SIO319: The Rise (and Fall?) of r/antiwork

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:11 Thomas: And welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 319. I'm Thomas, and by myself, you... you listen to that Patreon thingy that Lindsay and I did, this might be the last thing you'd expect. I kind of talked about how, you know, I love, I have all the energy in the world for Lindsay episodes, but I just kind of lost the drive to do these solo ones. But I don't know, some combination of Lindsay's reaction to that, which, just, you... mental health day, perhaps.

And add into the mix, I just have something that I've been tossed around the old noggin that I want to talk about. Some combination of those factors has me back behind the mic here for a solo episode. Hope you enjoy it. Hope you get something out of it. Yeah, is about the Reddit, the subreddit, as it's called, r/anti-work. Teaser And version of it real quick before I go into the sort of mini dive on it.

The teaser version would be: how did a subreddit that has gained massive following recently, you know, in the millions of followers, people posting every day in in the wake of COVID and, and the, the, the great quitting trend that has gone on, people quitting their jobs to find better paying ones or to just not work, amidst all that, this popular uprising, kind of this sort of populist kind of thing, does it go from that to a... one of the people who was, who started the subreddit and is now a moderator goes on Fox News, does a... I think then people hated so much that that entire subreddit currently is private. Don't know that that means it'll be private forever or anything. It might just be, they're going to do that until they figure out what to do.

It's a reminder that when we have one of these massive thingies, like a subredtit or a Facebook page or a Twitter, whatever it might be, it starts to feel like a mass movement. And then you realize, yeah, but you still got some humans who charge of the whole thing. And there's a lot to talk about there. So that's the teaser version. It's now private. I don't know if, I doubt the subreddit is like gone or anything. I imagine they'll keep it going in some form.

But there's lot of talk of people moving on to other subreddits and maybe starting a different thing. So that's sort of the journey. I'm going to tell the story of it a little bit and also just talk about some of the thoughts I've had. I think there's a lot in this story about our current moment and about our Protestant work ethic and about capitalist overlords, all that good stuff that I think is really interesting. Okay.

So I think I better explain Reddit, as though people don't know, aren't on it. I think that's probably the safest thing. Apologies to the very internet savvy, semi -internet savvy, I guess, in this day and age. I've fallen behind a little, but yeah, Reddit is a fantastic website. I'm sure everybody's heard of it.

It bills itself as the front page of the internet, and it's where where people in these subreddits can go post links, or sometimes it's just text or images, different kinds of posts you can do. That subreddit usually has pretty strict rules about what can be posted there, what's relevant to the subreddit, you and they have varying rules on moderation in terms of, you racism, bigotry, that kind of thing.

There are some subreddits, indeed, most of the ones that I deal in or have even browsed, most of them are quite well moderated, and it's made Reddit, I think Reddit can be a really great place on the internet. It can also be horrible, and you can, do, you know, there's subreddits of just the grossest, most, you depressing, violent, whatever kind of crap. So it's a mixed bag, for sure. But it varies by subreddit.

So if anybody ever talks trash on Reddit, I think it's important to really specify what you're talking about, because the subreddits are as different. So Opening Arguments has a great Facebook group. This show has a great Facebook groups. Like, if you judged all Facebook groups based on some anti-vax Alex Jones Facebook group and just said, yeah, Facebook groups are awful, it's like, well, okay, they, they can be. It really depends on what that is.

Same thing goes for Reddit, and to perhaps an even greater degree, because the, the subreddits are these little fiefdoms, you know, and they have their own rules and rule makers and mods, and all that. So anyway, I tend to browse. I like browsing the front page of Reddit, because it's like front page squared. You know, if Reddit is the front page of the internet, then the front page of Reddit is like all the most popular things that day in the entire internet, essentially.

I mean, it is a great way to kind of keep an eye on everything. And it's, it's... I find it fascinating, just, I... because the front page is a place where, while there's usually stuff that I hate and don't want to look at, and I because I don't want to see anything gross, also cool because if something big happens in a specific sphere, like a specific realm, you know, maybe there's a sport you don't care about, let's say, or you don't watch, you don't follow, and something crazy happens in that sport, well, all of a sudden that post, if it gets enough traction, depending on how small the subreddit is, you know, they can, it it can explode.

And then all of a sudden that post is on the front page, because it's so popular that it's breaking into the mainstream. That happens a lot. Sports was maybe a bad example because they're already mainstream, but I just mean stuff like that'll happen. You know, there'd be some niche thing that gets so huge that it breaks into the main stream and then you see it on the front page. I love that. It's kind of cool.

It helps me not really miss too many important important things that happen and the world too, you know, like the volcano erupting recently, or stuff that wouldn't get, I don't know, sometimes stuff that doesn't get as much coverage in the US media, if it's really big, it'll show up in the fact that it's on the front page of Reddit. It's a cool way to keep an eye on stuff like that.

And so, as such, I see posts from anti -work a lot, is the subreddit r slash anti -workers. That just means it's a subredtit within the... red just means the people use that shorthand, r/something, and that just means it's reddit.com/r/anti-work. So, just again, sorry, I'm kind of, I'm explaining this as though, like, my mom's listening, and I think that's probably the best bet, because as big as Reddit is, I actually do tend to get people, every time I mention it, people are like, "Nah, I'm never on there." So, that's apologies again, that's the kind of the basic level I'm trying to make sure everybody's on board with.

Anyway. So, funny too, because another, I witnessed this with the stock WallStreetBets Reddit. If you remember, we talked about that. Gosh, when was that? A year ago? I don't know. I think it was about a year ago now, with all the GameStop stuff. God, has it already been a year? That was something that I started to see, it's interesting, you start to see these subreddits show up more and more on the front page versus just like one one post. Oh, what's that?

And then, like, you know, days go by, and it's like, wow, I'm seeing couple posts, two, three, you posts from the, on the main page per day. And that tells you that there's something brewing, you kno, there's something interesting going on, thinking. And that's what happened with the Wall Street Bets, with GameStop, all that stuff. It really just became every day, when when we were at peak GameStop and all that game, GameStonk and all dat kinda stuff.

It was like every day that was the top post. On A similar thing has happened with r/anti-work. You know, as the pandemic started, it was pretty small still. I think, you know, it started in 2013 or 2014. I'm not intending to give like a full forensic deep dive of the exact history of the subreddit, it, just a very basic Reader's Digest version. It's been around for at least whatever that is, nine, eight, nine years, something like that.

But as often happens, you know, something changes and all of a sudden a place that a few thousand, maybe 10 ,000, tens of thousand people are at, all of the sudden, you know, it's like Wordle. Like Wordle, but not as fast as all that. You know, Wordle actually somehow had been around, I think, since 2015 or '16. And then, bam, all the sudden it explodes. Humans are funny like that. It's really interesting. So anyway, it started to get more and more traction.

I see more and more posts and the kinds of things on anti-work. I haven't even explained that. I should. So the mission statement of anti - work is essentially what it would sound like. But as with anything that has now millions of members, not everybody is always always on the same page, in the same way that not every person on Wall Street bets had the same mindset about GameStop or crypto or whatever the thing was. There's tons of different people.

Anyone can join, essentially, maybe not now because it's private, but historically anyone could join. And so the things you'd see on there, which I really liked seeing, was this sort of... again, it's like a populist movement of people getting more and more fed up with just shitty bosses and dead end, low paying jobs.

Again, it is the kind of thing, when you talk about anti -work, and this will come up when we talk about the interview on Fox News, I am sure a lot of people in this Reddit have varying views. You know, for some people it might be all the way extreme, as like, we should live in some sort of utopian society where nobody works somehow or something like that, like truly anti-work, no one should ever be made to work, or it should be as little as possible.

And then on the other end of the spectrum, assuming you're not just an outright troll or somebody from the right who's just joined to mess with people or somethinglike that, in terms of users who are are still like happy users or happy members of anti-work. I my stance would be kind of a moderated version, which is, I am very much anti the kinds of jobs people are stuck in and the kinds of wages people are stuck in.

Like, I'm fiercely anti all of that, but I think jobs are good, and I think people will like jobs, and I think working is fundamental, fundamental. It doesn't mean I think everybody needs to work tons of hours. And these are kind of some of the themes I wanted to talk about today. You know, I think we should try out a four -day work week and go from there, you know. I think that would be really cool.

There's been talk of that, and one of the things that has been frustrating from the left's perspective, going back decades, is there was this whole promise that you... influenced productivity, productivity gains or whatever, you know, automation, that kind of thing, these massive gains in productivity, at the time, going back, I don't know, 50 years or more, people thought like, okay, so then people won't have to work anymore.

It'll be like, we'll come up with these machines that are making more shoes than ever or whatever and humans ever could. So naturally, if machines are making a billion times the amount of shoes as humans, then we have to working a billionth as much, or whatever. Ever. And interestingly, as we all know, that didn't happen, and people working more than ever, and wages are more stagnant than ever, as I also don't need to tell you.

And contradictions have been particularly painful, I think that they are setting up that are not sustainable. That's part of what I wanted to get at too, with things like, and the The Wall Street Bets Reddit is not irrelevant to that. That is a part of that, I think.

That was people looking, when talking about GameStop and all that activity around that, that comes from this sort of grassroots feeling and this popular feeling that is very justified, I think, of some level of sticking it to the capitalist pigs in control of everything, you know? And I think anti-work is even more of that. That anti-work is really fighting back against this attitude, and why I found it really valuable.

I found these posts in this community, that I'm not, I wasn't like a member of it, I can't see it now that it's private. I wish I had joined it because now I can't see it. But anyway, at least browsing from time to time, I really enjoyed that mindset of, like, Will share. I'll give you some examples of things cool people would share in r slash anti - work.

Work One of the most typical ones is the the infamous, like, boss text, you know, it'd often be like text from my boss, "Hey, we're short -staffed on Sunday," you know, just awful, like, guilt trip. And those those would vary, you know, they they would either be the person being forced to work or the person, like, sticking it to the boss and just quitting. And both of those are useful and interesting, for, I guess, different reasons.

And it it's a cool community of people who are maybe helping. It's almost a support group in some ways, too. And again, this is now, it's two million members or something, so once anything gets that big, you, who knows what everybody's motivation is in there. But, at indication of that, by the way, I should have mentioned the democracy that is Reddit. I should explain this in the Reddit basic thing. Posts obviously go up or down based on people voting them up or down.

So when something is high up, and that goes not just for posts, but comments on posts. So if somebody posts something like, say, a screenshot of text from their boss, and their boss is being a total dick, and maybe a comment about encouraging the person to quit their job, or giving them some insight about the situation, maybe that would be voted up. And you could get some indication of the kinds of people who are browsing by which comments go to the top.

So for a post like this one, which is a screenshot, as I said, with a boss, "Hey, I need you to come in tomorrow," says the boss. The person says, "Well, tomorrow is my only day off for the foreseeable future. I need to catch up on some stuff around the house and mow." "No, I need you." The boss says, "I need you to be a team player and work with us.

We treat you like family and let you have a week off when" crossed out, you know, censored "died." And here's the response: "First off, go fuck yourself for bringing up my wife to make me feel sorry for not coming in. I have worked well over my 12 hour shifts to help other nurses and cover for the ones that call off. I don't even call off, and you still gotta be a little curly headed fuck about my one and only day off.

You think I need this job with all the openings for nurses? As I previously stated, go fuck yourself. I'm coming back to clean out my locker and return my things." So that was one of somebody quitting, had enough. The boss tried to guilt trip them for having taken a week off when their wife died as a way to guilt them to come back to the office on their day off.

And it's cool, you'd see in the comments responses of people helping them out or giving them encouragement. Other nurses, by the way, whatever the job is, you'll usually find in the comments, other people with the same line of work might be able to give them good advice, talk to them about openings. It's cool, I think it's really cool. Let me do one more example just for fun, to give people an idea.

This post was under the title of, "This sub gave me the motivation to finally quit my abusive job. I may not have health insurance, but I feel so free." And then the exchange is, it's a screenshot text exchange here. It says, "Hey, Becky canceled on Saturday. I'll need you to come in and cover for her." "That's not my problem. Saturday is my day off, and I've been working eight days straight and really need it." "I'm sorry, we're short -staffed.

I need you." That's the, by the way, "We're short staffed is a common punchline in the parlance of the subreddit too. Anyway, back to it. "I'm not coming in." Boss: "You'll have to. I'll see you on Saturday." Response: "No, you won't. I'm not coming in, you can't make me." Boss: "Are you sure you want to do this? You really want to put your health insurance on the line?" Response: "What are you going to do, fire me?

I know you're a short staffed after Hunter and Paige quit last night, and you were already short bartenders." Boss: "I don't accept that kind of attitude. Last chance, I'll see you Saturday, or I won't see you again." Response: "Did you really just threaten me with health insurance? Whatever, I'm done with this. You can consider this my notice. I've had enough of your bullshit." Stuff like that.

And OK, so I guess I'll say, too, that, but as with anything on the internet, who knows what amount of this might be bullshit or faked thing. I mean, obviously, you can easily fake it, a text exchange, that kind of thing.

But with something like a massive viral subreddit that's got millions of members posting this stuff every day, they said there were so many posts like this that were sharing text threads that they eventually limited it to one day that they would focus on those kind of posts. This is another thing subreddits sometimes do, and then that way it would leave more days for other kinds of posts.

But there are so many of these submission type posts where users wanted to submit their content and their, you know, their exchanges with their bosses. And who knows, again, it doesn't matter that any one of these could be fake. There's a major, major trend of this attitude that employers could get away with any kind of thing they want, like that.

And I think it's so interesting because, for me personally, this was my attitude, I was raised with this idea that, you know, you the boss is the boss, as the employee it's your job to just do whatever the fuck anybody wants to maintain employment, because that, and there's an element of it, it, when we talk about descriptive versus prescriptive, you know, there's an element of that that I think is an okay attitude on an individual level to get by, you you're a victim of the system.

I was working as a, as I you did have to act that way. Like, I didn't have any power. I almost got fired from a busing job because I was late a couple of times in in college when I just had a crap car, and I was tired all the time from school and working and having a good time.

I wasn't like that downtrodden or anything, but I remember I overslept a couple times and stuff, that where I need to kind of adopt that attitude that I had to do whatever they said and basically, like it. A lot of people are in that situation where they, they don't have any of the power.

So, on one hand, it makes sense that, to be given this message from, like, my parents, for example, to be taught this lesson of, yeah, you got to do what you got to do in your job, basically. Also, there's also a prescriptive element to it. I think there's a way in which, obviously coming from a conservative household, this is part of like what conservatives want it to be.

It's one thing to say, well, here's what you kind of got to do to get by in this unjust capitalist nightmare. It's another to say, no, this is great, here's how it should be, your employer is in charge, they're they're God, essentially. And then maybe someday, if you save up enough bootstraps, you can be the God of something, You can you can have the money and be horrible to people. That's kind of like the conservative ethos about it.

And the part that I am so glad we're pushing back on, and this subreddit is pushing back on, and I think that it's kind crazy to me how much, coming all the way to the other side of that now as someone firmly on the left, it's hard for me to even imagine that mindset anymore, that employers ought again, it's one thing to describe the world and say, yeah, well, employers are kind of dicks and you're kind of stuck and whatever, but the other side of that, to actually say, no, this is how it should be, and to say, like, yeah, it's actually good, market, they could just fire you and hire somebody else, and that's actually a good thing.

That blows my mind that anybody in this day and age has that opinion. But it turns out a lot of people have that opinion, and we are going through a bit of a reckoning. You know, this this subreddit has been covered in a lot of major news sources, and also there have been major sources covering just the great walkout of, you know, whatever, the great, like, quit off or whatever you want to call it.

You know, it was a year, 2021 was a year where more people quit their jobs than like ever before, a and lot of it had to do, it was COVID, it was also the fact that some number of people were getting getting checks because of COVID and had sort of the safety net to quit their job for once, finally.

And also, I think it's it's an attitude, I think the swelling, and this, this is the great thing, in my opinion, this pushing back against this capitalist, Republican, conservative kind of Protestant work ethic bullshit, that like we all ought to be slaves to capitalism until we die. And this subreddit is a huge part of that, and why I used to love it so much. It's, it's gaining sort of un -gaslighting each other, a cool thing.

It is actually a good thing that can happen, can happen on the internet, as a million other terrible things that can happen onthe internet, but sometimes it's a great place for us to collectively un - gaslight ourselves ourselves, because you need that.

It is something that's very difficult, I think, by definition, to do on your own, because if you've been gaslit either by a person or by capitalism, it's to yourself out of that, it, you sounds know, impossible, I guess, but, like, humans tend to, you know, normalize what's around them, we just kind of accept the conditions we're in oftentimes, and then it takes, like, this, again, grassroots kind of movement of people, just, almost like if it if it were someone who was an abusive relationship or something, it's like it takes often their friends, maybe, and friends and loved ones to to tell them, like, "Hey, no, that's actually not cool what the person's doing to you," kind of thing.

And And the subreddit is almost like a support group in that way. It's like a bunch of those people, like, "Hey, it's not okay what capitalism is doing to you. It's actually not okay." Now, we may have to deal with it, like, we may be kind of stuck, but it's important to say it's not okay, like it's not okay that... And this is another one I definitely wanted to talk about.

When that tornado hit, there were a lot of posts that I'm sure you saw that were also covered in mainstream news, there are a lot of people talking about how their bosses kept them at work, and these were huge in the subreddit anti -work There was one that was, uh, it's titled "Amazon tornado text exchange: your life is just numbers in a machine, make the correct call," and that's encouraging people to quit.

Driver: "Radio's been going off, dispatch, okay, just keep driving, we can't just call people back for a warning unless Amazon tells us to do so." Driver: "Just relaying in case y'all didn't hear it over there, 7 .40 PM." Driver: "Tornado alarms are going off over here." Dispatch: "Just keep delivering for now, we have to wait for word from Amazon. If we need to bring people back, the decision will ultimately be up to them.

I will let you know if the situation changes at all, I'm talking with them about it now." And that one, again, that is absolutely a tragedy just to even have that text exchange, but that wasn't posted like, "Oh, this person didn't make it," or whatever. However, this next one was way worse, this is the one you might've heard as well.

This post is just "Larry Verdon" the name of the person "Larry Verdon's last text to his wife was, 'Amazon won't let us leave.'" "Amazon won't let us leave." And that was his last text, because he died as a result of this tornado.

And it's stuff like that, heartbreaking stuff, you just, God, taking a moment to just ponder the absurdity and the tragedy and the horror of that, you know, like that dispatcher saying, "Just keep delivering, we have to wait for a word from Amazon." There's nothing that person is delivering that is worth a millionth of a human life, you know?

And it is just so weird that capitalism has done that to us, you You know, where we all, you 'cause honestly, like, it's all, it's cool for all of us that we can get some bullshit, nothing product delivered to us in five minutes. That is cool, forget everything else, like, it's cool that that can happen, like, that's a cool thing in our lives.

Like, if I want a book, or if I wanna, I don't know, some kitchen thing, like, just anything, you're just like, "Oh, I need this thing." Batteries, I don't know, some random shit.

The stuff we buy on Amazon, at least for me anyway, I guess I won't speak for you guys, but it's always the most random crap, you know, where you're like, "Oh, I need this one random thing," and then you're like, "Oh, I can get it tomorrow." That's cool, don't have to go find it now, that's awesome.

Then what happens is like the sum total of that, and just the combined force of all of us being like, "Yeah, no, that's kind of cool that I could get this screwdriver tomorrow tomorrow instead of, I don't know, the next day or a week from now." I don't know what it used to be back before all the Amazon stuff, like, you'd order something and you'd get it, I don't know, a week or two or something, who knows? That important, you know?

Like, I don't think I even need to say that, but if a person could have died because I wanted my I kitchen knife that I ordered like a day ahead of when it could have otherwise been, like, that's not worth that.

But But when everybody's combined capitalism, you know, dollars, monopoly money, we're all spending, like, when all our combined purchasing power is telling this massive corporation they're making money on this fact that we all are like, "Oh yeah, that's kind of cool," even though none of us individually would be like, "Yes please, die for me to get my package package containing," code names the board game," like, you have to die to deliver that to me, nobody, no individual would think that, but, like, the combined, the the horror of capitalism in this case is like all our combined purchasing power of kind of preferring that is creating this absurd scenario where people are just literally worked to death or worked in terrible conditions, you know?

And it's horrifying. And I back and forth, you... tried to pare down my Amazon purchasing, and I have, actually, I try to buy stuff from either other websites. You know, that's a thing you could do, to use Amazon as the search, essentially, like, use Amazon to find the thing and then try to find that, whatever the thing is, whatever the company is, whoever makes it, try to just go to their site, order it from there.

Not a perfect solution, I still think that whoever is delivering that is probably also overworked, but I think, safe to say, likely better scenario than Amazon. Anyway, I also think that, like, as individuals, it's not as though, you know, historically on all these issues, climate change, all these things, historically I am of the opinion, and I say it on the show, that we need systemic change, we need policy change, you know, we can't all be stressing about our tiny, minuscule carbon footprint when really it's just like three fucking companies, corporations, that we're somehow, we're like subsidizing them to ruin our environment.

It's stuff like that, where it's like, I don't want to hear how I should maybe walk a little more than dry or whatever the thing is, you know, but at the same time, like, it is kind of true that, like, okay, but if we all ordered from Amazon less, than maybe it would do some good. So it's kind of, I'm conflicted.

I kind of try to do both, but I also don't, I think the answer is in all of us personally adjusting our, like, buying preferences and turning down a benefit that's there to us, because it's hard to do, especially when you talk about, like, Walmart's a big one, a lot of people, a lot of liberals, myself included, are like, proudly, "I won't shop at Walmart," because, you know, they're terrible to the employer, that kind of thing, even though Amazon I think is probably worse.

Then you see people who, it's like, "Yeah, I don't have any choice, I got to shop at Walmart, I don't have any money, you know?" And you're like, "Yeah, no, that makes sense, I can't fault you for that." And it's stuff like that that I think tells me that it's more about coming up with policy solutions and actually changing things that way.

That has the problem of we have to gain more than 50 votes in the Senate and and control the other levers of power as well, which is constantly a battle, story for another day.

So now that I've, you know, I've kind of explained the subreddit, I've also already touched on a lot of the themes I wanted to, 'cause I can't stop myself when I start talking about something, so I'm sorry, it's not a clean, like, here's the background and then here's the themes and then there's the points I want to make, all that, it blends together, apologies.

But yeah, just this, this being a great place to, I think that that's the word, for collectively kind of de -gaslight ourselves, un -gaslite, whatever the word would be, it's been really cool. And I think it's important, AndI really just think the economic inequality in this country, and the conditions for, you know, I don't know why the working class, I don't what the right term is, but basically everybody that's not the top 10 percent or whatever, I just think it's not sustainable.

I mean, it's just ridiculous income inequality, quality, worse than ever, think it is worse than ever, even accounting for, like, the fucking railroad barons or whatever, like, I think it is worst than that time, based on, it's hard to quantify, but based on graphs I've seen, you know, it's like that level of bad, you know, it's a level of, it's revolution level bad, you know, I just, it, I don't see how this sustains itself.

And I think this is one of the many outlets that people have to start building this movement. One thing that's hard, though, and this is kind of transitioning to what happened to the subreddit, it's hard to know what to do with all that, and I think that the status quo has such an advantage, and the people who want to maintain the status quo have such an advantage. It's a constant theme of the show, and Opening Arguments, because it's so much easier to just fuck with everybody.

Like, like in this subredtit, you know, there's so many bad actors is in there, people join it for the sake of undermining it. People, you know, it happens with all kinds of organizations, often people from, like, the FBI would join the whatever, Black Panthers or whatever bullshit, you know, stuff like that, like undermining some of these groups from within all the time.

Like, there's, there's, it's so much easier to mess stuff up and to, and to ruin people's organizational power, or to kind of confuse them, to make them spin their their wheels, to get them to be by the way, this is currently happening to get them to feel hopeless, like their efforts aren't going to result in anything, or to get them, or people just don't agree on the goals, like, apart from anyone being sinister, that's hard too.

I think even me and all the listeners of the show, like, we may just not agree on what the right course of action, even if we agree on what we want, more or less, like, we agree on outcomes, often we disagree on how to get there.

I think you guys know my stance, I think you know my stances the best way, is is to work within the system we have, because, as it's that's not an endorsement of the system, I want to make very clear, not at all an endorsements of our current system it's, it's a, it's a survival thing.

It's like I don't foresee if we, people who talk of getting rid of the system, upending it, having a revolution, doing all that kind of stuff, I just have never, I know I've said it before, I do not understand where the confidence comes from with that, with a confidence that A, you can get that to even happen, which I think is damn near impossible, or B, that if you did, like if you did some sort of revolutionary takeover of this system or take down the system, essentially, that what you would end up with would be better.

I mean, with how many Americans Americans are just hopelessly gone in terms of Trumpism and all that stuff, and add on top of that, how many Americans are moderate or slightly conservative, even if they're not hardcore Trumpers? They're not going to agree with you on how the system should work. So I never understand the point A to point B to point C or step one, step two, step three profit kind of thing. I never understand where that's going to go. And I think we have to do everything we can

0:31:48 Thomas: To achieve. Basically, it comes down to this. I want better outcomes. And I think, probability -wise the best chance we have is by electing more Democrats. I really believe that. I know it's a mundane thing to say, I guess, but like, I actually think that is the best way in terms of broad change. Now there's also, like, you know, we can volunteer in organizations. We help can local communities. We can do stuff like that, of course, too. But I mean, in terms broad countrywide change.

Anyway, point is, here's an example of like why this is so hard, why organizing is so hot, and why these movements are so hard. So here's what happened. News requested someone for an interview from anti-work, because again, it's getting mainstream coverage. People are covering this. And I imagine it's a fever dream. It's like a, a, it's red meat for the Fox News base, because I'm sure they love to cover it from the perspective of all these lazy assholes, all these crazy people.

Lazy leftists who want to sit down on their asses and not do anything. They want free money from the government, blah, blah. You know, like this plays right into their biases about that and their ideology. There be better. And a Reddit called anti work couldn't do better for the Fox News base. So someone did an interview, and, uh, allegedly, this is what's so funny about this whole thing. I don't know how these mods of this r/anti-work got their positions.

I don't know if some combination, probably, of they might be people who started the subreddit, or maybe people who are very active in it eventually get could get promoted to moderator if they, you know, that kind of thing. I think it's some combination of those two things. But whatever it is, you'll notice that they're, that doesn't make them like the leader of the movement.

You know, you just happen to be somebody who has the permissions on the website to, like, delete people's comments or to warrant ban them or do, you know, like, you're just a moderator. That's, it doesn't, that doesn't mean you are, like, duly elected by the body of 2 million people on anti -work represent them, and that your views represent their views even. Who knows?

Like, like I said said earlier, people on these things for lots of different reasons, you know, could range from anything from full -on anarchy to, nah, I just think we ought to, you know, pay people a living wage. You know, I can, I could imagine plenty of the, of everything within that spectrum could be reasons why people are on the anti -work Reddit. So already it's weird to, like, let's interview a mod from a moderator from the subreddit.

Like, what's a moderate, You could be a moderator and not really even have any idea about the underlying issues. You know, you could just be a moderator because you're good at moderating. Moderating itself, like we have awesome mods for the OA Facebook group. It doesn't mean they can answer law questions like Andrew can, you know, like maybe some of them can, I don't know, I know all of them perfectly.

But like that doesn't means they're experts of, like, the content of Opening Arguments, or the content we we cover, or like the underlying ideology or anything like that. Like it doesn't, it just means you're a moderate, you're involved. That's cool. And I love our moderators. But, you know, this, the moderators of this subreddit could be, just, nobody, could just be somebody who was there at the beginning, happened to be there by luck, you know?

Or happened to be a friend of someone who started it, or happy, whatever it is. And so this person goes on Fox News, and here's another interesting thing. Thing. Were almost universally panned as having blown it, done a horrible job. People are, you know, and then there's, I'm going to play it for you. Uh, but just to give you a sense first, like, this is what was regarded as being so bad that people are, like, leaving the subreddit. They're super mad.

And then you get the typical drama that happens on the internet, which is people with a lot more power than maybe they should have start exercising that power because they take things personally. And you get all these posts of people saying they were banned from the group group because they said the person did a bad job on the, on the new show on Fox News.

But then, you know, then the, thenthe person is saying, well, you're actually being anti -trans and you're being, I have autism and you're making fun of me for my autism. And it's stuff like that that, like, because we're talking about 2 million members of a group, there's probably tons of that, but there could also be, like, genuine criticism that people are not living up to, or not not willing to see.

And the fact that, the I, you know, I would absolutely side with the, you know, non -binary mod in terms of the fact they're probably facing a lot of transphobia here, but the part where they made this subreddit private, that, I mean, the attitude online seems to be that these people are losing it and and trying to, like, exert total control over this community as a result of all this. So anyway, I don't, you know, it's hard to know for sure what's going on there. So let's check out the clip. I is Jesse Waters of Waters' World. Fantastic name for a show.

0:36:56 Clip: This anti -work group. Doreen Ford. Alright, so Doreene, why do you like the idea of being home, not working, but still getting paid by corporate America? Yeah, so this is a misconception about the movement. So we're a movement where we want to reduce the amount of work that people feel like they're forced to do. Do. And so we want to still put in effort, we want to put in labor, but we don't want to necessarily be in a position where we feel trapped.

You know, you just quoted from Office Space where that person feels very trapped in their job. I think we're calling for a society where there's less of that. But yeah, absolutely people still want to do things.

They just want to do things where they feel rewarded and they feel like they're in a good spot in their life uh and that their job respects them and stuff like that um you know there's varying so you're so doreen you're not being forced to work this isn't this isn's slave labor, you've you've applied for a job you've agreed to the terms and conditions of the employment and you know you can walk away from that job at any time and quit so I don't understand really really what this is about except it sounds like maybe people are just being lazy are you encouraging people to be lazy um so I think laziness is um a virtue in a society where people constantly want you to be productive 24 7 and it's good to have rest um that doesn't mean you should be resting all the time or not putting effort into things that you care about but I think one of the what do you think is like a good work day how many hours is is you know a solid work day in your your ideal society uh sure I mean I think as much as people want I mean I personally uh work I have I have like a 20 25 hour work weeks which I think is fairly good um so I would like less work hours um what do you do doreen I'm a dog walker a dog walker okay yes and uh yeah so how old are you if you don't mind me asking sure I'm 30 you're 30 okay and is there something you want to do besides being a dog walker do you aspire to do anything more than dog walking or is that kind of your your pinnacle uh I I love working with dogs if I had to do this rest of my life you know I wouldn't be super complaining you know dogs are wonderful animals uh but I mean I would love to teach uh I would like to um you know uh work with work with people and stuff like that what would you teach dorian uh a philosophy mostly philosophy critical thinking working reasons, stuff like that.

Okay. Well, I would love to take your class, Doreen. I would just be taking notes the whole time. And you know what? A professor is a very similar schedule than something that you're imagining. So I think that actually might work perfectly for you. Listen, I think this might not be the greatest idea, but who am I to judge?

To each their own, they say it's a free country sure not everything's free you know but it is a free country thank you so much you got a run we got to pay the bills

0:40:16 Thomas: Pay the bills. Yeah. Got them. Yeah, really excellent rejoinder there. By the way, sorry for that weird high -pitched noise. That's just how the clip was, and it drove me nuts. That's some people don't notice those things, but I did. And it was changing frequency all the time. So I don't know that I'll, I'll try to filter it out, but if it's changing frequency like that can be kind of tough anyway. Uh, yeah, maybe it was hard to hear. I'm not sure.

But if you saw the very punchable face of this Jesse Waters, uh, you know, you said this was dripping with condescension the whole way, even if ostensibly he sounded like he was asking serious questions at times. This is absolutely dripping with sarcasm and condescension. And that's particularly painful to imagine, too, knowing that the person is autistic and perhaps they don't even pick up on those cues. I don't know. Like, I don't know that for sure.

But that strikes me as particularly cruel, you essentially performing cruelty that you know the person you're talking to maybe can't doesn't pick up on possibly and but everybody else does or not everybody else. But the bulk of your audience does. I think that's particularly harsh and cruel. And I think this is an awful clip. But right there was what people were saying was the worst thing ever that ruined the whole movement. Let me read some of the comments here. A lot of negativity.

And this is, again, this is from, I'm not talking about the Fox News comments. I'm talking about the Reddit comments in the actual r slash anti -work. Here's one. On a very basic level, the setup of this video proves that this particular moderator should not be doing any interviews with anyone to represent the subreddit on Fox News or anywhere else. Image and perception matter a lot.

The mod appears to have taken this interview on the most watched cable news show in the third largest country on earth, wearing a black hoodie with bad lighting, a bad camera, and an unkempt messy bed behind them. Forget what they said during the interview. I have about three video calls a day on average for my job, and I never had a setup that unprofessional. And actually, actually, let me read you a top comment describing the entire scenario here.

This might help just in case there's any missing threads here. So culverts underscore flood underscore away had a comment. I'll give them credit because they sum this up nicely. For the uninitiated, Fox News approached user Abolish Work, that's the name of the Doreen, the username of Doreem, to do an interview with them regarding the r slash anti -work subreddit and its goals.

Abolish Work is a top mod of the subreddit and was given the go -ahead by the other mods to do the interview because they, quote, have done media interviews before, end quote, or something to that effect.

The old school are, and this is interesting too, it talks about attention here, the old school anti -work mods are more in tune with the idea that people shouldn't have to work at all just to survive, which is sort of at odds with today's more popular take on the sub -reddit, which which is more that workers are fed up with being abused by exploitative systems that keep them from organizing and demanding better standards. That's perhaps relevant to what happened during the interviews with Fox News.

Abolish Work, or Doreen as they are known in real life, appeared on the show with poor lighting, weak camera, a disheveled appearance, and a messy bedroom background. Doreen explained that they work 25 hours a week as a dog walker and that they shouldn't have to do that to live. Basically, they handed Fox News the perfect caricature of a lazy millennial who doesn't want to work. Not only that, but Doreen is also non -binary, autistic. Okay.

And was entirely unable to sit still and make eye contact with the camera. I wonder if the our anti -work mods could have chosen a less favorable candidate to represent them in the subreddit. The subredtit members are up in arms about the interview, both because they weren't consulted about it and feel as though they have more skin in the game than the mods do, and also because they feel as though Doreen didn't represent them or their goals at all.

There have been complaint threads and criticisms flying all day in the subreddit as a result, and Doreem has been banning people left and right for transphobia just for criticizing them on their interview. I suppose the mods are now tired of seeing all the anger and the complaint threads, and they're going to do something about it. What it is, I have no idea.

And there's a top comment on that, response to that one, says, as the top mod of the subreddit, Doreen could also remove any dissenting mods. So being given the go -ahead by other mods is like the CEO being given to go ahead by the district manager. I don't know that that's true a hundred percent, but, you know, sounds plausible enough, and maybe maybe that is the case.

So people are pointing out a lot of the irony of like the hierarchy of mods and this person exercising exercising undue authority, being kind of a recreation of a lot of the inequity of capitalism and, you know, the same situation people are in at their jobs. But I wanted to read that because I think it does, I just found it now, actually. I'm glad I did. I think it sums up a lot of what I was trying to say pretty well.

So, yeah, why am I talking about this drama, this controversy? Maybe some of this seems kind of banal. I don't know. But, I think it's interesting because when I saw that interview, my first reaction was like, oh, they did fine. I actually didn't really think it was particularly bad. As I've thought about it, I do think there's some shortcomings, that it definitely would have been better to do different things. I'll talk about that. But I think that's interesting.

To me, the interview revealed a lot of the conservative mythology around working. And this is Fox News. What was the the best case scenario there? I guess, I suppose the best case was you just find some unbelievable dynamic person to represent your interests and the interest of somehow all of the subreddit, you know, and they maybe convince some viewers or don't look as ridiculous as the view. But like, that's real pie in the sky thinking.

I don't think that they were likely to make any impact no matter who it was. But then it's also interesting to expect. Again, it's just things I keep keep thinking about, is interesting things. Like you've got a group that all has assembled into this subreddit.

You know, you don't know who they are, but some number of them of the roughly two million, I think a little under two million at this time, some numberof those people share some number of goals, but you don't know what, you know, I I think that comment was interesting because it was about what I had guessed, which is roughly speaking what I'd guessed, which is like, you know, the early people.

I didn't say the earlypeople, but somenumber of people are more more like literally anti -work, like there should be no work. And then it seems like a bunch of the flood of people who joined in the wake of COVID are joining for a little bit more moderate reasons, but like, you know, they're still fed up with their bosses, but they're not like nobody should have to work. And it's interesting that somehow somebody expected an organization to just appear. You know what I mean?

There's a lot of people really mad. Mad. I get being upset that I think Doreen did not a great job, but I don't think they did a terrible job. They tried to answer the questions honestly. They did answer the questions honestly, I think. And it's hard to be that mad. I don't know. Maybe I' m just being too sympathetic. It's really hard for me to be that angry with somebody who went on Fox fucking News. That's an arguable decision.

But let' s say you decide to do the interview and just goes on and answers questions earnestly. I' M not not saying that means they did a good job, but it's hard for me to be like super angry.

Uh And I it's interesting to me that that so many users and so many people who are a part of this, you know, little grassroots movement on this subreddit somehow expected the people who were mods, again, just by accident of having been there longest, or maybe maybe because they started the thread, started the subredtit, which there's something to be said about that, but still that doesn't guarantee guarantee credentials. That doesn't guarantee you're some amazing speaker who represents everybody perfectly. It's amazing that people had those expectations.

And it's amazing that I don't know what they expected. Like, did they expect that you form a quick government, you know, some sort of governing body that you say, hey, as a subreddit, we've got, we all, two million of us, have an interview request from Fox News. Let's delegate obligate somebody through an audition process. You know, like, I don't, I don't even know how you would do that. I don't like to get people to be spontaneously that organized.

And I just think this is so interesting because this is in a microcosm of how a lot of these movements fizzle, and maybe not fizzled, but like there's there's heavy interest in Fox News and conservatives and moderates and people who are in favor of the status quo. They have heavy interest in discrediting things as fast as possible.

You know, that person's job, Doreen's job in terms of Fox News, like from Fox News's perspective, Dorean's job was to go on there and instantly discredit 2 million people just by their mere existence. You know? That's what Fox News wanted. And they find all these ways. Wait, they find I found this with when I had the thing with Sargon, like his crowd, they want the fast because they're stupid. They're, you know, they're, let's face it, like they're they're not intellectually honest.

They might not all be literally stupid, but like effectively stupid because they'RE not they're not intellectually honest, they're not looking as much as they think they're these smart skeptics or whatever, and talking about Sargon's crowd. And as much as Republicans think they're these smart, you know, actual knowledgeable people, whatever, who have more common sense or something like that, they think that.

But really, they're looking for the quickest psychological out, you know, like if anything like this happens, you see a burgeoning movement online of people wanting to quit their jobs and reform capitalism in some way, or at the very least make more money, get their student loans forgiven or something, you you know, stuff like that. Very reasonable concerns, stuff that we should do. What's the fastest way I can not have to think about that, you know?

And that's conservatism in a nutshell, in my opinion, in this day and age, at least at the very least conservative media, you know, I don't want to speak for all conservative, but it's like, that's what the function of conservative media is now. It's to as quickly as possible, give you a reason to be like, like you don't actually have to think about that because they're trans or something, you know, like in their mind, that's what it is. Like they're, they live with their parents, they're 30. So you don't have to worry about anything, they think they are disqualified, you that's the mindset. And so like, it's hard to be that mad about it, you know, about the person. Now, having said that, after I reflected about it, I do I do think like it's, there definitely would have been opportunity to to say some things that might've been more effective.

If They can definitely Monday morning quarterback that, maybe emphasize that your situation isn't representative, maybe emphasize that, like, I think if you if you go to be a spokesperson for something like a whole subreddit of two million people, I think you kind of got to take yourself out of it a little bit, you know, but but again, like how do we expect this from people who happen to be at the helm of a subredtit? You know what I mean?

But this interview revealed a lot of interesting things to me about this, the conservative mindset, and the, again, sort of the mythology around working. It's telling what Jesse Waters was condescending about, like, oh, you're a dog walker. Do you aspire to anything else? You know, or is that the pinnacle? Oh, you're 30. How old are you? And it's, it's funny because from my, from our perspective, I think most of the people listening, I would imagine none of those things is a bad thing. You know?

None of none of the things that the conservatives just, look, it's interesting, we could look at the same picture that is this person in their life, I guess. And it's a Rorschach test. Like conservatives see this horrible thing. Oh, dog walker, lives with their parents. And then a bunch of things that they obviously just hate about people, like if they're trans or they don't look right or if they don't dress right. And all that is stuff that like, it's I don't care about. That's fine.

All that stuff is fine. As I look at the picture, it's like, yeah, this among the many people who would be part of this anti -work movement is someone like that. They work, by the way. The person works. And the condescension of Waters talking about, oh, a dog walker, like as though that's not a job. A major shift from thinking from when I was a conservative. Aren't jobs that are like not valuable. If anything, it's the inverse of what we think it is.

You know, the valuable jobs to me are the ones that involve more manual labor or more, you know, stuff that I wouldn't maybe want to do. Stuff that I haven't had to do, very hard work or critical, garbage men, stuff like that. We need that shit, you we need. Essential workers, essentially. Healthcare, nurses, younow? Stuff like that, like that's valuable work, youknow?

Our society thinks that sitting at a desk and attending worthless meetings all day in an office and doing nothing, they think our society monetarily rewards that far more than a lot of these other jobs that are far more important and way harder. And walker is not, I'm not saying that's like one of the most essential jobs or something, but it's a job. It's something that people want a person to do.

And there's something that people want a person to do that becomes a job, and the person in that job deserves dignity, and it's it's just such a fundamental shift, and and I guess it's interesting watching that clip and seeing how many things, assumptions that we just don't agree on, that conservatives and people like me just don't agree on, like attitude, attitude of why should you get paid anything to flip burgers?

This should just be a part -time job and you should want to get out of there as soon as possible. Well, by definition, not everybody can get out if it. Someone has to do the job, like lots of people actually. There's a ton of burger flippers in this country. And although I don't eat burgers anymore, although I go to the fast food, a lot of them have the impossible burgers. So there you go.

I still do utilize burger flippers even though I'm vegetarian, and they're very valuable to me, and moreover, they're a human being who has to do a thing to make money to, to in our society, to things to eat and shelter and all that and health care other things, you know, like they deserve dignity, they ought to make a very good decent way, everybody ought to making a decent wage, a livable, more more than livable.

People ought to make, and they deserve a dignified wage for their time and their labor. They just do. The inescapable conclusion of the ideology that, you know, burger flippers or whatever, janitors, whatever it may be. By the way, janitor, talk about a valuable job. What's a more valuable job than a janitor? Like we could literally couldn't live without, the shit would just be disgusting all the time, and that's somehow like not not deemed a valuable job.

I don't know, never understand it, but anyway, um inescapable conclusion of this mindset is that either nobody should be doing these jobs, so, like, in a in a world in a conservative ideology, assume everybody gets their shit together, like just assume everybody does, in the under their definition definition, gets their shit together, works hard, does all the bullshit they want, so then what happens?

There are no janitors, there are no burger flippers, there are know anything, all these other job, construction work at whatever, all these jobs that people don't make enough money in, whatever it is, they're just they just don't exist in this case, or, which I think is actually the case, conservatives don't really want or think everybody can get their shit they want to be able to blame blame, and not give a shit about the people who don't, quote unquote, get their shit together.

They want to, that that's, it's one of those two things, you know, either you think a whole bunch of jobs just shouldn't exist, or something somehow miraculously, or you want, you want to be in that dynamic of like, yes, you're you'RE a subpar person, so you can't don't get money, and I can be a dick to you, like all that stuff. And I just think that's so fundamentally

0:57:07 Thomas: Inhumane that I don't even know. It's hard to even communicate with that side of the aisle about that anymore for me. And this is another reminder of how different those assumptions are. So I don't know what we can do to try to make progress along these lines, but it's so clear to me that at the very least, to make a very modest claim, people deserve a dignified wage for whatever the work is that that's the baseline.

And there's all these things of like, well, that'll call our economy. It'll crush our unemployment. I don't really care. Like it'll work itself out. Honestly, there's an embarrassment of wealth in this country and it will actually like the free market will actually work that out. If you, if you specify like a, a base minimum wage wage or something like that. The cost will filter somewhere, but also people at the bottom will have more money to bear that cost anyway. And it will work itself out.

It's sort of like, again, when we ban slavery, that definitely caused some unemployment. All of a sudden, there were a lot of previously enslaved people who had to find a paying job.

0:58:25 Thomas: And I don't know how many of them did or didn't. The point is it doesn't matter. That's not, imagine if that was your argument, oh, we can't ban slavery. That is going to create a lot of unemployment. What? What are you talking about? The fundamental, that is the shift in my thinking in these last 10 years maybe or so or more. The fundamental moral baseline is, no, you ban slavery, you just do that. You ban wage slavery.

You make everyone at a bare minimum make a dignified wage. I don't know the fucking math of what that, I don't know, 25 an hour? I don't know what that would be. I really don't. I haven't looked at the numbers on that and all that. But that's the baseline moral fact. Everybody deserves a dignify wage for their labor. And then you go from there. I don't particularly care that banning slavery might have caused unemployment, for example. You know, it just doesn't matter. Like, okay, cool. Yeah.

I mean, if we raise the minimum wage to 25 an hour, then yeah, it probably would cause a lot of unemployment. It probably would cause a little bit of unemployment, but also a new equilibrium would happen and that, you know, like we would go from there. So anyway, I think this story was interesting and it was illustrative of a lot of the challenges we face, or at least people who agree with me on this face in trying to organize, which is what do we all want?

It seems to be different. Oftentimes, you know, we don't all want the same things. Maybe we sometimes won't even want opposite things in some cases, but we're all, we, we organize, we try to get something done. We want change. Who's, who's our leader? Oh, well, maybe this person. No, I hate that person. You know, argue about who the leader is or something, you Know, who we're going to have have represent us, whether it be in Congress or on the media or that kind of thing.

And there's just a whole bunch of crap like that that just makes it so hard. And it's just like interesting to think about this little, I say little, two million is not little, but this microcosm, again, this sort of demonstration of the difficulties of all of that, of fighting against the status quo, just summed up nicely into this subreddit drama that that is, and that possibly was Reddit slash anti -work. So I hope you got something out of this.

Again, I, it's not as though I had any answers for anything. I just, it was so interesting to think about all this and, and a lot of the themes going on there. So thank you for listening. If you got this far, hope you Got something out of it. And, uh, I really appreciate you guys listening and supporting the show, patreon.com/seriouspod. And for all you Lindsay stans out there, of which I am one, we can start a subreddit. Oh, Lindsay should be back.

We should have an episode next week. Absolutely. I'm a Lindsay stan as well. And I far prefer those episodes, but I, you know, maybe I'll get back to trying to do some of these and maybe they're useful. I don't know. All right. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

1:01:42 Clip: Thank you so much for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. If you like the show, the absolute best thing you can do is support us at patreon.com/seriouspod. The second best thing you can do, is please share it on social media or by word of mouth. Speaking of social media, follow me on Twitter at Serious Pod. If you would like to be Facebook friends, send me a request at facebook.com Thomas podcast. If not up for that level of intimacy, that's fine. Maybe you want to join the discussion at facebook.com/groups/SIO members. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next time.