Thoughts for October 23, 2022
Good afternoon. This week’s topics are anti-work movements and some quick hits.
Anti-work
We are all familiar with terms such as the “rat race” (or “rat maze” as Ph. D. Comics describes it), hustle culture, striver culture, etc. But not everyone is on board. Here we’ll take a brief look at various recent anti-work movements.
In 2021, Chinese social media spread the concept of tangping (躺平, or “lie flat”), a rejection of the country’s notorious 996 (9 AM to 9 PM, six days a week) work culture. The movement was widespread enough to attract attention from government censors. As explained in the linked Brookings post, this movement arises in the context of Xi Jinping’s “New Era” economic policies, which among other things seek to shift the engine of the country’s economic growth from exports to consumption. A result has been an explosion of credit and rising levels of debt, which play no small role in the country’s current economic troubles.
Tangping is more than passivity; it is also a form of social resistance. Advocates of this philosophy view the culture of hard work, “wolf culture” (cutthroat competition within the business world) and the ethos of consumerism as existing for the good of the state, not for the good of individuals. Tangping advocates rejecting all of it: doing the bare minimum of work to get by, simple living, avoiding marriage and children, and not buying property. Such themes are evident in Luo Huazhong’s post (translation) last year. The Brookings article refers to the “leek people” who harvest the fruits of those who labor under workism and consumption. The proverb “The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the scythe.” comes to mind.
This year has seen a follow-up movement, bai lan (摆烂, “let it rot”), meaning essentially that it is better to let a bad situation deteriorate than to try to improve it. The youth unemployment rate in China, high even before COVID-19 struck, is now nearly 20%. The large cities of Eastern China have housing prices out of reach of the middle class. It is not hard to imagine how cynical attitudes would develop.
In South Korea, there is the sampo-sadae (삼포세대, giving up on three generation), which has given up on dating, marriage, and having children. Extending that is the opo-sadae (오포세대, giving up on five generation), which has given up on the three things of the sampo-sadae, as well as on good employment and home ownership. Then there is the chilop-sadae (칠포세대, giving up on seven generation), which has given up on the five things of the opo-sadae, as well as on interpersonal relationships and hope for a good future in general. And finally, there is the wanpo-sadae (완포세대, giving up on everything generation), which believes that suicide is the only option. This blog post examines these cultural phenomena and, beyond the material concerns—high housing costs, lack of good employment options for young people, etc.—identifies loneliness as a major problem.
In Japan, the Millennial generation has also been referred to as the satori generation (さとり世代). Satori is a state of enlightenment in Buddhism, referring to how this cohort has renounced worldly desires, but in reality has given up hope of success. Referring to people who only know the economic stagnation that Japan has experienced since the mid-1990s, Niculina Nae shows that the Millennial cohort in Japan has a bleaker view of its economic outlook than their counterparts in most countries.
In most countries and in most eras, there is tension between the older generation, who think that “kids these days” are lazy, and the younger generation, who see their elders have having mismanaged society and taken away their future. One sees analogues in contemporary Western notions such as The Great Resignation or quiet quitting, and earlier movements such as anti-consumerism. But it appears to me that the anti-work movement profiled above, centered in East Asia, is of a different character than “more of the same”.
Hard work is part of the ethos of any successful society, including the United States. I don’t think that hard work is, in and of itself, the problem identified in these movements. Rather, it is hard work coupled with a sense of futility. In the 1999 movie Office Space, the character Peter Gibbons (played by Ron Livingston) explains it well.
PETER
The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy. It's just that I just don't care.
BOB PORTER
Don't, don't care?
PETER
It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now, if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime. So where's the motivation? And here's another thing, Bob. I have eight different bosses right now!
BOB SLYDELL
I beg your pardon?
PETER
Eight bosses.
BOB SLYDELL
Eight?
PETER
Eight, Bob. So that means when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my real motivation - is not to be hassled. That and the fear of losing my job, but y'know, Bob, it will only make someone work hard enough not to get fired.
Quick Hits
Here I will review a few topics that I think are interesting, but about which I don’t have a whole lot to say.
In his book Adrift, Scott Galloway shares these disturbing results on the decline of friendship in the United States.
In past posts, I wrote about the implausibility of mining helium-3 from the moon for D-He3 fusion reactors. Gerrit Bruhaug, who wrote a paper I’ve discussed before, recently prepared this thread on the prospect of mining helium-3 for other purposes. The main other purpose is that, since helium-3 is a good neutron absorber, it would be ideal for screening for radioactive materials. A helium-3 shortage crimped post-9/11 port security. He3 is also useful for medical imaging. But Bruhaug argues that on time scales relevant for setting up lunar mining, terrestrial sources should meet He3 demand just fine.
New details are emerging about last summer’s assassination of Shinzo Abe. Apparently the assassin’s mother had donated a large sum of money to the Unification Church, which the assassin blames for the family’s ruin. The Unification Church, founded in South Korea by Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon, has been compared with Scientology or the Hare Krishnas. Among other political activities is a close relationship with the Liberal Democratic Party, which Abe headed.
Speaking of Scientology, Quilette has an article on L. Ron Hubbard’s opposition to psychiatry. It’s pretty interesting, but I was disappointed by the lack of discussion of the social conditions behind anti-psychiatry. With COVID vaccines now receding in their political salience, it wouldn’t surprise me to see psychiatry emerge as the next medical flashpoint issue.
And speaking of medical partisan flashpoints, Leor Sapir from City Journal discusses a recent John Oliver segment on transgender issues and “gender affirming care”. Oliver badly misrepresents the science on key issues, such as whether puberty blockers are “reversible” and the validity of the social contagion model for gender dysphoria. I’ve watched a few John Oliver segments over the years and do not regard him as a good source of information.
Russia’s demographic outlook, which was already looking bleak, has taken a turn for the worse as a result of the war. Russia’s population has been declining since the breakup of the Soviet Union, which a brief exception in the mid-2010s. The decline resumed by 2018 or 2019, was worsened by COVID-19, and has now worsened again. The war will accelerate decline in three ways: first, from those soldiers that are killed; second, from men who have fled the country to avoid mobilization, many of whom will not come back; and most significantly, from families who have put off childbearing, perhaps permanently if the war drags on, due to disruption and uncertainty. Russia’s population was about 143.4 million in 2021; I predict that it will be less than 140 million in 2030.
In the United States, there has been a baby bump starting in 2021 (see the charts starting at p. 18 of the paper). It was the first significant increase in the birth rate since 2007, though we’re still deep in subreplacement territory. Emily Peck of Axios discusses why this may have happened and suggests the rise of remote work as likely the most important factor.
The Jones Act (Merchant Marine Act of 1920) is a law that requires that all goods transported by ships between two American ports to be transported by American-built ships, to fly the U.S. flag, to be owned by Americans, and to be crewed by Americans. Critics (quite rightfully in my view) regard this law as an unwarranted piece of protectionism. Criticism of the Jones act by libertarian-oriented think tanks obviously touched a nerve, as someone on a marine shipping advisory panel wants to charge them with treason. The Cato Institute wrote a bit more on this incident. See also Cato’s coverage on why the Jones Act is bad policy.
The Bagan Kingdom was a medieval kingdom in the territory of the modern nation of Myanmar. The Fall of Civilizations channel did an episode on how the kingdom developed, thrived, and then unraveled. One of the more interesting points is how the tax-exempt status of Buddhist property holdings contributed to the kingdom’s undoing. Over time, a larger share of the kingdom’s wealth came into the church’s ownership; eventually, this eroded the government’s ability to finance endeavors, including defense from an invasion from Kublai Khan.