[HN Gopher] 'Bullshit' After All? Why People Consider Their Jobs...
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       'Bullshit' After All? Why People Consider Their Jobs Socially
       Useless
        
       Author : bookofjoe
       Score  : 23 points
       Date   : 2023-08-02 13:11 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (journals.sagepub.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (journals.sagepub.com)
        
       | LatteLazy wrote:
       | The simple truth is that we need a mixed economy: a free market
       | to give people what they WANT, which is then taxed to provide the
       | things people NEED.
       | 
       | Instead people pretend we should either ALL or NEVER do "social"
       | work.
       | 
       | Social democracy is the right answer, but everyone is either a
       | communist or a libertarian because those are so much simpler and
       | people prefer simple, wrong, answers, to complex correct ones.
        
         | shove wrote:
         | Isn't it just a touch hypocritical to say that xxx is "the
         | right answer" but "people prefer simple, wrong, answers, to
         | complex correct ones"?
         | 
         | "The right answer" almost always turns out to be "it depends"
         | (just like any good engineer would say) which is btw why I,
         | like Graeber, would self-identify more anarchist than social
         | democrat or communist.
        
           | kaashif wrote:
           | How does the answer being "it depends" imply you should be an
           | anarchist?
        
       | anonzzzies wrote:
       | Because they are? Outside paying taxes (if you do), your job is
       | probably useless for socially. Or actually shit for the world in
       | the bad cases.
        
         | P_I_Staker wrote:
         | I would guess most are likely a net negative, but it can depend
         | on your perspective. Anyway, I would say in most cases you
         | probably make the world a little worse.
         | 
         | At the very least you're helping funnel money from the average
         | joe and divert it to the uber wealthy, and a handful of lottery
         | ticket winners. Often, you're actively searching for ways to
         | hurt the vast majority of the population.
        
           | adhesive_wombat wrote:
           | Maybe the best thing to do is work for an optimally useless
           | VC-cash-furnace startup and spread as much of their money as
           | far as you can before they cotton on.
        
         | throwaway5959 wrote:
         | Curious what jobs you think are worthwhile and what you do?
        
           | smcleod wrote:
           | Not OP but I'd assume medical professionals, teachers,
           | engineers, artists, food producers, workers in a
           | (sustainable) power plant etc....
        
         | smcleod wrote:
         | Yep. Most or at least many jobs exist purely to make the
         | shareholders of companies more money by essentially exploiting
         | people. Sure some of that is selling people what they want -
         | but for the large part it's exploitation and of little benefit
         | to us socially.
        
       | dingusdew wrote:
       | [dead]
        
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       (page generated 2023-08-02 23:02 UTC)