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Reddit ‘antiwork’ forum booms as millions of Americans quit jobs

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Re: Reddit ‘antiwork’ forum booms as millions of Americans quit jobs

#151

Post by PickledHotdog »

I'd be interested to hear the ages of people belittling /r/antiwork

It seems to me that many are blind to the fact that there's generations of people coming through who are getting dudded on the "work hard and you'll at least be comfortable" agreement of previous generations.

Instead they're learning that they'll work hard and that's all they'll do until they die.

Wage stagnation, sky-rocketing cost of living, deteriorating working conditions, ever increasing requirements for jobs, unpaid internships, wage theft, rising inequality, astronomical housing costs in large chunks of the western world. "Once in a lifetime" economic meltdowns happening every 10 years (and nobody getting nailed for it) on a dying planet with clowns at the helm.

If they're lucky they'll get some of the wealth when their parents die.

They've been invited to play a game of Monopoly that's 98% complete and people wonder why they're not overjoyed to be playing all the while listening to older generations to just march on in with your resume and demand to speak to the manager about a job

I'm surprised they haven't burned it all to the ground. Maybe one day they will.

Re: Reddit ‘antiwork’ forum booms as millions of Americans quit jobs

#152

Post by aklemm »

cybarDOTlive wrote: post #84
version_five wrote: post #7

It shouldn't be completely dismissed, but I think the forum is more about how an unhappy (or angry) minority have found each other, and the people that like to read their stories. I don't think that r/antiwork should be taken as representative of anything, including a broader movement. It's the same with twitter, there is a committed vocal and angry group, but it's not real life

Though I'm not one to generally say this or that subreddit should be banned, reddit has destroyed many a thousand times less subversive ones than this in the past, like /r/whitebeautyart. So I don't see why this kind of nihilistic, apathetic, passive attitude should be encouraged. Yes, something like this actually deserves to be removed, especially when it reaches critical mass. Because it does more harm than good to…

I have never witnessed a status quo so blithely defended.

We are free to imagine and strive for a different world than the one we find ourselves in, and I would argue those trying to stifle that are the ones who should be banned from forums.

Re: Reddit ‘antiwork’ forum booms as millions of Americans quit jobs

#153

Post by gruez »

pydry wrote: post #129
Apocryphon wrote: post #127

The meme that this sub is a hive of bot activity is interesting- I wonder who came up with those allegations first, and if they have similar conspiracy theories towards other popular subs such as r/WallStreetBets, or other toxic subs like r/CSCareerQuestions

I've seen some minimum wage discussions on general topic forums (e.g. news) where the top 40-50 comments were vehemently against raising it. I suspect these were driven by bot votes. Any "funny" picture with a well known brand obviously placed in it? Definitely. By contrast thes (the current top 2 posts) seem pretty organic to me though: https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/s07qh6/presented_... https://www.redd…

> I've seen some minimum wage discussions on general topic forums (e.g. news) where the top 40-50 comments were vehemently against raising it.

source?

>By contrast thes (the current top 2 posts) seem pretty organic to me though:

what makes these more organic than the ones in "general topic forums"? Is it just because "well obviously most people would be pro-minimum wage, therefore any comment that's for minimum wage is organic and any that's against is bots"

Re: Reddit ‘antiwork’ forum booms as millions of Americans quit jobs

#154

Post by gruez »

mikewarot wrote: post #103

I think that this is a great way to cover up the problem with the wave of people disabled by Long Covid falling out of the work force. Blame it instead on a vocal group of slackers. It's going to work, everyone will blame them, and Covid keeps getting ignored.

>I think that this is a great way to cover up the problem with the wave of people disabled by Long Covid falling out of the work force.

I must have missed the memo about the hoards of workers being disabled by long covid. Can you link me to it?

Re: Reddit ‘antiwork’ forum booms as millions of Americans quit jobs

#155

Post by gruez »

imtringued wrote: post #122
alanlammiman wrote: post #83

I wonder what would happen if private sector wage-based jobs were forbidden. If essentially your only option as an entrepreneur/company were to pay in equity/profit-sharing. The labor equivalent of, on the capital front, religions that forbid lending with interest but allow equity investing. I wonder if the complexity/transaction costs/uncertainty/governance problems would kill the economy or if it would be possible…

That would solve absolutely nothing. Btw religions forbid interest for very good reasons.

>Btw religions forbid interest for very good reasons.

By preventing anyone but rich people to have access to capital, while at the same time sounding like a policy that most people would support?

Re: Reddit ‘antiwork’ forum booms as millions of Americans quit jobs

#156

Post by [deleted] »

Kavelach wrote: post #132
aahortwwy wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there are. I was responding primarily to the last sentence of 'tjs8rj's post. Given the circumstances surrounding the creation and early growth of the subreddit it's rich to say that Marxist discourse has ruined it...

Sorry for the off-topic, but your name an anagram for the word "throwaway" with letters sorted from alphabetically, while the other person you're talking with has the word "throwaway" in their nickname. I just wanted to point that out

[deleted]

Re: Reddit ‘antiwork’ forum booms as millions of Americans quit jobs

#157

Post by throwaway75787 »

imtringued wrote: post #120
oceanghost wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have news for you. Your manager is just implementing his managers agenda, and so forth-- which almost always goes straight back to a VP or C level guy. Managers generally have very little latitude-- they're given X many resources to do a task in Y amount of time, and that has been chosen for them. I am not defending bad managers-- but, they are there precisely to deliver to you the bad work environment that the CEO…

The CEO isn't to blame either. He has to make his investors happy. This is because there are investment opportunities based on rent seeking that have an artificially high return on investment. The CEO must beat those unsustainable returns.

Then maybe the whole system is wrong. If so many people from all walks intuitively judge their experience of the results to be so inhumane, then maybe we are optimizing for the wrong variables.

Re: Reddit ‘antiwork’ forum booms as millions of Americans quit jobs

#158

Post by omilu »

PickledHotdog wrote: post #151

I'd be interested to hear the ages of people belittling /r/antiwork It seems to me that many are blind to the fact that there's generations of people coming through who are getting dudded on the "work hard and you'll at least be comfortable" agreement of previous generations. Instead they're learning that they'll work hard and that's all they'll do until they die. Wage stagnation, sky-rocketing cost of living, deteri…

People focus on the negatives in life and ignore all the positives: nearly free access to all the worlds information, infinite media and entertainment, no world wars, medicine, and on and on.... Everyone on earth is better off today then 50 years ago. Its human nature to complain. We shouldn't crap on the previous generation they did extremely good for human kind. The folks on antiwork are good for nothing except complaining, disregard.

Re: Reddit ‘antiwork’ forum booms as millions of Americans quit jobs

#159

Post by namelessoracle »

Kavelach wrote: post #131
roxaaaane wrote: post #123

What's with the hostility towards the subreddit? I am surprised by the HN reaction to it. I think that unless you are working minimum wage you don't get to call the sub "nihilistic, apathetic or zoomer adhd" if anything most of the members were essential workers during covid and struggle to afford basic living otherwise they would not be angry. I am very surprised by the comments in the thread to be honest, if you wo…

I wholeheartedly agree with you. The importance of those people has been proven when, during the first waves of COVID, they stopped being called low wage workers , and instead words like essential workers were used much more often. I worked as an essential worker when I was in high-school, and the amount of shit I had to put up was insane. Your boss is screwing you over, one way or another, the people you service dem…

My analogy is to look at your computer.

Screws are essential, but you can probably go without a few and if one breaks you will just throw it away and get another one.

A graphics card is expensive, and the computer might still work in some core ways without it! Yet that you might try to get repaired and go through an annoying RGA process to get a new one.

Which type of worker is the screw and which one is the graphics card?

Phrased another way. All workers sell their labor, but some people are effectively capital by themselves. A factory buys a piece of capital (the machine that creates the product) and the laborer.

The hospital hires a doctor who is both the piece of capital and the laborer. It makes sense that there is a higher price tag when a person is also the the machine that makes the product.

That capitalists value people and treat them nicer when they are also basically a piece of capital makes perfect sense.

Re: Reddit ‘antiwork’ forum booms as millions of Americans quit jobs

#160

Post by strikelaserclaw »

PickledHotdog wrote: post #151

I'd be interested to hear the ages of people belittling /r/antiwork It seems to me that many are blind to the fact that there's generations of people coming through who are getting dudded on the "work hard and you'll at least be comfortable" agreement of previous generations. Instead they're learning that they'll work hard and that's all they'll do until they die. Wage stagnation, sky-rocketing cost of living, deteri…

Every time populism rises, people flock to the "left" and "right", that is the key symptom of a crumbling society. People who work in Software need to understand that they have it easy, and as for myself, even with a good software salary, buying a house is still hard for me, and i'm lucky in that i have no student loans after i graduated.
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