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These times really do feel like those once-in-a-century redefinitions of work and labor, similar to how we got Child Labor Laws and 40-hour work weeks from the

These times really do feel like those once-in-a-century redefinitions of work and labor, similar to how we got Child Labor Laws and 40-hour work weeks from the labor movement early last century. Intrinsically, more people are realizing that the former social contract was long ago fed into a shredder, and that the lack of a formal contract will have consequences. Technology broke down the 40-hour work week by enabling more work to be done both outside the office and after traditional working hours, drastically increasing productivity and profit while wages stagnated for decades in the face of skyrocketing costs. Now we’re racing ahead towards a breaking point between Capital cheering shit like 996 and AI job-replacement, while more humans can’t afford rent, or food, let alone education or healthcare on their burrito taxi wages. Something will eventually have to give, if we aren’t proactive in addressing the crises before us. Last time, it took two World Wars, the military bombing miners, law enforcement assassinating union organizers, and companies stockpiling chemical weapons and machine guns before the political class finally realized things must change or all hell would break loose; I only hope we come to our senses far, far sooner this time around.

mananaysiempre 1y ago
It also took Russia going to shit to an extent that got everybody else scared—and that Russia still hasn’t really recovered from, because repeatedly cutting the elite out of your society (however unfairly it’s gotten there) really fucks that society up.
- Maken 1y ago
  The same elite is still running Russia today.
  - mananaysiempre 1y ago
    On the contrary, most of that elite has been rotting in the ground for nigh on a century. The elite I’m speaking of is the one that existed pre-1917 (with some offshoots and cultural descendants surviving until the 1960s). They weren’t saints by any means (in ways that sometimes rhyme quite well with slavers in the US, including the chronology), and I’m no monarchist, but it’s telling what part of e.g. meaningful science, or even good secondary education can trace its ancestry to people with pre-October-Revolution education (spoiler: all of it). (To be clear, a university professor in pre-Socialist Russia is very well off compared to most, and except for the for a lucky few the October Revolution treated them accordingly.)
- analognoise 1y ago
  What? When America was strongest, we had a large and increasing middle class, and the top marginal tax rate was above 70% - it was in the 90s. We don’t need “the elite” - they don’t actually “create jobs”, and the “engine of the economy” is just a convenient vehicle for the rich (and private equity) to ruin the middle class further - it was never about “efficient markets”. If anything what we’ve seen over the last 40 years is that we need better systems.
  - kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
    There is some benefit from having a pool of people with enough funds to take investment risks that the rank and file can't. They can outmaneuver any planned economy. The problem in the US is that those people have engineered themselves a disproportionate wealth disparity that doesn't generate a collective benefit.
    - alkakKnbhhh 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - blacksmith_tb 1y ago
        That's a novel take on diversity, but I think your window is too small. The US was full of similar anti-immigrant sentiment a century ago, directed at southern and eastern European new arrivals. Today no one is calling for Poles and Italians to be deported. The "melting pot" can work, if no one is actively trying to kick it over.
      - analognoise 1y ago
        Considering our success so far, it’s obvious it’s succeeding. You’d have to ignore your eyes and ears to think a multiracial secular democratic country can succeed. What’s amazing is that racists seem to be trying to screw it up on purpose, then to claim it doesn’t work. “Starve the beast” but for social cohesion. They’re always surprised when they get bitten by the monster they created. The rich never had “noblesse oblige” - we used to shoot at the factory owner when they didn’t pay us. I’m not sure what to do with such a limited understanding of history and such an obvious blind spot as this, but then I remember: you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.
ivape 1y ago
To educate people you just need the internet (communication infrastructure). We can also house and feed everyone if we wanted to. The concept of work has been overblown to the point where it’s everything. I can’t even say war will solve it because war puts everyone to work, which is no different than the status quo. Things are not in place for people to spiritually feel what is actually a good life and world. It may take a generation of people, who think technology and science will allow them to have many lifetimes over and over, to meet their timely end. We will only reevaluate as we see the most well endowed generation (everyone alive today) return to dust in a timely manner, that there was no magical human power that could have saved any of us, and we ought to have just focused on a better world that we’re proud of leaving behind. Living life like it’s a roguelike with infinite levels makes it the most unfulfilling thing ever. The world our generation will leave behind is our product, and a quality product is everything, so much so that you’d be proud to leave it in someone’s hand at the end (in fact, you’d want to). The women’s movement that left us a type of America with those fixes (labors rights, human rights) was such a thing to leave behind, they should fear nothing in death.
- paulryanrogers 1y ago
  > To educate people you just need the internet (communication infrastructure). This is laughably reductive. Certainly the Internet can help people get educated and pop some comfort bubbles, but it's not automatic. Many (most?) humans need personal attention from others to learn. Even fewer place a value on what they're taught, much less learning itself. A significant number of people must have supervision and some proding to become functioning, literate, and informed adults. All that said, I'd agree with most of your other points.
  - ivape 1y ago
    Most children are not educated in school anywhere in the world, historically and currently. How do you want to deal with those facts, because I don’t think you can compare great learning instruction to “no education at all”. I fully stand by that most people are not educated in school. Another way of putting is, the number TWO is greater than ZERO, but I’d prefer if we not compare ZERO to anything.
supportengineer 1y ago
I have absolutely zero faith that the current political ruling class will “come to their senses”. All you have to do is observe their current behavior and you will come to the same conclusion. When billionaires show you who they are, believe them the first time. They have not lived through a depression and neither have they lived through any major world wars. They will be curious to see how bad it can get and they believe they will remain untouched from it.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  Neither have they lived through any serious social upheaval.
  - jeremyjh 1y ago
    They probably won’t, either.
    - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
      Perhaps. I'd say the odds are higher than I thought they were a decade ago, though.
      - jeremyjh 1y ago
        I think its unlikely to happen, but also, that they won't live through it if it does.
- cyanydeez 1y ago
  The current billionaires seem yo know they're headed to apocalypse since theyre building evil lairs. They know history. The problem is: power is an addiction and like all addictions, some can manage to cope without and others will a absolutely follow a destructive pattern of behavior
lifeisstillgood 1y ago
We probably need to rethink how companies are structured - there are (many) companies with revenues greater than most countries but are (in theory) dictatorships with no official ability to change course if the one guy who owns the shares does not want to. Who is the ‘demos’ in a company? Who gets a vote ? Will voting really slow things down?
- cyanydeez 1y ago
  Theres a whole swath of positive regulatory structure that would both improve the company and its employees, but capitalism is stuck in the delusion that self interest is the only yardstick we need to concern ourselves with. Why? Because being poor isnt a structural problem, but a moral or ethical or laziness. Its fascinating watching business culture basically align with prosperity gospel in that if you can grift it, it _must_ be good/just/right.
- graemep 1y ago
  > here are (many) companies with revenues greater than most countries IS that true? What do you define as the revenue of a country? Tax revenues? That is just the government. GDP/GNP/GNI? That comparison for that should be profit, and only a handful of really big companies (Saudi Aramco, Apple, that sort of size) have a profit as large as the GDP of mid-size middle income countries (e.g. Sri Lanka) or small rich countries (e.g. Luxembourg). There is a long tail of small or poor countries so most countries by number, but most people live in a country with a GDP that is an order of magnitude or two greater than any company's profit.
  - hiatus 1y ago
    Why would GDP be the proxy for a country's profit? If I pay someone to build a house and another person to tear that house down, both activities contribute to GDP while producing nothing of tangible value.
    - tempodox 1y ago
      If it were the same company, that company would have made profit twice. Or did your house change country before being torn down?
jaco6 1y ago
[dead]
aftbit 1y ago
Can you elaborate on this? >companies stockpiling chemical weapons and machine guns I recognize the historical references in the other clauses of this sentence, but I wasn't aware of companies stockpiling chemical weapons for use against workers. I'm not doubting - just curious to learn more about the dark history here. Thanks!

mananaysiempre 1y ago

It also took Russia going to shit to an extent that got everybody else scared—and that Russia still hasn’t really recovered from, because repeatedly cutting the elite out of your society (however unfairly it’s gotten there) really fucks that society up.

Maken 1y ago
The same elite is still running Russia today.
- mananaysiempre 1y ago
  On the contrary, most of that elite has been rotting in the ground for nigh on a century. The elite I’m speaking of is the one that existed pre-1917 (with some offshoots and cultural descendants surviving until the 1960s). They weren’t saints by any means (in ways that sometimes rhyme quite well with slavers in the US, including the chronology), and I’m no monarchist, but it’s telling what part of e.g. meaningful science, or even good secondary education can trace its ancestry to people with pre-October-Revolution education (spoiler: all of it). (To be clear, a university professor in pre-Socialist Russia is very well off compared to most, and except for the for a lucky few the October Revolution treated them accordingly.)
analognoise 1y ago
What? When America was strongest, we had a large and increasing middle class, and the top marginal tax rate was above 70% - it was in the 90s. We don’t need “the elite” - they don’t actually “create jobs”, and the “engine of the economy” is just a convenient vehicle for the rich (and private equity) to ruin the middle class further - it was never about “efficient markets”. If anything what we’ve seen over the last 40 years is that we need better systems.
- kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
  There is some benefit from having a pool of people with enough funds to take investment risks that the rank and file can't. They can outmaneuver any planned economy. The problem in the US is that those people have engineered themselves a disproportionate wealth disparity that doesn't generate a collective benefit.
  - alkakKnbhhh 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - blacksmith_tb 1y ago
      That's a novel take on diversity, but I think your window is too small. The US was full of similar anti-immigrant sentiment a century ago, directed at southern and eastern European new arrivals. Today no one is calling for Poles and Italians to be deported. The "melting pot" can work, if no one is actively trying to kick it over.
    - analognoise 1y ago
      Considering our success so far, it’s obvious it’s succeeding. You’d have to ignore your eyes and ears to think a multiracial secular democratic country can succeed. What’s amazing is that racists seem to be trying to screw it up on purpose, then to claim it doesn’t work. “Starve the beast” but for social cohesion. They’re always surprised when they get bitten by the monster they created. The rich never had “noblesse oblige” - we used to shoot at the factory owner when they didn’t pay us. I’m not sure what to do with such a limited understanding of history and such an obvious blind spot as this, but then I remember: you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.

ivape 1y ago

To educate people you just need the internet (communication infrastructure). We can also house and feed everyone if we wanted to. The concept of work has been overblown to the point where it’s everything. I can’t even say war will solve it because war puts everyone to work, which is no different than the status quo. Things are not in place for people to spiritually feel what is actually a good life and world. It may take a generation of people, who think technology and science will allow them to have many lifetimes over and over, to meet their timely end. We will only reevaluate as we see the most well endowed generation (everyone alive today) return to dust in a timely manner, that there was no magical human power that could have saved any of us, and we ought to have just focused on a better world that we’re proud of leaving behind. Living life like it’s a roguelike with infinite levels makes it the most unfulfilling thing ever. The world our generation will leave behind is our product, and a quality product is everything, so much so that you’d be proud to leave it in someone’s hand at the end (in fact, you’d want to). The women’s movement that left us a type of America with those fixes (labors rights, human rights) was such a thing to leave behind, they should fear nothing in death.

paulryanrogers 1y ago
> To educate people you just need the internet (communication infrastructure). This is laughably reductive. Certainly the Internet can help people get educated and pop some comfort bubbles, but it's not automatic. Many (most?) humans need personal attention from others to learn. Even fewer place a value on what they're taught, much less learning itself. A significant number of people must have supervision and some proding to become functioning, literate, and informed adults. All that said, I'd agree with most of your other points.
- ivape 1y ago
  Most children are not educated in school anywhere in the world, historically and currently. How do you want to deal with those facts, because I don’t think you can compare great learning instruction to “no education at all”. I fully stand by that most people are not educated in school. Another way of putting is, the number TWO is greater than ZERO, but I’d prefer if we not compare ZERO to anything.

supportengineer 1y ago

I have absolutely zero faith that the current political ruling class will “come to their senses”. All you have to do is observe their current behavior and you will come to the same conclusion. When billionaires show you who they are, believe them the first time. They have not lived through a depression and neither have they lived through any major world wars. They will be curious to see how bad it can get and they believe they will remain untouched from it.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
AnimalMuppet 1y ago
Neither have they lived through any serious social upheaval.
- jeremyjh 1y ago
  They probably won’t, either.
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    Perhaps. I'd say the odds are higher than I thought they were a decade ago, though.
    - jeremyjh 1y ago
      I think its unlikely to happen, but also, that they won't live through it if it does.
cyanydeez 1y ago
The current billionaires seem yo know they're headed to apocalypse since theyre building evil lairs. They know history. The problem is: power is an addiction and like all addictions, some can manage to cope without and others will a absolutely follow a destructive pattern of behavior

lifeisstillgood 1y ago

We probably need to rethink how companies are structured - there are (many) companies with revenues greater than most countries but are (in theory) dictatorships with no official ability to change course if the one guy who owns the shares does not want to. Who is the ‘demos’ in a company? Who gets a vote ? Will voting really slow things down?

cyanydeez 1y ago
Theres a whole swath of positive regulatory structure that would both improve the company and its employees, but capitalism is stuck in the delusion that self interest is the only yardstick we need to concern ourselves with. Why? Because being poor isnt a structural problem, but a moral or ethical or laziness. Its fascinating watching business culture basically align with prosperity gospel in that if you can grift it, it _must_ be good/just/right.
graemep 1y ago
> here are (many) companies with revenues greater than most countries IS that true? What do you define as the revenue of a country? Tax revenues? That is just the government. GDP/GNP/GNI? That comparison for that should be profit, and only a handful of really big companies (Saudi Aramco, Apple, that sort of size) have a profit as large as the GDP of mid-size middle income countries (e.g. Sri Lanka) or small rich countries (e.g. Luxembourg). There is a long tail of small or poor countries so most countries by number, but most people live in a country with a GDP that is an order of magnitude or two greater than any company's profit.
- hiatus 1y ago
  Why would GDP be the proxy for a country's profit? If I pay someone to build a house and another person to tear that house down, both activities contribute to GDP while producing nothing of tangible value.
  - tempodox 1y ago
    If it were the same company, that company would have made profit twice. Or did your house change country before being torn down?

jaco6 1y ago

[dead]

aftbit 1y ago

Can you elaborate on this? >companies stockpiling chemical weapons and machine guns I recognize the historical references in the other clauses of this sentence, but I wasn't aware of companies stockpiling chemical weapons for use against workers. I'm not doubting - just curious to learn more about the dark history here. Thanks!