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       #Post#: 10671--------------------------------------------------
       Re: "Great Resignation" labor movement and strikes
   DIR By: guest55
       Date: January 19, 2022, 12:08 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       These Western corporations sure do have a lot of chutzpah!
       #Post#: 10694--------------------------------------------------
       Re: "Great Resignation" labor movement and strikes
   DIR By: guest55
       Date: January 19, 2022, 7:30 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote ---
       > Bungie, Sony, Obsidian & WB Devs Boycott! Rockstar REJECTS Red
       Dead Hope & EA Slams BF2042 Criticism
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWJlJybTKFg
       This type of stuff seems to be happening across the entire
       video-gaming industry at this moment:
       --- Quote ---
       > Battlefield 2042 Is So Deserted & Busted Even Cheat Makers &
       Sellers Are Abandoning The Game
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3a_JIr1Awc
       Video-gamers also seem to be the biggest part of the anti-NFT
       and CryptoLand demographic, which is interesting in itself....
       Star Wars Battlefront 2 Is So Broken Players Can't Kill Each
       Other, EA & Dice Respond Months Later
  HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JghnxRfywe0
       #Post#: 10809--------------------------------------------------
       Re: "Great Resignation" labor movement and strikes
   DIR By: Zea_mays
       Date: January 25, 2022, 1:20 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Why don't people want to work at terrible chain businesses?
       Because it's not worth being murdered by irate customers for
       minimum wage.
       --- Quote ---
       > Argument over BBQ sauce leads to teenage Wendy's employee
       being shot in head
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://cbsaustin.com/amp/news/nation-world/argument-over-bbq-sauce-leads-to-teenage-wendys-employee-being-shot-in-head-restaurant-shooting-investigation-police-phoenix-suspect-violence-handgun
       --- Quote ---
       > Police: McDonald's employee shot in argument over discount
       over french fries
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://krcgtv.com/news/local/police-mcdonalds-employee-shot-in-argument-over-discount
       (See also, all the articles about employees being murdered for
       telling sub-humans to wear masks, etc.)
       #Post#: 11056--------------------------------------------------
       Re: "Great Resignation" labor movement and strikes
   DIR By: guest55
       Date: February 4, 2022, 1:42 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Secretary Of Labor Reacts To Shocking Jobs Report
       --- Quote ---
       > United States Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh joined Chris
       Jansing to discuss the White House’ response to January’s
       surprising jobs number that showed 467,000 jobs were added, and
       how these positive results will impact the government’s strategy
       for tackling lingering inflation and supply chain issues. “This
       is a good report, it’s another sign of positive gain, but it’s
       saying that there’s a ‘but’,” says Walsh. “We still have a lot
       of work to do … the president has a plan to work and ease
       inflation across the country.”
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xtoiN3u58Y
       How does adding jobs help the economy if no one wants to work
       the jobs you added? This is how ridiculous Western economics
       are. It's just all about numbers to these people....
       #Post#: 11989--------------------------------------------------
       The Age of the Influencer Has Peaked. It’s Time For the Slacker
       to Rise Again
   DIR By: guest55
       Date: March 13, 2022, 8:22 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       The Age of the Influencer Has Peaked. It’s Time For the Slacker
       to Rise Again
       --- Quote ---
       > There are signs that our individualist culture of achievement
       and brand alignment has jumped the shark.
       --- End Quote ---
       [img width=1280
       height=721]
  HTML https://pocket-image-cache.com/direct?resize=w2000&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcms.qz.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F04%2FNirvana-.jpg%3Fquality%3D75%26strip%3Dall%26w%3D2200%26h%3D1240[/img]
       --- Quote ---
       > Nirvana, patron saints of nineties slacker-dom.  Photo by
       Getty Images/Mark and Colleen Haywar
       --- End Quote ---
       --- Quote ---
       > It’s hard to remember a time when scrolling through Instagram
       was anything but a thoroughly exhausting experience.
       >
       > Where once the social network was basically lunch and sunsets,
       it’s now a parade of strategically-crafted life updates, career
       achievements, and public vows to spend less time online (usually
       made by people who earn money from social media)—all framed with
       the carefully selected language of a press release. Everyone is
       striving, so very hard.
       >
       > And great for them, I guess. But sometimes one might pine for
       a less aspirational time, when the cool kids were smoking weed,
       eating junk food, and… you know, just chillin’.
       >
       > Back in the 1990s, our heroes were slackers: the dudes and the
       clerks, the stick-it-to-the-man, stay-true-to-yourself burnouts
       we saw in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Slacker, and Reality
       Bites. In the latter, Winona Ryder’s character, Leilana, chooses
       the disillusioned musician (Ethan Hawke) over the TV exec (Ben
       Stiller), and it’s presented as an excellent choice. Nobody cool
       was trying to monetize their lifestyle back then, or rake in the
       brand endorsements. Selling out (remember that?) was whack.
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://pocket-syndicated-images.s3.amazonaws.com/60a3454ab8021.png
       --- Quote ---
       > The cast of ‘Reality Bites,’ a celebration of slacker-dom.
       Photo by Universal Pictures
       --- End Quote ---
       --- Quote ---
       > But somewhere in the early 2000s, the slacker of popular
       culture lost ground to the striver. I am not immune to this
       thoroughly aspirational mindset, and you probably aren’t either.
       Whether we have side hustles, personal brands, gig economy jobs,
       or entrepreneurial leanings (I’ve had all four), to survive in
       the modern economy is to aspire to something much greater than
       what we are.
       --- End Quote ---
       9/11 ended the counter-culture, as it was intended to.
       --- Quote ---
       > The internet influencer is the apotheosis of all this
       striving, this modern set of values taken to its grotesque
       extreme: Nothing is sacred, art has been replaced by “content,”
       and everything is for sale. This is true even when the message
       is swathed in the language of counter-culture: Eco-conscious
       influencers see no issue in flying long-haul on free trips from
       brands. Yoga gurus who traffic in anti-consumerist spirituality
       promote tea brands owned by Unilever.
       --- End Quote ---
       The devil\Yahweh is a much better "influencer" than any clown on
       social media could ever hope to be. This is why most
       'influencers' are influenced fools themselves, and make choices
       they would never even have come up with by themselves. If they
       ever truly took the time to know themselves of course....
       Perhaps a better title for this article would have been: The Age
       of the Westerner Has Peaked. It's Time For the Slacker to Rise
       Again ?
       --- Quote ---
       > But as anyone who has lived a few decades knows, youth culture
       swings like a pendulum. The buttoned-up post-World War II period
       gave way to the countercultural Free Love generation (arguably
       the original slackers, as they were the first to have middle
       class comfort to rebel against). Similarly, the 1980s excess of
       Gordon Gecko’s Wall Street set the stage for the slackers amid
       the economic recession of the 1990s, with their flannel shirts,
       skater culture, Beastie Boys and Nirvana records.
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://pocket-syndicated-images.s3.amazonaws.com/60a345829a360.png
       --- Quote ---
       > Skater culture doesn’t strive.  Photo by Reuters/Lucy
       Nicholson
       --- End Quote ---
       --- Quote ---
       > Of course, it’s reductive to lump the experience of the
       billions of people living through those ages into one mostly
       American cultural trope. But there’s always something to glean
       from the dominant youth culture of an era. What was cool—what
       the kids were into—tells us something fundamental about what we
       valued. And seen through that lens, there’s a marked difference
       between today’s striving and the slacking of the 1990s.
       >
       > And, in a modern aspirational marketplace so saturated that
       fake influencers are now posting advertising-like content that
       nobody even paid them for, there are signs that our
       individualist culture of achievement and brand alignment has
       jumped the shark. If the cycle of history is any guide, once our
       culture of striving flames out, it may well be time for the
       slacker to rise again.
       --- End Quote ---
       --- Quote ---
       >
       > The Neoliberal Self
       >
       > For the internet influencer, everything from their morning sun
       salutation to their coffee enema (really) is a potential
       money-making opportunity. Forget paying your dues, or working
       your way up—in fact, forget jobs. Work is life, and getting paid
       to live your best life is the ultimate aspiration.
       >
       > This existence is perfectly aligned with what Will Storr, in
       his 2017 book Selfie: How the West became self-obsessed,
       described as the defining person of our age, the neoliberal
       self: “an extroverted, slim, beautiful, individualistic,
       optimistic, hard-working, socially aware yet high-self-esteeming
       global citizen with entrepreneurial guile and a selfie camera.”
       And while the generation most associated with this
       archetype—millennials—gets flack for their entitlement and
       unwillingness to work toward a typical middle class life, there
       are plenty of reasons millennials have so thoroughly embraced
       and innovated upon this neoliberal ideal.
       >
       > “You can see why that happens in terms of the shrinking of
       middle class industries and the economy,” says Laurence Scott,
       author of Picnic Comma Lightning: In Search of a New Reality, an
       exploration of the nature of reality in the digital age, and a
       lecturer at NYU’s London campus. “Neoliberalism has hollowed out
       so many ways of [making a] stable income that it’s not
       surprising that the influencer economy has risen up in this
       really precarious economic climate for millennials.”
       >
       > That neoliberal sensibility—emphasizing the importance of
       markets above the intervention of the state, and typified by the
       attitude that the tide of growth and globalization will lift all
       boats—has also given rise to the thoroughly modern affliction
       that we now call “millennial burnout.” A coinage by Anne Helen
       Petersen in her memorable piece for BuzzFeed, the idea is that
       all this self-optimization in the digital age is taking a toll,
       and leaving us with multiple afflictions, including “errand
       paralysis.”
       >
       > Petersen argues that we’re obsessed with self-optimization
       because—post-financial crisis, saddled with student debt, with
       little hope of a pension—we simply have to be: “We couldn’t just
       show up with a diploma and expect to get and keep a job that
       would allow us to retire at 55. In a marked shift from the
       generations before, millennials needed to optimize ourselves to
       be the very best workers possible.”
       >
       > The result is an economy where it’s more possible than ever to
       be your own boss, and a lot less possible to buy your own home.
       And one where it’s literally unimaginable that we’ll ever be
       able to stop working—at the end of the workday, or in the later
       years of our lives.
       >
       > It’s enough to make you want to throw up your hands and admit
       defeat, if only for a moment of respite. And it’s easy to see
       how this exhaustion could precipitate the next cycle of
       slackerdom.
       >
       > Scott first raised that idea in an interview on Russell
       Brand’s podcast. “The generation after [this one] may just look
       and think, ‘I cant believe there was that kind of economy and
       that’s how people were presenting themselves,'” he said. “There
       may be a slight distaste to it and reemergence of a slacker
       1990s pendulum swing, rather than this quite needy
       attention-seeking.”
       --- End Quote ---
       Entire article:
  HTML https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-age-of-the-influencer-has-peaked-it-s-time-for-the-slacker-to-rise-again?utm_source=pocket-newtab
       I already feel this way. I believe the current culture is
       extremely sick and all "influencers" really do is spread the
       sickness around, at the cost of their own spirit obviously.
       25 Years After Kurt Cobain: Where Is the Counterculture?
       --- Quote ---
       > What happens to the art isn't important. What's important is
       that it was being made. I remember that raw feeling of someone
       standing up for what they believe, and not caring what anyone
       thinks. I haven't felt that feeling in a while.
       --- End Quote ---
       --- Quote ---
       > In 1991, Kurt Cobain was the definition of cool.
       >
       > The Billboard charts that year were overrun by mainstream hits
       by Paula Abdul, Vanilla Ice, and Boyz II Men. Music was about
       looking good. And lip singing.
       >
       > And then in September of 1991, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana came
       out with Nevermind, and it felt like the biggest **** you to
       mainstream culture.
       >
       > I remember Kurt wearing a "Corporate Magazines Still Suck"
       t-shirt on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. And I remember
       thinking of all the other celebrities on the magazine that year,
       and how they must of worked so hard to project an image of
       "looking good."
       >
       > I remember the band open-mouth kissing during the SNL credits
       just to "**** off the redneck homophobes" and how it probably
       did.
       >
       > I remember that raw feeling of someone standing up for what
       they believe and not caring what anyone thinks.
       >
       > I haven't felt that feeling in a while.
       --- End Quote ---
       Entire article:
  HTML https://www.huffpost.com/entry/25-years-after-kurt-cobain_b_9619740
       How I too long for days were people stop caring what everyone
       else thinks of them....
  HTML https://www.highsnobiety.com/static-assets/thumbor/X8h8ZdsnmMUXY2ez7KmsTQMgSfo=/1600x1067/www.highsnobiety.com/static-assets/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/14174625/kurt-c-main.jpg
       #Post#: 11995--------------------------------------------------
       Re: American Empire Collapse: It's About To Get Much Worse(?)
   DIR By: guest55
       Date: March 13, 2022, 10:00 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: ‘I Just Feel
       Lost’
       --- Quote ---
       > The number of men enrolled at two- and four-year colleges has
       fallen behind women by record levels, in a widening education
       gap across the U.S.
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-university-fall-higher-education-men-women-enrollment-admissions-back-to-school-11630948233?st=8il0uebem3xdam8&mod=ffoct22
       #Post#: 11998--------------------------------------------------
       Re: "Great Resignation" labor movement and strikes
   DIR By: Zea_mays
       Date: March 14, 2022, 12:54 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       The question is, will this trend lead to permanent lifestyle
       changes after the pandemic is over?
       --- Quote ---
       > Focus on money lessened throughout the COVID-19 pandemic
       >
       > A series of three studies examined the effect of the COVID-19
       pandemic on materialism, finding an overall decrease in the
       importance people place on money. This research was published in
       the journal Psychology & Marketing.
       >
       > Materialism refers to “beliefs that link wealth and
       consumption with personal achievement and happiness.” Various
       studies have found negative associations between materialism and
       well-being. Higher media consumption enhances the advocacy of
       materialistic values. As well, in consumer-oriented societies,
       reminders about one’s mortality enhance materialism. Lockdown
       restrictions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic increased media
       consumption by up to 27%. News stories shared narratives about
       illness, death, and survival, increasing reminders of mortality.
       Thus, it could be possible that the societal and behavioral
       changes that emerged with the pandemic enhanced materialistic
       values.
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://www.psypost.org/2022/03/focus-on-money-lessened-throughout-the-covid-19-pandemic-62711
       Regarding that last point, I've seen studies claiming that in
       non-consumerist societies throughout history, reminders of
       mortality and low materialist desire is correlated with
       religiosity.
       #Post#: 12006--------------------------------------------------
       Re: "Great Resignation" labor movement and strikes
   DIR By: Zea_mays
       Date: March 14, 2022, 1:32 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       More solidarity:
       --- Quote ---
       > Americans quit their jobs this summer at rate never seen
       before. Gen Z led the charge. The children of Occupy Wall Street
       — footsoldiers of the Third Force — went full Johnny Paycheck on
       their crappy minimum-wage employment.
       >
       > “This is a fight response,” a career coach told The New York
       Times. When people are triggered, they go reptilian: fight or
       flight. And flight’s not an option when you’re cornered. Across
       a scorched-earth economic landscape employees looked their
       bosses in the eye, and their bosses blinked. Because the power
       dynamic was reversed and everyone knew it. For once it was the
       workers who had the leverage.
       > [...]
       > The way people were quitting — trumpeting their departures on
       social media — should have been a clue that this wasn’t about
       laziness. It’s the opposite of lazy to quit out loud. That is
       fury talking. It’s a statement that this is not about me.
       > [...]
       > The Mandarin word for it is “tang ping” — literally “lying
       flat.” Young Chinese, beaten down by an authoritarian system and
       yearning to live a more relaxed life, spread themselves against
       the earth like a measuring tape, becoming “the metric of all
       things,” as one protester put it in a social media post that was
       quickly deleted by the state. Clearly, the pushback against
       degrading overwork is not just a Western thing. Rather, it’s a
       sign, as one tang ping enthusiast put it, of a “global
       unraveling.”
       --- End Quote ---
       Note: these anti-consumerist countercultures are fundamentally
       anti-Western, regardless of where they are taking place
       globally. Which civilization invented the commercial and
       industrial system that now exists in China? Which civilization
       is being rebelled against by both the Antiwork and Lying Flat
       countercultures? Hint: Western civilization.
       --- Quote ---
       > “I opt out.” Those are powerful words. Consider the mighty,
       status-quo-toppling impact of this passive gesture if everybody
       did it. The new activists have found magic in inverting the old
       mantra of the capitalist hustle.
       >
       > Don’t just do something: stand there.
       >
       > To do nothing, even for a short while, is an active rebuke of
       the creation of capitalist value.
       > [...]
       > And this has been the one upside of the otherwise grim blight
       on the world that is this pandemic: the disruption gave everyone
       time to reflect on their workaday routine. And a lot of people
       came to the same conclusion: Why the fuck should I take the
       prime of my life and simply hand it over?
       > [...]
       > To be crystal clear here, this is not about not wanting to
       work. We humans are working dogs. We prefer to work than not to
       work, studies show.
       > [...]
       > And the average employee comes to understand: You do not own
       me, day and night. I give my service to you, on my terms.
       >
       > So celebrate this moment of opportunity born of crisis. Maybe
       these are the first growing-pain heaves along the road to what a
       new definition of a successful life actually looks like.
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://www.adbusters.org/article/gen-z-will-you-whack-capitalism-into-a-new-orbit
       Opting out of Western civilization isn't enough. To end it, you
       need to get to work for something to counter it.
       #Post#: 14309--------------------------------------------------
       Re: "Great Resignation" labor movement and strikes
   DIR By: guest78
       Date: June 24, 2022, 11:49 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Even your boss wants to quit
       --- Quote ---
       > The Great Resignation is seeping into the corner office, with
       70% of C-level executives telling Deloitte pollsters that they
       seriously might resign for a job that better supports their
       well-being.
       >
       > Why it matters: If the boss who sets the rules is feeling
       burned out, it's no surprise that many of the rank and file are
       also restive.
       >
       > 57% of employees in the Deloitte survey said they were fed up
       enough to quit too.
       >
       > Driving the news: A report released today by Deloitte and
       market research firm Workplace Intelligence found that C-suite
       executives feel as frazzled and depressed as the workers who
       report to them. In a poll conducted in February...
       >
       > 76% of higher-ups said the pandemic has negatively affected
       their overall health.
       > 81% said improving their own equilibrium is more important
       than advancing their career right now.
       >
       > Some execs are pushing for changes. 83% said they'll expand
       their company's well-being benefits over the next 1-2 years,
       while 77% said companies should be required to publicly report
       "workforce well-being metrics."
       >
       > Asked if they'd taken any steps to help staffers mellow out,
       20% of C-suiters said they'd banned after-hours emailing, and
       35% said they make employees take breaks during the day.
       >
       > 35% send notes coaxing employees to take time off and
       disconnect — and 29% say they're trying to set an example by
       doing this themselves.
       >
       > Yes, but: There's a big disconnect between how the higher-ups
       perceive their efforts and what workers say.
       >
       > 84% of C-suite execs said they thought their workers were
       thriving from a mental health perspective — but only 59% of
       employees rated their own mental health as "excellent" or
       "good."
       > 91% of the honchos said they saw themselves as caring leaders
       — but just 56% of workers thought their bosses cared about their
       well-being.
       >
       > "What we found was that the majority [of C-suite executives]
       want to do something about it, but they just haven't done
       something about it," Dan Schawbel, the founder of Workplace
       Intelligence, told Axios. "So it's been more talk and less
       action."
       >
       > The answer isn't just to tack on more mental health benefits
       but to reassess everything about how the workplace operates —
       including child care and remote work options, Schawbel said.
       >
       > Between the lines: The Deloitte findings ring true to
       executive recruiters. "What we see is that people are resigning
       to try to find a better place, a better work-life balance, a
       better culture," Shawn Cole, founder of Cowen Partners, tells
       Axios. "That's the 'great reshuffle,' as we see it."
       >
       > Women executives have been hit particularly hard with job
       overload during the pandemic, and a disproportionate number are
       job-hunting — or stepping aside.
       > A recent LinkedIn survey found that mid-level managers and
       directors want a four-day workweek even more than their reports.
       >
       > But the "C-suite is an island" where corporate wellness
       policies — like unplugging and ignoring email — don't
       necessarily apply, Cole said.
       >
       > "To some extent, that's what they're paid for," he noted.
       > "They really need to set boundaries for themselves" to stay
       happy and focused, Cole said.
       > Finding a new job isn't always the answer: "The grass is not
       greener," particularly for a CEO.
       >
       > What's next: C-suite burnout could potentially translate to
       more enlightened workplace benefits and policies — or not, as an
       economic downturn puts more focus on the bottom line.
       >
       > Methodology: The Deloitte survey, conducted by email from Feb.
       8-21, involved 1,050 C-suite executives in the U.S., U.K.,
       Canada and Australia and an equal number of staff employees.
       Respondents were "provided with a small monetary incentive" for
       participating.
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://www.axios.com/2022/06/22/ceo-csuite-burnout-pandemic-great-resignation?utm_source=pocket-newtab
       #Post#: 15469--------------------------------------------------
       Re: "Great Resignation" labor movement and strikes
   DIR By: guest78
       Date: September 4, 2022, 1:56 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       How 'Quiet Quitting' Became The Next Phase Of The Great
       Resignation
       --- Quote ---
       > "Quiet quitting" is having a moment. The trend of employees
       choosing to not go above and beyond their jobs in ways that
       include refusing to answer emails during evenings or weekends,
       or skipping extra assignments that fall outside their core
       duties, is catching on, especially among Gen Zers.
       >
       > Zaid Khan, 24, an engineer from New York, popularized this
       trend with his viral Tiktok video in July.
       >
       > "You are still performing your duties, but you are no longer
       subscribing to the hustle culture mentally that work has to be
       our life," Khan says in his video. "The reality is, it's not,
       and your worth as a person is not defined by your labor."
       >
       > In the U.S., quiet quitting could also be a backlash to
       so-called hustle culture — the 24/7 startup grind popularized by
       figures like Gary Vaynerchuk and others.
       >
       > "Quiet quitting is an antidote to hustle culture," said Nadia
       De Ala, founder of Real You Leadership, who "quietly quit" her
       job about five years ago. "It is almost direct resistance and
       disruption of hustle culture. And I think it's exciting that
       more people are doing it."
       >
       > Last year, the Great Resignation dominated the economic news
       cycle. Now, during the second half of 2022, it's the quiet
       quitting trend that's gaining momentum at a time when the rate
       of U.S. productivity is raising some concern. Data on U.S.
       worker productivity posted its biggest annual drop in the second
       quarter.
       >
       > So, why is this trend on the rise? Watch the video above to
       learn whether quiet quitting is hurting the U.S. economy and how
       it's being seen as part of the Great Resignation narrative.
       --- End Quote ---
  HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVLiRWD3gAM
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