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

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441–450 of 566 posts

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

#441
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, there are a whole lot of low skill jobs that are pretty crappy. And if I didn't see a path to a job that wasn't low skill, I'd probably prefer to not be working too.

But that's just it - as far as I can tell (in the US specifically) there's always a path out.

Not if your your fundamental desire to avoid work that you dont enjoy.

There is a pretty stark lack of well paying jobs that require low skill and are enjoyable.

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

#442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could ask the same about Fox - which is hardly ground zero for sanity itself. Does it represent a movement, or a TV channel? If it's a movement, by what process was it elected? Point being I doubt anyone at Fox was unhappy with how the Doreen interview turned out. Did they ask to interview anyone else from the sub? All this really does is highlight the difference between online opinionation - always easy - and ef…

Fox is a selective amplifier like most news media. They pick topics that make their beliefs look good and much more importantly topics that make their enemies look terrible (see the antiwork interview)

And on more than one occasion, I've seen them pick interviewees who seem completely unqualified to speak on a topic. For example, I once saw an advocate for free universal college interviewed. It was some idealistic college student still going for their undergrad talking about how it's what "everyone deserves" and would "make the world a better place". The interview was a brutal public lashing. Regardless of where you stand on the topic of free universal college, I think we can all agree that it makes sense to speak to an expert on the topic, not someone in their late teens still trying to find their footing in this crazy world. That interview was uninformative and just plain cruel.

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

#443
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,…

Reddit is a powerful tool for automatically dumbingdown/nullifying any ideology that deviates from the mainstream.

Simply by exposing conversations to the greater mob. No fascist master plan required.

It's like removing the fence from around a garden.

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

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we are going to raise taxes on the middle class to give free money to people that choose not to work? Every single family would then do a calculation to see if its worth the second earner working or if they make more just staying home and getting a UBI. I would not be ok going to work to pay people that have decided that they are fine living on the UBI and don't want to work anymore. Seems like a pretty antagonist…

Taxes wouldn't necessarily be raised. The idea would be to replace many (possibly all) of the usual government social services by these payments. You already pay taxes, and they are already used to fund other people. The idea would be to allow people to choose individually how to spend this money. The goal is efficiency, fair distribution of benefits and elimination of bureaucracy and administrative overhead.

Well, you'd still need the usual government social services though in order to protect those who might still be homeless or hungry even with the UBI.

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

#445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my own experience, and the discussions I had with my peers, the specific term "defund" does not imply advocating redistribution. I sense that in the vernacular "defund" means to stop paying for something and the implication is you are getting rid of whatever is no longer being funded. Defund also tends to be used for line-items and programs rather than organizations and departments, which adds to the confusion.

If I said "the government needs to fund NASA" or "NASA needs funding", you wouldn't assume that they currently have no money.

But the key difference is that you said "fund NASA", rather than "defund NASA". Fund definitely implies there is not currently enough money, or that a new program is being advocated for.

I would likewise think that anyone who wanted to "defund NASA" had the intention of getting rid of the agency, rather than a more nuanced position of "we should stop funding SLS so that we can reallocate the money on high school STEM outreach and climate satellites."

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

#446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's a tad bit insane - disabled people won't be able to find jobs, whether you want it or not. You are pushing them deeper in poverty by giving them the same amount of money as you give to someone who chooses not to work.

Well I think for ubi to accomplish its goals you'd have to index it to the federal poverty line. I used to be on disability and let me tell you, the FPL would have been a drastic improvement. People really don't understand how little someone on disability makes. It was not enough for me to live a remotely dignified life even in a very low cost of living area.

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

#447

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

>How exactly is this supposed to work? The government prints money and gives it away for free, nobody has to work? Given the tremendous inflation occurring because of non-universal benefits, UBI pretty well died as a subject. Everything the anti-UBI people have said would happen, is happening. So if it were universal, it would be worse than this. Trying to discuss UBI is complex because every single attempt at it has…

> Given the tremendous inflation occurring because of non-universal benefits

The amount of inflation is not especially high, it would've been quite normal back in the 1980s (post Volcker, even). That's why the Fed is slow at addressing it. And of course, the global pandemic had much to do with it.

In the latter part of your comment, you're talking about two versions of the same thing. Calling budget constraints 'MMT' does not change how they work.

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

#448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> until we start automating ourselves into unemployment Still waiting for steam engines to replace human labour...

John Henry would have a word.

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

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I said "the government needs to fund NASA" or "NASA needs funding", you wouldn't assume that they currently have no money.

But the key difference is that you said "fund NASA", rather than "defund NASA". Fund definitely implies there is not currently enough money, or that a new program is being advocated for. I would likewise think that anyone who wanted to "defund NASA" had the intention of getting rid of the agency, rather than a more nuanced position of "we should stop funding SLS so that we can reallocate the money on high school STEM…

Defund is the opposite of fund. If fund doesn't imply that they had no money at all, defund shouldnt imply removing all their money. If the intention was to get rid of NASA, then the phrase would be "abolish NASA", "dismantle NASA", or some other word that actually has that meaning.

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

#450
post #76

Why does no social medium try to tailor against gentrification? It doesn't have to be always exponetial growth, it's fun in the beginning but then entropy takes over. Communities with mechanisms to ensure they keep hovering around a midpoint are sustainable.

One or two examples exist. The venerable MetaFilter is heavily moderated ans charges $5 for a (lifetime) membership, which tends to keep out drive-by commenting.

I don't think MetaFilter is a good example. It's insular, but it also turned to the banal opinions of internet gentrification earlier than a lot of places I used to lurk.
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