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Comment by FrozenVoid | Hacker News Reader

The main reason anti-work exists, is that work is wage slavery pretending to be a hobby-like 'profession' that isn't ordered top-down. People discover this and begin to hate it, but they are dependent on work to live: the pandemic exposed how useless most jobs are for the current generation and how the work is mostly bureaucratic schedules and regulations which treat humans like replaceable robots(which is the ideal worker in a modern world).

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What an incredibly succinct and thoughtful summary! Well done.

I believe there is an additional emotional component of those who are sick of the way it FEELS when they realize how fruitless and stupid the work culture of America is. There's a quiet and desperate hopelessness that I think a log of people resonate with when they see and read about the impacts of organized labor movements. Everybody wants to feel in charge of themselves, and it's obviously natural to feel bad in some way when you realize that you don't, if you're poorer.

The whole Reddit Mod/Fox News thing was both hilarious and tragic... It was a missed opportunity to present the message in the right context.

These days people are driven by arrogance and self perspectives so much that they can't even realize that they're harming themselves by just trying to win an argument that is intended to help everyone.

The pandemic has highlighted so many terrible truths, but the most scary thing about it is that people are in denial about fixing things for the better because, in their perspective, it always looks rosy, and they believe that money and popularity will insulate them from eventual suffering.

We're all watching fake "influencer" culture roll towards us like a giant boulder and trying to figure out how to jump on top of it (as a society)... It's a very toxic time in history.

Pardon my French but that whole thing was needless and stupid. I mean beyond stupidity stupid. We're talking levels of stupidity that shouldn't even be possible.

I don't mean the already mentioned and worked over issues of personal appearance and the presentation of their room, the stereotypical autism excuses, etc etc. I mean just doing a modicum of research before agreeing to speak with Jessie Watters! Watters used to be Bill O'Reilly's guy, did a segment called 'Watter's World' where he would interview people and get them to (yes, you guessed it!) say stupid things so that he and O'Reilly could mug at the camera and say 'Kids these days!'

Just a cursory search of YouTube would have brought up video after video of this sort of thing. The only interviewer that should have raised more red flags would have been if they'd been told they'd be interviewed by Mark Dice! Instead this arrogant puffed up moron went in with no research, no plans or talking points and ultimately was a complete self-owned dagger at the heart of the movement they claimed to represent. What a joke!

A lot of people who retire or stop working without some sort of hobby, projects or groups of like minded people to keep the mind active don't generally do so well mentally.

I retired 16 years ago at the age of 43 for some of the anti-work reasons mentioned only to get bored so I restarted, working for myself. I now actually enjoy working taking on as little or as many projects I want without any office politics, justifications for everything or job reviews with less qualified managers. Its not all roses but I wish I had done it years earlier.

Basically if you can afford to stop work then working for yourself should be an option you should consider

Well I think it's a case of expectation management then... Work has many sides. Drudgery, dread, friendship, fulfillment, passion, being bored out of your mind. And money of course too.

Expecting minimum wage to track inflation is not mismanaged expectations, it’s a basic part of the social and societal contract. Don’t blame workers in the world’s richest country for being unhappy with a measly $7 rise in minimum wage in 84 years.

The federal minimum wage has increased by approximately 2,400% since its inception, nearly double the rate of inflation.

Ok great, how about for the people of current working generations? The purchasing power of the minimum wage peaked in 1970. And that's using the official inflation data, which means the real purchasing power is even lower.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta...

The thing missing from this is that no one pays $7.25 any more, even though it is technically the minimum wage. Take it from me, someone who has an entry level job (customer service).

The minimum wage is now well under the natural wage floor. In most populated areas $15 an hour is old news, you have to pay $18-$20 if you want someone to show up. Setting a new minimum wage that is still below the natural wage floor won't have much of a effect. It's the sort of policy that feels good but in practice doesn't do much.

Now track it against cost of living.

When people talk about “inflation” they are talking about the CPI, which represents “cost of living” (food, energy, shelter, etc.) Is there a better “cost of living” metric out there? Would love to know if so.

It's UK, but check these out.

https://twitter.com/BootstrapCook/status/1483778776697909252

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/26/terry-pratchet...

Their ONS agreed to make changes.

Why would you write "2400%" unless you were trying to mislead people?

It's like saying I traveled 1,609,344 millimeters because it sounds like more distance than saying than I traveled 1 mile.

Is “24x” better for you? The claim was that inflation has outstripped the rise in minimum wage. That claim was incorrect. Minimum wage has approximately doubled the inflation rate. It doesn’t matter how you write it.

Curious, increased by 2400% always felt like 25x to me. For example if we said increased by 50% then no one would think twice about 1.5x

Increase measured as a percentage is commonplace.

I would say "raised by a measly $7" is far more misleading than percentage terms.

Well that's a different statement from the original and I do agree it's a problem worth discussing.

Treating people like people is done less and less these days which doesn't help matters nor does the idea that everything workers do has to be turned into a metric that has to meet ever increasing values while those at the top of the company are not put in near the same situation.

Couldn't you say every inhumanity in history is a case of "expectation management?" Women should expect to be subservient to their husbands! Protestants should expect to be executed if they don't convert to Catholicism! The poor should expect to starve to death in the streets if they get sick! Sounds like it's just a case of expectation management to me!

Could not agree more. The movement is about changing our expectations to let us live the lives we want to, not that we need to sit down, shut up and say “thank you” for not starving us

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