An interesting article: http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/08/29/bullst-jobs-part-1-of-%E2%88%9E/ … I think the *particular* genre of horsepuckey invoked here is very class inflected; the middle class both staffs and is bound by bureaucracies. The revealed preference and the stated preference for bureaucracies differs.
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And here's where I part company with the "bullshit job" discourse: There's an actual reason why an insurance adjuster wants to see paperwork and not just "Hey insured, pick a number and we pay you that number."
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And the ritual, the capitalism magicks by which I said, effectively, "Math is math" has a real purpose: it decreases the perceived risk of insurance fraud by forcing me to produce evidence that, if fraud existed, I'm a) in on it and b) unambiguously liable for the consequences.
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And yeah, in the instant instance, that's transactional friction... but it's not entirely the waste heat that is claimed by the "bullshit jobs" discourse. The world would benefit from decreasing the friction (*cough* web app *cough*) but the presence of it enabled the policy!
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I absolutely love the way that you write about seemingly mundane processes/procedures.
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Agreed. He has a unique talent for it. A fun combination of “extreme economy of words” and “just enough jokes to make me forget I’m reading about a mind and thing” and “very good analogies”.
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