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Comment by pmiller2 | Hacker News Reader

> At the very least, I think you should be uncomfortable with the fact that you live in a system that compels you to have a job, particularly if that job is neither necessary for your own well-being nor the well-being of others.

Believe me, I have. And, my conclusion has been that, so far, every software engineering job I've ever had has been a bullshit job as defined by Graeber. And, if your job is to get people to click on ads, or other socially detrimental (forget unnecessary) things, you, too, have a bullshit job.

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> And, if your job is to get people to click on ads, or other socially detrimental (forget unnecessary) things, you, too, have a bullshit job.

What?

In the last 10-15 years so many people have been able to start their own businesses, passion projects and venture into new areas just because of Facebook and Google ads. I have jeweler friends, cloth makers, leatherworkers, people making cakes at home — all of which get their clients on Instagram and other social networks. Also: therapists, astrologists (yes, I'm not a fan, but it's still an occupation), gaming dice makers, photographers, caterers, limo drivers, DJs, hair stylists... And those are just people I personally know that I could remember from the top of my head!

The engineers that "make people click on ads" did it. They enabled more small-scale commerce to compete with the giants, gave a lot of people an opportunity to earn a living doing what they love. Without this "bullshit jobs" all these industries would still have been dominated by centralised gatekeeping institutions that have a budget to advertise in print media, radio, TV and billboards. Now, you can get your first customers with a $10 budget.

If there is such a thing as "making a world a better place", this is it.

There are many jobs that feel like "bullshits jobs" because you don't get to have personal interaction with the person whose life you're improving: you work in a giant system, and the cause-and-effect link between your work and their life is not close. But it doesn't mean that it's not there.

Do you really think that cloth makers, leatherworkers, bakers, therapists, astrologists, dice makers, photographers, limo drivers, DJs, hair stylists, etc. can't exist without Facebook ads? Obviously they can. In fact, most of these occupations you mention function on word of mouth, anyway.

Sorry. Getting people to click on ads is still bullshit. The harm Facebook has done to society, especially over the past 5 years, completely outweighs the fact that someone you know used it to boost their astrology business.

> Do you really think that cloth makers, leatherworkers, bakers, therapists, astrologists, dice makers, photographers, limo drivers, DJs, hair stylists, etc. can't exist without Facebook ads?

That's a scarecrow: I've never made such claim, it's just something that is easy for you to disprove.

These professions obviously existed before. But now the barrier to reach their audience had become significantly lower, and is not tied to a centralised institutions or companies.

Then, why do you ascribe value to Facebook and its ads for enabling the people you know to enter those occupations? That was literally your point, wasn't it? You just told me I could do the same thing, and get started by spending $10 to get my first client, right? Or am I misreading?

Because lowering those barriers is what enabled the people I know to enter those occupations.

I have to admit, I'm really confused by your question: are you under an impression that these professions either don't exist at all, or exist in one immutable state and cannot be democratised? This is not a binary dichotomy between two state. It's a continuum, and while Google and Facebook didn't create those occupations, they still have done a huge deal to improve them. There's no contradiction here.

No. You are claiming that Facebook ads are a mechanism that lowers those barriers. I claim the barrier isn't that big to begin with for most of them (photographer, baker, astrologer, limo driver), and that, even if some of the others benefit from said ads [0], that the harm Facebook has created outweighs that benefit.

Nay, this is the opposite of making the world a better place. Shame on thee, ye supposed best and brightest, ye best minds of my generation, destroyed by madness, who spend your days trying to get 1% more people to click on an ad.

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[0]: Which I actually doubt -- the internet as a whole is what lowers the barriers, not Facebook ads per se.

> I claim the barrier isn't that big to begin with for most of them

Can you kindly back this claim up? I already brought forth a comparison between traditional and internet advertisement that you have not disproved. How would you get your customers for your one-person business without internet ads?

> the harm Facebook has created

You keep claiming it, and yet I'm to see any examples of that harm. Internet, including Facebook and Youtube enabled wider political discourse that existed before, all around the globe. If you happen to dislike some of that political discourse, then your problem is with other people's political opinions, not with the medium that they choose to exchange it.

It's like being mad at a printing press because you don't like what's written in the paper.

> the internet as a whole is what lowers the barriers, not Facebook ads per se.

What is the internet if not the websites hosted on it? Facebook IS a part of the internet, so distinction between it and the internet "as a whole" is quite meaningless here. All properties that Facebook and Google have that we are discussing, are logical consequences of the internet. If it would happen to be Altavista and Livejournal, we would still have a pretty similar conversation about the very same software engineers working to optimise CTRs.

I don't have to show you how any of those businesses get customers without Facebook ads. You granted me that they exist without Facebook, therefore they must have customers.

As for harms of Facebook, here are 6, from the most cursory google search ever: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2017/06/30/a-run-d...

Yes, Facebook is a part of the internet, but it's a part we don't need, and a part we should cut out and burn to the ground, just like we don't need fascists and racists and their so called "discourse."

..and you know what, I use to hate bullshit jobs. I really did. I've worked in everything from a sysadmin at a debt collection firm to developing data entry software for a travel agency, to health insurance data science to identity management for a University with 20,000 students (actually, that one was rewarding. Working for a Uni didn't feel like a total waste).

I dreamed of getting back into a University and getting my PhD so I could earn way less, but at least try to get grants for research I wanted to do and have summers to develop the classwork so I could lie to--cough-cough--I mean "tech" students. I got my masters, but PhD programs were much more challenging to get into, and my GRE scores are terrible. With the way Universities have turned so ideological and anti-free thought, I doubt I'll ever actually go back.

I lived in some other countries (did software there too), took a year off to backpack, ran out of money, took more tech jobs ... and now, I feel like I'm okay working tech for the rest of my life. I'll probably be 100% remote from here on out (I have before 2020 at one place) and plan on moving out as far away from the city as I can (and still have decent enough Internet to work).

Sure my life might be wasting away playing video games, blogging or attempting to learn banjo while working for another firm soaking up money ... but I've had adventures. I've literally traveled around the world. I might not hit a lot of my goals .. but man, I've done quite a bit and I'm not even 40 yet.

I'm sad due to the pandemic, but at least I'm not bitter. I know if I was stuck locked up in Chicago with younger me, that kid would not have made it. My old project owner at a job sent me an e-mail about how her Italian roommate had committed suicide during the UK lock downs. Could have been me. It's only luck and timing that it isn't.

So what would be a non-bullshit job? Animal cafe for lost pets? Handing blankets out to homeless people? Planting trees? How many of these jobs do you think are needed in the world?

I mean, if you are really into this stuff, nobody prevents you from going down this road... If not, then the main concern is this:

Do I like my job? When I wake up, do I think about what I was stuck on last evening and how am I going to tackle this? If you wake up thinking "Oh fuck, I need to work", yeah then that's a bullshit job for sure. But even then, I don't see how more than 1% or 10% of the population could have a job they enjoy. Work needs to be done, most of it is boring, dirty and doesn't earn money.

Until that changes, this is how it will be. No point in crying after it, just think about where you want to position yourself in this system.

Not to mention that this whole discussion brings us back to the question: Who's fault is it that people die? The arms researchers or manufacturers? The army? The people who are mean to us and own resources we want (I mean they could just surrender)?

Are the people building Facebook responsible for the social decline? Or is it the government, not applying proper regulation/laws? Or is it the people using Facebook (nobody is forcing you)? Or are humans just like this and Facebook shows us their true color?

I think those could be considered non-bullshit jobs. And, if social necessity were how work were allocated, rather than what makes capitalists the most money, we'd almost certainly see more tree planters and animal rescuers and homeless person assisters.

But, I'm afraid you're wrong about the main concern, if only in my particular case. I see it as "if I don't do something someone will pay sufficient money for me to do, eventually, I will find myself in a financial bind due to insufficient savings and suffer for it."

And, I would much rather work a non-bullshit job. It's just that the realities of capitalism make that a nonviable alternative. Thus, if I want such luxuries as a roof over my head and food in my belly, I'm deprived of my voluntary choice of how to allocate my own labor, in addition to having the fruits of said labor mostly taken away from me.

> Not to mention that this whole discussion brings us back to the question: Who's fault is it that people die? The arms researchers or manufacturers? The army? The people who are mean to us and own resources we want (I mean they could just surrender)?

Everyone's at fault, according of course to the degree to which they themselves are able to shape the object, in this case mostly culture and incentives, responsible for the decline.

> Are the people building Facebook responsible for the social decline? Or is it the government, not applying proper regulation/laws? Or is it the people using Facebook (nobody is forcing you)? Or are humans just like this and Facebook shows us their true color?

I repeat, everyone's responsible.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility

You're misunderstanding the term "bullshit job" (originally from the late David Graeber [0]) which has a specific meaning and has nothing to do with

> boring, dirty and doesn't earn money.

Or even

> If you wake up thinking "Oh fuck, I need to work", yeah then that's a bullshit job for sure.

Instead, it refers to employment that is "so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence". Prototypical example is the layers upon layers of superfluous middle management.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

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