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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

#361

Post by mgh2 »

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…

Reddit (or any social network for that matter) was never meant to attract the same quality crowd and comments as HN.

Social networks, in their design, are destined to degrade over time no matter how much technology is used, because it is a refection of the collective corrupt human nature.

I thought Linkedin was an exception until https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30215033

HN is not a social network and hopefully stays that way. The slight degradation you see might be due to COVID, where people flooded online in general. But you can still find great content because its core community and function remain fundamentally the same since inception.

Note: I mainly use HN as a information filter and research tool.

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

#362

Post by seaourfreed »

danenania wrote: post #239
gavinray wrote: post #182

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

One way to think about it: we already have a basic income in the US. Nobody starves to death in the US. Nobody is denied medical care in the emergency room. In many places (though not everywhere), there are shelters where a person can sleep inside. There are food stamps and a patchwork of welfare programs. However meager they may seem, things like this amount to a form of universal basic income. Does it prevent peopl…

This doesn't say where the money comes from.

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

#363

Post by ac29 »

wonderwonder wrote: post #328
quirino wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be solved by a Negative Income Tax [1]: > In economics, a negative income tax (NIT) is a system which reverses the direction in which tax is paid for incomes below a certain level; in other words, earners above that level pay money to the state while earners below it receive money. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax Edit: I'm not economically literate enough to say I fully support this,…

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…

Any credible UBI proposal always involves raising taxes to support payments to everyone. Usually the marketing pitch is that it will be a wash for the middle class (tax increases ~= UBI payouts). But of course "middle class" is poorly defined and spans a wide range of incomes that aren't taxed the same. Presumably a middle class family in San Jose would have a much different calculation than a similar family in Des Moines.

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

#364

Post by prepend »

JSavageOne wrote: post #250
monkeynotes wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We could already have this reality today if we just implemented a universal basic income This is at best naieve. How can you possibly reduce all of the complexities of a nation's multiple economic wants and needs to that conclusion? This is the problem with the movement, myopic and idealistic notions of being free from work. Universal income basically drives up inflation, if you give everyone a free $10 everything…

There are already many countries with generous welfare states where one does not have to work and could theoretically live off the government, yet they manage just fine. Even if universal basic income was a pipe dream (which I vehemently disagree with, and again point to the examples above as evidence that not needing to work does not lead to societal collapse), I don't see why enabling everyone the freedom to work o…

> There are already many countries with generous welfare states where one does not have to work and could theoretically live off the government, yet they manage just fine.

I didn’t know there were any countries like this? Would you please link to a few?

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

#365

Post by slingnow »

nothis wrote: post #53
Besticle wrote: post #5

It takes one bad experience to ruin a reputation. Guy went on Fox news (against the communities) wishes and made millions of people's first impression of r/AntiWork to be negative. In the modern world optics are EVERYTHING and that cannot be understated. Imho the first thing they need to change (which they have with their move to the new subreddit) is renaming it from r/AntiWork to r/WorkReform. Most of the sub (I'd…

What I'm noticing the past 5 to 10 years is the right outsmarting the left in activism and public imagery. Not with arguments, with wording. It's hard to watch. One way I'm trying to make sense of is the following: The left is used to being the underdog, the ones fighting for reform against powerful, conservative institutions. They are used to not really stand a chance, it's the spirit that counts. In that position,…

I wonder what it's like to have such a naive black and white view of the world. You speak of left and right like it's a fantasy movie with some long narrative about good and evil. And you speak as though the concept of right and left has been an unchanging thing ("the right has been doing this for centuries"). Do you believe you are some stoic warrior engaged in a centuries long battle for some ideal?

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

#367

Post by jerska »

wonderwonder wrote: post #291
danenania wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to think about it: we already have a basic income in the US. Nobody starves to death in the US. Nobody is denied medical care in the emergency room. In many places (though not everywhere), there are shelters where a person can sleep inside. There are food stamps and a patchwork of welfare programs. However meager they may seem, things like this amount to a form of universal basic income. Does it prevent peopl…

I am not trying to disagree at all, in fact I think we very much need to do more for the poorest among us, especially the kids. Where does that 30k come from though? For 300 million people, that's 9 trillion dollars a year, ~half of GDP. Inflation would be out of control, essentially Venezuela / Zimbabwe levels.

You are trying to disagree here.

Otherwise, you’d have looked at other comparable economic powers worldwide that provide a more socialist alternative and see that they are nowhere near the inflation rate you’re describing, e.g. France.

Granted, it’s not $30K a year, but $7.5K for a single person, with free healthcare & education that could be considered a form of income. Doing the same maths as you did, round it $10K per person and you’re at 30% of GDP.

It’s been running for years and debt levels didn’t skyrocket much higher than the US.

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

#368

Post by alecbz »

wonderwonder wrote: post #270
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…

How does UBI work if everyone just decided not to work anymore? How would it work if everyone involved in say medicine decided not to work anymore of if everyone involved in the military or border patrol said 'nope, I'm done'? Would we just print more money to give to the people that streamed over the border? What if the people that print the money or send the checks decided to quit?

It wouldn't, but I'm not sure that would happen (everyone deciding not to work). Especially if UBI is only enough to live ~reasonably comfortably. I'd imagine a wide spectrum of people, some of which are fine with that level of income and don't really work much for money at all, some people who work part time, and others that keep working because they enjoy it/really want more money.

It feels TBD how stable something like this would be, but feels fundamentally workable. I think you could at the least tune the amount of the UBI until it does become stable; I don't think the only stable value would be $0.

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

#369

Post by the_snooze »

shakes_mcjunkie wrote: post #341
the_snooze wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Make American Great Again I think this is a really good example of an effective slogan, both in Reagan's initial use and later Trump's. It has some really critical properties: it's easy to comprehend, while also nimble enough to fit anyone's notions, and you can't argue against it directly. If you have to direct people to "Google it," then your slogan is a non-starter. I'm not a marketing expert (hence the rather dr…

My point about "Make America Great Again" is anyone can be like "I don't get it what does it mean though?" which happened a lot from liberals and left for this slogan specifically. Conservatives get the benefit of being easily aligned around their leaders and values, so sure "Make America Great Again" works really well in that context where everyone wants pretty much the same thing. "Defund the Police" had a specific…

>My point about "Make America Great Again" is anyone can be like "I don't get it what does it mean though?" which happened a lot from liberals and left for this slogan specifically. Conservatives get the benefit of being easily aligned around their leaders and values, so sure "Make America Great Again" works really well in that context where everyone wants pretty much the same thing.

I absolutely agree with you here, and this is the point I'm trying to emphasize. Slogans have to be aspirational and adaptable and unassailable. "MAGA" is all three. "Defund the police" is really only aspirational and sort-of-adaptable. Its weakness is that it's easy to oppose it and look like you have the moral high ground (i.e., being a crime-fighter). You can't attack "MAGA" directly without sounding like you hate America. That's the brilliance of it.

>"Defund the Police" had a specific meaning which was to actually defund the police but, as with any actual implementation, when you get to the specifics people have a lot of different views and opinions. I don't think you combat that by making a better slogan, I think you just deal with it. The handwringing over what "Defund the Police" means was a huge distraction IMO and mostly bad actors who disagreed with the premise fundamentally and weren't looking for real ways to implement policies.

This is where we disagree. The policy specifics don't matter. Not at the slogan/rallying level. "Defund the police" has a pretty clear policy roadmap, even if it could take on varying shades. "MAGA" is completely devoid of policy, and that's what makes it such a strong talking point. Anyone can attach whatever aspiration they want to it without getting mired up in boring details. This results in widespread acceptance.

>Okay, what's the exact, unquestionable slogan you would use here? Good luck.

I never claimed to have the correct answer here. All I'm doing is pointing out how horrifically bad "defund the police" is and offering field-tested examples of slogans that are so much better at inspiring action, for better or worse (e.g., MAGA). Something closer to a jazzed-up version of "government accountability" or "police competence" would have all the desirable properties of "MAGA" that I've described: aspirational and adaptable and unassailable. "Defund the police" ain't it.

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

#370

Post by JSavageOne »

BobbyJo wrote: post #340
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 a…

> There are tons of jobs no one wants to do, but everyone needs done.

If these jobs truly are necessary, then wages would rise to the point where people would be attracted to do them. If truck driving paid as much as FAANG software engineering, I assure you there'd be no shortage of truck drivers (even if it required grinding a trucker Leetcode).

Higher wages further incentivize automation, or alternative means of coping. Truck driving for example will most definitely be automated within the next decade or two. If chickens became so expensive, then more people would opt for vegetables and subsistence farming (actually I heard it's feasible to have a pet chicken in one's apartment. There's your morning eggs).

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