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

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

#331

Post by CodeGlitch » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #234

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…

> technological advancement and automation should enable greater freedom for individuals to spend their time how they choose I work in ML. Antiwork seems like it takes its understanding of automation’s present capabilities from fiction, imagining that we could automate people’s basic needs today. We can’t. It’s as simple as that. People are working hard (the irony) on advancing the tech, but we can’t do that today.

I was going to say the same thing. Let's say your toilet breaks, who's going to come over and fix it? You're not going to automate a plumber in the next 50 years...

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

#332

Post by ameister14 » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:21 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

No, I don't think it actually did. It was created by prison abolitionists, who believe in abolishing prison as a whole, an end to punitive jailing and moving to restorative justice with a community problem-solving system, like that advocated by Danielle Sered.

The police abolition movement coined the slogan.

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

#333

Post by shakes_mcjunkie » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:21 PM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #273

shakes_mcjunkie wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

All slogans are somewhat vague. But "defund the police" strongly implies something that the movement allegedly doesn't actually support. And it wasn't a misinterpretation because the movement literally tried to entirely defund several major police departments.

> strongly implies something that the movement allegedly doesn't actually support

Who do you mean when you say "the movement"?

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

#334

Post by nebula8804 » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:22 PM UTC

at_a_remove wrote: post #189

This reminds me of something that happened previously, wherein kind of an easy-going, free-wheeling site also got "gentrified" by the neoliberal left. It started with a "hey, maybe you should think a bit before you use that word" and the slippery slope tilted, now the place is all privilege/intersectionality and so on chat. Everyone walks on eggshells now. They ran off the fun people first, the ones who did a lot of…

Those people will just come back and find a way to destroy/cancel you. They don't go away so they work outside the system to undermine you. That is probably what we are seeing with this whole Joe Rogan 10 part saga.

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

#335

Post by themaninthedark » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:23 PM UTC

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…

You absolutely do not have to sell your labor to someone else.

If you learn to hunt, fish, farm and forage, you can sustain yourself. You can move to Alaska or the Canadian wilderness and do so. If you don't like the cold, there is the Amazon.

There are people who live like this.

The problem is: we want modern medicine, TV shows, cellphones, nice clothes, etc.

Living is the fight against entropy. In order to live, you have to put in effort.

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

#336

Post by ameister14 » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #227

shakes_mcjunkie wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except that's not what the police abolitionist movement that came up with the slogan wanted.

It was just adopted by a bunch of people that didn't actually agree with it, which is why it doesn't make sense.

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

#337

Post by dash2 » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

There's nothing tragic about this! It's hilarious!

* Loons create internet forum to abolish work

* Meme-obsessed teens crowd it out

* Chief loon goes on Fox News, is transsexual dog walker, is Fox News producers' wet dream

* Masses LOL

* Earnest articles are written

* Yet more earnest comments are written

* /me skips work for 10 minutes to read and chortle

What's not to like? THIS IS WHAT THE INTERNET IS FOR PEOPLE

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

#338

Post by bhandziuk » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #317

bhandziuk wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I guess you're right. I interpreted that as "no body works" which...is not what they said.

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

#339

Post by ameister14 » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:25 PM UTC

hannasanarion wrote: post #207

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."

Only because opponents of it deliberately misinterpreted it. Defund the police means defunding the police. Over half of all city taxes go to funding the police forces, who do little to no good for the community with the money they're given. Buying more tanks and assault weapons and fancy cars and employing people who live in big macmansions in the suburbs isn't helping us. Concervatives act like the word "defund" mea…

Conservatives do mean abolish for those things, though.

They want to abolish sanctuary cities, abolish planned parenthood, abolish medicare, abolish social security and abolish state-run education standards.

Moderates don't want to abolish most of those things, but hardcore conservatives completely do.

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

#340

Post by BobbyJo » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

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…

> To me anti-work is the recognition that forced wage labor is not acceptable, and that technological advancement and automation should enable greater freedom for individuals to spend their time how they choose. 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.

It's not acceptable, but it is necessary. People always point to increasing automation and productivity, but they gloss over the fact that those aren't uniform. Most of the economy is only more productive because of other parts of the economy. A trucker today is only more productive because the stuff in their truck is more valuable, not because anything has changed about the job. We need just as many truckers, if not more, now that their 'productivity' us up.

There are tons of jobs no one wants to do, but everyone needs done. What keeps wages in check for those jobs is that 1) they are low skilled and 2) people have to work, so the segment of people that have been unable to make themselves valuable in other ways trickle down into those functions. It's a harsh and shitty reality, but, until we have a big population of people laying around that love scrubbing shit off walls and drowning baby chickens, this is where we're at.

It's wild to me that people don't see this. Literally every utopian uprising has been followed by an immediate famine.

All that being said, uniform supplemental income isn't necessarily bad, but there is definitely a threshold where the harms out-weight the benefits, even for those it is intended to help.