Antiwork/Work Reform
A community for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles.
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Subscribers: 2.9k
Date Created: June 15, 2023
Date Updated: July 17, 2023
Library copied from reddit:
The Anti-Work Library 📚
Essential Reads
Start here! These are probably the most talked-about essays on the topic.
- The Abolition of Work by Bob Black (1985) | listen
- On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (2013) | listen
- In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (1932) | listen
c/Antiwork Rules
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1. Server Main Rules
The main rules of the server will be enforced stringently. https://lemmy.fmhy.ml/
2. No spam or reposts + limit off topic comments
Spamming posts will be removed. Reposts will be removed with the exception of a repost becoming the main hub for discussion on that topic.
Off topic comments that do not pertain to the post at hand may be removed if it is deemed they contribute nothing and/or foster hostility at users. This mostly applies to political and religious debate, but can be applied to other things at the mod’s discretion.
3. Post must have Antiwork/ Work Reform explicitly involved
Post must have Antiwork/Work Reform explicitly involved in some capacity. This can be talking about antiwork, work reform, laws, and ext.
4. Educate don’t attack
No mocking, demeaning, flamebaiting, purposeful antagonizing, trolling, hateful language, false accusation or allegation, or backseat moderating is allowed. Don’t resort to ad hominem attacks against another user or insult other people, examples of violations would be going after the person rather than the stance they take.
If we feel the comment is uncalled for we will remove it. Stay civil and there won’t be problems.
5. No Advertising
Under no circumstance are you allowed to promote or advertise any product or service
6. No factually misleading information
Content that makes claims or implications that can be proven false or misleading will be removed.
7. Headlines
If the title of the post isn’t an original title of the article then the first thing in the body of the post should be an original title written in this format “Original title: {title here}”.
8. Staff Discretion
Staff can take disciplinary action on offenses not listed in the rules when a community member's actions or general conduct creates a negative experience for another player and/or the community.
It is impossible to list every example or variation of the rules. It is also impossible to word everything perfectly. Players are expected to understand the intent of the rules and not attempt to "toe the line" or use loopholes to get around the intent of the rule.
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Term limits for everything. If the morons are going to pick an idiot to run their village at least there's a chance they'll elect a smart man, if only by mistake.
Not even term limits, I'd say politics should be like jury duty. Everyone has to do it, they get paid time off work for it, they don't get to make a career out of it.
But there should also be some meritocracy. The EU actually manages that quite well - the European Commission is made up of "unelected bureaucrats", but actually what that means is they're made up of talented lawyers chosen by each member state. These lawyers write laws. Then, the democratically elected Members of European Parliament vote on the laws.
The clever people who know how to write laws write the laws, then the people democratically vote on the laws. That's a pretty good principle.
The only difference I would add is that people should have a more direct say on their vote. If I want to vote on a particular law, I should be able to vote on that law. If I don't care I should be able to pool my vote with some group that I align with, who can then vote on my behalf.
If I don't like how the group votes, I can leave and vote for another next time.
None of this, "vote for a guy, then hope they do what I expect of them for the next 4 years" bollocks.
Furthermore, after the first vote, there should be an opportunity for more votes. So if the group I align with votes against my interest, I have a chance to object later on, be it before the realisation of the policy or upon review after the policy has been running for some time.
Sure, there are faults with this. People can be manipulated. However, you can't manipulate people constantly, forever, and eventually good policy should win through.
Okay, so how do we get everyone to actually bother to vote? In the US we've been having problems trying to get equal representation at the polls and so far haven't really done a great job of fixing it.
Having a team of lawyers to draft and submit legal terms is a great idea, in fact it's kind of the point of lawyers. The issue is having the people who vote on them be able to both understand them, and to check both the writer and the representative check each other for corruption. If you give the representative the ability to remove the lawyer then the representative holds the real power, if you don't, you give the lawyer more power. We need a balance in there somewhere.
Let's also not forget that direct democracy has lead to the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the election of theocratic and fascistic leaders. How do we balance that?
Capping terms at 1 or 2 prevents people from being able to consolidate and exploit their power. But we'll still need leaders to vote on our behalf so how do we prevent corruption? What if we had a new institution whose sole job was to check the government and maintain an open forum where all opinions can be shared and argued.
More than any of this, I really think the rich just need to be scared of the poor again.
You wouldn't need everyone to vote on everything. However there is a natural incentive to vote on things that interest and affect you. Right now, people don't vote because they don't believe it will change anything - you vote for a person, but they're no different to any other person. Meanwhile, if they were given the opportunity to vote on whether their tax money should go to fixing their roads or building a new school, more people will have an opinion on that and want to vote.
For things they don't care about, they could either not vote, or better they could join a representative group. Rather than voting for a person to represent you for a set period, you join or leave a representative as you see fit. If you want to vote on a particular issue, or if the representative doesn't vote the way you like, you withdraw your representative membership. Representatives would have to continue to act in the interests of their members, else they would lose their status.
I disagree that democracy led to Roe vs Wade being reversed. Trump was elected despite not having the most votes - which isn't democratic - and then he appointed people to the court - not democratic - to rig the votes in their rulings. Even the opportunity to appoint new judges isn't democratic, as they are appointed for life, so the timing of when one elects to retire or dies determines who gets to decide their replacement. This prevents the system from being democratic or fair - it is a political decision made by politicians, rather than a meritocratic decision made by experts of the profession. The legal profession should be picking judges, not politicians.
I disagree that people would somehow be more compelled to vote for issues they care about. Most people care about who the president is but that still doesn't get everyone to the polls. Forcing states to have more reasonable access to mail in ballots would be a step in the right direction but the problem in my opinion is really a out getting people to see it more as a duty than a chore. Say we used a tax credit to incentivize voting?
As for the idea of just letting political parties do what they want, they kind of already do, see DNC primaries 2016. That system already exists and is being actively exploited by the ruling class. I don't think that's a fix.
Again, we come back to term limits, people who are elected to office need to be forced out of politics after a set amount of time to prevent career politicians. And more specifically we need to make it so they cannot accept a job offer or payment for services from anyone who could have benefited from their decisions while in office. Maybe we have a pension for ex-representatives to live on for 8 years after leaving office, and make it illegal for them to have any other income? It should be a service to our country, not our country serving them.