> But the most essential quality that makes a job a job is that when we are at work, we surrender the power to decide the worth of what we do. At-job is where our labour is appraised by an external meter: the market. At-job, our labour is never a means to itself but a means to money; its value can be expressed only as a number—relative, fluctuating, out of our control. At-job, because an outside eye measures us, the workplace is a place of surveillance. It’s painful to have your sense of worth extracted. For Marx, the poet of economics, when a person’s innate value is replaced with exchange value, it is as if we’ve been reduced to “a mere jelly.”
There is nothing new about this in the Digital Age. Probably this is how it’s been since the development of culture and society.
SerialBitBanger on
It’s happening from so many angles that most of the pet theories in this thread are probably correct.
We’ve been reduced to input parameters in the megacorps “line go up” algorithms. They claim to love their customers, but will happily squeeze every possible cent out even if their customers can barely afford rent. I (only half jokingly) can’t wait until SCOTUS tells us that only corporations and zygotes are worthy of personhood.
“AI” bros are trawling all of human creativity without a single thought as to the long term ramifications. After all, long term is a long way away. Short term profit happens right now! Thousands of years of human achievement are, again, reduced to input parameters.
Politicians across the planet care more about enriching themselves and their patrons than enacting any policy that might force them to pay into the system. Conservatives may be the embodiment of xenophobia and misogyny, but nobody gains political power with their ethics intact.
They tell me to fix the system. How? I don’t have the millions it takes to find a campaign. I’m an atheist and that makes me unelectable in the U.S. So I (and presumably others) feel excluded from the decision making process.
So the megacorps sell us the cure to boredom by weaponizing our glands against us. They create Skinner Boxes to get us into a feedback loop of dopamine addiction from tapping a screen. They sell us 24 hour outrage, which is not healthy for a human brain.
TLDR: Our collective self worth is plummeting because corporations have hacked our societal norms so that “worth” is tied to how hard you work and how little you complain. What little niceties and luxuries that we *can* afford now spy on us 24/7 and charge a monthly rent for the privilege.
Peatore on
Can’t relate, I can bench 300lbs.
orbvsterrvs on
Neoliberalist subjectivity is kinda boring isn’t it? “The end of history” maybe not, but the end of fun it can seem.
Gen-Jinjur on
The digital age depends on users.
We are the users.
We are allowing all this to happen.
Enjoy-the-sauce on
Influencers peddle hyper-curated fake lives, and followers find that their own lives in reality don’t measure up and ask “what am I doing wrong? Why am I not as good or deserving as that influencer?” not realizing that they’re comparing themselves to a person that doesn’t exist.
I dated an early-days influencer who was getting paid by Facebook. Her online life was flashy and happy and glamorous, but her real life was erratic and always a dollar away from total disaster. She looked like she was partying with celebrities while she was constantly begging her mom for rent money for her crappy studio apartment. It was crazy stressful just to be around.
a_madman on
I feel this
psyyduck on
Good insight at the end. I’d go even further and say nothing was ever “emptied” at all. Selling doesn’t say much about value – look at Vincent van Gogh dying poor. Or for a more modern example, look at open source software. Look at how many people refuse to work out, despite all the information about how important it is. Look at slavery being practiced for hundreds of years. Look at climate change & humans being unable to stop ruining their own ecosystem. There are millions of important examples where popularity and value are quite different. You can definitely bet against the market and win.
totesnotdog on
Why not just engineer a new sect of tau battle cast to be large gigachads? Maybe they won’t have the gene seed but it would be cool.
NintendoTape on
it’s almost like they WANT me to join a cult
d13robot on
Butlerian Jihad
Aion2099 on
When your entire locus of identity is external, you lose yourself.
15 Comments
What is the meaning life in a solved world?
What is love
[deleted]
> But the most essential quality that makes a job a job is that when we are at work, we surrender the power to decide the worth of what we do. At-job is where our labour is appraised by an external meter: the market. At-job, our labour is never a means to itself but a means to money; its value can be expressed only as a number—relative, fluctuating, out of our control. At-job, because an outside eye measures us, the workplace is a place of surveillance. It’s painful to have your sense of worth extracted. For Marx, the poet of economics, when a person’s innate value is replaced with exchange value, it is as if we’ve been reduced to “a mere jelly.”
There is nothing new about this in the Digital Age. Probably this is how it’s been since the development of culture and society.
It’s happening from so many angles that most of the pet theories in this thread are probably correct.
We’ve been reduced to input parameters in the megacorps “line go up” algorithms. They claim to love their customers, but will happily squeeze every possible cent out even if their customers can barely afford rent. I (only half jokingly) can’t wait until SCOTUS tells us that only corporations and zygotes are worthy of personhood.
“AI” bros are trawling all of human creativity without a single thought as to the long term ramifications. After all, long term is a long way away. Short term profit happens right now! Thousands of years of human achievement are, again, reduced to input parameters.
Politicians across the planet care more about enriching themselves and their patrons than enacting any policy that might force them to pay into the system. Conservatives may be the embodiment of xenophobia and misogyny, but nobody gains political power with their ethics intact.
They tell me to fix the system. How? I don’t have the millions it takes to find a campaign. I’m an atheist and that makes me unelectable in the U.S. So I (and presumably others) feel excluded from the decision making process.
So the megacorps sell us the cure to boredom by weaponizing our glands against us. They create Skinner Boxes to get us into a feedback loop of dopamine addiction from tapping a screen. They sell us 24 hour outrage, which is not healthy for a human brain.
TLDR: Our collective self worth is plummeting because corporations have hacked our societal norms so that “worth” is tied to how hard you work and how little you complain. What little niceties and luxuries that we *can* afford now spy on us 24/7 and charge a monthly rent for the privilege.
Can’t relate, I can bench 300lbs.
Neoliberalist subjectivity is kinda boring isn’t it? “The end of history” maybe not, but the end of fun it can seem.
The digital age depends on users.
We are the users.
We are allowing all this to happen.
Influencers peddle hyper-curated fake lives, and followers find that their own lives in reality don’t measure up and ask “what am I doing wrong? Why am I not as good or deserving as that influencer?” not realizing that they’re comparing themselves to a person that doesn’t exist.
I dated an early-days influencer who was getting paid by Facebook. Her online life was flashy and happy and glamorous, but her real life was erratic and always a dollar away from total disaster. She looked like she was partying with celebrities while she was constantly begging her mom for rent money for her crappy studio apartment. It was crazy stressful just to be around.
I feel this
Good insight at the end. I’d go even further and say nothing was ever “emptied” at all. Selling doesn’t say much about value – look at Vincent van Gogh dying poor. Or for a more modern example, look at open source software. Look at how many people refuse to work out, despite all the information about how important it is. Look at slavery being practiced for hundreds of years. Look at climate change & humans being unable to stop ruining their own ecosystem. There are millions of important examples where popularity and value are quite different. You can definitely bet against the market and win.
Why not just engineer a new sect of tau battle cast to be large gigachads? Maybe they won’t have the gene seed but it would be cool.
it’s almost like they WANT me to join a cult
Butlerian Jihad
When your entire locus of identity is external, you lose yourself.