The Anti-Work Phenomenon: Can you explain it? (plus, a new perspective on Work)

[learner2020]

@Free

I am a supporter of the idea of the government taxing negatives. However this idea doesn’t get the support of either the right (anti-tax) of the left (against anything that will raise prices for the middle class). The fact of the matter is that taxing negatives - to make the world a better place - would be taxing the middle class and poor people. Because it is ordinary people who are consuming these bad things. So to make bad things go away, we need to tax ordinary people so that they stop consuming bad things. For example what if each person were taxed 10 cents per social media post. Just imagine the money it would raise for the government, and the positive reduction in social media use. I would support such an idea.

“With great power comes great responsibility”

Who has more power? Consumers or Creators/Owners? And even among the consumers, don’t we have the “influencers/celebs” with lots of followers and views, and the “common users”? Who has more power?

How about this: you can have up to 1000 followers for free, but then you have to pay: a tiered pricing scheme is common with other digital commodities like cloud storage and broadband, so why not social media?

More power is at the top: Understand that the design and strategy happens at the corporations and governments. Controlling/guiding them is a direct way of shifting the unhealthy “Supply-Demand” towards a healthier one.

If you tax the poor and the middle class for using a particular app, they will simply shift to another app which isn’t taxed yet. If the entire ecosystem of social media apps is causing bad things (see 1. extractive attention economy and 2. Tristan Harris’ 2017 TED Talk), then this entire sector needs to be taxed/controlled/regulated, from the top.

When prices rise or unlimited posting on social media is controlled, consumers will simply change their tastes, and the “Supply-Demand” cycle’s health will improve sooner.

I expanded on just this point, because the same can be true for our jobs and the anti-work phenomenon: We can have better, fulfilling jobs that make the world a better place and get great intrinsic as well as extrinsic value from doing them! This includes the good working conditions and a fair pay that you have mentioned earlier @Free and @penmanship. The changes need to happen at the top for a more sure, sooner result.

What we can do is propose good ideas, designs and strategies, conduct experiments and tests, spread awareness among 1.the common people and 2.those at the Top, and get the citizens/consumers to support the good design and strategies by collectively voicing and demanding to the Top for such changes! Isn’t that how the “power of the people” is supposed to work in democratic systems anyways?

I have something more to say about cost-cutting, metrics, money and “Anti-Work”, conveyed by this question: in our economy, we are all competing: BUT, are we competing for fame/power or for innovation/problem-solving? I’ll expand on this later.