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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

#461

Post by batshit_beaver »

JSavageOne wrote: post #374
batshit_beaver wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related to this, but is there ANY explanation out there from proponents of UBI that would clarify how UBI can be done sustainably and perpetually, without causing runaway inflation where UBI is always below poverty level anyway? I'm obviously too retarded for such an advanced concept, but in my head there's no scenario where a utopian UBI-based society is possible, even with more advanced tech. To allow everyone to h…

Personally if I were in charge, I'd start by slowly phasing it in via distributing it from the proceeds of a land value tax (the most efficient tax, Henry George called this a citizen's dividend). Then the UBI amount is anchored and there's no possibility of runaway inflation.

I still don't get it. If rich people own land with value X, and you tax it and produce Y amount that gets distributed to everyone, doesn't that Y directly increase the cost of food and shelter or any other thing that the poor people would want to buy?

Moreover, what's to stop rich people from selling their land? Or abandoning it and moving to another country?

UBI doesn't make any sense to me as CONCEPT. Sure you can find some creative ways to raise some money this year and give it to the poor (or everyone), but how do you create a such a system that continues to function over years and decades?

Money that is given to someone just for existing inherently has no value, so it cannot possibly have much purchasing power. The only things it can buy are things that are subsidized by the government anyway and exists already, such as low income housing and food-stamp-eligible food. What I don't understand is that people seem to think UBI would somehow result in a higher standard of living for people who are already in low income housing and on food stamps, and I just can't think of a mechanism for that.

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

#462

Post by rhino369 »

MockObject wrote: post #425
rhino369 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think your last two sentences directly contradict.

I should have said "no longer support" or "won't admit to supporting" in the first sentence and "initially" in the second.

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

#463

Post by smus »

achenet wrote: post #268
smus wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot structurally expect everyone to have a good career in the us. It is not currently mathematically possible. Please don't delude yourself into thinking the economy could function the same as it currently does without lifelong service industry workers

there is no reason to believe that a service worker can't have a good career. This may not be the case now, but that can change. I'm always wary of paraphrasing Graeber, but it's possible that living in a world where a small handful of individuals own the majority of the wealth has led to the market rewarding various jobs in a way that creates more misery than is strictly necessary - for example corporate lawyers bei…

Sorry, I think you missed my point. My point is that our economy is currently structured with so many jobs paying too little, having no benefits, no pto/healthcare, that "people should just get a better job" argument doesn't hold water numerically. I think the solution to that is to ease the wealth gap.

:) :) :)

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

#464

Post by whatshisface »

dotnet00 wrote: post #418
whatshisface wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

because family and being invested in your career aren't mutually exclusive? I explained that...

Since a day's rest and activities must add up to twenty four hours no matter what, any two things are always mutually exclusive.

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

#465

Post by stjohnswarts »

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.

It's more about class. The 1% are absorbing almost all the new wealth created and the rest of us get breadcrumbs and they -own- most of the government with occasional concessions lest the rabble rise up and overthrow them like in almost all civilizations where the powers that be eventually went to far. No one thinks we have robots that can replace all physical labor, low wage jobs. I think the 99% occupy wallstreet was headed in the right direction and that the powers that be have been using the media to polarize us all with poltical, racial, and political differences and keep us concentrating on our differences rather than our common enemy and the most valuable prize, self determination.

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

#466

Post by mlyle »

batshit_beaver wrote: post #458
kraftman wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's not broken or fucked up, it just: - is splintered - is divided - is hard to govern - has an economic structure that encourages division - has an increasing dive between the haves and have nots

Correct, but that's just how the country is. If people want cultural changes, they've gotta address the causes of the divides in the US and understand that they'll have massive negative consequences too, not just positive ones. Or they can move to a country that is already more in line with what they want out of society.

US police kill too many people (including many innocents and especially of lower socioeconomic classes)-- easy solution, move somewhere else!

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

#467

Post by stjohnswarts »

wldcordeiro wrote: post #164
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…

It's not Reddit specifically but those different subreddits growing to the point where the most "engaging" stuff wins and that always becomes the low-effort memes and stuff. Hacker News has had a slower decline in quality because it's like one specific subreddit in size and has pretty aggressive moderation of content in comparison. Your comment and the phenomenom it describes has been given the name "Eternal Septembe…

It's all in the moderators. They could delete meme posts or even filter posts and have some guidelines they stick to. Also, the “big” groups are almost all owned by the same cabal of 10-20 “super-moderators” that do it only for name recognition. I got pitched out of like 5 subreddits because I posted 1 comment in an anti-vaxxer sub to rebuke an obviously wrong anti-vaxxer rant. They didn't care, and after I cooled off I didn't care either when I realized those subs were all garbage anyway. I also sent them all strongly worded and curse filled responses to the most prominent “super-moderators” to let them know they are all garbage for blanket bans. One of them tried to get me pitched off Reddit and a Reddit employee that I know said the people over at Reddit couldn't care less about what moderator opinions are, and they don't really have any power outside their subs.

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

#468

Post by wsb_mod2 »

ryeights wrote: post #360
wsb_mod2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2020 was marked by a 10x increase in comment volume, largely coming from both incredible, pandemic driven, market volatility as well as stimulus checks and stay at home orders. It is very unlikely (I hope) that this environment will happen again. Nonetheless, can you express exactly what it is that "just [isn't] the same anymore"?

Not OP, but IMO WSB used to be interesting because it represented a small contrarian movement within the highly structured world of finance; a ‘secret club,’ if you will. I always browsed WSB primarily because it was fun, not because I expected to get mega-rich; after the GME blowup/meme-ification/massive media coverage, now everybody and their grandma trades OTM options (and now penny stocks and cryptos and NFTs etc…

I agree, I think there's definitely been a large cultural shift when it comes to retail investing. Lots of people these days want to find the one play that gets them to retirement.

That culture shift extends well beyond WSB, but I think its at least somewhat less obvious here. In my experience, most of the time when people throw out price targets, at most they're predicting a 20%, 25% move, and not the 10x, 100x, or 10,000x you see elsewhere.

I don't think there's really a way, from a moderation perspective at least, to take the dreamers out of the equation... other then waiting and letting them get blown up by their high risk plays.

And just a note, r/wallstreetbets hasn't allowed penny stocks, crypto, or NFTs for many years. (NFTs never)

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

#469

Post by wutbrodo »

vanusa wrote: post #407
wutbrodo wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely orthogonal to the article's thesis. The entire piece is about optics, and doesn't take any position. In fact, the only time the piece departs from its neutral tone is to decry the latecomers accused of sanewashing the space and pushing its original community to its periphery. This is sympathetic to the radicals, albeit incidentally. You've also misunderstood what sanewashing is. Sanewashing is with…

I understand what the word means. My point, which I thought was very clear, is simply: If what the r/antiwork community attempting to do in promoting their position an instance of an (attempted) "transformation of a radical viewpoint into one that's palatable to the mainstream" ... Then is not the normalization of an unhealthy addiction to overwork (as a kind of "virtue") -- arguably an instance of a successful trans…

> instance of an (attempted) "transformation of a radical viewpoint into one that's palatable to the mainstream" ...

I again think this is misunderstanding the point. The "transformation" we're talking about is one that betrays the initial goal. It didn't become palatable by convincing the mainstream, it did so by _changing its goal_ to something the mainstream already agreed with, contradicting the core beliefs of the original cause and community.

> "If theirs is a 'radical' viewpoint -- how did this shit we actually live under (and which is slowly killing us and the planet with it) get to become a 'normal, sane' viewpoint"

Apologies, but I really do feel like you're misunderstanding both the article and my response. Your comment is full of claims that something that everybody believes is radical, while the whole framing of the article is defining radical as "things that few people currently believe" and mainstream as "things that many people currently believe".

Your comment asked:

> "Why is the promotion one position an instance of 'sanewashing', while the normalization of other (no less insane in my view) position is just -- "the way it is"?

and the simple, clear answer is that "sane" and "radical" are being used throughout the article in the sense of "popular" and "unpopular".

I'm quite familiar with the author, having interacted with him many times on a couple of small, related message boards for many years. I can guarantee you that he holds and can eloquently defend many views which would be considered radical. _That just has nothing to do with this particular article_, which is about the dynamics of how popular views wash out unpopular ones.

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

#470

Post by sangnoir »

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

Counter question: assuming there's no UBI, and automation eats the world - Amazon Warehouses and delivery are 99% automated, as are Walmart and MacDonalds - nobody can work[1]. Corporations are still paying close to 0% taxes. How exactly is this supposed to work?

Except a few in repairs and automation, and a handful of industries less amenable to robots.

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