The meme that this sub is a hive of bot activity is interesting- I wonder who came up with those allegations first, and if they have similar conspiracy theories towards other popular subs such as r/WallStreetBets, or other toxic subs like r/CSCareerQuestions
the_only_law
The whole “foreign intelligence psyop” theory seems dumb, but is par for the course on HN at this point
I wouldn’t be surprised though, if there’s a lot of karma farming, some of it even automated.
roxaaaane
What's with the hostility towards the subreddit? I am surprised by the HN reaction to it.
I think that unless you are working minimum wage you don't get to call the sub "nihilistic, apathetic or zoomer adhd" if anything most of the members were essential workers during covid and struggle to afford basic living otherwise they would not be angry.
I am very surprised by the comments in the thread to be honest, if you work in tech, your job is pretty much useless the code you write doesn't "advance humanity" I mean let's not kid ourselves tech jobs are pretty overblown in importance compared to essential workers.
Really hope we do some thinking before taking this hostile stance, if anything we should stand by workers who suffer from shitty working conditions.
EDIT:I worked minimum wage, no wage no health care.. I worked really different shitty jobs in risky setting and there was always an implicit solidarity in the workers group, when I moved to tech (very later on) I was surprised by the toxicity and grandeur some people show as if building to-do apps is all that's left from moving to the next level of civilization, some humility and acceptance would be good along the way especially since we're lucky to have the opportunity to work remotely, great salaries and benefits and the ability to spend time doing something we like.
version_five
It shouldn't be completely dismissed, but I think the forum is more about how an unhappy (or angry) minority have found each other, and the people that like to read their stories. I don't think that r/antiwork should be taken as representative of anything, including a broader movement. It's the same with twitter, there is a committed vocal and angry group, but it's not real life
cybarDOTlive
Though I'm not one to generally say this or that subreddit should be banned, reddit has destroyed many a thousand times less subversive ones than this in the past, like /r/whitebeautyart. So I don't see why this kind of nihilistic, apathetic, passive attitude should be encouraged.
Yes, something like this actually deserves to be removed, especially when it reaches critical mass. Because it does more harm than good to the extent that yeah american youth are just going to get dominated on a global field if most of our zoomer ADHD youth equate having a boss to slavery.
And it doesn't matter at all how few people may or may not participate in this particular subreddit. This is the third time I've seen a post about the subreddit in mainstream news. It's popular and the sentiments are only going to grow with more time and more encouragement, to our detriment.
noahtallen
What would it be like if the goals of that subreddit were accomplished?
- Would it be that most people could choose not to work? (I.e under some kind of UBI program?) I’d like to not have to work ;)
- Would it be that the benefits and pay for many jobs would be vastly improved? That also sounds pretty nice.
- Maybe it’d be that companies have to compete harder to be actually nice places to work. Also a good thing.
What exactly would be to our detriment? Something about lack of work ethic? But why does that really matter? Is it so that we can maintain technical prowess? But why is that important?
What if we were happier and less stressed instead? We’re really failing hard in America to consider our economic systems from the perspective of human flourishing and quality of life.
So, I find your comment very strange. What are you so scared of with the movement for better working conditions such that you want it to be outright banned from the internet?
neilwilson
"Would it be that most people could choose not to work?"
It means you are exploiting those who grow the food you eat and produce the services you consume for nothing material in return.
From the remaining workers point of view, since there is nothing material available, it would be better not to produce the surplus consumed by those choosing not to work and have Friday off instead.
Stuff doesn't make itself. Most of us work in solidarity with the farmers and the service workers that make our comfortable lives possible.
mgh2
The phone and computer you are using, the vaccine that protects you from covid, the medicines that keep you living when you get sick, these are the products of thousand years of hard work from past generations.
People wanting to "abolish work" may rather leech on society, it is a consequence of social media brainwashing: gambling, crypto, FIRE, 4hww, etc. These concepts have wide scale, harmful implications for the future of humanity
Apocryphon
It’s funny that you mention 4hww, because the affiliate marketing/monetizing one’s blogging or podcasting brand hustle to create passive income is absolutely piddling pennies compared to the rent-seeking methods used by the ruling classes to generate wealth without actually producing anything. If there’s ever a tribunal for the hysterical prosecution of those responsible for harmful economic implications, the credulous folks who try to make money through dropshipping or retire via FIRE will be far behind in line to those malefactors of great wealth who actually work in the other FIRE.
HWR_14
As far as I can tell, /r/antiwork doesn't equate having a boss with slavery - they say having a shit job with a shit boss is a shitty situation they should not have to put up with. And, frankly, that seems reasonable.
I have no idea about the other subreddit you mentioned, but it does sound superficially like a spot racists would meet up. But it's been banned so I'm just judging it by its title.
gruez
>they say having a shit job with a shit boss is a shitty situation they should not have to put up with. And, frankly, that seems reasonable.
The sidebar literally advocates for abolition of work.
HWR_14
Yes, and the FAQ makes it clear by that they mean the current way work is organized, they don't think that no one has to grow corn or otherwise be productive. They don't people won't have to do unfun things. They make it clear their issue is with their management.
LogicX
And I’ve read numerous threads where people don’t agree with that. I think most are more concerned about their shitty situation no longer being tolerated, but most still believe they should work for someone.
scarab92
Trying to control what ideas are allowed to be discussed seems shockingly authoritarian. It's not like this community is inciting violence.
version_five
You're posting on a website that routinely removes posts and comments. It's definitely authoritarian, but forum sites are not democracies.
There is an argument that a subreddit could be out of line with the site, and not hosted. Granted it would be a bit of a stretch given the kind of content on reddit. I don't think r/antiwork crosses any line, but it's really up to reddit
scarab92
Reddit's right to moderate what content they host isn't under challenge here.
The problematic behaviour is advocating for a ban on the discussing these ideas.
commandlinefan
> shockingly authoritarian
… so all in a days work for reddit?
josephcsible
The point is that the other communities that Reddit banned weren't inciting violence either. This one is way worse than they were, yet it's not banned and they are.
scarab92
The solution to authoritarianism isn't more authoritarianism. If Reddit overstepped in the past, we shouldn't treat that as a watermark for what should be banned in future.
cybarDOTlive
It's not an overstepping at all, reddit has and always will be authoritarian. They will always be political. They banned whitebeautyart because it invoked a feeling of honor, tradition.
They won't ban antiwork because it encourages giving up, consooming, laziness, weakness. Exactly the kind of NPC audience reddit milks money off of. Ad revenue, reddit gold, buying emojis, constant scrooolllling, etc.
You are just naive, there will always be authoritarianism, forever. You're just on the receiving end or the administrating end.
scollet
Whatever you're selling, it won't bring answers or peace of mind.
scollet
Glad to see the WN have shown up.
scollet
exodontist
xeromal
/r/antiwork is a bunch of BS anyways. Most of the posts are exaggerated fantasies of telling your boss off. lol
inetknght
> I think the forum is more about how an unhappy (or angry) minority have
>1. Resignation rates are highest among mid-career employees.
>2. Resignations are highest in the tech and health care industries.
Your source doesn't really contradict the parent comment. The top posts in the subreddit don't match the demographics in the hbr article. Looking at the top 30 posts this month and filtering for anecdotes, I see:
1. some sort of office worker that works weekends
8. something about a skilled tradesman
12. salesman at a dealership
13. a worker at some sort blue collar job (mentions "work boots" and "work pants")
19. someone working at starbucks
20. someone who works as a "Underwriter"
21. someone who has an "engineering degree" but was offered a $40k/yr job
23. someone who is being asked to wear uniforms
26. welder
29. police academy
I'm not sure about you, but from the sampling of these posts, the anecdotes seem to be mostly people working blue collar/retail/service jobs. Programmers and doctors are not present at all.
black_13
novok
stefan_
No, there really is no mandatory PTO in the US! It's real, not a dream!
throw0101a
The Odd Lots podcast had an interview with the moderator of the AntiWork sub-reddit a little while ago:
> Over a million people are members of a subreddit called r/AntiWork, whose slogan is "Unemployment for all, not just the rich." While the page and movement have been around for awhile, discontent with the state of the labor market has been growing since the pandemic. Many workers are refusing to accept the conditions and pay that were the norm prior to the virus. On this episode, we speak with Doreen Ford, who also goes by Doreen Cleyre. She is a moderator of the AntiWork subreddit as well as the founder of AbolishWork.com. Doreen explains the growth of the movement and its philosophical underpinnings.
Two decades ago we were in a deathly panic about the radicalisation of Muslims. Today, extremist tribal labels seem to define politics and faith.
Wtf is going on? Social media seems to be a common vector and facilitator but is this just the start of the human race eating it's own tail, or is this being done to us?
Given the scenes a year ago, finding out what's happening feels important. Combatting it without also limiting social reach also seems impossible.
hogrider
Is it really ao hard so believe non skilled jobs have it this hard? Retail sucks, most service jobs suck and exploit workers. They found class consciousness through anger.
ikr678
Reading antiwork last year, I feel it should have been called antimanagement.
Regardless of class of work (white vs blue collar), a bad manager is going to destroy any job satisfaction that might have been derived. Contemporary workforce management is a skillset that doesnt get taught in school, and in all of these low skilled jobs that are posted to /antiwork, people are being managed by probably equally low skilled managers.
Throughout my career, every job I have left is largely because I didnt like how I was being managed. That has always been the impetus to go out and apply for a new role.
The best manager I've ever had was in warehousing temp job, and I'd go back to him in a heartbeat if I wanted a break from corporate drudgery.
oceanghost
I have news for you. Your manager is just implementing his managers agenda, and so forth-- which almost always goes straight back to a VP or C level guy.
Managers generally have very little latitude-- they're given X many resources to do a task in Y amount of time, and that has been chosen for them.
I am not defending bad managers-- but, they are there precisely to deliver to you the bad work environment that the CEO would rather not have blamed on him.
imtringued
The CEO isn't to blame either. He has to make his investors happy. This is because there are investment opportunities based on rent seeking that have an artificially high return on investment. The CEO must beat those unsustainable returns.
Apocryphon
Agent:
I can't help that. All I know is, I got my orders. They told me to tell you to get off, and that's what I'm tellin' ya.
Muley:
You mean get off of my own land?
Agent:
Now don't go to blamin' me! It ain't my fault.
Muley's son:
Who's fault is it?
Agent:
You know who owns the land. The Shawnee Land and Cattle Company.
Muley:
And who's the Shawnee Land and Cattle Company?
Agent:
It ain't nobody. It's a company.
Muley's son:
They got a President, ain't they? They got somebody who knows what a shotgun's for, ain't they?
Agent:
Oh son, it ain't his fault, because the bank tells him what to do.
Muley's son:
All right, where's the bank?
Agent:
Tulsa. What's the use of pickin' on him? He ain't nothin' but the manager. And he's half-crazy hisself tryin' to keep up with his orders from the East.
Muley:
Then who do we shoot?
Agent:
Brother, I don't know. If I did, I'd tell ya. I just don't know who's to blame.
I am aware of that, but my definition of a good manager is someone who was forward looking and focused on clearing roadblocks to allow the team to function properly, and can get the team aligned with the business needs.
If I am being asked to go above and beyond in a role, but the same is not being asked of my coworkers, or I see HR policy against staff being enforced selectively, this is the classic 'bad management' that immediately gets me offside and I am no longer as interested in work.
fivea
> Is it really ao hard so believe non skilled jobs have it this hard?
What makes this gaslighting attempts so mind-numbingly pathetic is the fact that even some FANGs, which are supposedly references in terms of high-quality, highly-paid work, are renowned for their poor working conditions and hiring processes. And they have been known for that for around a decade, now.
If this is an expected occurrence in high-quality work in fields where the job market is firmly on the worker's side, why are these guys trying to fool everyone into believing that abusive workplaces are completely unheard of in other less fortunate sectors?
edmcnulty101
Hell most skilled jobs suck. There's probably very few jobs that actually are good for the worker.
noahtallen
And this is the exact point of the whole subreddit and movement :)
Most of us in the tech world have the benefit of huge salaries, amazing benefits, and a lot of control over our working conditions. And yet many, if not most, of us still experience a significant amount of work-related stress.
Why should anyone accept this as the status quo?
black_13
alanlammiman
I wonder what would happen if private sector wage-based jobs were forbidden. If essentially your only option as an entrepreneur/company were to pay in equity/profit-sharing. The labor equivalent of, on the capital front, religions that forbid lending with interest but allow equity investing. I wonder if the complexity/transaction costs/uncertainty/governance problems would kill the economy or if it would be possible to somehow eventually get to an economy where everybody eventually thinks like a business owner. Here in Brazil, the labor laws are tricky and payroll taxes are high, so many people now work as contractors setting up small companies. That means they need to do a few things like get an accountant, a separate bank account for the business, pay business income tax (rather than have taxes deducted from their pay), but more often than not end up working full time for 1 client much like employees. I have been struck (anecdotally) how these hybrid employees/business owners seem to develop a more entrepreneurial mindset that can ultimately lead to more success. Maybe jobs do need a rethink.
imtringued
That would solve absolutely nothing.
Btw religions forbid interest for very good reasons.
blockwriter
How would you compensate work if their equity position needs to be maintained in perpetuity but the value of their work remains the same? If I worked retail at Nordstroms in 2006, I would have needed to earn pennies a week to balance out the next 60 to 70 years of equity I have in the company.
tjs8rj
That sub has changed so much in the last year. Used to be more light-hearted, rallying around crappy bosses and laughing at the gall of an employer.
Now it’s been taken over by more radical takes, going from “screw my boss”, “we should get more vacation time” to straightforward Marxist talking points and desires to abolish work. There’s a place for those discussions and they’re interesting to have, but it’s ruined the sub
aahortwwy
That subreddit has had links to extensive anarchist/communist reading lists in its sidebar since it was founded. Perhaps it went through a lighthearted period, but its roots are radical and the links, related subs, and moderator list from its earlier days make that abundantly clear.
I'm sure there are many on that subreddit who are far from anarchist or communist, and just find that the message resonates: that working life in the US has become a monster.
aahortwwy
I'm sure there are. I was responding primarily to the last sentence of 'tjs8rj's post. Given the circumstances surrounding the creation and early growth of the subreddit it's rich to say that Marxist discourse has ruined it...
imtringued
The thing that marxists do not understand is that the company is being opressed as well.
gruez
>to straightforward Marxist talking points and desires to abolish work.
looks like it was always like that. Looking at the sidebar:
>Links
>Bob Black - The Abolition of Work
>Abolish Work - An Exposition of Philosophical Ergophobia
>Related Subreddits
>r/marxism_101
diob
I can't really blame them, I think after a while folks realized they all had the same experiences. Long hours, promised promotions, and eventually they have all cracked a bit.
The generation after millenials has seen how the millenial hard work essentially ruined their health (some of us got out lucky, like myself), with 0 reward besides deference to some boomers. So I think we're going to see quite a revolution in our lifetime, the new generation doesn't feel like fealty and recognizes that capitalism is really just crony capitalism. The explosion of information on the internet makes it easy to see how corruption and nepotism is 90% of everything, with 10% getting lucky + hardworking.
Who knows what will happen, I just hope we end up with healthier lives for all.
imtringued
Capitalism and crony capitalism has always been the same thing.
I would argue that capitalism is just modernized/liberal feudalism. Money and land and other legal monopoloes are still driving forces of power and they are being abused in the same way.
Honestly, let them all be damned. In capitalism everyone wants to become the rentier, including me. What's my motivation? I want to protect myself from all the other rentiers.
1shooner
> the millenial hard work essentially ruined their health
Is this referring to a specific trend or statistic?
Is more vacation time really radical? Don’t US workers have much less than other Western countries?
martythemaniak
He is saying it went from "we should have more vacation" to "we should send mangers to gulags"
fivea
> He is saying it went from "we should have more vacation" to "we should send mangers to gulags"
I've been following /r/antiwork for a while and I never stumbled upon anything remotely similar to the story you've made up. Practically all comments are in the line of "good for you for quitting", "you should have done it sooner", "why even put a two weeks notice?", "You should talk to a lawyer to not get screwed over". But feel free to link to posts that support your personal assertion.
imapeopleperson
Search ‘revolution’
scollet
That's extreme hyperbole.
birtoise
jsiaajdsdaa
I for one am looking forward to our robot overlords making me pizza and printing my photos.
My current success rate with the above two things on this day within a 30 mile radius is 0%
mikewarot
I think that this is a great way to cover up the problem with the wave of people disabled by Long Covid falling out of the work force. Blame it instead on a vocal group of slackers.
It's going to work, everyone will blame them, and Covid keeps getting ignored.
sidcool
Antiwork started as a positive place to support employees that were ill treated. Now it has become a bit more than that, and has taken political form.
BoboDupla
Some posts in that subreddit are genuine and I support them, but some others and mainly the comments, man, that is basically an edgy teen's communist era playground. One of the mods even said, that the subreddit is for socialists and communists and everybody else is just conservative.
truculent
Whether or not you agree with the politics in question, it hardly seems surprising that a forum about bad working experiences and exploitation would respond positively to ideologies which profess to explain that abuse (in a way that doesn’t place blame on the individual).
gota
Another way to look at it - under what system are they (claiming to be) suffering?
Naturally they'd align with a competitor system, most likely the most prominent one
Tbh, though, from my brief reading of the subreddit in question, I don't think it is particularly politically charged or cohesive. Sounds more like a lot of people with aligned complaints gathering to, well, complain
Curious to see whether this will extrapolate from the US to other places, too
aahortwwy
> One of the mods even said, that the subreddit is for socialists and communists and everybody else is just conservative.
While the growth of the subreddit has somewhat polluted the term on the Internet, "antiwork" referred for years before the subreddit to a particular line of socialist thought that often rejects labor outright.
Texts like The Right to be Lazy (1883), Labor and Monopoly Capital (1974), and Willing Slaves of Capital (2014) are all decidedly Marxist and indicate that this line of thinking has a pretty long lineage in socialist circles.
Wasn’t there a similar thing in the 60s?
My best guess is: It won’t last.
tinus_hn
Or, millions pretend to quit their jobs for karma points.
phoronixrly
I've come accross many posts from this subreddit that hit the front page. Let's just say I hope reddit is keeping an eye on foreign and domestic troll farms as many of the most popular posts seem suspiciously like fiction to me...
dang
Please don't post this sort of evidence-free insinuation to HN. They're against the site guidelines, and have been for years, because they almost never amount to anything, but do have a poisonous effect on the ecosystem as users rile each other up about them.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
Not everyone knows that most posts on Reddit are fiction; it's good to point this out on stories about reddit.
dang
That's quite beside the point.
badrabbit
You are not exactly the first person to say this on this thread. How do I know you yourself are not part of a discredition campaign? Can you substantiate your speculation by pointing out inauthentic popular posts or accounts at least?
abduhl
You're not the first person to question people questioning whether the antiwork echo chamber is being manipulated by state actors. How do I know you aren't part of the counter counter espionage? Can you substantiate your speculation by pointing out inauthentic posts or accounts?
What a stupid post. If your first reaction to someone questioning a broad social movement in 2022 as a conspiracy theory is to go directly into a deeper conspiracy theory then it's pretty likely you've already made up your mind about the underlying topic and aren't approaching the discussion in good faith anymore.
Edit: this is especially true after watching 4 years of the federal government waging an internal war between two factions about how much "influence" a foreign power had over our social media and elections.
fivea
> What a stupid post. If your first reaction to someone questioning a broad social movement in 2022 as a conspiracy theory (...)
From where I'm standing, the stupidity that stands out is how some people are desperately trying to gaslight themselves and everyone around them by trying to depict people chatting about workplace abuse as being something outlandish and utterly inconceivable.
I happen to stumble upon posts from /r/antiwork and I have to say that personally I had the misfortune of experiencing far worse than what's reported there on any random day, and in western European countries where workers rights actually exist and are enforced.
sombremesa
> What a stupid post.
I don't think someone who puts this in their bio is qualified to make that comment:
> One of my favorite low key social engineering hacks is that I used to have a keylogger installed on every machine I own. Whenever a friend needs to hop on my machine to show me something, they'd log into an account they own and I would have their password.
You're lucky that not many people will tell you exactly what they think of that, thanks to HN guidelines.
abduhl
My bio is a quote of a post by shalmanese specifically put there so that other people can see how ridiculous the comment was. The original post is at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14921120. Thanks for making sure everyone else in this thread reads it as well. Here it is in full. You'll find my reply at the given link telling him "exactly what [I] think of that" in the thread as well as many other people (regardless of the HN guideliness), in case you didn't find it already with your deep dive of my profile.
shalmanese 1 hour ago | undown | parent | flag | favorite | on: Operation Luigi: How I hacked my friend without he...
One of my favorite low key social engineering hacks is that I used to have a keylogger installed on every machine I own. Whenever a friend needs to hop on my machine to show me something, they'd log into an account they own and I would have their password.
Then I'd do the same Luigi-like low key messing with them for a while. My favorite was when a friend had a VNC server running on their machine with control capabilities. I would sit next to them and subtly jerk the mouse pointer right before they were about to click on something and it drove them mad for a good 20 minutes before I couldn't hold onto the giggles anymore.
edit: To add a bit of context, this was in the Windows 98 era, before the age of social media where we started putting all of our secrets onto our machines. And it was among a group of friends where everyone was trying to hack everyone else and pretty much anything was considered fair game. All of us were high school kids so there wasn't some super serious reputation we had to protect.
phoronixrly
Lol yeah, I've been hired by low level US businesses to discredit antiwork on... HN of all places :)
Sorry, just excercising a safe amount of scepticism with regards to social media.
badrabbit
Being a sceptic is fine but when you pose it to others you need to substantiate
pydry
Most of the more "out there" posts line up with /r/legaladvice, which is my bellwether for the kind of shit that goes down in the low-end American workplace (spoiler : goddamn awful,).
likpok
Legaladvice is also a place people love to put creative writing, so I’m not sure how much you can take from that.
acheron
All personal stories on Reddit should be assumed to be lies. I can’t believe there are people out there taking anything on it seriously.
scotty79
Wow, so many literary creative individuals doing unpaid work for fun is way more plausible explanation than random people being just fed up with their lives and wanting to vent.
jimmygrapes
I'm not a writer and I make up shit all the time on anonymous and semi anonymous comment threads. It depends on my mood and the atmosphere of the thread. I avoid it here because I have some sense that this is an "adult" place to be where common sense opsec is reasonable but I don't have to invent anything to fit in or comment. On reddit or other such things though, hell yeah I'll drink a pitcher of Miller Lite while watching a football game and shitpost the devil's advocate or contrarian position under a pseudonym with no attribution. I justify it by calling it social research.
effingwewt
You would be surprised. I've seen several stories get called out and the authors then say, invariably- 'Oh yea forgot to mention I'm a writer, maybe that's why blah blah'.
I don't know if they try and add these things to their portfolio, but it definitely makes a perverse sense, ie 'look my writing even fooled X people on reddit!'
Honestly I believe nothing anymore without some digging, and really it's something that's gotten worse as every year I feel like we are living in a world of lies- politics, ads, fucking everything.
Now, I do honestly believe there are many people that are legitimately unhappy and venting in that sub- I know more than a few people in real life living out some of those stories.
Just...use critical thinking skills. And try not to let it kill you inside. I am become jaded and cynical, but because I'm a realist.
quickthrowman
I assume every story on Reddit is fiction, r/legaladvice and r/relationship_advice posts are as likely to be real in my estimation as r/nosleep (creepypasta) stories.
throwntoday
I'm still convinced reddit's userbase is heavily composed of GPT-3 bots. There was a poster here that identified a large amount of accounts as bots by sending them a DM with a link and seeing how fast they opened it.
Reddit opinions/posts tend to be predictable enough and most users don't notice the repetitive comments, or just don't care.
gruez
>There was a poster here that identified a large amount of accounts as bots by sending them a DM with a link and seeing how fast they opened it.
source?
Proven
aaron695
xqcgrek2
inetknght
> some kind of effective geo-lock
With the sorry state of security that is consumer electronics...
you're nuts.
You'd have to completely rework the entire legal liability system with regards to electronic devices and also put real teeth on enforcement. Otherwise... you just have bots/vpns/tunnels/etc on the devices within the geolock.
dang
Please omit personal swipes and name-calling from your comments here. They're against the site guidelines: .https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Your comment would be fine without the "nuts" bit.
On the plus side, thanks for using italics instead of allcaps :)
FrostKiwi
Whilst I don't disagree on the point of r/antiwork being an echo chamber...
..."effective geo-lock" - Yeah good luck with that.
If there is truly such a thing like a troll campaign, no form of geo lock will ever stop them, but most certainly you will stop legitimate users instead.
C19is20
Vpn's?
uejfiweun
dang
Please keep this sort of insinuation off HN. It's against the site guidelines, because our consistent experience has been that these perceptions almost never hold up under investigation. They're almost all pure imagination.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
> I find it funny how so many HNers suddenly jump out of the wood work to respond to allegations that these subreddits are supported by foreign troll farms.
+1
I mean, the /r/antiwork subreddit features mostly posts reporting how people quit their jobs following a history of workplace abuse, or red flags during hiring processes.
Moreover, the subreddit isn't even exclusive to reports from the US.
Are we now supposed to believe that there is no such thing as a bad interview or poor working conditions anywhere we look?
Why are these accounts so hell bent on gaslighting everyone into thinking that there is no such thing as an abusive boss, and quiting a bad job or rejecting a job offer is unheard of?
gruez
>Almost like these troll farms know about HN as well...
I checked every reply to koheripbal's comment, and everybody there looks like they have a consistent comment history prior to this thread. I suppose russian troll farms could also be keeping accounts "warm" to prevent this sort of suspicion, but that starts to get into "unfalsifiable claim" territory.
koheripbal
dang
Please don't post this sort of evidence-free insinuation to HN. They're against the site guidelines, and have been for years, because they almost never amount to anything, but do have a poisonous effect on the ecosystem as users get each other riled up about them.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
> Frankly, I would not be surprised if millions of Russian bot accounts are behind this sub.
Probably not. I'm not familiar with this subbreddit, but based on the headline, there is a similar movement in China (that IIRC is now being suppressed by the authorities): https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/world/asia/china-slackers.... I highly doubt Russian bots have any influence in China at all.
My bet it all this is just people coming to the realization that the capitalist rat race is actually a stupid game for most workers to play.
fivea
> Frankly, I would not be surprised if millions of Russian bot accounts are behind this sub.
Do you honestly believe that it's impossible to find a few thousand persons from the US who have bad experiences with recruiting and/or bosses, or experience any sort of abuse at the workplace?
I mean, given how widespread is at-will employment in the US, and how that ensures employers have all the leverage they can possibly have on an employee, specially in high-unemployment regions, isn't abuse a natural occurrence?
More importantly, a hefty share of posts in /r/antiwork are about workers quitting abusive jobs or reporting bad interview experiences. Who in their right mind denies this sort of stuff ever happens?
badrabbit
You can say that about any popular sub, what would their motivation be? And is anything inauthentic about popular posts in that sub?
rumblerock
In theory, probably something like: (1) recruitment and growth of the sub either organically or inorganically (2) selective upvoting of particular perspectives if not direct posts (3) propagation and cross pollination of content across platforms e.g. Twitter + Reddit, etc.
But there's really no way to know, and the natural trend towards extreme opinions is inherent as is. The game would be to push perspectives towards more extreme views over a longer period of time.
version_five
> You can say that about any popular sub, what would their motivation be?
Social media has pretty much destroyed the fabric of western society, so theres that. I don't know that we need state actors to get involved in order for that to happen, it seems to work on it's own, but I can imagine if some actor was looking to create more tension and unrest, targeting and subtlety trolling large discussions would be pretty effective.
hotpotamus
> it seems to work on it's own
I think some FB employees might have an issue with that.
manquer
You mean they deserve credit ?
hotpotamus
It doesn’t run itself.
gruez
>You can say that about any popular sub
Not really. There aren't too many opportunities to insert propaganda into cat pictures.
>what would their motivation be
1. russian/chinese troll farms trying to sow discord
2. account farmers trying to rack up comment karm
Mizza
Capital powers said the same thing about the Soviet Union during early days of the American labor movement. American workers are getting fucked over, it's an abomination and a disgrace, and people are rightly angry about it.
dempseye
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
I wouldn’t be surprised though, if there’s a lot of karma farming, some of it even automated.
I think that unless you are working minimum wage you don't get to call the sub "nihilistic, apathetic or zoomer adhd" if anything most of the members were essential workers during covid and struggle to afford basic living otherwise they would not be angry.
I am very surprised by the comments in the thread to be honest, if you work in tech, your job is pretty much useless the code you write doesn't "advance humanity" I mean let's not kid ourselves tech jobs are pretty overblown in importance compared to essential workers.
Really hope we do some thinking before taking this hostile stance, if anything we should stand by workers who suffer from shitty working conditions.
EDIT:I worked minimum wage, no wage no health care.. I worked really different shitty jobs in risky setting and there was always an implicit solidarity in the workers group, when I moved to tech (very later on) I was surprised by the toxicity and grandeur some people show as if building to-do apps is all that's left from moving to the next level of civilization, some humility and acceptance would be good along the way especially since we're lucky to have the opportunity to work remotely, great salaries and benefits and the ability to spend time doing something we like.
Yes, something like this actually deserves to be removed, especially when it reaches critical mass. Because it does more harm than good to the extent that yeah american youth are just going to get dominated on a global field if most of our zoomer ADHD youth equate having a boss to slavery.
And it doesn't matter at all how few people may or may not participate in this particular subreddit. This is the third time I've seen a post about the subreddit in mainstream news. It's popular and the sentiments are only going to grow with more time and more encouragement, to our detriment.
- Would it be that most people could choose not to work? (I.e under some kind of UBI program?) I’d like to not have to work ;)
- Would it be that the benefits and pay for many jobs would be vastly improved? That also sounds pretty nice.
- Maybe it’d be that companies have to compete harder to be actually nice places to work. Also a good thing.
What exactly would be to our detriment? Something about lack of work ethic? But why does that really matter? Is it so that we can maintain technical prowess? But why is that important?
What if we were happier and less stressed instead? We’re really failing hard in America to consider our economic systems from the perspective of human flourishing and quality of life.
So, I find your comment very strange. What are you so scared of with the movement for better working conditions such that you want it to be outright banned from the internet?
It means you are exploiting those who grow the food you eat and produce the services you consume for nothing material in return.
From the remaining workers point of view, since there is nothing material available, it would be better not to produce the surplus consumed by those choosing not to work and have Friday off instead.
Stuff doesn't make itself. Most of us work in solidarity with the farmers and the service workers that make our comfortable lives possible.
People wanting to "abolish work" may rather leech on society, it is a consequence of social media brainwashing: gambling, crypto, FIRE, 4hww, etc. These concepts have wide scale, harmful implications for the future of humanity
I have no idea about the other subreddit you mentioned, but it does sound superficially like a spot racists would meet up. But it's been banned so I'm just judging it by its title.
The sidebar literally advocates for abolition of work.
There is an argument that a subreddit could be out of line with the site, and not hosted. Granted it would be a bit of a stretch given the kind of content on reddit. I don't think r/antiwork crosses any line, but it's really up to reddit
The problematic behaviour is advocating for a ban on the discussing these ideas.
… so all in a days work for reddit?
They won't ban antiwork because it encourages giving up, consooming, laziness, weakness. Exactly the kind of NPC audience reddit milks money off of. Ad revenue, reddit gold, buying emojis, constant scrooolllling, etc.
You are just naive, there will always be authoritarianism, forever. You're just on the receiving end or the administrating end.
I don't think it's a minority though.
>What about this https://hbr.org/2021/09/who-is-driving-the-great-resignation ?
>1. Resignation rates are highest among mid-career employees.
>2. Resignations are highest in the tech and health care industries.
Your source doesn't really contradict the parent comment. The top posts in the subreddit don't match the demographics in the hbr article. Looking at the top 30 posts this month and filtering for anecdotes, I see:
1. some sort of office worker that works weekends
8. something about a skilled tradesman
12. salesman at a dealership
13. a worker at some sort blue collar job (mentions "work boots" and "work pants")
19. someone working at starbucks
20. someone who works as a "Underwriter"
21. someone who has an "engineering degree" but was offered a $40k/yr job
23. someone who is being asked to wear uniforms
26. welder
29. police academy
I'm not sure about you, but from the sampling of these posts, the anecdotes seem to be mostly people working blue collar/retail/service jobs. Programmers and doctors are not present at all.
> Over a million people are members of a subreddit called r/AntiWork, whose slogan is "Unemployment for all, not just the rich." While the page and movement have been around for awhile, discontent with the state of the labor market has been growing since the pandemic. Many workers are refusing to accept the conditions and pay that were the norm prior to the virus. On this episode, we speak with Doreen Ford, who also goes by Doreen Cleyre. She is a moderator of the AntiWork subreddit as well as the founder of AbolishWork.com. Doreen explains the growth of the movement and its philosophical underpinnings.
* https://player.fm/series/series-1504378/this-is-the-booming-...
* https://open.spotify.com/episode/2YK3j1IsQAxj0JXHIplX6h
* https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-is-the-booming-mo...
Wtf is going on? Social media seems to be a common vector and facilitator but is this just the start of the human race eating it's own tail, or is this being done to us?
Given the scenes a year ago, finding out what's happening feels important. Combatting it without also limiting social reach also seems impossible.
Regardless of class of work (white vs blue collar), a bad manager is going to destroy any job satisfaction that might have been derived. Contemporary workforce management is a skillset that doesnt get taught in school, and in all of these low skilled jobs that are posted to /antiwork, people are being managed by probably equally low skilled managers.
Throughout my career, every job I have left is largely because I didnt like how I was being managed. That has always been the impetus to go out and apply for a new role.
The best manager I've ever had was in warehousing temp job, and I'd go back to him in a heartbeat if I wanted a break from corporate drudgery.
Managers generally have very little latitude-- they're given X many resources to do a task in Y amount of time, and that has been chosen for them.
I am not defending bad managers-- but, they are there precisely to deliver to you the bad work environment that the CEO would rather not have blamed on him.
Muley: You mean get off of my own land?
Agent: Now don't go to blamin' me! It ain't my fault.
Muley's son: Who's fault is it?
Agent: You know who owns the land. The Shawnee Land and Cattle Company.
Muley: And who's the Shawnee Land and Cattle Company?
Agent: It ain't nobody. It's a company.
Muley's son: They got a President, ain't they? They got somebody who knows what a shotgun's for, ain't they?
Agent: Oh son, it ain't his fault, because the bank tells him what to do.
Muley's son: All right, where's the bank?
Agent: Tulsa. What's the use of pickin' on him? He ain't nothin' but the manager. And he's half-crazy hisself tryin' to keep up with his orders from the East.
Muley: Then who do we shoot?
Agent: Brother, I don't know. If I did, I'd tell ya. I just don't know who's to blame.
https://youtu.be/xkUGd1TQuD8
If I am being asked to go above and beyond in a role, but the same is not being asked of my coworkers, or I see HR policy against staff being enforced selectively, this is the classic 'bad management' that immediately gets me offside and I am no longer as interested in work.
What makes this gaslighting attempts so mind-numbingly pathetic is the fact that even some FANGs, which are supposedly references in terms of high-quality, highly-paid work, are renowned for their poor working conditions and hiring processes. And they have been known for that for around a decade, now.
If this is an expected occurrence in high-quality work in fields where the job market is firmly on the worker's side, why are these guys trying to fool everyone into believing that abusive workplaces are completely unheard of in other less fortunate sectors?
Most of us in the tech world have the benefit of huge salaries, amazing benefits, and a lot of control over our working conditions. And yet many, if not most, of us still experience a significant amount of work-related stress.
Why should anyone accept this as the status quo?
Btw religions forbid interest for very good reasons.
Now it’s been taken over by more radical takes, going from “screw my boss”, “we should get more vacation time” to straightforward Marxist talking points and desires to abolish work. There’s a place for those discussions and they’re interesting to have, but it’s ruined the sub
https://web.archive.org/web/20190430233904/https://old.reddi...
Seriously? snapshot from jul 2019: https://web.archive.org/web/20190703081543/https://old.reddi...
looks like it was always like that. Looking at the sidebar:
>Links
>Bob Black - The Abolition of Work
>Abolish Work - An Exposition of Philosophical Ergophobia
>Related Subreddits
>r/marxism_101
The generation after millenials has seen how the millenial hard work essentially ruined their health (some of us got out lucky, like myself), with 0 reward besides deference to some boomers. So I think we're going to see quite a revolution in our lifetime, the new generation doesn't feel like fealty and recognizes that capitalism is really just crony capitalism. The explosion of information on the internet makes it easy to see how corruption and nepotism is 90% of everything, with 10% getting lucky + hardworking.
Who knows what will happen, I just hope we end up with healthier lives for all.
I would argue that capitalism is just modernized/liberal feudalism. Money and land and other legal monopoloes are still driving forces of power and they are being abused in the same way.
Honestly, let them all be damned. In capitalism everyone wants to become the rentier, including me. What's my motivation? I want to protect myself from all the other rentiers.
Is this referring to a specific trend or statistic?
https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/February-2019/Millennia...
https://www.starlingminds.com/how-to-address-the-millennial-...
https://lifelime.thehartford.com/healthy-lifestyle/mental-he...
I've been following /r/antiwork for a while and I never stumbled upon anything remotely similar to the story you've made up. Practically all comments are in the line of "good for you for quitting", "you should have done it sooner", "why even put a two weeks notice?", "You should talk to a lawyer to not get screwed over". But feel free to link to posts that support your personal assertion.
My current success rate with the above two things on this day within a 30 mile radius is 0%
It's going to work, everyone will blame them, and Covid keeps getting ignored.
Naturally they'd align with a competitor system, most likely the most prominent one
Tbh, though, from my brief reading of the subreddit in question, I don't think it is particularly politically charged or cohesive. Sounds more like a lot of people with aligned complaints gathering to, well, complain
Curious to see whether this will extrapolate from the US to other places, too
While the growth of the subreddit has somewhat polluted the term on the Internet, "antiwork" referred for years before the subreddit to a particular line of socialist thought that often rejects labor outright.
Texts like The Right to be Lazy (1883), Labor and Monopoly Capital (1974), and Willing Slaves of Capital (2014) are all decidedly Marxist and indicate that this line of thinking has a pretty long lineage in socialist circles.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29867733.
What a stupid post. If your first reaction to someone questioning a broad social movement in 2022 as a conspiracy theory is to go directly into a deeper conspiracy theory then it's pretty likely you've already made up your mind about the underlying topic and aren't approaching the discussion in good faith anymore.
Edit: this is especially true after watching 4 years of the federal government waging an internal war between two factions about how much "influence" a foreign power had over our social media and elections.
From where I'm standing, the stupidity that stands out is how some people are desperately trying to gaslight themselves and everyone around them by trying to depict people chatting about workplace abuse as being something outlandish and utterly inconceivable.
I happen to stumble upon posts from /r/antiwork and I have to say that personally I had the misfortune of experiencing far worse than what's reported there on any random day, and in western European countries where workers rights actually exist and are enforced.
I don't think someone who puts this in their bio is qualified to make that comment:
> One of my favorite low key social engineering hacks is that I used to have a keylogger installed on every machine I own. Whenever a friend needs to hop on my machine to show me something, they'd log into an account they own and I would have their password.
You're lucky that not many people will tell you exactly what they think of that, thanks to HN guidelines.
shalmanese 1 hour ago | undown | parent | flag | favorite | on: Operation Luigi: How I hacked my friend without he...
One of my favorite low key social engineering hacks is that I used to have a keylogger installed on every machine I own. Whenever a friend needs to hop on my machine to show me something, they'd log into an account they own and I would have their password.
Then I'd do the same Luigi-like low key messing with them for a while. My favorite was when a friend had a VNC server running on their machine with control capabilities. I would sit next to them and subtly jerk the mouse pointer right before they were about to click on something and it drove them mad for a good 20 minutes before I couldn't hold onto the giggles anymore.
edit: To add a bit of context, this was in the Windows 98 era, before the age of social media where we started putting all of our secrets onto our machines. And it was among a group of friends where everyone was trying to hack everyone else and pretty much anything was considered fair game. All of us were high school kids so there wasn't some super serious reputation we had to protect.
Sorry, just excercising a safe amount of scepticism with regards to social media.
I don't know if they try and add these things to their portfolio, but it definitely makes a perverse sense, ie 'look my writing even fooled X people on reddit!'
Honestly I believe nothing anymore without some digging, and really it's something that's gotten worse as every year I feel like we are living in a world of lies- politics, ads, fucking everything.
Now, I do honestly believe there are many people that are legitimately unhappy and venting in that sub- I know more than a few people in real life living out some of those stories.
Just...use critical thinking skills. And try not to let it kill you inside. I am become jaded and cynical, but because I'm a realist.
Reddit opinions/posts tend to be predictable enough and most users don't notice the repetitive comments, or just don't care.
source?
With the sorry state of security that is consumer electronics...
you're nuts.
You'd have to completely rework the entire legal liability system with regards to electronic devices and also put real teeth on enforcement. Otherwise... you just have bots/vpns/tunnels/etc on the devices within the geolock.
On the plus side, thanks for using italics instead of allcaps :)
If there is truly such a thing like a troll campaign, no form of geo lock will ever stop them, but most certainly you will stop legitimate users instead.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
+1
I mean, the /r/antiwork subreddit features mostly posts reporting how people quit their jobs following a history of workplace abuse, or red flags during hiring processes.
Moreover, the subreddit isn't even exclusive to reports from the US.
Are we now supposed to believe that there is no such thing as a bad interview or poor working conditions anywhere we look?
Why are these accounts so hell bent on gaslighting everyone into thinking that there is no such thing as an abusive boss, and quiting a bad job or rejecting a job offer is unheard of?
I checked every reply to koheripbal's comment, and everybody there looks like they have a consistent comment history prior to this thread. I suppose russian troll farms could also be keeping accounts "warm" to prevent this sort of suspicion, but that starts to get into "unfalsifiable claim" territory.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29867733.
Probably not. I'm not familiar with this subbreddit, but based on the headline, there is a similar movement in China (that IIRC is now being suppressed by the authorities): https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/03/world/asia/china-slackers.... I highly doubt Russian bots have any influence in China at all.
My bet it all this is just people coming to the realization that the capitalist rat race is actually a stupid game for most workers to play.
Do you honestly believe that it's impossible to find a few thousand persons from the US who have bad experiences with recruiting and/or bosses, or experience any sort of abuse at the workplace?
I mean, given how widespread is at-will employment in the US, and how that ensures employers have all the leverage they can possibly have on an employee, specially in high-unemployment regions, isn't abuse a natural occurrence?
More importantly, a hefty share of posts in /r/antiwork are about workers quitting abusive jobs or reporting bad interview experiences. Who in their right mind denies this sort of stuff ever happens?
But there's really no way to know, and the natural trend towards extreme opinions is inherent as is. The game would be to push perspectives towards more extreme views over a longer period of time.
Social media has pretty much destroyed the fabric of western society, so theres that. I don't know that we need state actors to get involved in order for that to happen, it seems to work on it's own, but I can imagine if some actor was looking to create more tension and unrest, targeting and subtlety trolling large discussions would be pretty effective.
I think some FB employees might have an issue with that.
Not really. There aren't too many opportunities to insert propaganda into cat pictures.
>what would their motivation be
1. russian/chinese troll farms trying to sow discord
2. account farmers trying to rack up comment karm