[Shacklz]

> There's no preordained pool of work that you can run out of.

But this is a point the article somewhat addresses - the graph for marketing-budgets shows that pretty nicely in my opinion.

At some points, its just easier to make more money/profits by trying to increase demand for your product than by improving it (or reducing costs of its production). And I think that's what we're seeing more and more on an ever increasing scale right now: "Actually productive" jobs (e.g. manufacturing) are already outsourced, and the gains from the cost-savings are spent on e.g. marketing.

This might make sense economically (in terms of profits, emplyoment), but arguably less from a "benefit-for-society" point of view.

I think David Graeber adresses this quite nicely (but rather aggressively) with his 'Bullshit Job'-theory.

[themacguffinman]

As you said yourself, UBI's increased demand doesn't really help from a "benefit-for-society" point of view, which is the only point of view that matters. We don't encourage people to maximize profits because money is good, we do it because you usually need to create actual value/benefit in order to do so. When something makes sense economically but doesn't benefit society, that's an economic failure.

I have heard about the Bullshit Jobs theory and I find it unconvincing (I admit I haven't read the whole book). The meaningfulness and value of a job is not determined by the laborer - as suggested by the "do you think your job makes a meaningful contribution to the world" surveys he cites - but by the employer.

The value of something has always been determined by other people who want it. It doesn't matter what David Graeber and his unhappy laborers think or say, something isn't bullshit just because they say it is. Many of the examples he mentions (doormen, content curators, PR) are valuable things that people want enough to pay for, yet his opaque judgment deems them "bullshit" simply because he or someone else thinks they're worthless.

History shows us economies that failed because some people thought they could plan them with isolated judgments of what society should value. UBI as a solution for Bullshit Jobs follows in the same tradition by personally judging whole swaths of jobs to have no value, then proposing a plan to get rid of them.

[waheoo]

Doormen is precisely the definition of bullshit.

Thats why the definition is what it is. He knows it's a subjective phrase that means many different things to many different people. He also admits there will be some people who find value in the same job someone else does not.

I think it's a bit strange to hinge your opinion on this definition though, its really only defined that way so it doesn't piss people off, the book isn't about how you define bullshit jobs, the book is about what we should do now we know they exist.

Which you're sort of ignoring.

What do you think we should do since we do know bullshit jobs exist.

[themacguffinman]

But bullshit jobs don't exist, which is my point that you're ignoring. Jobs that people in society value could never be bullshit. Quite arrogant of you to assume that the work that some do is bullshit and challenge me to do something about it. I don't really care what anyone calls "bullshit", the concept is nonsense because the value of work is determined by the people who want it. I don't plan to get rid of such work.