I was a security guard for a waste management facility in Gardena, CA. My job was to deter the public from climbing a 12' fence with barbed wire, to steal trash.

Garbage men in NY had a strike once and demanded more income, the mayor refused but after 6 days the stink got so bad that he did something. Bankers in Ireland had a strike once for more income and nothing happened, even after 6 months Ireland was still ok. Enough said.

Every single job in advertising, marketing, PR and most of the jobs in consulting and market research are BS Jobs.

Who else is working while listening to this?

I'm a highly skilled software engineer who is basically a duct-taper and I have personally experienced a lot of this. I've had my boss assign me an insane amount of work just because I'm the only one who does work and then I get made responsible for *all* of the bugs, even when I don't cause them (which is the case for most of them). It's the worst.

Thank you Mr. Graeber! For years I thought "what is wrong with me, why can't I appreciate my job?". David Graeber opened my eyes. His book was a revelation for me.

Thank you for acknowledging that mothering is valuable, even if it is not economically valued.

David Graeber really underrated bought his book everything is so true I got such a job as well. Laywers of companies, banks, holdings everything's so useless and the employees know it but can't get out. Greetings from germany and excuse my bad english I don't know the most words :)

Rest in power, David.

Graeber is a national treasure. What a great mind and character.

How about psychologists that charge 100 bucks a session just to sit there and tell you to be positive. Most advisory and consulting jobs are bs

With the 4th industrial revolution on the doorstep this topic is more relevant than ever.

Most BS jobs are created by HR departments looking to justify their existence. HR is one of the biggest BS jobs on the planet. People who can't handle operational departments in a company telling everyone else how to work. I have worked as a manager for 20 years and the thing I hate the most is how HR interferes in actually improving the company efficiency and cause more employee frustration than they help.

I am a live-in caregiver for people who are dying. It's the most rewarding work I've ever done in my life. I've always worked in caregiving in some fashion, worked in events planning and charities like big brothers. Work my tits off and don't get paid enough to rent even a shitty apartment. I worked at a big fancy insurance company for 2 years and will never go back to the soul sucking exploitative scam like that ever again. Never trust your insurance company to do s*** for you - they will find every reason they can, not to. Fight hard, keep fighting.

I used to have a job that was all 5 categories all at once: 1-I was a flunky because I was middle management that made the higher ups feel better about themselves 2-I was a duck taper because I was required to asap fix the ANY problems in my dept. 3-I was a in goon that was lawyer and we needed a lawyer (not really true) but it was impressive to our clients 4-I was a task master because I supervised my dept who made they sure they did all they were supposed to do 5-I was a box ticker but I was an attorney running a dept that by the mere fact it was being run by an attorney said we did important work Wow just wow!

That guy made me reavaluate life in so many ways

He's absolutely right about fees and penalties (21.30) - Finance depts. who set 1st of Month payments regardless of our pay cycles & cash in our accounts. Their systems are designed to introduce failures on our part from which they profit.

With AI and automation eventually all jobs or almost all will be BS jobs.

I think UBI is pretty important to ease the transition to the next economy... but it's meaningless without radical land-reform. ie: There is no point taxing landlords to give money to tenants just so they pay it back to landlords. We need to eliminate economics of artificial-scarcity completely - as a basic moral and logical principle. As well as giving people breathing-space and de-stressing their lives (with all the knock-on benefits of that to do with violence, addiction, child-care etc)... a UBI it will also serve to ease the transition... so we don't inflict the same poverty on landlords when we take away their rental income, that they inflicted on us... via their rental income.

Ironically, it's the pointless jobs are usually the ones that pay the most, while real labor pays shit. Americans are against collectivism but in truth they serve the collective, just a very small collectivel known as the 1%.

"This program contains views and language conservatives may find offensive"

when organizations facing problems, they tend to create a position/job for monitoring the problems rather than spending resources to tackle the problems.

A post-scarcity anarchist society where work is mostly done by AI & machines sounds really nice about now. We have enough technology to make live free and easy for all, where work is something you choose to do rather than something you're coerced to do by the threat of starvation, homelessness, etc...etc... :)

Finnish UBI was an experiment during 1.1.2017-31.12.2018 were 2000 participants (mainly unemployed) got 560€/month without affecting their other possible income. That 560€ is nowhere near an sufficient amount to live in finland. That will all go to rent alone. If your housing is free or some other way funded then 560€ can support your other living expenses (food, bills etc.)

Almost all problems could be solved by making it financially worthwhile for people to SHARE the jobs we can agree we NEED to have done and work much LESS.....no more working and doing anything FOR money but all doing something useful and sharing the work we need.

I’ve always noticed that company started throwing out the people that actually made their company and brought an income. Retail is a sucky area to work in but that’s where the money is made. And those are the first people that always get sliced. Companies are always creating suicide amongst themselves. It’s like they want to be out of business.

Has anyone made any meme videos of David's expressions yet? ....What an amazing guy!!

17:05 "Psychosomatic illnesses that would vanish the moment they were given a real task to do." The sine qua non of every bs job I've ever had lolz.

Rest in power David

Not only is this spot on, i think it's really smart and very powerful. The projection and slanderous lies of the capitalists need to be disproven as unquestioned fact in america, and I think David does this perfectly.

Really good talk you guys! ✊🏾 rip dg ❤️

As long as competition for money exists, competition for social status will exist. Graeber, as an anthropologist, knows that human beings are very status oriented, and in large "free" societies, status competition is inevitable to some degree. (Small societies, under 200, are the norm for most of human history and in such small societies there were mechanisms for controlling social inequality. For example, in hunter-gatherer societies, when one distinguishes oneself among the others by showing extra ability, extra social status does not automatically accrue to that person, often to the contrary, to keep that person from feeling special or showing off, the others would ridicule him or her. We still have some of this instinct and customs in the West but not as much perhaps as we should. In Europe, for example, they tend to view billionaires or very ostentatious wealth as suspect or even abhorrent, where we, in the US, are more impressed. But we are also more envious than they, which is probably why Scandinavian countries score higher on happiness index than we do.) I think moving to a BGI will be a very big deal. It won't simply mean keeping our current economic structure that just happens to have a BGI, I think it will mean re-evaluating our entire economic and social structure, especially our metaphysics connected to social status. But it will be easier to do with a system less focused on human value determined by a wealth metric as opposed to a metric more centered on happiness and social contribution. And yes, there will still be competition because, as I said, human beings are a very conscientious about social status, but if the paradigm or structure is not understood as zero sum, then the competition need be less rooted in envy (or a least socially toxic envy).

Amazing how he gave the exact same talk as at the RSA conference. This guy has a mind like a steel trap, I'm impressed

Watching this video while working at a bullshit job just made me fulfill my life!!!

Cory Doctorow is a pretty keen interviewer.

I work at a paper/cardboard mill. We make pizza boxes. All my hard work goes straight to a dumpster when the consumer is done eating their pizza

A job is not necessarily defined as the amount of activities accomplished with a time window that others see as beneficial to society. A job is simply a commitment to be available to at sometime and somewhere for the purpose of doing something regardless of how it’s importance is seen by others. The amount and important of the activities accomplished within a time window from the perspective of society is something society itself will never have consensus over. The fact that the worker is detained somewhere for sometime and not free to live his life the way she or he likes is a deprivation that requires compensation. Sure, as a society, we may revisit our jobs and collectively design a system that strikes out certain jobs from the market and reduce the waste in time and energy, but until we do that collectively, it is unfair to assign the blame to individuals who are trying to survive and preserve their dignity in doing something for living without being looked down upon by society. It would be only wonderful to optimize not only our jobs for maximum efficiency and productivity, but that goes well for everything else in life such as dealing with food waste, frivolous education, bureaucratic expensive healthcare, personal time and financial management and so on.

David Graeber interviewed by Cory Doctorow?! It's like that Python sketch philosophy olympics but legit

After going shopping today i reaalised most of the security guards in the stores are pointless. They just stand there doing nothing.

Anyone know where he got the Obama quote at 24:42 ?

At 9:40 or so the interviewer says something about a 'final family'. What is a final family?

The problem isn't just one of bullshit jobs, but also of bullshit information, I would like to see the development of an evidence based society, we live in Plato's cave.

HR- Whole job is to figure out why NOT to hire someone! So they sit aroud looking for anytime they can dig uo on someone.

This show's that humans like to be of value, which feeling is created when their doing something worthwhile, they feel self worth. Just making money for someone doesn't make us feel valuable to humanity.

Inflation happens when banks lend more than what is paid off

I’m so glad Covid cancelled my job. Finally - I can live fit myself 🌻

Run this video by accident. Found it very interesting.

The best and brightest of our nation are writing algorithms at Google to make sure spam is not in your inbox.

Sometimes it's much better to do nothing as it's less harmful to people and society. If we have to pay some people not to do something that might be more useful. As an example pay criminals not to get involved in crime. the problem is that law abiding citizens would moan about that the most. Funnily enough the politicians wouldn't give a crap. It would make their lives even easier.

there comes a point with productivity increases and automation where full employment just isn't very important for maintaining growth. In failing to acknowledge that and still making employment basically mandatory for anyone who didn't win the birth lottery, we've created an entire class of useless people with massive amounts of political power both in governments and in management of companies, who will use that power to maintain the situation that allows them to exist.

How did Graeber no bring up Alaska as an example of UBI??

Problem with a career is that one starts out being a worker .. and ends up being a Task master ... its just how the system works .. meaning that if one is any good at their job, they will eventually rise to the rank of a "Bull shit" job

The economy worked well with only 50% of the population in the workforce only 1-2 generations ago. the other of the couple was taking care of the home and the offspring. Today, the cost of living in the western economies became completely out of whack with the salaries on offer. Here in London, the graduate salaries have not increased since 2001 in nominal terms (sic!), and in the same time the cost of housing increased 3 times, not to mention the energy bills. We should get back to those days, instead of this crazy universal basic income, which does not make any sense given the acute shortage of housing and other necessities.

One of the greatest

RIP David Graeber

Man, wish this guy was still around; he’d be perfect for guiding the AI revolution

Talking and addressing things is fine, but when are we going to stand together on the streets to end this bullshit?

Inflation is really the result of scarcity, not just demand. This economy is already so automated, you could damn near *double* demand and still not produce scarcity in most product categories. Perhaps spot shortages here and there, but there are already so many substitutions available I can't really ever see any significant inflation in our foreseeable future. Quite frankly, it's *de*flation that concerns me, wherein every value-added occupation becomes less and less valuable over time. There are less jobs that represent real, substantial "value" (in a capitalist sense) to the overall economy every single year - a trend that will continue until the entire economy eats itself.

bullshit jobs are a dream, i cant imagine people would complain about having one

"That's a fabulous idea." … It sure is.

Fuck me!! Working from home on a Sunday with director pocking me to finish some useless tracker for a needy client, and when i provided the beautiful looking KPI’s that took me days and a chunk of my weekend it got descoped to not look us bad. Working+wasting my time. And to add insult to injury pay grade is in discrepancy with a factor of 10. I should bring in molotov tomorrow to work and start second Marx revolution.

31:34 Freudian slip, Universal Basic Instinct.

His wacky intellectualism is one of my favorites. His scruffy appearance reflects his particular ethnographic focus, making it easier for listeners to comprehend what he's saying, even if it's nonsense. Studying and profiting from them is the ultimate B.S. employment, correct? Capitalism? David, you are an inspiration. You've come up with one of the most ridiculous academic gigs of our time. There's something quite ingenious in what he's doing, but as of yet, it's diffuclt to put my finger on it. In the meantime, I'll just enjoy him. May he rest in peace.

RIP.

Relevant

This is a great description of government.

lol @ David for dressing like the Joker BOIIIIIII

This constant audio stuttering is really stressing me out.

Most people may have to go back to the farms to work and live?

Andrew Yang must have watched this same video or read the same book.

31:10 40% of working population in USA is in a government job or contractor

like that woman's passing the mic sound...

"Uuummm..." Fucking David Graeber. Takes some patience to focus on the goodies.

Wow

somebody look new smartphones? Aren't they kind like... same?

56:13 enact direct democracy and pay everybody for political participation. pay people to learn, to be healthy, to raise their families, or, i dunno, maybe rebuilding america. 🤔

It's simple, working-class equals real job, petty-bourgeois equals b.s. job

I feel bad that in the Q&A they guy that asked about cripto currencies didnt get a response, might not be their area but felt like they made fun of him...

SAAS companies that sell to SAAS companies that sell to SAAS companies that...

HR

So is a social anthropologist a box ticker or flunkie?

34:00 Bea Arthur in History of the World. Inquiring if one bullsh*tted/killed today. Then straight to wine break.

GNU David Graeber

Is he British now?

MMt is not esoteric.

Neotony

His voice sounds like Mark Hamill

Ministers rabbis priests and mullas are at the top of the list. Solved Fermis problem!Yea right

U cud have left out the sticky ayn rand book pages. Why do yanks think disgusting is comedic

americans say 'like' a lot.

Talk about some terrible comparisons...

Both these men could live in an Indian village for 6 months ... well David Graeber's dead and he was great! at explaining why the future is cancelled (without ever referring to Mark Fisher)

Disappointing to see the Leigh Phillips shout out - never thought I’d hear praise of a “socialist” who believes and advocates for infinite economic growth. If it sounds absurd, it’s because it is. The Lord looking like a peasant line is particularly insightful, though if you read through Austerity Ecology (which, do yourself a favor and please don’t) it comes off as the ramblings of a cheugy millennial upset at shifting cultural expression and capitalist talking points rebranded as “eco-modernism”. Bleghhh

Doctorow's mockery of MMT belies his ignorance of it despite pretending he's actually been & read it and understood it. I was disappointed to hear Graeber rattle off the Zimbabwe example whilst skirting around the inflationary aspects of UBI, which is what the woman at the back addressed. The idea that the opposite to bullshit jobs is a goodly portion of the workforce doing 'nothing' (or rather 'fulfilling' themselves in art whilst the postman still walks around in the rain delivering your letters & packages) is far-fetched. In a state of infrastructure decline, which has been at the mercy of shrunken public spending for 45 years, the creaton of useful jobs has never been more necessary. The revaluation of such jobs is also necessary. It is how our societies furnish us with the actual things we need. A society doing this is the opposite of mindlessley pouring money into corrupt corporations. UBI has a role, but it is not a way to furnish a society with things like national healthcare or safe drinking water; those are large-scale public spending tasks.

The host has such creepy vibes ..

I am the seat of wisdom

@46:31 "Does anyone who identifies as male or non-binary have a question?" ... what does this even mean? This is nonsense talk. How did this become the way that polite professionals speak? What kind of a frightened PC box ticker do you have to be to couch your questions in this manner? Does he talk like this when not on stage? Does anyone? Who is this virtue signal for and why is their opinion worth so much? America is a basket case.

Be my Disciples come follow me

I take from this, the author thinks our real "Human Nature" will produce the perfect Soviet model economy.If this is so, it is because the educated intellectual class has created it's own Soviet Model Economy, as this is their own nature! This is not the experience for a small business person, or any one living in the 70% world of work and jobs. Used as a justification for destroying this 70% is outrageous!

These guys take an interesting idea (UBI) and make it sound like some kind of bad hippie trip. 1. Most importantly: the kind of utopian global automation they are talking about is dangerous, regardless of UBI. Their position is disingenuous. Current solutions for automation do not just "eliminate drudgery". They often give someone centralized control over what used to be a job done by many independent people. If you have free money, but someone else controls a fully automated factory that produces *all the goods*, your money won't matter much. They don't address this issue in any way, except going "LULZ, capitalism sucks". 2. Eliminating bullshit jobs is probably a sensible endeavor, but it *does not* guarantee all those people will magically find meaningful occupation. 3. Misimplemented UBI could be a complete disaster for a complex, developed economy. This stuff needs to be tried in carefully controller experiments. 4. FYI, in Soviet Union, long lines and paperwork weren't the real issues, they were just manifestations of actual problems: severe deficits and corruption.