The American religion is “workism,” the belief that employment can provide everything we have historically expected from churches.

As the [20th Century] managerial revolution created a sense of professional progress, the decline of organized religion and social integration in the 20th century left many Americans bereft of any sense of spiritual progress. For some, work rose to fill the void. Many highly educated workers in the white-collar economy feel that their job cannot be ‘just a job’ and that their career cannot be “just a career”: Their job must be their calling.

…

Workism is not a simple evil or virtue; rather, it’s a complex phenomenon. It is rooted in the belief that work can provide everything we have historically expected from organized religion: community, meaning, self-actualization. And it is characterized by the irony that, in a time of declining trust in so many institutions, we expect more than ever from the companies that employ us—and that, in an age of declining community attachments, the workplace has, for many, become the last community standing. This might be why more companies today feel obligated to serve on the front lines in political debates and culture-war battles.

Remote work and AI are challenging the ascendancy of workism.

Perhaps the disappearance of the workplace will increase modern anomie and loneliness. If community means “where you keep showing up,” then, for many people, the office is all that’s left. What happens when it goes the way of bowling leagues and weekly church attendance?

— Derek Thompson, from an upcoming book.

A marketing professor gave his students a challenge: If they made a video that got a million views, the final exam would be canceled. (NYTimes)

By me: Tech layoffs surge—again—but mainstream businesses are hiring techies.. Tech layoffs this year already exceed all of last year, but workers are finding jobs in industries such as aerospace/defense, business consulting, and finance/banking.

Whoever said there’s more than one way to skin a cat is not someone I would want as a pet sitter.

Easter Sunday. Lake Murray was packed with picnickers.

It doesn’t look packed in this photo, but trust me, it was packed.

Is there any way I can subscribe to a Mastodon user’s RSS or Atom feed that includes boosts and media attachments? Is that supported on mastodon.social?

Texas governor Greg Abbott says he will pardon Daniel Perry, who was convicted of killing a protester at a Black Lives Matter march.. (Austin American-Statesman) Garrett Foster, who was killed by Perry, was carrying an AK-47. Perry claimed Foster pointed the gun at him. But prosecutors pointed to social media posts that they said pointed to Perry instigating events.

Tesla workers shared sensitive images recorded by customer cars (Reuters)

ChatGPT invented a sexual harassment scandal and named a real law professor as the accused. What happens when ChatGPT lies about real people?

Pranshu Verma and Will Oremus at The Washington Post:

One night last week, the law professor Jonathan Turley got a troubling email. As part of a research study, a fellow lawyer in California had asked the AI chatbot ChatGPT to generate a list of legal scholars who had sexually harassed someone. Turley’s name was on the list.

The chatbot, created by OpenAI, said Turley had made sexually suggestive comments and attempted to touch a student while on a class trip to Alaska, citing a March 2018 article in The Washington Post as the source of the information. The problem: No such article existed. There had never been a class trip to Alaska. And Turley said he’d never been accused of harassing a student.

‘Bees are sentient’: inside the stunning brains of nature’s hardest workers. Research suggests bees have emotions, dreams, and even PTSD, raising ethical concerns. (The Guardian)