/r/antiwork: A tragedy of sanewashing and social gentrification • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by JSavageOne » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #203

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…

> We could already have this reality today if we just implemented a universal basic income, but until the boomers retire from office that's just not happening. That won't be enough. Not just because there are an awful lot of Boomers and post-boomers who can't even go to retirement because they don't have a pension they can live on (which in turn is a problem because all the jobs that the Boomer pensioners occupy can'…

I'm 31, have a well-paying job, and enough assets to be able to retire in a third world country if I wanted to (I'm nomadic so that's not as far-fetched as it sounds), yet I still support a universal basic income. I have friends way richer than me who definitely don't need to work who also support a UBI. I guess we're not as selfish as the last generation?

Even if one were to not go as far as to support a universal basic income, I don't see why it's not a goal worth striving towards if we can afford it, or at least finding a happy medium. For example I envy that higher education in Europe is free, and in countries like Denmark the government will even pay college students a "basic income" to cover their living expenses (was listening to a podcast the other day where a famous Danish entrepreneur said he used that to help bootstrap his first businesses). Also in countries like Denmark and Germany it's normal for high school graduates to take a year off and travel the world, something extremely rare in the U.S.

UBI for me is the equivalent of VC funding for all. Maybe most won't give much back, but all it takes for 1% building the next innovations for that to be a worthy investment (not that I think the humans should be reduced to profit calculators, and value goes beyond profit)

I've traveled to 43+ countries including living in third world ones. Honestly I don't think life in the west is that much different from the western ones to the point where they're disgruntled at the west or really missing out. Not everyone cares about the rat race and hedonist treadmill.

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

#302

Post by BeFlatXIII » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

helloooooooo wrote: post #38

kvuj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, which in turn changes the original community. That's what I like about 4chan. In a sea of ungodly acidic garbage lies a golden heart of contrarianism. The posters will argue for a side one day, and 2 ho…

It probably has to do with the post incentives. On Reddit, if you get downvoted into oblivion, your post disappears even if you get thousands of comments. On 4Chan, the more active the post, the more it gets bumped to the top. So being inflammatory on one makes your post disappear, and on the other it sends it to the top of the feed.

That's why controversial and new are the only worthwhile comment sortings on Reddit.

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

#303

Post by hogrider » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:08 PM UTC

brodouevencode wrote: post #60

I might be alone with this notion, but does anyone else just _not care_? Don't get me wrong I've had my share of shitty bosses, employers, coworkers, pay, working conditions, and customer abuse but over time I've managed to fix every one of those. When a new problem crops up I talk to management. If they don't want to fix it, I leave for another place and hope for the best. This includes stints in being self-employed…

Of course the mainstream does nlt care as they internalized the cultural hegemony of workaholism. The sub and splinters remain a fringe far left anarchist ideology.

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

#304

Post by honkdaddy » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

shakes_mcjunkie wrote: post #151

honkdaddy wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Canada, many of those same voices are now begging the Ottawa police to take on a _more_ violent and confrontational approach in response to the ongoing protest. The hypocrisy is absolutely surreal to me.

Is it really surprising that all kinds of different people are a part of a political movement? You would find this same kind of diversity of thought in any group of people.

No that's definitely true, I should have been more specific. In my case, I was referring to some past acquaintances who are very vocal about their views on social media.

Specifically, the perspective I'm bothered by, is that of being pro-police intervention when it's for a cause you don't support, but calling to defund the police when they're disrupting a protest you _do_ support.

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

#305

Post by monkeynotes » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

JSavageOne wrote: post #250

monkeynotes wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We could already have this reality today if we just implemented a universal basic income This is at best naieve. How can you possibly reduce all of the complexities of a nation's multiple economic wants and needs to that conclusion? This is the problem with the movement, myopic and idealistic notions of being free from work. Universal income basically drives up inflation, if you give everyone a free $10 everything…

There are already many countries with generous welfare states where one does not have to work and could theoretically live off the government, yet they manage just fine. Even if universal basic income was a pipe dream (which I vehemently disagree with, and again point to the examples above as evidence that not needing to work does not lead to societal collapse), I don't see why enabling everyone the freedom to work o…

Communism has never worked because the people in power who decide exactly how to divide the wealth fairly are humans and humans are greedy, selfish assholes.

Who evaluates your land value?

Also, if we all do what we want to do who is gonna pick up the garbage, who is going to slaughter cows for your burger that no one wants to flip?

I mean, these are the easy things I can think of.

Additionally any of the welfare states and experiments with UI are with small scale countries who have simpler socio-economic makeups. Try doing what you are prescribing in America where Trump, Bezos, and any number of psycho CEOs and politicians are doing very well for themselves. Not to mention the fundamental myth of America is bootstrap to individual prosperity.

Edit: to expand on "doing what you want", what if what you want to do is build a huge multi national corp and accumulate stinking piles of cash and yachts? What are you going to say to all those folks?

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

#306

Post by batshit_beaver » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #115

gruez wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This reminds me of "Defund the Police", wherein supporters would try to convince others that the slogan did not literally mean what it says. I have a hard time figuring out whether: 1) all the people who are saying "no we don't really mean defund the police" are just the moderate elements battling it out with the extreme elements (eg. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol... ) 2) most of them…

"Defund" can be a relative term that doesn't necessarily mean to fully remove funding. E.g. we've had decades of hyperbole where relatively small cuts to defense funding are referred to by opponents as "defunding" US troops. We spend a whole lot on policing compared to most other developed nations, and we're not getting terrific outcomes either on civil liberties or crime rates. It might be time to take a different a…

> On the other hand, maybe we're just so socioculturally fucked that it requires massive authoritarian investment to keep a crummy level of peace. I'm undecided.

I think people both understate how splintered the US society really is, and overstate the importance of this divide.

Imagine a country with a HUGE historical and current influx of immigrants that bring tons of different cultures and ideologies into the mix. The country has traditionally been hard to govern, especially at the federal level, precisely because it encourages freedom of thought and expression through both law and immigration policy. Its economic structure further encourages division by being one of the most meritocratic systems on the planet, where material gains for good decisions are quite the norm, but where the divide between the haves and have nots is always growing, and always on display.

In a country I describe, why is it any surprise to anyone that criminal behavior will be more common than in a more cohesive environment, therefore necessitating a more strict policing approach? And in what world does it make sense to reduce police powers in such a country without suffering the obvious increase in crime that will follow that?

It's not that US is fundamentally broken or fucked up, it's just a very different place compared to the "liberal utopias" of Northern Europe, so often cited by leftist activists in the states.

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

#307

Post by whatshisface » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #141

whatshisface wrote: post #9

I think this post may be, in its parlance, "sanewashing" workaholism. For example, let's take this post from the subreddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/lo6wov/my_dads_a_... > "My dads a “working class hero” I wanna punch him in the face, we wanted to visit this weekend, we haven’t seen him in 2 months due to covid, we have three kids and so does he (6, 8 and 9) his wife passed away 2 years ago, and he’…

What about the dads who are away from their families for weeks or months at a time, working offshore or on military deployments? Are they "bad"? I think some people just have a skewed sense of entitlement.

Offshore workers get weeks or months off at a time, alternating with their weeks of solid working.

Military deployments are hard on families. Not sure what to add to that but it's a fact.

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

#308

Post by rhino369 » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

smus wrote: post #175

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…

>This reminds me of "Defund the Police", wherein supporters would try to convince others that the slogan did not literally mean what it says. What? It always meant lower police funding. If it meant abolish the police, the slogan would have been abolish the police

If it meant lower police funding it would have been "cut police funding." The initial movement in Minneapolis was outright defunding 100%.

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

#309

Post by InitialLastName » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

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

The core observations of the universal basic income drive are that:

a) The amount of actual human labor required in the developed world to maintain an acceptable standard of living for everyone in the society is decreasing (with no end in sight),

b) Much of the profit and control of that decreasing cost of providing for the society is concentrating in the hands of a very small number of extraordinarily wealthy people

c) The process you noted:

> The government prints money and gives it away for free, nobody has to work?

... is already how things work, we just dress it up in a byzantine (and expensive!) welfare/social insurance/corporate bailout system and the proliferation of "jobs" that provide no meaningful value to society [0].

If a system could be created that replaces the indirect spending with direct spending, the people who need to be could still be motivated to do the societally valuable jobs (because people want more things still!), and the people who want to do things that are prosocial but not well-remunerated by the capitalist system (arts, education/research, activism/humanitarianism/social work [because there will assuredly still be problems]) will be more able to do so.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

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

#310

Post by achenet » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:10 PM UTC

dgreensp wrote: post #165

It’s a fascinating article, but it lacks respect for people taking principled positions about this social issue. Progressives are fad-chasing sheep, supposedly, while anarchists are legit, but crazy. It’s like the Jordan Peterson philosophy on climate change: People need to stop talking about it and caring about it, because anyone who does so is just virtue-signaling and basically being a shallow, useless idiot about…

disagree with the climate change thing.

We need to be working on finding better solutions.

My current goal is to make enough money in the software industry to go back to school so I can learn biochemistry in order to devise bio-technologies that can reverse pollution.

If you've got some spare time, energy and imagination, your help would be greatly appreciated. ^_^