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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

#311

Post by bjourne »

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

Read this article and the related studies: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/2/19/21112570/univer...

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

#312

Post by whatshisface »

dotnet00 wrote: post #150
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’…

On the other hand, the argument can be made that the kids' lack of respect for the dad's career might be what's leading to the dad hiding away at work in the first place? I feel this would be something relatable to a large portion of the people on this site, given how many of us practically live our tech careers. Even if we aren't putting in overtime at work, many of us spend time not at work on personal projects or…

If your plan is to live your career, why not just stay single?

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

#313

Post by loceng »

wonderwonder wrote: post #291
danenania wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to think about it: we already have a basic income in the US. Nobody starves to death in the US. Nobody is denied medical care in the emergency room. In many places (though not everywhere), there are shelters where a person can sleep inside. There are food stamps and a patchwork of welfare programs. However meager they may seem, things like this amount to a form of universal basic income. Does it prevent peopl…

I am not trying to disagree at all, in fact I think we very much need to do more for the poorest among us, especially the kids. Where does that 30k come from though? For 300 million people, that's 9 trillion dollars a year, ~half of GDP. Inflation would be out of control, essentially Venezuela / Zimbabwe levels.

Automation technology has allowed a machine to create 100,000s to millions of a product with very little input from a human to put in the raw resources into it.

GDP grows instantly by at least 13% (in the US) if doing a $1,000/month UBI, for example.

Etc.

Andrew Yang has looked into this a lot - his last two books: “The War On Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future”, and “Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy”

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

#314

Post by mrsuprawsm »

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."

Well, not really. While it isn't necessarily a mainstream view, many people do believe that the police in the United States function an unaccountable armed militia/gang, killing at will, and paid for by the public. Hence, the view that the public should defund the police.

Another facet of the same view is that the police are assumed to be inherently so far gone and corrupt that reform is not possible, and to assume that it is is futile.

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

#315

Post by [deleted] »

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

[deleted]

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

#317

Post by Izkata »

bhandziuk wrote: post #208
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

> nobody has to work That's generally not the expectation. The expectation is that there's more than enough wealth to allow for everyone to have a baseline of income to meet their most basic needs. You want to buy a house, buy a car, travel, eat at fancy restaurants, buy expensive things, you still have to work. But if you want to quit your job and find another one you don't need to fear starvation or eviction becaus…

> The expectation is that there's more than enough wealth to allow for everyone to have a baseline of income to meet their most basic needs.

Yes, that's what they said: nobody has to work. They can if they want the additional perks you've described, but they don't have to.

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

#318

Post by UncleOxidant »

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…

There are some good, well-moderated subreddits - r/covid19 comes to mind. But the emphasis has to be on "moderated" - r/covid19 is very strictly moderated and that keeps it useful - a lot of doctors, virologists, immunologists seem to comment there. If that strict moderation wasn't there it would quickly become useless.

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

#319

Post by hellotomyrars »

danenania wrote: post #239
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

One way to think about it: we already have a basic income in the US. Nobody starves to death in the US. Nobody is denied medical care in the emergency room. In many places (though not everywhere), there are shelters where a person can sleep inside. There are food stamps and a patchwork of welfare programs. However meager they may seem, things like this amount to a form of universal basic income. Does it prevent peopl…

Let’s not say nobody starves death in America because people do. Emergency room healthcare is also a poor substitute for most health issues beyond acute illness and trauma.

The working poor do get a lot out of social services that are available if they take advantage of those programs, though some states make it as hard as possible.

But I’m on the same page that UBI is a good thing and better for everybody. People have basic needs and they should be provided for.

I still don’t see how we get there in the US, sadly. The fact that the childcare tax credit was enough to lift so many families out of poverty speaks volumes and yet it seems to be politically ignored by conservatives/republican voters despite the fact that these programs and other social services benefit those communities in red states more than blue states.

The best trick the wealthy pulled was convincing the working poor that all the people they don’t like are abusing the system and living like kings while the working stiff is just getting by.

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

#320

Post by zozbot234 »

slingnow wrote: post #293
danenania wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to think about it: we already have a basic income in the US. Nobody starves to death in the US. Nobody is denied medical care in the emergency room. In many places (though not everywhere), there are shelters where a person can sleep inside. There are food stamps and a patchwork of welfare programs. However meager they may seem, things like this amount to a form of universal basic income. Does it prevent peopl…

I think you're being disingenuous if you believe receiving a no-shit check from the government for $30k per year is the same as scraping by through food banks, homeless shelters, and one-time medical care in the emergency room. I would say all of those things absolutely prevent people from not working. No one would willingly want to live their life that way.

$30k is neither here nor there, but how many people manage to get hired for useful work while they're staying at homeless shelters? The simplest story is that the prospect of homelessness only makes it harder to engage in productive work.
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