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 -
An article is making the rounds on rat-adjacent twitter entitled "The Nerdy Escorts Cashing In On Silicon Valley’s AI Boom."
I can't bypass the paywall, but someone posted on X:
I know that aella, the famous rationalist whorelord, popularized this niche of pseudo-intellectual prostitutes appealing to rationalists and other tech nerds for extreme amounts of money. It's obvious that aella has become obscenely wealthy and gained a ton of social status from her pursuits, but I'm still somewhat shocked at the sheer amount these women are making.
I work a pretty boring, standard corporate marketing job, and apparently these prostitutes are taking home almost my entire after-tax yearly income in one weekend.
Even regardless of the moral aspect of the situation, the fact that a prostitute can make so much money is a huge slap in the face to people working hard for a living. That, combined with the fact that close to 18% of the economy is now in healthcare, has got me a bit depressed on the economy.
Also, Tyler Cowen had a bit of a viral moment yesterday saying he wouldn't be surprised if 15 to 20% of all jobs in the near future are elder care. This of course sandwiched in a talk where he insists AI is great and making jobs not losing them!
Anyway, all of this recent discourse combined is making me feel more and more like a retarded schmuck for working a 'real job,' as opposed to just leeching off the government, doing some sort of NGO/media grift, or even just getting a random remote job and going to live cheap in Thailand or some other extremely cheap country. And this is someone who has a pretty chill office job where I don't have to work too hard, and get to work from home a few days a week. I can't imagine how people who actually bust their asses in physical labor and make less than me feel!
Either way, the optimism from the pundit class around AI and the economy is feeling more and more hollow to me by the day. If the numbers keep going up but everyone is employed wiping the asses of boomers and sexually pleasuring tech AI millionaires, have we really improved society? How will things go otherwise without some sort of relatively radical disruption? I try not to be a 'doomer' about AI, but I'm increasingly finding it hard to be optimistic on the impact of it on society.
Healthcare jobs are, uh, real jobs and as a society gets richer the demand for healthcare increases.
One of these things is not like the others. Do you propose simply killing the boomers? If not, somebody's got to take care of them, and we haven't hit peak boomer retirement yet.
Yes they are real jobs, but they're also extremely menial and service focused. I suppose you can take a certain pride in your work, but there's also the fact that young people are already being taxed a huge proportion of their income going to elders. So you're being taxed so you can get the money recycled back to you serving as a servant basically to old people you don't know. Pretty dark if you ask me.
The healthcare sector includes everything from asswipers to orthopedic surgeons to pharma r&d. Not all of these are menial.
Sure, but you already work in the service sector, along with 80% of Americans.
This is indeed bad, but one must hope the present levels of spending will prove unsustainable with a bigger dependency ratio.
Anybody on the receiving end of the $7T of government spending (including, for example, highly paid Amazon engineers) is also in this situation. I'd rather the government did and spent less, but it's hardly an apocalyptic scenario.
As @KMC said, you are being a bit disingenuous here. The vast majority of actual job growth has been menial healthcare jobs.
I do work in the service sector in a way I suppose, but I mostly do onsite product marketing. Depends on how you define "service."
I'm not necessarily saying it's an apocalyptic scenario, though it may well turn into one if we don't course correct somewhat soon. What I'm saying is that my personal experience and outlook on economic participation is getting more and more bleak.
Debatable. There's 400k more RNs than there were ten years ago. I'd say being an RN is no more menial than being an onsite product marketer.
I think it's pretty unambiguous. Do you grow crops? Do you extract resources from the earth? Do you produce any physical goods?
Have you spoken to RNs? One of my close friends is one. It's extremely menial, if by menial you mean physically demanding and focusing on servicing other people directly.
My mother wasn't home most evenings when I was between ages 4 and 7 because she was going to night school to become an RN, which paid more than my dad's job as a machinist. No, they aren't doctors, but most of the menial work you describe is done by Aides, LPNs, Medical Assistants, orderlies, and housekeepers. You don't need a degree to empty bedpans. I doubt the state has any mandatory training requirements for whatever you do, but you don't seem to consider it menial.
More options
Context Copy link
Most Americans are already employed in servicing other people directly! I don't think that most Americans would be working a menial job if they had to walk around rather than sit at a desk to do what it is they do.
Isn't this almost tautologically true? Jobs aren't supposed to be not in the service of helping meet the needs of others. I suppose "subsistence farmer" doesn't do that directly, but as far as I know, nobody is making paperclips qua paperclips in capitalism, but because people are buying paperclips.
Maybe if you have a command economy and a five year plan for paperclip production regardless of paperclip use.
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