[QatzelOk]

As I was walking to my grocery store this morning, a scruffy gentleman seated on the fence next to the sidwalk asked me to "Have a nice day, passez une bonne journee" as I passed.

He has been at the same spot, saying the same thing, for the past ten years. I think he's homeless, but stable. There are many shelters near where I live.

After his speech, he then extends a torn baseball hat in order to suggest a voluntary contribution to *his project*.
In short, his routine is: Bonne journee, have a nice day, cap.

What is his project?

1. Raising awareness.
Homeless man is raising awareness as to the importance of having nice days. By being scruffy and down on his luck, it is obvious to the passer-by that his days are often not nice.

2. Starting a conversation
He is trying to start a conversation about how to have nice days. He wants you to think about your day, and the ways you can make it nicer, for example.

3. Changing the culture
He forces you to stop thinking about you were thinking about... and really focus on how nice your day is. If you were on a line of thought about something else, he brutally brings you back to the day-niceness theme. You can't ignore his text.

...

Why am I writing this?

I am writing this because so many of us work in fields in which the three things listed above... are our main contributions to society.

How useful are: marketing? Public relations? Commercial media control? Salesmanship? Political hand-shaking?

These institutions have "baseball hats" that are filled with billions of dollars.



All you ever do is talk...talk (soundtrack)

[QatzelOk]

When defending a policy, always link it to something pleasant that everyone likes: money.

"Immigration will help fill in labor shortages and produce more money..."

"Electric cars will provide jobs and thus, money..."

"Subsidized daycare will allow more women to work so more money...."

This is what Christopher Columbus thought as he first landed in the Americas: "How can I make more money using this place and these people?"

And there's been no evolution in 500 years?

All we can do is raise awareness and start a conversation... but we do these things only to help money? Perhaps if we do nothing, money will accumulate more money for itself, and this is why we have been brainwashed into the kind of pacifity that thinks that "starting a conversation" is all you have to do to regulate human society, and then you can sit back and let money do the rest.

[Unthinking Majority]

The homeless guy only cares about money also. He's just being nice so people will give him money.

Some homeless use dogs to get sympathy to get more donations. I had a homeless guy come up to me in a suit and said he had a job interview and just needed money to get it dry cleaned. He was very likely lying. I visited the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC, and at the end of the memorial there was an older black guy with a military hat on and he wanted money. He probably never served, and if he did he's a disgrace to use his fallen comrades to gain sympathy for begging.

[QatzelOk]

He's just being nice so people will give him money.

This is the most important part of most job descriptions. In the advertising industry, this is called "client focussed."

In tourism and hospitality, "people skills."

In marketing and entertainment, "popular appeal."

...there was an older black guy with a military hat on and he wanted money. He probably never served...

That man spent his whole life surrounded by fake-charities and faux victimhood. It is the water that we swim in, and not any particular reflection on his life attainment.

We have become detached from real social engagment - a.k.a. what it means to live a human life.

[Rancid]

@QatzelOk, love the banner in your sig.

[Unthinking Majority]

This is the most important part of most job descriptions. In the advertising industry, this is called "client focussed."

In tourism and hospitality, "people skills."

In marketing and entertainment, "popular appeal."

People who beg for money do have a job since they make income, however most generally don't produce anything of any use for society. Sometimes squeegee kids do, but often they clean a windshield without asking and then try to guilt you into paying them.

I don't have anything against homeless people, i'm just saying they're as selfish as anyone else.

[Rancid]

[late]

It's cheaper to see his basic needs are met, and that includes housing. Letting people die in the street means they wind up in the hospital fairly often, as well as using other resources.

So rather than wasting time appealing to nonexistent morality, I will just point out that treating them like human beings is cheaper, makes cities cleaner, and, for a bonus, they spread a lot less disease.

The sane thing to do is act in your own self interest, once you know what it is...

[QatzelOk]

People who beg for money do have a job since they make income...

Then so do pick-pockets. They have a job.

But this job is of no utility whatsoever to anyone, expect the pickpocket. (not exactly your standard "exchange" of goods and services)

When everyone has jobs that are useless to anyone else, the very definition of "job" is to be questionned.

Bullshit jobs are not just the ones that are useless, they are also the ones that require the most bullshitting. In other words, post-modern laborers do their jobs mainly to stay locked up.

A huge part of the economy - like the FIRE sector - is only really in charge of making sure the greedbag psycopaths at the top get everyone's surplus labor. And they do this with empty words, and an empty office routine that destroys their ability to be human.

=======

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZZEpNKjg0

The very last question that the oh-so-useful interviewers ask the unemployed male is "What was your relationship like with your mother?"

I would say that many people who work in communication or FIRE sector jobs had ball-busting mothers who didn't let their children outside enough, or to think on their own.

This is how they can grow up thinking that we're all just the last words we left in the air.