NoneOfUrBusiness

I wasn’t thinking of rural connectivity here (I’m not informed enough on that to have an opinion) but more on its uses by Ukraine, in disaster relief and for avoiding censorship in authoritarian states. For example it’s the only way anybody inside Iran not associated with the government can actually get internet.

Okay that’s fair.

Seconding the other person. Musk sucks but Starlink is objectively a good thing.

It sometimes is; if it’s rising then it’s not very accurate but if it’s declining then things are probably going to suck. Which is to say: If they (rich pricks) win you might win, but if they lose you definitely lose.

Counterpoint: 2008. Insofar as speaking of one “economy” even makes sense, the stock market is a massive part of it.

You legitimately have no idea what you’re talking about and I’m starting you doubt you’re even reading my replies in full. Unless you’re willing to give me a point by point counterargument like a normal person, this conversation is over.

So clearly you’ve not read the book, which I mean fair enough but then at least try to understand what the argument is before disagreeing with it based on dogma. Here’s how it defines a bullshit job:

Final Working Definition: a bullshit job is a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case.

The idea being that the person actually doing the work is in the best position to tell if their work actually means something.

this concept that some jobs are ‘real’ and others are ‘fake’ is just class-confirmation bias that has no basis in economic reality.

Good assertion, I hope you’re ready to defend it against…

Gerte: In 2010 I worked as a receptionist at a Dutch publishing company. The phone rang maybe once a day, so I was given a couple of other tasks:

• Keep candy dish full of mints. (Mints were supplied by someone else at the company; I just had to take a handful out of a drawer next to the candy dish and put them in the candy dish.)

• Once a week, I would go to a conference room and wind a grandfather clock. (I found this task stressful, actually, because they told me that if I forgot or waited too long, all of the weights would fall, and I would be left with the onerous task of grandfather clock repair.)

• The task that took the most time was managing another receptionist’s Avon sales.

The book is full of exciting testimonies like this. Which is to say, the assumption that bullshit jobs don’t exist is clearly false.

but the truth is people generally value the investment banker far more than the teacher and the 1000x pay is reflective of that, especially as the teacher doesn’t help them increase their own wealth.

Investment bankers actually wouldn’t fit the definition in thr book anyway, but also hell no? Plenty of people want there to be more teachers in the world, or at least would consider that to ve a good thing out of hand. I struggle to think anyone ever thought the world needs more investment bankers. Besides, education is the best investment an average person can make by a long shot.

this idea some there is some perfect world where you don’t have to pretend to care about nonsense to advance your career is delusional

Just world fallacy. Just because something is normal doesn’t make it not bullshit, but also clearly a farmer or factory worker’s career doesn’t inherently involve pretending to care about nonsense. You should really read the book, if only to disagree with it in a more educated manner.

If that’s a pro-AI argument it’s a good one.

Basically what you said, but as a book-length argument with evidence and other fancy stuff.

Okay you’re basically right that effective necessary (so discounting bullshit) white collar working hours are declining, but also you should really read the book I linked. It expands on what you said here on multiple levels, and I suspect you’ll find it somewhere between interesting and enlightening.

It is against human nature to stay where we are and just use improvements to reduce the amount of work we need to do.

To be clear though since the industrial revolution and until WWII improving technology has both improved quality of life and reduced working hours. The fact that working hours have stagnated at around 40/week is a historical exception that doesn’t get fully or even mostly explained by “we have more and better stuff;” if that was it we should be working 20 hour weeks by now. For more see David Graeber on the subject.

Theoretically wages should be getting bigger to at least keep up with inflation (due to improving technology and the like they should be beating it), but in practice capitalist greed means it doesn’t always work that way.

Aside from the part where they’re giving money to Anthropic this is a pretty good use of AI tbh.

It says “job and donations” so if we take that at face value it seems to be self-funded whaling.

I did do it and damn you’re right it does feel icky. I went for a creeper.

Gee, it’s not like 1% of the country owns 31% of its wealth and the next 9% own 36% giving them a wildly disproportionate advantage when it comes to bribing politicians.

My guess is Stephen Miller is giving him some of the blood he keeps sucking to extend his lifespan.

The five states would still need to enact the compact, and it’s not clear if it will be a priority for the new Democratic states.

Well Americans you know what to do.

I mean he’s probably that too, but my guess is that accountability would have unacceptable consequences for him and his donors.

My first litmus test for whether real change is even remotely forthcoming is whether this mother fucker and the other mother fucker are majority leaders come January.