Heinlein Didn't Predict It - Social Media and Libertarianism

 

Heinlein predicted a lot of things that didn't quite come true.  But that doesn't mean he didn't have any insights.

I was at a campground this weekend, and they had a book exchange.  I found an old Heinlein paperback - a reprint from 1999 that included a few novellas, such as "If This Goes On...", "Coventry", and "Methuselah's Children".  It was interesting to re-read these old stories that I hadn't read since high school, or at least maybe 20-30 years ago.  He is a good storyteller and keeps the action moving along.  Bored, you are not.

But a lot of his "Future History" didn't quite pan out as he predicted.  For example, his idea of "Road Cities" - where long conveyor-belt roads would connect major metropolitan areas, and themselves becomes cities, never happened.  But what did happen was major metropolitan "corridors" connected by freeways and Interstates.  The Boston/New York/Washingtonian corridor is the most famous, but there are others.  I noted before how the coast of Florida, from Homestead to Jupiter is one big continuous city, not several towns and cities separated by orange groves.  It all grew together.  The greater LA and San Diego area is the same way - one mega-city ("SoCal") that extends far beyond the boundaries of the original cities, all connected by the ubiquitous freeways.

So Heinlein got the details wrong, but the underlying concept right.  But then again, "The Roads Must Roll!" wasn't so much about futuristic cities as it was about the labor movement and the idea of the "indispensable man" in society - and how Heinlein felt there was no such person.  I have to agree with him on that point.

Similarly, his predicted "Crazy Years" might be what is going on right now - although it is always easy to fit the data to the theory rather than vice-versa.  Heinlein himself later revised his timeline (a Heinlein timeline?) to fit his "Crazy Years" to the 1960's.   I think he got that wrong.  There was a lot of crazy back then - people blowing up buildings, high crime rates, cults, drugs, whatnot.  But it seems "crazy" has been taken to a new level as of late.  Maybe Charles Manson or Reverend Jim Jones were just as whack as Qanon - but it seems there are far more people in Qanon.  Poor Manson - He didn't have social media to recruit followers!

"If This Goes On..." is a novella about a bleak future where a fundamentalist religious organization, lead by a charismatic dictator known as the "Prophet Incarnate" has taken over the country.  Children are indoctrinated into the religion at an early age and pariahs are stoned to death or burnt at the stake - after submitting to the Inquisition, of course.  The USA has cut off all ties with foreign countries and citizens are told that people overseas are cannibals and heretics.  It is a frightening image of the future, and yes, some religious types here in America might see this as a paradise-on-earth.  It doesn't help that people today are making arguments that we are a "Christian Nation" and that the separation of church and State isn't really in the Constitution.

Fortunately for us, Heinlein predicts this all happening in 2100, so we have a good 80 years to prepare for this nightmare.  And in 2100, a band of rebels, lead by the Masons (!?!) overthrows the Prophet Incarnate and takes back the country from tyranny.  Hmm... sounds like the justification many are using today to try to usurp Democracy itself.

What is interesting about the story is how propaganda and social sciences are used to manipulate public opinion, both by the religious government and by the rebels.  Of course, Heinlein did not predict that social media would become a "thing" so he posits that propaganda - subtle propaganda - would be spread in newspaper articles and on the television.  For example, one of the rebels, working undercover, writes laudatory articles about the Prophet Incarnate, but "laying it on a bit too thick" - going on and on about the elaborate vestments, expensive ceremonies and gold-plated whatnot.  The idea is to get the tithing hicks who are struggling financially, to resent the Prophet for wallowing in Church Bling.  And it is an idea that works.  After all, how many televangelists have fallen from grace after it was revealed they were using the collection plate money for air-conditioned dog houses?  Joel Osteen should take note.

The story was written in 1940 at a time when propaganda was a big thing - not only in Germany, Italy, and Japan, but in America, where isolationism was rampant.  But even though it was written before the television age - and long before the PC, the smart phone, and the Internet - it is prescient:

"Do you really expect to start a revolution with picayune stuff like that?"

"It's not picayune stuff, because it acts directly on their emotions, below the logical level.  You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic.  It doesn't have to be a prejudice about an important matter, either."

Sounds like how Social Media is used today - and used against us - to sway our emotions.  And everyone is doing it - Democrats, Republicans, commercial interests, foreign interests, our friends at the Russian Internet Research Agency - just to name a few.  They put up postings, videos, tweets and whatever designed to get you outraged - and to get you to click.  They want you seeing red and not seeing reason.  We are being constantly baited today, by Qanonsense, anti-vaxxers, and anti-maskers - as well as Antifarts and people pining for the overthrow of "Capitalism" - even though Communism has already been proven not only to not work, but to slaughter tens of millions of people.  But hey, if we overthrow the government, you won't have to pay back your student loans!  Pretty dumb reason to overthrow a government, but then again, our country was founded on a dispute over a tea tax.

On the way home tonight, we saw a pickup truck parked down the street, with giant foot-high letters on the back saying, "Do Not Comply!"  I had to explain to Mark that it was an Anti-Vaxxer rally cry - these things are like dog whistles these days (hence the oh-so-clever "Let's Go Brandon!" stickers.  How about this one?  "Fuck Donald Trump!" - kind of more to the point, and the Left isn't afraid of the F-bomb).  But again, logic fades away and is replaced by emotional thinking.  People who are ordinarily logical people (or one would think) turn emotional.  By the way, what is the deal with Southwest pilots?  There have been a number of incidents lately, such as pilots refusing to be vaccinated or saying "Let's go Brandon!" over the P.A. system.  Yea, I get it - I've been to Oshkosh many a time, and pilots are a conservative bunch.  But they should know better that angels aren't holding up the wings of the airplane.  It makes one not want to fly.

Logical people behaving emotionally.  It is scary, as people who ordinarily seem to be of sound mind are being sucked into these crazy conspiracy theories - shooting up a pizza shop while looking for a nonexistent pedophile ring in a nonexistent basement. Loitering in Dealey plaza for weeks waiting for Dead Kennedys to come back to life.  Hey, maybe the band will get back together.

So yea, once again, Heinlein has the basic idea right, but the details wrong.  Social media allows anyone, anywhere on the planet, to plant these little disturbing ideas, which get people riled up.  Want to start class warfare? Just go write a nice piece about how boffo it is that some Billionaire is going up in a rocketship - and then mention casually how much it cost.  Let that simmer on the back burner for a while and before long, people are calling for blood.  Hey, never mind that the Russians have been selling seats on their ancient Soyuz capsules and letting people hotel at the ISS - for years now.  Never mind that the Federal Government send John Glenn back into space on the Space Shuttle, just so NASA could get appropriations.  That's logical thinking, and we want people to be Outraged!™

It is a lot easier to be outraged when you realize that when Elon Musk talked about colonizing Mars, he wasn't talking about the gamer incel community.  He was talking about real space-men and -women, people who are actually qualified for such work.  I think the people who once idolized Musk secretly thought he was going to take them with him to Mars.  But now it is clear that only the select few get to ride the rockets - the way it has always been and probably will always be, by the way.  But that's logical thinking.  Illogical thinking is to buy a share of Tesla stock because some guy on Reddit told you to.

Of course, Heinlein got more than details wrong in his stories.  In another story, he opines that racial prejudice will disappear in the future.  Racial prejudice exists, he posited, because the "Negro" is jealous of the advantages that white people have.  Once those advantages disappear, people will live in peace and harmony.  It is an interesting and somewhat insulting angle - that racial prejudice is the fault of the minority and not the majority.  Problem is, racial prejudice by white people is what keeps minorities from having equal access to society - and one reason why many whites are pushing back on racial equality.  When you give up a cultural advantage by allowing others to have it, it seems like you are losing something.  Perhaps Heinlein was a over-simplifying things just a little bit.

Just a bit.

The second story in this combined paperback - "Coventry" - is an interesting observation of, and denunciation of, Libertarianism.  Many Libertarians are big fans of Heinlein and his "Armed Society is a Polite Society" nonsense.  But "Coventry" sort of pushed back on that idea.  In this story, after the Prophet Incarnate is overthrown, a new government is formed - and a "Covenant" is made among the people.  If you are caught committing a crime, you can chose to either submit to psychiatric treatment (including forced medications, hypnosis, and other mind-altering techniques) or be sent to "Coventry" - a large section of land about the size of Nebraska, fenced off from the rest of the country.  In Coventry, anarchy rules - or whoever has the most power, rules.

Our protagonist, after punching someone in the nose, is given the choice of psychiatric re-alignment or Coventry.  He chooses the latter, thinking it will be a land of ultimate freedom.  What he finds out is that is it a land of dog-eat-dog and whoever has the most power, rules.  Local authorities in Coventry quickly strip him of all his possessions and then throw him in jail when he objects.  The Libertarian ideal turns into a nightmare in short order.  But then again, that seems pretty obvious on its face.  And yes, it has been tried in the past - like Communism, it didn't work at all.

What is a bit depressing about reading both stories is the idea that people - en masse - can be manipulated so easily.  The madness of crowds, so to speak, which we are seeing right now, what with the hype of obscure stocks as well as "Crypto" - a useless "currency" whose only use is for illegal activities (until governments crack down, such as they are already doing in India and China - can the US be far behind?).  It seems we are being goaded and tricked on a massive scale.  If it isn't crypto or "stonks" then people believe in Qanon or the "big lie" or whatever.  And these beliefs, if written in long-form and posted on the Internet, would be scoffed at.  But like with Qanon, they are parceled out in tidbits, loaded with emotional baggage.  People fall into the rabbit hole, one step at a time.  Hey, they did their own research, right?

Well, maybe not all is lost.  Maybe we have lost a sizable chunk of the population to this nonsense.  And maybe some of our political leaders are willing to use this sort of propaganda to advance their own ends.  Whether it is Qanon or the "antiwork" movement, a political party may not embrace any of the emotional hooks being used, but they will take their vote - and their money - if the adherents think the party is on their side.  Of course, what they don't realize is, the powers-that-be are not on their side.  Once these "useful idiots" are no longer of any use, they will be thrown under the bus, much as Hitler did with the brownshirts.

Then, we just have to hope they don't latch on to some even more extreme ideology!

Fasting? The Latest Fad Diet!

Fad diets come and go - and come again.  Fasting is the lasted gag.

If you want to make a lot of money in America, write a diet book, go on television, promote your "plan" and sell meal packages or herbal pills or whatever.  The plebes will line up along the block, money in hand, begging you to take it.  Failing that, try some idiotic exercise machine like the "abdominizer" or something.  Folks will buy that and then toss it in a closet after a few days.  Americans are idiots.

When I was younger (in my teens) I went on the "Pritikin" diet plan, which was basically lettuce.  It was a low-fat diet, and the idea was to avoid things like salad dressing, as I recall.  I did lose weight, but mostly because I ate less.  The real culprit in my diet back then was beer - at 100 calories a glass, it adds up really quickly, and all it takes is to consume 100 calories a day more than you burn.  Over a month, you add a pound of weight, over a year, ten pounds, over a decade, as much as a hundred, if you let it.  The only real diet is to eat less, consume less, and exercise more.  But that's hard and boring so it doesn't sell.

Mark and I tried the "Adkins" diet which gave me gout - eating all meat really screws up your body.  Yes, you lose weight, but you also gain it all back.  Adkins kicked the bucket and his diet plan faded from view.  But they resurrected it as the "Keto" plan (same shit, different name) and people are all ga-ga about it today.

Many religions such as Islam, preach the idea of fasting as part of a religious practice.  One day a week, or a month, or a year or whatever, you fast for a day, until sundown or something, and it helps you to appreciate God or purges your digestive tract.

What got me started on this was I had what is (hopefully) my last colonoscopy.  They don't recommend them for people over 70, and at age 61, I had my last one, as they are given at ten year intervals.  In preparation for the exam, you have to fast for a day and then take all these diuretics and shit your guts out.  Some fun!  Then they give you Michael Jackson anesthesia and 30 minutes later you wake up and wonder what the fuck happened - time is literally missing from your life.  It is as close to being black-out drunk as I'll ever be.

But it was interesting, fasting.  For one thing, I was not hungry at all.  I went to work on the camper all day, changing a tire and I never felt gnawing hunger.  Granted, I did drink a lot of water and I was allowed to drink fruit juice, so it wasn't total starvation.  But so much of our eating these days is not really because we are hungry, but because we graze or we feel compelled to eat at certain times of the day.

Others are claiming that fasting for a day or two is a way to lose weight and be healthy.  I am not so sure, though, and like anything else, it could backfire.  You go without eating for a day and then binge on bad foods the next, you really aren't solving anything.  Some of these "fasting" diets proscribe "fasting" for 16 hours and eating during the other eight.  The problem with that approach is the same as people who skip breakfast - they end up over-eating during lunch, or scarf down unhealthy sugary snacks from the vending machine at work, at mid-morning.  I am not sure merely time-shifting eating is doing anything.  Eating less is the key.

And there may be some negative effects of fasting, according to some doctors.  If you starve yourself too much, well, you may deplete yourself of vitamins needed for good health.  That short of shit could damage your heart.

But like any raw financial deal, I think the best way to evaluate these things is by how they look from 200 yards away.  It is being promoted as the latest fad?  Is someone selling a book, a seminar, or something else?  Why is this a thing now, and not in the past?  Fad diets are just that - fads.  They come and go, and usually they don't accomplish much.  Anything sold with a lot of hype and glitz and glamor is bound to be a raw deal later on.

It is harder to make better eating habits part of your daily regimen - damn hard.  It is easy to grab a snack or some tidbit and not think about the overall consequences.  Your brain releases dopamine and rewards you for what is ultimately bad behavior.  That is the hard nut to crack, which takes effort and dedication.

The easy way out sounds attractive - with regard to finances and so many other things in life.  It rarely is the right answer, though!

The Real Threat to Amazon - Direct Sales!

 

When you can buy from the manufacturer for less, why bother with Amazon?

I recently went online to buy some more Schick Xtreme disposable razors.  After forking over money for years to those Gillette bastards, I realized the best value for the dollar were these disposable razors from Schick.  Yes, the cartridges might be more environmentally friendly, but they end up costing more.

I searched online using Google and opened up a half-dozen windows from Amazon, eBay, BJ's, Sam's Club, Schick, Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, and so on.  Amazon had the 20-pack for $24.10 with free shipping.  BJ's had it for $16.99 but only at the club ($8 shipping!).  Others were more expensive - over a dollar a blade.  Once again, Amazon is the loser - easy to shop with, but the highest price.  I found a guy on eBay who sells them loose for $14, free shipping.  We'll see how that works.  I am guessing he buys them in a commercial package and then re-sells them.  Hopefully they aren't dull.

Schick had a good price, which was even better with a 20% introductory discount coupon code.  Of all the online sources, the manufacturer was the best price for packaged product.  Funny that.

But this is not the first time I have run into this.  When I bought the Bissell vacuum, the Black and Decker sawzall, the Merrill shoes, and the Wrangler jeans, the manufacturer's website was often the best price around - or very close to or equal to, other online shopping venues.  Even with "free shipping" Amazon often came in close to last or dead last, in terms of bargain prices.

Something is going on here. I think the manufacturers are realizing that they can sell directly to customers, cut out the middleman, and make a helluva lot more money than selling through Amazon or Walmart, or any wholesale club.  And in this era of shrinking margins, why not?  Traditionally, manufacturers didn't want to piss off their retailers by undercutting prices.  So if they sold directly to the public at all, it was at "manufacturer's suggested retail price" with no discounts.  There were rarely any bargains at manufacturer's sites and often the websites themselves were clunky and hard to use.  They didn't expect people to actually order from them.

But that is changing, I think, and maybe this is a good thing, maybe a bad one, depending on where you live in the retail food chain.  If you run a retail store or an online reselling business, you hate this.  As a consumer - or a manufacturer - you might love it.

Amazon, I am sure, hates it.  But I think this may be the wave of the future, as more and more 'middlemen" are cut out of the equation and more and more companies start selling direct to the consumer.  But like so much else, it is a trend that cannot be halted or reversed - although I am sure some retailers are petitioning their legislators to outlaw such things - much as car dealers have done in the past - and continue to do today.

You might as well try to fight a hurricane, though.

UPDATE:  Schick had a "gift pack" of ten razors and a can of Edge shave cream (not my favorite, I'm more of a dollar-tree Barbasol kind of guy).  The punchline?  $10.  So I ordered two - free shipping plus my 20% discount coupon.   That's less than a buck a razor if you factor in the free shave cream.

The guy on eBay delivered and while his prices were great, the handles were cheaper and lighter.  Knock-off product or an institutional bulk-packaging model?  Not sure, but they seem to work fine for well under a buck a blade.

You Are Not A Collection Of Brand Name Preferences!

No one really gives a rat's ass about your preferences in soda-pop.

It starts early in life in this country - and probably other countries as well.  As kids, we are taught early on, by the almighty television, to have certain brand preferences, and to build our personal identity around those brand preferences. Whether it is a brand of soda-pop, a favorite candy, a brand of clothing, or a type of bicycle. You don't want to be the dweeb showing up at school wearing Sears® Tuffskins® jeans, riding a Huffy® bicycle, or carrying the wrong lunchbox!  You want to be the cool kid with the Schwinn® Stingray®, the Levis® Jeans, the Peanuts® lunchbox, and of course, a new Trapper-Keeper®.

And it never ends.  As you get older, the brand of clothes you wear becomes even more important, to the point where junior high school students will have a meltdown if their parents don't buy them the right kind of jeans.  And today?  It extends to cell phones, video games, and so on and so forth.  In our era, of the 1970's, we all had brand preferences for stereo equipment - often unobtainable for most of us - but we all had ideas of what our "dream" setup would be like, and we could exchange knowledgeable facts and figures about brands and models of turntables, speakers, receivers, amplifiers, and so on and so forth.  Consumerism was not a problem for us - lack of money to spend, was.

The powers-that-be had us all wanting but never having, and as soon as you got that first job, well you could have all that cool stuff, provided you signed a few loan documents.  And many "adults" go down this route, pledging allegiance to a panoply of brands, from their favorite car, pickup truck, or SUV, to brand of lite beer or delivery pizza. Sports and other pastimes involving celebrity worship are no different - you pledge your life to a sports team or a celebrity or band - collecting all the memorabilia, going to the games or shows, and paying dearly for all of it.  You can't just be a casual observer or occasional consumer of this stuff, you have to be a rabid fan!  Hey, maybe if you are lucky, you could be one of those people crushed to death at a Who concert - or maybe  a rap festival.

People proudly display the logos of their favorite stars, brands, corporations, and products, on their clothing, hats, and even tattoo'ed to their body. Harley-Davidson is the leader in this sort of thing, leveraging their trademarks to the point where they make more money on licensed goods than they do on motorcycles.  As one wag put it, "It is a clothing store that sells motorcycles!"   He wasn't kidding, either.  At the Atlanta airport, there is a H-D clothing store.  There is on bike in the store, with a sign on it saying "do not sit on motorcycle" and "not for sale".  Yes, I bought a shirt, too.  It's actually very nice - 100% silk Hawaiian shirt with a very subtle image of a motorcycle on it.  We all get sucked into it.

(A side note:  Back in the days when Harley went nearly bankrupt and was bought out by a team of managers, a friend of mine in the Trademark business went to work for them.  She was horrified to find out that they were not collecting a single penny in royalties for use of their logos and marks!  She put an end to that quickly and the money raised funded the revitalization of the company.  Today, they pretty much license to anyone, provided they are willing to pay a royalty.  Car companies have followed suit, which is why you can buy floor mats with the "Chevy" or "Ford" logo on them from places other than the dealer.  Brands are money-makers - for companies, not you!).

What started me on this is a friend of mine - who I wrote about before - who always sends back entrees at restaurants.  They confuse being picky and annoying with being a connoisseur.  I nearly fell down laughing the other day when, at a hot dog stand, they asked for "Coke Zero."  When the lady behind the counter said all they had was diet Coke, she demurred. She was a sophisticate, with refined tastes in sody-pop!  I almost hit her.  This sort of shit was getting out of hand and it wasn't the first time it had happened.  Thank God they at least had Coke products!  If the lady had said, "All we have are Pepsi products" a ten-minute diatribe about the subtle distinctions in flavoring between Coke and Pepsi would have ensued - and I was quite done with that.

But it struck me that she was not unlike most Americans (perhaps humans) in that we tend to think our choices in consumer goods are sophisticated or better than other choices, when in fact, they are just different paths in a rat-maze that all lead to the same cheese at the end - or captured-bolt gun.  It is just a distraction to get you to think your life has some deeper meaning, when life isn't all about product choices.  It is, of course, a way to get you to spend more money by insisting on brand-name products - and to get you to avoid trying competing products at a lower price.   Pretty slick psychology!

It doesn't end with products and celebrities, either.  Many people define themselves by the shows they watch - although they would never admit to it.  "What's your favorite show?" is a conversation-starter and -ender for me, as the Off Channel isn't watched by many folks.  When people start to regale me with details from episodes of "reality" television shows, my brain just shuts down.  I nod and smile and say "how fascinating!" while my mind is thinking, whoever this person it, they're a bloody idiot.  But sometimes it is best I keep these opinions to myself, or at least to my blog.

Granted, we do get "feel good" reactions from products we like, or find to be a particular value.  I buy the same pair of blue jeans every few years, and the same exact pair of sneakers almost yearly (with the previous pair going to lawn mower duty, and the one before that, in the trash).  It is not that I am married to those brands, only that they are a known quantity, cheap, and durable.  I like the taste - and price - of Juame Serra Cristalino Cava, but I'd kick it under the bus for something better for a dollar less.  I don't have any of their logos tattooed on my ass, though. There is a point, however, where anti-consumption becomes consumption, under a different name.

But perhaps that is something different from being "brand loyal".  I am not a "Chevy Man" or a "Ford Man" - I've owned cars of almost every brand imaginable, outside of Yugo.   If I find one I like, well, I realize that is no guarantee that down the road, the same manufacturer will provide a similar experience.  I try to be brand-agnostic and am always on the lookout for something newer, better, and cheaper.  Emphasis on cheaper, too.

Others, less so - they become brand-loyal to the point where they stop shopping on price.  I know folks who only shop at certain brand-name grocery stores because "people of their caliber" shop there.  (I used to do that nonsense, too!) I go there and all I see are prices that are 50%-100% higher than other stores, particularly Walmart.  I shop a lot at Walmart, only because their prices are low - I will dump them like last week's news if someone else came along with better prices and better quality.

Consider Amazon - when they first started out, they had alarmingly low prices, and I bought a lot of stuff online there.  But then they started pushing "Prime" and a lot of friends of mine kept shopping there (emphasis on "shopping" - not buying actual things they needed) and just kept shopping at Amazon, even as prices escalated from "bargain!" to "meh!" to "outrageously overpriced!"  I still don't understand the $100 jars of mayonnaise, but maybe that's just me - I'm weird.

I try to be open-minded instead of brand loyal. I know a lot of people like my Coke Zero friend, who are "persnickety" about brands of lite beer (which our friends in Europe don't even consider to be beer).  If they are Miller "Lite" fans, they will turn down a Coors Light.  And God Forbid you should offer them a regular Budweiser or an old-style "Champagne of Bottle Beers" in a bottle!  The calories!  Sheesh!  I'll take whatever they have on tap that sounds interesting.  You can't experience new things without trying them, and even a "Lite" beer can be refreshing on a hot day.  Besides, its rude to turn down things offered to you on the premise that they are not exactly what you want.

My Coke Zero friend was this way - expecting us to stock a fridge full of Coke Zero for their visits, and going ballistic if we offered something else.  I had to wean them of this expectation - it wasn't too hard to do.  "We don't have that!" I said, and after a few visits, they stopped demanding it and asked, "What do you have?" instead.   It was a start.

Sowhatsthepointofallthis?  Beats me, only that once again, a friend has pissed me off and risked ruining a friendship, over some stupid consumerist game.  When I go out to eat, even at a hot dog stand, I don't want to be treated to a diatribe about how "they should carry Coke Zero!" and "It tastes different!" or whatever - it just ruins the meal as much as sending food back for frivolous reasons ("It wasn't what I thought it would be!").

But more importantly, mindless brand loyalty blinds us to opportunities in life.  I know I used to be on that bandwagon before I woke up one day and wondered what the fuck I was doing and where all my money went. I was shopping at the "upscale" food market buying "brand name" foods and never checking prices.  I was loyal to car brands and other product brands and actually wasted hours of my life on "discussion boards" going back and forth on the merits of our product choices - as if a machine made in a factory by other people was somehow an extension of our own psyche.  It wasn't.  It isn't. It's just a thing - an appliance for living.

I am fortunate that I had that Epiphany - others do not and never will.  Another friend mocks my KIA Soul, even as they ride in it ("say, these leather seats are really comfortable - and the legroom!") because their fancy German car is in the shop waiting for parts.  I've been down that road - it was fun, but it required a lot of money, for not a lot more value.

There is a lot of talk these days about the disappearing middle class and income inequality.  And yea, maybe those are things that should be addressed - and with a labor shortage, might very well be addressed, unless they rig another economic crash to make people feel "lucky"to have a job again.  But regardless of sweeping social changes which may or may not occur and are not directly in your own control, consumerism is on thing you can control.

I don't know how many young people I meet who complain about student loan debt and the high cost of living, but at the same time are telling me this "Send from my iPhone XXXIV!" while regaling me about how much they spent on their latest tattoo (of the Chevy logo) and what "mod" they want to make to their car.   Maybe you can't get rich by cutting costs, but it is a way to make what little you make, go further.

Brand loyalty is just plain nuts!

Antiwork - Over the Top?

There is a fine line between asserting your rights as a worker and advocating the overthrow of the government.

There is a subreddit in Reddit that is getting a lot of press lately - "r/antiwork". The sub is filled with stories from people who quit their jobs after being abused by employers.  But of course, we are hearing only one side of the story, and one should always beware of one-sided stories.  There usually is another side.

The people running the subreddit, however, have another agenda.  Not only are they promoting unionism, but Communism and the overthrow of "Capitalism" which would be an interesting trick, because, as I noted before (time and time again) capitalism isn't some construct of governments, but the default mode of operation of human beings.  Even in Communist or Socialist countries, capitalism exists and people buy and sell goods in markets - legal and illegal.  All Communism does is make markets go underground, create shortages and raise prices.  It isn't the solution to anything.

But getting back to one-sided stories, some of the tales of woe published on that site make you scratch your head.  Why would employers be so shitty to employees?  In some instances, one can believe the stories.  In others, however, the stories are a little too slanted.  And we've all worked with the "Sad Sack of Shit" who does nothing but complain, foist his responsibilities off on others, and steals from the company when he thinks no one is looking.

And yes, marijuana use is involved.  As an employer, you can spot these folks a mile away.  Their resume is filled with jobs - but none last longer than a few months, a year at most, and there are huge gaps between jobs listed.  And if you ask them, they will go on at length about how their boss was an "asshole" and the former company was "all messed up!" and so on and so forth.  And they will tell you this right up front and at length, whether you want them to or not.  They are not the brighest bulbs in the universe.  If you hire such people, you will have to fire them in a few months, as they will do no work, interrupt the work of others, and steal anything not nailed down.  And now you will be the "asshole boss" and your company the "all messed up!" place he will describe in his next job interview - if he ever gets one.

And I've seen this firsthand - people applied for jobs to work for me, and their resume was quite checkered.   It was a non-starter from the get-go.  If you have an applicant who has held 12 jobs in eight years - and was fired from all of them - perhaps, just perhaps, the problem wasn't an exceptionally long string of "bad luck."

What is really sad is that some of the postings are putting forth really bad ideas.  And of course, this being Reddit, we have to assume that 3/4 of the postings are made-up bullshit or trolls from Russia. For example, one recent posting normalizes adult children moving back in with their parents.  The son is unhappy with his job, and instead of applying elsewhere, he rage-quits and calls his parents asking to move back home with his wife and child.  And in this fantasy world, the parents say "Sure, but you can't apply for a job for at least a month, and we'll pay for therapy to help you through this tough time!"  Sounds like some sort of stoner fantasy to me.

The weird thing about the job market right now is that there is a labor shortage.  Don't expect that to last.  People will go back to work as wages rise.  Many will be forced to go back to work as inflation eats away at their savings and income.  That might include people such as myself.  Economies tend to seek equilibrium this way, and again, this isn't some artificial construct imposed by governments, but a natural force stronger than a hurricane.  And when jobs are once again scarce, well, having a checkered resume isn't going to help.

A huge number of the postings there (many of which are likely made-up) whine and moan about how it is impossible to live on $15 an hour - the new minimum wage in reality these days.  Not satisfied with this, the "moderators" of the subreddit push for a $25 an hour minimum wage, which is about $50,000 a year, which until recently was the median household income in America.  Household, not just one person!  What they are arguing is, that a couple working two slacker jobs should be hauling in $100,000 a year.  A nice fantasy, but even if it did happen, $100,000 just becomes the new $50,000.

I lived through the stagflation era of the 1970's.  It is interesting to read old car brochures from that era.  In 1970, you could buy a "subcompact" car for under $2000.  By 1980, it was over $4000.  And we had shortages of everything from coffee to peanut butter to gasoline - the latter of which was available on even or odd days depending on your license plate number (and sometimes not even then!).  And unemployment was over 10%, inflation over 10%, and mortgage rates 14%.  It was a sucky time and we might be headed back toward that, at the present rate of inflation.

This is not to say I am unsympathetic with the conditions young people face today.  As I wrote in an earlier posting, I think this whole "gig economy" nonsense is just an excuse to screw the crap out of young people.  And speaking of young people, these are the types who take a lot of these shit jobs and often are screwed out of money. I know when I was a dishwasher at the Olde Tyme Gaslight Restaurant (aptly named!) my paycheck always seemed a little short.  The manager gave me some rigmarole about how they measured time in 15-minute increments or something.  I was 17 at the time and didn't challenge it very hard.  Today, I would handle it differently.  But the owner shot himself and I had to clean up the mess in the kitchen before I left.  I never got my last paycheck, either.   But I digress.

The answer to a shitty job is to get another job, not overthrow the government.  I have said it time and time again, that predicating that success in life is only possible if drastic social change occurs isn't a very good battle plan.  Such social change might not occur (and isn't likely) and if that is the case, you have no "plan B".  What''s worse, is that revolutions and social change often don't work in the favor of the people who agitate for it.  Communist revolutions, in Russia, Cuba, China, Cambodia - just about everywhere, ended up taking a big shit on the working class.  Sure, working a crappy job and barely making ends meet sucks.  Being worked to death in a gulag or work camp sucks even more - and that was the reality of life for tens, if not hundreds of millions of "workers" in Russia, China, Cambodia, and other places where the "workers controlled the means of production" (which in reality meant that a different set of elites controlled the means of production, and they did it badly).

Like I said before, we saw this same pattern in the past - where there was a labor shortage and it was nearly impossible to get anyone to work.  It was about that time I closed my shop and went back to being a solo practitioner.  Hiring people just wasn't worthwhile.  And in a short period of time, well, the economy tanked and a lot of people who were commanding high wages (and doing little real work) were the first to be laid off.  And as before, they were the loudest whiners and complainers as well.

I am all for worker's rights.  You should assert your rights. And if you don't like your job, find a new one.  That's what I did, again and again in life.   But I was always able to find a job because I had skills that were in demand.  And even for unskilled jobs, like delivering pizzas and washing trucks, I never had a problem finding work, as I could hustle.  People who work hard might not end up owning the company, but they end up getting hired - and retained.

Both Mark and I had to work "shit jobs" before we got better jobs.  Most people do.  Mark started out in retail, while in college, and after college (Hotel Restaurant Management) he got a job with Williams Sonoma as a "manager" in a new store.  Yes, the old gag - give someone a title and then pay them a salary and expect them to work 60 hours a week or more - with no overtime.  He got burned out at that and went to work at Sutton Place.  Same deal, although he enjoyed the work.  But when they moved him to "corporate" and cut his salary, well, he got burned out.

He went to work at Sheets 'N Things - as an hourly employee this time.  No unpaid overtime, no overbearing responsibilities - and he could control his own schedule.  He negotiated his rate to $13 an hour, which was seven more than anyone else was making at the time.  But he had talent and humped.  He could merchandise a store without a "Plan-O-Gram" and boosted sales as a result.  But he lived through a lot of crap there - someone taking a dump in the middle of the store, another fellow exposing himself, and finally, someone setting the store on fire.  He saw it all.  He started his own catering business and eventually got into Real Estate - getting his license and working for two different agencies.  But he had talent and drive.

Others do not.  And that's the problem with unionization - everyone makes the same wage, regardless of whether they are talented or not, and whether they work hard or not, so the incentive is to work as little as possible.  It becomes a race to the bottom and eventually you end up like the Russians, "They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work!" - and that's why the Soviet Union is no more.

You have to ask yourself, do you want to make the same amount of money as the biggest dullard in your company?  Do you want to get no reward for better work?  Do you want to spend the rest of your life in a dead-end job?  The folks complaining about having no advancement, no hope, no dreams, and no success, aren't just victims of circumstance - they are often the laziest of people, addled with drugs, and not very smart. I know this as that was me at one time before I quit the drugs and drinking.  I would feel sorry for them, but many of these were also the sort of people who bullied me in school and would be the first to bully me at a job.  I learned long ago not to "feel sorry" for people, as most of them are victims of their own malfeasance, not victims of outside forces.  Who put a gun to their head and told them to sign those student loan docs?  Not me!

But speaking of the Soviet Union, there are a host of postings on "antiwork" from Russians telling people how much better things are in Russia.  You get more vacation!  More time to spend in the gulag!  It is not a coincidence and the "mods" of that "subreddit" are either agents of the Russian Internet Research Agency, or just useful idiots.   Many people complain (and overseas voices chime in) that no one can afford health insurance in America, even though an Obamacare plan is 100% subsidized (read: FREE) if your income is below, say, $30,000 for a married couple.  For some reason, that never seems to resonate with r/antiwork, which tells me the subreddit is being trolled by foreign agents.

I think this "antiwork" subreddit has some merit with regard to worker's rights.  Young people, in particular, are often psychologically exploited and made to feel "lucky" to have a job.  It is just too bad that the moderators founded it based on Communist agitprop.  Their agenda is quite different from the agenda of many of the posters there - they want to work, but be treated fairly and paid appropriately.  The "mods" of r/antiwork want to destroy our country and replace it with a welfare state.

Not only is that a bad idea, it just ain't gonna happen, at least anytime soon!

Antiwork sounds like a great idea, but when you scratch the surface, well, it turns out to be a front for Communist propaganda.   Rage-quitting your job might make you a hero on Reddit for 20 minutes, but it may harm your career more. It is akin to buying Gamestop "stonk" to get adulation from peers on r/wallstreetbets.  All you are doing is advancing someone else's agenda, not your own.

You'll make them happy, yourself miserable.

UPDATE:  One of the moderators of "antiwork" was interviewed on Fox News and exposed as a whining slacker who has gender-identification issues.  Not only that, other "mods" were exposed as promoting pedophilia.  It was a real shitstorm and one reason why you should take everything on the Internet with a grain of salt.  And yes, that includes my blog as well!