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 -
This is a suicide posts about an entrepreneur who failed and is going thru certain twitter communities.
https://twitter.com/smb_attorney/status/1720486539325587858?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
https://twitter.com/moseskagan/status/1720231141826015303?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
https://twitter.com/moseskagan/status/1720232058109469137?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
A few thoughts.
Yes business owners do kill themselves when their business fails. Capitalism does have brutal aspects.
I laugh when the one guy posts go talk to a therapists here’s the suicide prevention helpline. When your business is failing your issues are not lefty mental health. Your dealing with a real issue of not being able to provide for your family and seeing all your dreams disappear. It’s one of the most emasculating things that can happen to someone especially someone who is use to being able to handle stuff
He shouldn’t have killed himself. I’d assume he could have found some consulting or being an employee for a bit gig.
Society has very little tolerance for failed men. After the fact everyone will say he showed some signs and should have helped out. When you are failing you have the stench of failure and people honestly try to run away from you.
I know someone whose dad killed themselves so when there business failed. I always thought the lefts argument that rioting and looting isn’t damaging was false. Being able to provide for your family is life and it’s something men take very personality.
Females somehow survive with nothing. Not sure how but realistically society is far kinder to widowed mothers.
Points 2 and 3 basically contradict each other. That is, there's the object level struggles of material providing, which therapy would not have helped with, and the irrational misperception that these issues were irreparably unsolvable to the point that suicide was the only way out. In-so-far as therapy and suicide prevention could have helped him figure this out, they would have been useful (in-so-far as some therapy and suicide prevention are lefty mental health stuff made of empty-sounding words that don't improve rational consideration of object level issues, they would not have been useful)
This is a fair critique and the issue with this particular case of me trying to use it to build up the issues I’m trying to discuss. He would seem to have reasonable exit opportunities that would be something like you don’t get to have your name on the wall anymore but now you need to work for Lennar as a project manager at a fairly good salary.
Cases do exists where the exit wouldn’t be as foreseeable like if your industry isn’t doing well and you were facing structural obsolescence.
Even then, I think people underestimate the quality of life you can expect as a poor person with an intact family. If his entire industry went under and he couldn't adapt and was stuck flipping burgers for minimum wage he could still provide for his family. They might have to downgrade their home and lifestyle expectations, but they're not going to starve to death or end up homeless. And I suspect that the actual quality of life for his daughter would be higher poor with an alive father than rich with no father.
If you have serious mental health issues rendering you completely unemployable, then the object level might be unfixable, but for everyone else it's more a question of lowering standards and struggling to do as well as you can and fix as much as you can even if you can never return to the wealthy lifestyle you were expecting.
Yeah. Failure case in most Western democracies right now is not that earthshatteringly bad. It's definitely tight, but it's not like he'd be forced to go homeless 48 hours after declaring bankruptcy. Especially when he's got the contact network he ostensibly seems to have had, surely there'd be a 6-figure sinecure of some sort available somewhere as a consultant or middle manager that'd allow him to be atleast medium competitive.
The question is whether you play out the unwinnable position -- go through the rest of your life as a failure who will never do any better than you are doing now -- or just give up the game as lost.
I suppose there's an argument for that, but I just feel like 'life utility points' aren't super tied to money in the West right now beyond a certain minimum spec. You don't want to be broke-broke, I agree, but the qualitative difference between making $100k and making $300k is pretty low as somebody who's bounced around the spectrum. My net worth/earnings took a big hit a few years ago in '2021 fantasy bull market dollars' terms which probably is gonna take me another couple years to get back to, but my day-to-day existence is essentially the same. Admittedly I'm probably more frugal than a lot of guys like that, but having experienced a lot of 'rich person stuff' it's the difference between a 7.5/10 day and a 8/10 day.
If you're not a spendthrift, the difference is between making $100k and working the corporate grind until you die to avoid dropping down to the $50k-or-less lifestyle, or making $300k and being able to get out at some point. If you are a spendthrift, the difference is obvious.
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