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 -
(Trigger warnings: another AI post; Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
I want to talk about the economy in the face of the AI revolution, but let's go back to the basics first.
What is the purpose of a company? Not the stated one, the original one.
To provide value to its shareholders? Of course not, that's a very narrow view! It's like saying armies exist to kill people.
Do companies and markets provide a decentralized way to coordinate the efforts of large groups of people (choreography vs orchestration)? Yes, but what for?
Do companies and markets exist to maximize the economic output? Many would say yes, but the idea is wrong and will become more obviously wrong the more AI we inject into the economy.
Companies and markets exist to maximize the consumption! They exist so that more people consume more goods and services! The fact that these companies have to pay their workers is not an unwanted side effect, it's a feature! Companies exist to create and distribute goods and services to humans, and markets exist to ensure that each human gets a share that is sufficiently fair.
Both the industrial revolution and the transition to a service-based economy created millions, if not billions of new jobs, but is this an inevitable consequence of free markets? Will AI-fication of the modern economy do the same?
The correct answer is not "yes" or "no". It's "mu". If the economy reinvents itself again and people of the Global North find themselves new jobs, that's fine.
But if we suddenly start running out of jobs, accepting it as the inevitability of the market forces is the wrong way out. The right way out is retiring the market forces, not submitting to them. Creating shareholder value has always been the real side effect.
A sort of tangential comment, but when reading that in one month we have Amazon and retailer price-fixing, 90% of poultry suppliers price-fixing, most of the world’s shipping container manufacturers price-fixing, and a new investigation into beef price-fixing, I’m thinking the model of consumer capitalism is simply wrong today. It’s easy and desirable for wealthy owners to coordinate together to maximize profits by agreeing on prices in unison and only changing this formula to prevent a competitor from gaining a foothold in the industry with the deployment of predatory pricing. You can’t do anything about this, and if they’re clever, they realize that it is in their collective interest to never lower prices and instead make more money through coordination without actually putting anything in writing. The system actually just sucks!
But all the capitalists say farmer brown will simply spin up a multi-billion dollar beef industry; using the power of his mind and his bootstraps to roll back climate change 15 years and materialise another Idaho's worth of grazing land from the ether!
But they don't say that, as you know.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link