How to Secure a Linux Server - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/imthenachoman/How-To-Secure-A-Linux-Server <comment><USER2> Hey folks! I am the author of this guide. I did not know this was here or I would have commented sooner.

This is my first time putting a guide like this together. I see a lot of really great feedback and I will be incorporating them into future updates.

I don't have time today but I will reply individually to all the comments that I can.

I appreciate any/all feedback/advice. If possible, could future issues be submitted to GitHub because it is easier for me to manage if everything is in one place. [https://github.com/imthenachoman/How-To-Secure-A-Linux- Serve...](https://github.com/imthenachoman/How-To-Secure-A-Linux- Server/issues/new)

But right now I need to find all the other places this guide is linked to with comments so I can address them too. :)

<comment><USER3> It has been mentioned in one of the pull request that this guide was being discussed on HN right after it got here: [https://github.com/imthenachoman/How-To-Secure-A-Linux- Serve...](https://github.com/imthenachoman/How-To-Secure-A-Linux- Server/pull/7).

There are two fresh threads on Reddit:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxadmin/comments/arx7xo/howtosec...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxadmin/comments/arx7xo/howtosecurealinuxserver_an_evolving_howto_guide/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/arx7st/howtosecureal...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/arx7st/howtosecurealinuxserver_an_evolving_howto_guide/)

<comment><USER2> Holy crap! I did not see those two on Reddit. I had posted to Reddit and was monitoring those comments but didn't know of these. Thanks! Although, I'm sad both of those threads got more comments then the original one I posted. Not that it really matters in life. Heh.

And yes, I saw that pull request but I didn't know what HN was at that time. After I saw that comment, and before they said HN = Hacker News, I started Googling around to see if I could find where my repo was being mentioned. That is how I found this post in HN.

Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This guide contains (at least) inaccurate statements. It's oversimplifying and omitting important things while putting emphasis on some exotic details where defaults would be sane enough.

"One key, the public key, can only encrypt data, not decrypt it" \- this is cryptographically inaccurate. One should use it that way, though.

"Identity is verified by encrypting and decrypting data that both the client and server know". That's not how signing works. The crucial part of the process is to first establish an encrypted channel, then choose something random (not used previously) and finally verify the signature is correct. What exactly would be the data that "both the client and server know"?

"If you're sure there is nobody listening between the client you're on and your server, you can use ssh-copy-id to transfer and append the public key". Almost never happens unless you're in the server room, connected point-to- point. But then the remark about someone listening doesn't make sense. And not a single word about verifying server's fingerprint in the whole guide.

"Keep in mind doing this means you can't use the key for automation because you'll have no way to send the passphrase in your scripts". Unless you use an ssh-agent.

"umask is a Bash built-in which means a user can change their own umask setting". Wrong implication here. umask is a syscall. It doesn't matter what you use to call it. And what if you're using a different shell?

Suggesting painful default umask instead of just doing `chmod go-rwx $HOME` and adjusting /etc/adduser.conf is debatable.

Making this guide "distribution agnostic" is IMHO futile and there already are some distribution-specific guides like [https://debian- handbook.info/](https://debian-handbook.info/).

<comment><USER4> Arch: [https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Security](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Security)

CentOS: [https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/OS_Protection](https://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/OS_Protection) (limited)

Debian: [https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian- howto/ind...](https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian- howto/index.en.html) (old)

Fedora: [https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en- US/Fedora/19/html/Security...](https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en- US/Fedora/19/html/Security_Guide/index.html) (old)

Mageia: [https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Msec](https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Msec) (limited)

Oracle Linux: [https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E52668_01/E54670/html/index.html](https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E52668_01/E54670/html/index.html)

Red Hat: [https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en- us/red_hat_enterp...](https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en- us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/7/html/security_guide/)

Slackware: [https://docs.slackware.com/howtos:security:start](https://docs.slackware.com/howtos:security:start) (limited)

SuSE: [https://www.suse.com/documentation/sles-15/singlehtml/book_h...](https://www.suse.com/documentation/sles-15/singlehtml/book_hardening/book_hardening.html)

Ubuntu: [https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/security.html.en](https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/security.html.en) (limited)

<comment><USER5> And for the masochists: [https://iase.disa.mil/stigs/Pages/a-z.aspx](https://iase.disa.mil/stigs/Pages/a-z.aspx)

<comment><USER4> Crikey, look at that mess:

 _Upgrade the version of the browser to an approved version by obtaining software from the vendor or other trusted source. Method 1: View the following registry key: HKLM\Software\Mozilla\Mozilla Firefox\CurrentVersion Method 2: Search for the firefox.exe file using the search feature of the operating system. Examine the files properties for the product version (not the file version. For Windows OS, determine the version of the file by examining navigating to Properties /Version/Product Version. Examine for all instances of firefox.exe that are present on the endpoint. Criteria: If the version number of the firefox.exe file is less than 50.1.x (or ESR 45.7.x), this is a finding._

How about clicking on "About Firefox" in the menu? "Other trusted source" \- like softonic, yes?

<comment><USER6> > How about clicking on "About Firefox" in the menu?

Perhaps they don't trust it enough to execute it until they know it's the latest version and was obtained from a trustworthy source.

<comment><USER4> At least the version there is baked into the (signed) .exe while the registry information can be edited independently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The CIS benchmarks are a great place to start for hardening a system ([https://www.cisecurity.org/cis-benchmarks/](https://www.cisecurity.org/cis- benchmarks/)) and there's also OpenSCAP gives you a nice way to scan systems for compliance against a set of hardening rules ([https://www.open- scap.org/](https://www.open-scap.org/)).

<comment><USER8> Thanks. What about using the hardened images they provide? [https://www.cisecurity.org/cis-hardened-image- list/](https://www.cisecurity.org/cis-hardened-image-list/)

<comment><USER9> Their hardened images are fine but there are two issues. First, you'll need to test / dev with them as full implementations of CIS can break things (though not as bad as the STIGs) and, IIRC, they charge extra for you to use their images on public clouds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> No mention of shipping off logs to another place? It's probably good to assume someone will gain access and make after-the-fact forensics a primary concern as well.

Something a lot of hardening guides seem to skip!

<comment><USER11> A lot of hardening guides skip the long tail for security.

Which is to say: So you've shipped logs off, so then what? How are you going to monitor those regularly, what are you looking for, how are you going to make sure important information stands out?

Many people set up remote logging and then never check the logs until after there is an issue. An unread log isn't useful. Logs that are too spammy aren't going to be read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Here's a bonus one: If you install Docker don't add your non-admin to the docker group as it's effectively passwordless sudo.

<comment><USER13> Does Docker allow you to enforce user namespaces for all comtainers? I think that avoids the issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Related: My First 10 Minutes On a Server - Primer for Securing Ubuntu

[https://www.codelitt.com/blog/my-first-10-minutes-on-a- serve...](https://www.codelitt.com/blog/my-first-10-minutes-on-a-server- primer-for-securing-ubuntu/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Nothing about SELinux or AppArmor? While these are enabled by default on some of the big distros I think a basic guide on managing and troubleshooting would be beneficial.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, the best impact would come from using SELinux, AppArmor, and GRSec. Everything else is just tweaking defaults, which for up-to-date software probably isn't going to impact your security much at all.

<comment><USER2> I don't disagree but you gotta start with the basics. SELinux can be rather advanced/complex and probably warrants its own guide. I still have to learn it better before I try to write a guide on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I didn't know you could add google Authenticator to your server. Thank you for this write up.

<comment><USER18> You don't have to use a closed source TOTP client such as Google's. There's RedHat's FreeOTP and there's another open source one called antOTP. You can find them on F-Droid as well.

There have been TOTP PAM modules for ages (these work on a Linux client and Linux server via e.g. SSH). You can even add YubiKey to PAM. Same for BSD Auth and macOS.

<comment><USER19> > RedHat's FreeOTP

It's abandonware these days and hasn't been updated for years. The iOS app doesn't work anymore and can't use the camera for reading codes.

<comment> dfed-mpls I use it on ios, and so does most of Red Hat employees (they state it is a preferred version of tfa over the google app.)

It's not broken for the 15 or so accounts I use it for.

<comment><USER19> Try the "scan code" button which should activate the camera and the app will crash. I just tested it with my iPhone and verified. The iOS App Store application was last updated 4 years ago. There's also comments there saying it doesn't work anymore.

Reading / using existing codes might work properly, or manually inputting them.

<comment> dfed-mpls Nope. I used that feature just today to add another account. Works on my iPhone X.

<comment> dfed-mpls Also, the last commit to the app was a year ago, if you head to their github page.

[https://github.com/freeotp/freeotp- ios/commits/master](https://github.com/freeotp/freeotp-ios/commits/master)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I would not recommend using "ufw" for configuring the firewall on a production server (as it's not easily composable and lacks configurability for more complex rules). I can recommend "ferm" instead as it allows you to compose multiple config files (important for automation e.g. when using Ansible) and allows describing more complex rules that e.g. involve policies.

<comment><USER2> How would you define a production server? Do you mean in the context of a home server or a server used by a large company? The guide is intended for a server for home use. I hope anyone securing a large corporate server is not using information on GitHub. If they are then the company has far bigger problems than security.

I think for home use, ufw is probably good enough. I've been using it for 3+ years and it's worked out okay for me okay.

I have not heard of ferm but I will check it out. Thanks!

<comment><USER20> Sorry, very late reply: We deploy all our infrastructure with Ansible, hence we want to have a way to configure the firewall for each role individually without overwriting previous configuration. For example, we have firewall rules for IP-Sec connections, SSH connections from the bastion host and then specific configurations for applications like databases or message queues. With ferm we can just create individual configs for each of these and put them in a directory where they are loaded sequentially and automatically. This allows us to iteratively define firewall rules and deploy different Ansible roles.

For a home server ufw is probably good enough, as I said I wouldn't recommend it for "serious" use in a highly automated environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > _2FA for ssh_

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this what password-protected private key encryption is?

<comment><USER22> The author probably meant "two-step" (out of band verification) rather than two-factor.

<comment><USER2> A pass phrase on a certificate is two step. Password + TOTP is two factor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was pleased to notice that the author used DuckDuckGo search link in their article instead of Google.

<comment><USER2> Always. Google gives me 5 thousand pages of ads before the results I want. I hate to admit that sometimes I still use Google for searching. Like I love their shopping search.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It would also be proper to disable non root access to /proc among other things. You can do that by simply mounting with hidepid=2 or adding it to fstab.

<comment><USER25> Why? Disabling access to /proc will disable a huge number of useful features, such as the ability of a process to monitor and manage its memory usage, to debug itself, and so forth.

<comment><USER26> For example, /proc/self/pagemap can be used for rowhammer attacks.

Source: Another flip in the wall of rowhammer defenses (IEEE S&P 2018)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Dont forget about namespaces which lets you isolate apps. and Apparmor to restrict file and network access. And also chroot and setuid to drop privileges and change the root path. And unix sockets / named pipes. Instead of letting your daemons access the whole network have them listen on a unix socket.

And scan your own network, both from the outside and inside.

<comment><USER2> I am not familiar with namespaces in this context? Can you please point me in the right direction? I have added AppArmor to my to-do list. I know what chroot and setuid are, not sure what to mention about them in the guide? And I will look into unix sockets.

Can you recommend any good network scanning tools? I've been on the hunt for a good one.

<comment><USER27> I think the most useful for sysadmins are the network namespace that lets you put an app into it's own network, so it can not see the rest of the network. Container technology makes use of namespaces to create lightweight VM/containers. See man namespaces, lxc

nmap is a popular tool for network scanning. I've also found tcpdump to be useful for looking at network traffic.

setuid and chroot are useful for programmers, so once the app is up and running, it can chroot into a data-dir and drop root privileges using setuid to a unprivileged user. As a sysadmin you can also start the app from within a chroot and run it as a unprivileged user which is preferably. Most (free)BSD tutorials go though setting up a chroot jail, it's not as common in Linux.

Containers, VM's, and chroot will not stop a very determined attacker, but the more restrictions the harder it will get.

Security is applied in layers: First you want to prevent people from the outside. Access is most often gained through exploiting some service/daemon/app running on the server. So the app should have as little privileges as possible. System access is often then gained by exploiting _another_ app (so you want all apps to be locked down, not just the network facing ones), like getting Apache to run curl, that sends a internal request to another app that has a known vulnerability and happens to run as root. (nobody thought that app not accessible from the outside needed to get patched). Once the attacker is inside the server, you also want to prevent access to _other computers_ in the network.

<comment><USER2> Got it. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Securing ssh, 2FA for ssh, using key authentication...

Yes but first and foremost you don't expose ssh to all internet, it should be allowed only from known IP addresses and you should VPN to have connect to that known addresses. Section about firewall config just tells to open ssh...

<comment><USER29> It might help protect against an OpenSSH zero-day but those are pretty rare.

I've been running my home server with an completely open SSH port since 2012 and haven't been hacked yet. And I know since I check occasionally with Tripwire and/or RPM verification from a clean boot.

The only downside to an open SSH port is the thousands and thousands of log spams from connection attempts. The upside is that I can log in from anywhere using my phone directly or as a hotspot for the laptop.

Oh yeah, and VPN just pushes the problem back one level. For me SSH _is_ the VPN. Requiring VPN access first to get to SSH is just pushing any security problems back into the VPN server. Because now IT is the one with the open port to the internet.

<comment><USER2> Can you use Tripwire for free for home/consumer stuff? And what does RPM verification do? Just make sure all the packages you have installed are legit?

<comment><USER29> Tripwire is packaged up in Fedora. It's listed as GPLv2 licensed. So, yes.

RPM verification checks that all of the files installed through RPM have checksums that match the original RPM. It also checks that the RPM cryptographic signatures match.

So that should guarantee that files like the kernel, systemd, /bin/sh, /lib/libc.so.6, etc are not compromised.

A system can still be vulnerable to persistent attacks installed in unwatched files such as /root/.bash_profile, /etc/profile.d, extra files in /usr/systemd/system, etc. So you also have to check for extra files that you didn't install.

I don't have anything except Secure Boot to protect against UEFI attacks.

<comment><USER2> Got it. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Does anyone have experience with deborphan? Not previously aware of it, I installed it, and it reported 2 programs which I use very frequently (conky and cryptsetup) as being orphans. I dare not run the uninstall script in the linked guide.

<comment><USER2> Would you mind pasting the output of `deborphan` showing those two or creating a new issue on my GitHub page? I want to show it to the author of `deborphan` to see if he knows why its happening.

[https://github.com/imthenachoman/How-To-Secure-A-Linux- Serve...](https://github.com/imthenachoman/How-To-Secure-A-Linux- Server/issues/new)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is using gmail to send mails from your server a good idea?

<comment><USER31> It's better than running your own smtp servers. But the article proposes using your own gmail account, to which the server has an app password. So a server compromise leads to your own email being compromised. It should be a separate gmail account.

<comment><USER2> So I use a separate gmail account for my server but forgot to mention in guide. I will add it.

Although I wonder if its necessary if you use an app password. What is the worst a bad-actor can do with the app password?</comment></comment></comment>


Hide your secret key in plain site? Tell me the issues with this thought doodle - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/anonymous/305cdee9d2c977de08d8844385d540c5 <comment><USER2> So, your concern with password managers right now is that losing your master password means you lose everything?

You wish to design a new system where the threat model includes losing the master password? I think your implementation only adds 3 bits "more" security than a "basic" implementation that is: hash web site name || root password.

Say, in your implementation, the attacker gets the root password and "salt based on another random password" (it's likely that they get both at the same time because they would be stored in the same place. If they're not stored in the same place, you just discovered a weak form of 2-factor auth). All the attacker has to do at this point is guess 10 values (30-40) and try each one to get the account password. That's your 3 extra bits of security from the 'basic' implementation.

But if you just look at the two "features" you presented of your scheme, I don't know any popular password manager (LastPass, 1Password, etc) that doesn't have them. Can you explain?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My concern with password managers is that if the password database is stolen with my master password, I lose everything. If this script is stolen off my laptop, what do I lose? Attacker would have to guess so much. Even if they did guess all 3 'passwords', they would still have to guess the site, username, etc. Plus, my master password isn't stored anywhere on my machine.

I don't care about forgetting a master password. I can recreate everything.

The flip side is my master password IS distributed across multiple third party datasources that I have no control over....

</comment><comment><USER3> A basic implementation here: [http://webpass.rkeene.org/](http://webpass.rkeene.org/)

A couple of difficulties your writeup doesn't cover:

* password expiry/rotation - webpass uses the "sequence number" for this, and sequence numbers can be saved in localStorage or shared online through another channel

* policies. The "Site" dropdown references a json structure which can specify min/max lengths, character type rules etc

The implementation is pretty simple, but that's kinda the point :).

</comment><comment><USER4> Isn't it [http://www.supergenpass.com/](http://www.supergenpass.com/)?</comment>


IPad 3G data plan primer - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/04/ipad-3g-wifi-day-is-today-heres-our-data-plan-primer.ars <comment><USER2> This actually has a pretty good breakdown of data cost/task. It also points out that there is a break-even point at the 500MB mark with the unlimited plan.

Having never reset my 3GS, I was curious to see where I fell in. If it were offered, I only need 250MB about every 27 days it would seem - an opportunity to save $157/year on phone service if AT&T provided the means to do so.</comment>


Test Your Creative Insight - Interactive Feature - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/12/07/science/20101207-puzzle-interactive.html?ref=science <comment><USER2> Do they always play the negative before the positive? If so, maybe people are just getting better at the game as they play more.

<comment><USER3> No, not always. It shifts after a refresh.

I got 13 points after the negative image (first), and 11 points after the positive image, which contradicts the research. I was in a pretty positive mood before starting though, and then I started concentrating on the task, which may or may not have had an influence. Also, the "positive/humorous" video I found to be pretty boring, so maybe I got more annoyed than getting in a good mood, because I just wanted to get on with the test.</comment></comment>


A Great TypeScript IDE: Atom - <AUTHOR> https://atom.io/packages/atom-typescript

<comment><AUTHOR> We've been spending quite a lot of time working on this in the past month with very good reviews both from the TypeScript team and in general. Thought I'd open it up to review. Please leave your feedback on what you would like to see next.</comment>


Ask HN: What is Going on with Symantec? - <AUTHOR> So the most in-depth article I've read is this one & it still doesn't explain much: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4174685-investors-right-worry-symantec-appears-sec-investigating-since-least-april<p>Hypotheses anyone? Likely related to their SSL/Verisign stuff? <comment><USER2> [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/robbins-arroyo-llp- symantec-c...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/robbins-arroyo-llp-symantec- corporation-191100449.html) is the best I could find in a couple of minutes.

It seems to say that a former employee said something that raised questions about the validity of their financial results. Symantec's audit committee is looking into it, and may not be able to file their financial reports when they're supposed to (because they get in worse trouble for statements that they have reason to know are inaccurate than they do for being late).

When this got announced, their stock price crashed 30%. So now some stockholders are suing, because they think the execs should have prevented all this, because the execs' incentives are supposed to be aligned with the shareholders. (The execs' probably should have prevented this. But the rationale for the suit, to me, sounds like "we lost money, so we want to sue, so let's make up a reason". But IANAL...)</comment>


The rise of the pointless job - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/may/04/i-had-to-guard-an-empty-room-the-rise-of-the-pointless-job <comment><USER4> I have said this before, but I see some parallels between the modern world and Japan during the early Tokugawa era. Japan had pretty much reached a steady state by the time Tokugawa Iyeyasu came to power in 1600; most of the available land had been cultivated or settled, and, especially after the policies of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, society was locked in a rigid structure without much room for advancement or unrest.

As a result, the samurai class, especially Tokugawa's bannermen and "inner" families, sort of lost their purpose. There were no more wars to fight - <USER2> when peace lasted "as long as the waves roll" \- and the strongest rebels they could expect were peasants who could not own swords.

Because they couldn't just revoke the lands Iyeyasu had distributed (without very good reason), and to give the samurai _something_ to do, the Edo government expanded constantly, creating dozens of superfluous or sinecure bureaucratic roles, so that the second and third sons of samurai families wouldn't just sit around at home. I believe this pattern was repeated across the various daimyo han at each castle town. Further, the samurai household _themselves_ created redundant job openings just to get more peasants out of unemployment. This was how every samurai ended up with six porters. Even as certain samurai families sunk into abject poverty in the 1800s, as the shogunate neared its end, this policy continued: your grandfather had increased the number of household retainers from five to six, to give someone's fourth son a job; and it had become hereditary, and now that fourth son's grandson was _your_ sixth retainer, and you couldn't destroy the position even if you could barely afford to pay him.

When I hear politicians talking about "creating jobs", I think of the shogunate.

<comment><USER5> When my family lived in Japan years ago, we noticed that when taking the train, approximately three attendants checked our tickets before we boarded a train. At least two of those jobs are "bullshit" in terms of producing wealth, but they are socially beneficial in a culture where the social contract requires near-zero unemployment. (I, apparently like you, can't help but remember this kind of arrangement when listening to "jobs guarantee" rhetoric from various politicians.)

<comment><USER6> Is visited the USA just once (in 2003), but there was an old man that took my bag off the end of the luggage belt at the airport and handed it to me. I could easily have picked it up myself, but he was there for those 30 centimeters of bag travel. I remember being amazed about it and remarking the pointlessness of that job to my coworkers.

<comment><USER7> In the US you often see people holding a sign saying "slow" next to construction or road work.

This is a job that could literally be automated with a pole :)

<comment><USER8> Those signs say stop on the other side and are used in conjuction with someone on the other end of the construction holding up the opposite sign so that a single lane can be used to handle traffic in two directions. That job would need to be automated with a traffic light.

<comment><USER9> In Germany, no-one is holding stop/slow signs at any construction site. This job is universally done by portable traffic lights.

<comment><USER10> In Germany, people respect traffic lights even when there's no one there to enforce your good behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm a programmer working at a big-tech company. I make ~$350k/year, even though my job could be done equally well by a college intern. I only do ~2 hours of productive work in an average day. My previous jobs were far more interesting and challenging, and I had apparently done extremely well in my interviews. Hence why I got an offer with an extremely good compensation package.

However, the team that I go put into, is one of the slowest moving and least useful I've ever seen. I spent my first couple months trying to make things better, and be more productive - only to have my team-lead actively micromanage and stonewall me in order to bring my productivity down to a crawl. I tried talking to my manager about it, but they started blaming me personally every time I pointed out any ways of improving the way we do things.

Eventually, I stopped trying at all, did the best I could (~2 hours/day of productivity), and just zoned out the rest of the time. Apparently this has pleased my manager/team-lead, and everything has been smooth (boring) sailing ever since. It still boggles my mind that I'm getting paid $350k/year to essentially browse HN and post stuff like this all day.

<comment><USER12> Through my long career, I've notice virtually no correlation between my pay and the utility of my position. And indeed, I've had one or two jobs like yours. Sadly for my bank book, I can only stand being useless for relatively short stretches.

I still reminisce about my lowest paying job, my first. It was probably the most enjoyable and satisfying. It was also useful, though perhaps not at the top of that list.

It's annoying that so many useless jobs pay so much. But even worse that it's so hard to find a position where being useful is even a possibility.

<comment><USER13> There's an economic theory that job satisfaction is a kind of compensation. That is, you have to pay people more to do unsatisfying jobs.

<comment><USER14> I doubt that top-paying jobs like CEO are undesirable to those people who have them as well as those who would like to have them. On the other hand all really shitty jobs pay nothing - that's true for hundreds of millions, maybe even billions of people worldwide. A >100k$ programmer office job in the US does _not_ belong in the "shitty job" category, no matter how much someone complains online because they are bored while comfortably sitting in their chair waiting for the next big paycheck to arrive reliably.

That rule must have been made by one of those super-rich people grumbling about how unfair life treats them and how the government attempts to steal "their" money.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/02/po...](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/02/poor- lives-rich-people/331159/)

<comment><USER15> It's just basic supply and demand.

Top paying jobs like CEO are top paying because the supply of trusted people, who boards are willing to hand control over billions of assets to, is vanishingly small. Programming jobs are reasonably well paying because businesses are careful about who they hand their code over to, although not the extreme degree of CEO. And something like fry cook is low paying because those businesses are willing to hire just about anyone.

But we cannot completely discount the effects of desirability. If your employment options are fry cook or oil rig worker, most people would prefer fry cook and thus oil rig worker has considerably higher wages due to the aversion to the job, and therefore reduction in supply at the price point of fry cook. Of course, increased compensation can prompt people to look in alternative directions.

<comment><USER16> It's not just basic supply and demand though. There are many other factors driving up CEO pay.

1\. CEO pay at public companies is public, so they feel the need to keep up with other companies.

2\. The incestuous relationship between CEOs and the boards of directors that set their pay.

CEO compensation isn't tied to performance.

<comment><USER15> _> 1\. CEO pay at public companies is public, so they feel the need to keep up with other companies._

That's just basic supply and demand. Since pay is public, people know how much the other party will balk at, affecting the supply.

 _> 2\. The incestuous relationship between CEOs and the boards of directors that set their pay._

That's just basic supply and demand. Like I said, the people who have that kind of relationship are vanishingly small.

> CEO compensation isn't tied to performance.

There is no pay that is truly tied to performance. Just basic supply and demand.

<comment><USER14> CEO pay is _not_ just supply and demand. You cannot even tell what "supply" even is, because "CEO supply" is nothing that can be well defined. You could make a lot of people CEO from the 2nd and 3rd ranks who also have the experience and knowledge, or you can seek only people who already have been CEOs - which does not guarantee anything at all, because CEO success depends a lot on context and circumstances. CEO supply is extremely flexible based on psychology for one (who you are willing to accept for the role is extremely subjective and based on personal preferences), and can also very easily be changed through actions (whom do you give a chance to learn to lead, and how). So the possible "supply" of CEOs is decided on a whim to a large degree, based on subjectivity (even if it's attempted to be hidden by some "thorough search" \- which uses those same subjective criteria and selection heuristics).

You misuse economic theory by simply using it to make unsubstantiatable claims pretending that it somehow proves anything as long as you use the right magic words from economic thinking.

<comment><USER15> _> You cannot even tell what "supply" even is_

It's pretty easy to figure out. Typically there will be exactly one person the board is willing to trust. It doesn't matter how they reached that conclusion.

Being the only person in the world deemed suitable for the task gives incredible leverage when demand is near infinite.

 _> You misuse economic theory by simply using it to make unsubstantiatable claims_

It would appear that you're simply overthinking this. We're talking about basic supply and demand, not a complex economic theory. It is simply an observation of what people agree to. We call it basic because it doesn't represent anything more.

<comment><USER14> > _We're talking about basic supply and demand_

I refer to what was written above. The only "thinking" I can see on your side is how to prolong a non-argument - you just throw out random stuff, going for quantity and endless repetition, but there is not a coherent recognizable thought. Nice try, but I'd say after your first reply it turned into trolling. You _are_ pretty good at saying a lot without saying anything at all though, I give you that much.

<comment><USER15> If you don't understand my explanation you are welcome to ask questions. I also encourage you to refer to other sources on the internet that go into more detail that I ever could in a short comment. You don't have to assume someone is a troll just because a comment isn't perfectly eloquent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The goon category is interesting in a future world where AI has replaced most jobs, because it can employ an unlimited number of people. (Goon jobs exist to counterbalance other goon jobs. Militaries are the canonical example.)

Most jobs -- teachers, auto workers, plumbers, farmers -- have a natural ceiling on employment related to demand, but goon jobs don't because when one side hires more goons, the other side has to also. Militaries have created millions of jobs this way.

Goon jobs are not just blue-collar. A growing category of goon that allows unlimited highly paid professional job creation is inter-governmental lawyers. For example, the CA government is suing the EPA about vehicle emissions limits. Both sides can justify a big budget for hiring lawyers. Metropolitan areas like the Bay Area provide lots of opportunities for cities to sue each other, transit authorities, and the state. I don't see any upper limit to the number of jobs this can create.

All this is only a bad thing if you care about efficiency. If you let go of that axiom, there are unlimited jobs to be created.

<comment><USER18> I die inside.

But any suggestion of "mincome" or the like is met with such a harsh reaction... What, effectively, is the difference between goon-bloom and mincome? Is it just that one is too obviously a subsidy?

<comment><USER19> I talk to people about changing the world so work is optional, and people are really attached to the idea that everyone should work all the time. Our world is sufficiently productive (a trend I expect to continue rising) that we could offer a modest life to everyone regardless of how much they work. Or more conservatively, we could build a world where everyone has 8 weeks of vacation a year or could take 6 months off every few years.

I believe this is doable from a technical perspective and it's the problem I'm trying to devote my life to. We ultimately need to build optional societies where people who choose to join can opt out of consumerism, a major driver of our need for endless work.

My vision is for systems of robotics that are totally open source (modifiable and royalty free) that can create the basic goods for survival. Then groups of people fund corporations with bylaws like a constitution that guarantee rights to shareholders. The machines provide for the people and excess goods are sold to a market to support growth of the community.

I think something like that in the future is one very useful aspect of a society where unnecessary work is over and regular people get to enjoy the benefits of modern productivity (instead of a small percentage of the population enjoying that while most people miss out).

But in general when I talk to people I find that the hardest idea for them to grasp is the idea that we could all work less and things wouldn't collapse. We just need to alter the distribution of wealth so that everyone benefits.

<comment><USER20> > Our world is sufficiently productive (a trend I expect to continue rising) > that we could offer a modest life to everyone regardless of how much they > work.

i realize that the rest of your post details technological advancements that could create this condition (on an indefinite timeline), but you also seem to be saying that it is already possible today. i often see this sort of claim these days, and i always wonder why this is treated as self evident fact.

in 2015, the PPP adjusted GDP per capita over the entire planet was just under $16k [1]. this is only 125% of the US poverty line for a single person in the same year [2]. even if we could deliver this sum to every person in the world without losing production capacity and with no administrative cost, it hardly seems enough to provide what you mean by a "modest living" to everyone. much closer to mere subsistence in a developed nation.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

[2] [https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time- series/demo/income-p...](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time- series/demo/income-poverty/historical-poverty-thresholds.html)

<comment><USER21> Measure productivity different from money made. The point is that based on current production levels, we could provide everyone with sufficient food, decent housing and basic amenities like water and electricity.

The reason this doesnt happen is that those who sell the food, or build the housing are better off getting paying customers. This makes sense as a market, sellers are self-interested. It also leads to a certain kind of optimum. But certainly, as a matter of production, it is feasible to give everyone a modest life without needing to change productivity. As a matter of social stability, it isn't feasible, but in some sense, that should be a denouncement of society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Author lost me on doorman. Doormen absolutely bring value and saying that doormen is bullshit job is the same as saying that waitress is a bullshit job - in the end customer is fully capable of bringing the food from the counter to his table on his own.

Doormen Can accept packages when you are not in your apt (leaving outside is not an option in NY)

      Can accept laundry delivery

      Provide security by screening people out at the entrance

      Virtually eliminate burglaries/theft

      Can provide key to housecleaner/installer/plumber/etc

      Keep parking spot in front of building available for short time use by residents (often semi-illegally)

      Can help brining up heavy suitcases/bags to the apartment

Doormen absolutely provide value and apts in buildings with doormen sells for more than equivalent apartments with only intercall.

<comment><USER23> Right. The real useless jobs are the 10 people working on animating hair for the next Assassin's Creed game or the CGI for the next Marvel film

<comment><USER12> Heh. Careful--you may discover that there are jobs far more useless than that.

<comment><USER24> Half of management jobs? ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There are plenty of bullshit jobs in the software industry.

Many things designers and graphics developers do is goon-ish. Design is mostly an arms race. Employees of big companies create new design languages and at some point the rest has to adapt or be left behind. Of course, marketing is 99% bullshit anyway, and that's where a good deal of the design goes.

I doubt games are more fun now than 10 years ago because graphics has gotten better. If anything, games from 10 years ago have gotten worse because we're used to more complex graphics.

Almost everybody here is a duct-taper. 95% of our time is spent dealing with technical debt. We're using decades old technology that was never designed to solve the problems we face now. Take the twitter password problem on the front page: This would've never happened had we just adopted a more sane approach to authentication. When you wait for hours on your windows updates, think of the poor souls who know that none of this is necessary but can't entangle the mess that makes this necessary (apparently). And think of the poor souls in testing who can't report the real bug that is a broken code architecture which makes automated or more fine-grained tests impossible.

<comment><USER26> It's a bit much to say design is goonish and an arms race. I'd argue the reason that Apple is the most valuable company in the world is mostly due to their design expertise.

You can make the same argument about software between companies being an arms race that competitors adapt to to or get left behind (see cloud, mobile, voice, etc.).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Graeber has been pushing this for some time now - it is an interesting observation. In this particular article he does not even try to explain why this happens - but in other places he made silly theories about capitalist employers doing that on purpose to keep people from revolting - while omitting the simplest explanation - that it is the result of complexity of our organizations. People don't understand their jobs. Sometimes it means they do something useful but they don't understand why it is needed, other times they really do something useless - but nobody really knows which is which or what part of a job is useful.

Then there are company power plays which are counterproductive to the whole - but they are meaningful for the people who commandeer them.

And the biggest problem is that there is a positive feedback in that - after a few failures to rationalize the organizations people give up. The harder the organizations are to be understood the less people work on making them more rational.

</comment><comment><USER28> I work a very productive job with direct outputs. But my job still doesn't advance humanity forward. My company provides a solution for problems caused by other entities, but it isn't a solution to some fundamental problem. Some days I feel as if the job is pointless because, in the end, I'm just a duct taper, even if I'm duct taping for an entity that is outside of my organization.

If you take the concepts in this argument and expand it beyond just companies (which the author started to do when mentioning armed forces counted as goons), I think we would see a society that is already filled with useless jobs.

</comment><comment><USER29> When I look at a downtown with tall buildings I always think about what the fuck people are doing in those buildings. I get the sense that more and more people are hired to simply report on a team. That report goes up one level and its part of another team report (just representing more people). Then that report goes up... and it continues for as many levels of bureaucracy that the company decided was necessary.

Most of this falls directly in the category of "not my problem" that is eating everyone's soul. Because more and more people subscribing to "not my problem" we are creating perfect systems that need bureaucracy. The opposite structure is more people doing the hands-on-work (that is reported on) and more of those people being involved directly in decisions and are stakeholders on firing. Everyone has a sense of how much work is being done and who the slackers are so there is no more a need for upward reporting and downward decisions.

Now the argument being made is that AI is replacing jobs so you could say - well this upward reporting job is all that we have left! So I say boo-fuck to that. We don't have spaceships going into space on a daily basis, we don't recycle 100% of what can be recycled, we don't have clean freeways, we don't have technology that perfects our pollution, we don't have AI.... so there are A FUCK TON amount of work to be done, but no one wants to do it because of our "not my problem" attitude.

Heck if what we're facing is a training problem, then heck, I see a hell of a lot of jobs right there!

</comment><comment><USER30> A lot of people have pointless jobs, but it seems even more people have jobs that are actively contributing to the wanton destruction of our entire world. I suspect these are both symptoms of our elevation of capital to the status of _universal good_. This will only get worse as long as we continue to espouse the default view that people who "don't have a job" are useless moochers and people who have high paying jobs are valuable contributors to society.

<comment><USER31> "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads."

\--Jeff Hammerbacher

<comment><USER32> The best minds of previous generations were fighting wars or leading battles. I personally do not think either of those activities is specifically better or worse.

<comment><USER33> I do.

Wars. Wars are worse.

<comment><USER34> They do help reduce economic inequality, nothing like a good war to flatten wealth.

<comment><USER35> Yeah look at Alepo. But the average Syrian didn't really have all that much anyway.

The west will never fight a war like WW2 ever again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> In some developing countries, there's an unofficial social contract that the wealthy should employ as many people as possible, even if they need to make pointless jobs. A company I worked for had a remote office in India that employed people to hand out paper towels in the bathrooms.

<comment><USER37> This is also common in higher-end nightclubs and bars in the U.S., although these aren't full-time jobs and the attendants work mostly for tips.

<comment><USER38> Or just strip clubs in general. I was in the most ghetto strip club I've ever heard about (unpainted cinder block walls), but they had an attendant.

<comment><USER39> That's to keep ppl from rubbing one out my man.

<comment><USER38> Haha, that makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is true, I've seen this over the years in several corporate jobs, typically in large companies. Teams are overstaffed, and each person ends up not having much to do.

Managers keep the team size high because it's not their money to spend, and they prefer being a team lead of 5 persons instead of 2, looks better on the CV.

People spend their day in their desktop trying to invent things to do, looking busy, surfing the web discretely, waiting for the clock to hit 6 oclock.

Then something "urgent" comes around that needs to be done for tomorrow, and you stay in the office until 9 to finish it. The software gets delivered, but its not deployed until 3 months down the line, and the users hardly use the application at all.

</comment><comment><USER41> That reminds me of the forgotten employee, which is very awesome, and slightly relevant.

[https://sites.google.com/site/forgottenemployee/](https://sites.google.com/site/forgottenemployee/)

<comment><USER42> I remember reading that years ago.

One day, I'd like that to be me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> In the US, I think it largely stems from our individualistic natures. Our fierce independence comes at a cost to the greater community; we often don't interact, and in the worst case outright loathe, our neighbors. People would rather bitch on NextDoor about a loud party down the block instead of confronting them directly about it. We solve disputes not by working it out with the other party, but with subpoenas. Public jobs are low-paying and staffed with people who couldn't find jobs in the private sector, resulting in little incentive to do more than the absolute minimum. Many well-meaning government initiatives aimed to benefit the greater good are met with intense suspicion (your NIMBYs). Companies don't see offering jobs as enriching communities, but rather bestowing saintly privileges that those plebians better be thankful for. They're decked with such ridiculous liability clauses that the case of the carpenter in the story is not an exception, but the norm.

That was somewhat of a rant, and I don't really have any kind of solution to all of it. America is several thousand tragedies of the commons, from a neighbor-to-neighbor level all the way up to the federal government.

<comment><USER44> I have to say I don't understand many things about your comment, so I'd be glad if you were to clear them for me.

1) You blame your "individualistic natures" for the appearance of pointless jobs. Now, I haven't lived in the US, but that seems odd to me. I live in Romania, a society that is profoundly focused on the community, and the abundance of pointless jobs, particularly in the communistic years (communism being a profoundly anti-individualistic ideology) was absolutely staggering.

It just seems to me pretty self-evident that, as you move the focus from the individual, and his own happiness, he will find less motivation to do a meaningful job, and be contempt with a pointless, but simpler job.

I may be missing something important here, as, again, everything I know about American culture I know from the internet, so, if I am, please feel free to tell me.

2) "Public jobs are low-paying and staffed with people who couldn't find jobs in the private sector, resulting in little incentive to do more than the absolute minimum."

I'm afraid I just don't follow here. Wouldn't the low pay motivate people to work at pulling themselves out of those jobs and into the private sector?

3) You claim, quite rightly, that companies are not concerned with the public good, just with their survival and/or success, and consider jobs given out as "saintly privileges".

Firstly, all of the modern advances of mankind, from the industrial revolution, to the ridiculously cheap products provided by Rockefeller, Edison, and the like, to the supercomputers almost every human in the civilized world carries with him in his pocket, were made, not in the interest of "the greater community", but in those people/companies' self-interest.

Secondly, which worker do you think is more productive? The one that says "I am owed this job by my company"? Or the one that says, "My job is nothing but a privilege given onto me by the company, and I must prove every day that I deserve it?"

In any case, I'd be really grateful if you could explain these points to me. Thanks in advance!!

<comment><USER43> >I may be missing something important here, as, again, everything I know about American culture I know from the internet, so, if I am, please feel free to tell me.

Americans, as the saying does, live to work. Many tie their individual worth to the jobs they do. We invest a lot of ourselves into our jobs (those we care about anyway), and oftentimes the output doesn't equal the input.

>Wouldn't the low pay motivate people to work at pulling themselves out of those jobs and into the private sector?

You greatly overestimate the average person's drive to better themselves. Plenty are fine to get something that pays the bills and that's it.

>Secondly, which worker do you think is more productive?

You're going between 2 extremes that I didn't mention. My comment about companies offering jobs comes from the understanding of how positions (mainly in the white collar industry) used to be in the 50s/60s/70s vs. today. People that worked at the IBMs/RANDs/GMs/etc. of yester-decade worked there for decades. They were loyal to that company, almost to a fault. When they retired, they were given an expensive Omega with their name engraved in the back. Some even got pensions. Note this was also largely in the context of the pre-globalization age. Nowadays companies have no problem axing whole divisions to meet their bottom lines. They will go overseas. They have no problem leaving an area they've been at for decades. All the while, baby boomers continue to wonder out loud why their kids don't have the same earnings potential as they did. Not saying any of this is good or bad, it just is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Edwardian-era mansions employed whole _teams_ of butlers whose sole job was replacing candles.

Not everyone is in a position to make a discernible impact on society. 20% of society will always drive 80% of progress. Think hard how you want the remaining 80% to support their families.

<comment><USER46> Pretty simple, return to a 90% top tax rate and give the proceeds out as Basic Income. This shit situation we are in is not sustainable, we have levels of inequality in the US not seen since the roaring 20s and we all know how that ended.

<comment><USER24> Even 100% tax rate is not enough to pay for a meaningful UBI, even in the US. You will have to take major budget cuts somewhere.

Suppose we tax Forbes 500 at 100% level and the companies too. That would provide about 2 billion USD a year. Divided by population it will be less than $2k a person yearly.

Suppose you tax top 10%, I'd expect that to double this number. Still way not enough. And we're not even close to military budget.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Kind of lost me when they gave military jobs as an example. By this logic, it is "pointless" for organisms to have immune systems, since if other organisms didn't cause infection it wouldn't be necessary. Maybe, but that's not the way the world is (or was, or likely will be anytime soon). It's a definition of "pointless" so remote from the real world as to seem...pointless.

<comment><USER48> Here is an article which argues that we should stop using militaristic terms for the immune system, that the immune system is not an army of killers, and that it's job is not to kill enemies, because talking like this brings harm in the world, by legitimizing violence.

I'm scratching my head at this.

[https://aeon.co/essays/why-we-should-guard-against- military-...](https://aeon.co/essays/why-we-should-guard-against-military- notions-of-immunity)

<comment><USER49> I don't know. Most developed countries militaries exist more to respond to aggravations from other countries than to actively stir up conflict. If a country decides not to have a military than it's at the mercy of a country that does to play nice. I'm sure it's true though that once you have a military you're more inclined to use it, but militaries do serve a useful purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> People in this thread that are praising job-creation as a social good miss the point. Jobs are not good on their own if they produce nothing.

If you are unable to distribute wealth through other means and a job is absolutely necessary, then find some useful work for the person to do. There is ALWAYS more work to do There are never enough bridges, roads, doctors, books, movies, research, etc. etc. If your society cannot find useful things for people to do, that is a failing of your method of societal organization.

<comment><USER51> The bottleneck is not the amount of work that ought to be done but the difficulty of training people to be able to do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I had a very similar experience once when I worked for the government. I wanted my small desk pointed a different direction, so I rotated it.

A few hours later my supervisor and a union rep showed up fuming. They have people for moving things, why was I trying to take their jobs?!

<comment><USER53> Not sure if true or false to demonize unions, but I've heard stories about the horror of trade shows at union facilities where booth staff were literally not allowed to plug items into power strips within their booths - it required a service request and probably a charge.

<comment><USER52> I've experienced that at a trade show too. That convention center did it as a means of charging crazy money for electricity. Internet was very expensive too.

Trade shows are a racket facilities-wise but worth it as publicity/B2B opportunities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> This is another argument in favor of universal income. Bullshit jobs is one of consequences of progress, low cost goods, food and comfort. With increasing automation it's going to be get incrementally harder to find bullshit jobs for people. until society understands that not everyone can and have to be employed.

<comment><USER55> UBI will lead to societal degeneration. Prices of essential services and goods would skyrocket; people would lose direction and the small amount of meaning they had.

I call UBI gay-space-communism because it suggests that all human beings are capable of handling themselves outside of employment and daily routine. They are not. The market creates this drive in people, and if you remove it, people will degenerate fast.

Opioids, UBI, and free-love for everyone. Yikes.

<comment><USER56> > UBI will lead to societal degeneration

No, it won't.

> Prices of essential services and goods would skyrocket

If you do a constant-value UBI and set the value too high, yes, that would happen in a positive feedback loop, but that's why UBI should be tied to a revenue stream with a value set by splitting the revenue stream with a reserve cushion to build a fund to allow preserving benefits in short-term revenue decline.

> people would lose direction

I don't see a credible argument for that replacing status quo means-tested social support with UBI would cause this, and indeed much of the motivation for UBI is to remove adverse incentives in present benefit programs that manifestly do produce this effect.

> I call UBI gay-space-communism

Which is dumb, because it has nothing to do with homosexuality or outer space or, as it retains private property, Communism.

> suggests that all human beings are capable of handling themselves outside of > employment and daily routine.

No, it doesn't, not that that would justify your ludicrous label even if that was true.

<comment><USER57> Any value of UBI higher than 0 creates positive feedback loop:

1\. government announces UBI

2\. retailers, in anticipation of higher demand raise prices.

3\. UBI beneficiaries see that they cannot buy as many goods as they want/need so they start demanding more money.

4\. government see that they have more tax revenue due to higher retail sales (and the price raise from step 2) so it easily agrees to increase UBI amount.

5\. go to step 2.

<comment><USER58> Do you think other financial aid formsfunded with tax money have this effect too? Or do you think UBI is qualitatively different because all taxpayers get it?

I think you can be cured of the latter if you consider the fact that it's exactly equivalent to a negative income tax system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> A rewrite of this classic essay which has been discussed on HN many times: [https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/](https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/)

<comment><USER60> This rewrite seems to be advertising his new book on the topic. Good summer reading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Universities are filled with this kind of pointlessness. The result is a massive amount of friction between those on the "edge" of the university doing useful work in research, teaching, building things, and the people in the "core" who routinely fire and re-hire whole departments and replace perfectly functional buildings in order to justify their paycheck.

It's not that the beaucracy running a University isn't needed (it definitely is), but it has got out of control and is consuming valuable resources better used elsewhere.

<comment><USER62> This is the same in industry: At a company that was supposed to be financially struggling, the CEO did:

1) Lay off software engineers are (the best ones, he had no clue).

2) Increase the head count in the HR department.

3) The increased head count in the HR department proceeded to move from one billing or HR platform to the next because they needed activity.

4) Hire "diverse" new (cheap) software engineers with no clue.

I think professional unions with all their flaws are needed not primarily to bargain for higher incomes, but to stop this social welfare program for the bureaucracy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Well, from an evolutionary perspective there are successful fish who evolved suction cups on the top of their heads so they could both save their energy swimming and also eat the food scraps of the shark they are attached to.

Some would argue that this metaphor better describes finance industry professionals though.

</comment><comment><USER18> Keynes was a little more direct: "The government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up."

<comment><USER64> However, digging a hole in the ground and then filling it up is horribly, soul crushingly demotivating.

Even if someone is working in a job that de facto amounts to doing just that, it should be covered up so that this fact isn't obvious and that a person can reasonably choose to ignore the truth and convince themselves that their job has some real value. Which is actually done, all kinds of internal propaganda, glorious mission statements, etc.

<comment><USER65> > However, digging a hole in the ground and then filling it up is horribly, > soul crushingly demotivating.

Ah you see, this is why you have one person doing the digging, and another doing the filling! This way, each man goes home satisfied.

<comment><USER66> This is not only clever, but actually a good metaphor of the activity of numerous entities.

<comment><USER67> One company does the digging, another the filling, and they are both owned by the same person in order to conceal that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Once upon a time there was a thing to be done. Huge meetings were held, and goals were set for how much of the thing should be done per month. Metrics were set up to track how much of the thing had happened. Over a hundred people were invited to these meetings, and countless man-hours were spent on defining goals. Many more hours were spent on measuring progress toward those goals. Group emails were sent, vaguely confused words were spoken, and spreadsheets sprang forth from the void.

None of this affected the people whose job was to actually do the thing. They did as much of the thing as could be done in the time they had. The goals came from the void and the metrics went into the void, and no echo was heard.

... And "once upon a time" means, in this case, "a few months ago at a big company where I work." The really funny thing, though, is that _most of these jobs make local sense._ The managers who went to the meetings and so on? They were sheltering their people from all this so that things could get done. Even the people who set all this in motion were probably well-meaning, since they wanted the thing to be done and took actions that they perhaps thought might plausibly lead toward this. I can't hate any of the people involved -- and yet the end result of it all is complete waste; utter horrifying destruction of irreplaceable time and energy. It would be better to light large piles of cash on fire, because it would be much cheaper and at least then we'd be able to stare at the flames.

How do you prevent this sort of situation?

<comment><USER69> Is this an argument against the need for managers? Google tried that, and it failed.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2013/07/17/googl...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2013/07/17/google- management-is-evil-harvard-study-startups/)

<comment><USER68> Yes? No? Abort, retry, fail? I mentioned jobs making local sense. And it's true! If any single one of these jobs were to go away, things would get worse. The system would leave its local optimum, and many problems would ensue. And I want to get out of that Nash equilibrium -- but how?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Goons are only pointless, if you look at them from a idealistic all-humanity- together approach.

And even though they tell us often they are there because of the other goons... they are usually there to dominate(or exploite) the others. Which gives the own side a massive advantage. Even though it mostly happens today in a much more subtle way than the open conquering, stealing and blundering, of the past, it is mostly the same principle. There are nice exceptions, though, like the swiss etc. but big armys today are still there to enforce various interests, for a long time mostly only as a potential threat, but more and more in active engagement. And even though I appreciate honesty, I am a bit concerned, that they more and more drop the facade.

(Still, the german president had to resign a few years ago because he said that the german military is also there to protect german economic interests outside of germany, and he did not mean fighting pirates. But it is still highly illegal here (in theory), to make war for any other reasons than to defend, so he had to go, even though the public outcry was completley hypocrite)

</comment><comment><USER71> Honest question: how much of our work is not absolutely necessary?

It's easy to write a piece of software once and share it with everybody.

The product you are working on - what unique value is giving to humanity?

(I mean beyond "it pays the bills" and "it uses $popular_thing_of_the_year")

I believe we reached a level of productivity where - in rich countries - <USER3> are all keeping each other busy with loads of unnecessary work.

<comment><USER17> Only farming is absolutely necessary. Farming is down to about 2% in the US. You could cut that in half if people stopped ordering avocado toast and just ate oats. So, probably 99%.

<comment><USER72> You might want to adjust the figure to account for clothing/minimal construction work for shelter - both are definitely fundamental in most parts of the US. One might also wish to add in a minimally functional healthcare system to ensure a reasonably high average life expectancy.

Nevertheless, the point is still extremely valid; I would estimate around 95%.

Update: As in general it is easy to draw overly pessimistic conclusions from this (I have been affected by this myself), it may be of use to point out that positive answers do exist for this issue. One of my personal favorites is the powerful, short book "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Some (not all) of these jobs provide slack to an organization. A human is effectively paid a retainer, or given an excuse to on premise and engaged, so that they have the knowledge, context, and social capital to deal with unusual or unforeseeable situations when they arise.

Giving someone a job that causes them to feel useless or disengaged, in order to maintain their readiness, is bad management. The existence of a job whose value can't be summarized on a process chart is not.

The article was entertaining enough satire, but in the end had me wishing for an alternate version that categorized the forces that create and sustain jobs. It pretended to this, but by starting from the assumption that corporations and managers are idiots or ill-intentioned, it sacrificed insight for populism.

I recommend _Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency_, Tom DeMarco, 2002.

</comment><comment><USER74> This is by David Graeber of "On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs" fame: [https://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs](https://www.strikemag.org/bullshit- jobs)

Previous discussions: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6236478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6236478) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8561080](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8561080)

</comment><comment><USER75> Perhaps I'm reading to much into the title - but seems like pointless jobs have been around a very long time. What is the "rise" really referring to here?

</comment><comment><USER76> Pointless jobs abound in both the public and private sectors, but I think these articles resonate because so many white collar workers are largely occupied with projects that will be cancelled before they're finished or whose end product will eventually be ignored by the people who are intended to use it. Most companies just aren't managed very well...

</comment><comment><USER77> The problem is clearly not just about completely pointless jobs. Among jobs that actually have a purpose, we find many that are: required to deal with the problems generated by bad practices/inefficiency (the article mentions duct- tapers. Commenters here also mention how in computer science we deal with a lot of technical debt, even when many times we know there's no way out unless we rewrite from scratch), or even worse, generated by the own inefficiencies and 'stupidity loops' in a system (see a good deal of bureaucracy, supervision and reporting taks, goons, etc.)

Of course we can't remove inefficiency completely, but these are big problems with big consequences. I'm really saddened by it: I regularly see a lot of comments from people that seem to be very capable but end up doing dull jobs, for dumb bosses, wasting their potential when they could be adding so much more value to our societies (and also be happier with it). And I don't intend to blame anyone here, it's not like we have much better choices in many cases. Sometimes you even think we would be able to achieve more with less man-hours if we didn't spend so many of them on nonsense.

The need for jobs for everyone has also been discussed. UBI as an alternative, etc. To me it's clear the number of jobs we need/will need in the future will fall. And that's a good thing (we can produce more with less resources), but it also has very negative consequences, due to the way our economic system works and our need for money. But there's also a social problem. The concept of work is so valued that society rarely stops to reflect about the positive consequences of needing less work. And without this, it's really hard to build towards that society with less jobs or less work hours sanely. The difference between "work" and "paid work" is very important, and I feel we don't talk enough about it either. Work is important for humans, even necessary. But we can't keep repeating nice quotes that are actually referring to "work" and applying them to "paid work" to evangelize the concept.

The whole situation is very frustrating. I'm quite young, and I think about it pretty often. I don't really like the perspective for most jobs I could do. What can I do? What can we do? Ignore the rest of the world and just try to find the best place for yourself? Try to live with less? Get in politics, start a business? I find it really hard to ignore so much waste of potential and useless pain.

</comment><comment><USER78> Staggeringly ignorant.

It's a mostly free system. Why is someone paying someone to do these "pointless" jobs".

Hint: the answer is this that is bullshit. Surprisingly, companies like nothing more than accumulating money. Paying people to do nothing gets in the way of this goal and so generally it doesn't happen.

This doesn't mean everyone personally feels their job has value and it doesn't mean there aren't pointless jobs in a large corporate environment but as a systemic thing, valueless jobs aren't exactly our most pressing concern.

Not every value providing task in the world induces the person doing it to instantaneosly reach nirvana because it is so wonderfully fulfilling. Many jobs are mundane. It doesn't mean they are valueless. Why would someone be paying them to do it otherwise?

</comment><comment><USER79> As companies get bigger and they monopolize industries, they can afford to be extremely inefficient without any negative repercussions.

It makes the system fundamentally unfair. Money is supposed to be a representation of the debt that society owes an individual for contributions that the individual has made to society but its not like that - It doesn't matter how useless you are to society, you can still make a lot of money. In fact, it's easier to make money if you are useless to society; smart people let other people create value and they spend all their energy on coming up with strategies to capture the value created by others.

</comment><comment><USER80> > "I work in a college dormitory during the summer. I have worked at this job > for three years, and at this point it is still unclear to me what my actual > duties are. Primarily, it seems that my job consists of physically occupying > space at the front desk. While engaged in this, I am free to 'pursue my own > projects', which I take to mean mainly creating rubber band balls out of > rubber bands I find in the cabinets.

A doorman's job is not bullshit. The job acts as a deterrent for people who shouldn't be inside that dorm. There have been cases where students get raped by a stranger inside their own dorm room.

</comment><comment><USER81> Going by this example, blog writers reports should also be added the list. Their sole existence is to get clicks to articles talking about stuff that we all know about but there is nothing we can act on in an effective way.

</comment><comment><USER82> For an amusing take on this please read "On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant" by David Graeber [https://www.strikemag.org/bullshit- jobs](https://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs)

It was good enough to warrant a response from the Economist [https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/08/labour-...](https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/08/labour- markets-0)

</comment><comment><USER83> How about building and app that is never used, never sees the light of day, and it's construction never serves as an example of what to do or not to do to anyone?

</comment><comment><USER84> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woK2FcqJVuE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woK2FcqJVuE)

</comment><comment><USER85> I worked with a guy whose job was about 50% copying and pasting data from source A to B or going through an Excel sheet and doing the same thing for each entry.

Eventually he automated it in a hacky way with VBA that worked most of the time. He spent a lot of time watching YouTube paylists while the VBA scripts ran submitting web forms etc. It seemed like a pretty sweet gig.

</comment><comment><USER86> This is universal income disguised as a real job?

</comment><comment><USER87> The point of a job is to allow you to put your own time beyond your own use and use it to serve others.

This simple 'proof of burn' of your finite life is what gives the money exchange value.

If you want others to give up their time to produce a surplus for you then you need to do the same. Otherwise they'll just take the productivity themselves and have Friday off.

</comment><comment><USER84> The Lynx one is brilliant.

<comment><USER88> Yes, I laughed and expected it to be mentioned here more than just the one comment.

Reminds me of codereddit: [http://codereddit.com/?sub=todayilearned](http://codereddit.com/?sub=todayilearned)

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> As a aread this with that:

[https://longreads.com/2018/04/26/is-your-job-lynchian-or- is-...](https://longreads.com/2018/04/26/is-your-job-lynchian-or-is-it-more- kafkaesque/)

discusses it with in context of _Ask A Manager_ and _What Color is Your Parachute_

</comment><comment><USER90> Want to see pointless job? go into a nice department store in Tokyo to buy a shirt (if, say, United Airlines lost all your good clothes on the way over-- just as a hypothetical).

the sheer number of people involved in greeting, seating and feting you is stunning.

then there's the five levels of distribution to get any kind of product to market...

</comment><comment><USER91> This is why we proposed this at our company:

[https://qbix.com/blog/2016/11/17/properly-valuing- contributi...](https://qbix.com/blog/2016/11/17/properly-valuing- contributions/)

</comment><comment><USER92> When you stop solving interesting problems crusty old man reality sets in. If you agree to stagnate in a pointless job you a part of the problem until you change your perspective. Are you waiting for Linda Carter to save you?!

<comment><USER93> If there's a chance of that, I'm good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> my favorite flunky job is the one where an executive tells the flunky to print emails out on paper and put them into a big stack so the executive can ignore them later

</comment><comment><USER80> These are the types of jobs that are useful for anyone just starting to build something. You may not need a seed investor if you have the right pointless job

</comment><comment><USER95> > tasks that could easily be automated

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me automation was easy I would be richer than Jeff Bezos.

</comment><comment><USER96> >> _if no one had an army, armies would not be needed._

Lol, the US has an army because they need to attack other countries!

</comment><comment><USER97> Bullshit jobs is what the antiquated capitalist system gives us in return for the increased efficiency in other human activities. You automate the production of essential goods and services with increasingly less people needed to support it, but you still need to employ everyone, so you invent jobs just for the sake of them.

The system should be designed to reward us with more spare time, not to make us busier with ever more mundane tasks.

</comment><comment><USER98> They had full emplyoment in the German Democratic Republic.

As far as I know you HAD TO work.

But.

The state HAD TO give you work.

Hilarity ensued.

</comment><comment><USER99> A job for one week was to move plastic roof boards from an automated saw on a pallet. They would save lots of money if they'd place a robot there. In fact, the hole factory could have been automated.

<comment><USER100> I would think carefully about this. Elon Musk thought the same thing with Model 3 production, and then said "humans are underrated" and that they bought into automation too much, leading to production delays.

[https://gizmodo.com/overrated-human-elon-musk-says-humans- ar...](https://gizmodo.com/overrated-human-elon-musk-says-humans-are- underrated-1825264384)

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> > I should add that there is really only one class of people who not only deny > their jobs are pointless, but also express outright hostility to the very > idea that our economy is rife with bullshit jobs. These are – predictably > enough – business owners and others in charge of hiring and firing.

A manager's job can certainly be pointless, and often is; but how could the owner's possibly be? An owner who has hired managers who operate a profitable business with minimal supervision is just a success. The managers can be perfectly happy with this situation, if they prefer a stable salary to the risky residual claim. I'm not sure the author quite believes in capitalism here.

</comment><comment><USER102> A great example would be the author of this article.

</comment><comment><USER83> Cold callers are the same as recruiters.

</comment><comment><USER103> It's called an "occupation" for a reason. There's no requirement of merit or value to qualify as one, just occupy the people.

</comment><comment><USER104> Pointless jobs are much wider than this. Most jobs I can get are to perform a useful role in a useless pursuit.

Capitalism is supposed to be all about efficient resource allocation. However having the smartest people of a generation work on putting little text ads next to your search results and stock market chicanery is highly inefficient.

There is so much real work to be done. We shouldn't be wasting our time with fruitless pursuits in order to literally not die.

</comment><comment><USER105> entertaining read, not sure I understand the bit about business owners.

</comment><comment><USER106> I'm sorry, but this is completely ridiculous and flies in the face of economics and capitalism, and deserves to be called out. Remember that David Graeber is an anthropologist, not an economist.

Pointless jobs exist because of inefficiences. Someone higher up couldn't be bothered to automate it, and there isn't enough oversight of the budget. An entrenched interest (like a no-longer-needed union regulation) is too hard to fight. Etc.

But capitalism is the most _marvelous_ machine for removing inefficiencies, and therefore removing pointless jobs. Why? Because the owner/capitalist will make more money when they're removed/automated. It's easy to say McDonald's cashiers have pointless jobs, and they're being replaced with kiosks. Or taxi drivers with driverless cars. The same way the original human "computers" were replaced by calculating machines. The process isn't perfect and certainly isn't instant, but it happens and is relentless.

Pointless jobs _decrease_ over time. And trying to claim that they're _rising_ , as Graeber does, is simply disingenuous and dishonest.

<comment><USER107> You are not allowed to speak positively of capitalism here. It is a messy system, far inferior to the more modern technocratic ways we should be following.

<comment><USER108> Yes, and the fact that capitalism created the conditions that allow people like the ones who pontificate on HN about the messiness of capitalism to exist at all should go completely unmentioned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER109> TLDR: serving in the military is a bullshit job for "goons". The Guardian really is a parody of itself sometimes.

<comment><USER110> Incorrect. They're saying that the military is a "goon" type of job, in that it involves aggression, and you have to do it because others will plow over you otherwise. It has nothing to do with the character of soldiers. This same underlying logic also applies to corporate lawyers and advertisers.

<comment><USER109> Right, and therein lies the Guardian's stereotypical grad student reasoning: militaries only exist because of humanity's lack of enlightenment, and military service is therefore a job that "lacks positive value" and is "essentially manipulative and aggressive".

Even if you subscribe to the standard litany of lefty anti-person-in-uniform grudges, the notion that militaries around the world exist primarily to guard against other militaries is misguided. A much bigger motivating factor for the existence of large standing armies is the general desire of illiberal regimes, be they on the right or on the left, to keep the young male population (ie the backbone of a potential revolution) occupied on a daily basis.

<comment><USER111> > A much bigger motivating factor for the existence of large standing armies > is the general desire of illiberal regimes, be they on the right or on the > left, to keep the young male population (ie the backbone of a potential > revolution) occupied on a daily basis.

Would you mind citing that or expanding on more depth? I'm curious as to your reasoning chain there and think it is an interesting critique of the article's classification.

<comment><USER109> It's a common practice throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Arab world (and Russia until recently). Compulsory military service for males at 18, for a varying amount of time but enough to a) make a tangible difference in the number of young guys loitering about because they have nothing to do in the bad economy; b) have a large internally deployable force to quell any unrest at a moment's notice; c) indoctrinate young men with the idea that being a man / being a patriot / being of good character means supporting the regime and its ideology (while also giving young men a group identity as a veteran of the armed forces loyal to the government).

Fighting a war with another country is not the reason most countries spend money on their armies that could be spent elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER112> Pretty sure there's a ton of pointless job in capitalism

</comment><comment><USER113> Almost related. Perhaps outdated. I worked in television for 10 years as a broadcast engineer. In a large city this is a union job.

I was given the task of testing and repairing some equipment that had been in a back room for a while. I was the new kid so I didn't know the routines of the day but one of my duties was to operate the camera for a five-minute newscast in the afternoon. This only entailed rolling the camera into place, pointing at the news person, focus and I was done till the newscast was over.

I was poking around the equipment in the backroom when one of the scruffy old men quickly came into the room. "Hey, you're supposed to be on the set for that newscast!", he said. I must have lost track of time cause I didn't know it was so late. I rushed to the news set, got everything ready, put on my headphones and looked around to see no one else was there and it was still an hour before the news was to be broadcast.

Thinking the old man was the one who got the time wrong, I went back to my other work, thinking I could get a few things done but, minutes later, the same old man came in to chew me out. "Do you know how long it took us to get your job into our union contract?! If management looked through the window and saw no one out here, we'd be in big trouble. You get out there now!!"

So I went back on the set, now understanding that I was required to stand there for 53 minutes, headset on, waiting for work to begin.

</comment><comment><USER114> These types of jobs are extremely common in Luxembourg (a small country in EU). The workers stay because they are highly paid.

</comment><comment><USER115> Pointless jobs like being paid to write an article about pointless jobs?

Edit: For those to whom the humor didn't come across, I'm just teasing. This isn't an attack on the author.

<comment><USER100> Wouldn't a constructive comment be more useful than attacking an educated academic making an observation?

<comment><USER116> You've employed some sort of inverse ad hominem here. Credentials don't mean we should take someone seriously. Their words should stand for themselves.

<comment><USER100> > Credentials don't mean we should take someone seriously.

This is a level of cognitive dissonance I'm not prepared to commit to arguing against. I'm not capable of issuing the bar to every lawyer I require the services of, nor the board to every presumed doctor, nor a thesis defense to every academic.

Credentials aren't perfect, but they are superior to the time required for everyone to judge everything on their own. For example, almost all scientists agree that climate change is human caused. Do I spend my time digging through climate data, verifying this? _No. I rely on the expertise of experts._

<comment><USER115> You've just touched on why it's so hard to get a job in tech. As a culture, we've taken an attitude that credentials don't matter, and no matter what our past achievements are, we've got to prove ourselves over and over again. Maybe credentials should matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER117> Yet another guardian piece that seems like it was written by an edgy teenager.

<comment><USER118> In this case the edgy teenager in question wrote the generally well-received 'Debt: The First 5000 Years.'

<comment><USER119> There were certainly plenty of hits of edgy-teenageriness in that book.

<comment><USER120> Not to forget this quote for the ages:

        Apple Computers is a famous example: it was founded
        by (mostly Republican) computer engineers who broke
        from IBM in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, forming little
        democratic circles of twenty to forty people with their
        laptops in each other's garages.

<comment><USER121> Laptops in the 70's do tell

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER122> There are a whole lot of pointless jobs in government -- they only exist because of excessive authoritarian regulations.

<comment><USER123> Also most of charities. They sell feel good and employ bachelors of arts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER124> We need a B Ark: [http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Golgafrinchan_Ark_Fleet_Sh...](http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Golgafrinchan_Ark_Fleet_Ship_B)</comment>