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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

#221

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #40

This reminds me of "Defund the Police", wherein supporters would try to convince others that the slogan did not literally mean what it says. Like AntiWork, It seems to have been started by those who genuinely wanted to abolish the police. But as time went on people joined who instead wanted to reform the police by dramatically cutting back what they were meant to respond to. But the slogan stayed, and was very mislea…

Yeah, this word "sanewashing" as popularized by the article -- while I have mixed feelings about portmanteaus -- is going to be really useful. It's a word I didn't know I needed until I saw it.

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

#222

Post by [deleted] »

the_snooze wrote: post #106
BitwiseFool wrote: post #40

This reminds me of "Defund the Police", wherein supporters would try to convince others that the slogan did not literally mean what it says. Like AntiWork, It seems to have been started by those who genuinely wanted to abolish the police. But as time went on people joined who instead wanted to reform the police by dramatically cutting back what they were meant to respond to. But the slogan stayed, and was very mislea…

>Defund the Police That slogan was straight up political malpractice. If you have to explain your position, then you're already losing. Something like "government accountability" or "serve the people" probably could have gotten wider support than "defund the police."

[deleted]

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

#223

Post by wsb_mod2 »

city41 wrote: post #202
wsb_mod2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you want to know? I think r/wallstreetbets is still a fantastic place and more or less true to its purpose of finding interesting and novel trades. Much of the discussion has expanded, to discord (600K users, the limit) as well as the daily reddit talks (Think clubhouse but for reddit). The daily thread is still fantastic for a very quick list of interesting topics, which you can jump into and have a conversa…

> but there are definitely fewer recognizable names amongst the volume of comments I find this interesting because to me one of the biggest attractions to Reddit (and HN for that matter) is how deemphasized the user is. I almost never read usernames and rarely remember who anyone is.

That's a good point. The situation definitely has it's pros and cons.

For example, in the voice chats, its great when users follow up with one another on their trades, or know each other's specialties so they can call them to provide insight.

On the other hand, deemphasizing the user makes it more about the content and less about the person creating that content, which at best avoids bandwagoning and the whole "I called $foo, so listen to me when I say buy $bar".

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

#224

Post by zozbot234 »

gavinray wrote: post #182
JSavageOne wrote: post #156

I remember stumbling upon /r/antiwork a few years ago and being so happy I'd stumbled upon a thriving movement that so effectively criticized one of the core principles of society that everyone takes for granted - that everyone must effectively sell their labor to someone else (unless they're rich enough to opt out, or clever enough to create some business or invest their way out). To me anti-work is the recognition…

>Universal basic income I'm going to sound like I'm being snarky here, and I promise I'm not. How exactly is this supposed to work? The government prints money and gives it away for free, nobody has to work? I don't say this from a place of privilege. I grew up lower class trailer trash and have been homeless. Maybe I don't understand the concept fully but it seems a bit absurd and unfeasible

Universal basic income is not "anti-work", it's pro-work. The GP seems a bit confused. The simplest way of putting it is that everyone gets a "baseline" subsidy that's at best just enough to live a minimally dignified life. But working to earn a supplemental income can never leave you worse off. And even when this can be described as "anti-forced" work, that's because having such a safe baseline gives you the flexibility of trying for a better fit. It's something everyone would want for themselves.

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

#225

Post by optimiz3 »

dymk wrote: post #194
gavinray wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Universal basic income I'm going to sound like I'm being snarky here, and I promise I'm not. How exactly is this supposed to work? The government prints money and gives it away for free, nobody has to work? I don't say this from a place of privilege. I grew up lower class trailer trash and have been homeless. Maybe I don't understand the concept fully but it seems a bit absurd and unfeasible

You tax a couple dozen ultra rich billionaires and a couple dozen ultra profitable companies. There's plenty of money. We don't need to print more. And each doesn't need the spare $20B anyways.

> You tax a couple dozen ultra rich billionaires and a couple dozen ultra profitable companies. There's plenty of money.

The federal deficit is 2.8T for 1 year.

If we confiscated the 100% assets of the top 10 US billionaires we don't even get close to half of 1 year of federal spending. It's not plausible that a massive increase in taxes would pay for UBI.

https://www.usdebtclock.org/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/201426/the-richest-peopl...

As is, people not participating in the workforce right now is implicated in large parts of the various shortages. It's not clear how UBI improves things.

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

#226

Post by achenet »

iso1210 wrote: post #92
wsb_mod2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site itself leans left, I wouldn't call that manipulation, simply people voting on content they like. However, you are onto something. Almost every single post on r/MurderedByAOC is made by u/LrlOurPresident, and those posts hit the front page on a nearly daily basis.

The world itself leans left - at least compared with the US Left/Right divide, and younger people (who are more likely to be on reddit) lean left. Obviously the site itself leans left.

s/The world/The educated, english speaking westerners who post on reddit, generally found in Western Europe and North America/

I'm not sure Asia, Africa, and the Middle East are hugely fond of progressive politics.

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

#227

Post by BitwiseFool »

shakes_mcjunkie wrote: post #149
the_snooze wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Defund the Police That slogan was straight up political malpractice. If you have to explain your position, then you're already losing. Something like "government accountability" or "serve the people" probably could have gotten wider support than "defund the police."

You could say literally the same thing about any political slogan. For example, please explain "government accountability" or "serve the people"? That literally could be anything. Another example, "Medicare for All", pretty straight forward, but what does it look like as a policy? https://www.propublica.org/article/medicare-for-all-is-not-m... Or "Make American Great Again" or "Build Back Better". Any slogan can be q…

A far better slogan would have been "Demilitarize the Police". I do not know why so many people who want police reform want to stick to "Defund the Police" when it comes with so much baggage.

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

#228

Post by browningstreet »

throwawayboise wrote: post #209
gavinray wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Universal basic income I'm going to sound like I'm being snarky here, and I promise I'm not. How exactly is this supposed to work? The government prints money and gives it away for free, nobody has to work? I don't say this from a place of privilege. I grew up lower class trailer trash and have been homeless. Maybe I don't understand the concept fully but it seems a bit absurd and unfeasible

It is unfeasible. The reason money works is because it is an abstraction for someone's production of value that is way easier than bartering for everything. physical labor, skilled labor, educated thinking, management, knowledge transfer... anything that is valuable to someone else. If you just pay people to sit on their asses, many of them are just going to sit on their asses, creating nothing, simply consuming reso…

Most people don't actually want to live at the UBI subsistence level so they'll work to live at a higher level. Some people need help for a while, and the infrastructure needed to dole out services to those in need creates waste and neglect.

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

#229

Post by agravier »

gavinray wrote: post #182
JSavageOne wrote: post #156

I remember stumbling upon /r/antiwork a few years ago and being so happy I'd stumbled upon a thriving movement that so effectively criticized one of the core principles of society that everyone takes for granted - that everyone must effectively sell their labor to someone else (unless they're rich enough to opt out, or clever enough to create some business or invest their way out). To me anti-work is the recognition…

>Universal basic income I'm going to sound like I'm being snarky here, and I promise I'm not. How exactly is this supposed to work? The government prints money and gives it away for free, nobody has to work? I don't say this from a place of privilege. I grew up lower class trailer trash and have been homeless. Maybe I don't understand the concept fully but it seems a bit absurd and unfeasible

I think that many yearn for an idealized life in a small, relatively isolated community, low tech and free of fiat currency. They try to imagine workarounds for the fact that it's not actually currently possible in reality.

UBI, anarchism, antiwork and other radical ideas are proposed patches to the cold and lonely reality of modern metropolitan life. They would probably not work, but they are not really the point. The point is to imagine some escape from the current crushing system.

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

#230

Post by tomrod »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #211
gavinray wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Universal basic income I'm going to sound like I'm being snarky here, and I promise I'm not. How exactly is this supposed to work? The government prints money and gives it away for free, nobody has to work? I don't say this from a place of privilege. I grew up lower class trailer trash and have been homeless. Maybe I don't understand the concept fully but it seems a bit absurd and unfeasible

You cut most of our bureaucratic social safety net (food stamps, disability, social security, etc) and replace it with a system where everyone gets enough for the bare basics. If you were smart, you'd fund it with a carbon tax. In all honesty I don't see UBI becoming a thing until we start automating ourselves into unemployment. People say this would increase inflation. Maybe. Let's trial it with 1% of the population…

> In all honesty I don't see UBI becoming a thing until we start automating ourselves into unemployment.

From a political stability perspective, I expect this would be wise to get in front of.

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