9 ms·

Maybe we already have Universal Basic Income, you just need to have a pointless job to collect it.

by Toenex 1y ago

ornornor 1y ago
I never thought about it this way, but it does make sense.
nyarlathotep_ 1y ago
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.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    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_ 1y ago
      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 1y ago
      > 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 1y ago
    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.)
- _heimdall 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    > _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 1y ago
      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.
- paulddraper 1y ago
  There is way more to do than we have time to do it.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    Why don't we have time to do it now?
    - paulddraper 1y ago
      There's a lot to do.
- gmadsen 1y ago
  sounds like a Terry Gillian dystopia
nlawalker 1y ago
This is amazing, this would light up r/showerthoughts.
prawn 1y ago
One suggested weakness of UBI is a lack of purpose. I wonder if the "solution" is somewhat as you implied: jobs without a strict return on investment. You get your stipend, but you're keeping your block clean by sweeping and mulching. They're getting theirs in exchange for cranking out sourdough at cost for the neighbourhood. Someone else gardens for elderly residents.
- small_scombrus 1y ago
  That sounds utopian
  - cruffle_duffle 1y ago
    Oh but don’t worry I’m sure all the people who imagine these schemes assume they’ll be the ones who aren’t obsolete and forced to work menial jobs. Very similar to how ultra hard core libertarians assume they’ll be the ones at the top of the food chain calling the shots and not be just another peasant. But it doesn’t really matter because there is no way in hell any of these LLM’s will uproot all of society. I use LLMs all the time, they are amazing, but they aren’t gonna replace many jobs at all. They just aren’t capable of that.
    - econ 1y ago
      If we come to our senses it should be obvious that everyone needs to be physically active at least a few days per week, we need to condition brain plasticity, have to keep learning new things. The available work offers the entire spectrum but we have to divide and plan it.
- rank0 1y ago
  How do we determine who gets what job?
  - prawn 1y ago
    Let people choose if they want to do something, but have a concerted effort to encourage/suggest things that might give them purpose and build a community. Leave them to decide their hours and effort. Maybe someone wants to clean the gutters for their entire block at 6am and then go tinker in the shed for half the day. I'm sure that sounds really lazy, but this concept is working up from a default UBI that is pay-for-no-job. I can imagine loads of tasks or jobs that would be quite pleasant if it weren't for stressing over efficiency or business admin.
dataflow 1y ago
No we don't. We have too many people who -- even despite having respectable jobs -- can't afford the basic necessities for the month, let alone save for their future and family. The problem they're facing is the lack of the guaranteed basic income, not the lack of a job to collect it.
- rank0 1y ago
  This is not a fully solvable problem. Especially if the goal is to provide the above for any location. You can do more harm than good by implementing policies like “guaranteed free money”.
  - wegfawefgawefg 1y ago
    I can not believe this was voted down. It is simply an assertion of fact. Whether true or not, seems reasonable and most people would agree with it.
    - dataflow 1y ago
      > I can not believe this was voted down. It is simply an assertion of fact. Whether true or not, seems reasonable and most people would agree with it. If it was voted down, I'm guessing it was because to the extent that it's a fact, it's trivially true, and there's nothing insightful about the defeatist take. It's possible to do more harm than good doing pretty much anything. And the world is littered with problems that are not "fully solvable" but that we've mitigated greatly.
      - wegfawefgawefg 1y ago
        consider the following hypothetical situation: lets say your car tires pop. Person A: "I will paint your car tires red. That will fix them." Person B: "painting my flat car tires red wont fix them." Person C: "well youre just being defeatest. we have to do something". Person B: "..."
  - blackqueeriroh 1y ago
pizza 1y ago
Yup: free solar photons, and living.
collyw 1y ago
USAID seems to demonstrate that to an extent, though it was far from universal
dartos 1y ago
You should look up the definition of “universal”

Maybe we already have Universal Basic Income, you just need to have a pointless job to collect it.

by Toenex 1y ago

Maybe we already have Universal Basic Income, you just need to have a pointless job to collect it.

ornornor 1y ago

I never thought about it this way, but it does make sense.

nyarlathotep_ 1y ago

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.

mschuster91 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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_ 1y ago
    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 1y ago
    > 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 1y ago
  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.)
_heimdall 1y ago
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 1y ago
  > _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 1y ago
    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.
paulddraper 1y ago
There is way more to do than we have time to do it.
- _heimdall 1y ago
  Why don't we have time to do it now?
  - paulddraper 1y ago
    There's a lot to do.
gmadsen 1y ago
sounds like a Terry Gillian dystopia

nlawalker 1y ago

This is amazing, this would light up r/showerthoughts.

prawn 1y ago

One suggested weakness of UBI is a lack of purpose. I wonder if the "solution" is somewhat as you implied: jobs without a strict return on investment. You get your stipend, but you're keeping your block clean by sweeping and mulching. They're getting theirs in exchange for cranking out sourdough at cost for the neighbourhood. Someone else gardens for elderly residents.

small_scombrus 1y ago
That sounds utopian
- cruffle_duffle 1y ago
  Oh but don’t worry I’m sure all the people who imagine these schemes assume they’ll be the ones who aren’t obsolete and forced to work menial jobs. Very similar to how ultra hard core libertarians assume they’ll be the ones at the top of the food chain calling the shots and not be just another peasant. But it doesn’t really matter because there is no way in hell any of these LLM’s will uproot all of society. I use LLMs all the time, they are amazing, but they aren’t gonna replace many jobs at all. They just aren’t capable of that.
  - econ 1y ago
    If we come to our senses it should be obvious that everyone needs to be physically active at least a few days per week, we need to condition brain plasticity, have to keep learning new things. The available work offers the entire spectrum but we have to divide and plan it.
rank0 1y ago
How do we determine who gets what job?
- prawn 1y ago
  Let people choose if they want to do something, but have a concerted effort to encourage/suggest things that might give them purpose and build a community. Leave them to decide their hours and effort. Maybe someone wants to clean the gutters for their entire block at 6am and then go tinker in the shed for half the day. I'm sure that sounds really lazy, but this concept is working up from a default UBI that is pay-for-no-job. I can imagine loads of tasks or jobs that would be quite pleasant if it weren't for stressing over efficiency or business admin.

dataflow 1y ago

No we don't. We have too many people who -- even despite having respectable jobs -- can't afford the basic necessities for the month, let alone save for their future and family. The problem they're facing is the lack of the guaranteed basic income, not the lack of a job to collect it.

rank0 1y ago
This is not a fully solvable problem. Especially if the goal is to provide the above for any location. You can do more harm than good by implementing policies like “guaranteed free money”.
- wegfawefgawefg 1y ago
  I can not believe this was voted down. It is simply an assertion of fact. Whether true or not, seems reasonable and most people would agree with it.
  - dataflow 1y ago
    > I can not believe this was voted down. It is simply an assertion of fact. Whether true or not, seems reasonable and most people would agree with it. If it was voted down, I'm guessing it was because to the extent that it's a fact, it's trivially true, and there's nothing insightful about the defeatist take. It's possible to do more harm than good doing pretty much anything. And the world is littered with problems that are not "fully solvable" but that we've mitigated greatly.
    - wegfawefgawefg 1y ago
      consider the following hypothetical situation: lets say your car tires pop. Person A: "I will paint your car tires red. That will fix them." Person B: "painting my flat car tires red wont fix them." Person C: "well youre just being defeatest. we have to do something". Person B: "..."
- blackqueeriroh 1y ago

pizza 1y ago

Yup: free solar photons, and living.

collyw 1y ago

USAID seems to demonstrate that to an extent, though it was far from universal

dartos 1y ago

You should look up the definition of “universal”