Personal Note II

Yahweh in (יהוה‎):
Moses and the Burning Bush

What is the purpose of administrative personnel?
Friday – October 3, 2025

Something I've always thought about is the life of administrative people: I mean what do all of these people that push papers all day, paper pushers, do with their time, and what do they actually add to the economy? There are all sorts of people working within major enterprises, whether they are public or private, that don't seem to add much of anything that can't be done with computers and artificial intelligence, and no doubt will be done with those tools in the future. In that future then, what are these people supposed to do with their lives, because in all truth it does seem easier to just lay most of these people off and allow them to live on some kind of universal basic income or pension. I do believe there was one study that claimed that it was basically cheaper to retire laid off people than to try to get them some other jobs, at least if those jobs required more education, but of course the problem could be education or expectation of education as well. In a lot of ways of course, education serves the main purpose of a barrier on the job market: it's primary purpose is to keep people out and to keep the people in with protections from wage deflation than invariably would occur if people had a different less deterministic view of education and I believe that this is true in particular for administrative jobs, because a lot of these people do seem to earn quite a buck, yet they don't actually seem to be doing that much all day. I am not saying that education isn't important, but I believe that education should serve a purpose and historically of course, the main purpose of a college degree or university degree was not so much the degree in and of itself, but rather the networking opportunities given to people when they attended higher education: indeed it was usually people of noble rank that attended higher education and for the most part their education was to give them a broader view of the world, so that they could become generally knowledgeable about certain issues and so that they could gain the right vocabulary and jargon, etc, but higher education didn't primarily set people up to find a job, since most people already knew what their job was supposed to be if they where members of a certain guild. Lastly about education: yes there where certain fields in which you where required to gain a certain amount of education: particularity in certain fields of natural sciences, but even in fields such as medicine many or most doctors didn't hold a degree, they simply started out as an apprentice, and this was the case with most lawyers and indeed most professions, even if certain universities exited to provide such degrees.

    Overall, it does seem clear to me that administrative people will be the next batch of people that are going to lose their jobs due to automation and other societal changes, but at the moment Artificial Intelligence is still in a bubble that has to be burst and then the market must be allowed to allocate in an efficient manner that makes sense how AI is going to be used and applied, and my guesstimate is that this is going to take at least another decade and likely more. I guess there are many jobs and positions out there that don't clearly add to the economy or serve a good purpose on their own, and I also guess that most people that hold a job belong to this category and it also seems that most people are content with this. Exactly what will happen with this ocean of humanity without anything to do in the future I don't know, but I am fairly certain that this is where the world is heading. Of course, the capitalist argument is that there are always new jobs created and that these people will find new jobs, but again that study that I mentioned in the beginning would also suggest that it would simply be easier, and cheaper to retire some portion of these people. Of course, for many men hearing and knowing that your services aren't required anymore is a heartbreaking thing, and I understand this, and this may also mean that there's going to be a rise in depression and other mental conditions as we move forward. I do however just want to add that for the most part, these changes while rapid probably still won't happen overnight which means that there's going to be some transitional phase where some or most of these former administrative people will find a new job, that has seemingly been the case when the economy changes. Of course, it's often said that modern capitalist economies in the developed world are "service economies" but if the future is universal basic incomes and retired people in their youth, then perhaps the economy has already shifted away or is in the process of shifting away from a service economy, since most people still need a job and a purpose to rely on services?

    I believe that there surely is a way forward for such people but I am not in the business of making predictions; these are merely my thoughts about the world today. I just don't understand what so many people do with their time all day, and here I am wondering about the world. Indeed, time is a fleeting quantity, and probably the most important quantity you have in your life.

Reginald Drax – October 3, 2025.