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 -
For those wondering about the whole fertility thing, why people aren't having children... this post gives you one underdiscussed reason. How much sharper than a serpent's tooth...
I thought for a second that you meant people aren't having children because infertile boomers are hoarding the wealth from those who are young enough to marry and reproduce. For example, I married younger than most people of my generation, and we can't afford a wedding ceremony, or a child, and our marriage process still costed a lot of my net worth. I make about 95th percentile income for my age group and I am old for marriage by historical standards. We don't feel like we can afford to have a baby right now. So that would be a take based in reality, yes?
But then I saw that that boomer, who is known for his feeling of entitlement to his old-age pension, The_Nybbler, posted the comment, and I looked up the serpent's tooth quote, and ... my priors have not shifted on you.
„How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child:” I am a minority. The children are too thankful. Even if they were all like me, that would be no reason to not have kids. I still want kids. Mine will inherit my ideas. Is it a horror, that they will believe I should not exist on the dole for 30 years of retirement if they are struggling to afford to give me grand children? Not quite. That being a horror seems to only make sense if one is in denial about his mortality and the true conditions of old age. It is best for my Darwinian fitness to kill myself at age 65 for my grand children. If you do not agree, you will be replaced by those who do.
Without knowing more details, I don't know how much of this is based in reality. It certainly beggars belief that someone in the top 5% of income couldn't afford to have multiple kids, much less a single baby. My basic Googling says that this would be over $150K for someone in their 20s and over $290K for someone in their 30s. I understand that cost-of-living varies a lot, but as someone living in a medium-high COL area who has friends and family who are decidedly NOT in the top 5% (they certainly make less than me, and I'm certainly not in the top 5% in income) who have multiple kids, I don't understand how the math could work out to make it unaffordable.
That age entitled someone to an extra $140k a year shows everything that is wrong with this economy. There is no way they are „earning” that. That's village elder UBI and it's bad because people in their 20s need it to feed their babies.
I actually agree with the basic thrust of your point - being rich in your 60s is nice but doesn't achieve much for society in most cases and younger people would be better off with more money for having children - but you are making incredibly strong and bad claims that are distracting from it.
Yes, someone in their 30s is usually worth 2x as much as someone in their 20s. They've had 6 to 10 years of seeing stuff actually happening in the real world, they've got some experience in when and why things work or fail to work, and they are able to reliably handle things without needing their hand held. They are less likely (though still distressingly likely) to decide that they've worked out how the world really is and everyone just needs to get out of the way.
I saw a recent paper measuring this claim in teachers. The difference between a teacher with 2 years of experience and 18 years of experience was 0.04 SDs. That's like half an IQ point. That's also like a correlation of 0.10 or less. Worker talent dominates, particular experience does not have that long of a tail (maybe 1 year matters but 10 is outrageous) or that big of an effect. Ultimately the experience narrative is the narrative which justifies the redistribution, but when it gets audited it fails just like the education system. All of it's looking like village elder UBI more and more.
Could they earn an extra 10% per year? Maybe. An extra 100% is an outrageous effect size.
That's because teaching experience doesn't do much to outcomes because, well, we've had that conversation plenty. The difference between a (good) lawyer with 2 years and 18 years of experience is a hell of a lot more than 10x, though.
Proof?
I plead judicial notice. You can also ask any of the legal/finance posters here how biglaw works. You learn the law by doing repetitive detail-oriented shit over and over, while paying attention to the wider context of the job. Then, as you gain seniority, you've seen more and more of the strategic decisions, edge cases, long-term action-outcome links, etc. until you can start taking point on those. As you develop a track record, bigger customers will trust you with bigger things, and you can build relationships with them to keep them coming to your firm for work (you're going to need that because, even as a partner, your pay is very much tied directly to how much you earn the firm). By the time you're an elder statesman, your job is to make high-level decisions that you can only make well from atop a mountain of experience, and also to manage and mentor younger lawyers so that they can go through their work and learn the ropes without crashing into an unknown unknown and getting burned. A lot of white-collar professions work this way.
Funnily enough, law did used to have a boomer-protecting structure of the sort you decry: the firm's profits would generally be split between all partners based on lockstep seniority, with the juniors earning less and the seniors more as they go on. People were fine with that because the junior partners knew they had a job for life unless they screwed up horrifically, and expected to get that seniority in time. I have some thoughts on why this system disappeared, but that's a bit beyond the scope of your question.
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
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link