Dear SJW's, stop attacking passive allies

 So...one thing that irks me about SJWs is that it's often not enough that someone like me agrees with them, if I don't agree with them for the exact reasons they do, then I'm a bad person in their eyes.

I've discussed this issue with abortion in the past and how feminists will scream at me for not supporting abortion as a "woman's issue" but as an issue of reproductive freedom and liberty. But now I'm getting dragged over homosexuality. 

I'm old enough where to me, gay marriage being illegal and homosexuality stigmatized wasn't along ago. The tipping point in America on the issue was only around 10-11 years ago when I became a liberal. It was only legalized 8 years ago through court action. 

I myself have evolved with the issue as America did. I started out very much against gay marriage as a fundamentalist Christian who thought that homosexuality was immoral and that America was subject to God's law. But as I evolved I realized that yeah my own religious sentiments at the time were not sufficient grounds to ban the issue and that theres public morality that applies to everyone and private morality which applies to people who believe in it and that religious morality is private morality. Then as I shifted away from christianity, my private morality matched my public morality. 

And I can tell you that that is how the issue of gay marriage was won in America. My generation, millennials, were the tipping point. We just stopped caring. We realized we had gay friends, homosexuality shouldnt be stigmatized, it wasn't even our own business, but the business of people who engage in it, and that without an overriding public concern, there was no reason to ban it. So we became passively supportive of gay marriage, and the left won the day on the issue. 

This is how the left made progress in America. By shifting away from an ethos based in religious morality that made us care WAY too much about what other people wanna do with their lives, to an ethos of not caring in which one's sexuality is a personal thing and that it's none of our business what others do. 

That said, I find it irksome when suddenly I'm being shamed by some SJW zoomer who starts going on about how I'm a bad person for not caring about their super special identities. I once again got voter shamed about how I won't just vote for democrats because of their identity politics and blah blah blah, and again, my attitude is that that stuff is your right and prerogative, but don't expect me to care or go out of my way for it. He called me a selfish libertarian, a privileged POS, and some other things I shall not repeat here. 

And I just find this annoying. This is why I hate SJWs. It's not enough to just be a passive ally on these issues, they expect you to actively support their identity BS and that's where these guys lose support. I can tell you if these guys were commonplace 10-15 years ago, then these shifts would not have happened. Because these guys are alienating. But dont you dare tell them they're alienating or they'll shame you for that, as if their morality is the one objective correct response and that their behavior has nothing to do with winning people over.

People need to understand that others will support causes for not only the exact reasons they do, but also different ones. And that at the end of the day, in order to make progress and maintain it on issues, they need a coalition of people who can all come together and support the same things. But SJWs don't want that. They hate on people who are passive supporters of their causes and rip them for not being morally pure and supporting things for the exact same reasons THEY do. Which is ridiculous. Sometimes you gotta meet people where they are and make incremental progress on peoples' views. You cant just expect people to agree with you 100% and if they don't, they're evil. Especially if they support you 80-90% of the time or something. 

I just needed to vent on this. 

Shelby Lynn being investigated!

 So, it's happening. Now Shelby Lynn, the Rammstein accuser, is being investigated for defamation and making false statements against Rammstein. And I have to say...good. I mean, Im not one for shaming alleged sexual assault victims, but uh...I really believe her accusations were bogus. I'm not sure it will be possible to prove her statements as knowingly false, and believe that she is entitled to the same legal protections Till or anyone else is, but I do support at least looking into it. 

I mean, personal opinion? She's farming the drama for personal clout. I'd be satisfied just to have Till's name cleared, but if her actions are demonstrated to be exceptionally defamatory, I'm perfectly okay with the justice system throwing the book at her for that. I know a lot of people will scream about that, but tough crap. As I like to say facts dont care about your feelings and as long as criminal convictions are based in demonstrable facts and innocent until proven guilty, then I'm okay with that system working. 

False accusations of sexual assault can ruin lives, even if the person is proven innocent. I don't support just going after ANYONE for making an unprovable accusation, but if the accusation is so blatantly false and defamatory that it can be demonstrated as such in a court of law, then that's fair game IMO. 

Discussing the blue ridge rock festival debacle

 So...what happens when youre a rammstein/lindemann fan and you decide to go on vacation the same week till lindemann is scheduled to do a performance near your travel route? Well, you consider going to see him. Consider it at least. That's all I did. I researched blue ridge rock festival and noticed they had some serious logistical issues with bussing, porta potties, etc. and given the logistical needs of my vacation party, I was sad to say I couldn't realistically go. 

MAN, DID I DODGE A BULLET!

On Tuesday (9/5), Till Lindemann, my sole reason for wanting to go, cancelled due to being sick. Would've been stuck with tickets regardless. 

Apparently on the day before the festival started, on Wednesday (9/6), people spent like 12 hours trying to get in to set up their camp sites.

On Thursday (9/7), extreme heat and limited water stations caused life threatening circumstances for many festival goers. Then a severe storm rolled through and peoples' tents got destroyed from wind and hail. The rest of the night's shows were canceled due to damage from the storm stopping people from performing.

Friday (9/8, the day Till would've been there) things went smoothly, but people still waited in line for 6 hours to get into the venue due to the bussing system. And then they were turned away if they didn't get in. 

On saturday, they basically cancelled the rest of the festival. Apparently conditions behind the scenes were horrible and people quit. The official reason was the weather, but they cancelled both saturday and sunday.

People over on the subreddit (where ive been following the situation) are livid. Apparently the entire festival was unsafe, from the lack of watering stations to poor EMS response to lack of preparedness for severe weather to people now coming down with food poisoning symptoms (from possibly contaminated water) and COVID. 

Speaking of which, the porta potty situation was appalling, they were overflowing, and there are pics all over the sub of that (literal) crap everywhere.

The entire situation is, shall we say, a dumpster fire. And honestly, I'm talking about this because honestly, this sort of stuff should never happen. 

Ya know, when you host an event, you should have standards to ensure peoples' safety? Evacuation plans in case of severe weather? Environmental standards to prevent water contamination? Also, most people are probably entitled to a straight up refund if they missed shows they were promised. All of lindemann's fans who bought tickets probably should be refunded, as should virtually everyone who attended the thursday, saturday, and sunday shows. people weren't given what they were promised. But it seems like the owners are likely going to take the money and run. If they do, I hope there's a class action suit against them.

For all of the people who think the world would be a utopia without government, this is the kind of stuff you could expect to be normal. These people dont care. They screw people over and take the money and run. Ethical standards are something that only exists in religious texts. You need a government to ensure people are treated fairly and that those standards are enforced. This isn't a personal morality either, this is public morality, morality regarding how people treat others in conducting business transactions. Standards exist for reasons, without them, stuff like this becomes commonplace.

Honestly, I hope they get sued into oblivion for this. I dont care if there's ever a blue ridge rock festival ever again. If they dont get their crap straightened out, the world is better off without it. Even if it means America doesn't get to experience the glory that is Till Lindemann. 

Discussing the 2025 mandate and what the left's response should be

 So, I have a little downtime, and I feel like talking politics, so I'm going to discuss the 2025 mandate, something I see some liberals freaking out about on reddit. They treat it like it's a radical agenda and an existential threat to our liberties. I guess in some ways it is, but honestly here's what I see: conservatives trying to make their ideas reality. I don't like conservative ideas, but man, conservatives know how to envision things and get that stuff done. The left struggles with that, and most liberals' responses to this were just to "vote harder". I have to ask, how come the right can come out with their crazy agendas we must defend ourselves from, while it's verboten on the left to propose our own visions. I mean, sure, people do, but look at how much institutional power people like Bernie Sanders or Andrew Yang or Marianne Williamson have. Bernie has had somewhat of an impact, but otherwise, the answer is "none." As such, I wanted to discuss what the proposals briefly, and then offer my counter responses.

So, this 2025 mandate has four major proposals. They're largely ideological in nature, rather than specific policy prescriptions. They discuss each in a PDF I came across, but I'll just provide the summaries of each and react to them:

1) Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children. 

This one seems to be about pushing bog standard social conservatism on people, and they push the same arguments they have since the 1960s about how the American family is "in a crisis" and is under attack. They seem to rail against wokeness and see the "radical left" as pushing an agenda too radical for the American public and how they threaten conservative values. They go on about the need to control the schools and ban critical theory and "gender ideology" and stuff from the classroom. They scream about gender reassignment surgery being "child abuse", talk about big tech and the internet fraying social bonds, and celebrate the overturn of Roe v Wade. 

My response to #1

Honestly, I think the right needs to chill. The American family is NOT under attack, the American family is the default way of doing things. The problem is conservatives want it to be the ONLY way of doing things. They aren't okay with live and let live, they want everyone to live THEIR WAY.

I admit, the left SUCKS at promoting their perspective, and I honestly, DESPISE the woke obsession and postmodernism for the same reason. I believe everyone has a right to live their life as they want, and to pursue their own happiness. I dont believe in forcing morality publicly, whether from the right to the left. my answer to the conservatives is if they dont want to have an abortion, don't. If they dont want to get gay married, don't. If they dont want to gender transition, don't. But don't tell the rest of society we have to do it their way. Some families might have two mommies and some might have two daddies. And there's nothing wrong with that.

But that's where the authoritarianism comes in. "Think of the children!" (mrs lovejoy voice). Everything is always about the children. The left is forcing gender ideology on children. The left is trying to push their ideoology through the schools. What of you, mr conservative? If you guys had your way you'd push your religion crap down everyone's throats. No one cares if you wanna live traditionally. Most families do to some extent. And there isnt inherently anything wrong with that as long as they want to. The problem is many people DON'T. And if people live differently than you, what business is it of yours? You just want everyone to live as you want them to, and I'm calling that crap out right now.

There's no serious threat to the american family, much like every culture war battle since the 1960s, you guys are just screaming that maybe the world doesnt revolve around you any more and people wanna do it differently.

I admit, my side of the aisle oversells it. You can look at my record on wokeism in this blog. I'm not a fan of it and i literally call them the weirdo culture warriors of the left. I have no interest in their BS. And my response is that we should support an approach that allows people to live s they want and be free to do so, provided they dont harm others. I reject cultural authoritarianism from BOTH sides. 

2) Dismantle the administrative state and return self governance to the American people

In this section, they basically argue that the legislative branch seemed to cede their power to the executive branch, and that they use an army of bureaucrats to push woke ideology on people and how we need to get back to the constitution's roots. it's actually kinda wild.

My response to #2

This might be why I'm no longer conservative but these guys have NO CLUE what they're talking about. The article II branch is the EXECUTIVE branch. Yes, congress has power of the purse, but the will of that branch is implemented by the executive branch under the president. The reason we have omnibus bills every year is to keep some sense of continuity of operations of the federal government, something the republican party is fundamentally against because of their insane conservative philosophy. They literally dont understand how government works. These are the same idiots who would wanna demolish the EPA and the department of energy despite not knowing what those things even do. 

I'm not going to deny some problems exist. My ideology is not 100% aligned with the modern left and as an ex conservative I do wanna bring in some elements of my former conservative mindset that "government cant do anything right". I support what Andrew Yang calls "modern and effective" government and support a more efficient way of doing government, including taxes and social programs. I wanna make things as simple and bureaucracy free as possible. Not that that goal can ever be completely accomplished unless you literally go back to 1789 (which these nutters wanna do, let's be honest), but I do support making government programs more efficient. 

I also think there is something to say about the government wasting their money on things. Adminstrative bloat comes from the fact that these agencies are apportioned so much money a year and if they dont use it they lose it. This incentivizes agencies to be wasteful and spend far more than they need. And ironically, the biggest agency that does this is the military. So if we wanna combat bloat, i suggest we start with the defense budget. 

Speaking of which, while we need to be militarily prepared to deal with china, we need not be hawkish. Conservatives in this 2025 mandate act like they want a hot war with China or something which is insane. The key is preparedness and posturing. If things come to blows, someone messed up, and ideally it would be like what's going on with russia where they just brazenly made the first move. 

Speaking of which, why are conservatives so against us helping ukraine? It's mind boggling how isolationist they're getting on that issue. 

3) Defend our nation' sovereignty, bounty, and borders against global threats

This one is weird, it starts out as this screed against against Woodrow Wilson and the managerial elite, before talking about trade agreements being bad, environmentalism being bad, and how we need to do more to combat china. 

My response to #3

So, there's some elements here I agree with, and some I disagree with. I think the left is out of touch here, and that it appeals way too much to the economic elites (ironically) which makes it out of touch with the American people. I find common ground with the right in opposing neoliberalism and the problems it has wrought on our economy. And because the left has decided to go all in with their weird "brahmin left" technocratic approach and abandoned the concerns of the working class, a lot of working class people are pissed off and have shifted right.

But, as a pre 2016 leftie who primarily developed my views before the great F-ening of 2016, honestly? The problem with the left is they're too right wing. Bernie Sanders once said that open borders was a Koch proposal. it wasn't long ago when the left were the ones criticizing globalization as bad for the average person.

Im not saying the solution is isolationism or nationalism, it isn't. But at the same time I'm also a critic of things like the EU, the TPP, NAFTA, etc. I would agree with the "right" (fro a left wing perspective" that abandoning our sovereignty to these unelected international organizations and treaties is BAD for it. And while I do think the modern right overcorrects, I would personally take a middle ground approach of trying to establish a common international framework that helps everyone. I believe in "fair trade", ie, trade built around the principles of more left wing ideology, as opposed to just globalism and unfettered free trade. 

Now, thats not to say that this section is entirely valid. They went all anti environemtnalism and all oil and gas good here and uh...that's insane. Climate change is a fact and we need to take immediate action over the next 20-30 years to combat it, including getting off of fossil fuels. Renewable energy not only makes sense environmentally, but this is also a national security issue. Most wars are fought over oil these days. If we switched too renewables and made it work, we would be energy independent, period. You'd think the right would want that. 

Also I dont support being super friendly to china, but i dont support antagonizing them either. They're our chief geopolitical foe in the 21st century, especially with russia showing their hand in ukraine and coming up short. I think we should continue relations with china, but I could see a case for moving manufacturing away from them. 

Honestly, I feel like what the left needs, is the more populist and progressive side to come out. This side was suppressed in 2016, much to the detriment of the political spectrum in general. The left doubled down on wokeness and elitism, and now we're seeing this populist right take form instead. This is a failure of the left. The right should not be able to fairly criticize the left. They should be wrong, unequivocally wrong. 

Honestly, my human centered capitalist ideology came out of both of rejection of the right and the modern iteration of the left. A lot of conservative criticisms are legitimate. The left has gone too far with "wokeness", it did develop this weird elitism that's out of touch with the public, and it sneers at everyone outside of their bubble and treats them as lesser. This is not the left I signed up to join. I am my own person with my own ideology. My human centered capitalism was designed to be an ideology that addresses the legitimate criticisms of the right while giving a new ethos for the left. I may triangulate on social issues, but without giving much of substance. I may have a weird form of progressivism that most dont understand or care about, but this is the solution to our problems. We need something more akin too Yangesque human centered capitalism than what the left currently is. 

Now, one thing I do wanna go after the right hard on. Not all "elitism" is bad. They dont go after economic elites, but cultural ones. And they seem to have this mindset of "those educated people think they know so much better than me with a high school degree...", yeah, they do. Sorry, but you, Joe, worker of Mike's Car Wash who makes $30k a year and who doesnt have any education beyond high school, does not know as much about say, virology (to make a covid reference) as a scientist who spent their whole life studying the issue. The right has a serious case of dunning kruger and there is some valid criticism to be had of them and their lack of education and expertise on issues. They might not wanna hear it, but it's TRUE. 

4) Securing our god given individual right to enjoy "the blessings of liberty"

And here the mask comes off. They start going on about god given natural rights while pushing that conception from a specific version of god, going on about family and work and how liberty isn't what we want to do but what we ought to do. 

They also started going on about how the left is obsessed with equality and how this leads to disaster and going on about communism and crap. 

My response to #4

Here the right can screw right off. I aint a fan of natural rights theory intellectually as it's just an extension of divine command theory, although I do find value in the rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. However, i value these things for the value they offer people, rather than coming from some deity. These guys are just trying to push their weird americanized version of christianity on people. And we need to strictly oppose this.

And no, pursuit of happiness and liberty comes from what we want to do, ought implies some weird authoritarianism that turns this to double speak. I support "real freedom" as phillipe van parijs points out, which is literally the freedom to do what one wants to do. I support "ECSO freedom" as karl widerquist points out which is the freedom to say no to someone else's social project. 

And that does require equality. I reject communism, adamantly, but again my ideology tends to correct for both the traditional left's flaws as I see them while also rejecting the right. Human centered capitalism and UBI are a way to secure both equality and freedom. Heck, some level of equality is needed for freedom. if people dont have the freedom to be self sufficient without working for others, than they're just effective slaves. My ideology addresses this while minimizing bureaucracy and authoritarianism. 

Conclusion/Overall thoughts

Honestly, this isn't really that out of the ordinary with me, minus point #3. I escaped conservative christianity in 2012 and this is just...the ideology of the cave. #3 represents a weird populism talked about in thomas frank's "whats the matter with kansas" that's only amplified since 2016. I can almost sympathize with it given my own philosophy, but dont believe the right offers meaningful solutions here. 

Honestly, the left seems kinda braindead in responding to this. All they said on the forum i found this on was "well that just means we need to vote harder". Yes yes yes, we need to just keep voting against the GOP and their radical agenda, while having no agenda of our own, brilliant. 

No. The left needs to push their own ideology in response. And that's what my own ideology is: the solution. A version of left wing politics that speaks the conservative language without ceding much in terms of policy. A version that rejects wokeism and neoliberalism, supports reducing administrative bloat, and tries to increase liberty...while staying true to the left's values.

The left acts like in abandoning wokeism i throw minorities under the bus. No not really, I just tactfully stop circlejerking about them obnoxiously where it causes the left to lose elections and support. They act like in abandoning the existing welfare state I dont advocate for creating a better one. That in rejecting globalism i support trumpist nationalism. None of this is further from the truth. 

I just want a return to sane politics and for the left to live up to what it should have always been in 2016. It's time for the left to become the "sun" party again, and the right the "moon" party. It's time for them to embrace a new kind of progressivism and to abandon third way economic politics and woke social politics. Ironically in doing so it becomes more "inclusive" than it does under so called "wokeism". 

And that's my attitude. In doing so we disarm the right's legitimate complaints and make the left stronger. We take the few things they ate right about and dominate the spectrum. I have no doubt the right will shift and morph as we do this. Theyll still scream the american family and traditional values are under assault simply for allowing liberty. They'll scream about my UBI being some dystopian plan to force everyone to be dependent on the government. But let them cope and seethe. Im not interested in winning over everyone. Just in building a coalition that will win elections consistently for the next 40 years or so. You only need like 55-60% of the country for that. That's all Reagan had, and FDR before him. Quite frankly theres always a third of the country that is regressive and unwinnable. 1/3 of the country wanted to remain UK colonies in the 1700s. 

I really am seriously. I feel like 2016 was the year everything went wrong, and now the left is this weird insular elitist woke and neoliberal party while the right is pushing their stuff only with populism now. And it's leading to a realignment I feel like a lot of people are unhappy with. This is the bad timeline we want to avoid. And if we dont want the 2025 mandate to become reality, the left needs to do better than just encouraging unhappy people to vote blue no matter who every 4 years. 

Taking a break

 Don't expect to post much in the next few weeks but might if something major comes up. Just letting people know.

Reflecting on r/antiwork and where things went wrong

 So, the last post started off being about Biden raising requirements for salaried workers getting overtime pay, went into the concept of being against work in general, and got me thinking about r/antiwork again. And going down memory lane, I wanted to reflct on the subreddit and where things went wrong with it in my opinion. 

Basically, according to wikipedia, it started in 2013 by Doreen Ford, ya know, the same one who was forced out. Basically, I joined in 2014. The sub was small, Doreen had an outsized influence on the direction of it in the early days, and I remember her abolishwork blog well. I came over from r/basicincome, and quickly fit in since not only being pro UBI, I was also quite on board with the anti work movement assuming we can figure out the mechanics for doing that (which is what I've spent a lot of time doing and what a large part of this blog is about). But yeah, I consider myself one of the OGs of the movement as far as reddit goes. I remember the early days, and I remember it really helping open my mind in combination with the UBI movement. I kinda always fit in more with UBI groups given the anti capitalist nature of r/anti work, but the sub was pretty open to capitalists in the early days and understood that you couldn't just force purity on people or you'll never grow your movement. As long as you were anti work in some form, you were largely welcome.

As the wiki states, and this was when a poll was taken in 2021:

In November 2021, Ford told The Independent that "The main goal of the anti-work movement is just to abolish work, but what that ends up looking like is very different, depending on who you ask," noting that members of r/antiwork include "people who are anarchists, people who are Communists, people who are social Democrats, people who like Bernie, people who like Andrew Yang" and concluding that "there's lots of different kinds of leftists." In December 2021, moderator rockcellist told Quartz that "There’s no particular political ideology that any of us follow" and that the posts on the subreddit reflect "how every individual views their labor, their contributions to society, how they're compensated."^[2] In January 2022, Brian O'Conner of the BBC wrote that the subreddit is "a community still rooted in direct action, but whose focus has both softened and broadened into a wider dialogue on working conditions as its popularity has grown."^[34]

So basically, not only just normal leftists, but also people like me. And in the early days I fit right in. I didn't always see eye to eyes with the anarchist types, particularly in terms of their means of accomplishing change (seriously, leftism really has a problem with accomplishing things properly regardless of how good their theories are sometimes, they're more useful in criticizing capitalism than offering alternatives most of the time), but I still felt at home there nevertheless. The media the sub offered on the subject was useful and I read much of their literature. Again, my philosophical tradition is different, but still, parallel to theirs. 

But then the sub grew...

2020 really exploded the sub's popularity. A lot of people reached a breaking point after the great recession and COVID and the great recession put people over the edge. The sub started going viral, and started growing rapidly. But with it came a lot of strains.

As the article states, there was a big gap between the new and old members there ideologically, and there was tension between older and newer members. The wiki describes it as a tension between traditional leftists and liberals, but I see it more as a tension between those who actually wanted to abolish work, and those who just wanted better wage slavery.

As you guys know, I'm anti work, through and through, but I'm also capitalist. I admit maybe from 2018-2020ish I had a mild anticapitalist lean to my politics, but I always leaned capitalist. Again, this is because i value practicality over leftist theory, and also because i genuinely think, due to works like Phillipe Van Parijs' "Real Freedom For All", that capitalism is more conducive to freedom than socialism.

I disagree with leftist theory even in principle, in part because their take on theory is that humans love to work, it's just that capitalism alienates people from their labor. Whereas my theory is that the core issue with capitalism isn't capitalism, it's work.

But ultimately, that framing of leftists vs liberals did become the reason I was banned later on. I'll get to that. 

But still, I did kinda side with the more OG people in the sub, in the sense that...I was anti work. I might have been a capitalist, but I hated work. I just didn't always agree with leftist doctrines on that.

But at the same time, I did see issues with the newer members. And that problem was often that....they aren't really anti work. Most of them just wanted to bash capitalism and crap talk about their jobs without doing much about it. 

And we saw how this played out with Doreen Ford. Doreen Ford was...anti work.She built the sub from the ground up, it gained popularity because of her leadership, but then she went on her disastrous fox news interview where she went on about minimizing her working hours and being a dog walker, and the internet blew up in outrage about it.

Like it or not, but that was the real face of the anti work movement. Someone who hates work and tried to structure their life around minimizing their own time spent at work.

But...the casuals of the sub who joined in the past few years were OUTRAGED, OUTRAGED I SAY. How DARE this lazy person who doesn't even work represent the anti work movement?! She's making us look bad. Most of us work 40 hours a week or more and just want a fair shake and here's this LAZY person going on fox news and making us look bad!

I admit, Doreen's interview wasn't good. It was actually a dumpster fire. But that's because it was a trap. you go on someone else's show, and they can manipulate the framing of the issue into whatever they want it to be. And you, as an interviewee, how next to no power. To go on fox news, you're walking into a trap, because OF COURSE fox news is gonna spin things into how they wanted to spin them. And doreen was admittedly, too inept to pick up on that. I don't blame her, she is autistic, sometimes she can't read the room, but hey, fox got to basically bash the sub into oblivion.

And from there, people got outraged. And the masses basically pushed her out. And a lot of people split off to make a "work reform" sub to basically just advocate for better working conditions without being anti work itself. 

There were several power struggles among moderators of the sub, which can't even get into the specifics of, and a lot of ideological struggles as well. As the article said, the tension became one of that between leftist and liberal, which put me, an anti work "liberal" in a tenuous situation. Initially they seemed like they werent gonna ban people for being nominally capitalist...but let's face it, over time, they changed the rules to not allow "right wing" content, which is ANY pro capitalist content, which set the stage for my ban.

The fact is, I myself have had my own opinions on this tension, which I outlined here previously. Again, being ANTI WORK and being ANTI CAPITALIST are not the same thing. One means you oppose work, and the other means you oppose capitalism. To a leftist it means the same thing, because in order to oppose work you must oppose capitalism but I just find this to be weird leftist brainrot. It's pure theory and ideology with no basis in reality. 

Most leftists are pro work. Heck, given the labor theory of value, most leftists are ideologically stuck into serving pro work goals, they just dislike capitalism and its mode of production.

And on the flip side, you can be capitalist and anti work. I AM that guy. I want to use UBI to shift people away from work all the time and liberate people. I admit I'm more reformist, and my approach will take decades or centuries to fully carry out, but hey it beats revolution. And I try to work within the practical confines of reality. 

This caused me to get a bit of disdain for certain leftists on the sub. Especially the gatekeepy people who would act like only true leftists are anti work. And this led to the discussion that got me banned.

Basically, it was a topic on UBI. Someone posted about it and leftists, with as much brainrot as they have, started screaming about how UBI was a trap and only communism can save us, that kind of nonsense. Being the resident UBI supporter, I pushed back. And we got in some discussions of work and capitalism. I admit I was snarky and a bit hostile at times, I get like that when dealing with idiotic leftists at times, but really I came from a good place. Because to me, these leftists arent even anti work. Like really, over the past year the sub had become a craphole where anti work just became "anti capitalist mode of production, work is okay, capitalism isn't", and I knew most of these people didnt really wanna abolish work, they just wanted to attack capitalism.

Hell to the work question most of these people don't even have solutions, and then you get these idiot leftists pushing jobs programs, ON THE ANTI WORK SUB!

It was just stupid. 

And I called this crap out. I pointed out how leftism is NOT the solution to the work issue, that my solutions actually would work better, and in my discussion, I violated my ideological precepts of leftism. I pointed out in reference to the infamous landlord argument that landlords dont actually profit a ton off of landlording, and that the core issue with housing is due to supply shortages. I pointed out how billionaires arent always evil, and that it's more the system that's the problem, not the people, pointing out how philanthropic some billionaires are...and nope...cant have that on a leftist subreddit, thats apologia for the capitalist class.

I call that NUANCE. I mean, really, can we be honest? Landlords suck but the housing issue is far more complex than that and the whole "landlords will just raise rent" argument is so dishonest. It basically comes down to "no amount of reformist change will ever fix the problems, we need full on revolution". And you cant even argue against that, without violating important leftist doctrines about the world, because to them, everything comes down to the ownership class. Im not saying there arent issues with that, but issues are complicated. And solutions are complicated. And a huge reason I have the heterodox views i have is i developed my ideology around reality, rather than trying to force reality into a box. I try to combine pragmatic liberalism with lofty leftist goals. And as a result I made up my own ideology, with my own belief system, and I tend to view things my own way.

I admit that my views arent as unique as i like to act. Especially since yang ran on a variation of my ideas in 2020, but still. I own my ideas, I researched issues on my own, and i reached my own conclusions and built my own worldview. No one owns me but me. 

But...when you have a subreddit that doesnt allow nuance and who thinks rejecting certain ideological precepts is unacceptable and means you're a right winger who must be banned, I got banned. 

And now I kinda hate the sub.

Really, it's just a circlejerk of learned helplessness and leftism. It's just capitslism is evil, nothing but revolution will ever fix things, liberalism will never work, and I dont like the solutions put in front of me.

I can respect nuanced people who dont accept the canned solutions in front of them, BUT, leftism IS a canned solution, or lack thereof. It's an ideology of nothing is ever good enough but revolution, it's dangerous, it won't work, and these guys are just screaming into the void and will never do a darned thing to solve the problem. It's a form of constructive institutionalism as yang would call it. LIke yay we didnt do anything but at least we talked about the problem. 

Look, I'm trying to advance solutions as we're able. I have clear political goals and mechanism by which to accomplish my change. I chose reformism because revolution is insane, dangerous, and has a terrible track record. And just leads to a lot of people dying and totalitarianism. 

Heck, we can see that totalitarian mindset here where even as someone as anti work as me got banned for the above, because I didnt go along with their dogmas. What do you think these people would do if they ever got power? Oh idk, purge all but the most faithful leftists and even some of the most faithful leftists? Gee, where did that happen before? Every communist country ever tried?

And yeah.

The fact is, the anti work movement got coopted by leftists after doreen left and those guys are full of brainrot, their ideologies are outdated and won't solve the problems, and they really can't stand dissent.

So blaming the problems with the cultural divide of the sub on "liberals", they started banning liberals who expressed bog standard liberal beliefs. And they just allow the leftists to go around circlejerking and purity testing nonstop, and you cant even argue with them without running around of the right wing content rule.

So yeah, the downfall of r/antiwork is basically leftism. Leftism is illiberal, it cant tolerate dissent, it cant accept compromise, and anyone who dares disagree with groupthink can get banned.

Biden proposes changes to overtime pay (and random thoughts on the nature of work)

So, in addition with the NLRB union changes the other day, now Biden is trying to bring back the Obama era proposal of giving salaried workers under $55000 overtime pay. I mention obama because this is nothing new. Obama pushed this in 2015-2016ish with a $46k cap, and it was a pretty good proposal then too. The problem was it didnt pass in part because trump got in like a year later and killed it. 

You can read my reaction to Obama's version of the idea here, and you can see more edgy snarky younger me really sticking it to employers over this one. My opinions haven't changed, by the way, I've just been changing my rhetoric to be less populist given the actual populists are going insane. 

But yeah. Basically, working in America is like this. Say you work in retail, or food service, or some sort of blue collar job that often pays close to minimum wage. Working conditions suck already. But imagine you're so successful you're promoted to manager....yay?

Well...maybe you get paid a bit more, I mean instead of making like $20000 a year you make $36000 (just over the cutoff, back in 2016 it was $23000), but now you're expected to work like 70 hour weeks, and you don't even get the privilege of overtime. That's messed up. Because salary is such where it doesn't matter how many hours you work, you get paid the same. For some this makes sense, say, teachers, who may not teach come summer, or some sort of tech support job where some weeks you barely have anything to do and sit around playing starcraft 2 and other weeks you're going nuts when something major breaks down and you spend all week trying to fix it and put in like 80 hours, or something like that. Generally, I would assume salary is a negative and I would likely not be inclined to take a salaried job unless it's some cushy well paid "BS" job like david graeber talks about where I'm just inclined to look busy but otherwise I spend most of my time on reddit. And here's why it's negative for me. Because generally employers abuse the fact that some workers are salaried to work them to the bone going 60+ hour weeks for months on end. The video game industry is infamous for this, for instance, with "crunch time" being a real thing.

But honestly, no one got the shaft worse from this but service employees in managerial positions. I mean, these jobs suck to begin with. Maybe going up to management you can get healthcare, and you're paid a little better, but you gotta work like 60-80 hour weeks, every week. And this is your life...until you quit. It sounds literally like hell. And you aren't even paid well. 

I admit, Biden's proposal here is kinda quaint compared to my views on the economy and work, but it is a very helpful band aid. It would effectively raise the cap that such workers deal with that hell up to $55000 a year, from around $35500. I guess it's to ensure that salaried designation is only used for its original purpose, and not to abuse otherwise hourly type employees being screwed over. 

Now, this is just...a band aid. It doesn't stop this hell from existing, but it does ensure if you go through hell, you get paid well. That's kind of the issue with liberalism and leftism. it doesn't mean you don't suffer immensely, it means that you get paid well for your suffering. It's better than being paid poorly for our suffering, but then you have to ask, why suffer at all?

I mean, just think about the idea of putting in 70 hours a week in a job. Imagine having to get up at 5 AM, get to work by say, 6:30, and then you work all the day to 6:30 PM. And then you come home, you get like an hour or two to yourself, and then you have to get up and do it all again the next day. Well, unless you engage in "revenge bedtime procrastination" where you literally deprive yourself of sleep to extend your free time, but that's not healthy at all. But that's how I would describe our society: not healthy at all. And imagine doing this 6 days a week, with only one day off. And even on that day off, you use it to run errands because you literally have no time to do anything else because you worked all week. 

This is hell. But it's a hell we subject millions of workers to. We literally are living the myth of sisyphus in reality, where punishment from the gods is turned into 9-5, or in reality, something akin to china's 996 system for managerial workers. I have to applaud Biden for ensuring those who suffer like this are paid better, but this is the bare minimum, and we have to do better.

I have to ask, and this is the crux of my iteration of human centered capitalism, do we work to live, or do we live to work? Put another way, does the economy exist for us, or do we exist for the economy? When you are forced to, under the threat of poverty, work like this, then we basically live to work, we exist for the economy, and we are basically slaves. We can do all kinds of philosophical weasel wording around this like most ideologies try to do, but that's the reality as I see it. If we can't reasonably say no without being sanctioned to the point we can't even afford to live, well...again, that's basically just slavery with extra steps. 

Honestly, it baffles me that the issue of work isn't more important in our politics. For me, this is among the top issues. Heck, it's the crux of my own ideology. As a libertarian, I have to prioritize liberty. But that isn't just the freedom to smoke pot, or the freedom to have abortions, or get gay married, no, a big aspect of freedom is being able to do what you want when you wanna do it. But if large swaths of life is tied down to JOBS, then that's not freedom. That's just being a slave. Socialists are right in that the modern workplace is a dictatorship. I just think they lack vision in only stopping there and thinking if only this forced servitude was more democratic that everything would be sunshine and rainbows. 

Maybe it really is ideological indoctrination, as well as the powers that be creating "tower of babel" moments when workers are on the verge of realizing how screwed they are and keeping us distracted with social issues (like they did in 2016). But it really does seem like society wants to talk about anything but work. And I have to respect biden for at least offering some relief for some workers, but still, we do need to have a much larger discussion about work and the role and nature of work in our society. Instead of the whole "WORK IS GOOD, WORK IS AMERICAN, WE SHOULD SPEND ALL OUR TIME WORKING" narrative needs to die already. Like when some mother told George W. Bush she worked three jobs, all he said was that was "uniquely American". Like what the actual fudge? That's horrible, that life has come to that. That that's what people have to do just to survive. Really, i hate this aspect of our society. I really wish we could be more like Europe where we have more labor rights and work life balance.

Although let's not act like Europe is great either. Many of the critics of Phillipe Van Parijs and his "real libertarian" over the years have come from social democrats fixated on the reciprocity principle and I know once some Italian politicians were going on about how they were a "work based republic" or some crap. It's ridiculous. Like, admittedly Europeans and social democrats are a little saner than Americans, but in the overall grand scheme of things, they just reflexively can't see past work as a concept either.

I honestly think work is one of the great evils in the world, akin to disease, and that we should be striving to minimize it as much as possible. We should be trying to get as close to a world without work in general. I know a lot of busy bodies will act like work gives us purpose and what will we do all day, but I feel like this is ideological indoctrination. Our ancestors were basically forced to work by the governments of their time in recent millennia. I mean, heck, modern capitalism started in europe with the enclosure movement closing off the commons in Europe and forcing people into cities where they had to take on factory work. Our society was literally engineered to enslave us. And we're just so brainwashed by this we're like OMG WORK GOOD. No, work not good. Work a necessary evil to some extent, but still an evil. Work BAD. Work takes up all our time and stops us from doing other things. It stops us from being free and whole people who pursue what we want. 

In the past, we had a class of lazy layabouts in the royalty and the like. And maybe their leisure came at the expense of others' work, but honestly, rather than trying to make everyone a worker, like a lot of bitter regressives (including leftists) seem to wanna do, we should be trying to make everyone live like that. We should ALL be royalty, ALL be shareholders, ALL benefit from the fruits of society. We should automate as much work as possible and then distribute the rewards as equitably as possible. I think UBI is the start of this, and compatible with a world still revolving around work, but long term we might wanna move to another system, maybe even some form of socialism, once we have outgrown the need for work and capitalism. I admit it ain't gonna happen fully overnight, but we should start this process NOW. We should try to work less now, free people from having to work now, and then let all the busy body types who like working keep working jobs during the transition period. And over time, we just let the market adapt to the conditions. If people still pursue work, then we keep capitalism going as it does, just with the reforms i propose. If people want something more, then we can talk about reforming the system further in the future. Of course, I don't think this will happen until long after we're gone. 

In the grand scheme of things, this leaves Biden's proposal looking awfully...quaint. Like, gee, maybe we can pay our slaves properly for all the work they put in? But that's where society is at. And it sickens me. And this is why I think the way I do politically. Too many people are focused on superficial nonsense that in the grand scheme of things doesn't matter a ton to me. As Bob Black once said, they'll argue and squabble over anything, except work itself. And I admit anti work philosophy has always been a minority of thought, but for hundreds of years, this stuff has been relevant, and those critiques have always been a thing, even if most kinda ignored them. 

Kinda makes me sad how the actual "anti work" movement isn't even about abolishing wage slavery any more, but about loyalty to leftism....seriously. I get so mad when I think about that. Like her or not, Doreen was the real deal, and with her gone the movement on reddit just became a leftist circlejerk with no vision who apparently bans anyone who doesn't follow the circlejerk entirely. It's really sad, given the origins and philosophical traditions that started that community...but I digress.