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rglullisyesterday at 8:19 PM1 replyview on HN

There is no guarantee that this transition will lead to any type of desirable or meaningful job.

Around the time "Bullshit Jobs" was published, more than a third of people said they believed their job was not meaningfully contributing to the world. Graeber goes as far as saying that more than half of white-collar jobs are actually harmful and kept around only because people associate work with self-worth. There is no way that this number will go down with increased automation.

It's not uncommon to hear Boomers say things like "kids these days don't want to work hard anymore. Everyone wants to be an youtuber, no one wants to be a teacher or a doctor or an engineer". Well, guess what? We are heading to a world where being an youtuber might be the only option.


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XorNottoday at 2:48 AM

I mean oddly enough being a Youtuber I would say is not a bullshit job. The demand for entertainment is both genuine and necessary for our well being: soldiers in war play card games and see shows, since ages past the role of entertainer has always existed.

Cranking out some online commerce app looking for margin versus providing something which by definition can't be machine replicated sure doesn't look like a meaningless pursuit to me. The devil is very much in the details.

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