Antiwork movement

Discuss the evolution of human culture, economics and politics in the decades and centuries ahead
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Ozzie guy
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Antiwork movement

Post by Ozzie guy »

A movement called the anti work movement has been rapidly growing.
I didn't think much of it at first.
I was listening to a psychiatrists YouTube video and he brought up the anti work movement saying it might be because of mass automation and people thinking they don't need to work.

Do you think automation is behind the anti work movement (which is a movement that also fuels automation) and what does it mean for our future?
I guess my opinion would be an earlier UBI because as a cohesive group that is probably the one thing they all want. As I mentioned by choosing to minimize work and getting others to do the same they are also speeding up automation.
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Ken_J
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Re: Anti Work movement.

Post by Ken_J »

nah, anti work as it's come most recently comes more from the fact that we all knew for a long time that we do a lot of bullshit busy work, but when the pandemic hit and you started to and so many jobs just cut people lose and the sense of security evaporated for so many people they started to question the space in their lives they had made for work. Thinking about work life balance and wondering why the idea of working for others gets to claim a big chunk of each of our existences when we are so easily expendable to those we devote a portion of our lives to. Then we saw exactly what was essential when non-essential jobs where canceled.

There were elements of the work from home groups too. where people realized that hour commutes and traffic jams were bullshit for micromanagers to stand over our shoulders and crack whips, and the data suggested we were more productive and happier when we could work from home. But those we made space in our lives for didn't want us to have that.

There was some of the "I don't dream of labor" when that response came to the question of what does your dream job look like. And when it was said of the workers not returning to shit wages and abusive managers "People don't want to work.", they responded, "People didn't do most of these jobs because they wanted to, they did them because they got paid to do them. They just had a wake up call that they had been setting the price of their limited lifetime too low and you've been taking advantage of them."

and so the question become, how much of your life are you willing to sell, and at what price, and what do you wish to do in the life portion of the work life balance if you are getting more on that side of the equation now. And the question of what really needs to be done in the world and isn't just bullshit work to keep the peons occupied and moving numbers around in ledgers to enrich others.

Then maybe there is room for the explorations of automation in the discussion. such as how increasing ability of a single person to farm enough food for millions of people. and other leaps in ability of the needed work to be done by fewer people. Which brings around the awareness that the workload is so much lighter to produce everything needed, then maybe it doesn't make sense anymore to work sun rise to sun set for a company. Maybe 8 hours a week is all we'd need from each person in our society to meeet all our needs. But some people would never allow that to happen.
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wjfox
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Re: Antiwork movement

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Ozzie guy
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Re: Antiwork movement

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I have deleted this post through editing.
Last edited by Ozzie guy on Thu Jan 27, 2022 7:00 am, edited 2 times in total.
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erowind
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by erowind »

This is such a spectacle. The movement isn't collapsing. For one, it's on the internet, for two, it's on reddit, for three other gathering places will harness that same angst if not r/antiwork, for four union organizing and working class militancy is on the rise in the US and revolutionary activity is rising in many countries around the world.
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Ozzie guy
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by Ozzie guy »

erowind wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 6:13 am This is such a spectacle. The movement isn't collapsing. For one, it's on the internet, for two, it's on reddit, for three other gathering places will harness that same angst if not r/antiwork, for four union organizing and working class militancy is on the rise in the US and revolutionary activity is rising in many countries around the world.
I am sorry and will take your word for it. I probably got caught up in the hype/memes of what was happening. No investigation no right to speak I have not been apart of AntiWork and shouldn't have spoken about it.
weatheriscool
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by weatheriscool »

I think the best way forward is to make work a choice! Use A.i and robotics to feed and provide the basics and allow for life enhancement through work if the individual wishes.
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erowind
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by erowind »

Set and Meet Goals wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 6:54 am
erowind wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 6:13 am This is such a spectacle. The movement isn't collapsing. For one, it's on the internet, for two, it's on reddit, for three other gathering places will harness that same angst if not r/antiwork, for four union organizing and working class militancy is on the rise in the US and revolutionary activity is rising in many countries around the world.
I am sorry and will take your word for it. I probably got caught up in the hype/memes of what was happening. No investigation no right to speak I have not been apart of AntiWork and shouldn't have spoken about it.
No no not at all. Please, voice your thoughts! I'm no arbiter of truth and you're more than qualified to speak on this topic. You're working class, you're on the internet. It's all good girl.

I come on really strong, always have on this forum. It's simply the culture that's formed here for myself, apologies for that too. I don't mean to make you feel bad.
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Ozzie guy
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by Ozzie guy »

erowind wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:46 am
Set and Meet Goals wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 6:54 am
erowind wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 6:13 am This is such a spectacle. The movement isn't collapsing. For one, it's on the internet, for two, it's on reddit, for three other gathering places will harness that same angst if not r/antiwork, for four union organizing and working class militancy is on the rise in the US and revolutionary activity is rising in many countries around the world.
I am sorry and will take your word for it. I probably got caught up in the hype/memes of what was happening. No investigation no right to speak I have not been apart of AntiWork and shouldn't have spoken about it.
No no not at all. Please, voice your thoughts! I'm no arbiter of truth and you're more than qualified to speak on this topic. You're working class, you're on the internet. It's all good girl.

I come on really strong, always have on this forum. It's simply the culture that's formed here for myself, apologies for that too. I don't mean to make you feel bad.
It's fine I don't feel bad, I was just apologising for commenting on something I didn't know well enough that was also close to your heart.
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wjfox
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by wjfox »

See comments on YouTube for context. :oops:

Furore has erupted on r/antiwork over this.

https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/











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wjfox
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by wjfox »

Following today's events, people seem to be unsubbing and migrating across to r/WorkReform.
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R8Z
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by R8Z »

Maybe they should work better on their PR appearances :roll:

To me the /r/antiwork sub/movement as it was was the lazy version of the FIRE subs and communities that popped up last decade. Both want the same thing but only one group is actually working towards it and has some probability of achieving it at the end. I am sorry to the UBI enthusiasts from the forum but even though I like the concept I don't see it happening ever. One living on foodstamps will always have a miserable life compared to a productive member of society of their time and age.

Anyway, I see that the r/WorkReform sibling sub that is receiving the "refugees" is already moving away from the extremists and has a better approach to the problem at hand.
And, as always, bye bye.
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by funkervogt »

wjfox wrote: Sun Jan 23, 2022 2:56 pm
Human 'wants' tend to be infinitely extensible...There's not a fixed amount of 'stuff' that we want. If people had been willing to stop at a 1955 standard of living, we could all be working 20 hour weeks. But in fact, one way or another, people wanted more. For some good reasons--stuff is good. For some bad reasons--there's a rat race element to society.
--Economist Paul Krugman on why automation has failed to create a world of leisure for humans (2009)
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Ken_J
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by Ken_J »

meh, they were shit with branding anyway. It's like seeking a national healthcare system and branding it anti-health-insurance. and I am not really all that surprised they don't have any idea how to organize. The whole thing is more in line with the sort of Anonymous model. Late Stage capitalism seems a better branding in the same area. But I'll not bet any money on that to be better organized and more resilient when the gaze if the media finds it's way there.
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Ken_J
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by Ken_J »

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”
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funkervogt
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by funkervogt »

Ken_J wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 12:07 am “We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”
I'm OK with that so long as it's linked to the principle that you should not expect anyone else to pay for your stuff.
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Ken_J
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by Ken_J »

funkervogt wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 1:11 am
Ken_J wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 12:07 am “We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”
I'm OK with that so long as it's linked to the principle that you should not expect anyone else to pay for your stuff.
that's from Richard Buckminster Fuller before 1970
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by Rostov50 »

wjfox wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 6:38 pm Following today's events, people seem to be unsubbing and migrating across to r/WorkReform.
Fun fact about /r/workreform: the guy who created it is a canadian banking executive who would absolutely not benefit from anything /r/antiwork talks about. I would avoid that subreddit.
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caltrek
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by caltrek »

It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest.
If it is a "fact" it has not yet been verified. That is to say, I have not seen such a breakthrough.

Sure, the twentieth century and the earliest part of the twenty-first century have been full of technological breakthroughs which in theory should have allowed the labor of "one in ten thousand" to support "all of the rest."

So why didn't that occur?
  • 1. The monopolization of capital goods allowing capitalists to pay for vast armies of servants to fulfill there every whim.
  • 2. Ecological constraints. Often new inventions and modernized work processes created sometimes unintended ecological problems which could only be mitigated by "work."
  • 3. While machines helped make production more efficient, they themselves needed to be maintained. Maybe, someday, robots will take over one hundred percent of the "work" that is needed to do that. In the meantime, folks need to be paid to carry out that bit of drudgery.
  • 4. The (sometimes only perceived) need by some to maintain control over others. Hence, the military industrial complex and the prison industrial complex.
Here my definition of "work" is effort that is so inherently alienating to workers that they need to be paid in order to carry out such drudgery. So, yes, I do agree that much of the "work" is seen as socially necessary, as opposed to being needed for the actual production of goods and services for consumption by the entire population. Many of these "jobs" are in fact created because of these "socially necessary" considerations - police, guards, soldiers, etc.
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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Ken_J
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Re: Antiwork movement

Post by Ken_J »

there are things that need doing to produce needed aspects of life. Maslows needs on the base level are a goods summary of what really needs to be in place at the bare minimum. From there we can add mobility around ones area to access things, energy, communications, and general utilities. And then access to sources if learning and betterment.

In the US we have roughly 350 million people. and we have the capabilities to provide all of the above to every one of those 350 million, with fewer that 1 in ten of those 350 million working Part time to make these things possible.

But that is not how we design work. we structure it such that kids from age 4-5 begin training to become workers in a system they are expected to join in the adolescence, which they are then required to give one third of their life each week to earn the right to survive. and if all goes well they will be let off the hampster wheel when they reach their late 60s to enjoy 6-12 years to seek enrichment and experiences.

So if the needs of the many can be met but so little work, but so much work is being done by so many, their is clearly artificial work being generated. to what end? Because certain classes need to earn survival? Because laboring is fetishised as a reward in and of itself and the purpose of every soul in gods great plan, and that believe was established by lords and clergy in a time most people were livestock on the lands of those with divine rights of rulership, whose hands never blistered or calloused.

Now we've reached a time in our country where most of us will never get that chance to retire, our life expectancy is shrinking so that we are on track to not get that 6-12 years. meanwhile instead of working 1/3 of our days at these jobs, most of us have to work 1/2 to 3/5 just to afford rent and utility costs that are inflated by monopolies to maximise the profits of a few, whose hands never blistered or calloused.

So our lives are no longer ours to use, they belong to somebody else. And when a pandemic hit and our owners worried about the loss of livestock, we got the chances to see exactly how little work was really essential, and what was really important. But soon enough they were talking about how some of us might have to sacrifice ourselves to so that they could get their luxuries supplied to them. And it really was just soo much more blatant than before.

They then said it was $600 stimulus checks that were allowing us to be lazy and not work. Then it was extended unemployment benefits. So they rushed through plans to take it away from the servant class, to make them unable to resist coming back to labor for them. But it didn't. Moratoriums on evictions had to be done away with. and they did, yet they still harp on the labor shortage. They jack up the costs of everything including rents, to make it harder to survive, so people will have to consign their existence to laboring their entire lives to simply not starve homeless. soon student loans will come due, and that's not going to solve it all either.

The veneer was chipped away. Maybe not all people, but enough have seen the rule book of this game they are the pieces in and they are not happy with the rules. They got a sense of how the game could be different, and the players are determined to keep playing with the lives of the pieces, trying to get them back in place after the pandemic upset the board.
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