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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   26074 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023

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Aella had recently an interview on trigonometry where she said she vastly prefers escorting and prostitution compared to factory work she used to do when very young, which made her drink too much. Where does the shielding end?

If 'shielding our children from future harm' is the excuse we need to bring back a strong labor movement and make factory work less stressful and soul-crushing, then it's a weird attack vector but I'm all for it.

Also: When you seriously write the words 'My opponents want to maximize suffering' is approximately the point where you should take step back from teh keyboard, look at yourself in the mirror, and ask whether you might possibly be stuck in a filter bubble that's giving you wildly uncharitable beliefs about other human beings.

I do think that my opponent's policies and behaviors cause more suffering than my side's policies and behaviors on average, but I would never say they want to maximize suffering! That's not even cartoon supervillain, it's literally cartoon Satan (because even the 'real' Satan is more nuanced than that!).

make factory work less stressful and soul-crushing

How exactly would you do this? To make it even more difficult, what steps would you take that don't just distill down to "work less"?

I dunno, I've never worked in a factory! Probably look at the website of any union of factory workers and they'll have a list of demands that make up a good start.

'Work less' is a perfectly fine answer, the division of profit between workers and capitalists is a variable ratio that's unusually high right now, every historical reason to expect that we could lower it by paying more money for less work without causing any problems.

But if you're rejecting that, there's still huge variance in how terrible a job is along other axes, things like how much autonomy and flexibility workers have, how they are treated by management, are they allowed to go to the bathroom, etc.

Again, see any factory worker's union demands, not my area.

Not that person, but below are several steps that immediately come to mind. "Work less" is also a valid answer to avoid damaging people's bodies and minds.

Allowing chairs for all positions it is safe to do so in. There's a lingering boomer right stigma against letting people sit down while doing their jobs even when it is unnecessary for them to stand. Making folks stand for no reason other than elite aesthetic sensibilities is just a petty humiliation for being working class, wears people out quicker, is harder on older folks and those with flat feet and so on.

More rotation of roles, re-skilling rather than de-skilling, so you're not stuck performing the exact same repetitive motion all day every day for life, or so hyper specialized that if the factory closes you have no transferable skills. Maybe Monday it's machine x, Tuesday machine y and so on.

Letting people listen to music, podcasts, etc using work issued headsets that are interrupted by safety alarms and the like. Cuban cigar factories also had (have?) highly popular lectors that would read books and newspapers aloud to the workers so they weren't bored to death. You had completely illiterate people enjoying and discussing literary classics.

Having workers clock-in on arrival before performing long security checks, gearing up and so on rather than wasting time at work unpaid during preparations.

Good points! I was pushing back a little since there are limits to how fun and creative you can make factory work, but I've always loved watching videos of how they function.

There's obviously some low-hanging fruit at many of them. Even adequate/pleasant lighting is something it seems like many miss.

Nobody wants to literally maximize everyone's suffering, but plenty of people want to drastically increase the suffering of specific groups.

Looks like OP just made a typo and has edited it.

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