This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I'm starting with a ramble about historical city government
There's a tendency for fantasy settings(which is how most modern westerners are familiar with medieval operations) to portray everything as running according to very strict monarchy/feudalism- they're usually kinda confused as to the difference between the two things, but with enough oversimplifications as to make the distinction meaningless. But historically, that's not how any cities were governed- a hereditary lord just isn't how urbanites organize themselves. Instead, there's a largely-hereditary(but in the medieval case open to new admittance on a theoretically meritocratic but also super corrupt basis) social class which elects city leadership- usually a board of senior figures, a few magistrates doing specific tasks, and some generals. That class- which we call 'citizens' in Greece and Rome and 'burghers' in medieval free cities- makes up the military as citizen-soldiers who provide their own equipment(yes, even in the middle ages). The city might owe allegiance to some overlord, say an emperor, and might be in alliance with other similar cities, but it's probably not under the direct overlordship of a local noble.
It's the burghers that I want to focus on today. Entry into the burgher class required either guildsmanship or enough wealth to buy membership. Obtaining it practically guaranteed your sons full membership in a guild(acceptance as apprentices, not laborers). Their burgher status was tied to a specific town, and it was- by implication- tied to their service to a specific town. With the heretofore unprecedented pace of technological change beginning in the high middle ages, highly skilled work(and I do mean work, here- these people are largely technicians and skilled craftsmen, not engineers) becomes ever more important, and they naturally live in cities, which are ruled by corrupt political machines dominated by the guilds. Increasing technology and trade makes these cities more and more valuable, both economically and by enabling more effective military activity, giving the cities more bargaining power to wrangle special rights for their citizens. This is, as far as I can tell, the first time in history that it is prestigious to be meritocratic. There are roman accounts of wealthy freedman- invariably they are negative. But it seems that the medieval working class aspired to be guildmember burghers and not to be nobles. Now, you(maybe not you personally, but if you're an able-bodied twenty year old male reading this and you're not sure what to do with your life you should consider it- apply and take an aptitude test) can learn a trade today through a union which is functionally a guild, but nobody thinks of the IBEW or UA as aspirational, despite the high salaries. In non-european parts of the world at the same time as the middle ages skilled crafts/trades were passed down through clans, not guilds, and while artisans were often taxed differently from farmers there are straightforwards and obvious reasons for this in non-monetized societies rather than it being an expression of a special status.
Know your place. At the end of the day, society has to be made of lots of different members doing lots of different jobs, living in different ways. The high middle ages with its social classes- peasants who farm, nobles who fight, clerics who pray, study, and do white collar work, townsmen who do artisanal work, merchants who move things from point a to b, with wealthy and prestigious and respected examples of each(and there were wealthy peasants- the term 'yeoman' actually descends from one subcategory thereof). We have, as an urbanized and technological society, very similar roles in society that need filling. We need people to study and push the frontiers of theoretical knowledge. We need people to do white collar administrative work. We need people to move things around. We need people to physically make things and do things, many of them highly skilled. We need people to defend us. Etc, etc.
But increasingly, the only roles which are prestigious in modernity are those of white collar undefined-what-the-value-add-here-is jobs and those of pushing the bounds of theoretical knowledge(much of it actually more the philosophy of fartsniffing). UA HVAC techs make more than either(and that's assuming minimum payscales and no overtime), but it's nowhere near as lionized as the girlboss middle manager in an HR department at a startup that bills itself as Uber for cat psychics. I wonder if that's upstream of many of the motte's obsessions- let's take the fertility rate here. Having kids will not fuck up your career as a k-12 teacher, or accountant, or RN, or for the vanishingly few female long-haul truckers. 'Explain this gap in your resume' being met with 'I was a SAHM when my kids were in diapers' will not stop normal average jobs from hiring you. It's only awesome girlboss career track progression that will be derailed that way. Now, ideally, 'housewife' is a role that society lionizes the same way it does professor of queer fartsniffing or founding HR manager at uber for cat psychics. But it goes beyond just that- the motte fixates on admittance to very selective colleges. But society has far more unmet demand for electrical linemen than it does for another hotshot lawyer or Mackinsey consultant(I don't actually know what the latter does, except that it is pointless, well paid occupation for Ivy league grads). Now sure, whatever it is Mackinsey consultants actually do, it's probably more comfortable and easier than electrical linemen. But at a certain point, shouldn't we as a society go 'it takes all sorts to make the world go round, why don't we make the top of every field prestigious, give everyone someone to aspire to. In the words of country music, every sort of person should have something to be proud of(https://youtube.com/watch?v=PXg8E0kzF1c)'.
I remember when movies had a trope- I'm not defined by my work, I do x from 9-5, but all day long I'm a dad- one who happens to do x to pay the bills. The idea of an identity to be proud of, genuine pride in our differences and diversity, was singing its swan song. It's now dead. How many of the world's problems are actually downstream of that? I'm reminded of the several AAQC's about why South Koreans aren't having kids(my answer is pretty simple- it's not fun. Rednecks have kids because they look forwards to going to t-ball games. South Koreans don't because they don't look forwards to twelve hour study sessions).
Darnit, I wish I'd written this before trying to revive the user viewpoint focus series(@netstack how's yours coming?).
The thing is, a lot of ‘traditional’ jobs are bullshit now.
Farmers: half the EU’s budget is agricultural subsidies (edit: 37% in 2017, down from 70% in 1980). The other main source of income for them is when the village council declares their land constructible, another form of subsidy. The production of food is just some hypothetical scenario (they get paid to leave the land uncultivated) these real estate guys known as farmers dangle to soak up more subsidies.
Japan completely protects their rice farmers from competition (with subsidies on top), so to keep their WTO commitments, they are forced to buy rice on the international market, which they let rot until they can feed it to animals. The asian rice penury from 2008 was solved when Japan got permission from american farmers to sell their useless rice back to the international market(wiki, asianometry video). The latest round of farmer absurdity was EU farmers forcing a tariff on ukrainian exports: the country the EU is currently shoveling money to, whose economy they’re trying to keep running. Robbing peter to pay paul so that piotr and pierre can steal it back from paul to pretend their job has any economic value.
Teachers: we are massively over-educated, and they make it worse. Doubly useless, they encourage others to be non-productive. A university professor who rants alone in a room would only be half as damaging. To be fair the early teachers do provide daycare for the normal kids and prison guard duties for those who can't read.
Doctors: Attending to hypochondriacs and prolonging old people’s suffering.
A farmer once told me "farmers run land management companies with a farming problem"
More options
Context Copy link
What. For example, what do you think paediatricians do?
Same thing. They soothe parents who panic and hold the hand of leucemics.
It’s the hansonian argument about doctors being more about showing people care than producing a substantial increase in qaly. And the background modern increase in qaly caused by clean water, vaccines, antibiotics, which you don’t need all those doctors for.
Jesus Christ. It's one thing to observe that a lot of QALY and DALY improvements come from "clean water, vaccines and antibiotics" and then entirely another to imply that additional interventions are zero or negative expected value.
Do you think that our (now quite successful) treatments of childhood leukemia are as ineffectual as extending the unhealthy lifespans of the very elderly?
That's not the work of most doctors. Even the specialists administering the treatments are essentially just following protocols that were invented and tested by a very small number of people.
More options
Context Copy link
Huh, okay, looks like childhood leukemia really took a beating these last decades. Yay science.
Still, most docs spend their time talking to old people and recommending negative EV surgeries.
I may have been a tad harsh. Unlike farmers, who went from useful to parasitic, doctors improved over time. They used to kill people, drink their blood and feed on their suffering, now some of them occasionally manage to help humans.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I would view subsidized farmers like an army: in good times, a waste of money, but in bad times, essential to the sovereignty of the nation. (Of course, both the farmers and the army require petrochemicals to have any effect, but unlike food and trained fighters, you can stockpile petrochemicals just fine, and nations generally do.) Obviously, this does not mean that a breakdown of international trade would not be bad: most high-tech products have globe-spanning supply chains. But there is a difference between "your population no longer has access to their fancy Starbucks coffee, or new iPads or the chips which your car industry would require to continue building cars" and "your population is starving".
--
I disagree with you about the value of education. I will grant that at least half of education is pure credentialism. Go to university, pay your dues, get a paper you require to get a good job, learn whatever you require to do the job from the internet.
I have an advanced degree in STEM. A lot of the stuff which makes me a non-zero value employee I picked up on the side, sure. And sure, everything I learned I could have learned from books (for free from libgen) or educational videos. But I can also tell you that I would not have done so. Without the structure and the tests of traditional educational institutions, it is very doubtful that 22-year old me would have woken up at 9:00 one Thursday and started watching a video on the Gram–Schmidt process at 10:00.
--
Despite being someone who tends to avoid interacting with the medical system where possible (a hyperchondriac, if you will), I vehemently disagree. Most physicians do not actually like to pander to hypochondriacs. I am very pro-MAID, but I do not think that most of what doctors do can be fairly described as "prolonging old people’s suffering". Most people do not seek euthanasia at age 50. I generally support trusting people to determine if their life is worth living for themselves.
I think every jobs includes some bullshit components, and physicians are certainly not exempt. Often, doctor's offices are run as a business (and a weirdly over-regulated business at that), and you will see them peddling additional preventive healthcare to patients which is not covered by insurance. Or they will have to spend a lot of their time dealing with health insurance companies. Obviously, most dentistry should be a skilled trade, there is no need to require a lengthy university education to handle a drill. I think that The Elephant in the Brain is making a good case that a lot of the the costs of the medical system are actually due to signaling. But at the end of the day, there is a pretty substantial non-bullshit core.
That’s what they want you to think. This lobby group is so powerful because it has arguments tailored for all kinds of people. To greens they say they preserve the ecology, the meadows and all the little birdies. To conservatives, the character of the land, the connection to ancestors, they eat that shit up. To social democrats they emphasize the need to safeguard their jobs from the destructive forces of the market. And to greys, they play the strategic food reserve card.
Why can't you store food? Let’s do some back of the envelope math: CAP budget is 55B/year, with germany shouldering 25%, that’s 13B, that’s €0.45 per german per day in subsidies.
That’s imo a large underestimate of alll the subsidies they get. Most peasants I know build a house on their land, which they can then sell for a large profit, because normal people do not get to build a house on cheap agri land without tons of red tape. When a piece of my grandparents’ land was declared constructible, it was like winning the lottery to them. Plus the tariffs and all the protections they get and all the problems those protections cause. Like the japanese customer who pays to subsidy the rice, then pays a higher price for it, then pays again to buy some other rice that gets destroyed to compensate WTO partners. A significant share of EU-US trade disputes, like every trade dispute, are caused by farmer lobby duels.
So let’s double the estimate to 90 cents/day/person. I think you can feed a man for about 9 cents/day on non-perishable (conserves and such) goods. Because you can feed a man for one day for 5 cents in vegetable oil, and that’s retail. So if we cut the subsidies and went with my strategic pemmican plan, after about 10 years we’d have 100 years of food for everyone. Talk about food security. And then we’d enjoy our extra euro per day. And that’s assuming we all forget how to farm once the subsidies subside and we are henceforth incapable of producing a single beet.
Because it goes bad?
Tin canned, freeze dried, etc.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link