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 -
An amusing and interesting theory, one that the OverEmployed subreddit has been discussing as well. Good for them: Slay, Kings; the OverEmployed give me energy.
However, based upon my impression of that subreddit, I imagine the proportion of Amazon employees who are OverEmployed is relatively small, especially among positions Amazon cares about. It’s not the $600,000 Machine Learning Researchers moonlighting at a second job, but rather the fungible redshirts who make $70,000 to $130,000 or whatever in Sys Admin or Dev Ops who take on a similar role at a different company.
So, in one respect, it’s tough for me to envision Amazon re-orchestrating their WFH operations based upon the redshirts. Although, I could totally envision Amazon punishing all their employees based upon a small segment of employees of which they barely give a fuck about. Maybe the redshirts are a large percentage of headcount.
In general, firms do appear to care a lot about their employees having passive income, secondary gigs, much less be employed elsewhere. Through their mouthpieces such as HR, they say it’s due to conflicts of interest or potential leaking of intellectual property. However, I suspect that’s but an alibi for being butthurt, just like how a wife who’s deadbedroomed her husband might get butthurt over her husband stepping out to bang other women.
The parallels are not coincidental. Just like jobs, women are more easily obtained when you already have one. My Reddit feed often provides drama from OverEmployed and subreddits like AITA/relationship_advice/etc. right near each other. An inside joke in OverEmployed is to bring-up wives and sidepieces as W1, W2, W3, just as they would J1, J2, J3, when it comes to jobs. Although, being Redditors, commenters would also be quick to bring up wife’s boyfriend(s).
More options
Context Copy link