I believe it was Marx who first observed that superfluous jobs, as well as unemployment, are inextricably linked to capitalism.
EDIT: Found a relevant Marx quote in Grundrisse:
Capital itself is the moving contradiction, [in] that it presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as sole measure and source of wealth. Hence it diminishes labour time in the necessary form so as to increase it in the superfluous form; hence posits the superfluous in growing measure as a condition – question of life or death – for the necessary.
See also Marcuse, 1969:
The absorption [i.e. disappearance] of unemployment and the maintenance of an adequate rate of profit would [...] require the stimulation of demand on an ever larger scale, thereby stimulating the rat race of the competitive struggle for existence through the multiplication of waste, planned obsolescence, parasitic and stupid jobs and services.
When I was little, I asked my parents why they don't smoke and they just laughed. I didn't understand why. Because 100% of the other adults I knew were smokers.
I just watched that video of the white cabbage larva with the smaller larvae exiting its body. Jeez, it's still alive after THAT? Life's rich pageant, I guess.
Join some Whatsapp group that piques your interest and meet with them IRL. I wouldn't have thought that drinking beer and shooting the shit with total strangers could be so much fun, but here we are.
Geez, that reminds me of a former colleague that, when asked for "the numbers," would just send screenshots of tables in the ERP system instead of exporting them to a spreadsheet. What's even worse, usually a lot of values were plain wrong, on one occasion more than half of them.
And let's not forget politics. When you're golf buddies with the right politicians, winning those extremely lucrative public tenders will become a cakewalk.
That, and internet in the late 90s started to get really fast. Some blokes sat in their rooms for days on end, downloading music or movies, as there were no laws against it yet. Or at least they were not enforced. In other words, those were the days when average Joe could still be one step ahead of The Man. You know, before he turned against us with a vengeance, everywhere, 24/7.
Strange, just for the last few days, I've been thinking just what a big cultural turning point 2005 seemed to be. From then on, everything started to circle the drain, and I put the blame on globalization and the advent of large-scale social media. Which might have left an imprint on product design and fashion.And, as I wrote earlier in a different thread, the shift from 1994 to 1995 was the biggest one I've witnessed, and it was very visible in public spaces. Audible as well: It went from Metallica and ZZ Top as supermarket background music (imagine this!) to "Easy Listening" or whatever.
🎶 I can't seem to face up to the factsI'm tense and nervous and I can't relaxI can't sleep 'cause my bed's on fireDon't touch me, I'm a real live wire 🎶
♪ Hinckley couldn't shoot straight, hit a guy in the forehead ♪ :-(