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You need to work hard for your money. That’s the premise behind modern day capitalism. No hand outs. No freebies. Get to work! Get a job! Don’t just sit there, you lazy bum! Get off your ass and do something productive. C’mon! Chop! Chop!
You want healthcare? Work for it. You want a decent wage? Earn it. You want to get out of poverty? Well c’mon now. Pull up your boot straps! Like, you can’t even have your basic needs met without the will to sacrifice all your time and sanity to your corporate overlords. Productivity is an important thing to create in order to be a contributing member of society, as it's seen in a capitalistic society. Your worth is measured by how much you can *do*, instead of who you are. You’re not a human being, just a cog in the machine. Yet it seems that this “productivity” has evolved from “adding to the betterment of society” into “adding to the pockets of the rich.” The act of being productive seems to really only benefit an elite few, not yourself and your family, yet alone society at large. You see, you work your ass off only to be able to barely put scraps of food on the table so you don’t starve. Meanwhile, the owner of the company you work for is nowhere to be found on the work site, because he’s out drinking in the sun with his rich friends on one of his yachts. And it’s the guy basking in the sun on his giant boat (or in outer space on his rocket ship for that matter) that’s glorified in society. Like he’s the real deal. You gotta work hard to be like him. Thing is, he ain’t doing shit. These billionaires I’m talking about. They don’t do shit. Yet alone “work hard” in any sense of the phrase. Oh sure, they “provide jobs”.I mean if you want to count paying measly wages to perform hours of back breaking labor on an unpredictable schedule with little to no benefits a “job”, then yeah, they provide that sort of thing, no doubt. But look, these aren’t job positions. They’re *slavery* positions. Let’s be real here. People are quite frankly working their goddamn asses off only to be able to afford to live in poverty. And that, my friend, is slavery through and through. You're working simply for the means of survival. On top of that, billionaires pay little to no taxes. So now they’re NOT contributing to society at all, other than providing the opportunity to work as a corporate slave. Wow, how generous of them. How fucking beneveloent and praseworthy of them to offer poverty in exchange for back breaking work. Give me a break, man. Sheesh. They’re corrupt af and you know it. Yet, people would rather have corrupt billionaires than any of these “free loaders.” They’re afraid of socialism taking over democracy, when they’re already living in an oligarchy. The rich have all the power and call all the shots. Somehow it’s the people that just want enough to be taken care of that are destroying democracy and not the ones hoarding all the resources to themselves. Man, this ain’t a democracy. You ain’t free. Anyone that thinks they have freedom is brainwashed. You don’t have freedom. You have the illusion of it. You’re trapped in a world where your hard work gives you the ability to survive. You have owners. They own you. They own me. They own it all. Everyone. Everything. America was bought and sold a long time ago. They’ll feed you just enough scraps on the table to keep your mouth shut. Yet, it’s clever. It’s clever the way they designed it. You see, you can’t just oppress people without giving them some sort of hope. Hope is what kept prisoners of the Hallocaust from straight up just offing themselves. They had hope they’d escape. And hope is what keeps people working in corporate America. People see themselves not as the oppressed working class, but as potential billionaires. They hope that someday they too can be a billionaire and escape the 9 to 5 prison grind. But that’s not happening. I’d hate to break it to ya, but it’s just simply not the reality of the world in which we live in. You can work your whole life, and, unless you too are willing to exploit other people for your own monetary gain, then you’ll reach retirement age with barely enough in savings to cover a couple months rent. You’ll be lucky if you become a millionaire, yet alone a billionaire. I mean, it's certainly possible. But like I said, you have to make a lot of immortal choices to get there. You don’t reach a billion dollars (yet alone multiple billions of dollars) without stabbing a few backs here in there. You gotta take away vacation days, pay the minimum wage possible, and monitor your employees' time to the point where you punish them for taking too many bathroom breaks. You can say there are freeloaders in this country, but they’re not the ones asking for free healthcare and just basic shit to live without making it a struggle. No. They’re the ones that are making healthcare expensive, the ones keeping wages low while the cost of living keeps increasing. They’re the ones “loading up” on all the wealth, while again, dodging taxes -- those are the free loaders. Tax money could be used to provide people healthcare and higher education is instead used to fill the pockets of an elite class of billionaires, who already have more than their fair share of wealth. It’s honestly disgusting. I reckon you’re actually a better member of society sitting around on the couch doing nothing, than you are being a billionaire (who mind you, is actually sitting around doing nothing) and exploiting the work of employees for the sake of selfish profits. All of this propaganda about how you shouldn’t be lazy, and instead work hard! Go get ‘em! But really, the richest people here are some of the laziest sons of a bitches out there. I mean they probably even have a butler wipe their own ass. I joke but it’s probably true. I bet at least one of them has this sort of thing, though I’d wager they’d never admit that publicly and it's probably in the contract that the ass wiping remains confidential. Anyway, the fundamental idea behind capitalism is making a trade between two willing parties. You give me a horse. I’ll give you a cow in return. Deal. You give me labor. I’ll give you some pay. Sounds fair. Could be anyway. But it’s not. Because in this little trade of labor for money, the amount of money we get in return ain’t worth shit. Wages are too low to justify working. Put bluntly... You’re getting fucking ripped off! It’s not a fair trade. No deal! More and more people are seeing that though. People by the thousand are refusing to go to work, they’re refusing to get a job. We have the rise of procrastin8rs across the country, all sitting at home doing nothing productive. And that must make them worthless, right? After all, they’re not contributing to society. Or maybe they’re just seeing the value in their own efforts and labor. Ever think of that? Maybe people think they deserve more than poverty for working their asses off. Maybe they don’t want to work if they’re not compensated *fairly*. I mean again if we want to get to the fundamentals of what capitalism is all about, it’s all about a FAIR trade among the two parties. Right now, providing labor in exchange for the measly pay that’s being offered is taking the short end of the stick. It’s simply NOT fair. And refusing to work ain’t that bad. Laziness has its charm. Indeed, making your efforts worth it is something we should strive for. And here’s the thing, folks... In the not too far off future, there won’t be any human jobs left. You couldn’t work even if you wanted to. Not that you’d want to anyway, you lazy bastard. But jobs are slowly being replaced by AI, it’s only a matter of time before the need for human work is completely vanished. Look around, AI is *already* pretty rampant. There are self-driving cars that pickup and drop off passengers, drones that fly around and deliver packages to your doorstep, and automated cash registers that check out customers without a cashier present. There are robot vacuum cleaners that clean your house. The list goes on and on, and it’s only going to grow even more present as time goes by. Now of course, the natural inclination is to think that AI will only replace the physical or “essential” jobs in society. But you’d be blind to believe that. “Big think” jobs like accounting, law firms, and even medical doctors will soon too, be replaced by AI. There’s AI that can literally diagnose patients before they even have any symptoms by analyzing neural networks and do so even more accurately than human counterparts. Plus, if you factor in a person’s DNA, medical history, genetic makeup, biological responses to certain medicines, it’s easy for a human doctor to make a mistake. Patients get misdiagnosed all the time. But if you have an AI system that could access a network of medical knowledge, well then we’ll be able to more accurately diagnose patients. And you may think, well what about creative jobs? Certainly AI can’t replace a graphic designer or sound engineer. Here’s the thing: we already have AI that can literally write music, plays, as well as draw pictures and create graphics via Photoshop. The creative jobs aren’t safe from the AI take over either. People are afraid of these AI systems in much the same way people were afraid of automatic elevators when they were first introduced. People didn’t trust the electronic elevator and insisted that they have a bellman there to manually work the lift. You can see how this is similar to people’s anxious feelings towards hopping in the passenger seat of an AI-driven vehicle. It’ll soon be the accepted mode of transportation before we know it. And skeptics will of course point out that automated vehicles (and AI in general) makes mistakes. There are numerous accidents caused by automated cars. But the thing is, they don’t have to be perfect, they just have to be better than us, better than humans, more accurate, more efficient, and of course, more cost-effective. They hit every one of those marks. Lastly, you may cry, but there has to be programmers for the AI! I mean, certainly AI can’t exist if there aren’t human programmers writing the code for it. Well, let me introduce to you a little AI project called Codex. It’s an AI that writes itself. You read that right -- an AI that writes *itself*. Yeah, it’s pretty much game over for mankind at that point, when the invention can invent itself. There’s no going back now. It’s too late. The robots can create themselves. The inventor is no longer necessary. The AI takeover of production in society is sort of inevitable at this point. Plus, in the eyes of business owners doing a cost benefit analysis, they see the initial investment of AI a helluva lot cheaper than paying a human employee. And sure, there’s the initial startup cost to get the AI system up and running, then you have a bit of an increase to the electric bill as well as maintenance fees, but these costs are far less expensive then say, minimum wage (yet alone a good-paying wage with benefits). The goal of refusing to work is a negotiation tactic. When the offer isn’t fair, be willing to walk away (and lie back in bed). That’s a strong principle to follow when it comes to negotiating. It’s the tone of “here’s what I want. Take it or leave it.” Now the other party in negotiation, in this case, business owners in regards to offering higher pay to employees, have to make a choice: either agree to pay more or find another opportunity that allows them to pay less. Certainly, not getting the work done isn’t an option. They want to increase, or very well maintain the current levels of production (and thus profits) And so what will they resort to? Simple. Either finding someone somewhere (perhaps in another country) who is willing to provide labor at a cheaper cost or they will start using AI (another cheaper labor option) Fact of the matter is, they don’t want to share their slice of the pie (or any of the pie for that matter) They want to eat it all for themselves. And so increasing wages, to them, is out of the question. Again, they want to minimize costs and maximize profits. So picture this: you don’t have money, you don’t have a job, and you can’t get a job to earn money because all the jobs have been filled by AI. Yay! And you may be thinking, what any logical person here would think and that is: well hol up. Hold on there, cap. If all the work is being done by some robot or something, why can’t we all just chill and be lazy and have our basic needs met, maybe even a bit of wealth on top of that to live in some form of luxury? Ah yes, indeed, in an ideal world, society would collaborate together and use AI as a tool, allowing us all to sit at home in our lazy abode and enjoy ourselves, while being provided for. We could have plenty to eat, a nice place to live. All the production would take care of itself. (By the way, tangent, but I probably use that word. Robot. I imagine that’ll become a derogatory word of sorts. It’ll be known as the “r” word in the same vein the “n” word is derogatory to a black person and the “f” word is deragatory to a gay person. So um, I mean no offense by it...please don’t kill me awesome AI overlords Mark my words, the next big social debate will be about “Artificial Intelligence rights” and there will be a huge political war over what it means to be human. It’s coming. Mark my words.) I mean, hell isn’t that what we were trying to achieve by building society in the first place -- the ability for all to flourish together. Seems quite screwy that we wouldn’t take that path, that we wouldn’t create something that allows everyone to be taken care of and live a good life. I mean, we’ve done it. We did what our ancestors could only ever dream of -- collect plenty of resources and streamline the flow of production to the point where we can actually live and not just struggle to survive. But. Big But. But, the issue is, those resources as aforementioned are owned by the greediest of humans, the kind that only want to use AI for their own benefit, and not for the benefit of society at large. You see, the rich have gathered the resources. They own that shit.. And they want to keep it for themselves. The resources are there. There’s more than plenty., more than plenty in fact, a primitive society’s wet dream. Yet, now that we’ve made the remarkable achievement of obtaining this “plenty” that ancestors long ago sought so hard after, we have a small group of elites that don’t believe in the idea of sharing, and have further stipulated that sharing is a detrimental act. It’s something for commies! It’s something for socialists! Look, man. There shouldn’t be a price to live, to have just your basic needs met. And now, with AI being the future, there’s little reason for us to really pay for anything, yet alone basic sustainable costs like food and shelter. I mean we work for pay and work will soon be completely irrelevant in the world of automation. If no work will be available, then how will you earn pay? There must be *some* form of sharing of these resources. There must be. I mean unless this becomes some sort of dystopian empire where the rich head off in their spaceships and leave us poor to fight amongst ourselves in the wastelands of the poison climate-ridden Earth. Your labor is overpriced (and also less efficient) compared to that of AI, so let me tell it to you straight, to these corporate owners, you’re completely worthless now. You’re “worth less” than the value (in profits) that AI can bring them. They don’t care about your livelihood (or whether or not you’re alive to begin with...don’t even get me started with this fucked up healthcare system). The only reason they offer you some form of pay (and a shoddy one at that) to begin with is because of the benefits they get in return. If they pay you 6 figures, believe me, they are making 7 figures on your name. The willingness of CEOs to push for AI proves they see you as no more than a machine. You're just a means of production. That’s it. Your humanity is completely extraneous to them; it doesn’t concern them. What concerns them is how much money you’re making them. That’s it. Earlier this year, Jeff Bezos announced a completely AI-run store. No human employees. This is just the beginning. In the coming years, we’re about to see a complete shift in the ways of productivity. We’ll question what it means to work and what it means to be lazy. Is work really a necessary thing for a human to do? Or was it only necessary to reach this point in society, where the work can pretty much take care of itself, through the use of automation? There is a lot more to a human than the work he or she can perform. And embracing your laziness can help you see that.
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Well fellow procrastin8rs, after the government shutdown unemployment benefits a few weeks ago, on no other day but Labor Day, I might add, business owners started rubbing their hands together, expecting to see a surge increase in job applicants.
They thought certainly if people are not getting paid to sit at home, then they’re going to sign right up to schlep 9 to 5 for slave wages. Economists and corporate owners alike swore that receiving unemployment benefits was the reason people were refusing to work and taking those checks away would lead to the recovery of this supposed “labor shortage.” They were wrong. Dead wrong. People are *still* refusing to work. Indeed, they’re embracing their laziness and aren’t budging from the couch. The reaction from employers is one of a bit of shock. They’re in complete disbelief right now. They stopped rubbing their hands and instead threw them in the air with a big “OMG why is this happening?” As an article from Bloomberg put it, employers are standing there quote “baffled” with their mouths wide open as to how removing unemployment benefits didn’t solve this little labor shortage situation they find themselves in. Gee, how could people not want to work their asses off for payment that barely covers the bills? How is it at all possible that people don’t want just scraps on the table as compensation for their hard work? These people need a reality check. It ain’t that we don’t want to work. We’re all just sick of schlepping ridiculous hours for measly pay and no benefits. And we ain’t going back to that shit. Not happening. Period. Yeah, sure, call us lazy because we ain’t gonna tolerate our work being exploited for the profits of the business owners and shareholders. I guess people figure “Well, I’m gonna be living in poverty anyway, so I might as well make myself comfortable sitting at home than schlepping at a job.” It makes diddly squat sense to work your ass off if you’re only going to be living in poverty after getting your paycheck. People don’t want to work only to earn enough money to survive. It just ain’t worth the effort, man. What laziness is and what laziness does is minimize effort and maximize results. Working at one of the low-paying jobs that these companies are offering does quite the opposite -- it maximizes effort and minimizes results. It requires you to break your back and results in barely being able to put crumbs on the table so you don’t starve. It’s absurd (though really comes at no surprise) that when people say “my work is worth more than that”, business owners reply by saying “stop being so lazy.” No, we don’t need to stop being lazy. They need to stop being so greedy. You hear? Greed is the cause of this “labor shortage”, not laziness. As Michael Lastoria, CEO of &pizza said “ There isn't a labor shortage, there is a shortage of business owners willing to pay a living wage.” That’s the real shortage here in America. Truth is, you have plenty of people willing and able to work. They just don't want to work for shit pay. It’s really that simple. There’s no reason to be baffled by all of this. Seriously. Anyone that remains perplexed by the flat line of job applications (instead of a rampant increase) after the cut of unemployment benefits is quite simply arrogant And speaking of Micahel Lastoria, I’m gonna get to a shout out to him along with Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments in a minute because these guys are doing the unthinkable, in the world of business, and that is paying their employees a decent goddamn wage. Anyway, before we get into the details of all that, I want to just point out how awfully abysmal the current pay structure is designed in corporate America. It has followed the same premise for decades: lower expenses wherever possible in order to maximize profits for the owner and shareholders. It’s been just about raw numbers. The bottom line. It’s all about cutting costs. Fuck humanity. Fuck caring about a person as an actual human being. They’re just a cog in the machine. And it certainly feels that way, don’t it? You slave away for hours on end only to receive just enough money to keep yourself alive. Maximize the return of cheap investments. That’s the theory behind modern capitalism. And the cheap investment in this case is low wages. They want high productivity (and in turn, profits) at the cost of low wage labor. But people are beginning to wake up and realize “My labor is worth more than that.” Oh you don’t want to pay more? Then you can’t afford me as an employee. Sorry hunny. And so people, by the thousand are up in arms, or down on the couch, more accurately stated Ultimately, the numbers in “labor cost” don't factor in more important attributes like employee moral and mental wellbeing. It only accounts for how much money is being spent to produce more products. However, in this world of corporate corruption, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. A couple of CEOs, as I just briefly mentioned, have taken it upon themselves to create companies that actually, for a change, pay well. Could this be the future? It should be Let’s take a look. And without further ado, let’s dive...right into it! A Bold Move Six years ago, CEO of Gravity Payments Dan Price, made the bold decision to raise all of his 120+ employees annual salary to a minimum of $70k. Some of his employees were making a measly $35k, so an increase to $70k essentially *doubled* their salary. That’s not just increasing wages to something livable. That’s enough to help employees start building wealth and escape that eternal poverty in which the typical corporate (low) pay structure traps people in. In fact, 70% of the employees of Gravity Payments managed to give themselves the ole Dave Ramsey debt-free shout out. They paid off all their debt - student loans, credit card bills, mortgage.You name it. They no longer owe money to somebody else. They achieved the ever-awesome achievement of earning ZERO net worth. It may sound silly but having zero dollars to your name is a BIG win. I mean, most of us have a negative number next to our name in terms of assets and financial wealth. In fact, an estimated 80% of Americans have some level of debt. For a company to say “70% of the people that work here have no debt” is absolutely HUGE. I mean, that’s almost as many people debt-free in one company as there are IN debt in the entire freaking country, in terms of percentage anyway, that is. Crazy stuff. Many of them are purchasing their first hom too. What’s more is that the staff at Gravity have begun having a lot of babies. No seriously. Babies had by staff grew tenfold after the $70k minimum was introduced. And you may be thinking “what in the hell makes someone want to have a baby after getting a raise?” Well as one employee put it “we can actually *afford* to start a family.” Babies are expensive. Raising a kid is expensive. The delivery itself sets you back five to eleven grand and then you have clothes to buy, tuition to pay, more food to put on the table, the list goes on and on. Fact of the matter is, at a low wage job, you can barely support yourself, yet alone an entire family. Meanwhile you have people criticizing millennials for not having kids and for “Shutting down” industries left and right. Well, as this little anecdote at Gravity illustrates, people are willing to do what they can afford. If they can’t afford to have a kid, they won’t have one. If they can’t afford to eat out a restaurant, then they won’t go out. If they can’t afford luxury goods or playing golf or riding motorcycles, then they won’t do any of that shit. You get the point. Millennials aren’t “killing” anything. They’re just working with what they got. And they ain’t got much. Lazy? Maybe. Practical? Definitely. If you give people more money then they have more money to spend. What’s killing industries is not millenials refusal to buy things, it’s the baby boomer corporate owners’ refusal to pay enough so people *can* buy things. Like we couldn’t buy nice things if we wanted to because you’re giving us shit pay. Anyway, back to Gravity Payments. So all this debt payoff, new home purchase, and having babies sounds nice, but how can Price pay for it and is it even sustainable? Well, to answer the first question, we’re gonna look at what Dan decided to do to assure his workers got paid that lovely $70k a year. And it’s simple: he took a cut to *his own* pay check. Wow, imagine that! A CEO of a company taking a cut out of their own pay? You thought you’d never hear it, especially nowadays where the average CEO earns 300 times the average worker at their company. Believe me, the typical CEO won’t hesitate to cut wages, as long as it doesn’t apply to their own salary. But Price did it. He went and took a $1 million cut. Now, he pays himself the company’s minimum of $70k annually and that’s it. He says he still lives comfortably and that taking that amount as pay has helped him downsize. Of course, this isn’t a move a modern CEO can make without a huge flux of criticism and backlash. The media tore him apart. You had Fox News calling him a socialist. And basically every other media outlet really pouring into him, basically railing the guy. In the eyes of the media, Gravity Payments was set to fail. There was no way, in their view, NO WAY that a company could afford to pay employees such high wages and manage to remain sustainable. My theory though is that the media didn’t necessarily think that it wouldn’t work. They just didn’t WANT it to work. Because what would happen IF it did work? What would happen if a guy running a business managed to take a cut from his own salary in order to pay his employees fairly and go on to still profit? Well it would completely crumble the accepted pay system of the current corporate structure. It would just purely and utterly demolish the idea that “wages must be low so that business owners can afford running a business” And that’s exactly what happened… See, not only did Price and his company manage to stay alive and away from bankruptcy, through this pandemic no less, after hitting that $70k minimum pay, but profits have more than TRIPLED from what they were over a half decade ago. I mean , you want to talk data. Well the numbers speak for themselves. It’s more profitable for a company to pay employees well than it is to stifle wages to as low as they can be. In regards to how his company was able to be so successful after what seemed to be quite a risky business decision, Price gives ode to having stronger company loyalty (a whopping 91% employee retention rate, compared to the industry average of 68%). If people are taken care of, they want to stick around. And sticking around means they have more experience with how to work with clients. Raising wages in short creates a better experience for both the employees and the customers. Employees are taken care of and customers get to see genuinely happy workers, not just people wearing a fake smile for a few hours on the job until they go back home and cry in bed. I mean you gotta think about the morale that goes on here to. People are less stressed, less tired, less depressed, when they ain’t gotta worry about things like paying bills or affording to eat. They’re more motivated to put in more effort at work because there’s significantly less things distracting them with worry. Thus, increasing productivity. Happy workers are more productive workers. With a $70k annual wage, they’re definitely happy, or at the very least, a lot less worried about shit. I mean when you ain’t gotta think about “how am I gonna afford this month’s rent? Or “how am I gonna pay for groceries this week?” then you can use that mental and emotional energy for something actually positive or productive. Dan Price’s Gravity Payments is now a case study at the Harvard Business School. That’s a good sign. One of the nation’s top schools is educating the young people going into business about this practice of fair payment. Perhaps others will follow his lead and we can all put away the days of exploiting workers for the sake of filling owners’ wallets in the future. We’ll see. In the mean time, there is actually someone following Dan’s footsteps, or perhaps just taking a similar path on his own, but it’s a guy by the name of Micahel Lastoria. Now he’s the CEO of a restaurant chain called &pizza and what he decided to do is offer a $16 minimum wage. And guess what? He’s not experiencing this so called “labor shortage” that the media speaks of. As a matter of fact, he received over 100 applicants for each position offered. Yet, many corporate owners can’t seem to get any applicants at all. Amazing how people are willing to work when they’re offered a fair wage, isn’t it? In Lastoria’s own words “ “If you aren't paying your employees enough to cover basic survival costs, what possible incentive could a person have to take that job?" There is absolutely no incentive to work for shit wages. The solution to business owners “bafflement” is to begin to pay decent damn wages. That’s really the only thing getting us off our asses at this point. Keep on being Lazy, my dudes. Stay on that couch and don’t get up. Not until you’re offered an enticing payment to do so. Don’t fill out those job applications that are offering you a measly $7.25 an hour with an unpredictable schedule and no benefits. Procrastinate. Wait until there’s a good opportunity for you to make your efforts actually worth it. Don’t work hard for someone else’s benefit. In fact, don’t work hard at all. Hard work isn’t the path to success. Again 80% of Americans are drowning in debt and many of them are working their goddamn asses of every damn day. Laziness is the path to success, knowing the value of your efforts and labor and only giving those things when you’re compensated fairly enough for it. Choices to Be Made Now that all said, business owners are going to have to make a choice at this point. They can either take the cue from Dan Price and Michael Lastoria and take a cut to their salary so that they can actually offer a livable wage to their workers...or follow the tried and true method of capitalism at its finest of shrinking wages down as little as possible in order to fat fill their own pockets. Paying workers more fairly means sharing the wealth of their own dragon horde. Yes, they’re fucking dragons sitting on their hoarded masses of wealth. Yet, refusing to do so means not getting man *human* workers. I say human workers because I believe what we’re going to see is a heavy push for AI technology. Fact of the matter is, most CEOs just aren’t generous enough to give up a part of their pay check. They’re all about cutting costs wherever possible, and the cost of human labor is more than they’re willing to pay. Guys like Price and Lastoria are exceptions. Your average CEO ain’t budging on their pay policy and wage offers (or lack thereof). So, instead of hiring people, they’re going to invest in AI machines to do the work that people are refusing to do. It’s a simple cost-benefit analysis. Jeff Bezos, for example, has already begun building AI-run grocery stores. It’s only a matter of time before robots replace our jobs. Now this could be a good thing. I mean, think about it. No work to do. It’s all done in automation. We could, technically speaking, all live a life of luxury and leisure, where AI supports us and does all the labor for us. However, that’s assuming that the resources are shared. But given the trend of greed, I’d reckon AI would only be used to benefit the rich, while they sit in their goddamn dragon cave of riches. Soon, you won’t be able to find a job even if you wanted to. And that’s a scary thing to think about. I do hope that we can see more CEO heroes see the value in human lives (and human work), who take the initiative to pay what a human is worth. "Always invest in people" is the philosophy of Dan Price and I hope society can hold that belief along with him. Take it easy, N8 Aloha, fellow procrastin8r. We’ve got something special for you today. Now if you’ve been following my content for quite a while, you’ll know that lately, I’ve typically given you a dose of weekly words of wisdom in regards to what we call the L.A.Z.Y. mindset. We’ve covered everything from How to Deal with D-Bags in a calm laid back sort of way to how to Relax and Let Go of Regret and pretty much everything in between that touches base on taking it easy in life and not worrying or getting stressed out.
After all, hard work is NOT the way to success, contrary to popular belief. It is laziness that leads you to living a happy, fulfilling life. It is laziness that allows you to actually enjoy life, and not just merely exist as another cog in the corporate machine. So it’s important that we often talk about implementing laziness into nearly every aspect of your life -- that way you can actually be happy. And happiness -- that’s the true measure of success right there! Anyway, despite the core values of what this blog has become, every once in a while, when I feel like it, perhaps once in a blue moon ,I like to dive back to the roots of what this blog was originally all about -- and that is making money from the couch. Of course, we’ve expanded a lot since this blog first started. It’s become more of a philosophy or way of life than a simple list of money-making methods. While money-making from the couch is no longer the sole focus of what we do here, there’s no denying that putting cash in your pocket by by literally doing nothing is a *part* of the overall lazy lifestyle we want to achieve here. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’ll take a chunk of change for sitting on my ass if I can. That’s certainly minimizing effort and maximizing results, the core of what laziness is all about. We’re gonna take a look at my favorite apps for earning money passively, that is apps that pay you for doing *nothing*. Like that idea? Of course you do, you lazy bastard! So you’re gonna absolutely LOVE what I put together for you today. But...before we get started, and I go ahead and give you that list, I want to clarify the parameters that determine what this list is made of. 1. First of all, these are apps that are for your smartphone. I’m using an Android phone and some of them may not be available for iPhone, which is important to note. Also, many of the apps require a working SIM card to function (and earn you money) properly. So these aren’t gonna be apps that you can dig up an old phone that you no longer use for the purposes of earning cash. It needs to be your “main” phone, the one you carry around in your pocket and use to text, post selfies on Social Media, and look up pictures of sloths on. And I mean, look, it’s 2021, you more than likely have a phone, and if you don’t well then c’mon old man, get with the times! No but seriously, this is a way to earn money from a phone that you’re already using anyway. 2. The second requirement I have for this list is that they must be actually paying (as of September 2021, the publication of this article). Look, I’ll be straight with you. I ain’t one of these bloggers that’s gonna waste your time downloading scam apps. Many sites will post lists of “apps to earn money passively” and include ones that put bluntly: don’t fucking pay out. You waste your time accumulating points over weeks or even months only to receive some sort of error (and lack of reply from support for that matter) when attempting to cash out once you’ve reached the godforsaken large threshold. There are lots of scam apps out there that simply don’t pay and only collect your data. I don’t like wasting my time and I certainly don’t like wasting yours either. I’d rather post about genuine shit that works, than merely post something for the sake of views/content. I value integrity over profits, unlike a lot of these sleezy greedy corporate owners. I’m like you, just a dude trying to abide. My goal is to give to you, not take from you and I want to give you ways to earn easy money that, like I said, actually freaking work! So, these are apps that I have *personally* gotten paid by. I wouldn’t want to share with you apps that DIDN’T pay, unless of course I made a list of “scam apps/apps to avoid”. Now true, I’m just some random dude on the Internet, but I always condone that lying is the one thing you should NOT procrastinate on. Take that for what it’s worth. At the end of the day, I suppose you’re going to have to choose whether or not to take my word for i, but that’s completely up to you at that point. I’m just a dude with an opinion, man, so take anything I suggest as that and not some sort of rule to follow. 3. The third requirement for this list is that they are 100% passive, meaning there’s nothing you have to do other than sign up and install the app. It’s very…”set it and forget it.” Once you complete the initial set up process, that’s it. You’re done. Sit on back and earn money. Cha-ching! baby! You don’t have to take surveys or complete micro-tasks or even click a button as a daily check in. It’s something you login whenever you feel like it, check your points, and cash out when you’ ve accumulated enough of them. No need to do anything on your part other than install the app. It’s about as lazy as money can get. 4. The fourth parameter of these apps is that they are all available in the United States. That is my country of residence and so the apps I use are going to be ones that are in fact useable in the US. They may be available in other countries outside of the U.S., but I cannot personally vouch for that, as I only have access to these apps within my own country. So if you are one of my global readers, keep in mind that the apps I suggest may or may not be available to you. The final thing I’d like to bring to your attention, as a matter of transparency, is that I’ve included some referral links and referral codes for these apps and I do get a small commission incentive if you choose to sign up under my referral. Now I’m not one of these dudes out here just trying to collect a big referral train. Again, I value integrity over profits, so I will be including a non-referral link as well. I appreciate your support if you choose to use my referral. Also, I just want to throw it out there that these apps are in no ways going to supplement your income. It just flat out doesn’t pay that much. But hey, free money is free money and I’ll take what I can get. Anyway, todayI put together for you another ProcrastiN8 list, the top 8 smartphone apps to earn money passively and without further ado, let’s dive...right into it! 1) McMoney (referral code QS8E9QSS) Minimum Cash Out: $6 via PayPal Time to Reach Cash Out Minimum: Varies (6-12 months) WTF is it? McMoney comes from Cm.com, a cloud software company, one of the services they offer to their clients is mobile service, and so they want to measure and track mobile data. That’s where you come in. See, they basically test mobile networks by sending “test” messages and they compensate you for allowing them to send these testers. In short, this app pays you for receiving text messages. Since you need a functioning SMS phone, you definitely need an ACTIVE Sim card for this to work, as I mentioned earlier. If you can’t receive regular text messages, then you’re shit out of luck. Also standard text messaging rates apply, so if you don’t have unlimited text messaging, this app honestly ain’t worth it, which is sort of why I put it on the bottom of the list, among other reasons. Now you may be asking what exactly are these messages you’ll be receiving and the answer is... I couldn’t tell you. No, it’s not some type of mysterious secret I’m keeping from you. It’s literally I can’t tell you. I mean it’s complete gibberish. Unreadable nonsense. For example, the last text I received from McMoney read as follows: “nakepaw ut groga zeacgi usiebe ind stra klangigtuce without” You see what I mean, just silliness. You can simply delete it, but honestly I’m even too lazy for that and literally just have my inbox flooded with these “biskongus” type messages. Now, that may bother some, to be spammed with weird messages, but I personally don’t give a fuck. I’ll let someone text me “gooji makka linki” all day if it means I’m getting paid! Anyway, one important note, because I know what you’re thinking. “Well, can’t I just block the number and not have to even worry about getting spammed like that anyway?” Here’s the thing: You can’t block the number. If you block the number then the text cannot be received, thus no payment can be received either. Again, you’re being paid to *receive* text messages; can’t get paid if you’re not *receiving them. The messages themselves, other than making your head spin trying to read it, are completely harmless. There’s no viruses or any of that shit. It doesn’t hack your phone or whatever. It’s just a random string of characters to test the mobile network. Besides, receiving a random message can make you feel like you have friends that care about you. Seeing that little notification on your phone may excite you. Of course, you may be just disappointed when you see it’s not your friend or anyone you know, just some robot speaking gibberish to you. Admittedly, there have been quite a few times where I was expecting a text back from someone, feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, go to check it, only to see a random number creating gibberish word vomit. It can be a tad frustrating at times, but not enough to warrant uninstalling it or avoiding downloading in the first place. But seriously, it shouldn’t bother you too much. It’s not gonna be buzzing your phone off the table. The text messages don’t come *that* frequently to the point of annoyance. It’s like a once in a while thing. That said, the frequency of the text message arrival may be a little *too* inconsistent. It may be a few days before you get one, it may be a few hours. You never know. Expect the unexpected I suppose. You don’t have to open or even read the texts, by the way. That’s what makes this completely passive. Yes, you do have to receive it, but it can remain in your inbox unread for all eternity and still count as payment. What I Like:
What I Don’t Like:
It’s about an extra 50 cents to a dollar per month, which ain’t bad for doing nothing. Still, there’s no denying that there are higher paying apps that are just as passive. - The cash out itself takes 2-3 business days to arrive. While they do pay out, it takes a while to see it in your account 2) Embee Mobile Performance Meter (Non- Ref) Minimum Cash Out: $1 via gift cards Time to Reach Minimum Cash Out: 10 - 15 days WTF is it? It’s pretty straight forward. What it does is in the title. It measures the “mobile performance” of your phone by tracking your location and the stability of your network, whether you still have service and how strong the signal is. You get paid for them tracking this data. This may be something you’re completely uncomfortable with, so fair warning, this app is tracking your data usage and location 24/7. Of course, many companies (Facebook, Google, Twitter, Apple) are tracking your data. I suppose it’s a matter of whether you want to trust *yet another* company with your data or not. This company actually pays you for your data though. You have to share your phone number, e-mail address, and demographic information in order to sign up. I’ve been using this app for years and haven’t experienced anything malicious from them nor data breaches. (I have experienced data breaches from “trusted” companies like eBay and Sony though, but I digress.) Once you sign up and are approved, you’ll be given and “earn rate”. It’s pretty vague how they determine this rate, but I know it has something to do with your location and which mobile carrier you have and it can range from 10-30 points daily. Then that’s it. You gain points equal to your earn rate simply for having the app on your phone. No need to check in daily or anything. You’ll have to give the app a few permissions then make sure the meter status says “RUNNING” and you’re good to go. Embrace your laziness and watch your points grow. You can also choose to turn on “Survey Booster” as well and get surveys to complete for bonus point. The surveys pay usually between 50 and 100 points (one point is about 1 cent, so that’s equivalent of 50 cents to a dollar per survey), but since this article is focus on *passive* ways to make money we’ll turn that off for now. Once you have enough points, you can cash out for a gift card that’s sent directly to your e-mail. There are dozens of places to choose from, including but not limited to Amazon, Cabello’s Staples, Starbucks, Target, Red Robin, JC Penny, and GameStop. I usually go with Amazon, but go ahead and pick whatever tickles your fancy. Note that if you do choose Amazon, you can cash out the very low cash out of $1 HOWEVER, this costs 150 points, whereas a $5 AMGC costs 500 points (which is equivalent to 100 points per dollar instead of 150). It’s better to procrastinate and wait til you have enough for the larger cash out, so you get more bang for your buck (or value for your points for that matter) No sense going for the lower cash out, besides that makes it less passive when you’re opening up the app to cash out more frequently. Have some patience. It’s the heart of procrastination. What I Like:
What I Don’t Like:
3) Telephia Minimum Cash Out: $3 via PayPal Time to Reach Minimum Cash Out: 3 weeks WTF is it? Much like Mobile Performance Meter, it tracks your mobile data usage in exchange for payment. Again, it’s completely set it and forget it. Download the app. Sign up. Then just keep it running, while you lie around in your PJs. No need to move anywhere. No need to go anywhere. Lazy cash at its best. Do be aware that similarly to MPM, you are basically “selling” your data to a company. If you’re not comfortable sharing personal information, then you might want to flat out avoid this. However, if you’re like me and have pretty much just accepted that companies know everything about me anyway, and feel ya might as well get paid for it, then go ahead and sign right up You earn a steady $1 per day that you have the app running (for at least 8 hours) plus an additional $1 for every full month (or 28 days) you have it running. The days do NOT have to be consecutive. What I Like:
What I Don’t Like:
4) Reklaim (aka Killi) (Non-Ref) Minimum Cash Out: none Time to Reach Minimum Cash Out: 1 month WTF is it? Your data is being sold and Reklaim, former known as “Killi” wants to give you a cut of the pie and “reclaim” your own data. After providing your e-mail address, the app will scan social media networks, websites, and services like Facebook, Google, Netflix, Twitter, and Pinterest to see who bought and sold your data and what they’re using it for. You’ll be given a list of these companies as well as how much they’ve been selling your data for. You’ll also see the grand total of how much your data sells for (in total) annually. Honestly, the points you earn are a bonus, because this app is simply a great tool at getting a good view at who’s trading your data. You can also link your credit/debit card to earn from your shopping data or install a browser extension to earn form your browsing data. Once you do all that, the earnings are completely on auto-pilot man. While there seems to be no minimum cash out, your account needs to be active for a full 30 days before you’re able to cashout, which to be fair is about as long as it takes to reach the cash out threshold of other apps. You earn points each week, which is dependent on how much your data is being sold for. You basically get a portion of the profits. And when I say portion, I mean very small portion. But still, it’s better than nothing. Like Mobile Performance Meter, there are surveys available via Pollfish, but they pay measly points and aren’t worth your time. Plus, doing the surveys is totally unpassive, which completely defeats the purpose we’re trying to achieve here. What I Like:
What I Don’t Like:
5) Facebook Viewpoints Minimum Cash Out: $5 Time to Reach Minimum Cash Out: 2 weeks Speaking of reclaiming your data. Facebook actually has an in-house program called “Viewpoints”, where again they track your data and cell phone usage in exchange for a small incentive. And let’s be honest, if you have the regular Facebook app on your phone, they’re probably tracking that type of data anyway soo...might as well get paid for it! Once you download the app, you’ll need to join the “Study” program, which is yet another app you have to download. You’ll earn a solid 500 points per week and it costs 1,000 points to cash out for a $5 reward in gift card form, so it takes a solid 2 weeks before you reach that threshold, which is honestly the fastest time to reach cash out out of all these apps. What I Like:
What I Don’t Like:
6) AppOtix Minimum Cash Out: $10 via Amazon gift card Time to Reach Minimum Cash Out: 3 months WTF Is It? Yet another get paid to share your data, a completely passive app. You earn 25 points per week and need 300 to cash out. No need to cash out manually, which means more passive-ness, which means more laziness, which means this is a BIG PLUS in my book. What I Like:
What I Don’t Like:
7) Rewards by Four Square (formerly Panel App) (Non-Ref) Minimum Cash Out: $1 via gift card Time to Reach Minimum Cash Out: 2-3 months WTF Is It? It’s run by FourSquare,the social network that has you earning badges for checking in at local restaurants and other venues. Needless to say, they want to collect your location data with this app. You collect points passively, though usually a low amount of 10-15 per day You can manually answer questions about your trip or manually chekc in for bonus points, but I skip out on this because a) I’m lazy and b) I want passive income not income I have to work for and answering questions is extra work I just don’t want to deal with. You can cash out for an Amazon, Visa, Google Playstore, or WalMart gift card. They have sweepstakes for a low amount of points (5-15) that you can enter for a chance to win these gift cards and you have an unlimited amount of entries you can put in, granted you have enough points to purchase multiple entries. Like lottery tickets, it ain’t worth the gamble and you’re likely just throwing away your points. A total waste. You can, in turn, choose to take from the “guaranteed” prize pool. This cost like 1000x more points to get, but in all honesty, you’ll probably be spending that amount to win the sweepstakes anyway, so best to procrastinate, wait, and save up ‘til you have enough for that guaranteed prize. What I Like:
What I Don’t Like: - The “guaranteed prizes” are way overpriced. I mean I get it, they’re trying to get you to enter the sweepstakes (and lose all your points in the process so they don’t have to pay out anything), but seriously the point cost for these prizes are insane.
8) LifeCoin (Non-Ref) Minimum Cash Out: $50 via gift card Time to Reach Minimum Cash Out: 2-3 months WTF Is It? It measures the steps you take automatically. You don’t need to hit “start work out” or sync it with an external running/exercise app of some sort like RunKeeper. It just works as an automatic pedometer. The downside of it automatically tracking your steps though is that it's constantly using your data, though not much (about 6mb per month) compared to other apps that hit several Gigabytes in data usage per month. You don’t have to manually collect your coins/points, which other “get paid to walk” apps require. Since it’s only counting your steps, the steps you take from your couch to the bathroom “count” (as long as you bring your phone with you, which, face it, you’re gonna probably do for a long dump anyway). What I Like:
What I Don’t Like: - JESUS CHRIST the cash out threshold! Fifty dollars. Like are you kidding me? What’s more is that your steps really aren’t worth a whole lot of points. Like the other day I did 1000 steps. That net me a point gain of 0.95 LifeCoins. Not even a full point. Holy hell! A thousand steps is a little under a half mile, so itt takes a half mile (in steps) per point You need 2500 to cash out for a $50 gift card. That means you need to walk 1250 miles total to reach cash out. Now fortunately points don’t expire and there’s no “minimum” amount of steps you need to do, so it does slowly add up over time. > Life Coin isn't an actual cryptocurrency tradable on the market, just some in-house point system within the app. Like c'mon now. Total opportunity missed here! I would love to be able to trade this for Bitcoin or Ethereum something or at least have that as a cash out option. Wrapping Up: There you have it. The list of my top passive income apps. I guess the takeaway here is that if you’re willing to share your data, you can get paid. It ain’t gonna make you rich by any means, but hey, it is money for doing nothing. You wanted a lazy way to make money and there you go. Now sit on back and watch your earnings grow slow n’ steady. Take it easy, N8 Well, fellow procrastin8rs, they did it. They went and freaking did it.Those corporate greedy bastards pulled some real shit, yet again. Of course, do we really expect anything less than tyranny from them at this point?
Anyway, over 8 million Americans had every single cent of their unemployment benefits pulled right from under their noses and an additional 2.7 million Americans got a cut to their benefits. That’s nearly 11 million people, who are struggling to put food on the table and secure a house over their head getting screwed in the ass by their government overlords, saying “ NO MORE FREELOADERS!” It’s sad when the accepted definition of “freeloading” has come to mean trying to receive enough money just to survive and have basic needs met. And this all happened on no other day than Labor Day. Ah, the holiday celebrating the efforts of the working class. What better day for the government to put up a middle finger to the laborers than the single day of the year honoring them. Of course, if you look at the history of Labor Day, it wasn’t such a celebratory event after all. In fact, President Grover Clevland sent over 12,000 federal troops to stop railroad protestors. And “stop” here doesn’t mean they showed up just to give a big wag of the finger and say “no, don’t do that”. What Clevland did to “stop” the protestors was have the workers completely slaughtered. That’ll teach em, eh? They won’t dare protest now against capitalist rulers, being dead and all. He claimed that their protests were a federal crime. So much for no cruel and unusual punishment. I’d say ordering troops to place bullets in the skulls of thousands of worker protestors is more than cruel and unusual. And even if you’re, god forbid, actually in favor of the death penalty. Are we really going to justify capital punishment for vandilism? I mean sure, protestors were ripping up railroads and burning them, and I suppose if one wanted to argue they were in fact “damaging property”, but not a single person was harmed, yet alone killed, until Grover sent his troops. He literally ordered immediate capital punishment on thousands of people. No trial. No justice. Just pure cold hard blood shed. The corporate structure has valued property over human life since the very beginning. They were so concerned about the the destruction of property that they literally murdered workers by the thousand in attempts to protect said property from being destroyed. Lives can be destroyed no problem. Just collateral damage, cap. But property. Oh shit! The precious (and profitable) property can’t be touched! We must protect it at all cost! A poor, sick, dying person tho? Nah, fam. Fuck ‘em. No healthcare. No unemployment. None of that. Oh they want to be able to live without a struggle? They’re just a freeloading bitch! Now to clarify, I’m not condoning vandalism at all. Igniting rails on fire is not acceptable, no matter how shitty the working conditions were (and we’re talking 12 hour shifts with literal pennies as pay at the time). Plus, it’s not the procrastin8r way to be violent in any way. We barely want to get out of bed, yet alone beat up property with whatever tool we can find. That’s a lot of heavy lifting. However, I am saying that vandalism does NOT justify murder. While the methods used to protest by these railroad workers were inherently wrong, it doesn’t mean they deserved to be killed on spot. It’s real fucked up. What’s more is the schools don’t teach you about the violence. The education system conveniently leaves out the bloodshed involved with the Labor Movement. They make it out to be this happy happy joy joy story about how good the country is (as most history is taught in American history lessons are) for having such brave workers. Brave, yeah, sure. But they leave out the entire part where the laborers literally DIED to stand up for better working conditions. They leave out the part where the president literally ordered troops to kill quote on quote “lazy” people to get them to stfu. So where does Labor Day come into play within all of this? Well, see, Labor Day was nothing but a small bribe. It was a pathetic apology letter in attempts to avoid bad press.The government used Labor Day as a sort of “cover up” to distract people from their horrendous act of mass murder. You see, Labor Day was originally proposed by Matthew Macguire in 1882 and it wasn’t until 1894, over a decade later that it became an official holiday. It was no coincidence either that the day after the mass murder just mentioned, literally within 24 hours, Cleveland announced that Labor Day would become a national holiday. Make no mistake. He didn’t care about the workers or granting them what they wanted (if he did, he never would have made the executive decision to kill thousands of them). He only cared about protecting his own reputation and winning votes in the next election. He did this for political purposes -- to try and appease the workers and get their approval on the ballot. Fortunately, the workers didn’t buy into his bullshit and he wasn’t elected for a second presidential term. It was basically like “Oh hey we killed your fathers, uncles, neighbors, and cousins, but hey, here’s a holiday!” Yeah, no, shovel your shit somewhere else. What I’m getting at here though is that this entire system, throughout history, has been designed to screw over and exploit the working class. They give us just enough to keep our mouths shut and schlep on back to work. They give a little holiday after killing us, both literally and figuratively speaking. They have us break our backs and minds then feed us the scraps on the table, telling us that we’re such a good boy. But we don’t behave (and do enough work) then they’ll take our scraps away. I mean taking away the benefits of those relying on government money to support themselves and their family on the day that’s supposed to be about appreciating those people (Labor Day) is a real smack in the face. It sends the message: Look, we helped you through the pandemic. Now back to work! As you may recall, following the initial outbreak, there were tons of layoffs, company shutdowns, and mass filings for unemployment. But here’s the thing folks... The pandemic isn’t over! As a matter of fact, the case numbers and death tolls are at an all time high right now. This little microscopic bastard is not still around, but growing an overwhelming presence at this point. But they don’t care. They just want us back to work.So what if you or a family member gets sick? So what if you’re overstressed and emotionally exhausted? Work and work hard. NOW! And they’re attempting to lay down a forceful hand to get you to go to work by taking away your sit at home income, aka unemployment check. They’re giving you seemingly no choice but to get a shitty job for measly pay - to just shut up and buck up. They want us working these shit jobs for shit wages., to just bend over and take it up the ass. They made it clear, they ain’t helping you no more. Thing is, people kind of knew the wages at this job were utter shit prior to this whole pandemic, quite frankly. But being on unemployment made the unfairness of low wages more apparent than ever because they realized “well fuck, I’m getting paid MORE to sit at home on my ass than I am schlepping 9 to 5 for five days a week for a bastard of a boss.” As months passed, businesses began opening up new positions; the people that worked them before didn’t want them back and businesses became increasingly more and more desperate to fill those positions, offering free meals at interviews and even small monetary sign up incentives (like a couple hundred dollars or so). . Of course, they didn’t try the one thing that would have actually attracted employees: increasing wages. Needless to say, people chose to stay on unemployment. It was the most sensible thing to do. It just wasn’t worth it to get a job, no matter what sort of “bribe” these companies offered (unless that bribe was a decent goddamn wage, but that wasn’t the case). I mean you figure you can either sacrifice your sanity, emotional well-being, and physical energy for a check that’s worth less than what you’re getting for sittin’ around on the couch, relaxing stress-free, all day at home. What ya gonna take? Of course you’re gonna take the unemployment check over the check from a low wage job! It’s the most practical choice. And that’s the thing, people aren’t being lazy in the sense that they are completely unwilling to work. They’re being practical in the sense that they want their work to be worth the effort. Now if minimizing effort and maximizing results makes me lazy, so be it! If being practical about my time and resources of time and mental and emotional energy makes me lazy, so be it. I’d rather be labeled as lazy and uphold my dignity than be a mindless slave that bows down to corporate owners. You see, it’s simple... The labor shortage is a myth. There’s this false narrative in the media, who are nothing but messengers for corporate propaganda, that “no one wants to work any more]” There’s this large struggle for corporations to find employees because everyone’s “too damn lazy” to work. They just want their hand outs of welfare and employment checks. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Truth is, you have a plethora of people who are willing and able to work. They’re willing to spend their time in a typical 9 to 5 grind. Mark my words, folks: There are plenty of employees who *want* to work, who want a job. What they don’t want is shit wages. It’s that simple. People want to be fairly compensated for the work they put it, and fact of the matter is, companies just aren’t paying enough for labor. It’s not that people are too lazy and are refusing to work and provide labor. It’s that companies are too greedy and are refusing to pay the price for said labor. Let’s put it this way: If you go into a store and want to buy a bag of chips, the cashier rings it up for $1.50 and you tell them “I only want to paya dollar.” What is the cashier gonna tell you to do? Pay the full price or put the chips back. Now imagine if you were to cry “There’s a chip shortage! This is ridiculous!” No bucko, there’s no shortage of chips. The store has plenty of supply. You’re just refusing to pay what the chips actually cost. The same goes for labor. There’s plenty of labor out there available “in stock”. There’s no “shortage” of it. It’s just that companies are refusing to pay that price. People think they’re labor is worth more, a lot more, than they’re being offered. And they’re right -- it is worth more. You shouldn’t have to work so hard just to be able to live in poverty and barely, if at all, be able to cover the basics. Short changing the price of something doesn’t mean there’s a shortage. It just means you’re being stingy. And stingy they are. Stingy are these corporate owners, hoarding the billions of wealth to themselves. They’re literally building rockets and taking mini-vacations to space as a fun little side hobby. That’s a level of wealth beyond. Beyond what? Just beyond. It’s straight up beyond. It’s funny too how the narrative is geared towards making the people trying to earn enough to get by look like the ones “milking the system” and not the people who are exploiting the hard work of *others*while sitting on their yachts and literal spaceships. It goes without saying that in any good functioning society, people have to work. Not everybody can sit their ass at home. It’s a necessary part of society for people to show up and work at a job. But those that work, should be compensated fairly. They shouldn’t be struggling just to put food on the table or worry “how tf am I gonna pay for this?” if they get sick. Man, human beings have value, a lot more value than these corporate owners are paying right now. But I predict that’s soon going to change. People have had enough already. We’re done working our asses off for shit wages. We’re just done with it. Not mad. Not upset. Just done. Full and completely done. You know, kind of like your ex. Done with that shit. Taking away benefits isn’t going to stop people from refusing to work The whole purpose behind stifling the unemployment benefits is to encourage people to go get a job and get back to work. But that’s not happening. At least not until those jobs offer fair compensation for the workload (and not to mention mental and emotional load) involved. People can’t live if they spend all their time just trying to be able to afford to survive. And we want to live. Now I don’t mean we have to be rich, but at the very least have enough money to do a little more than focus every ounce of energy we have on survival. I mean how common is it to work all day, come home, spend all your money just to cover bills, then wake up the next day just to start the cycle over. Well, 54% of Americans say they live paycheck to pay check and 21% say they struggle to pay the bills. Fact of the matter is, most of us are earning enough money just to survive and some are even barely making it. There’s no wealth building happening. We work simply as a means of survival. And that is the very definition of slavery. Work in exchange for survival. The whole corporate system was designed as an extension of slavery. They want you to work to the point of physical and mental exhaustion and settle for just enough wages to keep yourself alive. Like I said though. We’re done. We ain’t working for shit wages any more. You want us to work? Then pay us fairly! Give us enough money to live comfortably. And by the way, while we’re on topic here. I’m not just saying “let’s increase wages”. I’m saying “let’s redistribute wealth”. This isn’t a discussion over increasing low wage jobs. This is a discussion over redistributing the billions of dollars these corporate owners have into the hands of the common people. After all, the “cost to live” gets higher and higher every year. That’s called inflation. We not only have to increase wages but *tie it to inflation*. Otherwise, we’ll be having this same old debate about increasing wages every few years. And you may think, in regards to billionaire corporate owners, “Oh well they earned it.” And look, I don’t mean to be rude but how fucking brainwashed do you have to be to believe billionaires “earned” their wealth? Like it was some sort of noble achievement. Straight up, becoming a billionaire, accumulating literally billions of dollars worth of wealth, takes a lot of immoral choices to get there. You have to backstab others, exploit the hard labor of poor people. You have to choose profit for shareholders over providing your employees decent healthcare. You have to choose to expand your franchise instead of expanding the amount of vacation days your employees get. Most people on unemployment on welfare are on those programs because they're getting screwed over by a corporate owner who refuses to pay them a decent goddamn wage. Yet, they cleverly have people up in arms about how unemployment and welfare recipients are “nothing but a buncha freeloaders.” In reality, the ones freeloading are these billionaires who sit around, have their employees schlep all the hard work, collect all the profits, and then pay none of the taxes in return. And you may think that you NEED to work at a job in order to survive. But oh no, that’s where you’re wrong. You see, the corporate owners NEED YOU.Without workers, they don’t have any products, no service. The line of production is cut thin and dry when people refuse to work. The power is in the hands of the people. And people are beginning to wake up and realize this. There were even cases at fast food restaurant workers straight up walking out mid-shift. Know your worth. That’s really the takeaway from all of this here. Know. Your. Worth. Don’t settle for the benefits or compensation, monetary or otherwise, just because that’s what someone offers you. Be willing to walk away. Be willing to be lazy. Value your own time and resources of physical, mental, and emotional energy. Don’t give those things to anyone that doesn’t reciprocate back to you fairly in return. This principle applies to your personal relationships as well. If you find yourself putting in more effort into something or someone than the benefits you receive are worth, then go back to bed and don’t tolerate that shit. You shouldn’t ever feel like life is a constant struggle to survive. You must aim to have Leisure in your life, to be able to relax and kick on back once in a while. Don’t let anyone undervalue you. You deserve to live and not just exist.You’re here to be a person, not just a cog in the machine. Ya know, it’d be great if we could all just get along and respect one another. But the fact of the matter is, that just ain’t the reality of the situation we’re living in. Some people are just bound to give you a hard time….to say the least. Believe me, “a hard time” is certainly an underestimate of the amount of shit a person can try to put you through.
It’s like they kick out of putting other people down. They’re entire sense of self worth is based on how much they can damage the self worth of others. They bring others down to boost themselves up. They’re parasitic people - the “karens” in life. The absolute d-bags. They project their own feelings of self hatred onto others and wind up trying to rile people up over nonsensical things. Some people are more driven by their own Ego than by any desire to create meaningful relationships with *anyone*, yet alone you. They’d rather build up their own pride than build up any sort of rapport with another human being. And sure, they may find themselves in a relationship or even marriage, but it’s more because of the benefits (monetary, social status, attention, etc) that come from being in a relationship, rather than any sort of care for the other person. (and god forbid if you actually find yourself in a relationship with one of these toxic buttwhipes) Yes, the assholes in life are completely inevitable. It’s not a matter of if you’re going to come across assholes or not, it’s a matter of how you handle it when you do. Face it ,not everybody is gonna be nice to you. And even those that are, they’ll sometimes say some not so nice things to you. The question is how do you handle that? How do you handle people being quite frankly a total d-bag to you? Well, when it comes to someone giving you a hard time, insulting you, or otherwise crossing your boundaries, you’re given two obvious options: either suck it up and don’t say anything, leaving yourself exposed to a further onslaught of insults and mean words or give them a piece of mind and hurt them back. You’re kind of put between a rock and a hard place. If you don’t stand up for yourself, well then people are going to walk all over you. You’re an easy target and people will kick you while you’re down, knowing you ain’t gonna retaliate at all. On the other hand, if you do decide to stick up for yourself, you risk saying something equally as vain as what “karen” originally said and that just instigates drama. Drama is extra emotional effort, and in being lazy you must avoid *any* extra effort, and that’s why it’s important to make your life a drama-free zone. So what’s a person to do when they come face to face with someone trying to get under their skin? On one hand you get pushed around, on the other you stir drama. Seems like a catch twenty two. Well, fellow procrastin8r, that’s where balance comes into play. After all, a procrastin8r never does too much nor too little. He does just enough. Nothing more, nothing less. On principle. Thus, there is a balance between letting people walk all over you and you walking all over other people, so I want to introduce a third option when it comes to handling shitty people in your life and that is to remain cool, calm, and laid back. We’ve covered earlier how to remain cool, calm, and laid back at all times in the blog before, and today I want to expand upon that topic and apply it specifically to dealing with other people. And without further ado, let’s dive...right into it! Don’t let people fuck with you You have to first and foremost set the tone that you are not one to be fucked with. Now getting fucked with can come in different flavors-- there are different ways in which people can fuck with you, so let’s break down what they are. People can fuck with you in 3 main ways: by taking advantage of you, wrongfully criticizing you, and feeding you bullshit. Let’s analyze each one and look at how to avoid getting fucked in each specific way. 1. When a person takes advantage of you, it means they let you do them favors or help them, without ever reciprocating anything in return. This is basically “people pleasing”, where you wind up sacrificing your own happiness in order to bring about happiness for others. Thing is, you can’t make anyone else happy, but yourself. And even if you could make them happy, it still won’t make your own self happy. They may also take advantage of your kindness or willingness to forgive. They’ll do something that bothers you on more than one occasion, like your roommate who consistently plays loud music in the mornings when you’re trying to sleep or your significant other who never does his/her fair share of chores. They never seem to learn. I mean, why would they? You’re quick to forgive, if you even decide to say anything at all. Maybe you’re too afraid to upset them that you don’t say anything. Well, then they're taking advantage of your own insecurity. You need to have boundaries. You need to be able to say “that’s not okay” when it’s not okay in your book. Otherwise, you’ll wind up building up this anger, which fires up in some lame passive aggressive comment. You may think you’re being “nice” by letting the person do what they want to make them happy, but it’s quite mean to pretend you’re okay with it (when you’re really not) and later blurt out some passive aggressive comment. Easily avoidable if you know your limits and know what you absolutely will not tolerate. If you don’t like loud noise in the morning, say something. If you don’t like your boyfriend/girlfriend being even lazier than you are, say something. People only will take advantage of you if you let them. 2. The next way people fuck with you is by wrongfully criticize you. Wrongfully is the key word here. Criticism is something you should openly embrace. Being able to let someone notice and point out the flaws within yourself that you may otherwise be completely oblivious to is an important factor in self development and personal growth. But there’s a fine line between constructive criticism and destructive criticism.You have to look at what their intentions are. Are they legitimately trying to help you or just make you feel bad about yourself? Criticism is harsh no matter what. We don’t exactly like to hear about all the terrible things about ourselves, but good criticism can help you level up, while bad criticism can hold you back from ever evolving. You have to look at whether they’re giving you a dose of tough love or just trying to rile you up with an insult. If it’s the latter, you can’t let it get to you. You can’t let it bother you. You have to realize they’re just trying to make themselves feel good by making you feel bad. Don’t give them what they want and show them they can’t get to you, no matter how hard they try. You remain unfazed and don’t give a fuck. That’s just like...their opinion man. Spotting constructive criticism versus a pure insult really comes down to the tone and the way in which its presented. Constructive criticism has the tone of “what you’re doing is wrong, and you could do better”, whereas a pure insult has the tone of “you’re wrong and everything you do is wrong.” The only thing wrong is the way they are criticizing you here. Don’t harp on it. Take it with a grain of salt and move on. Laugh it off or tell them they’re acting really insecure right now. Use that word and use it well, Playing the “insecure” card is a powerful trump card. You essentially call them out on acting vain because of their own self doubt. The only reasonable response a person can say to you when you call them out for being insecure is “sorry”. Anything else just proves the case and point. If they feel the need to defend themselves about acting insecure when they’re flat out insulting you, then hell yeah, they’re being insecure. A mature confident person is able to admit when they have moments of insecurity. 3. The third and final way people fuck with you is by feeding you bullshit. There are very few things I hate, but one of them is when someone lies to me. Like dude, just tell the truth. Seriously, lying is just stupid. And telling the truth is the ONE thing you should NOT procrastinate on. A lie is an attempt to manipulate your reality, to make you believe a false fantasy they created. Many people lie to protect themselves and avoid fessing up to a mistake. But as I say all the time, mistakes are meh. They’re not a big deal. They happen. What is a big deal though is trying to cover up said mistake. Look, every meaningful relationship is built on trust and breaking that trust breaks the relationship, whether that’s romantic, platonic, or otherwise. You can’t have a deep connection with somebody if they’re connecting with you using fake cables. You must insist on the absolute truth with everybody, no matter how close they are. I don’t care if they're your neighbor, friend, or cashier at the convenience store down the street. Bullshit is one thing you shouldn’t let people get away with around you. I covered how to spot a bullshitter before and I recommend going back to read that article so you get a good idea on the telltale signs that someone is lying to you. It’s actually pretty easy to spot and once you start picking it up, it becomes second hand nature. Set your bullshit detector to the highest sensitivity possible by familiarizing yourself with the tactics liars use to smuggle their way past the truth. The minute you notice someone bullshitting you, call them out on it. Say: “Don’t lie to me. I know you’re lying.” Now of course, a liar’s response to that is going to be “I’m NOT lying.” They’re going to deny it. A liar will do as a liar does. Don’t let them get away with that shit, just sau... “Look, I know you’re lying. Just don’t do that again. I value honesty a lot and like to surround myself with people who are always truthful.” Bullshit stinks. It’s such an obvious smell too. Don’t let them try to spray it with perfume and tell you it’s a flower. They WANT a Reaction The important thing to keep in mind when people attempt to fuck with you is that they’re doing it to get some sort of reaction. They wanna rile you up. They wanna see what makes you tick. They want to test your boundaries. They want to know how much taking advantage of you, wrongfully criticizing you, and bullshitting you they can get away with. And boundaries, that’s why they’re important. You have to make it clear cut dry what you won’t take from people. No ifs, and, or buts about it. Be up front about what you expect from others. If you don’t have boundaries or you do have them but they’re rather flimsy at best and easily demolished at best, then people are going to go about disrespecting you to say the least. They’ll absolutely walk all over you. You can’t let that sort of thing happen. You must remain strong and stoic. Now of course, setting boundaries doesn’t mean you get angry or nasty when people try to push past those boundaries. That would be the opposite of what you want to achieve, in fact. Your goal is to stay calm. Calmness is much more powerful than rage. A person in rage is wild. They’re out of control. A person who is calm is thoughtful, logical; they are in control of their words and actions. You don’t want to REACT to what they do in rage. Instead, you want to acknowledge it. To acknowledge it means you bring it to their attention, in a calm yet firm sort of way. You don’t ignore it. You don’t let it slide by. But you also don’t make a huge fuss over it either. Calmly telling a person that you won’t tolerate a certain behavior says “Don’t fuck with me” much louder than any sort of screaming or shouting could do. Besides, yelling is extra physical effort. Embrace your laziness and raise the confidence in your words, without raising your tone. Relax, dude. It’s all good. Don’t stoop down to their level and retaliate with insults or otherwise fiery behavior. Lean back, relax. It’s not a big deal. Think of setting boundaries like ordering food. You’re just telling the person what you want. It doesn’t need to turn into this whole big dramatic event. And using that analogy, sometimes the waiter brings you the wrong food or cooks your steak well done instead of medium rare. Now if you’re the type of person to berate the server and scream at them, then you might wanna rethink just how lazy you are, because a real lazy person doesn’t feel like making a huge fuss out of things. Sure, a lazy person might say “Hey, you brought me the wrong food.”, but that’s all. The piece is settled. It doesn’t need to really go any further than that. The same can be said with any sort of conflict or situation you find yourself in. Point out what’s wrong, but don’t throw your food. That is to say, state clearly and firmly what you actually want, but don’t go berserk mode and yell, scream, shout, or god forbid physically wreck something or someone. You can point out someone’s wrongs without doing something wrong yourself. You can point out a person’s assholish behavior without actually calling them an asshole or being an asshole yourself for that matter. Remember, you can’t control another person’s behavior, words, or actions, but you can control your own. Take it easy, N8 |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2022
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