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WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

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Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#331

Post by Jochim »

tomcam wrote: post #173
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "basic" in basic income isn't there for decoration: just taking UBI and not working would probably be about as comfortable as living on something like Universal Credit in the UK, minus the adversarial means-testing, which is to say, "not very". Certainly I wouldn't characterise it as "easy wealth", more like "easy bare minimum so you don't have to worry about starvation". Besides, if it was that much gloriously e…

How is means testing adversarial?

In practice it almost always leads to people who are entitled to that benefit being wrongly denied it, or unable to access it. It also introduces a grey area of people who should qualify but don't.

Assessors are pressured, and incentivised financially, to get through as many cases as possible[0]. One gentleman recorded his assessment and found multiple falsifications[1]:

> On his phone recording you can clearly hear the assessor carrying out a peak test to measure his lung function, and reading out the data.

> But in the final report, his last reading appears to have doubled from 150 L/min to 300 L/min, making him seem better than he actually was.

The means testing of disability benefits in the UK is such an abject failure, that a noticeable number of people die within a month of being declared fit for work[2].

[0] https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/pip-assessors-paid-bo...

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41581060

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/27/thousands-di....

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#332

Post by hbs18 »

Keirmot wrote: post #313
hbs18 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tax, banking and health related information are some of the things that I can think of that would be shared on a need to know basis with people at work and have no business to be seen by people outside of the intended audience. I am against workplace surveillance, but why would people receive this information to their work email address?

Why would HR receive my information?

My bad, I misunderstood the above comment.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#333

Post by Jochim »

codegeek wrote: post #189
2devnull wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people don’t want to work. They’ve told me so. I think UBI would destroy these people, like easy wealth does to the newly rich. A better solution is to focus on worker’s rights and labor regulations. Of course that opens the internationalism question, but so too would ubi.

Free money is never going to solve anything. I don't mind helping people in need but just handing out money to people especially the ones that are already lazy wouldn't solve a thing. Instead, we should focus on getting people to work. Whatever that takes. We should reward those who want to work and penalize those who don't. If you can't work due to a real disability, you should be helped.

I'd rather require employers to make themselves a place someone would freely choose to work. If a person's basic needs are taken care of and they don't want to work for you, that's your problem.

Even with our current systems, we have a situation where people live in such precarity that employers are able to treat them abusively/illegally. An egregious example would be "companies hiring children to clean slaughterhouses on a nightshift". More generally, we shouldn't put people in a position where they have to accept abuse because the alternative is massive upheaval at best, homelessness at worst.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#334

Post by josefx »

krageon wrote: post #305
josefx wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if the company has a rule that you're not allowed to use it for personal things, the law supersedes that and you still can't do it willy nilly. Companies are not homogeneous blocks of matter and there is always information some people at the company may need to know that others have no business dealing with. Tax, banking and health related information are some of the things that I can think of that would be sh…

Health related information may absolutely not be shared, and doesn't need to be.

Honestly I wasn't sure how much that point applied. However with people that suffer chronic illnesses or disabilities that require special consideration I would be surprised if it was always possible to adequately communicate those needs without also mentioning information that the employee might not want to share publicly.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#335

Post by Jochim »

SoftTalker wrote: post #149
tigrezno wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you have the opportunity to stop working and keep being paid, wouldn't you take it? I'm sure the mayority of people don't want to work. It's not a natural thing to do.

It's not unnatural. Humans have always had to hunt or harvest their food, and find or construct shelters to live in.

Doing those things, as needed, for yourself or your immediate community is very different than performing the same task on a factory line for 70 hours a week so that a person you've never met can earn more than your yearly salary playing golf with the board members.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#336

Post by mantas »

hef19898 wrote: post #301
mantas wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are not rational economic units. There's much more at play. My issue with UBI (and too lax welfare in general) is cultural issues. Once you get multiple generations of people who never worked.. It's not good. Personally I think USSR was somewhat close to UBI. Working was mandatory and pay was crap. But everybody looked the other way when somebody slacked or was drunk at work all the time. It was next to imposs…

We are, slowly but surely, approaching a point where worl is no longer a feasible way to distrubute wealth of a society to everyone. Reasons are automation, efficiency improvements, limited growth and, yes as much as I hate it, AI. Once we reach that point, as a society we have to answer the question of what happens to those people who find themselvesbout ofbwork. And those left with dull and dangerous jobs, usually…

I'd word it slightly differently. I agree there may shrinking pool of economically viable jobs and it's likely to shrink considerably in coming decades.

However, there's lots and lots of stuff that needs to be done for society to function properly. E.g. all sorts of community work. From organising local community events to self-support groups to picking up trash in a local park. A lot of stuff works (or doesn't, looking at mental health statistics) just because a volunteer pops up. However, if we as society suddenly had a fuckton of money available, maybe we could improve here? Hire people who can run arts classes in local community center. Or, first, build the damn community center :) Or hire more people to pick up trash.

It's not economically viable to keep streets and parks clean. Or offer free arts classes. But if we don't care about what is economically viable, maybe we could put resources there?

Of course, with UBI, maybe someone would volunteer to pick up trashes while getting a meager amount of money. Or maybe he will sit on a couch because picking trash is a boring compared to playing Guitar Hero 24/7.

However, building strong communities with passionate people may create all sorts of issues in the future. It's easier to control couch potatoes relying on government handouts for generations.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#337

Post by Jochim »

lelanthran wrote: post #302
lannisterstark wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI isn't covid money printer though. You're misrepresenting it either intentionally or by mistake to discredit it. UBI would, and should, replace current welfare schemes. We already have those in place.

> UBI would, and should, replace current welfare schemes. It can't. There still needs to be a safety net for people who don't use their UBI to buy food or shelter. And then you're back where we are now - some sort of safety net for people who don't have food or shelter.

That's a much smaller proportion of people than are served by welfare programs, and as a group, they're often not able to access current programs due to mental health issues or lack of knowledge.

Some initiatives still need to exist but UBI obviates the need for the majority of them, simplifies the administration, removes bureaucratic expenses, and reduces the "othering" of people who depend on the support the most.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#338

Post by mantas »

hef19898 wrote: post #311
somsak2 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does anyone have any claim to 'their share' of resources without any input? Just by being in existence, they deserve to consume natural resources / technology? I don't see how that makes sense.

Wow, so we reduce human beings and life to what, something without value of its own? You do know where that ideology ultimately leads, don't you? Hint: it leads to very bad, very dark places... Honestly, I have no idea how people are so willing to sacrife human rights, right literally millions of people had to die in order for us to have them, for the sake of profit and capitalism, benefits only an extremely limited…

Is it a human right to be fed & sheltered by others? Without giving anything in return?

What about human rights of those at the other side of a stick? Is it a human right to demand something from another human being? Is it a human right to have to provide to someone?

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#339

Post by mantas »

planede wrote: post #327
lelanthran wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UBI doesn't prevent a fair welfare system on top of it. It doesn't have to be one or the other. UBI replacing unemployment welfare but not other welfare makes the most sense, IMO. Another welfare system in addition to the existing welfare system is quite undesirable for most proponents of UBI who (like the parent I responded to earlier) present "no other welfare system" as a benefit of UBI.

I like the idea of UBI, but I agree with you that it can't replace all welfare. But UBI replacing unemployment welfare is not another welfare system in addition to the existing one. It would simplify the existing welfare system by replacing a complex part (unemployment welfare) with a simpler one (UBI). I think it worth considering UBI in this light. I'm not a proponent of eliminating all other welfare.

However, most UBI theories rely on taking all welfare funds and redistributing them evenly. If you take unemployment welfare only, you're looking into massive tax increases or UBI that won't provide even very basic living.

Re: WFH – Watched from Home: Office 365 and workplace surveillance creep (2022)

#340

Post by hef19898 »

mantas wrote: post #338
hef19898 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, so we reduce human beings and life to what, something without value of its own? You do know where that ideology ultimately leads, don't you? Hint: it leads to very bad, very dark places... Honestly, I have no idea how people are so willing to sacrife human rights, right literally millions of people had to die in order for us to have them, for the sake of profit and capitalism, benefits only an extremely limited…

Is it a human right to be fed & sheltered by others? Without giving anything in return? What about human rights of those at the other side of a stick? Is it a human right to demand something from another human being? Is it a human right to have to provide to someone?

Yes.

Articles 22 and 25 in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

Either you are trolling, trying to pass as a ultra-tough meritocrate or you just don't care about other people. Maybe all of the above.

Edit: All edge and no point sums up your comment, and the GP, pretty well, I guess.

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