[Maven911]

RIP Gerber, I will miss his work greatly. This study feels flawed by asking people directly if their job was useless but I think it's human nature to justify ones job, let alone one's existence. Very few people will self challenge themselves, especially if their livelihood depends on it.

[eesmith]

Then wasn't Graeber analysis also flawed as it's based on asking people directly if their job has a 'meaningful contribution to the world', which is a high bar given that a job may 'quite conceivably be felt to be useful to one’s nation, community, neighbourhood, customers or family.'? (Quotes from the paper at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/09500170211015... .)

> Very few people will self challenge themselves, especially if their livelihood depends on it.

Yes. Though the paper points out it can go the other way: "However, these results are sufficient to cast serious doubts on Graeber’s claim that we can take employees’ descriptions of their jobs being useless at face value. Taking inspiration from Marx’s writings on alienation, we suggest, rather, that the meaning of work is socially constructed in the workplace, and poor management and toxic workplace environments can blind employees doing valuable jobs from their true contribution."