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The Who Cares Era

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Re: The Who Cares Era

#511

Post by simonsarris »

sp0rk wrote: post #66
0_____0 wrote: post #5

I was just kvetching about this to my partner over breakfast. Not exactly, but a parallel observation, that a lot of people are just kind of shit at their jobs. The utility tech who turned my tiny gas leak into a larger gas leak and left. The buildings around me that take the better part of a decade to build (really? A parking garage takes six years?) Cops who have decided it's their job to do as little as possible.…

> There's a culture of indifference, an embrace of mediocrity. I don't think it's new, but I do think perhaps AI has given the lazy and prideless an even lower energy route to... I'm not sure. What is the goal? I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees. It's difficult to take pride in…

Blaming employers seems incomplete at best, since many of the worst abuses are employees practically bilking the very cosy employee-employer relationship, eg the MTA in NYC. Huge budgets, lots of dysfunction, very little done. Even the grandparent mentions a city worker.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#512

Post by david-gpu »

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #455
lolinder wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is rarely that their lives are worse, it's that they're somehow making other people's lives worse by not paying attention to X, Y, or Z injustice. But even that argument doesn't really hold water. I know people who are so incapacitated by their anger, frustration, and sadness about the Gaza war that they spiral into depression and are incapable of making any impact on the world directly around them. In t…

Since you touched the topic. The protests in the US did have an impact, which now triggered a second impact on Harvard international students. I think the concern in Gaza tickled some group the wrong way and there will be more awareness. Additionally, there should be more awareness that protests are less tolerated by the government, which seems a bad thing.

How does "awareness" of any problem help anything? As people have been saying in this thread, we lack agency to do anything about the million problems that we are already "aware" of. That awareness is neither helping us nor the million causes we are bombarded with.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#513

Post by Ray20 »

saubeidl wrote: post #238
WalterBright wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Or would you prefer working dawn to dusk picking bugs off of your crops, with the constant spectre of crop failure and famine? Do you prefer living in a mud hut to a house with air conditioning, central heat, hot and cold running water, electric lighting and flush toilets? All courtesy of economic powerhouses. Maybe you'd prefer spending your free time spinning thread with your spinning wheel, making cloth, and…

Do you think that was the lifestyle in Yugoslavia? And their heyday was half a century ago at this point. You're presenting a false dichotomy. Nobody's gonna live in a mud hut using a spinning wheel just because workers run companies.

>Nobody's gonna live in a mud hut using a spinning wheel just because workers run companies.

That exactly what will happen. In the best case, if you lacky enough, you will be live in a mud hut. The rest will envy those who can afford to live in a mud hut.

Workers can start running companies at any time, no one restricts them from running their companies. The only reason they don't do this is that this will be worse for workers.

So you are being hypocritical. You don't want workers to run companies (they can do that now), you want workers to have no alternative.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#514

Post by Henchman21 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #462
Henchman21 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re describing the change from personnel to human resources . Its this little linguistic trick the C-suite foisted on the rest of us. You dehumanize then exploit. Resources, after all, are meant to be exploited .

Those are unnecessarily emotionally charged definitions and implications of “resources” and “exploit”. I am a resource for my kids, my spouse, and the rest of my friends and family. I am also a resource to my employer and other customers. In any organization, a resource can vary from things such as land, chemicals, machines, humans, books, etc. The term Human Resources seems accurate to a refer to a group of people t…

> Those are unnecessarily emotionally charged definitions and implications of “resources” and “exploit”.

One, don’t attempt to invalidate my emotions. They are both entirely valid, given the concerted push from the C-suite to dehumanize their workforce, and entirely necessary. Necessary because our parents and grandparents lived better lives because they weren’t as dehumanized. Necessary because so few people in this community specifically see it that way and it *needs to be pointed out repeatedly*.

Perhaps it would resonate more if you, too, had heard a couple of C-suites & their chosen MBAs joking about this exact topic. Perhaps dehumanizing people would make your blood boil if you experienced it as casually and often as I have.

But perhaps not. One of the great things about the WTFC-era is that I can disregard your opinion utterly.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#515

Post by saubeidl »

Ray20 wrote: post #502
saubeidl wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a place where people lived good lives and had plenty of opportunities to succeed, along with free education and healthcare. I'm kind of tired of being an economic powerhouse where most people live in misery.

>people live in misery. People live in unimaginable luxury compared with what people had in Yugoslavia.

As somebody who's from there, no, they don't.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#516

Post by icelancer »

zh3 wrote: post #441
icelancer wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are expected to care about things they have zero control over and have ~zero impact on their lives or their family's lives. It's ridiculous. I get a ton of crap for not reading the news or caring about stuff happening 3500 miles away that I can't do anything about.

But you can. Out of the (limited) choices, vote for whoever you think is most in tune with how you'd like the world to be. If almost no-one votes because they think it won't change anything, the few people who do care enough to vote get to say who's elected.

Sure, I vote. I do the things I can do, but I mostly focus on hyperlocal things (Little Free Pantries/Libraries) and my friends/family. Impacting their lives and the lives of the people in my community are my top priorities.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#517

Post by paidsearchguy »

dragonwriter wrote: post #245
strawhatguy wrote: post #240

Ugh, he had a point until he brought in cutting the government as a bad thing. Seriously, DOGE is sweating the small stuff, trying to get cuts where they can, and that does NOT happen from people who don't care. There's a lot of care there. As an analogy, when I program, I'm always on the lookout for performance improvements, and that involves cutting non-performant code and doing less . It's the bro-coders that slap…

> Seriously, DOGE is sweating the small stuff, trying to get cuts where they can, and that does NOT happen from people who don't care. DOGE is a propaganda exercise (in part to provide false justification for policies undertaken with other motives, and in part as a distraction), and the appearance of energy is important for that. They care, but not about the thing that it is the public rationale.

[flagged]

Re: The Who Cares Era

#518

Post by eyesofgod »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #110
sp0rk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a culture of indifference, an embrace of mediocrity. I don't think it's new, but I do think perhaps AI has given the lazy and prideless an even lower energy route to... I'm not sure. What is the goal? I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees. It's difficult to take pride in…

Acting their wage is reasonable. Can't ask for a smile and pride in work from those forced to participate in the torment nexus. 60 percent of Americans can't afford to meet their basic needs, for example. If we want better outcomes, employers must provide the necessary comp, benefits, and work life balance to arrive at those outcomes. Otherwise, we get slop because that's what is paid for.

Can't be asked to take pride in my work when I'm not allowed do, because we just need to ship ship ship without any thought or coordination.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#519

Post by saubeidl »

Ray20 wrote: post #513
saubeidl wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that was the lifestyle in Yugoslavia? And their heyday was half a century ago at this point. You're presenting a false dichotomy. Nobody's gonna live in a mud hut using a spinning wheel just because workers run companies.

>Nobody's gonna live in a mud hut using a spinning wheel just because workers run companies. That exactly what will happen. In the best case, if you lacky enough, you will be live in a mud hut. The rest will envy those who can afford to live in a mud hut. Workers can start running companies at any time, no one restricts them from running their companies. The only reason they don't do this is that this will be worse f…

[flagged]

Re: The Who Cares Era

#520

Post by eyesofgod »

paidsearchguy wrote: post #517
dragonwriter wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seriously, DOGE is sweating the small stuff, trying to get cuts where they can, and that does NOT happen from people who don't care. DOGE is a propaganda exercise (in part to provide false justification for policies undertaken with other motives, and in part as a distraction), and the appearance of energy is important for that. They care, but not about the thing that it is the public rationale.

[flagged]

[flagged]
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