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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   13737 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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I don't have an answer to your question and I confess to finding both the enshittification and 'life is better now, actually' arguments to be convincing on different days and depending who's making the argument, but consider:

In the 90s my parents moved us into a new construction. Today, I live in smaller a house, on a smaller lot built in the mid-70s. In realtive terms, I live in a house that is not only smaller, but nearly 50 years older than the one my father did.

In the 90s software dev was probably a more rarefied and in-demand skillset than in 2026 where we pump out over 100,000 CS degrees a year. On top of that, the barrier to entry for literally everything has plummeted as the internet disseminates information so efficiently. Used to be you had to actually go out and learn things from people or hunt them down in library stacks, whereas now I can instantly pull up dozens of videos on youtube teaching me to do literally anything known to man or ask an AI and get an expert-level answer in seconds. Relatedly, software dev has been outsourced to lower-income countries - my friend's (somewhat famous enterprise software) company does almost all their programming in the middle east or eastern Europe.

All that to say, you and your father could be equally talented and if he were working today he'd also be managing a team of 25. Or maybe he'd be an ML engineer and still easily affording his new construction house and herd of children, taking the kids out for 200$ worth of burritos every Sunday night.

The other angle of this argument is typically that our wealth was sent to China to enrich the elites. But if you look at everyday Chinese, their lives may be better than their parents generation but they definitely aren't good. The successful ones work crazy hours and there's a much larger precariat than here without a social safety net. If your father's generation was so much better off, where did the money go? Or did we just globally become less productive?

Or maybe he'd be an ML engineer and still easily affording his new construction house and herd of children, taking the kids out for 200$ worth of burritos every Sunday night.

Sorry to be pedantic, but this is not true either. ML Engineering has existed for quite some time, easily longer than Neural Networks have been used. It's a well paid field, but it's only paid slightly higher than the median SWE. Pretending that the LLM-ML Engineers pay is anything more than the top .1% of the field would be fallacious.

Sorry to be pedantic

No worries.

It's a well paid field, but it's only paid slightly higher than the median SWE. Pretending that the LLM-ML Engineers pay is anything more than the top .1% of the field would be fallacious.

In my field, the 'data scientists' and ML engineers are a different breed and in much higher demand than the people who just write code. But thanks for the correction.

The other angle of this argument is typically that our wealth was sent to China to enrich the elites. But if you look at everyday Chinese, their lives may be better than their parents generation but they definitely aren't good. The successful ones work crazy hours and there's a much larger precariat than here without a social safety net. If your father's generation was so much better off, where did the money go? Or did we just globally become less productive?

Not calling you out in particular, but "China is a big country inhabited by many Chinese." This may seem obvious, but I think China vs USA discussions often ignore or elide this point. China has a population about four times the size of the United States'. I think this is the most important fact about the world to consider when discussing such comparisons.

When we say "We want the USA to remain the biggest economy in the world, and not to have it surpassed by the PRC." We aren't just saying we want to be richer than China, we're saying we want the average American to be at least four times richer than the average Chinaman. That's an insane level of arrogance and privilege to state!

I can imagine my richer friend saying: "FiveHour, I hope my two kids are as wealthy as I am, and that your two kids do a little better than you did, but in my heart of hearts I hope that my two kids are always richer than your two kids." I could accept that.

If my richer friend said: "FiveHour, you have four kids and I have one, I hope my son is so much more successful than all your kids that he is richer than all four of them combined and it is important that this remain the case, it would deeply upset me if your four kids combined made more than my son." I would be dumbfounded by the weirdness of that position and assume he kind of hated me.

If China and America are equally wealthy as states, all the wealth that is in America can go to China, and just bring China's standard of living up 25% from where it was. (obviously this is a ridiculous economic concept, wealth and income are different and neither China's nor America's economies will make any sense with the other eliminated)

We aren't just saying we want to be richer than China, we're saying we want the average American to be at least four times richer than the average Chinaman.

And why shouldn't this be true? You correctly identify that your richer friend kind of hated you, this is accurate. He doesn't care about your kids, only his own.

That's an insane level of arrogance and privilege to state!

Not really, I don't want the Chinese to run my country or have power over me and the Chinese similarly don't want me running theirs. The way to make this to happen is to be more a lot more rich and powerful than the Chinese. The Chinese think the same way, there's nothing personal about it. And compared to the example of two friends, having a larger economy gives one country power over the other that doesn't exist in the same way as for two middle-class people with a wealth difference.

I suppose the wealth goes somewhere, but no one would blink twice if you were to say “I hope US business leads the world and not China”.

That's exactly my point! Americans feel perfectly comfortable saying that America's economy should remain the world's largest! We feel that it's the natural order of things! We don't reflect on what we're saying and what it means!

It's likely that in 100 years, China and the US will have the same number of people. It doesn't seem too weird to me to say, "despite this temporary blip in Chinese population, I would rather have the US remain the world leader for the duration of this time period."

I think they know exactly what it means.

American nostalgia is a hell of a drug; it is nostalgic for a time period when they were the undisputed leader economically, politically, militarily and culturally. These are still true, but it has become so normalized they don't notice, or the comparisons with other Americans make them feel like losers.

In the 90s software dev was probably a more rarefied and in-demand skillset than in 2026 where we pump out over 100,000 CS degrees a year.

Actually, no I know what my father did in the 90s and how much he made. He was working at IBM through a period of massive layoffs. But again. All these comments quibbling the complaint are just making my point and the point of the folks responding to the responses.

Every response that tries to justify the current state as not real, is avoiding the actual discussion of political policy goals or visions of the good. Kamala LOST in part because 'inflation isn't real ackshully' was a losing message.

There is a populist movement that wants specific political goals, and one party is saying "yes! socialism", and the other is saying "no you suck! you're not allowed to have that. You can have high gas prices instead."

Actually, no I know what my father did in the 90s and how much he made. He was working at IBM through a period of massive layoffs. But again. All these comments quibbling the complaint are just making my point and the point of the folks responding to the responses.

Yes, you can't be wrong, regardless of what people reply it just proves that you're more right. Disagreeing with you is pointless, only productive conversation can be had if we first agree with your premise.

Every response that tries to justify the current state as not real, is avoiding the actual discussion of political policy goals or visions of the good. Kamala LOST in part because 'inflation isn't real ackshully' was a losing message.

The point is not to justify the current state, the point is that, have you considered the tiny, infinitesimally small chance that maybe you're wrong in evaluating the current state? A lot to ask, I know. And much like Kamala, suggesting someone on the internet adopt humility is ever the losing message.

But anyways, setting all that aside and having a discussion on the level you want to discuss, I agree there's no reason we shouldn't push for making things more affordable. What's your populist plan for doing that? And what's your answer to the question I posed at the end of my post? I'll read whatever you write with an open mind, convince me that you actually understand why things have gotten worse, and what the fix would be. I don't believe that the MAGAs or the Bernie bros or whatever flavor of populist you identify as have the answers to those questions, nor do I believe that you'd actually improve things given power.

There is a populist movement that wants specific political goals, and one party is saying "yes! socialism", and the other is saying "no you suck! you're not allowed to have that. You can have high gas prices instead."

Perhaps next time they'll be able to elect the populist politician running on the 'Push the 10$ burrito button' platform, and then he'll actually push it instead of the retards in office now who just admire it on their way to the office every morning.

Actually, no I know what my father did in the 90s and how much he made. He was working at IBM through a period of massive layoffs. But again. All these comments quibbling the complaint are just making my point and the point of the folks responding to the responses.

Yes, you can't be wrong, regardless of what people reply it just proves that you're more right. Disagreeing with you is pointless, only productive conversation can be had if we first agree with your premise.

What is your point? You speculated that perhaps my father was making a lot of money as software engineering was in high demand, and I responded by giving a little more detail to explain no that's not the difference. yes it is possible that based on what I first said my father was actually relatively higher earner than me, and you speculated such. I explained that unfortunately no. This isn't about "i can't be wrong". I actually do know more about my own life than you, and didn't cite every possible hypothetical explainer for the sake of brevity and anonymity.

What are you trying to say?

I actually do know more about my own life than you, and didn't cite every possible hypothetical explainer for the sake of brevity and anonymity.

And I know more about my own life than you, but I don't share your absolute confidence in making flawless apples-to-apples comparisons between my parents economics situation 35 years ago to my experiences today. I believe that you know the dollar amount your dad made and the number on your paycheck. I don't believe your interpretation of the meaning of those data, and the broader implications.

What is your point?

Concisely:

  1. I disagree with the premise that '2026 burritos are unaffordable.' I'm not convinced that it's not true, but I don't believe that you (or the dozen vibecession posts when Biden was president) have conclusively made the point. Many others also seem to disagree with this premise.
  2. But granting this premise, or ignoring it if you prefer, I don't believe that you or anyone else has a pithy answer on improving affordability across the board. Railing at our politicians (and I'm sympathetic to both Trump and Biden here, modulo obvious self-owns) for not pressing the affordability button elides all the complexity of both the problem and potential solutions.
  3. Again granting this premise, where do you think the wealth has gone and why do you think things have gotten worse? Boomers? China? Socialism, immigrants, demographics? Lazy millennials? Or do you not have answers to these questions and your goal was just to start a discussion to see what people think?

In the 90s software dev was probably a more rarefied and in-demand skillset than in 2026 where we pump out over 100,000 CS degrees a year.

Early '90s, no. Software was just an ordinary white-collar profession; you could do well but not like today. When the dot-com boom hit in the mid-90s, that's when salaries started exploding, so a developer catching the early edge of that could do very well indeed.

Dot com millionaires were not a thing in the early 90s, but as far back as the 80s, computer programming was considered a very well-paying profession.

Nybbler is correct in this; I was there also -- it was a good job, but kind of how being an accountant is a good job. You had to like it; people weren't really getting into it for the money until the mid-to-late 90s.

I was IN the profession in the early 90s. It was well-paying (like many white-collar professions), but not very well-paying. You weren't even breaking 6 figures as a very experienced software developer (individual contributor) in the DC area, for instance. Nowadays (or at least just before the current slump) you could make the equivalent right out of school.

not very well-paying

What do you consider very well paying?

I started programming for money in the 90s and I could make more in a day programming than I could in a week delivering pizzas. Maybe my calibration for very well paying is fucked, but that seems pretty good to me.

At the time, "6 figures" ($100K) was the popular line for very well paying (about $240K now). You weren't going to get that as a programmer. Of course it paid much better than pizza delivery.

But if you look at everyday Chinese, their lives may be better than their parents generation but they definitely aren't good.

China lives are pretty fine honestly. I haven't been to the deepest echelons of Rural Poverty which I'm still sure exist somewhere but I've been to about 30 cities across China covering a decent geographical spectrum and economic spread. Most people are doing fine and don't have a bunch of the petty crime and drug user owngoals that are plaguing the West recently.

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