Professions for the end of world

Since I am at a professional crossroads, I spend a lot of time thinking (and fretting) about what I should do next. This is an interesting time to be at a professional crossroads, to say the least. I have nothing to add about the state of the job market due to economic headwinds, a rogue US presidency and the advent of AI. There is, of course, the question of whether one will be able to find a job of one’s liking, given these various problems. But, before that, there is the question of what types of jobs should one aim for that i) make a positive contribution to society and the environment ii) do not require you to be tight-lipped about genocide. iii) are unlikely to be gobbled up by AI. Jobs that are likely to be relevant right up to the fast-approaching end of the world. I can think of only three broad sectors: art, care and political organizing (food-, clothing- and housing-related professions have moved far beyond sustenance needs into wasteful and unequal consumption). I don’t think these need any further explanation. Much more brilliant and eloquent minds than me have written about why artistic expression is a human imperative. Care, in all its forms (medical, social, mental), is a noble profession; and even a cynic like me believes  that we need to strive for a better world right up to the end of the world. These are the only broad professions that feel meaningful to me to pursue at this moment. I wish I could add academia to this list, but I cannot, in good faith, do that. A lot of academic social science is vacuous, tediously self-referential and status-quoist. We cannot rely on academic social scientists to make sense of, much less foretell, the changes in our physical and social worlds.

 

 

 

Work For The Sake of Working (or Bullshit Jobs)

//this is a post that I wrote in May 2015 when I was doing my Master's in Holland///

In another life, when I was gainfully employed, I often wondered whether it would make any difference to the rest of the world if my job profile simply disappeared. As a financial markets reporter, I spent a lot of time calling up traders and asking them why a particular bond, stock or currency pair had risen or fallen in price. Usually, they had no idea themselves and would trot out one of the many hackneyed market phrases that essentially say nothing—profit booking, value buying, various kinds of fears or expectations of investors. Often, a trader would read from a competing news publication’s story to give me a reason. (How did I know? Because every half-decent journalist keeps a close tab on the competition).

But, mine is hardly the only job of questionable social or economic value (how to define value is one of those grand questions that social scientists have been grappling with for ages, but bear with me if you can). As advances in technology have reduced the demand for employment in manufacturing, especially in the developed world, an overabundance of new jobs has emerged in the services sector. Not just internet-related jobs, such as GIF specialist or content curator, but also PR consultant, life coach, corporate lobbyist, telemarketer, many jobs in finance, administration and human resources etc. This is not just a rich-world phenomenon--it is also seen in developing country metropolises such as Mumbai, where I used to work.

How did this situation come about? In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that by the early 21^st century, gains in productivity due to technological advances would reduce the duration of the work week in advanced countries to 15 hours. But, instead of enjoying the fruits of automation, we have invented entire new categories of what anthropologist David Graeber calls “bullshit jobs”. Peter Fleming, an economist, says most jobs in rich countries have moved away from “the baseline of biological self-preservation”.  He says it's “this growing disconnect between labour as a biological/social requirement versus work as a cultural artefact that has seen it take on a life of its own…”. In other words, work for the sake of working. Yes, many jobs have been outsourced to poor countries, but increased automation is reducing the total number of manufacturing jobs in the world, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek column citing the Boston Consulting Group. We are working far more hours than are required to produce the world’s total output of goods and useful services (assuming that all goods produced are useful).

As Graeber points out, the contradiction here is jarring. Capitalism thrives by cutting costs and trimming flab, not by adding layers upon layers of excess fat. Are bullshit jobs an innovative way of putting money in the hands of people so that they can buy the products manufactured by machines and keep the capitalist system running? Is this a variation of Keynes’ idea that governments should pay people to dig holes and fill them up again during downturns to stimulate demand? Since many of these jobs exist in or feed off the financial sector, is there a link between the growth of such jobs and the ascent of financial capital after the Gold Standard was abolished?

Whatever the reasons for the existence of bullshit jobs, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for them. Today, the biggest problem of the rich world is a lack of demand—most people are unable or unwilling to buy enough products to keep their economies growing. Wave upon wave of quantitative easing has done little else than inflate stocks and bond prices. The obvious solution is to raise government spending or to increase wages of workers so they have more money to spend, as some countries such as Germany, Japan and the U.S. are doing. But, will the number of bullshit jobs also increase in the process?

Choosing the Right Therapist

Is it a wonder that an overthinker would overthink the task of finding a therapist to help them with overthinking (among other things)? Before this year, I had had therapy on two occasions. On the more recent one, it was because it was free (though not particularly useful). The first time was when I was at the lowest I had ever been, a period I call the Watershed year. That therapist was the second one I tried after having swiftly rejected the first one for being like a shiny automaton. With the second therapist, I instantly knew she was the right one for me, and, indeed, she was. Call it chemistry, call it intuition, call it a sixth sense, but I have never had that feeling about any therapist I have met since. However, a lack of chemistry may be a good enough reason to turn down a potential romantic interest, but one has to be more concrete if rejecting a therapist. Not just because the therapist deserves a better explanation, but because you owe it to yourself to think your reasons through. I questioned the approach of looking for chemistry in a therapist, which I deconstructed (in my case) to mean someone who vows with me with their intelligence and who is very articulate. I had decided that such an approach was shallow. But, in the end, I decided to change therapists, even though during our last session, the therapist dropped some intriguing insights about me. I realise that there is no perfect therapist, and one simply needs to find someone who is competent and compatible. But, I can’t help thinking that whatever choice I made, I would feel like it was the wrong one.

Man Flu

 I have had a cold for the last week or so, and I suspect it is man flu. 'Man flu' is a derisive term for the phenomenon of men over-reacting to minor illness. Apparently, there may be physiological reasons for why men appear to exaggerate the symptoms of a minor illness like a cold or a flu. Apparently, men have weaker immune symptoms than women. I am certain that I am susceptible to man flu, because when I get a cold, it puts me in a horrible mood, much worse than the symptoms warrant. And, I have written before about how colds are particularly annoying because you are indisposed but well enough to feel the full weight of your symptoms. I have never had a cold and not thought, at least for a brief while, that it would never go away. On more than a few occasions, the cold was brought on by me doing vigorous exercise despite feeling under the weather. It has happened often enough that I should know better than to exercise when I am feeling a bit iffy. But, it is amazing what lengths people go to when faced with restlessness. And, the inevitable self-flagellation that follows the onset of sickness is par for the course.

Post-Vacation Doldrums

 I have realised that solitude is a necessary condition for blogging. Solitude was in short supply in the past three weeks—hence my blogging hiatus—as my parents were visiting me from India. Now, I am having a case of post-vacation doldrums. I felt a bit cramped during their visit as my apartment is not large enough for more than two people, especially when they don’t have independent lives. This thread of thought got me thinking about journalism college, when I was staying with four other men in a two bed-room apartment, which was only slightly bigger than my current one bedroom apartment. We also had two female friends who would spend most of their time at my place. I don’t remember feeling very cramped then. But, that was almost twenty years ago and I hadn’t had a bedroom to myself in years. I also didn’t know that bad company is worse than no company (to be clear, the company during journo school was great). But, cramped I did feel during my parents’ visit and I am relieved to have my space back. So, now I am in the past-vacation doldrums (blues is too strong a word). I am relieved that the holiday, as enjoyable as it was, is over, but I am not ready to go back to life. This feels like one of the ‘vacation from the vacation’ kind of things.

Driving Test

 I was going to write a blog post last evening or this morning about my attempts to calm myself before my driving test today. I was going to write about an expression in Marathi that means “do not hurry”, which is an oblique way of saying “do not panic”. But do not panic is useless advice to someone prone to panicking, so the useful advice is not to hurry. Slow down, and you will panic less. I remember my coach saying it during an interschool badminton sports meet when I was 13. For racquet games especially it is eminently reasonable advice as the haste to finish the point by forcing a winner can lead to what they call in tennis parlance as “unforced errors”. But, because I was running short on time, I decided to do an anxiety mediation instead.

I managed to keep my nerve in the test and passed. One of my aims before I turned 40 was to get a car and a license to feel more like an adult. That aim has now been achieved and it feels like an anti-climax. There is no jubilation, no huge surge of relief. If I had failed I could have kept driving on my Indian license. Yes, it is not advisable to do so in the current political climate, but a couple of months ago I was dead against getting a car of fear of being deported for traffic violations. But, that bridge I had already crossed, inspired by the chutzpah of some first-year PhD students in my department. I had decided that until I am in the US, I will try to live as full a life as possible. Or else I might as well go back voluntarily. And, it feels good that my driving skills have been validated by a representative of the commonwealth of Massachusetts.

First Night in 114 King Street

 Yesterday, was brutal because it was a double move. My colleague and his partner were moving to the same town as me, so we first moved their stuff and then came back for my stuff in the same truck. My first impressions of my new place were not great either. It was very hot--the flipside of having a bright cheerful apartment with a lot of windows. And, the traffic was much louder than I remembered it from the viewing. Not to mention that the bedroom door was hanging from the top hinge. From a functional perspective, my previous apartment was better. Lots of storage and kitchen counter space, and modern fittings. It was also a 10-minute cycle ride from the university. It is tempting to keep the status quo if it is bearable, especially if the future is laden with uncertainty. But, I had decided that functionality is over-rated and I should aspire to a better quality of life. So, here I am, in the town that I call a mini-Bristol.