The moment I hear someone try to call ANY job "unskilled labor", I have to fight the urge to shove the tools into their hands and say, "Okay, YOU do it, then, since it's so simple."
@AuthorInkwell@jxPTkCXcakcoGNmdhtur Its beneath me and demeaning to demand I do a job the poors are supposed to. Its just nature there are some jobs for sophisticated intellectuals like and me and some that are not.
Yeah they'd burn their hand off in the deep fryer before they figured out how to make fries.
Mike Rowe is paid by the Koch oil barons to spread their propaganda message that people who perform society's vital functions belong in a underclass and they don't deserve a chance to enrich themselves at college when they're young
@AuthorInkwell@jxPTkCXcakcoGNmdhtur Also, get out of here with that “Quiet Quitting” BS. Corporate stooges made that garbage up to explain people not going above and beyond. When in reality, people are wisening up and not doing more than what they’re paid to do. That, and the millions suffering #LongCovid who are barely holding on, so can’t do more than what they’re already paid to do.
No, jobs are what let’s you live with a paycheck, if someone is scared of their job or worried it’s between you and I. They might snitch or say something to help their case over you.
Basically no one has your back at work but yourself.
retributive violence against individual actors is not the same as dismantling oppressive systems, and should not eclipse the important work of creating resilient communities and networks of mutual aid to replace those heirarchies.
Did you just call my sincere effort to get an international movement for the recognition of the guillotine emoji going shitpost “limp-dick slacktivism”?
I’ll have you know I am so anti work I am currently not even employed.
Here’s my alternative effort: I joined the SSBN force to get a front row seat to the end of the world. Gimme a valid and authentic EAM and I’ll flip that switch like there’s no tomorrow, 'cause there won’t be.
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.
The effect of examples is not to underestimate. That’s how they keep workers in check, and that’s how guillotining a king got 2 centuries of democracy.
retributive violence against individual actors is not the same as dismantling oppressive systems
My problem is that I only understand one of those things. The other is meaningless hot air, spewed exclusively by intellectual elites who may or may not have any idea of what that is even supposed to mean.
work of creating resilient communities and networks of mutual aid to replace those heirarchies.
And that explanation doesn’t tell me anything either. Put up a guillotine. Put the man in. Let the blade fall. I understand that. Create a network of mutual aid to replace hierarchies? Never saw that happen. Never learned about that, or how that is supposed to work. Don’t know what that is supposed to mean, or how that is supposed to play out.
If you assume anyone knows about any of that, and if you assume that anyone can imagine anything concrete about that, you are out of touch. You are communicating ineffectively. At least to me. And probably to most other people as well.
There was a post I saw of some twitter thing where I guy was complaining burger flippers wanted wages like him deliver packages and they don't deserve that kind of skilled wage??? Burger flippers are on a ladder that leads to chef. Not sure where package delivery leads. Really if a person goes for skilled or unskilled the real thing to me is no one should really make more than 10 times someone else. Especially when the highest paid are not necessarily very skilled anyway.
At risk of running against the obvious tide here, if you take the word "skilled" literally then of course everyone becomes skilled in whatever job they do. However, here "skilled" is used not literally, but in the sense of the industry term that means the job generally requires formal training and/or qualification before employment.
Edit: Not to say I don't think it's not a demeaning term (possibly intentionally so). It's a sucky word but let's not allow ourselves to become overly indignant by misconstrueing the sense of the term used.
People with morals, principles, integrity, honor and/or empathy will exercise self-restraint - there are choices they will not make and courses of action they will not follow.
Those without those qualities will not be so constrained. They can and will do absolutely whatever it takes to gain whatever they might want.
So all other things being more or less equal, psychopaths actually have a competitive advantage in systems of institutionalized, hierarchical authority - governments, corporations, police departments, armed forces and so on. For all intents and purposes, those institutions reward and thus select for psychopathy.
It's sort of akin to the way that cancer spreads through an individual by outcompeting, dominating, displacing and destroying healthy cells.
And it's just as ultimately fatal, and for essentially the same reasons.
And it’s why the collective should be fighting against this trend. But in recent times billionaires came to be revered more than anything. It’s changing course a bit now again, but billionaires, and people in power in general, are still being defended way more than is reasonable.
Society treats being in power and being powerful as success and something to aspire to, and we can see where that leads.
Work is unavoidable. And if I have a chance to work on my projects and my communities I am left feeling alive, valuable, and fulfilled.
What these bosses and corporations want is for me to do their projects and work on their communities for as little as possible while being dehumanized.
That is toil.
And no one wants to fucking toil anymore. That much, I say, is true.
Yeah, just wanted to say this. In almost all experiments with Universal Basic Income it turns out people don’t wanna scroll Tiktok 24/7 or whatever. Most people want to do thinks that we would call “work”. We just don’t wanna do them in this capitalist hellscape full of meaningless bullshit jobs.
There are a lot of meaningful but awful jobs out there, like picking crops and scrubbing public toilets, that nobody in their right mind wants to do. Perhaps they can be automated, but we’d have to automate them and institute UBI at the same time in order to avoid mass starvation and/or civilization collapsing. Seems tricky…
I don’t think that people don’t like doing those jobs. I believe that it comes back to the toil aspect, since those jobs are undervalued the pay is low and the hours are long. The two solutions I see are:
People who would enjoy that kind of work, but don’t want to work the grueling hours will do it.
For things like harvesting, there was already a good (If inhumane) option, Serfs. You only need o harvest a couple times a year, so if you’re on UBI then a couple times a year everyone goes and harvests the fields.
If you adjust the definitions in your mind slightly, and use “work” in place of “toil” and “labor” in place of “work”, then do I ever have a theory of value to talk to you about.
I really enjoyed dirty jobs because it appeared to be promoting recognition for the working class. Should have caught on when obvious safety considerations were downplayed for laughs, bit my optimism got the better of me.
Just think if they used the same devious approach to improve things instead of tearing them down. Maybe the approach wouldn't work the other way around.
Report the problem and if they don’t believe you or are unwilling to act, leave. Either way, start looking for a new job right away in case things don’t go your way.
As someone on the receiving end of this, it may not pan out for you. I was verbally told I was getting a raise, then my paychecks showed I got a larger raise. I thought nothing of it and enjoyed the extra money, thinking of myself as a hard worker who was worth the extra.
Months later, someone noticed the discrepancy. Queue the company informing me that the overpayment will be taken in one lump sum from my next paycheck, which would have made me unable to make rent. I convinced them to spread the repayment across as many checks as they had overpaid, but that was a pretty miserable experience to say the least.
I mean, if you switch this around so it’s the business paying less then people here would be going irate if the business just said “well we are paying what the contract states”. I get it, people hate work. But that doesn’t mean you get to screw your employer.
It says it right there in the contract. If you sign shit without reading it as the employer, and have been paying it for 9 months, that’s on you.
It would be another thing if it was immediately fixed but in either case, be it the employee or employer, if you’ve been doing it 9 months then that’s on you. (If an employee had been getting underpaid - but still a legal amount - and didn’t say anything for 9 months, I also think that’s on them). Gotta read contracts folks.
I’m pretty sure that would have been illegal where I live. Paying someone the same amount each month is an implicit contract. You can’t just suddenly go “whoops” and not pay for a month.
Depends on what’s in the contract, black on white. If the contract says x amount and they pay you y (and you don’t speak up), they can get that money back as it was a bookkeeping error.
If the contract says the higher amount then they can’t take it back, written contract always wins over verbal.
Fair, but a contract can't overrule actual laws. I'm not sure what exactly those are or where OP lives but if the law says he'd be entitled to that money then a contract couldn't change anything.
I would think it’s fairly obvious they are from the UK seeing as they are using the pound symbol for their money - and contracts for employment are king in the UK if I remember correctly
Still, I can’t imagine a UK contract can override UK law. You couldn’t get someone to sign a contract saying they’re a slave and hold them to it. Contracts do not trump laws.
Correct, contracts dont trump laws and your extreme example would not fly in court because of it and because it would break humantarian laws and rights agreed upon in our countries.
That said, he speaks the truth. If a contract says you earn x and you earn x+20 euro, they can and will compensate for that 20 euro. Its perfectly legal and ive seen 2 euros go down from my pay because of book keeping errors. However, i assume the law has a margin for book keeping errors, and if not they can demand it back in court. You signed on it after all…
That’s not how it works in both Germany and Austria. If you have a contract you get paid based on it, if there is a bookkeeping error you have to pay the money back if the company accidentally gives you too much.
The only contracts that are invalid are when the number is very obviously wrong in the context. For example the contract says instead of $50k a year you get paid $500k a year or $5k a year, then the entire thing is void as it’s an obvious error.
If the contract says $55k and the company wanted to pay you $45k… their problem, contract counts. Your boss might be pissed if you keep insisting on the $55k and might fire you, especially if you verbally agreed on $45k. But oh well, that’s another topic.
Oh and in the UK? The employer is even allowed to deduct that money from your future wages. So much about knowing the law :)
Not where I live they can’t. See my other comment. If your employer gives you money, it’s yours, period.
I see this idea a lot online. Guess either employees don’t understand their rights or the employers are equally ignorant, both VERY likely.
And no, it’s unlikely the employer knows better and is fucking around. The magic words are “labor” and “board”, who will find in favor of the employee and throw a fucking to the employer. We handled payroll for quite a few shady employers, but none of them were dumb enough to play around with the money.
That’s not how it works in both Germany and Austria. If you have a contract you get paid based on it, if there is a bookkeeping error you have to pay the money back if the company accidentally gives you too much.
The only contracts that are invalid are when the number is very obviously wrong in the context. For example the contract says instead of $50k a year you get paid $500k a year or $5k a year, then the entire thing is void as it’s an obvious error.
If the contract says $55k and the company wanted to pay you $45k… their problem, contract counts. Your boss might be pissed if you keep insisting on the $55k and might fire you, especially if you verbally agreed on $45k. But oh well, that’s another topic.
Oh and in the UK? The employer is even allowed to deduct that money from your future wages. So much about knowing the law :)
There are three conditions that must be satisfied for the defence to be applicable:
You employer has made a statement of fact which made you believe that the money was your own;
You acted in good faith and without knowledge of any claim for recovery from your employer and as a result, changed your position in terms of the money; and
You were not involved in the cause of the overpayment.
So if you signed a contract for a sum of x and the employer never said they are going to pay you more, you’re already acting in bad faith based on the first point. The second point is tough to argue, literally the only way to win this is if you have a verbal “contract” only and claim you never watched your bank account and just didn’t notice the extra money (but then if your employer tells you about the wrong payments you have an issue again…).
In the real world you’ll probably pay the money back 99% of the time, except if you want to burn bridges and leave (going after you for smaller amounts is not worth the time in court). Your professional relationship will be ruined though, which you may or may not care about.
Meanwhile if they verbally promise you a raise and don’t give it to you there’s jack shit you can do because verbal agreements aren’t enforcable when it’s convenient for them.
In many countries verbal contracts can still be binding under certain circumstances. Just hard to prove, so yeah, get it in writing or it doesn’t mean much
You in America? If so, you got screwed and need to call your state labor board.
At least in Florida, they cannot pull that shit. If they put it in your bank account, it’s yours. End. Think of all the scams people could pull if they could drop money in your account and then demand it back.
SOURCE: Worked for a payroll firm. If we overpaid someone, or paid the wrong person/account, too damned bad, all we could do was ask nicely for it to be returned.
CAVEAT: The bank can sure as hell pull your funds if it’s their mistake.
This is likely state dependent. I’ve seen them pull back funds from people in MD. That was some years ago now though so that may not still be possible there.
It’s legal in MA. I was paid double once and they took it back. I looked into it and sure enough, it’s totally legal as long as it’s within a certain timeframe.
I should clarify that it was legal in MD when they did it (this may no longer be the case). I had to talk to the company lawyer for guidance when it happened since I was part of the HR team at the time.
Engineering manager here: I am very lucky to have my team, I need them more than they need me, and I think anyone saying otherwise is fooling themselves.
Both in the sense that this is a bullshit thing to say, and in the sense that this is the sort of thing that, if misquoted, could get innocent (at least of saying something like that) people hurt.
It made sense when working meant providing for families, and even in the industrial revolution where it meant making mass goods for large amounts of people to enjoy.
But what happens when we get the ability to produce more than we need with only a relatively small amount of humans to do it? If we have the resources where we can easily give everyone on the planet a cell phone, why not do it?
We are already there with some goods: for example, we currently produce enough food to feed 1.5x the world’s population. We may very well reach a point in the next 20-30 years where we can produce everything market wants with 50% or perhaps even 25% of adult humans actually working. Our solution so far is creating artificial scarcity, but that’s only going to patch the system for so long.
Already we’re eschewing traditional factory jobs for service industry jobs like meal delivery. But we’re not far off from autonomous delivery vehicles automating that away, too. With the rise of AI, we can expect a lot more jobs to be augmented or superseded by automation over time.
Capitalism rests on the premises that we can always produce more and that people’s value is tied to their labor. But in a post-scarcity, heavily automated world, these premises break down, and suddenly this system doesn’t really work anymore.
Short of a communist revolution, I think we are going to need to start trialing measures that divorce benefits from labor. Most of the world already has healthcare coverage separated from labor (USA is the glaring exception,) and the next step would likely be universal basic income.
Not sure which came first though - capitalism or human nature. Capitalism creates artificial scarcity but it also capitalizes on human nature, namely those who want to be ‘better’ than others.
In some places, people keep telling their kids ‘go to college so you’ll have a good life and be educated, not like those laborers’. As a consequence, today there might be less skilled electricians, plumbers and the like. And those jobs pay better, and are arguably less boring than, say, working in a bank with a college diploma. Point being, just like a college diploma is a sign of status, so is the iphone and some random brand-name knick-knack or eating caviar.
For society to advance to the stage you’re proposing, we first have to get over our inflated egos and our need to be better than the rest, in whatever random field we manage to, be it food, clothes, tech, cars or diplomas. I’d want a world in which the garbage man has it as good as the university professor. Not sure the university professor would, though? But they both provide valuable services to society at large.
A good listen and all, if a bit overly optimistic. Let me explain. The video concludes basically that humans aren’t intrinsically bad or good, but that human nature is shaped by social conditions. Agreed. But those social conditions didn’t just manifest themselves. They were willed into existence and shaped to become what they currently are.
The Empire in the video? Humans and human nature. One does not build what can be described as an evil system purely by accident. Fascism and slavery didn’t happen as whoopsies. Slaver ships didn’t accidentally discover some stowaways and decided to roll with it. Decisions were made and actions were taken with clear intent.
And responsibility for evil in society extends far beyond those that are the face of evil. Everyone who is OK with it happening is to blame. The person who views the iphone as a status symbol couldn’t care less about suicides in Apple factories. If you were to give everyone an iphone, there’s a pretty high chance that person would oppose it - what about their status symbol? Sure, they’d mask it as ‘what about those that worked for the money to buy it?’ - see the whole student debt forgiveness debate.
I am probably emphasising evil here, but given a room with a bouquet of lillies in it and a pile of shit, which would you turn your attention to first?
Is there potential for good as well as for evil in humans? Sure. People come together when there are natural disasters. Localized. Small groups of people in the grand scheme of things.
What did it in for me was the covid pandemic. A truly global scale phenomenon. At the start I really thought we could do this. Isolate for a month ish. Stay indoors was all we had to do to limit spread. We couldn’t even do that proper because people were worried about their freedom. If that’s not selfishness, I don’t know what is.
Then remember the toilet paper panic buying? No making sure everyone has some. Fuck you, got mine. Then the vaccines came out and we got a significant amount of people questioning them and actively pushing against them.
The video is a nice story and has a very nice speaking voice attached to it, but it’s way too optimistic in my view. And I feel it does a disservice by shifting blame to the conditions imposed by society as a separate entity from the members of said society. People watch it and say ‘hey, we’re inherently good. we help each other in times of floods’ so they’re less prone to reflection (which the video, to its credit, does state as a source of good).
The video does not ignore that humans have a hand in creating our material conditions… you can’t state that as a flaw in the reasoning when that point is kinda central to the whole argument. Yes, we created these systems, and the argument given is that it reflects human nature. This video refutes that argument.
Yes. And that is where it falls apart on a naively optimistic note.
How can you separate people creating the social conditions from the social conditions themselves? It is human nature that brought upon those conditions. Humans made it happen and I’m pretty sure nobody said ‘hey let’s set aside our nature of being good for a moment and do this evil thing real quick, I promise it’ll be fun!’. Active or passive participants, we’re all participants.
Furthermore, you cannot just say ‘we did some bad stuff, but it’s because of the conditions around. we’re actually good people that happen to be in a tight spot’. Those are by definition not good people. Everyone can be a nice person if the times are good. Actions, rather than intent, are the indicators of one’s alignment.
Asked to do something you don’t want to or find morally reprehensible but you do it anyway (usually because of fear of consequences if you don’t)? Not an inherently good person, as I suspect is the case for most of us.
How can you separate people creating the social conditions from the social conditions themselves
I don’t.
It is human nature that brought upon those conditions.
Human nature isn’t a thing.
Humans made it happen and I’m pretty sure nobody said ‘hey let’s set aside our nature of being good for a moment and do this evil thing real quick, I promise it’ll be fun!’. Active or passive participants, we’re all participants.
No, of course not. I have to assume you didn’t even watch the video I sent. And being a participant does not make you a willing participant.
Furthermore, you cannot just say ‘we did some bad stuff, but it’s because of the conditions around. we’re actually good people that happen to be in a tight spot’.
That’s not what I or the video I sent have said. Such an absurd strawman. You have already mentioned that it concludes we aren’t inherently bad or good.
Those are by definition not good people. Everyone can be a nice person if the times are good. Actions, rather than intent, are the indicators of one’s alignment.
Hot take, bro.
Asked to do something you don’t want to or find morally reprehensible but you do it anyway (usually because of fear of consequences if you don’t)? Not an inherently good person, as I suspect is the case for most of us.
Cool, but you’re not knocking down anything I’ve said with that take.
I am puzzled as to what exactly you mean. I watched the video until min 17 out of 19, then realized it’s got no deeper message beyond that point so stopped it. Lad spoke about philosophies, how different philosophers thought people were good or others thought they were bad then had a weird intermezzo blaming imperialism. The weird part was the style change not the actual blaming, mind you - that’s all valid, but still serves to prove an actual human nature.
Spoke some stuff about look at all cultures in Africa being friendly, and then babbled on about how humans aren’t good or bad but they are victims of their circumstances.
Overall a mediocre video from an argumentation standpoint, but figured hey, why not give it a shot?
I never said we’re all willing participants. Active or passive participants - willing or unwilling. Still participants. Maybe it clears it up, hm?
Paraphrasing the video it does indeed say that humans aren’t bad or good, but their actions are due to the social environment. Do tell me how this is completely disconnected from what I said? I took it a couple of steps further.
Social environment bad (somehow, not tied to human nature because social environments come into being by themselves and exist even without humans, if I’m understanding this as you mean it - cause otherwise, if people were responsible, they would be bad people. but the video tells us there are no bad people);
BUT people not bad or good means it’s basically not their fault for anything cause they aren’t bad if they do bad stuff. But look people are good because they come together sometimes.
I honestly don’t understand what point you are trying to make. If it is that human nature isn’t a thing and that’s it, well… best of luck to ya. Is it not in your nature to argue with random people on the internet?
Maybe if you are trying to make a point don’t just drop a youtube link and expect people to understand the same thing as you did or expect them suddenly be enlightened. Did you understand it? Care to elaborate on what you understood from it? I did. Let’s compare notes.
Social environment bad (somehow, not tied to human nature because social environments come into being by themselves and exist even without humans, if I’m understanding this as you mean it
I’ve said this three times: neither I nor Andrew said societies are not created by people.
if people were responsible, they would be bad people. but the video tells us there are no bad people);
They are indeed bad people. I don’t know why you think i would disagree, or that the video suggests people can’t be bad. Of course they can.
What??
But look people are good because they come together sometimes.
Stick to your point. You were first claiming it said people aren’t inherently bad or good. That’s right. Then you slipped it to people can’t be bad or good. That’s a totally different statement no one claimed. Now, somehow the claim has morphed to saying that people are inherently good.
What?
Maybe if you are trying to make a point don’t just drop a youtube link and expect people to understand the same thing as you did or expect them suddenly be enlightened. Did you understand it? Care to elaborate on what you understood from it? I did. Let’s compare notes.
I can’t decide if you’re trolling or genuinely incompetent. It’s not hard to understand.
Human nature is not a fixed concept. It’s a buzzword thrown around by people trying to sell their philosophy to you. People do what they can based on their material conditions. We are not inherently pulled toward being pro social or anti social.
Honestly, there aren’t that many changes we’d need to get there. For example, instead of working one person 60 hours we can work two people 30 hours. If we divorce benefits from full time status, companies won’t have to pay all that much to make the system work.
With universal income, people could opt to work part of the year, or work for a few years and take time off, or however else they want to do it. There would still be an incentive to work, just not to work to death.
antiwork
Hot
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.