This article looks like a goldmine, but I don't have time to read it all and won't be interested in doing that once I have the time. Here's my favorite paragraph of the part I read:
Today the party’s propaganda machine is spinning stories about young people making a decent living by delivering meals, recycling garbage, setting up food stalls, and fishing and farming. It’s a form of official gaslighting, trying to deflect accountability from the government for its economy-crushing policies like cracking down on the private sector, imposing unnecessarily harsh Covid restrictions and isolating China’s trading partners.
see, I actually don't mind doing manual labor, I enjoy building things and finding ways I can improve them, but only when I'm not massively alienated from the fruits of that labor. I wouldn't mind doing irrigation if it helped people in my community that loved and accepted me, but wtf even is that, nothing I'll likely ever experience except vaguely in the realm of ideas
The way society is structured currently manual labour might be marginally less alienating, but it will destroy your body, and you'll have to do it for another 2 decades after it does just to survive.
Skilled trades seems like a nice midway point, but just like "learn to code", "learn a trade" feels less like practical career advice, and more a long term labour cost saving measure.
the billions stolen in wage theft are going to develop new types of steam loom for deskilling labor
yeah i call it irrigation but what I was helping to irrigate were lawns in the suburbs via sprinkler systems :agony-4horsemen:
i also agree if it wasn't so alienated it would be fulfilling but like most other jobs its just for a paycheck
of course, they're always going to rebrand their vanity projects as something that's actually useful
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