Comment by astrofinch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by astrofinch | Hacker News Reader

>if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary. I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter.

Then why are you getting paid for it? Clearly someone cares about it, roughly in proportion to the amount you're getting paid.

Consider these three jobs: making nails for local carpenters, operating machinery in a nail factory, designing machinery for nail factories. Designing machinery for nail factories helps carpenters the most, but feels least helpful.

Surprise surprise, reading children's books is not a good way to estimate the value delivered by people working in various occupations.

Nails have basic utility as they can be used to build homes, structures, bridges, etc.

Now take working at a teenager magazine, something like Seventeen. Really, you are producing a level of writing and entertainment that 14-19yo girls will read, probably paid for by their parents. Most of it will probably be idle thoughts and advice borderlining on turning girls into sluts who buy too much make-up. Really, your job is to provide a way to hide advertisements.

Not very valuable if you take a step back and look at all of humanity.

Economic value is whatever people want.

True. My point was that just because something has economic value in today's system, doesn't mean it has value objectively, if there is such a thing.

You're being incredibly bias here. You see 17 Magazine and scoff and teenaged girls see whatever it is you like and scoff. We each find value in the things we find value in and it's not our place to judge other people's choices.

This is a cop-out. We all "value" trivial things, and in the end, one person's trivial interests aren't any better or worse than another's. But we absolutely can judge interests as being in the class of trivial or not. The usual stuff you find in 17 magazine is easily categorized as trivial. To argue against this based on a "relative" argument is copping out of making the obvious judgement.

I think you hit the nail on the head (to borrow a theme from further up the thread) - I don't think there is such a thing as objective value.

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