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/r/antiwork: A tragedy of sanewashing and social gentrification

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Re: /r/antiwork: A tragedy of sanewashing and social gentrification

#61

Post by stathibus »

pmorici wrote: post #48
Besticle wrote: post #5

It takes one bad experience to ruin a reputation. Guy went on Fox news (against the communities) wishes and made millions of people's first impression of r/AntiWork to be negative. In the modern world optics are EVERYTHING and that cannot be understated. Imho the first thing they need to change (which they have with their move to the new subreddit) is renaming it from r/AntiWork to r/WorkReform. Most of the sub (I'd…

I happened upon the r/AntiWork comments section from time to time before that Fox News segment and it always struck me as full of people who were making every excuse not to take responsibility for their own circumstances and who have a fantasy that low skill jobs should some how pay enough to be life long careers instead of viewing them as stepping stones to bigger and better things.

That is the "sanewashed" viewpoint. The original message of r/antiwork was that nobody should have to work to live a comfortable life in modern society, and their needs should be provided by others who do.

Re: /r/antiwork: A tragedy of sanewashing and social gentrification

#62

Post by belval »

throwamon wrote: post #27
belval wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's against the rule to say that you did not read the article, so I won't say it, but: > In the modern world optics are EVERYTHING and that cannot be understated. Imho the first thing they need to change (which they have with their move to the new subreddit) is renaming it from r/AntiWork to r/WorkReform. /r/WorkReform exists already. > Most of the sub (I'd wager >80%) are Americans asking for workers rights that ar…

> It's against the rule to say that you did not read the article, so I won't say it Maybe it should be against the rules to say you know it's against the rules, and so on recursively. This loophole is often exploited to make these remarks equally useless and extra snarky.

The spirit of the rule isn't that you can't point out when the article addresses the exact questions that the parent is asking:

> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

My comment sole focus is not that parent didn't read the article. Instead, I chose to answer the comment's question with the answers from the article.

> Useless and extra snarky.

Making a top comment based on an article headline, with no knowledge of what is actually discussed is what's useless and against the HN discussion spirit where we usually try to foster meaningful conversations.

Re: /r/antiwork: A tragedy of sanewashing and social gentrification

#63

Post by CrazyPyroLinux »

scotty79 wrote: post #34

I think this setup illustrated ridiculousness of both sides. You confront authentic (troubled) person doing what she wants with another human so meticulously styled, plucked, tanned and dressed at corporate expense, walking at extremely shot leash with every one of his words tightly controlled, with all the scripted emotions. He looks as if he was a voice box made of plastic. With this contrast you see how bad the wo…

"news actors" or "spokesholes"

Re: /r/antiwork: A tragedy of sanewashing and social gentrification

#64

Post by lanfeust6 »

0F wrote: post #22

[flagged]

The mods had made this explicit: they are anti-Capitalist, and that is their mission. The unironic tolerance for Socialism/Communism in popular discussion is disturbing. EDIT: read the faq if you don't want to believe me, it's all there.

Re: /r/antiwork: A tragedy of sanewashing and social gentrification

#65

Post by s1artibartfast »

echopurity wrote: post #14

"Sanewashing" is a highly biased slur. It's usually called "reformism" by people who support actual change.

I think it adds some interesting new context, particularly around denial of origin and proclamation of homogeneity. E. G. It has always meant what I think it means. There is also the connotation of ignorance and post-hoc justification.

Maybe this fits under the umbrella of reformism, but is not synonymous.

Re: /r/antiwork: A tragedy of sanewashing and social gentrification

#66

Post by brodouevencode »

wsb_mod2 wrote: post #6

Great writeup. A subreddit getting co-opted by the masses to change its intentions is a story as old as reddit. See my username for how I know that to be true. Hopefully more subreddits will wake up and realize that being included in high activity feeds (r/all, popular) is not necessarily a good thing. We have. > Speaking of unflattering stereotypes, let’s be blunt for a moment: Most of what you read on the internet…

Reddit, WSB excepting of course, is a cesspool. (This comment written with diamond hands.)

Re: /r/antiwork: A tragedy of sanewashing and social gentrification

#67

Post by Miner49er »

stathibus wrote: post #61
pmorici wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happened upon the r/AntiWork comments section from time to time before that Fox News segment and it always struck me as full of people who were making every excuse not to take responsibility for their own circumstances and who have a fantasy that low skill jobs should some how pay enough to be life long careers instead of viewing them as stepping stones to bigger and better things.

That is the "sanewashed" viewpoint. The original message of r/antiwork was that nobody should have to work to live a comfortable life in modern society, and their needs should be provided by others who do.

> should be provided by others who do.

No, I don't think this is accurate. They wanted to abolish work for everyone, not for a select few.

Re: /r/antiwork: A tragedy of sanewashing and social gentrification

#68

Post by the_snooze »

StriverGuy wrote: post #56
belval wrote: post #8

> How exactly did it happen in /r/antiwork? Casuals found it. You know — the people who use the internet to laugh at funny memes rather than treating every post as a blow in a grand ideological struggle. That's the very force of the reddit hivemind. I have no interest in /r/antiwork nor their ideologies, but they kept popping up on /r/all, so they get a constant influx of people aligned with the reddit mean opinion,…

Off topic, but my tin foil hat theory of r/antiwork is that this a massive psy-op being pushed by some other nation state. Reddits algo easily helps snowball and propagate ideas that are promoted by users within the sub. It is the perfect playbook to destabilize labor markets in a foreign country.

It's possible, but I don't consider it plausible at my current level of understanding.

My null hypothesis is that there are some really loud people on the internet who like to talk loudly about their unpopular ideas. And they're unaware of how deeply unpopular those ideas are until their little corner of the internet suddenly gets mainstream public attention.

Re: /r/antiwork: A tragedy of sanewashing and social gentrification

#69

Post by swsieber »

belval wrote: post #16
Besticle wrote: post #5

It takes one bad experience to ruin a reputation. Guy went on Fox news (against the communities) wishes and made millions of people's first impression of r/AntiWork to be negative. In the modern world optics are EVERYTHING and that cannot be understated. Imho the first thing they need to change (which they have with their move to the new subreddit) is renaming it from r/AntiWork to r/WorkReform. Most of the sub (I'd…

It's against the rule to say that you did not read the article, so I won't say it, but: > In the modern world optics are EVERYTHING and that cannot be understated. Imho the first thing they need to change (which they have with their move to the new subreddit) is renaming it from r/AntiWork to r/WorkReform. /r/WorkReform exists already. > Most of the sub (I'd wager >80%) are Americans asking for workers rights that ar…

>> which they have with their move to the new subreddit

> /r/WorkReform exists already.

Yes, they noted that

Re: /r/antiwork: A tragedy of sanewashing and social gentrification

#70

Post by slothtrop »

lukev wrote: post #50

I liked the factual analysis and the story of /r/antiwork. But regarding the actual topic of work I think it sets up a false dichotomy; that one is either a sane normal person who thinks productivity is good, or an out-of-touch anarcho-communist. There is actually a very large middle ground which represents the most balanced view towards work; that most work is a necessary evil. It's not that work is good or desirabl…

> that would be unequivocally a good thing.

Why? Work is a net positive in people's lives.

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