Yes, we should get rid of bullshit products. Now, if we can just agree on what bullshit products are! But you are overlooking the production of bullshit services. Of course, you don't buy bullshit services, either, and we will now have to decide what belongs on the list of bullshit services, too.

For instance, if Tiff complies with my suggestion that she dry her horse shit in the hot SW sun and sell it to gardeners in Chicago, would that be a... horse shit product?

the exploitation of labor has got to stop — Frank Apisa

Yes, yes, yes. I agree 1000%, unanimously. And thus the need for a revolution. Ceasing the exploitation of workers is not going to happen through any evolutionary process. (Maybe it will happen through a devolutionary process, where civilization collapses, masses die of starvation, and there is essentially no economy in which to exploit anyone. NOT something to look forward to.)

QUESTION: Are bullshit jobs inevitable? If so, why? If they are not inevitable, why do they exist?

The solution will involve getting rid of the "Protestant work ethic"...getting rid of the notion that one must earn one's living. — Frank Apisa

One must earn one's living, but that isn't the Protestant Work Ethic. The PWE says that all work is sacred, dignified, good. At the time that Martin Luther pronounced all work good, the prevailing assumption was that the work of clerics (priests, nuns, monks) was good, at the top of the heap. Mere laborers were at the bottom. Luther declared that the work of a manure collector, foundry worker, miner, baker, etc. was as sacred as priesthood.

Granted: just because one's labor was sacred didn't mean that one was going to get paid well for doing it, but at least one could look on one's sweat as ultimately worthwhile. Elevating the moral import of human labor as a good thing, worthy of respect, was a good thing.

Capitalism has no interest in the PWE except that it gives it ripped off moral cover for exploiting labor, alienating the workers' product from the worker. Capitalism perfected the Capitalist Work Ethic, which is "work for the lowest possible wage and be grateful you have a job." Capitalism is a system of acquisition and accumulation through exploitation.

Or maybe they just don't like their job and bitch about bull shit rather than hitting the highway and finding something better/different.

Yes. Humans have created bounded institutions to serve as rude speed bumps to reduce excessive boundless thinking, reacting, behaving, etc. One sees this in action all the time, where some spark plug in the organization keeps firing off one bright idea after another. Pretty soon the spark plug is managed, i.e., told to shut the fuck up. Or else!

It's a form of suffering imposed on spark plugs that had not consented to be born in the first place, and having been born, have to work to keep body and soul together--though why anyone does that since we didn't want the deal in the first place, is a mystery.

Tiff, think! You have piles of horse shit, high heat, and dry air. Dry the horse shit out in the sun, put it bags, and sell it as raw compost to gardeners in Chicago or Minneapolis. $$$

But what happened was that, although the part of work that is actually productive has been reduced, the amount of unproductive work has increased to an extraordinary degree; to the point were many, many jobs do not produce anything. — Banno

One possibility: The 8 hour day, originally fought for as a ceiling, has become a floor. Full time work is not less than an 8 hour day, whether 8 hours is too much time, or not.

Another possibility: Workers, all levels from building cleaners to building designers, turn good jobs into bullshit jobs because they are what the bosses suspect that they are: lazy, sloppy, malingering, subversive, etc.

A third possibility: Many organizations have outlived their usefulness and have become bullshit operations. Everyone who works there is, ipso facto, doing a bullshit job, perhaps in an exemplary manner.

A fourth: Bullshit jobs are the fulfillment of Cyril Northcote Parkinson's Law: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." [A similar law: Paper expands to fill the available storage space.] Automation of many functions (like Xerox copiers which make excellent copies with little effort, as opposed to ink printing which requires preparing a master copy, dealing with messy ink, etc.) leaves more empty time during the day. The empty time is filled with what will inevitably be minimally productive activity.

And more!

I have occupied a few bullshit jobs. Usually the job could be done in less time than was available. But... 8 hours, and no less. I have sometimes fulfilled the boss's suspicion that workers are lazy, incompetent, sloppy, subversive, etc. And I certainly expected to be paid the same wage, on time, nonetheless.

I have worked for some organizations that had either outlived their usefulness or were never useful in the first place. Everyone working at these places (usually non-profits) was in earnest, hard working, devoted, and all that. Unfortunately, the work was futile--like shoveling wet bullshit with a pitchfork.

The 8 hour day exceeds the required time for many jobs. Because of the floor of 8 hours, one might have to fill 4-8 hours (or more) with activities that sort of resemble work-like activity--bullshit, in other words.

When workers are in jobs that are meaningful (where their executive agency actually has a positive effect on the world) they tend to work harder, more creatively, and more efficiently. A worker who was a total waste in one job might turn out to be a work-leader in a different job.

in the modern world, the physical traits/characteristics that we are born with no longer seem that necessary for us to survive. — Pinprick

The 'modern world' of which you speak is very recent and so far of short duration. I'm 73; my father, born in 1906, grew up on a farm using horses for power. Men and horses both had to put a lot more energy into their work back then. Two world wars were fought between 1914 and 1945, and physical strength and mental prowess counted for a good deal. True enough, mechanically powered farm machinery; cars, trains, and planes; washing machines and driers; bicycles, etc. have made work life easier. But all that ease takes up about only 100 of 50,000-100,000 years of modern human life.

Our survival may be more dependent on the physical traits in the years ahead than we would like to think. A greener future means expending a lot more energy by moving around under our own power -- like walking and biking, carrying stuff. It won't hurt us, and we have bodies perfectly capable of it.

Memes schmemes. I've never found the concept very useful. I'll grant you that many aspects of our lives seem to be driven by memes. Per @unenlightened, scratch a meme and underneath the surface you will find propaganda urging us to do stuff which benefits some large corporation.

Advertising and public relations, brought to new heights by Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward Bernays, are the vehicles through which corporate bastards try to shape our lives.

And he repeats himself. — Banno

Ad nauseam.

I can't see how Trump's disinfectant comments could be understood as sarcastic. — Banno

Sarcasm isn't Trump's style. He makes his point by repetition, statements he repeats; he's a repeater; he's a great repetitious unstable moron. His style is bombast, pomposity, ranting, verbosity, blathering, lying, vague generalizations, and worse.

Dump Trump at the earliest possible opportunity.

It's an expression of pessimism without a rational basis. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Definitely pessimistic, hardly irrational. I'm getting old; I can afford to be honestly pessimistic -- I won't be around, most likely, too much longer. I don't need to maintain optimistic delusions of the sort that I used to.

I'd prefer that the evidence led to optimism. It just doesn't.

This has been done plentifully in the scientific literature of climate change. But take this little piece as an example: A pandemic has (appropriately) frightened the species. Appropriate protective measures (social isolation, distancing, etc.) has produced the highest unemployment in the US (22,000,000) since the Great Depression. Millions of individual's personal economies have tanked. Revenues from commerce, taxes, transit fares, fees, and so on have crashed. Besides all that, many people are sick or dead.

Compare this massive economic and social disruption, just over 3 months long and which isn't over by any means, to the kind of massive long-term industrial/economic/social changes required to sharply and permanently reduce CO2, methane, and other greenhouse gas emissions. The costs, disruptions, ruptures with habit, and so on are so severe that it will cause far worse disruption.

The alternative -- doing what we have been doing since the industrial revolution got underway -- will mean a slower, but no less severe disruption and severe disruption--likely worse, because it will last for a very long time.

OK, technically, global warming won't wipe out the species. Remnants of humanity will remain. They will be isolated little groups of former industrial masters reduced to figuring out how to hunt and gather--if they live long enough. They will have left the glories of human culture behind--the loss of which will only take a couple of generations. Culture is either maintained or it is lost. We know this from ample historical experience.

So sure, we'll survive global warming.

Why would we do this to ourselves? Because: bright as we are, we do not seem to possess the ability to detect distant disasters (like, even 50 years away) and act in the present to avoid them. Environmental, agricultural, population, nuclear, disease, and other disasters have been clearly seen coming down the pike. Humans have not, by and large, acted effectively to avoid any of these calamities.

The [western] Roman Empire endured for many centuries--much longer than the modern world has--and sustained repeated calamities. It always bounced back. Resilience. It bounced back until just the right combination of disasters overwhelmed their exhausted resilience, Then they went down the cloaca Maximus fairly fast.

I laugh at apes. They're a laughing-stock. — ZzzoneiroCosm

You think you have the same relationship to apes that the gods have to us? a joke...

How do you make the gods laugh?
Tell them your plans.

If we're so smart, how come we don't seem to be able to do anything about the reality that we are wrecking the environment.

I hope we become less and less closely related to the apes. — ZzzoneiroCosm

In the fullness of time (which we probably don't have, being too stupid as we are to solve our problems) we will become less and less like primates, We'll probably get a bit lighter in build, and maybe--dear god, may it be--smarter. But this will take a long time--many, many generations.

And we will probably wipe ourselves out before we get many, many generations to evolve into something closer to the paragon of animals that Shakespeare thought we were.

Nietzsche — ZzzoneiroCosm

apes — ZzzoneiroCosm

intellect — ZzzoneiroCosm

Intellect isn't all or nothing. Even clams have enough sense to shut up and get out of town when trouble comes their way, (Octopi and squid are both in the same group as clams, and have quite a bit of brain power. A dog has much more brain power than a squid, but a Dalmatian can't change its spots. A squid can. A bonobo or pan troglodytes (Chimps official name) have a lot more brain power than dogs, and have a brain structure similar to ours. Bees are much different than squid, dogs, chimps, and you -- but bees too have some brain power.

That we are closely related to apes should be a matter of delight. Why? Because they are kin. They aren't our ancestors (we branched off from the stalk of the family, as they also did, millions of years ago. Well, about 8 million years ago,

Well, what have you got against apes? All apes are primates. Humans are primates. Therefore, humans are apes. Something like that. Apes are a distinguished species.

We have only 1.2 percent genetic difference between modern humans and chimpanzees. Granted, that 1.2% makes a significant difference. I don't think chimps have a hyoid bone, a piece of bone located in the human throat which is a critical part of speech production. Still, we are a lot like chimps in many ways. (Intellect isn't the only thing significant about our (plural) species.)

Does the fox object to being related to the wolf? Does the family dog object to being related to both fox and wolf?

We actually aren't apes. Our ancestors were apes. — ZzzoneiroCosm

So, at what point did we leave the company of primates?

Strictly speaking we are absolutely not apes. We are human. — ZzzoneiroCosm

We are smart apes, but apes, and being a smart ape is a major piece of our existential problem.

There are exceptions, of course. Some humans are dumb apes, like the current POTUS. Therefore, DUMP TRUMP IN NOVEMBER!

You're so strict!

So Bernie supporters, excited to vote for Joe now? — ssu

No, definitely not. I said Bernie was too old; so is Biden. Trump is a syphilitic crypto fascist. Man, we are so far down the tubes.

NOTHING. Just my opinion. You might like to read Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife by Bart D. Ehrman. He explains how heaven and hell came to acquire their peculiar characteristics over a period of time. Back in the day (3000 years ago, say) the Jews thought that when you died you were dead. Nothing more.

It's a message preached in the Church Without Christ, where the blind don't see, the lame don't walk, and the dead stay dead. Wise Blood, by Flannery O'Connor.

Does 'reality' exist in 'reality'?

You dismiss truth -- fine by me; truth is like pornography -- I can't define it but I know it when I see it. Isn't 'reality' as nebulous a concept? As for the "true self", drop the adjective and self is one word clearer. Fake self? What would that be?

I feel like I have achieved some degree of self-actualization, finally! Self-actualization is emergent -- it's a coming together of one's efforts, a dropping away of one's (often self-built) barriers. It feels good, but I don't think one should get a prize for being self-actualized. If one happens to self-actualize, one should just be grateful and carry on.

A lot of the words we use, like beauty, truth, God, evil, and so many others, don't map onto the concrete world. They map onto our symbolic systems which are, of course, real enough.

Well, actually I haven't given it a second's thought since I lavished high praise on the whole thing. One of the benefits of defects in short-term memory -- nothing makes it to long term storage. Simplifies things greatly.

BTW, what are we talking about?

Oh, WHEN will the people gather in front of the White House for his afternoon Covid-19 press conference/mini-campaign rally and chant loudly and long, LOCK HIM UP

Freud, for instance, famously wrote that the aim of psychotherapy was 'the conversion of hysterical misery into ordinary unhappiness'. — Wayfarer

And such a modest, yet difficult goal that is.

You seem to have won a Double First Prize: Your readers rated your OP quite favorably (1 prize) and then gave you thoughtful responses (2nd prize). You can take that to the bank (so to speak).

Paradoxically, we can think that we have minds (and we're mighty proud of them) but when pressed for details about what our mind-body selves are, we generally can't come up with anything too compelling.

We can not rise above ourselves and view our selves at a distance. We are always subject, and making ourselves simultaneously subject/object is perhaps beyond our capability. We're stuck. We'd like to understand who/what/how we are, but we are by our nature.

Still, all of us have a varied set of features which we like to express. Your greyhound had a very strong feature of pursuit. It was bred to run, to pursue. Catching its prey was less enjoyable, maybe, than chasing it. Some of us like the chase more than the catch, too. We like to do the research; we don't enjoy writing the paper.

We do well to fulfill the exercise of our various features without leaving behind too much wreckage.

Glory, laud, and honor to science, logic, mathematics, et al. But consider the New England colonies, which were premised on ideas of religious freedom, and the importance o the religious state (the Puritans) and self-government (the town councils). Their enterprise was one of faith (and ye olde Protestant Work Ethic).

New England and Yankee culture (a strip of states below Canada and around the Great Lakes) gradually (and mercifully) lost its religious zeal, but the ideas about the collective responsibilities of the City on the Hill remained and became an essential piece of cultural DNA in the more progressive northern states.

A lot of the founding fathers were interested in science and all, but they were also imbued with the values of the southerly planter class, or worse -- the upper class English riff-raff that dominated southern culture (referencing the values of wealthy Englishmen who settled in Virginia, Carolina, Georgia, etc.).

BTY, hope everything is fine with you--no Covid-19, no corona virus anxiety, no crashing personal buddy-can-you-spare-a-dime economy.

We had a bit of Spring here; the snow all melted, the grass was turning green, and the tulips were coming up -- then we got socked with a snow storm and a return to winter. Not all that unusual. For the last two days we have been getting sometimes spectacular snow squalls which don't last very long--maybe 20 minutes. Colder too. Supposed to be 18º tonight.

That is what the American Revolution was all about. We rely on science- the search for truth, not faith in someone chosen by God to be our leader. — Athena

I thought it was about taxation, representation, and various bourgeois concerns of the colonial upper class.

In a democracy, that is not contaminated by Christianity, there is no god whispering in the king's ear it will be safe for people to return to life as normal by Easter, "such a special day". :roll: — Athena

Even in a democracy thoroughly infested by Christianity, most "kings" listen to their epidemiologists doctors, planners, and so forth. Martin Luther said that it is better to be ruled by a smart Turk than a stupid Christian. We have the misfortune to be ruled by a narcissistic, ill-informed king who is very worried about his chances for re-election. These days, the Turks have their own problems.

Quite right - there can't be an "empty universe". There can't be a time before time.

Where would the heat have come from in a (presumably) empty universe, prior to the BB?

Nope. It's unprecedented by the look of the unemployment rate in the US hovering around 13 percent! — Shawn

It will most likely go higher, and it won't be spread evenly across the population. It's too early to see how the economic shutdown will affect businesses (especially small ones) that were doing well on February 15, 2020. A lot of the small businesses will probably fold. Minorities will get screwed more than whites, maybe women more than men. Routine and customary, of course. The least advantaged can least stand cutbacks.

I'm thinking it will take quite a while (in years, not months) to recover -- and that's assuming something else major doesn't go haywire, or that SARS-CoV-2 doesn't re-emerge with enough mutations to reinfect everyone again.

it has been a long time since anyone has mentioned Universal Basic Income. — Athena

Did you not notice POTUS candidate Yang talking about UBI?

Gotta love a great paradox!

But...

In a frozen universe where there was no movement, would time exist?

In this frozen timeless universe, should the archer release the arrow, then time would begin. It isn't 'time' which prevents the arrow from moving -- it is the motionless arrow that prevents time from passing.

There was no time before the Big Bang, and there will be no time again when (and if) the universe cools to absolute zero.

bailout for Boeing — fishfry

My understanding is that Boeing turned the money down, because the string attached was a government stake in the company. It's bad enough for them, I guess, to deal with the FAA without having to deal with Treasury Department. Nationalize the SOBs.

Would any of you care to explain what a corrupt religion is, and how you determine it to be so? — Pinprick

You didn't ask me, but one example of corrupt religion would be one of the causes of the Reformation: The wanton sale of indulgences for the purpose of financing real estate projects in Rome--St. Peter's Basilica. At best it was a pious fraud; at worst it was abuse of the faithful.

Now, there is hardly a congregation in the United States (there are some exceptions) that is not driven by the needs of its building. New roof, new boiler, broken windows, fix the organ--all projects costing hundreds of thousands of dollars on even moderate sized buildings. The congregations taking loving care of their real estate have little money left over to feed the hungry, house the homeless, care for the sick, and so on. By secular standards, the church is doing what it should be doing--taking care of business, and the property is definitely a piece of the business. By Christ's standards, the building is an abomination -- a storing up of wealth in buildings that need continual and expensive maintenance.

Corrupt? Or just trapped?

So how do you know that what they present as justification for their actions is not what the actual author of the text meant, or would nonetheless condone? — Pinprick

Highly cogent question. Take Psalm 137:7-9

7 Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Raze it, raze it, even to the foundation thereof.

8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

This isn't the only reference to bashing in the brains of the enemies' infants in the Bible. Acquiring and keeping the promised land was not a tea party. So, where does that leave us?

According to LII at Cornell Law School...

Establishment Clause

The First Amendment's Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” This clause not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another. It also prohibits the government from unduly preferring religion over non-religion, or non-religion over religion.

Although some government action implicating religion is permissible, and indeed unavoidable, it is not clear just how much the Establishment Clause tolerates. In the past, the Supreme Court has permitted religious invocations to open legislative session, public funds to be used for private religious school bussing and textbooks, and university funds to be used to print and public student religious groups' publications. Conversely, the Court has ruled against some overtly religious displays at courthouses, state funding supplementing teacher salaries at religious schools, and some overly religious holiday decorations on public land.

So, it would appear that the case of the praying governor will result in the DOP going forward.

The Establishment Clause protects religious institutions as well as secular institutions. Active and persistent state involvement in religious affairs has a tendency to be harmful, all round, just as active and persistent religious involvement in the affairs of state has often turned out badly.

One of the reasons why religion remains a large factor in American life is that there was no established church. Nothing prevented the people from engaging in 2 1/2 centuries of religious activism, innovation, or invention (take the Mormons as an example). Established churches in some European countries contributed to finally more secular societies.

Weak people die from getting sick, fit people don't — Anthony

The cemeteries are well stocked with bodies that were strong, fit, and good looking just before they encountered the fatal bacteria or virus that put them in their grave. The 1918 influenza epidemic was most often fatal for young people, 20-40 years of age, most of them fit workers or soldiers. Infectious diseases were the leading cause of death, up to roughly 1945, when antibiotics started to roll back infection. As we waste our antibiotic resources in various ways (like feeding them to cattle to make them grow faster), we are working back to the time when infectious disease will be king,

This is my point. In the 1970's there was a lot of terrorism in Europe, yet the issue was treated more as a police matter. Now similar attacks would case a different reaction. And likely after this ordeal the way we respond to possible outbreaks is going to change. — ssu

A lot of people weren't alive at the time or don't remember IRA bombings, 40+ airplane hijacking, terrorist bombings in the US, European leftist gangs, and so forth. Despite 40 large planes being hijacked, we managed to not militarize airports.

9/11 was the perfect opportunity (never let a crisis go to waste, as Rahm Emanuel said of another event) to ratchet up police control. In the US, at least, there was a string of interventions by the government (monitoring telephone traffic -- not conversations, just who was calling whom), monitoring internet activity, airport militarization, and so on.

The term "lock down", now applied to everything from kindergarten classes to entire states, originated in the California prison system around 1973.

the oil lamp and candles did not lead to night life. Only the light bulb did — Benkei

Actually, gas lighting introduced in the late 18th/early 19 century increased the safety of streets at night, and improved interior lighting, leading to increased 'night life'. Baltimore, MD had gas street lighting by 1816.

Granted there were disadvantages (unflattering light, odor, explosions, etc.) but it was a big improvement over candles and oil lamps.

The washing machine is a 19th century invention that greatly reduced the time needed to wash for women. Soap and running water didn't do much in terms of saving time. — Benkei

It was a 19th century invention, true enough, but they weren't very available until late in the century; remember it was human powered, Somebody had to spend quite a bit of time standing at the machine, turning the cranks the operated the machine. Hot water wasn't on tap for most of the century for most people, and the clothing still needed to be bleached or blued, hung up outside to dry, and ironed using an iron heated on a stove, even in the hot summer.

Laundry was hard work for women well into the 20th century.

The availability of laundries and washerwomen probably helped the suffrage movement more than washing machines.

Prevention of Infectious Diseases: expect more money to be funnelled into this, whether it is research, development of vaccines, studies, etc. — Dogar

Don't count on it. This isn't the first new disease to come along. If the executive and congress were paying attention to public health, there would be a much better funded public health infrastructure. If the public were paying attention, we would have fewer anti-vaxxers.

Besides, the next pandemic may be very different than this one -- like the HIV, Ebola, Marburg, Zika Virus, or West Nile Virus, or something else--MERS, SARS, Etc. We may be as unprepared for it as we were for this one. One of the functions of public health is "sentinel surveillance" -- keeping a watch around the world for new diseases, or outbreaks of old diseases. We (many countries) are not doing such a hot job at that'd.