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thomasThePaineEngine

Lightly Seared On The Reality Grill

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thomasThePaineEngine


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Lightly Seared On The Reality Grill

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 11 16:24:53 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
A while ago, @anagast replied to one of my comments with:




(...) My greatest fear of liberalism is that it will in practice turn everything into a samey globalist liberal soup. I'd rather have an archipelago of self-assorted communities, than everything integrated everywhere. (...) source




There was something in that image that made me feel confused. Later, I realized what it was: to me, liberalism and turning everything into samey globalist soup are a non sequitur.


Consider what is probably the epitome of liberal globalization: New York City. Out of the roughly 8.5 million people who live there, 37% are foreign-born. With over 800 languages spoken there, it's also the most linguistically diverse place in the world. And while the city is easy to characterize, and often is, as politically and bureaucratically a American-Democrat stronghold, it's not really how it looks like on the street.


There's a ton of conservatism here. Walk around long enough and you'll bump into a wedding or funeral or some other celebration that's done in a beautiful traditional style. Or, talk with enough people, and you'll learn that while they put on the right face for the DEI training at white collar job, they're against abortion and other markers of leaning right.


It's hard to describe all of it unless you've had a few week to live here. The city is a patchwork quilt of hundreds, maybe thousands, of groups, some taking up a single block while others, like the Chinese or Hasidic Jews, basically run whole neighborhoods. Walking in a straight line for maybe an hour feels like traveling through half a dozen countries.


Now, all these people, at least most of them, enjoy the fruits of globalization. They drink coke. Eat pizza and sushi. Browse reddit. But overall, their primary cultural identity is unaffected. I suspect it's because liberalism creates a free market for ideas, allowing people to pick and choose, which strengthens good ideas and causes weak ones to fade away.


Put another way: if you try to enforce culture in a top-down way, you'll get a lot of "coverage", but most adherents will be on board just because everyone else is. Their identity is weak, ripe for the taking by the next guy who takes over. But if you allow people to sort themselves out on their own, the feeling of ownership creates a much deeper, stronger sense of belonging that's not going to be changed by a coca cola advertisement.


That's how I explain to myself why so many cultures in NYC have integrated but not assimilated. Integrated, because they follow the common, basic set of rules: mind your own business, treat others with respect, do your job. Not assimilated because despite living here for >1 generations, they've not become part of some bland, uniform uberculture. If anything, the need to exist alongside so many other tribes has made them work on distilling the best parts of their culture to make it appealing and strong to outsiders and a source of pride for the insiders.


Also, what I think all these rather conservative immigrants bring to the table in the city is that they keep the politicians and bureaucrats honest. No ooey-gooey feel-good diversity--no, they're gonna get the real thing, they're gonna get respect for the culture and community. In a way, I suspect they're the ones responsible for the success of liberal ideals in the city.


(There's some parallel here between how marrying the state and the Church led to calcification of religion in Europe, whereas the freedom of religion in the USA led to an explosion of it, but I'm not familiar with history enough to use that as an argument).


That's why I think that liberalism and globalization don't lead to creating a samey globalist liberal soup, but just the opposite--they lead to differentiation, fragmentation, and and constant evolution and improvement of culture.


And the reason why both sides of the political spectrum are afraid of this (lefties crying about dying languages and indigenous customs; righting crying about the death of tradition) is because they are afraid of the creative destruction that liberalism brings to bear against their ideas. But in doing so, they are actually restricting the growth and refinement of their cultures.


(cough All hail Tzeentch cough)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
How familiar are you with Polish history and culture?


I recommend adjust your priors about this man to "slightly crazy." Not that that's the only thing about him--he's great at forging relationships and leading the group of people who voted for him, but this is a guy who, during an interview many years back, when asked what he sees his life's goal as, replied, in a non-joking manner, that he sees himself as "the redeemer of the nation."


I believe that, ultimately, remarks like this will destroy the thing he's building because they destroy the mask he's built up over the years--of a professional man, interested in one thing only: the good of the people.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'll concede that my long-term thinking argument was a slippery slope. I should have constrained it by something like "moving to nuclear power sooner rather than later will be advantageous in this half century."


I'm not sure I understand your question about which countries have benefited from shutting down coal power. I want to say--all of them--which is why more governments are building reactors. India and China are building multiple reactors, and I suspect the cleanliness of the energy is secondary to its abundance, which also entails a larger degree of sovereignty. This seems obvious to me, which is why I think we're coming at this from very different angles. What's good about coal power? Does it outweigh the benefits of cheaper, more abundant sources?


I don't think his enemies would be a thousand times more critical. They're already at max critique. They'd critique him for using the wrong side of toilet paper to wipe his butt. Note that I don't consider myself in that camp. I just think he's lacking as a leader.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Dismantling pseudo-skepticism
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks for writing this. I found it accessible, despite being fairly weak on stats (though I do remember what a beta distribution is).


Your piece has a vibe of a warning for young rationalists that goes something like, "Beware, for not all who claim to be skeptics are ones." Would you say this is a correct interpretation?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Because he exists? Your children and grandchildren might, but the coal miner is alive now and trying to live in the world today, and hopefully make any kind of world at all for his children and grandchildren.




Doesn't this argument justify all short-term thinking?


Also, why can't the coalminer find a different job? Yes, there's both a physical and mental cost to this. But does that justify forcing 330 million citizens to live under a worse energy policy so that 62 thousand of them don't have to re-educate themselves into a different profession? This is the USA--many people here have careers that span half a dozen professions.




Why are your children and grandchildren better than his?




I never said that, nor was it implied.




Also do you really think Trump would have been treated better if he'd backed out of Paris to ramp up nuclear?




Treated better--by whom? His enemies would be just as critical of him as they were always. His supporters would be just as supportive. A small handful of people who care about energy policy would be happy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What if these nerds are not the Eric S. Raymond/Richard Stallman type, the initial bazaar dwellers, but the new crop of folks that entered the culture post-DomCom crash? The pragmatic ones who love the counter cultural aesthetic but just want a safe, cool job?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In short: no.


In long: in the beginning, he seemed not too different than other politicians. Lots of smiling, hand-shaking, and declaiming the other side as evil ne'er-do-wells. With time, though, and the demands of the office, I came to see him as a person far out of his league. Not a good administrator. Not a good leader. Not a good engineer. Great at speaking to a certain sort of crowd and turning up the emotions, but that seems to be his only skill. I also found his denial of election results disgusting.


For an example, read the Paris Climate Accord speech. He starts it off by talking about how great America is doing, how many jobs he and his party have given Americans, etc. Off topic. Worse, a cheap shot of flattering his audience, almost insulting. Then he goes over the reasons for getting out of the accord. There he gives some good reasons, but fails to put them together into a well constructed argument. The average themotte user could do better here. I mean, he makes claims full of pathos, without much backing. He loves the American worker. He loves the coal miner. They're his people. So we should mine coal (what about the country's energy policy? Why can't we have nice, dense energy production like nuclear? Why is the coal miner better than my children and grand children, who could have much better lives if we switched to clean, abundant nuclear energy?) And then, throughout the whole piece, you have little snarky remarks about the blue tribe. He and his tribe are working hard to help the American, but the other tribe isn't doing anything, just standing around with their hands in their pockets. Come on, this is high-school-level mockery--at least hit them with something that matters, I mean it's not like the blue tribe doesn't do stupid things.


If we're talking about providing cheap entertainment, he's your man. But if we're talking about leading the country through the tumultuous beginnings of a new century? Bah.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


But what they can do, in order to relieve this sense of pressure about being part of the problem but not part of the solution, is to participate in it. They are suffering too! They are thinking about poverty and injustice and feeling bad! They share all this to reassure each other, and be reassured, that they are in fact not the bad guys, they're one of the good ones.




I think you hit the nail on the head.


For many, I suspect there's also an element of selling out.


Nerd culture, especially the US flavor, has a strong countercultural streak to it. By talking about these topics, signaling support, and wearing a hoodie, it's probably possible to mask (from yourself) the fact that you're making a boatload of money, writing design documents, and talking about KPIs, quarterly goals, and securing wins.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's just a bunch of pretty well off people trying to signal that they're not in league with the "evil" well off people.


As I mentioned before, these are my coworkers. Yet, if I were to believe many of them literally, they're simple, humble, working-class folk who are just as fed up with "the system" as the everyman. Thus, they're part of the collective suffering, because unlike the evil well off people, they're not doing cocaine off of sex workers' genitals on a yacht, and so it's only natural that once the promised revolution comes, they will be part of the proletariat, helping overthrow the bourgeoisie.


Eh, snide remarks aside, I'm astonished by the jaw-dropping power of the meme that Marx and Engels gave birth to. It's amazing how it splices itself into feelings of compassion and goodwill and proceeds to corrupt the victim.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is there a name for this?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Perhaps this is asking too much, everyone being Internet strangers and all, but how do you spend time with your relative? Do you approach them with compassion? With persuasion? Or do you just accept them as they are, right now, in their bad moment?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Perhaps it's a case of the observer changing the experiment through the sheer act of observation?


I too don't think of this as a big deal. If things go well, Twitter will get better, only to be unseated by another platform within the next decade. If things go badly, Twitter turns into zombified wasteland or folds completely--and nothing of value will be lost.


But because Twitter is the terra firma of the Culture War, people are willing to give up their lives over VR hamburger hills, as if the platform itself was a low-res, text/image-based alpha version of the Metaverse. Put differently, all those emotions that twitter evokes, whether it's anger or jealousy or surprise actually help turn it into an almost physical presence. Some have suggested Twitter and other social media sites be turned into public utilities because it feels that real.


Musk entering the picture threatens the existence of the very soil upon which the Culture War is waged. That makes all the tribes nervous--any shuffling of rules will break an uneasy equilibrium and who knows who will end up on top. Or, worst case scenario, MuskTheGod destroys Twitter before there's a suitable replacement and culture warriors scatter to the four corners of the Earth. That's bad because each warrior's energy level depends on the size and complexity of the mob around they/them, which means that The Scattering would turns each one of them into merely a shadow of their former selves.


I can imagine some old SJW or angry /pol/itic, twenty years from now, telling their grand kid something like, "Them flamewars ain't what they used to be...."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Collectivization of Suffering


Disclaimer: This might be better for the Fun Thread, as there's no deep point here, just an observation.


I've become aware of a vibe among my circle of professional peers: collectivization of suffering.


Look, for example, at this comment to an article about decreasing worker productivity on hackernews, a news aggregator site that's popular among techies, especially US ones: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33468735


When did it become popular to upload your emotions to a shared cloud? How does that even work? Like, when I eat a donut or stub my toe, does the collective feel a pang of pleasure or pain? This commenter and others in that thread bring up war, the pandemic, social upheavals, etc. It's like they're trying to say that these things affect them deeply... despite 99.99% of them being completely uninvolved. It sounds... preposterous: that most likely a tech worker that's most likely situated in the US of A is somehow suffering as much as a Ukrainian soldier in the Donbas or a woman protester in Iran.


This reminds me of a great collectivist, Hegel, who picked up Rousseau's idea of the national spirit, and molded it around the idea of the state. People who declaim being part of a great collectivized suffering sound to me like folks that are yearning to become ants in a great colony, extensions of a single organism, like what fingers are to a person.


I worry that people like this are ripe for exploitation. They just need an ideology to forge them into something violent--the poster writes as much: "I believe we are on the edge of a massive social upheaval".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks, that's illuminating. Now I just have to adjust my monkey brain.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Another interpretation is that companies are still optimizing for producing value, but this value isn't shareholder dollars. It's status. Status might come from size. Or great parties. Or scoring high on "best place to work at $insert_year", etc. These could all make hiring lots of HR people seem like a good idea. And I'm sure if you hire great HR people, you could increase your employee satisfcation, but like with anything, it's hard to find these great HR people. I wouldn't be surprised if every HR employee beneath the 90th percentile of quality is just clocking in and clocking out.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


70.3% of all human resources managers are women, while 29.7% are men.




https://www.zippia.com/human-resources-manager-jobs/demographics/


I imagine it's harder to get this kind of scheme to work in private industry, but I don't see a reason why it wouldn't be at least a minor component. In my own experience, most HR folks I've talked to were women who were also heavily into a certain flavor of politics. I wouldn't put it above them to invent work, then use that to argue for increasing headcount and hiring more comradettes. But I don't think this is a large force. More like upper single digits of % perhaps?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's a fair point. I admit I have an axe to grind with HR and that's skewing my perceptions. It's useful for me to air it out and get some pushback--thank you.


That said, can you describe what value HR brings to a company? I can think of a couple of things, such as managing the recruiting pipeline and on/off-boarding processes. Plus taking care of mandatory trainings and providing employees with an interface with the benefits & insurance. Also: tackling employee grievances. But that still means the ratio of HR-to-employee should be low. Perhaps something like 1:25 or even more, since you get economies of scale as the number of employees grow.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's a good point, and I think it explains part of what's happening, but not all of it. Eg. the numbers are disproportional: firing half of HR and firing only 10% of engineers means that the HR-to-engineer ratio was heavily skewed toward HR if you get tilt it back and still be ok.


Also, a small, anecdotal data point: a friend's small tech company that employed about 30 engineers fired about 20 HR people. The whole company employed roughly 100 people. So it boggle my mind why they needed to have 20 HR folks in the first place.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
My post was partially inspired by having to sit through 2 hours of DEI training organized by HR.


Maybe it's me spending too much time here and getting used to good faith, high quality arguments, but those two hours felt like being schooled by teenagers who were giving it half their effort. It was painful. For example, we had a module about how diversity is a smart business choice because it gets more diverse ideas injected into the company, after which we had to get into groups of 3-4 and discuss how each of us would work toward increasing diversity in our specific roles.


My first thoughts were:


    

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    leading the question -> there's no room for discussion, even questions, but you're made to feel "as if" you have any choice or input. You're given a goal (diversity) and ordered to come up, in front of your peers (social pressure), with ways to achieve that goal.
    

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    motte and bailey -> basically arguing for an unfair, politically-motivated redistribution of wealth ("bad diversity") and hiding it behind a good, meaningful idea of diversity.
    

    • 



At the end, I couldn't tell what's worse. The icky ways someone was trying to pressure people into doing/thinking what they wanted us to think OR the form it took, which was so poor, it would get you a C at most if you did that for a school project.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This is about layoffs in tech and what they underscore about modern economy.


https://blog.interviewing.io/how-much-have-2022-layoffs-affected-engineers-vs-other-departments-we-dug-into-the-data-to-find-out/




According to our data, almost half of HR people and recruiters got laid off, as compared to 10% of engineers and only 4% of salespeople.




This passage feels obvious. Of course companies will let go those employees first who contribute little to the bottom line. Of course companies will hold onto their critical resources--engineers and salespeople in this case--until the very worst moment.


But underneath this is a statement about how many bullshit jobs are there in our economy. Jobs that are merely simple busywork. Jobs that exist solely as a way to redistribute the fruits of capitalism from those who have found a way to way to produce for society and those who didn't. It's basically a giant social contract about providing for a rather large part of society that would not otherwise be able to sustain itself.


If anything, this speaks of how deep our humanism runs. Instead of sawing off the sickly branch, we embrace it with care, doing so in a way that doesn't over-infringe on the patient's dignity (Consider how powerful a mark of status it is to provide for the weak and poor--now this status-marker has been democratized).


Thus we learn something practical: don't take anything HR says or does too seriously. They play an unpopular, minor role in the fabric of a company, relegated to the equivalent of keeping the litter box clean: ensuring legal compliance, tackling on/off-boarding paperwork, and organizing company celebrations. That, and be wary of HR departments that seem to outgrow their function. A fat, active HR department is a sign that a company isn't allocating its funds efficiently. Or that it usurps power from more important departments, eg. the power to design and run the hiring process (they should only take care of the mechanical parts; the candidate qualification process should be in the hands of subject-matter experts). Either way, it's a bad sign.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ah, I see. I classify the EU much like Thiel does, as in, that it's a place where the dominant spirit is "indeterminate, negative." I don't have high hopes for its future, even in the near term (10-20 years), but I would still argue that if you're looking for a sleepy little hamlet, the EU is full of them--you get your healthcare and basic security, and you're free to live out your life in the style of Mann's Hans Castorp.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
But isn't this picking one set of trade offs for another?


Japan has been wrestling with economic stagnation, where more and more younger people have to bust their asses even more for an uncertain future. Many of them are choosing to completely drop out of society altogether. They're also struggling with low birth rates to the point of working on robotic elderly aides. Also, high suicide rates.


I'm sure if I did the research, I'd find a lot of trouble going on in Korea, too.


That said, I would take all the places we're talking about (USA, most of EU, Japan, Korea, and a few others) as having their shit together enough to be classified as "working." Sure, they're all facing wicked problems, but on the whole, they still exhibit behaviors that signal they are capable of playing the larger game.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Can you name a place where you think things do work? Put another way -- a place where that isn't struggling with some form of large scale, systemic coordination problems?


This isn't meant as a counter to your post. I'm seeking clarification about your pov.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for October 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not much, really, because I focus my well-being energy on eating, sleeping, and exercising.


But the few things I'm optimizing for specifically are:


    

  • 

    Bright lights. I got high-CR Cree LED bulbs and put the equivalent of 100-260W in each room (these are very small rooms btw). I'm not sure of the effects, but it's more comfortable for me to do anything in those rooms. On the flip side, whenever I go to others' house, I'm surprised by how dark it is.
    

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    Keeping my bedroom cold before sleep.
    

    • 

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    Keeping my bedroom free from electronic devices. It's mainly a reading, sleeping, and exercise room. With carpets and blankets, it feels very safe and cozy.
    

    • 

  • 

    Keep myself from buying snacks. If snacks aren't home, then I can't have them, so I will force myself to make a proper meal. Even a shitty sandwich is better than most wheat-and-salt snacks, which are already on the healthier side of the spectrum. (I'm trying to limit sugar intake and increase protein, fat, and fruit/veggie intake).
    

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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Is there something in humanity which will reject the matrix and turn away from the algorithmic dopamine machine? Will people get exhausted or can the machine adapt and transform to keep people hooked?




I think this is your central point. And I think the answer is yes, just like we tamed other unhealthy forces in our environment like alcohol or fast food. Meaning, my bet is that we'll develop social rituals, habits, taboos around software tech (social media first, probably) that will limit its unhealthy effects and eventually steer it toward something useful and acceptable. But we'll never be completely free of its side effects, just like we'll always lose people to alcohol or fast food.




That true life is living off the berries of the forest, fighting mammoths and facing the beasts of the night, and watching your children die, that that's what chisels a firm soul.




I don't think high tech and self-reliant ruggedness are at odds. Instead of fighting mammoths and faces the creepy crawlies at night, we're fighting against surveillance, addiction, and control. It's a very real fight for survival, perhaps less physical and more about soul/agency. But it's strenuous, demanding both instant action and long-term strategic thinking.


Maybe, just maybe, this is actually the escape hatch from our all too comfortable physical lives--being forced to fight for your the life of your soul and agency, your very humanity, against a growing, sly, unthinking machine.