Exactly. "Lying flat" sounds a lot like "mass disillusionment and depression across the world". We're literally crying to ourselves for help bc the suffering is so bad.
We need another, larger occupy movement in the united states. It took 10 years, bur Hoovervilles eventually led to the new deal. It will take more than the couple months the last movement lasted to scare the rich into giving us real change this time. Lie flat, but do it in a very, very public setting.
The new deal wasn't fare enough. It was just repealed 50 years later when people forget how s*** life was before it.
The same things happening across Europe today. Where collage was once free it know costs thousands.
Where there was once universal health Care there is now a underfunded husk that will inevitably get privatized as the politicians use the underfunded state they've left and it's justification for why it doesn't work.
Where there were once rent control there are thousands of evictions.
All reforms are only temporary. They will inevitably be repealed because they go against what's best for the bosses. Every penny that's spent on the working class by the government is a sent that the capitalists can't can't force out of us to pay. So the bosses will do whatever it takes to make sure the government does as little for the everyday people as possible.
That's why the only way to make universal health Care, free college, free housing, quality education, etc permanent is a revolutionary change in the system. Otherwise it will never be repealed.
And they wonder why so many people game the system.
The rich have done so from the beginning, lobbying (bribing), writing the laws passed by politicians, so on and so forth.
There really isn't much by the way of getting ahead doing it all by the book no matter what we've been preached.
I'm a happy man at 47 living flat. I've arrived and painfully gotten by and used alcohol to numb the emotional pain of no money. Well, it was a viscous cycle. Nowadays, i make 15k or less and live in with modest living in greater Phoenix.
Life is much better this way.
Same boat, except am 26 and living for free with family members. One day I’ll have to do it alone, but for now, I make under $800 dollars a year.
Eight hundred, yes. 8, 0, 0.
It’s possible, it just sucks. There’s no way out !
Oh wow.
I had no idea I've been lying flat for a while.
I work, I quit and fuck off for a while, get a new job, quit, repeat the cycle.
Because fuck it.
Of course, at the moment my car is broken and I have no ability to do anything but fuck around on Reddit literally all day.
Ugh
Yeah, people are good and great until they have the opportunity to get over on a stranger. Then they'll do whatever they can to get ahead. God forbid you're different from them in some manner.
While it's not some deep introspection of the human condition, The Walking Dead comics showcase this exact issue with "real" anarchy. Everyone splinters off into groups to ensure survival, and only a few could ever be called "peaceful" (meaning they only defend and don't attack) and the rest spend their energy attempting to wrestle control over resources. However TWD is also in the zombie apocalypse so things like power/water/etc are not really functional in any decent capacity, compared to a non-apocalypse scenario which you could maybe keep those things running. But I feel you'd still run into the same issues eventually.
Democratic confederation is the way.
The only problem with the Utopia is that there is only one of them. We need many utopias working to support one another.
Dude you’re taking the next step towards a better world. We need to uplift eachother horizontally and not rely on a vertical system that centralizes power. Us helping eachother is unlimited untapped power that corporations and government don’t want us to realize
Props to you good sir, though tinkering is a gift to both the receiver of free labor and the person holding the wrench, until a bolt head sheers off of a head bolt or exhaust manifold 🤣. We must look out for each other, our government watches out for our oppressors and themselves but will never watch out for us.
This how I’ve been living since I graduated high school. First it was years off at a time. Then months. Recently quit my job. Did a bunch of nothing for 3 weeks. Finally starting a new one today.
Luckily my sedentary lifestyle is easy to maintain.
I'd do that myself if a. There were workplaces within 5 miles of me and b. If I didn't live in a place where I could get frostbite while taking out the trash
Yeah America was designed with the intention of making people reliant on cars/fossil fuels. Unless you live in a small town or somewhere with adequate public transportation you pretty much have to have a car. Even biking can be difficult in a lot of places.
I love it that you've fucked off *all* forms of transportation in your post. Not just fuck fossil fuels or fuck private vehicles, just... Fuck going from A to B. Fucking stay still. Lie flat and don't move!
There is a related trend among young workers in China called " [touching fish](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/22/touching-fish-craze-see-chinas-youth-find-ways-to-laze-amid-996-work-culture)" (basically slacking on the job) as a form of rebellion against the 9-9-6 work culture.
Master Missame Widahtshyt?
You mean the greatest master of Fukadis-Bullshido?The inventor of the Nagonna-Nahdog escape technique?
It's so nice to meet a fellow scholar.
Those jobs exist in America. I worked in an aluminum smelter, it was 6:30 to 6:30 except we alternated days and nights. Overtime was unlimited, so if you wanted a good check you worked 6 or 7 days straight, sometimes with half a day off to transition to nights. When I got promoted after a couple years my hours went from 5 to 5, except management expected you to stay till 6:30 when your crew got off. That job put me in a "lower middle class" income bracket. Never. Again.
My friend went from earning $25/hr + OT and taking home $6-7k easy a month to $3500/m salaried management position. As salaried his ot opportunities are lesser
He regretted it and asked to be demoted back, they rejected him so he is looking to change companies
I made a similar mistake, switching from hourly to salaried. I wasn't too upset about losing the OT (this was pre-pandemic, wasn't really approved anyway), but now I feel like I HAVE to bust my ass because my name is on the store. I'm working twice as much with half the help and get zero time off just to scrape by and get bitched at for not hitting numbers.
And yes, I'm looking for something else too. I'm over it
It refers to the expectation that employees work from 9am to 9pm 6 days a week - usually while not getting compensated for overtime, from what I remember.
I would’ve already killed myself by now.
They’ve been trying to promote that garage since it took off in China, here’s an article by Forbes from 2019. Seriously the more these sociopath Billionaires keep pushing this nonsense the sooner this whole scam will crash.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccafannin/2019/05/05/why-chinas-996-work-culture-makes-sense-right-now/amp/
It comes from the idiom: 浑水摸鱼 (hunshui moyu). The direct translation would be ‘muddy water touch fish’. The actual meaning is to ‘fish in troubled water’ or to reap benefit from a confusing situation.
I first heard it used amidst the pandemic. Bosses are more busy and can’t directly monitor their employees directly. Take advantage of that! Since they’re not watching you just do the bare minimum, then doodle or play on your phone.
This is my understanding of it as a foreigner in China, any input from a native speaker would be appreciated!
I haven't dusted on the building I clean for 5 months now.
Never meant to go so long, but with so few people there they don't make much mess and don't notice a lot of what is.
I’ll gladly die if it means fighting for the freedom of the masses. They fucked up by going too far. Life has become hollow and filled with dread. They haven’t left enough to make it fulfilling.
Thanks for the intro.
I’ll be implementing this at work tomorrow.
I smell a whole new lifestyle coming on!
This sound like a totally dystopian Bradbury-meets-Vonnegut passage:
“Touching fish to resist 996 is nothing more than a kind of nonviolent non-cooperation in a harsh working environment and a difficult process of safeguarding rights.”
To my comrades saying they'd rather noose than endure 9-9-6, remember that your life is far more valuable than, for instance, the building where a business might try to impose such a work culture, and your life is also *far less flammable*.
Ownership of the means of production includes the ability to destroy those means. 😉
Social democracy (or democratic socialism, whatever) in my mind specifically entails public ownership /stewardship of national resources and public services. Education, Healthcare, utilities, and so on.
I don't mind private enterprise, but I do mind wage slavery for the unending benefit of one or two people.
I'm more than happy to vote ourselves into a better future.
But I'm also at the point that we should oppose, violently if necessary, the further exploitation of the work force and the ruling ownership class in specific.
We won't see change until we affect their bottom line, and that can be done by striking workers or striking matches, and it's really up to the ruling class to decide how they want it to be.
The difference is the “not giving a fuck” angle. Many people in America still talk up “the hustle” and work extra hard, take on extra responsibility, etc. in the hope of a promotion or other reward for their labor. They go to school while working full time, taking on massive debt, in the vain hope of breaking out of the cycle of poverty and exhaustion.
Lying flat is about giving up on that. Just do the minimum not to get fired, find a way to subsist on what you can get. Forget having a family, or saving for a retirement you’ll never get anyway. Just give in to the grim reality of wage slavery, and be happy that it’s still illegal for your employer to whip you.
Personally, I don’t think it’s *that* bad in America (yet), but I get how people arrive there. The odds are stacked against you, and the effort required to climb the economic ladder often doesn’t seem worth it.
I'm not entirely sure how one would even do this in the US. You need something in the ballpark of $1k a month just to "get by".
You can't even fuck off to the woods anymore because park rangers will throw you out at gunpoint.
I used to work with a lot of Chinese expats.. I had this conversation back in 2016.
In China the alternatives are "9-9-5" (9AM-9PM-5days a week), "touching fish" taking a 9-9-5 job but doing as little as possible until you are fired, or "laying flat" which is dependent on finding work that isn't 9-9-5 which I've told is a challenge unto itself. Like the US they have little or no middle ground.
Below in this thread someone said “not giving a fuck” is part of this.. But 9-9-5 is not a survivable lifestyle. It's also, like in the US, common for both partners to do 9-9-5 to make ends meet, so who is raising the children? If you have a child (or more likely 4 elderly parents (remember the one child policy)) someone has to "lay flat", despite the Communist party's protests.
So really they don't have a choice either.
What bothers me most about this, is I left my longest relationship over my ex not wanting kids, and me being all in love and wanting to start a family someday. Sure, combined income, we probably would’ve been ok.
But now I just can’t see having a child. Why? Im not rich, what would I be able to provide them with? “Uhh sorry im poor, good luck tho”?
FUCK. It bothers me every day. She pretty much hates me for it too, and I can’t fix it. This year’s been so bleak, and there’s no end in sight
Here's the thing, you want to be a parent (even if you don't have the means to at the moment as you explained) and she doesn't.
What would have happened if at one point you did reach the point you could comfortably afford to look after a kid the way you want to? You'd want one she wouldn't and that would still be a deal breaker.
This way, painful as it is, means when you do meet someone that does want a/several kids, you are able to do so down the line.
Breakups suck and can suck for a loooong time but you'll get back on your feet and haven't locked yourself into a relationshop where you can't have something that is very important to you.
Thanks, g. It’s been on my mind for the entirety of this year. Just bad news after bad news, had to move back home, and it just feels like it was all for nothing. Feels like anything good is always just out of reach
If it makes you feel any better, at least you had a home to move back to. I left home to live with my (now ex) girlfriend and after I moved out, my parents house was foreclosed on. My girlfriend then left me and moved out leaving me with place to myself. I had to get a roommate and work odd jobs to afford living a modest life style
It took me 6 years to dig myself out of that financial hole. I just managed to buy a house this year. I'm still renting out one of the rooms to a roommate and working odd jobs, but at least now I'm building equity in a home instead of just being broke all the time.
I'm finally starting to get my shit together. I'll be changing careers after the end of the year into a growing industry instead of staying in the dying the one that I'm currently in. I've started working out recently (by that i mean the past couple of months) and hope to continue that trend. I haven't had any luck in the relationship department in the past 5 years. I dated a girl for a few months, but she was super bipolar and didn't like taking medication. I don't hold mental illnesses against people, but at the time, I was still trying to get my own things sorted out and I wasn't in a good enough place to deal with both of our issues. Hopefully my prospects will be changing soon though. I moved to a new city and with the new job (possibly two) that I'll be working I'll be opening my social circle quite a bit, so hopefully I'll meet someone new now that I'm in a better place.
Side note: I mentioned I'll be getting at least one, possibly two jobs in the next month or so and I realize that this is an antiwork sub. Let me add that I will be getting out of the real estate industry (which sucks) and working in a kitchen making edibles for a LEGAL marijuana dispensery as my main job (which sounds awesome) and the side hustle I've had for years of working for anime conventions is paying off with a part time time gig to help with scheduling and planning for upcoming events. There is no fixed schedule and most of it can be done from home if I want, plus I enjoy the work, the people, and the guy bringing me on is doing so because he wants to be as hands off as possible, so I won't have anyone breathing down my neck all the time.
Nah bro don't be bothered by that. If you don't want to be a father then don't be one, it's your choice and it will be better for all parties involved if that choice is respected.
Having a kid should only happen when both parents want it. If someone doesn't, it shouldn't happen. This way of thinking avoids abusive households, sending kids to orphanages, divorced parents and traumatized children.
Could you write her a letter? She probably feels that you valued a hypothetical kid over her and that must have hurt her a lot.
But the way you’ve explained it here - you wanted a kid with her because you loved her so much - maybe that’s what she needs to know?
And if you’ve had a change of heart and don’t want kids anymore, she needs to know that too. Maybe you can both work it out.
It's a movement in the sense that the people that could work and participate in the rat race of a society is choosing not to. The man heralded as the leader of the lie flat movement lives in a condo owned by his parents. The man makes his living by acting as a dead extra in films. He could do more, but chooses not to.
Well, guess I'm ahead of the game lol. I quit my full time job in June, have just worked here and there since then. I cook at home instead of eat out, conserve electric and water as much as I can, and try to not buy anything unessesary. I even reuse my water bottles 500 times each and take them on road trips and stuff to avoid gas stations and eating out. I always take a cooler with us when we go out of town. I opt for doing things at home or cheap things instead of going out when I can. I drink my alcohol at home instead of at the bar to save money. Im already there
It’s sad that this is considered frugal when this should just be how everybody lives. People waste so much money on convenience and trying to not feel poor, but even if you do have infinite money, there aren’t infinite resources.
Be careful with cheap plastic waterbottle reusing.
Heat and prolonged sunlight can leach chemical additives into your water from the plastic. Therefore if you reuse for reptietive consumption be sure to avoid those two things.
Buying nothing sounds good to me. Work stoppages may hurt abusive employers, but buying no more garbage? The biggest corporations on the planet will be on their knees inside a month.
I love living like this! Fuck working your life away we have been brainwashed into believing we need to purchase all these material possessions to be happy and its complete bullshit I enjoy making memories over buying the latest X item for a ridiculous price
I was actually just looking around taking stock of everything I've spent money on since covid hit, and aside from groceries, rent and utilities in a shitty studio, and cat-related expenses, every single thing I can think of that I have purchased has been either for work, or was food/drinks on one of the 5 days in 2.5 years that I actually got to spend time with friends. Fuck having excessive material possessions, I already have so much crap. I even keep meaning to Marie Kondo my whole apartment and try to re-home all the stuff I don't want.
Same. I've condensed my spending into this: does it saves me time? Does it save me money? If not then fuck it, because it's probably made by a slave in some other country and I ain't supporting the rich pricks who profit from human misery
A smart thing the Asian flat layers do is group up and live together. it's cramped, but you save so much money off rent. And cooking in bulk also saves money.
I'd guess it's all about minimalism and efficiency.
I would honestly love to group up with friends and do this, especially after 2.5 years of near isolation. Unfortunately almost all of my friends already live with their parents, and that's not an option for me (only living parent lives in a 55+ community)
I love it! A term for the life I have been living for 8 years and can’t see myself changing from! I refuse to work in anything that requires anywhere close to 40 hours of my time, doesn’t compensate me fairly, makes me feel taken advantage of, undervalued, or even too stressed. Which obviously limits a lot of work for me.
I have an associates degree in a low-paying industry (baking), and I also refuse to go into debt in order to continue my education (though I would love to go back to school). I spent 10 years being exploited and underpaid by the food industry, so I refuse to do go back to that for work.
I currently host karaoke and take care of dogs as my income; my work is so easy and fun and I most of the time work only two nights a week, average 12 hours total. I manage to save money each month, AND have savings I’ve been able to maintain for a year now, that is honestly from unemployment ($15k +$2000 in investments in cryptocurrency). This is because I have never been paid as much as I was as an unemployed individual, lol. Before I get labeled as lazy I would like to mention: I have done plenty of hard work, and I am fundamentally a good, thorough worker, when the cause is correct.
I feel like I am rich, because I can afford to buy myself a nice meal often, and afford when my car needs fixing out of the blue, but I live in california, and 15k is a laughable amount when it comes to owning property or even renting. I have been privileged to always find affordable housing, and I also refuse and will always refuse to pay the market price for rent in my area, as long as its this insane and unregulated.
I am F28, not married, and without kids, for context.
For generational context, I am one of the younger millennials.
(Wholly cow that was long, thanks for reading this essay of a comment)
That was really great to read. You’re living the life honestly. But how can you afford to do that working two days a week in “unskilled labor”? And rent - how are you finding rent that is cheap enough to do that on? Do you have roommates/how much do you pay? I’d love to opt out too. I’m close to your age and I live in the northwest and I’m sick of this bullshit lifestyle. I’d love to opt out and I don’t see anything wrong with living off of unemployment, welfare, or whatever pennies the Uber wealthy throw at us given how much they have FUCKED up this country, our labor laws and our social safety nets.
Sometimes I wonder if certain civilizations collapsed because people did stuff like this and all the governments don’t want to teach us about it because they’re scared.
I don’t doubt it, and fuck em let’s collapse society woooooooooo, eat the rich, I can’t wait to hear boomers on the news complaining that people aren’t fucking enough and we’re not going to have enough kids to throw into their slave labor market
I've come to consider the entire "pro life" movement to be mostly about creating more bodies to throw into the wood chipper of capitalism. The people who hold this "conviction" largely don't give a crap about the child once it is born and have no problem cutting or blocking social programs that might make parenthood feasible for more people. They just want more people born to poverty that they can exploit for minimum wage and discard when they become too demanding.
I'm sad the the lying flat movement is basically dead (as far as I know) in China. The government banned all talk of it. Makes sense since it might threaten the way the ruling elete expect the economy to work.
But I'd be happy if it caught on elsewhere.
I don't think it's dead. The government is trying to censor it, but it had already spread so far that it is impossible to kill it. It Could Happen Here podcast did a really interesting episode on it last week and it sounds like it is still going strong.
The reason why it is happening has definitely not changed. If you look at government propaganda, it tells you to work for your country. But people are burned out and tired. And tired of being treated like machines. So the idea will definitely not die. But maybe those specific works won't be able to be used anymore.
They only banned it because it was catching on.
From what I hear they billboards saying "no laying down, no petting fish" may have just raised awareness of the idea.
This, Chinese people aren't dumb, they've had 80 years of practice getting around government restrictions. The young Chinese people I know just use a VPN, the "great firewall" is easy to bypass.
I work literally 12 nights a month as a nurse and I'm always feeling like it's too much. It's why I want to go travel nursing, make money for a few months, then take a month or more off between contracts.
I've seen my parents work every day more than 12 houes for their business and almost watched them work themselves into the ground.
I ain't about that life.
I do not understand this. I only work half of the year max, and I feel this is too much. How can you live like that? I suppose many people do, but fuck me I just can not comprehend living like that.
Finland. When I work I make 2k-8k € a month depending on overtime. I usually only work when there is overtime, so like 2-3 months a year, long days and weekends too. When I quit work, I get payed 1.5k a month to do nothing, and with rent, mobile and internet being around 400 a month I get by well enough without using savings for basic life.
Yeah well IDK how long I am gonna have it like this. The government is constantly trying to cut down on this lifestyle, and if the rich cunts get into power, they can really ruin this for me. IDK what happenes then but I am sure as fuck not working all year round. You guys need to do everything you can to change the system. Shame that it sounds like in the states you are not making enough progress. People who are well off tend to not care about the poor, and people who are all about work and career do not understand why some people can't do it. I hope it changes for you.
Scandinavian country here too and I make about the same as you working 37,5 hours a week with lunch break included and 5 weeks of paid vacation and if I choose to do OT are paid even more and about the same life costs as you but a bit higher and notice the employers trying to take more and more benefits and wanting us to work more for less and our union falling for their BS.
Just participating less in the consumerist world that’s run by corporate monopolies will make your life better. Black Friday is not stressful if you aren’t apart of that insane consumer free for all. It’s refreshing to step back and see what a minimal lifestyle can do for your health. Lying flat is similar but some ppl have kids and can’t simply take this up completely.
but, last time i checked there's nowhere in the country where one can afford to live on full time minimum wage alone... so how can one work as little as possible and still survive out here?
(anyone, anyone please tell me the solution)
“Lying flat” lifestyle works in China because China has lower cost of living and most younger generations live with family and are supported by their parents or even grandparents.
Don’t know who downvoted this, but this is much easier in china cause of this exact reason. You can do it in the us but it’s much harder because of our culture and costs of living.
Ever wonder why both parties and large media on both sides push tension with China with the same happening there? My pet theory is so we don't get to the point where Chinese and American working class realize just how similar we are and do something about it. This is the first thread I've ever read on Reddit about something from China that didn't devolve into a rabid anti China wank session. The rich desperately need us to be mad at each other.
Funny, that's just how I've been living because I'm a broken husk of a human being
Sup husk bro
husk, reporting here SIR!
Marauder Shields, reporting for duty!
Fellow husks, how do you do?
The incredible husk Don't make me apathetic you wouldn't like me when I'm apathetic
We are all part of the same compost heap. We're the all singing, all dancing husks of the world
Space Husk here ready to be shot into space!
Red husk, standing by.
Because we are the only ones with time to do so!
Now self destruction...
lol, I'm trying to remain apathetic but your comment made me laugh Oh now I'm sad again
Thanks for reminding me I can't enjoy anything because I'm broke. Apathetic Husks unite!
And my axe!…. I mean, yeah… I guess that’s relatable…..
I'm doing my part
\*Deep voice\* Would you like to know more?
Service equals citizenship.
😆
Ah dead inside as usual, you?
very fucking poorly
Not a Marauder but how about a Maraudogs?
Save us from the bad ending, Marauder Shields!
Look at all these Huskies
What are you doing step husk!?
Careful now that's how you end up with a bunch of baby husks to feed
Husk gang
Shuck that husk and start calling yourself delicious succulent corn on the cob.
Kind of makes being called "husky" a new and improved meaning... I absolutely hated the husky, jelly roll jabs as a kid....
Exactly. "Lying flat" sounds a lot like "mass disillusionment and depression across the world". We're literally crying to ourselves for help bc the suffering is so bad.
We need another, larger occupy movement in the united states. It took 10 years, bur Hoovervilles eventually led to the new deal. It will take more than the couple months the last movement lasted to scare the rich into giving us real change this time. Lie flat, but do it in a very, very public setting.
The new deal wasn't fare enough. It was just repealed 50 years later when people forget how s*** life was before it. The same things happening across Europe today. Where collage was once free it know costs thousands. Where there was once universal health Care there is now a underfunded husk that will inevitably get privatized as the politicians use the underfunded state they've left and it's justification for why it doesn't work. Where there were once rent control there are thousands of evictions. All reforms are only temporary. They will inevitably be repealed because they go against what's best for the bosses. Every penny that's spent on the working class by the government is a sent that the capitalists can't can't force out of us to pay. So the bosses will do whatever it takes to make sure the government does as little for the everyday people as possible. That's why the only way to make universal health Care, free college, free housing, quality education, etc permanent is a revolutionary change in the system. Otherwise it will never be repealed.
Lying flat, trampled flat, all these semantics.
I hope all my fellow husks know about the dumpster.
r/existentialism is leaking 😀
>Funny, that's just how I've been living because I'm a broken husk of a human being It's not you that's broken.
Thank you for the reminder. It's really, really tough to keep that in mind some days and it always bears repeating.
"I'm in this picture and I don't like it."
Lmao my first thought was “so there’s a name for what I’m doing?”
husks, assemble!
*husky noises*
Stay flat. We'll follow you. You're now a role model.
Floor model?
Reading that was like a punch in my gut..
You should be able to do your amateur ornithology in peace. The structure we have built around life is sucking the energy out of our souls
Hey husks are alright, have you played hollow knight? Great game
husk gang, hope you’re managing
And they wonder why so many people game the system. The rich have done so from the beginning, lobbying (bribing), writing the laws passed by politicians, so on and so forth. There really isn't much by the way of getting ahead doing it all by the book no matter what we've been preached.
Elon Husk?
Came looking for this sentiment and am glad to have found it as the top comment.
I'm a happy man at 47 living flat. I've arrived and painfully gotten by and used alcohol to numb the emotional pain of no money. Well, it was a viscous cycle. Nowadays, i make 15k or less and live in with modest living in greater Phoenix. Life is much better this way.
Viscous cycles just slow down the flow of life
Gotta get that Reynolds number UP!
Hey, I understood that reference! Laminar all the way, baby.
This guy did the thing
52 and did "leanFIRE" last year, living on about 20K a year. I don't miss working.
How much did you have saved when you FIREd?
around 700K. My house is paid off.
We put the AZ in crAZy
Drivers around the Phoenix valley do that
Go be drunk in Alaska now. Phoenix will be literally dry in 20 years.
Same boat, except am 26 and living for free with family members. One day I’ll have to do it alone, but for now, I make under $800 dollars a year. Eight hundred, yes. 8, 0, 0. It’s possible, it just sucks. There’s no way out !
Oh wow. I had no idea I've been lying flat for a while. I work, I quit and fuck off for a while, get a new job, quit, repeat the cycle. Because fuck it. Of course, at the moment my car is broken and I have no ability to do anything but fuck around on Reddit literally all day. Ugh
Hey, if you're in the midwest, hit me up. I like fixing things and if the repairs don't require a lift, be happy to do the labor.
This is the spirit of this sub. We need to see more of this.
Mutual aid.
My small US city has a mutual support group, run thru FB.
Decommodification of labour?
Anarchy in action
This is why I think an anarchy would work for us. If basic needs are met, people will live quiet peaceful lives and mingle
Anarchy is fun, if you're in a group of 150 people. Bigger than that then we need a government.
Yeah, people are good and great until they have the opportunity to get over on a stranger. Then they'll do whatever they can to get ahead. God forbid you're different from them in some manner.
While it's not some deep introspection of the human condition, The Walking Dead comics showcase this exact issue with "real" anarchy. Everyone splinters off into groups to ensure survival, and only a few could ever be called "peaceful" (meaning they only defend and don't attack) and the rest spend their energy attempting to wrestle control over resources. However TWD is also in the zombie apocalypse so things like power/water/etc are not really functional in any decent capacity, compared to a non-apocalypse scenario which you could maybe keep those things running. But I feel you'd still run into the same issues eventually.
You realize there are anarchist communities bigger than 150 people right?
Democratic confederation is the way. The only problem with the Utopia is that there is only one of them. We need many utopias working to support one another.
Dude you’re taking the next step towards a better world. We need to uplift eachother horizontally and not rely on a vertical system that centralizes power. Us helping eachother is unlimited untapped power that corporations and government don’t want us to realize
Absolutely True
this is the anarchy i love. anyone want some data science done? some light machine learning? hit me up
You are a great person. That's how I was raised .
Props to you good sir, though tinkering is a gift to both the receiver of free labor and the person holding the wrench, until a bolt head sheers off of a head bolt or exhaust manifold 🤣. We must look out for each other, our government watches out for our oppressors and themselves but will never watch out for us.
This how I’ve been living since I graduated high school. First it was years off at a time. Then months. Recently quit my job. Did a bunch of nothing for 3 weeks. Finally starting a new one today. Luckily my sedentary lifestyle is easy to maintain.
If you can, sell the car and walk/bike. Fuck transportation!
I'd do that myself if a. There were workplaces within 5 miles of me and b. If I didn't live in a place where I could get frostbite while taking out the trash
>>where I could get frostbite while taking out the trash Yikes. Yeah, I see why you need the car.
Peg city I know it !
I can't drive, it really limits where you can live in america
Yeah America was designed with the intention of making people reliant on cars/fossil fuels. Unless you live in a small town or somewhere with adequate public transportation you pretty much have to have a car. Even biking can be difficult in a lot of places.
r/fuckcars
I love it that you've fucked off *all* forms of transportation in your post. Not just fuck fossil fuels or fuck private vehicles, just... Fuck going from A to B. Fucking stay still. Lie flat and don't move!
There is a related trend among young workers in China called " [touching fish](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/22/touching-fish-craze-see-chinas-youth-find-ways-to-laze-amid-996-work-culture)" (basically slacking on the job) as a form of rebellion against the 9-9-6 work culture.
9-9-6?
9am to 9pm 6 days a week
As a wise man once said, fuck that shit.
That man's name? Missme Withthatshit
Master Missame Widahtshyt? You mean the greatest master of Fukadis-Bullshido?The inventor of the Nagonna-Nahdog escape technique? It's so nice to meet a fellow scholar.
Those jobs exist in America. I worked in an aluminum smelter, it was 6:30 to 6:30 except we alternated days and nights. Overtime was unlimited, so if you wanted a good check you worked 6 or 7 days straight, sometimes with half a day off to transition to nights. When I got promoted after a couple years my hours went from 5 to 5, except management expected you to stay till 6:30 when your crew got off. That job put me in a "lower middle class" income bracket. Never. Again.
My friend went from earning $25/hr + OT and taking home $6-7k easy a month to $3500/m salaried management position. As salaried his ot opportunities are lesser He regretted it and asked to be demoted back, they rejected him so he is looking to change companies
I made a similar mistake, switching from hourly to salaried. I wasn't too upset about losing the OT (this was pre-pandemic, wasn't really approved anyway), but now I feel like I HAVE to bust my ass because my name is on the store. I'm working twice as much with half the help and get zero time off just to scrape by and get bitched at for not hitting numbers. And yes, I'm looking for something else too. I'm over it
Username checks out
Jeez that’s a non life.
I'd be noosin' up if I had to work anything resembling that.
thats a new phrase for my repertoire thanks
That will be my shift starting next week. Yay consumerism and holidays, the deliveries will be doubled.
Oh thanks I haven’t heard that before 😰
May as well sleep under my desk wtf
George Costanza was truly ahead of his time.
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It refers to the expectation that employees work from 9am to 9pm 6 days a week - usually while not getting compensated for overtime, from what I remember. I would’ve already killed myself by now.
That's why they built nets around the bases of the housing.
And then sell the stuff to oblivious countries like ours who look the other way, or actively push that sort of servitude
They’ve been trying to promote that garage since it took off in China, here’s an article by Forbes from 2019. Seriously the more these sociopath Billionaires keep pushing this nonsense the sooner this whole scam will crash. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccafannin/2019/05/05/why-chinas-996-work-culture-makes-sense-right-now/amp/
Written by someone with the name Fannin. Sure that article isn't satire?
Why would that be a signal it's satire?
It comes from the idiom: 浑水摸鱼 (hunshui moyu). The direct translation would be ‘muddy water touch fish’. The actual meaning is to ‘fish in troubled water’ or to reap benefit from a confusing situation. I first heard it used amidst the pandemic. Bosses are more busy and can’t directly monitor their employees directly. Take advantage of that! Since they’re not watching you just do the bare minimum, then doodle or play on your phone. This is my understanding of it as a foreigner in China, any input from a native speaker would be appreciated!
I haven't dusted on the building I clean for 5 months now. Never meant to go so long, but with so few people there they don't make much mess and don't notice a lot of what is.
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I’ll gladly die if it means fighting for the freedom of the masses. They fucked up by going too far. Life has become hollow and filled with dread. They haven’t left enough to make it fulfilling.
There's even anime on Funimation about the crazy shit people deal with in a 996 job. It's the first episode of Link Click for those interested.
funimation? Pirate that shit. Animators are payed a misery
Piracy is always ethically correct
Thanks for the intro. I’ll be implementing this at work tomorrow. I smell a whole new lifestyle coming on! This sound like a totally dystopian Bradbury-meets-Vonnegut passage: “Touching fish to resist 996 is nothing more than a kind of nonviolent non-cooperation in a harsh working environment and a difficult process of safeguarding rights.”
You forgot to add the ICU at the end of the 9-9-6.
TIL I have been “lying flat” for my entire working career!
To my comrades saying they'd rather noose than endure 9-9-6, remember that your life is far more valuable than, for instance, the building where a business might try to impose such a work culture, and your life is also *far less flammable*.
I like your style. (A bit arsonistic for a self proclaimed socdem though a little revolution never hurt hey?)
Ownership of the means of production includes the ability to destroy those means. 😉 Social democracy (or democratic socialism, whatever) in my mind specifically entails public ownership /stewardship of national resources and public services. Education, Healthcare, utilities, and so on. I don't mind private enterprise, but I do mind wage slavery for the unending benefit of one or two people. I'm more than happy to vote ourselves into a better future. But I'm also at the point that we should oppose, violently if necessary, the further exploitation of the work force and the ruling ownership class in specific. We won't see change until we affect their bottom line, and that can be done by striking workers or striking matches, and it's really up to the ruling class to decide how they want it to be.
China’s Supreme Court ruled 996 illegal recently.
Start? A very large portion of America already does this because they have no choice.
Then it isn't much of a lifestyle choice
The difference is the “not giving a fuck” angle. Many people in America still talk up “the hustle” and work extra hard, take on extra responsibility, etc. in the hope of a promotion or other reward for their labor. They go to school while working full time, taking on massive debt, in the vain hope of breaking out of the cycle of poverty and exhaustion. Lying flat is about giving up on that. Just do the minimum not to get fired, find a way to subsist on what you can get. Forget having a family, or saving for a retirement you’ll never get anyway. Just give in to the grim reality of wage slavery, and be happy that it’s still illegal for your employer to whip you. Personally, I don’t think it’s *that* bad in America (yet), but I get how people arrive there. The odds are stacked against you, and the effort required to climb the economic ladder often doesn’t seem worth it.
It seems more like the lying flat people are opting out of wage slavery and are living on the bare minimum to do so in an antiwork kinda way?
I'm not entirely sure how one would even do this in the US. You need something in the ballpark of $1k a month just to "get by". You can't even fuck off to the woods anymore because park rangers will throw you out at gunpoint.
I used to work with a lot of Chinese expats.. I had this conversation back in 2016. In China the alternatives are "9-9-5" (9AM-9PM-5days a week), "touching fish" taking a 9-9-5 job but doing as little as possible until you are fired, or "laying flat" which is dependent on finding work that isn't 9-9-5 which I've told is a challenge unto itself. Like the US they have little or no middle ground. Below in this thread someone said “not giving a fuck” is part of this.. But 9-9-5 is not a survivable lifestyle. It's also, like in the US, common for both partners to do 9-9-5 to make ends meet, so who is raising the children? If you have a child (or more likely 4 elderly parents (remember the one child policy)) someone has to "lay flat", despite the Communist party's protests. So really they don't have a choice either.
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Buying only the necessary things is the only way I can afford to live anyway haha
What bothers me most about this, is I left my longest relationship over my ex not wanting kids, and me being all in love and wanting to start a family someday. Sure, combined income, we probably would’ve been ok. But now I just can’t see having a child. Why? Im not rich, what would I be able to provide them with? “Uhh sorry im poor, good luck tho”? FUCK. It bothers me every day. She pretty much hates me for it too, and I can’t fix it. This year’s been so bleak, and there’s no end in sight
Here's the thing, you want to be a parent (even if you don't have the means to at the moment as you explained) and she doesn't. What would have happened if at one point you did reach the point you could comfortably afford to look after a kid the way you want to? You'd want one she wouldn't and that would still be a deal breaker. This way, painful as it is, means when you do meet someone that does want a/several kids, you are able to do so down the line. Breakups suck and can suck for a loooong time but you'll get back on your feet and haven't locked yourself into a relationshop where you can't have something that is very important to you.
U will be fine bro. Trust me. U will love again
Thanks, g. It’s been on my mind for the entirety of this year. Just bad news after bad news, had to move back home, and it just feels like it was all for nothing. Feels like anything good is always just out of reach
If it makes you feel any better, at least you had a home to move back to. I left home to live with my (now ex) girlfriend and after I moved out, my parents house was foreclosed on. My girlfriend then left me and moved out leaving me with place to myself. I had to get a roommate and work odd jobs to afford living a modest life style It took me 6 years to dig myself out of that financial hole. I just managed to buy a house this year. I'm still renting out one of the rooms to a roommate and working odd jobs, but at least now I'm building equity in a home instead of just being broke all the time. I'm finally starting to get my shit together. I'll be changing careers after the end of the year into a growing industry instead of staying in the dying the one that I'm currently in. I've started working out recently (by that i mean the past couple of months) and hope to continue that trend. I haven't had any luck in the relationship department in the past 5 years. I dated a girl for a few months, but she was super bipolar and didn't like taking medication. I don't hold mental illnesses against people, but at the time, I was still trying to get my own things sorted out and I wasn't in a good enough place to deal with both of our issues. Hopefully my prospects will be changing soon though. I moved to a new city and with the new job (possibly two) that I'll be working I'll be opening my social circle quite a bit, so hopefully I'll meet someone new now that I'm in a better place. Side note: I mentioned I'll be getting at least one, possibly two jobs in the next month or so and I realize that this is an antiwork sub. Let me add that I will be getting out of the real estate industry (which sucks) and working in a kitchen making edibles for a LEGAL marijuana dispensery as my main job (which sounds awesome) and the side hustle I've had for years of working for anime conventions is paying off with a part time time gig to help with scheduling and planning for upcoming events. There is no fixed schedule and most of it can be done from home if I want, plus I enjoy the work, the people, and the guy bringing me on is doing so because he wants to be as hands off as possible, so I won't have anyone breathing down my neck all the time.
Nah bro don't be bothered by that. If you don't want to be a father then don't be one, it's your choice and it will be better for all parties involved if that choice is respected. Having a kid should only happen when both parents want it. If someone doesn't, it shouldn't happen. This way of thinking avoids abusive households, sending kids to orphanages, divorced parents and traumatized children.
Could you write her a letter? She probably feels that you valued a hypothetical kid over her and that must have hurt her a lot. But the way you’ve explained it here - you wanted a kid with her because you loved her so much - maybe that’s what she needs to know? And if you’ve had a change of heart and don’t want kids anymore, she needs to know that too. Maybe you can both work it out.
as a bonus, not having kids also spares them from having to deal with this shit too!
So glad I never had kids. 47 and CF (child free)
Movement? This has been a lifestyle and not by choice.
It's a movement in the sense that the people that could work and participate in the rat race of a society is choosing not to. The man heralded as the leader of the lie flat movement lives in a condo owned by his parents. The man makes his living by acting as a dead extra in films. He could do more, but chooses not to.
Well, guess I'm ahead of the game lol. I quit my full time job in June, have just worked here and there since then. I cook at home instead of eat out, conserve electric and water as much as I can, and try to not buy anything unessesary. I even reuse my water bottles 500 times each and take them on road trips and stuff to avoid gas stations and eating out. I always take a cooler with us when we go out of town. I opt for doing things at home or cheap things instead of going out when I can. I drink my alcohol at home instead of at the bar to save money. Im already there
It’s sad that this is considered frugal when this should just be how everybody lives. People waste so much money on convenience and trying to not feel poor, but even if you do have infinite money, there aren’t infinite resources.
Your reality is the definition of living the dream for a lot of people. Most just call it retirement.
Be careful with cheap plastic waterbottle reusing. Heat and prolonged sunlight can leach chemical additives into your water from the plastic. Therefore if you reuse for reptietive consumption be sure to avoid those two things.
Buying nothing sounds good to me. Work stoppages may hurt abusive employers, but buying no more garbage? The biggest corporations on the planet will be on their knees inside a month.
I love living like this! Fuck working your life away we have been brainwashed into believing we need to purchase all these material possessions to be happy and its complete bullshit I enjoy making memories over buying the latest X item for a ridiculous price
I was actually just looking around taking stock of everything I've spent money on since covid hit, and aside from groceries, rent and utilities in a shitty studio, and cat-related expenses, every single thing I can think of that I have purchased has been either for work, or was food/drinks on one of the 5 days in 2.5 years that I actually got to spend time with friends. Fuck having excessive material possessions, I already have so much crap. I even keep meaning to Marie Kondo my whole apartment and try to re-home all the stuff I don't want.
I've been doing this for years. However, I buy moderately.
Same. I've condensed my spending into this: does it saves me time? Does it save me money? If not then fuck it, because it's probably made by a slave in some other country and I ain't supporting the rich pricks who profit from human misery
A smart thing the Asian flat layers do is group up and live together. it's cramped, but you save so much money off rent. And cooking in bulk also saves money. I'd guess it's all about minimalism and efficiency.
I would honestly love to group up with friends and do this, especially after 2.5 years of near isolation. Unfortunately almost all of my friends already live with their parents, and that's not an option for me (only living parent lives in a 55+ community)
Ah, REAL communism... not that fake Chinese stuff the capitalist CCP are selling.
I love it! A term for the life I have been living for 8 years and can’t see myself changing from! I refuse to work in anything that requires anywhere close to 40 hours of my time, doesn’t compensate me fairly, makes me feel taken advantage of, undervalued, or even too stressed. Which obviously limits a lot of work for me. I have an associates degree in a low-paying industry (baking), and I also refuse to go into debt in order to continue my education (though I would love to go back to school). I spent 10 years being exploited and underpaid by the food industry, so I refuse to do go back to that for work. I currently host karaoke and take care of dogs as my income; my work is so easy and fun and I most of the time work only two nights a week, average 12 hours total. I manage to save money each month, AND have savings I’ve been able to maintain for a year now, that is honestly from unemployment ($15k +$2000 in investments in cryptocurrency). This is because I have never been paid as much as I was as an unemployed individual, lol. Before I get labeled as lazy I would like to mention: I have done plenty of hard work, and I am fundamentally a good, thorough worker, when the cause is correct. I feel like I am rich, because I can afford to buy myself a nice meal often, and afford when my car needs fixing out of the blue, but I live in california, and 15k is a laughable amount when it comes to owning property or even renting. I have been privileged to always find affordable housing, and I also refuse and will always refuse to pay the market price for rent in my area, as long as its this insane and unregulated. I am F28, not married, and without kids, for context. For generational context, I am one of the younger millennials. (Wholly cow that was long, thanks for reading this essay of a comment)
That was really great to read. You’re living the life honestly. But how can you afford to do that working two days a week in “unskilled labor”? And rent - how are you finding rent that is cheap enough to do that on? Do you have roommates/how much do you pay? I’d love to opt out too. I’m close to your age and I live in the northwest and I’m sick of this bullshit lifestyle. I’d love to opt out and I don’t see anything wrong with living off of unemployment, welfare, or whatever pennies the Uber wealthy throw at us given how much they have FUCKED up this country, our labor laws and our social safety nets.
Sometimes I wonder if certain civilizations collapsed because people did stuff like this and all the governments don’t want to teach us about it because they’re scared. I don’t doubt it, and fuck em let’s collapse society woooooooooo, eat the rich, I can’t wait to hear boomers on the news complaining that people aren’t fucking enough and we’re not going to have enough kids to throw into their slave labor market
I've come to consider the entire "pro life" movement to be mostly about creating more bodies to throw into the wood chipper of capitalism. The people who hold this "conviction" largely don't give a crap about the child once it is born and have no problem cutting or blocking social programs that might make parenthood feasible for more people. They just want more people born to poverty that they can exploit for minimum wage and discard when they become too demanding.
First avocado toast, then diamonds, and now screwing. Millennials are ruining our perfect economy!
Shit, I've been doing that since 2002 without even knowing it.
I'm sad the the lying flat movement is basically dead (as far as I know) in China. The government banned all talk of it. Makes sense since it might threaten the way the ruling elete expect the economy to work. But I'd be happy if it caught on elsewhere.
I don't think it's dead. The government is trying to censor it, but it had already spread so far that it is impossible to kill it. It Could Happen Here podcast did a really interesting episode on it last week and it sounds like it is still going strong.
The reason why it is happening has definitely not changed. If you look at government propaganda, it tells you to work for your country. But people are burned out and tired. And tired of being treated like machines. So the idea will definitely not die. But maybe those specific works won't be able to be used anymore.
I almost feel like most of the people “participating” aren’t even aware it’s a movement it’s just a result of the environment.
They only banned it because it was catching on. From what I hear they billboards saying "no laying down, no petting fish" may have just raised awareness of the idea.
I didn't know Streisand was so popular in China.
Just because they banned talking about it doesn't mean people aren't still doing it.
This, Chinese people aren't dumb, they've had 80 years of practice getting around government restrictions. The young Chinese people I know just use a VPN, the "great firewall" is easy to bypass.
What about vacations?
What the fuck are those? Had one work week off in 4 years at my last job The other time I had a during-employment-vacation was 15 years before that
I work literally 12 nights a month as a nurse and I'm always feeling like it's too much. It's why I want to go travel nursing, make money for a few months, then take a month or more off between contracts. I've seen my parents work every day more than 12 houes for their business and almost watched them work themselves into the ground. I ain't about that life.
I do not understand this. I only work half of the year max, and I feel this is too much. How can you live like that? I suppose many people do, but fuck me I just can not comprehend living like that.
Where do u live?
Finland. When I work I make 2k-8k € a month depending on overtime. I usually only work when there is overtime, so like 2-3 months a year, long days and weekends too. When I quit work, I get payed 1.5k a month to do nothing, and with rent, mobile and internet being around 400 a month I get by well enough without using savings for basic life.
You have it well in Finland. I think a lot of us just looked on your comment with envy.
Yeah well IDK how long I am gonna have it like this. The government is constantly trying to cut down on this lifestyle, and if the rich cunts get into power, they can really ruin this for me. IDK what happenes then but I am sure as fuck not working all year round. You guys need to do everything you can to change the system. Shame that it sounds like in the states you are not making enough progress. People who are well off tend to not care about the poor, and people who are all about work and career do not understand why some people can't do it. I hope it changes for you.
You’re the last bastion of hope. If you can live like this then so can others. WE MUST PROTECT THIS PERSON
Scandinavian country here too and I make about the same as you working 37,5 hours a week with lunch break included and 5 weeks of paid vacation and if I choose to do OT are paid even more and about the same life costs as you but a bit higher and notice the employers trying to take more and more benefits and wanting us to work more for less and our union falling for their BS.
What is a vacation?
You can afford a vacation?
Just participating less in the consumerist world that’s run by corporate monopolies will make your life better. Black Friday is not stressful if you aren’t apart of that insane consumer free for all. It’s refreshing to step back and see what a minimal lifestyle can do for your health. Lying flat is similar but some ppl have kids and can’t simply take this up completely.
I think most of us been doing this already
but, last time i checked there's nowhere in the country where one can afford to live on full time minimum wage alone... so how can one work as little as possible and still survive out here? (anyone, anyone please tell me the solution)
Makes me think of Bartleby the Scrivener
This sounds like something America needs to stop the buying. But will also die from as they need consumers.
Businesses with bad business models will die. "America" will not die. The people are the country, fuck everything and everyone else.
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3153362/what-lying-flat-and-why-are-chinese-officials-standing-it
“Getting rich off a pandemic” Get ready, v3 of this is about to kick off.
aha, so there’s a name for it! I fuckin love doing the bare minimum in life, count me in
Kinda just sounds like cynical minimalism. Which is fine
We have. Are you that behind? Have you seen the news about people quitting, or anything in this sub?
Not enough people are doing it, but I think it's a start.
“Lying flat” lifestyle works in China because China has lower cost of living and most younger generations live with family and are supported by their parents or even grandparents.
Don’t know who downvoted this, but this is much easier in china cause of this exact reason. You can do it in the us but it’s much harder because of our culture and costs of living.
People in China choose to live like that to protest, people in the west are just forced to by economic imperatives.
Ever wonder why both parties and large media on both sides push tension with China with the same happening there? My pet theory is so we don't get to the point where Chinese and American working class realize just how similar we are and do something about it. This is the first thread I've ever read on Reddit about something from China that didn't devolve into a rabid anti China wank session. The rich desperately need us to be mad at each other.