You are right that not all Bullshit Jobs have the idle time I’m talking about but enough to create this culture. But I can’t say it better than he himself:

One might imagine that leaving millions of well-educated young men and women without any real work responsibilities but with access to the internet—which is, potentially, at least, a repository of almost all human knowledge and cultural achievement—might spark some sort of Renaissance. Nothing remotely along these lines has taken place. Instead, the situation has sparked an efflorescence of social media (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter): basically, of forms of electronic media that lend themselves to being produced and consumed while pretending to do something else. I am convinced this is the primary reason for the rise of social media, especially when one considers it in the light not just of the rise of bullshit jobs but also of the increasing bullshitization of real jobs. As we’ve seen, the specific conditions vary considerably from one bullshit job to another. Some workers are supervised relentlessly; others are expected to do some token task but are otherwise left more or less alone. Most are somewhere in between. Yet even in the best of cases, the need to be on call, to spend at least a certain amount of energy looking over one’s shoulder, maintaining a false front, never looking too obviously engrossed, the inability to fully collaborate with others—all this lends itself much more to a culture of computer games, YouTube rants, memes, and Twitter controversies than to, say, the rock ’n’ roll bands, drug poetry, and experimental theater created under the midcentury welfare state. What we are witnessing is the rise of those forms of popular culture that office workers can produce and consume during the scattered, furtive shards of time they have at their disposal in workplaces where even when there’s nothing for them to do, they still can’t admit it openly.

David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs 2018 (p. 382 of 895 in my ebook version)

I think you misunderstand my position. I’m not a cultural pessimist saying social media made us all into mindless zombies. You can use social media very actively by putting much thought into your posts and conversations and researching them thoroughly. And there is alot of stuff you can mindlessly consume at home long before the internet.

What I’m saying is that Bullshit Jobs created a whole new demographic with time on their hand to idly use online (since they work on computers) but not enough to be productive. As I wrote in another comment, in the time between meetings when a mail might come in or your boss might bump into you, a social media timeline is the way to go. You don’t have a TV in office but access to the internet.

I would argue that forums are somewhere on the continuum and the “direct predecessor” of social media if that makes sense. You already see in which topics something happened which isn’t too different from following a Facebook page.

On your last point, I disagree. Time is relative. There is a difference between free time you can actively plan and idle time between meetings where your boss could bump in any time. At the end of the day looking back, you might have had enough time to write an article, but there could always be a call coming in so you end up using that time looking at cat photos and arguing with strangers about football.

This might depend on the kind of BS job though. Graeber described a wide variety and for some, your argument works but not for all.

I didn’t read it yet but wanted to share that according to Graeber, the rise of social media (and podcasts btw) came with what he calls “Bullshit Jobs” (in the book of that name). Before that, browsing the web was a much more active process, you searched for forums, clicked on a topic you are interested in or went on websites and clicked through them, always deciding what to click on.

With social media came the timeline you could mindlessly scroll through or click on suggestions. That’s something you can do at work when you have some free time and something might come in. It’s not anymore “I want to know XYZ” but “Let’s see what’s new” if that makes sense.

I’d at least appreciate acknowledgement.

I’ll give you that much: Communists don’t have a leader cult, it was wrong to imply it. They have the concept of “democratic centralism” which slowly but steadily shifts its emphasis from the first to the second bit.

Also “the ends that justify all means” was an exaggeration to emphasize the difference that anarchists focus on using only power structures they want to see in the liberated society while communists think they can get to a horizontal power structure via a vertical one. Anarchists say power structures reproduce themselves and that’s why it’s important to have the right one from the start. Communists lack any meaningful analysis of power structures but dismiss them as the superstructure that will follow the material base eventually.

So the “strong leader” is by no means core of communist ideology but merely a byproduct. Happy now?

simply by getting more people to agree with it.

That’s not what I said. Why do you insist on making it sound like some idealistic “market place of ideas” stuff?

It isn’t literally overnight.

What does that even mean? I never assumed it’s literally. Are we talking weeks now or months? Is that what you mean?

This is largely the same mechanism Marxists suggest, the entire idea of “Dual Power.”

Yes, that concept is used in anarchism, too. How does that fit to what you said before? Anarchists want it overnight (not literally but still) and communists suggest the same mechanism? What is the difference between the anarchist dual power that you dismiss as “not literally [but still] over night” and the Marxist one?

For me it’s the already mentioned lack of analysis of power structure. Communists want an “over night” revolution, put the right people in charge and they will sort things out. Anarchists will and have argued that (1.) power corrupts and (2.) positions of power attract the wrong people. I do believe Lenin that he came into power with good intentions but the power blinded him and he put “the cause” over everything else (like the workers in Kronstadt and let’s not get into Makhnov). For Stalin, well, see (2.).

Anarchists on the other hand say we need to build and work with horizontal power structures from the start and put a lot of emphasis not only on the critiques of existing hierarchies, but also into how hierarchies come into existence. There are “skill shares” for example to avoid “knowledge hierarchies” by teaching what you know to others and avoiding to be “the one and only expert”. Still, some people are better in things than others and will have a “natural authority” that never should succeed their expertise.

Anarchists believe they can do away with the State overnight.

That’s a common strawman popularized by Engels I have never heard an anarchist say. Anarchists occupy houses, forests and land to try and live their ways. They build parallel structures in the here and now that have the potential to be the thing after the revolution (think of anarchist unions that can coordinate production while now do union stuff or Rojava which built their council structure before they had power).

Anarchists believe in building the new in the shell of the old. It’s all about building it instead of hoping for a leader who will do it for us.

Tbf I’m not active in this community so from what I know, it might be full of anarchist communists reading Kropotkin and Graeber

True, anarchists believe in the unity of ends and means while communists believe in the end that justifies all means

Is it from Bullshit Jobs? Does anyone know?

I read alot from him, I would even say he’s part of my journey towards anarchism. I’m a bit surprised to see him quoted in a communist community thought.

Edit: I looked it up and the quote is from the preface of Bullshit Jobs so I guessed correctly

That’s a good conversation opener for sure

Data

That’s German and means “the toe”

Sigma meme

You wouldn’t kidnap a baby

Boy, that’s alot!

Sure? How many? Because I have some atoms at home and need a new knife

No smartphone inside, just cotton living in the moment

The game ends with the capitalist movie to another society

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