Bullshit Jobs
Since 1930, many expected the number of work hours to reduce as technological advances continued and more and more things could be done by machines. Obviously, that hasn’t happened. In fact, the hours per week have increased for most people. Why is that? Sebastian Thrun’s response seems to explain why : “When there are fewer jobs…one way to stay employed is to work even harder. So we see people working more, not less.” But then I realized that this would imply that there are always new jobs getting created that need to be done. But on closer inspection, don’t you agree that most of the jobs today don’t have anything to do with the production and distribution of anything of any value to anyone? After all, what fraction of the world’s population is farming or delivering pizzas or, I don’t know, producing iPhones? And aren’t those some of the things people actually want/need? The jobs most people do are the one that David Graeber calls “bullshit jobs” . Bullshit jobs include...