domain:natesilver.net
kky
9hr ago
I’m going to ignore most of your comment, which I agree with and have nothing to add to, and focus on the part that deserves elaboration.
'Explain this gap in your resume' being met with 'I was a SAHM when my kids were in diapers' will not stop normal average jobs from hiring you. It's only awesome girlboss career track progression that will be derailed that way.
I’m a white collar worker, and a member of a specific skilled trade - namely, a programmer. And it is a craft, or trade, for what it’s worth. There’s a huge amount of trouble in learning to program the right way, where “right” goes from the seemingly-trivial “works without bugs” and “runs pretty quickly and cheaply” out to the trickier “can be easily maintained and extended” and “can be deployed without taking out double digit percentages of the world’s Windows servers.” That’s what I do, and what I aim to be good at. If I do my job right, nobody notices a thing, and their systems run as smoothly as sci-fi.
The reason I bring this up is to add some context on white-collar work and why what you say is so.
The biggest costs to cutting yourself out of white collar work are:
- Needing to re-familiarize yourself with the subject matter.
- Losing contacts within an organization and having to build a promotion bid from scratch.
- Missing the slow, natural growth of abstract and industry-specific knowledge needed to rise.
Going through these in turn.
White-collar work - the real stuff, not lesser clerical roles, usually called email jobs - is knowledge work. And that means your job involves a hell of a lot of learning and recitation. Obviously a skilled craftsman also needs to know his stuff, but the amount of specialist, company-specific, novel, or downright esoteric knowledge you are expected to have in a white-collar role is massive.
This is the table of contents for the Arch Linux wiki. Scroll up and down - pretty long list. Now note a little number in parentheses by most of those - this is the number of subpages aggregated under one of those keywords. And while Arch’s wiki is known to be pretty exceptional, it is not exhaustive of Linux knowledge, and Linux knowledge is not exhaustive of computer science or IT skills.
So dropping out of that world for a time means you will concretely be missing skills when you come back. The longer you’re gone, the worse it will be. In the best case you’re simply going to be making the same money as before you left. Worst-case, you’ll be making less. Some of this, in software, is honestly just dumb churn. I’ll admit to that. But it’s the
Moving on. Analyzing a white-collar worker on the merits, especially in a large (bureaucratic) organization, is challenging. It usually doesn’t have obvious and measurable parameters, and if it does, those are guaranteed to be gamed and inefficient elements will rise to the top. So your ability will be in no small part judged by superiors with good reputations. Is this potentially cliquey? Can it keep good workers who are bad at networking down? Hell yes. But it’s roughly the best of a bad set of options. So if you drop out, you have to spend X amount of time proving yourself when you get back and giving some concrete evidence that your superiors can use to support you when you’ve won their trust.
Lastly, and this is probably the most important. Learning to be really good at a trade takes a lot of time and focus. You need talent, and then you need to put effort into it daily. This is doubly true for anything with poor feedback cycles, and the feedback cycles in white-collar work are typically slow and lossy. There’s a long, long way from the choices I make to my company’s revenue, and so telling the difference from a good solution and a bad will take some abstract reasoning and really good evidence. This usually boils down to time in the industry deeply engaged. And if you want to rise above a certain position, this effort and growth is required. On top of that, the vaunted “soft skills” are indeed quite important, since your average white-collar worker is navigating a human-dense and political environment. Dealing with them effectively is just another part of the job, and you only get better at it with time.
I’m aware none of this really undermines your central point. In fact, in a sense I’m supporting it. None of these points are actually fun things about white-collar work, at least the high-skill variants. And the low-skill variants aren’t much different, they just tune down all the knowledge about real things in favor of trends and politics. But the problem of returning to work isn’t just getting past the HR screen, and I wanted to convey a little about my own vocation.
bonsaii
9hr ago
I agree with some of your criticisms of 7-R. I feel like it's so close to my ideal battle system, if they just made the movesets between ATBs more dynamic and with a higher skill ceiling. I kind of like the ping-pong between characters, as it gives a cinematic feel and some light satisfaction from effective multitasking.
I also kind of hate the storyline. My hope is that when it's all done, they go back and asset-flip a "true remake" because the convoluted alternate dimension ghost stuff is just awful.
hydroacetylene
9hr ago
You can get an entry level HVAC job in June by having a clean driving record, piss test(and that is what your coworkers will call it) and willingness to work. Previous experience doing grunt work will make your application through the union as an apprentice go through much much better.
No, seriously, the trades are jobs and having previous experience, even if it isn't a one to one, and grit to get after it, will take you pretty far in getting started. Maybe you're a wordcel and not good with tools or something(I attempt to offer no judgement, maybe I don't succeed but recognize the effort please) and the trades aren't for you. Maybe you just lack the specific knowledge that functionally all trades bosses are computer illiterate and you need to call(or visit in person if you are unemployed) the company and ask to speak to the hiring manager to check up on the status of your application. This latter is what I tell to the at risk youths I mentor.
I won't sugarcoat the trades. There's a few long days, you'll have some years starting out where you live in your mom's basement, compensation is unlikely to reach fintech levels, etc. But, uh, if you don't like school you can support yourself and your family by doing them. You just gotta have that go getter choler and a willingness to work.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
9hr ago
Cruz also thinks that the Bible requires Christians to support the nation of Israel, which is somewhat non-mainstream in theology: "Where does my support for Israel come from, number 1 we're biblically commanded to support Israel". Tucker tries to ask 'do you mean the government of Israel' and Cruz says the nation of Israel, as if to say it's common-sense that the nation of Israel as referred to in the Bible is the same as the state of Israel today. It seems like he's purposely conflating the dual meanings of nation as ethnic group and nation as state, which is a stupid part of English.
I'm reminded of a video I saw some time ago, where Neema Parvini reacted to a video someone linked him to, of sermonizing by an American preacher of the "dual covenant" variety. The preacher laid out the basic "dual covenant" argument, including the assertion that any other position constitutes a claim that God does not keep all his promises, and is thus rank heresy. He then went on to say things like claiming that in Matthew 25:40, when Jesus said "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me," that by "the least of these brothers and sisters of mine" he clearly meant the Jews, and thus Christians will be judged primarily on how they've treated the Jews. He then further elaborated that this isn't just about not persecuting them or being anti-Semitic, but is about what you've done for the Jews — how much you've given to them, what work you've done to their benefit — and that, come the Day of Judgement, Christians' eternal fates will be decided first and foremost by how much they did to serve the Jews.
(Much like Parvini, I was rather dumbfounded by the entire thing.)
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
9hr ago
TBH I think the big problem, which I’ve talked about before is that really most shouldn’t be following politics and probably shouldn’t be voting. Voter apathy isn’t a flaw in the system, it’s a feature. If people who don’t understand politics are heavily politically active, it’s honestly a problem to be solved because those people generally make terrible decisions. Even if they were somehow given “good” news sources, most of them don’t understand the issues well to make good decisions. Take away the “good, true’ news, and you have a situation in which people who don’t know what is going on and wouldn’t understand what is going on even if they got the truth are voting based on who looks most truthful and leader-like while lying to them on TV or TikTok. When people like that decide elections, it’s more likely to damage the country than do go.
LiberalRetvrn
9hr ago
can learn a trade today through a union
nobody thinks of the IBEW or UA as aspirational
lmao, just apply to your local (3 hours away) IBEW program that accepts 5 people once a year heavily based on diversity quotas and/or legacy connections.
People on the internet are always saying 'dude just learn a trade bro' as if it's some kind of guaranteed career path for anyone willing to work hard. If these industries want young people to choose trades as a career, they're certainly doing a terrible job of communicating that. I went to a trades job fair recently, it was about 200 guys exactly like me packed into a room with about 6 company booths, none of which were actually hiring. It seems about as likely as scoring on tinder.
hydroacetylene
10hr ago
I'd love to meet some Arklatex rednecks, though!
Travel to Tyler or Texarkana and talk about deer hunting or bass fishing in the diners. Maybe outskirts of Tulsa or Little Rock.
Hadad
10hr ago
I've heard nigger come from my mother's lips a few times over the years, when she was very upset with some criminal banditry, but I got the impression she thinks it's a word she shouldn't say. That's the sort of racism I'm used to from normie Republicans -- they feel guilty over it when it comes out, but it comes out when it's justified. Wouldn't call all blacks niggers, but might call a specific shitty black person a nigger.
I'd love to meet some Arklatex rednecks, though! I appreciate a people that don't bite their tongues for no good reason.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
10hr ago
I think the trope exists because most fantasy is based on D&D over anything to do with medieval times. It gets particularly irritating when the characters in the story act like modern people with modern concerns and attitudes rather than anything that someone living in the actual Middle Ages would have believed.
Some things I think were beneficial and should be brought back. Communitarianism, connection to friends and neighbors, belief in God. In a lot of ways I think that lifestyle is much more appealing as it gave everyone a place and a purpose with mutual support and respect.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
10hr ago
Serfs these were not, but no one in this forum could be said as being of "serf stock,"
I'd say I'm pretty close, though — particularly compared to most people here. Functionally-illiterate high school dropout handyman father, stay-at-home mother, grew up in low-population-density Alaska (including time in a community so rural, it lacks electricity, and has a community well for water).
FistfullOfCrows
10hr ago
months and months doing exhaustive trials
Ah yes, the trials where they hand picked the population to be tested by specifically excluding mothers and other groups most likely to confirm side effects, the same trials which stink to high heaven where they just went, welp some of the time has passed time to fold the control group into the main group and pretend everything is fine. These same MFers which to this very day are trying to keep the heart damage side effects frequency unkown to the general public.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
10hr ago
what are they supposed to do? Every institution they're supposed to trust has lied outrageously. Are they supposed to double down and believe the NYT and MSNBC even harder?
I've seen multiple people, via two different arguments, answer this with "yes, you have to keep believing them." Either because it's your duty to keep society functioning, or (less often) because the "truth-telling institutions" are definitionally incapable of lying.
LiberalRetvrn
10hr ago
Believing that magic isn't real isn't a delusion, it's a logical conclusion based on evidence. Religious people admit that faith is their sole justification for believing that magic is real, which is delusional.
No_one
10hr ago
Even if you're in the unlucky 1-2% that gets significant side effects, they usually wear off in weeks or months from cessation.
Papers on that say something completely different.
1.4% (167 men) developed persistent erectile dysfunction lasting a median of 1348 days.
hydroacetylene
10hr ago
This is probably a cultural difference- Arklatex rednecks are comfortable using the word nigger, assuming it isn't just a generic term for black but rather for those who warrant it due to bad behavior(this can be very, very broad, to the point of encompassing normal in black tribe actions which are simply seen as tasteless, like listening to rap music or having sagging pants). The idea that a non-white race can be another strike against an individual, but not enough to condemn a person by itself, is just in the groundwater.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
10hr ago
I remember when movies had a trope- I'm not defined by my work, I do x from 9-5, but all day long I'm a dad- one who happens to do x to pay the bills. The idea of an identity to be proud of, genuine pride in our differences and diversity, was singing its swan song. It's now dead. How many of the world's problems are actually downstream of that? I'm reminded of the several AAQC's about why South Koreans aren't having kids(my answer is pretty simple- it's not fun. Rednecks have kids because they look forwards to going to t-ball games. South Koreans don't because they don't look forwards to twelve hour study sessions).
I'd say this is clearly Max Weber's "Protestant work ethic," and it's triumph is, to a great extent, thanks to Blue Tribe cultural dominance (and, in turn, the Puritan and Quaker roots of the Blue Tribe).
Plenty of people misunderstand what Weber meant (probably because they haven't read him), but, IIRC, he never actually argued that Protestantism caused the "work ethic," merely that they were correlated (and, indeed, looking at history, the causation was more the other way around, with the parts of Early Modern Europe that developed the work ethic being much more likely to go Protestant in the Reformation). Further, it's not just about hard work; Weber made an explicit comparison to monasticism.
To understand the work ethic, look at the etymologies and historical usage of the words "profession" and "vocation." The former especially was originally religious in context. The idea is that, in the pre-work ethic Medieval view, secular work is the curse of Adam — you do it because "he who does not work shall not eat." In contrast, there is the religious calling ("vocation"), whereby one is called by God to make a "profession" of faith in the form of holy vows, becoming a priest, a monk, a nun, etc.
Weber argued that the "work ethic" emerged when Europeans began removing that idea of a "calling" from the monastic context, and bringing it into the secular world; whereby, one could be "called" to serve God by being a farmer, a craftsman, or whatever. Bringing the same sense of mission, and thus identity, to whatever career you have.
And this is deeply embedded in American culture. Practically the first question someone asks upon being introduced to someone else is "what do you do?" — meaning, of course, "what is your job?"
(As a NEET, I'm particularly sensitive to this one. Further, neither of my parents are big on the Protestant work ethic. My Dad never had "a career," only jobs; and my mom (a very lapsed German Catholic) had no problem marrying out of high school and becoming a homemaker, only going to work after my youngest brother graduated high school. I was raised with the understanding that "work" is just whatever horrible, shitty drudgery you do to put a roof over your head and food on the table, and should absolutely not be expected to provide any kind of "meaning" or "purpose" — or even enjoyment. "Work to live, not live to work," and such. And yes, I agree we could do with far less of the work ethic.)
LiberalRetvrn
10hr ago
Both of those sound about equally irrational.
No_one
10hr ago
...you didn't hear there's some new molecule that apparently revives dormant hair roots and in tests, bald men grew their hair back?
It's nothing hormonal and doesn't have the dire risk profile of finasteride etc.
No_one
10hr ago
Living on the top floor of an apartment building I've come to appreciate heat waves intimately. The building is well insulated and barely needs heating if it's >10°C, but the roof volume is not ventilated at all, so during heat waves, that whole part of the building accumulates heat and temperature in my apartment gets to slightly above shade temperature and barely dips during the night.
I am now wondering if 2 months of slightly uncomfortable temperatures (27-29°C) and, on average, one week of really uncomfortable (32-38°C) are worth installing AC.
Or how much difference ventilating the building roof thoroughly could do. A single 100W fan would exchange all the air in the attic twice in an hour. That should be vastly cheaper than AC and depending on how much it'd cut the need for AC, neighbors might even help with funding that.
Hadad
10hr ago
The sentiment is one I see a lot of, even if not the specific word 'chink'. Open slurs are very much a hallmark of the edgy, online right, in my experience. Normie Republicans like my own (grand)parents think slurs are rude, but they're comfortable with the ideas they encompass -- the kung-flu is absolutely the fake and gay China virus pushed by the elites to cull the population, but you don't call it the chink virus.
newcomputerwhodis
10hr ago
10-2 has excellent combat. If only I liked the story enough to push it higher... probably lands somewhere in high-mid. 7-remake was pretty fun at first, but eventually I got really frustrated with the way ATB fills for the active vs passive characters and the need to constantly ping-pong control around. Felt like I could never get a groove going on anybody. And then of course the plot gradually revealed that it's
Hadad
10hr ago
No, I don't need another moderator opinion, you're fine. What are the odds they'd side with me after bickering with you, even if I was right?
Do what you will, and I'll do the same. If that means a ban, well, it's just a forum.
Yeah, skin deep writing. Pretty much. The concepts are fine, but the quests and the unit lore is just .. ugh. Just not to my taste. Almost tempted to rewrite that stuff to be less cringe. Starsector has relatively decent writing that doesn't feel insulting, but that's probably because the game devs are clearly SF readers.
Couple more annoying things: I feel like planes should have fuel / require bases like in SMACX and I just plain dislike titans. Logistically they're just kind of dumb and conceptually don't make that much sense either. And what is even the point where e.g. Praetorians kill various titans without much issue and are air-mobile?
Wonder how hard modding it is.
If roads were cheaper/could be built automatically and supplies were not automatically delivered but depended on accessibility and supply depots/convoys, the game would get a fair amount of depth.
If you could make formations out of units and move them at once, that'd be very good too.
Also, it's nice that each unit has a specific weapon because swapping out those weapons for others same way heroes swap out items would make it much more interesting. I don't get why weapon selection isn't already in the game. Endless Legend had unit builds and it added some depth to the combat..
Nothing revolutionary at all, but it works well enough.
Tbh the combat is a fair bit deeper than in ordinary 4x games, or at least could be with some more options.
Not being compromised, seems like it might be a shorter list.
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