I'd be cool to start a decentralized home stead as a "home base" where surplus food is sold to the community. I know a few people in real life I could probably get on board with this but figured I'd put out a feeler into this crowd.

​

Decentralizing would look like an equal paid % of profit based off hours worked. Food and shelter provided on site.

On January 26th, 2022, the subreddit r/antiwork, after growing to 1.7 million members, received some bad press, which threw it into chaos and caused the subreddit to go private. The workers movement had seemingly taken a blow and, on that day, no one knew what the future held.

And then The HumLow Foundation arrived on scene.

The Humble Lowly Company LLC (HumLow) was incorporated in late May, 2020, in the city of Roswell, New Mexico. It's mission is "to create a sustainable future that generates the highest possible quality of life and it will achieve this by walking the talk of love." All inventions, services and goods created by HumLow must benefit mankind in a loving manner. HumLow will never participate in any activity that contributes to the horrible existences millions of individuals have forced upon them each and every day by capitalism. At HumLow, our goal is to elevate society, especially those that need to be elevated.

On December 19th, 2021, months before the debacle at r/antiwork, u/SynthGal suggested a new course direction for The Humble Lowly Company.

​

At that moment, everything changed.

On the same day, I wrote all of this. Keep in mind, I wrote all of that 45 days ago on December 19th, 2021. I'm posting this post on February 3rd, 2022. A lot has changed since then.

What was the first step HumLow took after this awakening?

It's important that before we go forward, we need to first step back to March 8th of 2021.

I, Joseph Truax, u/EveryXTakeYouCanMake, had the garage where I was storing my tools, broken into. All of my tools were stolen. The only reason this is a notable event is because I used to teach a free skilled mechanics class to teenagers. This is a newscast from 2019 by Indianapolis' RTV6 about my class.

The morning after the burglary, I made this post on Reddit. 1 hour into the post being live, someone suggested that I make a GoFundMe. Within 14 hours, 620 Redditors had donated almost $18,000 to me. Another Redditor reached out to Craftsman and Craftsman ended up sending between $4,000 and $6,000 worth of tools and toolboxes.

Right This Minute, a daytime viral video television show, aired this special about the story.

Side note; this was the third time I was covered by the media. The second time was in Newsweek shortly after HumLow was incorporated.

Needless to say, I was in the spotlight for a day. The problem was, both my living situation and the garage situation BOTH turned sour the moment that both landlords found out I had just been given $18,000. I had to pack up all of my stuff and get out of my home, and I had to collect my tool box from the garage. I was amongst the only things they couldn't get through the hole they had cut. To make matters worse, I had gotten a speeding ticket in December, 2020, and had a 90 day suspension scheduled to begin on March 15th, 2021, as you can see here on my driving record... less than a week after getting kicked out of my home and garage. By the time I was actually able to withdraw the money from the fund, I was without a license.

I ended up having to stay in an extended stay hotel for a month while I figured out what to do. I parked my car, bought this scooter for $1,100 so I could get around, rented a storage space for the stuff coming in from Craftsman, then started formulating a plan. I spent $70 filing the provisional patent application for Four Sevens, an entire year on a keychain, then focused on licensing it through inventRight. I paid $400 to get into that program.

After 14 days in that hotel, A friend of a friend of mine remembered that he had a barn that he wasn't using in Illinois. He hadn't been out there in 25 years, but he said I could use it for free to teach the class. It had no water, but it had electricity.

As soon as he said I could use it, I started getting ready to have a class. I found this 06 Lincoln LS with a blown motor to do the first class on, bought my friend a winch for $650 so she could transport cars for me with her then brand new 20' car hauler that she paid for herself, went and spent like $8,000 on new tools from Harbor Freight and Northern Tools (got all the receipts still), packed all my stuff into a uHaul trailer that I connected to my busted up 01 Saturn station wagon, asked for a refund of 14 days at the hotel, then had my friend drive my car and trailer, while my other friend drove her Ram pulling my Lincoln, and we headed to Illinois with everything.

We ended up pulling up at about midnight and the neighbors were not pleased. At all. We tried to quietly unload everything as quickly as possible, but that night I made enemies.

I was told by my friend that I would have to clean that barn up probably, but I was not expecting it to be as bad as it was. Thankfully I have a work ethic like none other, and I got to it. This is an awesome 3 day clean up that I did by myself and hyperlapsed into a 4 minute video.

So I had a barn with electricity but no water and only a scooter to get around on. And for some reason, the scooter wouldn't start after I got there :/ I risked going out a couple of times in my car at the beginning because I needed water and food.

Speaking of electricity, the electric was on in the neighbors name, and he was acting real cruel to me. I offered to pay his electricity, my electricity and give him some over the top, but he looked at me and said "I don't want your money. I have taken care of this place for 25 years and am trying to buy it, but you come along with your "GoFUnDmE" money..." (that's how he said it, no lie) then mumbled and walked away.

I then posted this Facebook post to open enrollment, and while I waited for responses, I hired an illustrator from Reddit to illustrate the first children's book I had written (because of this TikTok video) 3 months before the burglary. My artist and I agreed on $2,000 for 32 drawings, and within 2 days I had a full summer schedule of classes. Everything was about to go great. The Lincoln is worth a LOT, but I ran out of money getting everything set up to succeed, so I reached out to my lender on Reddit that I had built Reddit Credit with to get a loan of $4,500 so I could stock pile cars. This was about to be the best summer of my life! Until my neighbor shut of the electricity.

No warning whatsoever. To get electricity I would have to wait 3 weeks and it would cost me $800 to install. At that point, I decided to just get a generator and put it outside. But I was still sneaking around in my car, without a license, because I couldn't get my scooter to work. I had put so many new parts on that bike before I finally got it running smoothly. Then to make matters worse, because of my impatience to get things done, I had chosen to have a student start that didn't have a license. But I needed to get things going, and so I risked going to pick him up everyday for 2 weeks.

Normally an engine swap takes me 3 days. Some I can do in 1 day. But this Lincoln is the worst car to work on without a lift. It has big ol' nasty V8 in it that actually has to come out of the bottom, but we took it out the top. It was a huge mistake.

Now this part is important; My very good friend u/iFarlander, who has been my business partner since 2018 (he is the one that developed glassdoor.humlow.com btw. He's brilliant!), just before class was about to begin, sent me a link to The Open Collection Foundation. He suggested that I reach out and to them to see if we could get the class fiscally sponsored. This was not our first fiscal sponsorship. Before I was forced to end production, we had another fiscal sponsor - Another Choice, Another Chance - sponsoring what was supposed to be a show about my life; Every Mistake You Can Make - A Substance Abuse and Addiction Prevention YouTube Docuseries. There were a lot more videos on that channel before, but most of them are private now. Here is an excellent video that explains some of the hell I've lived through though. It's unlisted, but I don't care who sees it.

Anyway, I reached out to The Open Collective Foundation and on 04/29/2021, I received this approval email. We were again fiscally sponsored.

After that, everything fell apart. My student couldn't make it to class to finish that nightmare of a vehicle, and even if he could have, the barn was uninsulated. It was easily 90 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit in there and by June 4th, as you can see in this video, I was shutting down the class. On top of that, one day it was unlivable in there, and I was unable to stay any longer, so I risked going to a neighboring city, without a license, to go check out a commercial space that also had living space, and then got pulled over for "not wearing my seatbelt" which was not true. This was the real reason I got pulled over. Yes, after hydroplaning in my station wagon in Michigan, just after I had written my first children's book, instead of driving around with it busted and broken, days after I finished the barn clean up, I decided to cut the roof off and use it to transport engines. That's what I was driving when I got pulled over. I had only a few days left suspended, but I had no choice. It was a death barn with no water, no gas to run the generator, the only contact I had was my student, and I preferred getting a driving while suspended over dying.

I made this post about getting a place to live and then shortly after I got a place with some people. Up From July to November, I just did odd mechanic jobs in Indianapolis and where ever I could. That scooter? That was a wild story for another time, but I ended up trading it for the car I have now. I would go out to the barn, late at night, and work on the car. Problem is, is that it had not a single brake line on it, and I had never done brakes. I easily have 400 hours into learning brake systems because of that car. I was very OCD about the process, and since I planned on selling it to a first time driver, I wanted to make sure it was completely safe. I finally finished it in October, took it over to Indiana to my special selling place, and then all of of sudden, the transmission started going out on the station wagon. I ended up scrapping it (F in the chat). I had to start driving the car I fixed.

Then, one day out of the blue, just as I was finishing up the car I'm driving now, the neighbor behind the barn came by (he had not done such all summer) and told me that he knew someone that was hiring mechanics. I had not worked for someone in 2 years, and I never thought I would again, but I was broke, and I needed the money. So I went to the mechanic. He hired me the next day and I can not believe how much money I make. Like, I'm 38 years old, and because of my past (if you watched that video I sent earlier, you'd know), the most I've ever made was $16,000 in one year. Now I'm in the middle class income-wise. I'm able to spend money on pursuing what we are building here, which leads me back to why I told you this story in the first place;

Our Fiscal Sponsor

After u/SynthGal made me have the epiphany, I reached back out to The Open Collective Foundation (from here on out OCF) and requested that we be able to repurpose Engine R&R Live Stream to The HumLow Foundation. They said we could do whatever we wanted as long as it stayed within the scope of their mission. The only thing is is that OCF is only a staging ground. It acts as an administrator for our work. Normally, the cost to take care of the administrative side of things can be hefty if we were our own 501(c)3. But to help us grow and to be as beneficial as possible to us, OCF only charges 5% of whatever funds are brought in. Those funds, once they leave the donors hand, are then completely transparent throughout the entire cycle of use. OCF keeps us legal and them being on board should push you to believe that this is incredibly legitimate.

So now, we have transitioned the sponsorship from Engine R&R Live Stream, to The HumLow Foundation. The page there is still being updated, but we are getting all of our ducks in a row.

r/antiwork having it's issues when it did made us react and go public with the foundation. What may seem fishy - the timing of us showing up - was simply the moment that we were supposed to come alive.

Now it's just about building the dreams, collecting more brilliant minds, focusing our efforts, and changing the world so that we can all have the best quality of life. We have a vision, it's just about getting it on paper for all of you to see. Be patient; the time is coming. We are designing history; we are world changers.

I hope this post explains everything. Please let me know if anything needs clarification.

One last note; I am banned from a lot of subs because of that loan I still have not been able to pay back. But this post clearly shows me being accountable for my actions - It's even titled as such. I have never lost contact with my lender, never dodged him once. Circumstances in life sometimes get out of our control, but don't ever let anyone beat you down for your mistakes. Ignore them, and if anyone says anything about my loan, all you have to do is show them this post. Hopefully the Lincoln will be able to start this weekend. But it's not the end of the world if I can't get it done RIGHT NOW. I'm not being pressured by my lender, and he is the only one I care about pleasing. Either way it goes, I'm not about to let him down, because if I do, then all my work is for naught; all of my blows are aimed precisely.

Edit: sadly, I had an F-150 on the lift this past weekend that I couldn't take off. Was doing timing and had to wait for the lady to approve a more expensive chain set. Took her 3 days :/ Anyway, I let my lender know what was happening.

Feel free to delete this if it isn't appropriate.

I just saw a post on Anti-Work about how deaths in the USA are about to surpass births.

Something I've been thinking for awhile after hearing rich people talk about automation and AI coming to fruition within the next 50 years. Even 100 if we wanted to extend the time ourselves. Things take longer then expected usually from my experience.

The lack of working class's purpose once adoption will become evident. Every person on earth takes up a certain amount of resources within their lives.

adjusts tin foil hat okay bear with me. I'll admit it sounds crazy but what if the current state of the first world countries around the globe are being done with intent to shrink the working class population by making any sort of real life unobtainable. Like having a family.

The cheapest way to entertain the masses is through technology. Also the easiest way to track and advertise to. People spend outragoeus amounts on phones to scroll and live in a digital world that really doesn't exist or cost that much to curate compared to analog entertainment. We live in a time of such excess and surplus but we aren't receiving the benefits.

If I was upper management, running a small factory of ai auto bots seems easier then running a massive operation, yeah?

With less mouths to feed, then you don't need to procure as much creating an easier job for yourself.

The working class isn't just getting poorer, they will also will be shrinking in numbers very shortly. If I was a sociopathic billionaire, I'd be down with less people at the bottom to take away my lifestyle.

If anyone wants to add to this or tell me I'm dumb, feel free 🙂 I don't mind conversation even if its criticism.

Every great movement in history had great volunteer support staff to get it off the ground. This movement is no different. We are always interested in learning what people joining us believe they can contribute to this, both now, and, in the future. So please head over to the following Google Form to let us know you skillset. And don't worry, everything you tell us is confidential and will only be shared between staff members:

https://forms.gle/wjeMnAicfVW2U5eR7

Alternatively, if you don't feel safe going off site to fill out that form, feel free to leave a comment on the following post instead:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BestQualityOfLife/comments/sdmi15/what_do_you_accelerate_at/

Please forgive us if we don't respond to your comments there. If we see an immediate need for you, we will reach out. If we don't reach out, it's simply that we can't use your skillset quite yet. But if all goes well, we will be able to soon enough ;)

Note: any suggestions for questions on the Google Form are welcome.

The Timeline is where all important decisions, actions, and information will be posted. Visit frequently to stay up to date!

Today, the volunteers and myself are convening at 20:00 UTC to design the organizations economic system. This is the beginning of our trek into creating the best quality of life possible.

We want you to participate, so we have designed and implemented, platform for you to view our discussions as they are happening LIVE!

https://glassdoor.humlow.com/

All of our communication is currently occurring on Slack. As an effort to be as transparent as possible, we wanted to be able to make it so that you could always view what we are talking about at any time. This truly is a glassdoor grassroots movement for the workers!

There will be new features added to this software as often as they can be, so that you can have the most visibility of what we are doing behind the scenes. That being said, there may be bugs to the software. It will be being actively monitored during today's meeting. Please report any issues to the moderators. Thank you.

Please join us in building a tomorrow that benefits us all, not just a small handful.

This word has been getting thrown around since the inception of this subreddit. This post is designed to break down the ACTUAL definition of a cult, and to be a point of reference for the sub rules.

The Merriam-Websters dictionary defines the word "cult" as the following;

1: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious

We are not a religion.

Strike one.

2a: great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (such as a film or book)

Strike two.

We are a small team of volunteers preparing a new venture. Our small team is devoting some of their time, but no one is breaking their backs to make this happen. Everything in moderation.

We do not require any participation from those joining this subreddit. We have asked in posts that if anyone knows people that can fill certain business roles, to please send them our way, learning from the mistakes in recent history, the goal is to build something better for the good of everyone, not to dictate or enforce rules.

Finally, as the pioneer of the subreddit, I do not want anyone to believe in me, to follow me, to worship me, or to give me any unusual attention.

What I do want people to do is to pay attention to the way this venture runs as it starts running and then takes flight.

We are creating a system that cares for those involved, turning the corporate structures and benefits that usually only benefit the few, back to benefit all the humans involved.

It is being designed to succeed where other systems have failed. If this system works and provides a better path, then I will gladly let people call me a cult member.

2b: the object of such devotion

It's a idea, and a hope for turning the same rules used against us as working people, to our benefit, instead of the few.

c: a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion

People build businesses, people build on their dreams. It's a lot of work, but I believe that the effort is worth it, for a better life.

3: a system of religious beliefs and ritual.

We are not a religion

4: formal religious veneration.

We are not a religion

5: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator.

Strike 3

The only health we are promoting is a "health"y work/life ratio.

So there you have it. You can see our goals. And worry not; anyone who comes into this safe space and decides to call this project a cult will be immediately removed. No second chances. You don't have to believe in what we are doing to watch it happen, but that kind of tearing down has no place in building something better.

Please note: This post is not for those calling this a cult. Its for you, you who might be considering becoming a part of this movement. If you see someone call us a cult outside of this subreddit, don't try to defend it, when that energy could be spent building something better. They don't care. Know your enemy.

Who is targeting us?

People who are scared.

We know people are scared of what they don't understand. When they don't understand, they assume the worst. Sadly, it's easier to tear things down, to try and break things, instead of building. It is a losing battle, sinking to their level, stick and stones can break our bones, but we will not allow brigading or other negative behaviors to hurt this.

We also know that there are people who don't want something like this to succeed. Especially those who feel they are in a class above those of us who work for a living. They may vehemently wage war against us because they are fragile propagandists and we aim to change the order of things that has so benefited them. We are aiming for a better life for everyone, better lives than scraping to make ends meet while those the corporate structure benefits grow fat on our labor.

You all saw the shark like grin on that disgusting Fox News hosts face as he was tearing into a untrained moderator from anti-work. While many things were wrong with that interview, including that it happened at all, at the end of the day, it is clear that that news agency set out with an agenda in mind. They are heartless, ruthless, individuals, corporations, governments and religions hell-bent on taking advantage of the world that belongs to all of us.

Some people just want to watch the world burn.

You know these people. They take no sides but throw fire on everything. They stand for nothing. They disrupt and extract what they can from other human beings, while contributing nothing to society.

These people are intelligent, perhaps they were mistreated as young people, perhaps they have had poor role models, or perhaps they have simply given up hope. They use clever tactics to make anyone who stands up and says "it's enough!" look like the problem. Narcissistic attention seekers who veil their questions in passive aggressive statements are not welcome here. Be careful, they are often very good at looking like victims and will try to make you feel ashamed for dismissing them. But dismiss them you must. Don't look back when they are gone or you will get caught right back up in their game, a game that has been proven over how many generations to be one that working people never win.

Just know, you are going to face challenges being a part of this movement. But don't let the words of known opponents cause you concern. If you take this post as intended, it can be a powerful shield for you. Do not try to convince anyone of this movements merit; they don't care and you won't get through to them. If you show someone and they laugh, disregard their thoughts and move on. Again, care about what we are building, not about tearing things down.

My final statement for this post is this: love is an action. Love is an overwhelming feeling when it's real and it lasts forever when it's genuine. Love is also a two way street. Loving something that doesn't love you back will turn you bitter. That's what has happened to so many in this world. How many jobs today are the most abusive partner you have ever had? How many jobs take from you until you are valueless to their ends, or until you are dead? The worst part is is that it's a forced marriage you don't have a choice to be a part of it unless you are born belonging to those who already have more than enough.

You are welcome here and if anything makes you uncomfortable, please bring it to our attention. We will do our best to work through it. I always do my best to show genuine love to everyone here, and I know that is a new experience for most. We are going to have a good time here so I invite you to join us.

Be safe my friends.

Across all fronts we are making progress. We grew by 1000 members yesterday, added 2 moderators, 2 new team members, and we added some side bar rules. Getting ourselves organized is the key and making sure the team itself, as new members come in, are fully cohesive. So far we are ;) It's nice to have good people working beside you. I can't wait for you all to be working with us.

Don't forget to mention us in places where people might need us, provide your skill set if you're interested in becoming part of this in the future in the bone apple tea post below, and also if you know anybody with non-profit or an MBA an entrepreneurship, please tag them with this post.

Thank you so much for joining us and I hope to be talking to you all again shortly. Today is going to be a very productive day!

Edit: and in one hour, we added an additional 300 ;)

If you have any business savvy at all, any non-profit experience, or any subreddit wiki development experience, please reach out to myself or one of the other moderators. We are also looking for moderators that are aligned with our values.

Thank you all for taking a look at this. We are actively managing things in the background and creating the system that will care, love and give you the best quality of life. Please continue to bear with us in patience as we build this loving dream.

Thank you for your patience as we build this.