions of people those decisions might help a few hundred. If you brighten the day of a few hundred people that you met in person, that would be a fantastically rewarding job, but if you never meet those people it's easy to wonder if you've accomplished anything real
Bam Buzel@ianburnette @zachweinersmith.bsky.social i agree. do you think that explains all of the 40% or just some and some is actually bullshit?
@bambuzel @zachweinersmith.bsky.social
I'm sure some are bullshit, because a certain percentage of the economy has always had some unnecessary bullshit.
But I'm also much more fascinated in exploring *why* someone would feel that their job is bullshit, because I think there are a lot of explanations beyond the simple one (that it actually is bullshit). I felt like Greaber for the most part took the participants at their word and moved on.
@ianburnette @zachweinersmith.bsky.social
Hmm yes. I feel like there is some subjectivity there as well? Like if I'm working in R&D on some aspect of the sound system of a car, would feel like bullshit to me, but a liberal view would be that it satisfies some needs and therefore it's good i think. Or i remember someone telling me that they are working on replacing sugar with some other chemical in food bc it sells better, but it's not healthier actually. Bullshit?
@ianburnette @zachweinersmith.bsky.social
If I'm taking the more aggressive approach to the definition it seems to me that we find quite a lot of bullshit actually
Interesting! That one is on my to read list. Can you think of an argument on that point? Oligopoly, like another commenter suggested? To me that could explain part of it but many markets are certainly not oligopoles