[nyarlathotep_]

YES, this is exactly the case and why the Twitter layoffs and now the "DOGE" purge is a terrible thing (even in cases where it was totally legitimate to eliminate "waste").

"They had useless make-work jobs and sent 4 emails a week and watched TikToks the rest of the time"

So?

There's FAR too many people and nowhere near enough jobs for a large portion of people to do something that is both "real", and provides actual economic value.

Far more important that people have some form of dignity and can pay to feed their families and live a life with some material standard.

Anyone who's been in a corporate role knows there's loads of people that have a dubious utility and value--and people with "tech skills" are NOT exceptions to this rule, at all.

[_heimdall]

We should be striving to build a world where people don't have to feel forced into meaningless jobs, not a system that encourages it.

If meaningless jobs are important because its the only way people can make money to pay for all the shit we think we need to pay for, or because they haven't yet been offered the time and freedom to find their own sense of purpose, let's focus on fixing the root cause(s) there.

[blooalien]

> _heimdall: We should be striving to build a world where people don't have to feel forced into meaningless jobs, not a system that encourages it.

> If meaningless jobs are important because its the only way people can make money to pay for all the shit we think we need to pay for, or because they haven't yet been offered the time and freedom to find their own sense of purpose, let's focus on fixing the root cause(s) there.

^^^ 100% yes! That! ^^^

[blooalien]

And that is why the human race is truly doomed (and well deserving of it). Nobody wants to fix the root cause of any problem. Instead, let's just keep ignoring the disease and only treat the symptoms... That'll solve everything.

[mschuster91]

We don't just have "bullshit jobs" (which is an actual term these days), we have a "bullshit economy" as well - centered around advertising because without advertising most of the bullshit just wouldn't sell.

Like, if you already got a car, you can drive it for 10-20 years easily, or more if you take well care of it. But advertising makes you think you "need" a new car every few years... because that keeps the economy alive. You buy a car and sell the old one to someone else who can't afford a new car but also wants a new one, so their old car goes off to Africa or whatever to be repaired until truly unrepairable. But other than the buyer in Africa who actually needed a new car, neither you nor the guy who bought your old car would have needed a car. And cars are a massive industry that employs many millions of people worldwide - so if you'd ban advertising for cars, suddenly the bubble would pop and you'd probably have a fifth of the size remaining, and most of it from China because the people in Africa can't afford what a brand new Western made car costs.

Or Temu, Shein, Alibaba and godknowswhat other dropshipping scammers. Utter trash that gets sold there, but advertising pushes people to buy the trash, wear it two times and then toss it.

A giant fucking waste of resources because our worldwide economy is based on the dung theory of infinite growth. It has worked out for the last two, three centuries - but it is starting to show its cracks, with the planet itself being barely able to support human life any more as a result of all that resource consumption, or with the economy and the public sector being blown up by "bullshit jobs".

We need to drastically reform the entire way we want to live as a species, but unfortunately the changes would hurt too many rich and influential people, so the can gets kicked ever further down the road - until eventually, in a few decades, our kids are gonna be the ones inevitably screwed.

[s1mplicissimus]

I agree on almost all of your points, but what makes you think it's only/primarily the "public sector" that is being blown up by bullshit jobs? I've worked for a fair amount of private sector companies and the amount of "bosses nephew", "copy data from one form to another twice a day" and "waste everyone's time by creating pointless meetings" jobs was already more than enough to explain the status quo.

[nyarlathotep_]

No, "bullshit jobs" are everywhere--loads in the private sector as well.

Perhaps sleepy sinecures are more prevalent in the public sector (especially post FANNAG layoffs), but not unique to it.

In addition, there's plenty of jobs that are demanding, stressful, and technically difficult but are ultimately towards useless or futile ends, and this is known by parties with a sober perspective.

When i worked as a consultant, I was on MANY projects where everything was pants-on-fire important to deliver projects to clients for POCs and/or overpriced/overengineered junk that they were incapable of maintaining long-term (and in many cases, created more problems than it ostensibly solved)

All that work was pure bullshit; I was never once in denial of that fact. Fake deadlines, fake projects, fake urgency, real stress. Bullshit comes in many forms.

[mschuster91]

> I agree on almost all of your points, but what makes you think it's only/primarily the "public sector" that is being blown up by bullshit jobs?

"the economy" = private sector / everything not government; "public sector" = government / fully government owned companies.

And both are horribly blown up due to all the bullshit and onerous bureaucracy that's mostly there because apparently you can't trust people that you do entrust a dozens-of-millions-of-euros worth train carriage to correctly deal with the cash register of the onboard restaurant.

[nine_k]

Cars from 20 years ago emit significantly more polluting substances. OTOH they are lighter weight and thus wear the roads less. On the third hand, none of them is electric or hybrid.

Some computers from 20 years ago are still in a good shap, but...

(You can continue.)

[nkozyra]

I think this is a different argument than the disposable, single-use economy being described.

The volume of things we buy but don't need (or necessarily want) drives a huge sector of the global economy. We're working to fill our lives with unnecessary things that bring us no happiness beyond the adrenaline hit when we hit "Buy Now" and the second one when the Prime box arrives at our door.

Consumerism masks the underlying problem and it's only going to get worse as more is automated. Producers will have an incentive to convince us we still need more.

Cars are - to me - a red herring in this argument except for the people who do literally trade in for a new car every few years. I drive whatever fairly boring Honda for as long as I can (usually 8-10 years) and don't feel a ton of regret about investing in comfort. But I've been as guilty as anyone about just buying stuff because it pops up in an ad or recommended on Amazon, etc.

[DickingAround]

Just because a whole industry is bullshit doesn't mean I should force it to not exist. I don't like musicals. I don't understand or care anything about their culture. But it has a right to exist. Some people are into musicals. Their existence or non-existence isn't my problem and it isn't my business. We cannot and should not try to engineer the world around what we personally find valuable and ignore what others find valuable, even if they got their opinions form an ad, or their parents did and they inherited it.

[paulddraper]

There is way more to do than we have time to do it.

[_heimdall]

Why don't we have time to do it now?

[paulddraper]

There's a lot to do.

[gmadsen]

sounds like a Terry Gillian dystopia