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 cannot speak for all managers but this description does not sound like any manager I have worked for. My managers have done key work in prioritizing the work for me and other team members. Coordinating work across teams. Translating high level strategy shifts from higher level executives into concrete terms for people like me. Their role has been very, obviously, valuable.
It is kind of funny to read this in a world where Office Space exists. It's a satire but I am under the impression the phenomenon it satirizes was real. Was it important to put the cover sheets on the TPS reports?
I have had some respect for my managers too, don't get me wrong. It's just that I also note that management has massively increased and I wonder how much of
really, really actually is valuable compared to the 1930s where this work was not done to the same degree. It feels valuable, but is it? Are those strategy shifts really necessary? Are lower-level workers essentially allowing their own abilities to plan and coordinate to be taken over by their manager? Is this all optimisation that gets 99% of the juice out of the orange instead of 95% at the expense of vast amounts of extra work? Is this all a Red Queen problem?
Those aren't rhetorical questions, they're questions I really don't have the answer to. Modern society has broadly done away with the originals (which one could take as evidence of efficacy, or of public goods issues) and for caste reasons I don't really trust the institutes like Harvard Business Review whose job is theoretically to answer these questions.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link