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Article is paywalled so I'm not sure it's thesis but I personally have been doing some approximation of "Lie Flat" for a while now. For the most part participat

Article is paywalled so I'm not sure it's thesis but I personally have been doing some approximation of "Lie Flat" for a while now. For the most part participating in capitalist-consumerist society is negative for everyone, so I've decided to "first, do no harm" and for the most part I have that on lock. I think that "Lie Flat" or some version thereof is one of the only reasonable approaches the current situation. I'm not interested in the standard "I make a penny and my boss makes a dime" and I think a lot of other people aren't either. I'm not comfortable with exploitation. I think (or hope, at least) some people are realizing that "making it" for the most part means becoming part of the exploiter class and they're not comfortable with it.

fuzzfactor 5y ago
Wages have almost always had overwhelming pressure for stagnation if not downward, and have greatly lagging real movement upward if at all. During the Nixon Recession it got real weird real fast without there being a pandemic. Everything else compared to wages had skyrocketed for quite some time, and inflation seemed to be intentionally allowed to run wild as long as possible to lock workers out of productivity gains, before locking in the foundation of a new disparity gap with the Wage & Price Freeze of 1971. It's a great example of survivorship as those who were able to avoid the financial devastation, often through exploitave models, would end up in the strongest position to build into the 21st century the financial shenanigians we know of so far. Like now, there was a growing population of low-wage workers who already could barely have any hope of advancement beforehand, knocked a big notch down by the sharp upset, which of course turned out to be permanent. Everyone else's buying power was greatly diminished too and it was like the whole country was suddenly unexpectedly working for survival rather than prosperity over a very short period of time. Dramatically fewer people than ever were going to have anything to show for the way they had been working previously. Major regrouping was going to be necessary. Don't let people downplay this deer-in-the-headlights moment for the US middle class. This is what pushed the middle class downward with unsurmountable momentum against the rising unionized workers, for more certain descent together into the lowest-opportunity categories possible. Well, if nobody was making money any more doing the same thing anyway, less people were going to want to do the same thing after that point. For me survival instinct was better satisfied doing things that would be worth something someday rather than concentrating on the money which wasn't worth what it was a few years earlier.

fuzzfactor 5y ago

Wages have almost always had overwhelming pressure for stagnation if not downward, and have greatly lagging real movement upward if at all. During the Nixon Recession it got real weird real fast without there being a pandemic. Everything else compared to wages had skyrocketed for quite some time, and inflation seemed to be intentionally allowed to run wild as long as possible to lock workers out of productivity gains, before locking in the foundation of a new disparity gap with the Wage & Price Freeze of 1971. It's a great example of survivorship as those who were able to avoid the financial devastation, often through exploitave models, would end up in the strongest position to build into the 21st century the financial shenanigians we know of so far. Like now, there was a growing population of low-wage workers who already could barely have any hope of advancement beforehand, knocked a big notch down by the sharp upset, which of course turned out to be permanent. Everyone else's buying power was greatly diminished too and it was like the whole country was suddenly unexpectedly working for survival rather than prosperity over a very short period of time. Dramatically fewer people than ever were going to have anything to show for the way they had been working previously. Major regrouping was going to be necessary. Don't let people downplay this deer-in-the-headlights moment for the US middle class. This is what pushed the middle class downward with unsurmountable momentum against the rising unionized workers, for more certain descent together into the lowest-opportunity categories possible. Well, if nobody was making money any more doing the same thing anyway, less people were going to want to do the same thing after that point. For me survival instinct was better satisfied doing things that would be worth something someday rather than concentrating on the money which wasn't worth what it was a few years earlier.