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 -
Just got back from month long vacation # 3 this year, perspective fully changed: Working for money is fucking stupid. Wow, is it stupid.
I've met dozens of people who travel full time from property and investment income from their grandparents; and I am probably a couple years from fully supporting myself purely from passive income (though I'll probably keep working just to get the number higher; maybe pile up some burnable cash to buy more investment property during the next crash).
The switch was sudden and totally unrelated to anything specific I had done; it is just a result of two generations of skin flint behavior and interest rates. If your family line can get together mid six figures of money in investments and assets and sit on it for 1.5 generations without anyone buying penis compensation trucks or boats or developing a gambling addiction or fentanyl addition; you can just be fucking set. (Said in the tone of a joke, but actually a big ask according to the facts.)
The people talking about class war are 100% right; I can say that for a fact now that I've experienced it from both ends. It's really nice to be on the winning side for once. I just watch the money I float in my checking accounts go up 70k every couple months and most of it goes into investments that will only be dinged if the government of the USA collapses; recission proof and inflation proof and 98% risk free. It is so fucking easy to live solely off the sweat of other peoples brows; no wonder these dudes who were born into it start thinking they can't possibly fail.
All this to say: What the fuck do we do about the fact that owning shit and renting shit is just flat out better in every way than doing shit or making shit?
It's easier, it's safer, it's more sustainable over the course of your life, and you can pass it down to your kids locked away in trust so even the frailest son can't fuck it up.
I know that my solution (radical wealth redistribution, red-black shit at large, etc and so forth) isn't popular here; but even conservatives have got to recognize there is a problem.
How do you solve it without the revolution? Is that question even coherent?
From an individual's perspective, I'd emphatically agree. Traveling, vibing, or intellectual masturbation full time is sad and a waste of talent. Amazing food may as well be paste, great novels be paper, and 'experiences' be clicker games if you don't build off of them into a career or purpose, try complex things that might fail, play a part in the patchwork that is society. Selfishly or altruistically, the depth in the latter - building or fighting for something that, even if only to a small extent, is your own and depends on your skill - outstrips whatever the former has to offer. Not that the former is bad, it's important and has its place, but to only do that is, in essence, having great sex but no children. (I expect disagreement here, and it's for a given level of talent - traveling is experientially better than sorting packages at a warehouse, but warehouse workers don't have this option)
But from a collective perspective, this isn't a pressing problem. Even among the very competent or smart, for everyone who's never worked all their life due to family wealth, there are 5 people who worked some of their life and retired early (both new and old rich), and for every one of those there are 10 people with standard careers. (That's just off intuition, I couldn't find easily accessible data). There just aren't that many people who full-time travel and aren't employed from 20-55. So radical wealth redistribution might get these people back in the workforce, but nobody would notice the increased productivity. But even in each individual case, 'society' isn't really worse off - just by econ 101, when the trust fund kid's grandpa got rich on printers, the transaction between him and society of money for goods/services was mutually beneficial! Every individual deemed it in their personal interest to give the grandpa a claim on a specific amount of future labor in exchange for the printer. This remains mutually beneficial even if the kid, not the grandpa, spend the future labor credits. This still could be rent-seeking, maybe it's only barely beneficial for the consumer - but, in practice, most of the surplus goes to the consumer, not to the capitalist. Imagine how much of your income you'd pay for a laptop and the internet if your only alternative was no electronics at all. When Big Tech and you divide up that economic surplus, you get that, and they get a few grand.
Also, I think toplevel posts like this are perfectly fine. This isn't the best example of the class but they're interesting, they start discussion, I'd rather see another one of these than another news cycle post, so I'd encourage people to post more like this. Probably with more characterization/details though, a few paragraphs (or more) telling a story about some of these people would be great.
Not for nothing, I would bet there's a HUGE crossover in the types who want to accumulate a ton of wealth as fast as possible then coast off the interest and those who declare they want to live childfree. Both kind of speak to the same sort of core mentality "life is for me to live, and any constraints that require me to do things at the behest of other people (a boss, or a child) is unacceptable."
Also, as I've gotten older I've REALLY soured on the idea of 'traveling' in the abstract as a hobby. Because I've begun to notice that most locales that are 'worth visiting' start optimizing into tourist traps, well designed to extract as much money from the average person as they can while returning minimal/ephemeral value.
Like the OP is pointing out, owning an asset that benefits from heavy tourism means you can coast off other people's labor. Owning the asset makes you money. Visiting and spending money there makes you a bit of a sucker, therefore.
As you say, if I could instead spend that time, effort, and money building something, I think the fulfillment will greatly outweigh that of being the billionth person to, e.g. photograph the Grand Canyon or hike Mount Fuji.
That said, for purposes of human happiness, some environments are definitely more conducive to comfort and pleasant feelings than others. Places that are beautiful and comfortable in the summer can become frozen wastelands in winter, and the there's a similar issue with places that are pleasant in Winter.
And moving yourself around to exploit the benefits of different locales is sensible from a purely Hedonic perspective.
The Grand Canyon is awesome, in the true meaning of the word. Seeing it at least once definitely beats working all the time, even if you are building something.
Not sure. Seeing it one time would surely be awe-inspiring.
I've been to Montana and seen much of Yellowstone, similar kind of feeling of reverence for the sheer majesty of nature.
But once you've done it... what are you left with?
What legacy does it leave of your existence?
Is leaving a legacy of your existence your ultimate goal in life? Can you give me some reason why it should be mine? After all, I certainly won't be here to know about it.
To the extent there is any coherent goal that one can pursue, leaving behind some legacy of your own to influence future generations is pretty much the only thing any organism can do that matters.
That is how 'life' sustains itself. It's pretty much the only reason anything you like about your life even exists. So however you choose to live your life (unless it is constant agony, I suppose), be thankful that there were people before you who cared about what happened in the future.
No!
But if you pursue goals that do not leave legacies, and I pursue goals that DO leave legacies, only one of our value systems/biological heritage is likely to propogate into the future and have impact on how that future unfolds.
Which is to say, your kind get out-competed in the natural selection race, and so its going to be a future dominated by legacy-leavers who will be very thankful that all their ancestors were legacy-leavers.
I'm thankful my ancestors were legacy-leavers, so it isn't particularly strange to me that I should want to leave a legacy.
If that isn't enough of a reason, I won't attempt any further to change your mind, and we have no quarrel anyway. Just don't interfere with other people who want to leave legacies!
Your argument is circular: you've decided that propagation of genes matters so by your definition it's "the only thing that matters".
That's not quite what I'm saying.
Propagation of genes matters if there is to be any future where intelligent life exists at all.
I don't begrudge the nihilists who don't think there's anything 'special' about intelligent life or humans in particular, and who think that the universe is utterly apathetic to our continued existence.
However, I doubt that they can have any real certainty in that regard.
I think it is preferable to have someone (intelligent and conscious) around to experience the future and see where it's going, than to not have anyone around at all. So in order to ensure that there is someone around, I can either figure out how to live forever, or do things that will help ensure that intelligent life exists in the future.
One of the most succinct explanations for why you might want to keep plugging along in spite of it all, was delivered by Lex Fucking Luthor in the Justice League Animated Series.
"Objectively speaking, nothing matters! So go forth and do stuff that matters... to you."
My other favored response to people who say "why bother" is Asimov's The Last 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