It's not that the conclusion is drawn, it's that we recognize the possibility that self-perception of the value of one's job is not necessarily an actually good measure of the value of that job.

We can't simultaneously claim those in the position know best (Cohen's take) and then dismiss their self-perception because it doesn't align with our perception of their role.

Further, how can we trust our perception is the better measure of the value of that job? If the person performing the role can't even assess the value properly, how are they providing that value?

Can't you simply test by asking what happens if the person stops doing their job? If nothing detrimental happens, then the job was probably bullshit.

some consequences have feed-back loops with long delays.

go remove some guys that do legal compliance stuff and when the random inspection happen years later, you'll find out that maybe it would've cost you less to keep that employee.

That is definitely true. One would need to carefully consider what the person does before making such a judgement.

Planes can keep flying without a pilot for quite awhile, until they run out of fuel or crash into a mountain.

Without even specifying the length of time to measure what happens or the nature of job in question?

Bad news: you have been rejected from consideration for any work related to realtime/life critical systems.

Good news: you may have a future in politics, at least in the county I live in.

Ideally the point is to ask this question before you have them stop doing the job.

"What will happen if this person stopped doing their job?"

"Oh the important monthly reports will stop going out."

"Oh, okay, we better not have them stop doing that then."

IIRC one of the examples in the book is someone who just stopped doing their job or showing up and nothing bad happened, and the bureaucracy of their organization kept paying them.

> We can't simultaneously claim those in the position know best (Cohen's take) and then dismiss their self-perception because it doesn't align with our perception of their role.

I submit that not only can we, but we must, admit that in some individual cases the person in the position knows best, and in others, they don't.

You're quite right. The true value could be much lower on average than the average self report held it to be. I hadn't considered that Graeber might have under-reported this phenomena if people are consistently over-optimistic.

Or maybe, absent other evidence, it might make more sense to tentatively take people's self reports at face value. Or at least hold off backing some particular elaborate alternative which involves people being wrong about the things they have most information on.

What a brilliant summary of this thread.

I think people mistake middle-brow contrarianism spoken with confidence with actual intelligence.

I take it as the software version of virtue signaling.

>The conclusion is drawn, "Actually their job is vital and their self-report is deluded."

The conclusion is drawn because presumably someone thinks they output enough value to continue paying them for their work. That person might be wrong, and maybe some PE firm or consultants will come through and cull the chaff to capture the lost expenses but the person themselves doing the work probably doesn't have the full perspective.