[rland]

The pandemic made this crystal clear to me. The phrase "essential worker" is pure comedy.

If like 80% of the population is not an "essential worker" why the fuck do we need to coerce people to work under the threat of eviction, homelessness, and withholding healthcare?

That's why the phrase "essential worker" had to be drastically expanded. To the point of completely destroying any chance of preventing the spread of covid19. Because if we actually took that term at its true meaning, it would destroy these myths that we have about work and the necessity of work. Even containing covid, which we all believed was pretty goddamn important, was not as important as preserving this myth.

We are living in post-scarcity. Which is why everyone except the "essential workers" are so alienated by their work. If you went to college, you're doing yoga and taking prozac to deal with the anxiety of your alienation. If you didn't go to college, you're ODing on fentanyl.

This problem will not go away with more culture and more myth-making.

[bennysomething]

We're living in a post scarcity world? Really? So if all the people who worked to get food on your plate just stopped it would all be fine? Thats just one example and the list of exchanges required so food just appears in the super market is too long for me to even begin. Take any other product you use and it will be the same. No idea how this is post scarcity, all of this thing called the modern world takes work, it's not magic.

[rland]

Those people are the essential workers I'm talking about. They are a small portion of the population.

Do you notice how during the pandemic, none of them stopped working? How many do you know personally? And how large that group, the everyone else who stopped working, is?