In the Vanished Time, Shadows of Futile Busyness

Second book review of 'Fake Work'. This book is largely composed of vanished time, vanished meaning, and reclaiming time and meaning. The part I read today is about time and meaning. The concluding part of vanished time talks about the essence and changes of labor. It starts with the story of empty labor. It talks about four types of empty labor: loafing, stretching time, increasing work, and fabricating work. These are types that are so commonly seen around us that it's both amusing and bitter. It also mentions fake work, where people receive salaries while doing really irrelevant and unnecessary tasks, indulging in pretending to be busy, and raises the question of whether real work in the world might be much less. Why do so many people engage in fake work and get swayed by long working hours? It asks if a 15-hour work week could be realized if fake work were eliminated. It goes on to mention office workers who reorganize documents to maintain the feeling of being a working person and to preserve their self-esteem, even though they are not creating any results, and also talks about the mechanism by which old tasks become meaningless the moment change is encountered. It says that fake work is not the exclusive property of certain people but is derived from the social system. This is true of the stories about works and results that pursue rationality but are not rational. The various systems that have sprung up believing they are rational become irrational by gnawing at and destroying the main body of the system. The story of technologies that do not work as intended is in the same context. The invention of email and automobiles has resulted in the creation of more labor. The technology that we expected to liberate us has ultimately created more work, and there is an example of how doing laundry once a month has changed to once a day with the advent of washing machines. AI in this era has also emerged as if it will liberate us from labor, but in reality, even in the company I belong to, labor has increased as a person in charge of the AI-only team has been created. I'm curious about how the world will unfold in the future. Will AI be able to eliminate fake work, or will it become a technology that creates another fake work? The vanished meaning part talks about the self-aggrandizement of highly paid executives and the culture of believing in labor. It's about a culture where the answer 'no' is taboo to the question 'Are you busy?' In ancient times, loafing was the privilege of the aristocracy, but now the culture is that people who do busy-looking work are treated as valuable people. The busy lives of the new upper class have become synonymous with success and progress. The boss concludes by saying to end the culture of believing in busyness, go home when you're done, get rid of fake work, and do real work.