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Anti-work subreddit goes private after rough Fox News interview

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Re: Anti-work subreddit goes private after rough Fox News interview

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what really happened was that r/antiwork started out as being more of a philosophical sub for people who wanted to explore the utopian but unrealistic vision of people not having to work at all. Then, later, it grew to host this larger movement of frustrated workers needing reform. The mod Doreen I believe originally founded the sub, but now is not a good representative of the larger movement. Fox News is of…

Fox News didn't need to try too hard to make the movement look bad, right?

No, propaganda is easy.

Re: Anti-work subreddit goes private after rough Fox News interview

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do not work society takes away your ability to acquire food and housing. This is, indeed, a punishment. That is a physical punishment in the exact same sense as being imprisoned is. There is also a psychological punishment due to the ostracization people suffer. The latter may for many be a more severe punishment than the former. Regardless, there is a severe punishment. You keep bringing up "you can farm and…

It feels as though accusing me of making personal attacks is just a way for you to try to get out of the corner you’ve backed yourself into. The comment history is public, anyone can read back and see who started making assumptions about the other first. > You keep bringing up "you can farm and hunt" as a cop-out to imply that work is optional. In most countries there is no wilderness with game to hunt in, nor is the…

> It feels as though accusing me of making personal attacks is just a way for you to try to get out of the corner you’ve backed yourself into

What corner? I'm spending my free time teaching you about work philosophies you haven't heard of. The personal attacks you keep repeating is that I'm arguing that others should work for me and that I shouldn't have to work. If you believe that is the point of my argument then I'm wasting my time.

> This is a fair point, and I’ll concede on that.

Even if wilderness and unused farmland existed in abundance taking advantage of it requires you to disconnect from society. It is not feasible to live that way.

> In all seriousness though, I believe that workfree (per your definition of work) societies can (and do) exist, but they cannot work on a macro scale.

Societies in general do not exist on macro scales. Nations are not societies, they are abstractions whose purpose is to organize work. Of course I can't tell how the world would look like if work became voluntary. I doubt global cooperation would be harder than it is today.

> This works because individuals are able to independently verify whether everyone in the community is pulling their weight.

You are still unable to see that the point of work freedom is that executing useful tasks is not "pulling weight" or "picking up slack" (an expression you used before). If you enjoy what you are doing what difference does it make whether someone is pulling weight or not?

> By your definition any society which uses money cannot be a workfree society.

Yes, kind of. If the distribution of money is uneven society is probably not workfree.

Re: Anti-work subreddit goes private after rough Fox News interview

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels as though accusing me of making personal attacks is just a way for you to try to get out of the corner you’ve backed yourself into. The comment history is public, anyone can read back and see who started making assumptions about the other first. > You keep bringing up "you can farm and hunt" as a cop-out to imply that work is optional. In most countries there is no wilderness with game to hunt in, nor is the…

> It feels as though accusing me of making personal attacks is just a way for you to try to get out of the corner you’ve backed yourself into What corner? I'm spending my free time teaching you about work philosophies you haven't heard of. The personal attacks you keep repeating is that I'm arguing that others should work for me and that I shouldn't have to work. If you believe that is the point of my argument then I…

> The personal attacks you keep repeating is that I'm arguing that others should work for me and that I shouldn't have to work

This is not a personal attack. It's literally what you have said. The following are direct quotes: "why should I have to work?"[0]. "we would then ask farmers to give us food in exchange for nothing at all? Sure."[1]

If you don't believe that the things you say are the points of your argument, then I agree one or both of us are wasting our time.

> Even if wilderness and unused farmland existed in abundance taking advantage of it requires you to disconnect from society. It is not feasible to live that way. > Societies in general do not exist on macro scales.

I don't understand. If you're saying there's no such thing as society on a macro scale, then what 'society' are you disconnecting from? Why would you not be able to have a society in the wilderness or on the farmland?

> If you enjoy what you are doing what difference does it make whether someone is pulling weight or not?

Absolutely not! Right up until you expect things which are the products of someone else's labour to be provided for you.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30102349 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30128236

Re: Anti-work subreddit goes private after rough Fox News interview

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would counter by saying that entertainment is actually valuable. Gambling and playing games are things that people choose to spend their time and money doing because they are fun. (Obviously taking advantages of addiction is immoral, but that’s a whole other bag of worms). As for optimizing trading algos, the counter is that making markets more efficient is also valuable to society at large, and that is what most q…

Your counter-argument to my examples of worthless work is "well, actually, that work is valuable!" The reason why you use this argument is because we are so conditioned to believe that money is the same thing as value. Thus, by definition, every work is valuable because someone pays. Try and think of it from a utilitarian perspective. Is some aaa game creating or destroying more happiness? Is it a net positive for so…

Well, yes, people find the work in your examples valuable. I can say that for sure because they are willing to spend their money on it.

> Sure.

Ha, then the farmers would say "no" and you'd starve to death?

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