
Why we make up jobs out of thin air (2012) - tenkabuto
https://lemire.me/blog/2012/07/18/why-we-make-up-jobs-out-of-thin-air/
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slededit
> So, who has a “make belief” job and who has a real job? Here is a hardship
> test: if you stopped doing your work, and nobody replaced you, how much
> suffering would that cause?

By this definition any form of research or speculative R&D is a "make belief"
job. Despite the dramatic advances made by people in those occupations on any
given day if they went home no additional suffering would result.

The premise of this piece suffers from immediacy bias and is in my opinion
ridiculous.

~~~
EliRivers
I disagree. If people researching how to industrialise antibiotic production
had all gone home, there would have been an enormous amount of extra
suffering.

If the people who came up with "Monday" as the new name for
PricewaterhouseCoopers had all gone home, no extra suffering.

~~~
slededit
Only with hindsight can you say that. Up until the day the discovery was made
they’ve contributed nothing of use to the suffering. Some go their whole
careers chasing dead ends and never discover anything.

Besides the article explicitly includes academia as a made up job.

~~~
EliRivers
I disagree.

Firstly, I disagree with the specifics of your counter; I disagree that
industrialising antibiotic production is some kind of academic exercise.
That's just a specific, though; I'm inferring that's what you're saying, from
your comment on academia. Maybe that's not what you're saying?

My larger disagreement; I think the article isn't about the individuals. It's
about the work. The article asks "if you stopped doing your work, and nobody
replaced you, how much suffering would that cause?" If nobody industrialised
antibiotic production, the additional suffering is huge. It's not about
deciding that one person went down a research dead-end and therefore that job
is a made-up job. I don't need hindsight to identify that industrialising
antibiotic production is a less made-up job than renaming PwC "Monday".

~~~
slededit
Your rebuttal is a much stronger argument than what was in the linked article.
Unfortunately I could only reply to what was written there.

Of course I’ve seen poor branding bring down companies so I don’t consider it
a made up job. Certainly if the company goes under due to lack of customers
all the employees will suffer.

~~~
EliRivers
Will their suffering be balanced out by the reduction in suffering their
competitors experience? Should we value jobs that simply move suffering
around?

~~~
slededit
And if the remaining competitor becomes a monopoly and price gauges the entire
market? Would not suffering increase in absolute terms?

In a highly interconnected world it’s not sufficient to show a job doesn’t
produce direct value to prove it is pointless.

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tenkabuto
I suspect that desire for prestige is less of a factor in why jobs are created
and kept than the article suggests, but I'm quite willing to accept that it
may be a significant factor — a notion that I hadn't considered before
(naievely, perhaps). Love the quip about governments being inefficient
financially but efficient in terms of providing prestige.

