The philosophical implications of work

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Few if any hold to the notion that
work, in some fashion, is a noble
enterprise… and those who praise work,
don’t work in factories or factory lite as I
do… work is seen as having some redeemable
features that allow it to be celebrated…
again, by those who don’t do the ugly hard
work that millions are engaged with…

I have read that AI will replace millions of workers…
Ok, and now what? we will have millions of workers who
have no technical skills and no real way to make money…
what about them? Where is the dignity of work for them?
Don’t worry Kropotkin, there will still be plenty of ditches to
dig and lettuce to work in the fields… for millions how is
that bringing back the ''dignity of work?"… that type of
work is at best, degrading and at worst, a total renunciation
of being human…

few if any think these things through… what happens
to those millions of people after the AI revolution? No one
knows nor does anybody seem to care…

if the point of work, as has been pointed out, to
allow people a chance to put food on the table,
then if we take away the work, what then?

I think the real question comes down to this,
what is the real point of work? what is its value?
why do we work? what is the goal of work?

If one listens to big business/capitalism, the point/goal
is to make profits…which makes the point of working
to make money/profits… not, AND this is important
to note, not to benefit people… now profits may later
be used to benefit people, but that isn’t the goal,
the goal is to make money… the helping of people
is a byproduct of making money, but not the goal…
is that really the message we want to send about
capitalism… that making money/profits is the priority,
not people…and has been pointed out by people
far smarter than I am, that makes people a commodity…
nothing more… we, as people only have value in
the creation of making money/profits, we don’t have
any value as people, as human beings… it is only
by our creation of money/profits that we have any
value or worth… Kropotkin as a human being has
no other value then the creation of money/profits,
and business/companies makes that crystal clear…
I have been told by countless managers and bosses,
that I am expendable… if monkeys could count
out change, I would already be out of a job…
and note that in America, the only real way to
have health care is by having a job… which is
just another way to control its workers… no work,
no health care…to separate health care from
work, means workers are not as dependent on working
as they otherwise might be… and we certainly can’t have
that, can we?
and therein lies the failure of America… where work
is only valued as a means to the creation of profits/money…
human lives only have value when they create profits/money…
and the entire work/life balance question, that is a famous
American problem, is only a problem because the only
thing of value in America is the creation of profits/money…
thus, for corporations, there is only the creation of money/
profits, there is no other option, thus the life aspect of
the work/life balance is negated… there is only work,
because there is only profits/money, no other aspect
of work including workers has any value…

which brings us back to the question, does work
have any value like dignity or honor? As long
as the goal/purpose of work is to make profits/money,
then no work has no dignity or human value…

With the rise of technology like AI, we must reconsider
what it means to work… in the name of the workers, do
we reject AI as a threat to workers everywhere, or do
we simply accept our fate and be crushed by the new
technologies?

Try to see a future where there is AI and what does
that mean to workers? the reshaping of the economies
of the world because of such technology like AI, should
give us some pause as to what exactly, is the point of work?
to put food on our table? to have some value or meaning
by our work? As this is a real problem in America,
we must seek out some sort of resolution to this
question, what is the point/meaning of work,
especially given the coming technology revolution
that is coming… and the question becomes or
should become, how do we return work to having
some value like dignity or self-worth, if work is
only meant to make profits/money?

Kropotkin

2

one of the questions of our corporate world,
is this question of individuality… the other day,
I wore brown shoes, not the required black shoes,
and one would have thought from the Assistant
Manager long detailed commentary about my shoes
being brown and not black, that I single handedly
was violating the rules set up by god himself…
We have to dress all in black, polo shirt, black
pants, and of course, black shoes… with a mandatory
name tag on… there is no individuality within our
corporation… we must all dress alike, we must all
say the corporate mantra, we must always be on time
and we must do exactly what we are told or face
being written up or fired… this corporate hive mentality is
the heart of corporate America… recently, within the last
couple of years, we were allowed to have facial hair…
that was their big move toward having individuals, and not
hive mentality… I myself usually have a goatee… which
is a pretty standard old guy look…and why this drive to
stamp out any type of individuality within the corporation?

it begins and end with the same drive toward profits/money..
to look professional, that is the goal, but why that goal?
again, it is to increase profits/money, nothing more…
it has nothing to do with thoughts about the workers or
their needs or beliefs… it is straight out of the management
control over its workers which is believed to increase profits/money…

at my work, the manager gets his bonuses based on
certain criteria… one of which is by customers doing
surveys on the keypad… our manager is always,
ALWAYS, harping on us getting surveys… I would say
he is fanatical about it, which means a higher bonus
for him… he makes money based on us getting surveys…
and what do we get out of this? nothing, nothing at all…
which is typical of corporations… operating as a business
which only values profits/money… it doesn’t matter that
the surveys are a lot of extra work for us workers,
that is irrelevant to the corporation or the manager…
and when surveys are no longer part of the business plan,
we will never hear about them again…
and what of the workers that actually make
the surveys happen? They get shit… nothing,
and within that lies a problem… why should we,
as workers do the work and the managers get
the credit and bonus? to be a good worker?
to be a team player? there is no benefit for
us to do so…there is no dignity or value in
being a ‘‘team player’’ it is just another method
to get us to work for the benefit of others, not
ourselves… but Kropotkin, you get paid…
and that is just another negation of us as human
beings… for it is the pay, the paycheck that has
value, not us as human beings… for the corporation
offers us nothing outside of a paycheck to motivate us
into working for them… what other value does working
offer us besides a paycheck? I can’t see any other
value besides a paycheck to work… certainly not
for it being a means of bringing value into my life,
or perhaps to bringing meaning or dignity into my life?
No, that has already been mentioned and rejected…

So, Kropotkin, what is the alternative? and that is the point…
at this time, we have no other choices, no other alternatives..
and within a society/state that declares choices, as being
the reason why capitalism is the greatest economic system ever,
we have no other choices… odd for a system that makes
choices the center piece of the entire economic system…
communism has been attacked because it offers no
other choices, and yet, capitalism does the exact same
thing… what other choices do we have within a capitalistic
system, outside of constant, lifelong work with no possibility
of anything different besides that soul crushing work?

so, as usual, I ask, now what?

Kropotkin

3

it is often said that one of the ‘‘key’’
points of being a person, is how ‘‘productive’’
they are… so, how exactly does being productive’’
have to do with one’s value? What exactly becomes
important in this? is it the person or is it the
act of ‘‘production’’ which is to say, the creation
of goods or money… that is what has value,
not the person who is creating the goods/money…
it is about the contribution to the society that has
value, not the person who makes that contribution…

and once again, we have a negation of people
in favor of goods, or money…
This type of nihilism is the heart of the modern day
society/state…

and we have another brick in the wall, which
is education… what is the point or value
of being educated? Given the hatred that the
conservative/MAGA has for education, one has
to wonder why? it has been suggested that
youth should go into trade schools instead
of the university… and once again, why?

Education, true education is about training people to
to understand who they are and what their values are…
it is easy to see how young people often turn left in
collage… for the first time, they are upended from
their childhood indoctrinations of church, state,
media, and yes, businesses… which fund a great
deal of education… the point, for them anyway,
is to create workers… not to educate people…
and that fundamental difference is why we
are in crisis right now… we are training people to
be workers, producers and consumers, but not to
become human beings… what does it mean to be
human is never asked in a university… they are too
busy training people for jobs and careers, to ask that
question…

So, I ask you now, what is the value of education?
and how does it relate to our current situation?
where the goal seems to be the creation of workers
and consumers and all hail the consumerism that
is America today…

Now one might say, but Kropotkin, people are
trying to return to a ‘‘religious’’ society…
but until we remove the primary goal of existence,
of the state and society to be the creation of
consumers and producers and workers, we cannot
actually become religious…

to make the one happen, to become religious, requires
us to reduce our consumerism society/state… to return
people to the center of the universe and not consumerism
or even religions…for religions don’t put people first,
god is first… and that is true of all religions…
where people are second best, at best, within the
religious context…it is only by a secular state/society,
that we can return human beings to the heart of
existence… for making money doesn’t do that,
consumerism doesn’t do that, creating workers
and producers doesn’t do that… education that
only focuses on job training doesn’t do that…
we must return to putting human beings first,
and at no point is that even a goal today…
and that is the nihilism of today… where money
and working and consumerism are given first
place in what it means to be human…

the first step, seems to me to be within education…
to educate, not in terms of job training or career building,
but in understanding the actual goal or purpose of being
human… and having a job or making money isn’t
the actual goal or purpose of existence…
but so, what is the point or goal of existence?

I say it is the gaining of our possibilities, what is
possible for us to achieve or reach…
one of the few possibilities left to me because
of my age, is not running the 4-minute mile
or climbing Mt. Everest… I can’t do those things
anymore, but I can achieve one such possibility
which is to become the greatest philosopher ever…
As so many other doors have closed to me because
of my age, that door is still open… and other
possibilities exist, for example once I retire, I
can return to learning German… that possibility
still exists for me… and I intend to explore that
possibility… but those are choices I can make…
regardless of my other possibilities…

Instead of my choices being limited to what the state/society
wants, I can create my own choices… my own possibilities…
and that is the value of education… it lays out what choices
I have and how do I grasp those choices… that is
what education is for… to examine my choices and give
me a sense of which choice is the right choice for me…
not to create a worker or a producer or even a consumer…
but what are my own possibilities, my own choices…
that isn’t what education does today… it is about
turning people into workers or producers or consumers…
gaining career/job skills isn’t about making true choices,
because true choices would allow us to reject that
choice of being a worker and/or a consumer…

so, what value does education have for you and what
does your education say about you becoming human,
fully human… not animal as our modern education
trains us to be…

Kropotkin

4

work is dystopian. someone i looked up to and admired worked in a factory for many years. now they are dead. dead before 75.

those who do not work are higher humans, the evolution of humanity, higher humanity, they have transcended unto gods. There is animal, and then there is human, and then there is god. The aristocracy and ruling class has never had to work

and then work is divided into different echelons of work. The lower work, such as miners and factory workers, slave work. The next lower work, servants, not producing materials directly but merely putting materials on store shelves. Then higher forms of work, secretaries and managers. Then higher forms of work, the self-employed, managers, bosses, entrepreneurs and finally CEOs.
Gig workers do not fall neatly into any of those categories.

Blue collar repair workers, are both bosses, entrepreneurs, as well as performing physical labor, menial labor tasks.

animals are greedy hoarders, they will attack other animals, hoarde the sex. for example 99% of wolves are incels, only the alpha male and alpha female gets sex. Every day i look out my window at the animals, i see a lot of bullies, animals attacking other animals, one time i saw an animal that tried to hoard all of the water for themself and attacking an animal for trying to get water. Really despicable

humans are the next stage of evolution from that, developing altriusm, as opposed to subhumanity, like how some mammal species commit infanticide. humans have more consciousness and are able to see morals and ethics, instead of being dumb stupid animals. but humans are not the final stage of evolution, because they are still slaves of work, work cannot be the final evolution of humanity, it is suffering and it is animalistic. those who transcend work are as gods.

ai will help us all transcend work, some even consider asi gods. ubi will usher in a new era of society. those who talk of ai but do not speak of ubi are fools… i view the development of asi as potentially risky and somewhat foolish… we could create a utopian society full of agi, the agi and humans are living in peace and both are happy, and then 2 years later we create asi… why… asi with an intelligence so large noone can fathom… 2 years… our civilization has existed for thousand of years…

i talked badly about work earlier, now i will mention that work can be good… its a paycheck, it gives people a sense of purpose, discipline, distracting them from ennui… some forms of work are so boring that it makes basic entertainment, such as sports television, not seem boring… when you are trapped in a prison for 7 hours… anything seems like salvation. and that’s what work is, a prison.

however there are some forms of work which are actually healthy, such as working at your own pace, working on projects you want to do, or working on projects your boss tells you to do but pay well. i believe there is a benefit and positive to certain types of work, especially manual labor work that is outdoors, it can be healthy like exercise.

that being said every work can be different. even creative and independent work can be very unhealthy, especially creative computer work that causes neck and eye strain and mental fatigue. especially if people at the computer work long hours and do not take frequent breaks.

5

one of the interesting task for a ‘‘philosopher
of work’’ is the commitment that the Soviet Union
made to work… all able bodies were committed to working…
it is said that communism failed… ok, great, but one of
the reasons it failed is because it made work such
a commitment… if one wasn’t working in the Soviet Union,
the question was why? ''Why aren’t you contributing to
the state/society?" becomes the question within
the Soviet Union…

and today, part of the new bill before the Senate, comes this
little piece, that anyone who is physically able to work and
collects Medicare, must work… No one, NO ONE, is
exempt from work… exactly like the Soviet Union…
Work becomes the identity of all those who are not
part of the ‘‘Ruling Class’’… exactly like the Soviet Union…
If we follow the same rules as the Soviet Union, Communism,
then what makes us different than them?

If we treat our workers the same as the Soviet Union,
how do we claim to be ‘‘superior’’… the only way in
the Soviet Union to get benefits, was by working,
and how is that different than today’s modern America?
In America, try getting health care without a job?
and one might say, Obamacare… but the GOP/MAGA
party is trying and has tried for years to gut Obamacare…
and why? to force workers to remain in their jobs, to literally
force people to work their entire life.. and by destroying
Social Security and Medicare, it effectively does the same thing…
to force people to work from childhood to death is the GOP/MAGA
party wet dream… I point out that in Floridia, laws have
been passed allowing children to work virtually unlimited
hours and days with machines that can harm or kill the
children… Ah, making America great again by forcing
children into labor… just like the good old days…
where 5-year-old children went to work, earning
pennies a day… what, a 9 year old not wanting to work,
what a traitor, such Un-American behavior… off to prison
for failing to fulfill one’s American duty… work from
birth to death… that is the American dream… just like
it was the Soviet Union dream to do the exact same thing…

Kropotkin

6

the question of work and of course by extension
education, is this question of ‘‘doing’’ and ‘‘being’’…

‘‘doing’’ is the basic goal of modern living… to create
profits, to make wealth, to be a worker, or a consumer,
all of which is ‘‘doing’’…
but the real question is not within ‘‘doing’’ but within
‘‘being’’, this question of going from animal to becoming
human, is not a question of doing, but a question of ‘‘being’’…
As Heidegger pointed out, the ancient Greeks were
about ‘‘being’’ not ‘‘doing’’ the real goal of being
human was in the contemplation of the universe…
which the Catholic Church picked up and then made
the highest goal of religion to be engaged in the
contemplation of god… for that is exactly what the
idea of heaven is, where one spends eternity
in contemplation of god… there is no other function of
heaven in Church mythology… ‘‘being’’ in heaven,
not ‘‘doing’’ in heaven…

so, the question becomes, as Heidegger thought, was
how do we go from our modern way which is ‘‘doing’’ to
the ancient way, which is ‘‘being’’…

as for ‘‘doing’’ the modern worker has no aspirations to
become something more… we ‘‘do’’ which is how
we are ‘‘rewarded’’ in our modern culture… seeking out
‘‘being’’ is not only actively discouraged but is punished…
the rewards of our modern day lies within ‘‘doing’’ not
in ‘‘being’’…

But Kropotkin, how does one ‘‘be’’ instead of ‘‘do’’…

to ‘‘be’’ requires one to engage in the Socratic motto’s,
to ‘‘know thyself’’ and the other motto, ‘‘The unexamined
life isn’t worth living’’… both of those ideals are not
‘‘doing’’ but they are ‘‘being’’ which is to say, they are
both about contemplation… the dictionary says this:

Contemplation: the action of looking thoughtfully at
something for a long time…

deep reflective thought…

the state of being thought about or planned…

these definitions are not about ‘‘doing’’ but about thinking
about something… which is certainly not something
that is honored or desired in our modern world…
IQ45 was elected because it was thought he would
do something, not think about something…
and yet, because there was no thought, just
the acting on his and the MAGA party bigotry,
prejudice, hatred… but no reflection of any kind…
just ‘‘doing’’ without any thought as to what might
happen if they did and are doing what they have done…

In America anyway, there has always been a strong hatred against
those who think, intellectuals are despised and hated in America…
and those who ‘‘do’’ are applauded, and rewarded…
even if the actions of those who ‘‘do’’ severely damage
America, as the current actions are damaging America
in ways we won’t see for decades…

so, what path are you following?
‘‘doing’’ or ‘‘being’’ which is to say,
''being is contemplation…

Kropotkin

7

this question can be rewritten…

what is the relationship between our public selves
and our private self… now notice how I wrote that…
Public SELVES, and our private self… for we show
many different public selves, whereas we have but
one private self…

Let us think about capitalism… which is to say,
that in some unexplained fashion, each of us in
our own private pursuit of ‘‘happiness’’, which
in modern America really means the pursuit of
wealth, in some fashion benefits the whole of
the society… the invisible hand of god
theory of economics which is the heart of capitalism…
this economic theory, doesn’t work out our public selves,
it just deals with our private self… the private pursuit of
wealth… or in other words, the capitalists agrees
completely with Marx…that the basis of our state/society
is the economic one, that the human being is
an ‘‘homo economicus’’ the heart of being human
lies in economics, not spiritual, not political, not
philosophical, but economics drive the
human being…and yet, this theory flounders
on the reality we see around us… the pursuit of
money is just one drive we see daily… we also see
the drive to power, fame, sex, spirituality, political,
and material goods… the ‘’‘doing’’ drives…
which is the path of empty promises… the
path of pursing wealth, fame, power, titles and material goods…
all temporary goals… ‘‘ad hoc’’ goals… of the moment…
which is just another ‘‘tale told by an idiot’’…
‘‘full of sound and fury’’…

for all of these ‘‘ad hoc’’ goals are private goals, not public ones…
but what of the public self? What should those goals be?
Who knows because today, no one reflects on them…
a reflection on the public self leads us to a reflection of
our public self on display… what is the goal of the
public self? is the goal of the public self, setting up
a private goal? No, I think a public self would be
engaged in the public in terms of our connection
to each other… the modern path, the MAGA path
is one where our public self is racist, bigoted,
and prejudiced… and is that really the public
goal we want or desire? is the goal to unite people
or divide people? The conservative, MAGA party
believes the goal of existence to be a private self,
not a pubic self… look at the evidence,
the conservative praises heaven, the wealthy,
those who focus on private values, not public values…
capitalism itself is committed to the idea that somehow,
in some unknown way, that our private pursuit of money/
happiness will lead us to some public good…the
invisible hand of god, as it were… but it has never
been shown how this faith in private vices which in
some fashion, leads us to some public good…
I can’t explain it, nor can you, or nor can anyone explain it
because it isn’t true… the pursuit of private vices does not
and cannot lead us to any public good… and if we
were to reflect on the matter, we would see this… part
of the reason, that contemplation is discouraged…
it might lead one to discover that the modern’s world economic
theory is based on a fundamental lie… that
private vices can lead us to a public good…
so, if private vices cannot bring us to the truth,
perhaps a public self can… a self that,
by contemplation, can reach what it means to
be human… which is not in ‘‘doing’’ but in the
pursuit of ‘‘being’’…

Kropotkin

8

Ancient greeks were divided into two groups.

Athenians and Spartans

Athenians : scholarship, philosophy, truth, hedonism.

Spartans: war, global conflicts, masculinity, struggle.

" real goal of being
human was in the contemplation of the universe…"

"the ancient Greeks were
about ‘‘being’’ not ‘‘doing’’ "

some people are more about doing than being. an unconscious adaptation to hypergamy

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9

and what is the political? an examination of
what our private self ought to do within the
context of living in the midst of others…

conservatives can only reach their conclusion about
the private self being the only goal worth reaching
by simple ignoring Darwin and our own history…
the story of Human beings…

We are, all human beings, social beings…
and the rise of the state and society reflect
this… we cannot survive without others…
that is a fact, not conjecture or mere belief,
but a statement of fact… that human beings can
only survive within a state/society… we cannot
have our private life become the dominate social
structure… as conservatives want..
to seek out our own happiness, at whatever it
costs the state or society… simply put,
if the state/society goes down, so do human beings…
a state/society is as necessary to human beings as breathing
and eating and having health care… these are not,
as the right believes, optional or luxuries… the state/
society is as necessary as both the physical and
psychological needs are to human beings…
that is not an opinion, but fact…

and while the conservative praises the private vices,
we must turn to our public selves to become human…
there is no other path to becoming human other than
the public sphere… and we learn publicly with
public education, mega-churches, the media, our
interactions with and within the state/society…

to be defined as a human being requires us to define ourselves
within the public sphere… as being connected to the state/
society… but Kropotkin, what about the pursuit of happiness,
as defined by the Declaration? the very pursuit of happiness has
a public context…

''When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary
FOR ONE PEOPLE, to dissolve the POLITICAL bands
which have connected them…"

Part of the connection we must all have to each other, part
of that is political, as well as social, religious, and philosophical…

let us look at this problem another way…
What was Hobbes great fear politically?
A return to the ‘‘state of nature""
life before the existence of organized society, government
and the law… a constant war of all against all… which is
characterized by life being “” solitary, poor, nasty, brutish
and short’’ due to a common authority to enforce rules
and resolve conflicts… a state and/or a society…

the question of philosophy and political science is the
question, what does it mean to be human? and the state/society
is a vital part of that answer… reduce the state/society is to
reduce the possibilities of being human… for in a ‘‘state of nature’’,
our choices are limited to what we ourselves can achieve by ourselves,
which is very, very little… we have very limited choices in
a ‘‘state of nature’’ having a state/society increases our
possibilities and choices…the path to becoming human lies
in having a state/society… the opposite of a ‘‘state of nature’’
for most conservatives, they will tell me I am wrong, but
they don’t actually defend their ideas, mostly because
their ideas are indefensible…

so, the question isn’t about whether or not we should
have a state/society, the question becomes what type
of state/society best brings out our own human nature…
and I have repeatedly voted for democracy as being our
best bet to open up our human possibilities… not a
dictatorship, not an oligarchy, which we have today,
not a monarchy, not even communism… but a
democracy… the rush to dictatorship in America today
stems from a fundamental failure to understand the
private self vs public self argument…
the idea of community is as tied into the meaning of
being human as is breathing or eating… we must
have community if we are to be human… it is as simple
as that… conservatives deny this idea of community…
they are focused on the private self as the path to
being human and they are flat out wrong…

What does it mean to be human? I have stated that
as a fundamental question of existence…and part
of that answer lies in our discussion of our private self,
vs our public selves… in community, public over our
own private vices which is our ‘‘pursuit of happiness’’…

Kropotkin

10

Under capitalism you work to make a few people very wealthy and they in turn give you just enough wages to barely sustain yourself with the constant threat of throwing you onto the streets with next to nothing.

In short, under capitalism work is coercion and exploitation.

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11

I don’t think that’s necessarily capitalism. I think that could happen under any economic system that doesn’t treat the self as other and vice versa. That’s just what corruption is…. a violation of consent. You remove all discussion and negotiation because it is systematized away. Tyranny of efficiency. People without the knowledge to be actual leaders love it because it means they don’t actually have to lead. They just blame the system and justify everything they do by the system. Like rent gougers that blame demand… while keeping inventory vacant, and therefore artificially low. That can be done whether it’s a capitalist system or a communist system where the state owns everything and rakes in the revenue. Just look at the property taxes after you think you own something. We need to start this crap over.

F*** office attire.

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12

Yeah that’s true but also applicable under communism rule.

With no UBI safety net, its anybody’s guess.

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13

UBI is like the opiate you don’t want to get people dependent on. It’ll just hike prices up worse and they still won’t be able to pay the damn bills. Apex of stupid. They’ll think they need it and that the government is actually giving them something.

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14

You have no evidence for your position, what’s more, there is clear evidence against your position.

Even worse than that, you have no solution for when robots take jobs.

15

They will never implement UBI, I can assure you of that.

16

Bill Gates’ quantum.dot has incentives built into it. I wouldn’t make assumptions so quickly considering who (let’s say opportunistically) orchestrated the global public health pandemic policy. They will brand the herd they don’t cull.

17

The other problem of economic inequality is the devaluation of the currency which exacerbates problems even worse in terms of inflationary pressures.

18

If you supply the (manufactured, mandated) needs of the herd (“human capital”), you don’t need currency. You know…the sort that can’t be automated.

19

He’s just a front man, he’s a nobody in the much larger scheme of things. The real people in control rarely are seen in the public spotlight.

20

I’m not sure what difference that makes here, regardless whether or not is true.

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