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 -
Sam Altman's bad week continues, as a car stopped and appears to have fired a gun at the Russian Hill home of OpenAI’s CEO.
It appears that, if measured by deed, Mr. Altman may be in contention for the title of most hated business executive in the country.
Unless I am profoundly misinformed about the base rate of assassination attempts on tech CEOs, it appears AI anxiety has apparently reached a precipitation point among American youth, to the point where discontent is crystalizing into direct action. I've seen this in my personal life. My youngest brother is a bright kid - top of his class, eagle scout, 1400+ on his SATs as a junior, the whole shebang. He's completely given up on his original goal of going to college for something software-related, and he's not only adrift about what he's going to do with his future, but he's angry about it. I hope he has a support network sufficient to keep him on the right track, but I don't like what I see.
I'm not exactly old, but I'm sure as hell not young either. For those of you who are 25 or under, what does it feel like on the ground right now?
I am not under 25, but I basically hire them and certainly train them (well, 25-26 mostly, but I think it applies).
It is bleak. The problem is all these application avenues. These kids apply to 1000 jobs, that all have 10k applicants. By the time I even see them they dont even know why they got this interview as opposed to 99 others they didn't even get an email about. For the select few (aka non white/asians still) they have the opposite problem. They apply to 10 places, and are discombobulated by 10 interviews, 10 confusing offers that are the same but different in all sorts of ways. Often I am telling THOSE persons that there is no way we can offer a competitive salary because they have interviewed at places whos base pay is the equivalent of ours + bonus. Sometimes 1.5x ours + bonus.
And that is on top of the obvious indirect nepotism at top firms. Dad A has son B, and Dad 1 has Son 2. Dad A hires son 2, Dad 1 hires son B. Sons 2 and B are pretty below average for where they are going, but now are on the fast track. Hmm. And, honestly, because of the infinite hiring sites and HR being a cluster, who can even blame them? All their hires suck except that one kid a year out of 10. Why hire rando #7 instead of your golf buddie's son when they both will be essentially useless?
And they all are essentially useless by the way. Our grades 9-12 and Universities are failing. Law schools are especially failing, I get summer associates and associates regularly that cannot draft coherent 3 page motions or briefs. Multiple people have been caught by partners on major cases submitting fake (presumably AI generated) case citations. Sometimes this only get caught on appeal.
The whole education system needs to be scrapped and replaced with something new. Faster, cheaper, better.
Oh boy.
These from top 50 law schools?
Oh BOY.
At this point, Eugene Volokh has spotlighted many dozens of legal filings containing "AI hallucinations" (or "LLM shameless guesses"). See also this database of over a thousand such filings.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Law schools have always been mostly useless for generating competent attorneys, but have moved from mostly useless to almost entirely useless. Covid seems to have had a big effect here, and now AI is adding to it.
More options
Context Copy link
I've been involved with hiring interns at my employer which means reading a resumes, no interviews. Despite that we have a 100% hit rate over several years. I pound the table for either of 2 qualifications:
We've hired from all manner of colleges (Ivy League to small state schools). I trust those far more than school quality, academic record, degree program, or just about any other qualification.
When I was in college, I tutored a football player. He was a decent guy, but he read on an elementary school level. Does the degree requirement filter that kind of guy out?
Yeah most likely, you gotta have some experience with a statistical programming language like R or SAS.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah I haven't been involved in hiring in a bit but I remember a spot about 5 years ago where I was in the position of hiring fresh graduates and was ordered to explicitly discriminate (2/4 of the slots had to be filled with females in an industry that is 95% Male interest) and there was such an overwhelming logjam of applicants that it was essentially a crapshoot for who got picked from hundreds of applications for the 2 male graduate slots whilst for the girls there were like... 4 serious applicants, 1 of whom turned us down on moral compunctions after an offer was extended.
My own journey to get my original grad job was a similar gigantic crapshoot, likely due to the same filters being applied on the backend the whole time and when there's a pressure for picking minorities the nepotism picks are going to be a larger and larger issue since they're completely clogging the pipeline for the rare actually meritocratic slot.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link