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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31233 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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If violence is not solving your problems, you are not using enough of it. We the techies live in incredible layers of abstractions enabled by the state, economy and the cities. Majority of us will be helpless without internet, even more helpless without electricity. Few of us have the knowledge, tools and resources to black start a society. Even if we pool it.

For a person to use leverage his brawn needs not much, for brains we need insane infrastructure.

Are tech nerds actually worse off on brawn and know-how than other urban denizens, on average? My experience is that techies have quite a few hobbyists in various physical, martial, or practical skills. Within the few dozen people I was close to at my old tech job, I can think of at least a few that are heavily armed, some hunters, some gardeners, a woodworker, some marathoners, a bodybuilder, a jiu jitsu guy, a blacksmith, and various other hobbies that seem esoteric, but would be useful in reset environment. I'm sure that the typical rural, blue-collar guy has a greater array of practical skills, but I actually doubt that the typical lower SES urban resident is as interested in these sorts of things.

The urban working class typically has a very high degree of automotive skills that the UMC lacks, but widespread skills in things like plumbing and carpentry are more of a rural thing. There’s a straightforward class explanation for this- the urban working class drives old, shitty cars that need to be worked on a lot, and so learning to do things themselves saves them a lot of money(and being able to handle your wife’s/girlfriend’s auto problems is a mark of status and sometimes expected), which is often a scarce resource. By contrast their housing is usually rented until they’re old enough to not want to learn new skills.

Meanwhile the UMC not only can afford a mechanic more easily, they can also afford cars that don’t break down so often.

so learning to do things themselves saves them a lot of money

No joke, I saved $700 last year by replacing brake pads in my car myself, as three different shop in my west coast city quoted $900+. Took me 2-3 hours because I was doing it for the first time, will likely take less than 1 hour next time, and I won’t have to rebuy the tools I bought for this, so I’ll save even more.

And ‘ability to borrow tools’ is a key benefit of working class social networks, so the urban working class would save even more.

Discount auto parts stores will loan tools to any customer free or for a nominal charge. They don't check the color of your cooler either.

They don't check the color of your cooler either.

? can you explain this one? I am really confused here.

It was supposed to be collar but I misspelled it. They're happy to loan tools to white collar or blue collar customers.

thanks! Now that sentence makes sense to me.

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