Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Oppression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oppression. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

‘Bullshit’ After All? Why People Consider Their Jobs Socially Useless

Walo, S. (2023).
Employment and Society, 0(0).

Abstract

Recent studies show that many workers consider their jobs socially useless. Thus, several explanations for this phenomenon have been proposed. David Graeber’s ‘bullshit jobs theory’, for example, claims that some jobs are in fact objectively useless, and that these are found more often in certain occupations than in others. Quantitative research on Europe, however, finds little support for Graeber’s theory and claims that alienation may be better suited to explain why people consider their jobs socially useless. This study extends previous analyses by drawing on a rich, under-utilized dataset and provides new evidence for the United States specifically. Contrary to previous studies, it thus finds robust support for Graeber’s theory on bullshit jobs. At the same time, it also confirms existing evidence on the effects of various other factors, including alienation. Work perceived as socially useless is therefore a multifaceted issue that must be addressed from different angles.

Discussion and conclusion

Using survey data from the US, this article tests Graeber’s (2018) argument that socially useless jobs are primarily found in specific occupations. Doing so, it finds that working in one of Graeber’s occupations significantly increases the probability that workers perceive their job as socially useless (compared with all others). This is true for administrative support occupations, sales occupations, business and finance occupations, and managers. Only legal occupations did not show a significant effect as predicted by Graeber’s theory. More detailed analyses even reveal that, of all 21 occupations, Graeber’s occupations are the ones that are most strongly associated with socially useless jobs when other factors are controlled for. This article is therefore the first to find quantitative evidence supporting Graeber’s argument. In addition, this article also confirms existing evidence on various other factors that can explain why people consider their jobs socially useless, including alienation, social interaction and public service motivation.

These findings may seem somewhat contradictory to the results of Soffia et al. (2022) who find that Graeber’s theory is not supported by their data. This can be explained by several differences between their study and this one. First, Soffia et al. ask people whether they ‘have the feeling of doing useful work’, while this study asks them whether they think they are making a ‘positive impact on [their] community and society’. These differently worded questions may elicit different responses. However, additional analyses show that results do not differ much between these questions (see online supplementary appendix C). Second, Soffia et al. examine data from Europe, while this study uses data from the US. This supports the notion that Graeber’s theory may only apply to heavily financialized Anglo-Saxon countries. Third, the results of Soffia et al. are based on raw distributions over occupations, while the findings presented here are mainly based on regression models that control for various other factors. If only raw distributions are analysed, however, this article also finds only limited support for Graeber’s theory.


My take for clinical psychologists:

Bullshit jobs are not just a problem for the people who do them. They also have a negative impact on society as a whole. For example, they can lead to a decline in productivity, a decrease in innovation, and an increase in inequality.

Bullshit jobs are often created by the powerful in society in order to maintain their own power and privilege. For example, managers may create bullshit jobs in order to justify their own positions or to make themselves look more important.

There is a growing awareness of the problem of bullshit jobs, and there are a number of initiatives underway to address it. For example, some organizations are now hiring "bullshit detectives" to identify and eliminate bullshit jobs.

Thursday, July 20, 2023

Big tech is bad. Big A.I. will be worse.

Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson
The New York Times
Originally posted 15 June 23

Here is an excerpt:

Today, those countervailing forces either don’t exist or are greatly weakened. Generative A.I. requires even deeper pockets than textile factories and steel mills. As a result, most of its obvious opportunities have already fallen into the hands of Microsoft, with its market capitalization of $2.4 trillion, and Alphabet, worth $1.6 trillion.

At the same time, powers like trade unions have been weakened by 40 years of deregulation ideology (Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, two Bushes and even Bill Clinton). For the same reason, the U.S. government’s ability to regulate anything larger than a kitten has withered. Extreme polarization, fear of killing the golden (donor) goose or undermining national security means that most members of Congress would still rather look away.

To prevent data monopolies from ruining our lives, we need to mobilize effective countervailing power — and fast.

Congress needs to assert individual ownership rights over underlying data that is relied on to build A.I. systems. If Big A.I. wants to use our data, we want something in return to address problems that communities define and to raise the true productivity of workers. Rather than machine intelligence, what we need is “machine usefulness,” which emphasizes the ability of computers to augment human capabilities. This would be a much more fruitful direction for increasing productivity. By empowering workers and reinforcing human decision making in the production process, it also would strengthen social forces that can stand up to big tech companies. It would also require a greater diversity of approaches to new technology, thus making another dent in the monopoly of Big A.I.

We also need regulation that protects privacy and pushes back against surveillance capitalism, or the pervasive use of technology to monitor what we do — including whether we are in compliance with “acceptable” behavior, as defined by employers and how the police interpret the law, and which can now be assessed in real time by A.I. There is a real danger that A.I. will be used to manipulate our choices and distort lives.

Finally, we need a graduated system for corporate taxes, so that tax rates are higher for companies when they make more profit in dollar terms. Such a tax system would put shareholder pressure on tech titans to break themselves up, thus lowering their effective tax rate. More competition would help by creating a diversity of ideas and more opportunities to develop a pro-human direction for digital technologies.


The article argues that big tech companies, such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook, have already accumulated too much power and control. I concur that if these companies are allowed to continue their unchecked growth, they will eventually become too powerful and oppressive because of strength of AI compared to the limited thinking and reasoning of human beings.

Sunday, October 10, 2021

Oppressive Double Binds

S. Hirji
Ethics, Vol 131, 4.
July 2021

Abstract

I give an account of the structure of “oppressive double binds,” the double binds that exist in virtue of oppression. I explain how these double binds both are a product of and serve to reinforce oppressive structures. The central feature of double binds, I argue, is that an agent’s own prudential good is bound up with their ability to resist oppression; double binds are choice situations where no matter what an agent does, they become a mechanism in their own oppression. A consequence is that double binds constrain an individual’s agency while leaving various dimensions of their autonomy fully intact.

In the concluding remarks

To sum up: I have had three overarching goals of this article. The first has been to vindicate Frye’s point that once we properly understand the structure of double binds, we see how they differ from ordinary restrictions on an individual’s options and how they serve to immobilize and reduce members of certain groups. As Frye insists, understanding this difference between mechanisms of oppression and ordinary restrictions on our options is a crucial part of identifying and challenging oppressive structures. The second goal has been to develop and refine the concept of a double bind so that it can be useful in theorizing about oppression. I have argued that double binds are choice situations in which a member of an oppressed group is forced to choose between cooperating with and resisting some oppressive norm, and because of the way their own prudential good is bound up with their ability to resist oppression, they end up to some degree reinforcing their own oppression no matter what they do. The third goal has been to better understand what I call “imperfect choices”—choices where, no matter what an agent does, they undermine the very interest at stake in their choice. I have argued that “imperfect choices” constrain an individual’s agency while leaving various dimensions of their autonomy fully intact.

Friday, October 9, 2020

AI ethics groups are repeating one of society’s classic mistakes

Abhishek Gupta aand Victoria Heath
MIT Technology Review
Originally published 14 September 20

Here is an excerpt:

Unfortunately, as it stands today, the entire field of AI ethics is at grave risk of limiting itself to languages, ideas, theories, and challenges from a handful of regions—primarily North America, Western Europe, and East Asia.

This lack of regional diversity reflects the current concentration of AI research (pdf): 86% of papers published at AI conferences in 2018 were attributed to authors in East Asia, North America, or Europe. And fewer than 10% of references listed in AI papers published in these regions are to papers from another region. Patents are also highly concentrated: 51% of AI patents published in 2018 were attributed to North America.

Those of us working in AI ethics will do more harm than good if we allow the field’s lack of geographic diversity to define our own efforts. If we’re not careful, we could wind up codifying AI’s historic biases into guidelines that warp the technology for generations to come. We must start to prioritize voices from low- and middle-income countries (especially those in the “Global South”) and those from historically marginalized communities.

Advances in technology have often benefited the West while exacerbating economic inequality, political oppression, and environmental destruction elsewhere. Including non-Western countries in AI ethics is the best way to avoid repeating this pattern.

The good news is there are many experts and leaders from underrepresented regions to include in such advisory groups. However, many international organizations seem not to be trying very hard to solicit participation from these people. The newly formed Global AI Ethics Consortium, for example, has no founding members representing academic institutions or research centers from the Middle East, Africa, or Latin America. This omission is a stark example of colonial patterns (pdf) repeating themselves.

Friday, March 6, 2020

Are Insects Capable of Moral Behavior?

Livia Gershon
daily.jstor.org
Originally published 6 Feb 20

Are insects conscious, capable of a subjective experience of the world? And, if so, can they be moral actors, or victims of immoral acts (like, say, being flushed down the toilet)? These questions interest modern scientists. And, as Jeanette Samyn writes, they also mattered to nineteenth-century naturalists who asked questions about behavior and morality in relation to the nonhuman world.

Writing in the 1810s and 1820s, British entomologists William Kirby and William Spence presented parasites as tools of God. To them, lice represented a punishment for both “personal uncleanliness” and for “oppression and tyranny.”

Still, Kirby, Spence, and other biologists wrestled with whether insects could be moral actors. Were they driven purely by instinct or capable of some sort of reason? And how could their more disgusting behaviors be reconciled with a universe ordered by God? Charles Darwin wrote that it was difficult to believe “that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars.” Instead, he wrote, he preferred to “look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance.” “Not,” he added somewhat glumly, “that this at all satisfies me.”

Other naturalists presented insects as moral beings. Some chose to focus on a few charismatic species—notably bees, which had long been admired as sociable, productive creatures who were helpful to humans. But Samyn points to a different take on the value of insect life presented by Louis Figuier, a French writer who interpreted science for a popular audience.

The info is here.

Friday, December 13, 2019

Conference warned of dangers of facial recognition technology

Because of new technologies, “we are all monitored and recorded every minute of every day of our lives”, a conference has heard. Photograph: iStockColm Keena
The Irish Times
Originally posted 13 Nov 19

Here is an excerpt:

The potential of facial recognition technology to be used by oppressive governments and manipulative corporations was such that some observers have called for it to be banned. The suggestion should be taken seriously, Dr Danaher said.

The technology is “like a fingerprint of your face”, is cheap, and “normalises blanket surveillance”. This makes it “perfect” for oppressive governments and for manipulative corporations.

While the EU’s GDPR laws on the use of data applied here, Dr Danaher said Ireland should also introduce domestic law “to save us from the depredations of facial recognition technology”.

As well as facial recognition technology, he also addressed the conference about “deepfake” technology, which allows for the creation of highly convincing fake video content, and algorithms that assess risk, as other technologies that are creating challenges for the law.

In the US, the use of algorithms to predict a person’s likelihood of re-offending has raised significant concerns.

The info is here.

Thursday, September 27, 2018

UNC protests present debate of law versus morality

Ali Akhyari
Charleston City Paper
Originally posted September 5, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Immediately afterwards, UNC Chancellor Carol Folt referenced a 2015 law that protects historical monuments from being removed from any public property. Instead of making a public statement about the gross persistence of monuments to hate, she claimed her hands were tied and that students shouldn't break the law. Remember, after Charlottesville, it was president Trump who seemed incapable of acknowledging hate, saying there were "very fine people on both sides" after a woman was killed protesting the white supremacist march.

The debate regarding Confederate monuments and flags will never end so long as there are southerners more interested in rewriting history than admitting the Confederacy is intimately related to white supremacy. The true danger, though, is the normalization of white supremacy and nationalism in the Trump era. So it should follow, then, that Americans toppling monuments to oppression and hate will be increasingly forgivable as long as the the state and federal government coddles white nationalism.

Right after UNC, Trump tweeted a popular white nationalist talking point about land redistribution in post-Apartheid South Africa — a mirror of the battle minorities in this country have fought since emancipation.

So, I applaud the removal of Silent Sam. The monument fell at a time when the president has not only failed to recognize racism and historical oppression, instead encouraging it, pining for the return of Anglo-Saxon supremacy.

The info is here.

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Amazon, Google and Microsoft Employee AI Ethics Are Best Hope For Humanity

Paul Armstrong
Forbes.com
Originally posted June 26, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

Google recently lost the 'Don't be Evil' from its Code of Conduct documents but what were once guiding words now appear to be afterthoughts, and they aren't alone. From drone use to deals with the immigration services, large tech companies are looking to monetise their creations and who can blame them - projects can cost double digit millions as companies look to maintain an edge in a continually evolving marketplace. Employees are not without a conscience it seems, and as talent becomes the one thing that companies need in this war, that power needs to wielded, or we risk runaway train scenarios. If you want an idea of where things could go read this.

China is using AI software and facial recognition to determine who can travel, using what and where. You might think this is a ways away from being used on US or UK soil, but you'd be wrong. London has cameras on pretty much all streets, and the US has Amazon's Rekognition (Orlando just abandoned its use, but other tests remain active). Employees need to be the conscious of large entities and not only the ACLU or civil liberties inclined. From racist AI to faked video using machine learning to create better fakes, how you form technology matters as much as the why. Google has already mastered the technology to convince a human it is not talking to a robot thanks to um's and ah's - Google's next job is to convince us that is a good thing.

The information is here.

Saturday, October 7, 2017

Trump Administration Rolls Back Birth Control Mandate

Robert Pear, Rebecca R. Ruiz, and Laurie Godstein
The New York Times
Originally published October 6, 2017

The Trump administration on Friday moved to expand the rights of employers to deny women insurance coverage for contraception and issued sweeping guidance on religious freedom that critics said could also erode civil rights protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

The twin actions, by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Justice Department, were meant to carry out a promise issued by President Trump five months ago, when he declared in the Rose Garden that “we will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied or silenced anymore.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions quoted those words in issuing guidance to federal agencies and prosecutors, instructing them to take the position in court that workers, employers and organizations may claim broad exemptions from nondiscrimination laws on the basis of religious objections.

At the same time, the Department of Health and Human Services issued two rules rolling back a federal requirement that employers must include birth control coverage in their health insurance plans. The rules offer an exemption to any employer that objects to covering contraception services on the basis of sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.

More than 55 million women have access to birth control without co-payments because of the contraceptive coverage mandate, according to a study commissioned by the Obama administration. Under the new regulations, hundreds of thousands of women could lose those benefits.

The article is here.

Italics added.  And, just when the abortion rate was at pre-1973 levels.

Monday, February 29, 2016

Iranians launch app to escape morality police

The Observers
Originally posted February 10, 2016

Iranian developers just launched a mobile app called "Gershad", which alerts users if the morality police are nearby.

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the morality police, a unit of the National Police, are charged with insuring that Iranian citizens comply with so-called Islamic law. For example, morality officers have to make sure that women wear their veil correctly. If they see a young man and woman walking together, they can stop them and ask if they are married or from the same family. If the morality police suspect that they are an unmarried couple, they can reprimand them.

The new app is meant for young Iranians, especially young women who wear their veil loosely, pushed far back on their heads and showing their hair and face.

The article is here.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Therapeutic Harm and Cultural Oppression

By Derald Wing Sue
The Counseling Psychologist 
January 6, 2015 0011000014565713

Abstract

The divergent discourses between scholars from the potentially harmful treatment and multicultural psychology camps are accurately observed by Wendt, Gone, and Nagata. I argue that the differences in perspectives between the two groups are more about a clash of therapeutic worldviews, that they are often antagonistic to one another, that conversations have been a one-way process (with one side “not wanting to hear”), and that sociopolitical forces play a significant role in preventing a true dialogue from occurring. I conclude that the ultimate harm to groups of color is cultural oppression.

The entire article is here.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Privilege Discomfort: Why You Need to Get the F&#k Over It

By Noor Al-Sibai
Femisphere

Here is an excerpt:

As alarming (and fascinating) as this situation has been to watch at my otherwise polite and 96% white liberal arts university, it sparked in me a conundrum that I’ve struggled with myself and watched other people struggle with: Why do people become so defensive when confronted with the possibility of their own prejudice? What is it about the suggestion that we benefit from systems of inequality that causes so many people (particularly, in my experience, men and white people) to claim that they’re not “all like that”?

In my attempts to get to the root of the conundrum, I decided to use myself and other “well-meaning” white people that I know. Many of us consider ourselves liberal, even radical. We all have or have had black friends. Most of us probably voted for Barack Obama, and a lot of us are fans of rap and hip-hop. To all of us, my past self included, the assertion that we could be racist and that we definitely benefit from our white privilege is offensive at worst, dissonant at best. Cue the endless whines of “I don’t see race!” or, my overused favorite, “We’re not all like that!”

The entire blog post is here.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Seven subjects off limits for teaching, Chinese universities told

Civil rights, press freedom and party's mistakes among subjects banned from teaching in order described by an academic as back-pedaling

By Raymond Li
South China Morning Post
Originally published May 11, 2013

Mainland universities have been ordered to steer clear of seven topics in their teaching, including universal values, press freedom and civil rights, two university staff said, offering an insight into ideological control under the new Communist Party leaders.

A law professor with a Shanghai-based university who requested anonymity because he feared persecution said yesterday that teaching staff at his university had been briefed about the seven taboo subjects, which also include judicial independence and the past mistakes of the Communist Party.

"Are we still a university if we are not allowed to talk about even civil rights and press freedom?" he asked.

He said he had no idea which party department had given the order, saying they were simply told that it came from the party's Central Committee.

A Beijing-based industrial relations professor said yesterday the order, in the form of a classified document, had come from the General Office of the party's Central Committee, and only a select group of teaching and administrative staff at his university had been briefed about it.

The Beijing professor, who also declined to be named, said he had not personally seen the document but had been briefed on it because he had been outspoken.

"It's apparent back-pedaling if we cannot talk about what the Communist Party did wrong in the past," he said.

The entire story is here.