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PaperclipPerfector  28d ago (text post)   34300 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 28, 2024

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And I think that’s actually why the elites running the systems cannot fix things.

Fix what? Elites developed the policy that solved the 2008 mortgage crisis as the rest of the world struggled. The zero-interest rate policy and QE has since been copied by other central banks. It was not elites who were buying those mc mansions with 0-money down. Same for Covid vaccines.

Elon Musk is technically is an elite and has contributed greatly to society. Society is not going to solve difficult problems like space travel using only ordinary people. Difficult coordination problems require elites. Sometimes the public isn't always owed an explanation or it would be against the interests of national security, like the Manhattan Project.

Elon Musk is technically is an elite and has contributed greatly to society. Society is not going to solve difficult problems like space travel using only ordinary people. Difficult coordination problems require elites. Sometimes the public isn't always owed an explanation or it would be against the interests of national security, like the Manhattan Project.

Dollars to donuts Elon had a summer job shovelling shit or picking apples at some point -- Kamala seems to be kind of an early adopter on this sort of thing being Just Not Done for aspiring white-collar climbers, to the point where not only does she need to make up a story about working at McDonalds, McDonalds is the shittiest job she can even think of to lie about.

Trump probably never had to literally lay bricks or whatever, but based on how much he seems to enjoy hanging around with garbagemen and workers at his hotels, it's a good bet that he's done quite a bit of shit-shooting with the pointy end of his construction crews as well.

Maybe he does a better job pretending to fit in with those jobs or appears more convincing.

I dunno when McDonald's become the epitome of the bad job. I can think of many jobs that are way worse ... even many people's ideas of 'fun' (e.g. running a marathon ) seem way less pleasant than a shit at McDonald's .

a shit at McDonald's

Say working at McDonald’s isn’t that bad all you want; your subconscious just gave you away.

According to his biography:

Musk claims to be self-made; he moved to Canada at age 17 with $2500 and worked his way up from there. For a while he supported himself by cutting logs

He may claim to be self-made, but parent's name is blue on wikipedia.

In 1979, [Maye Musk] divorced Errol Musk. Two years later, Elon, who was about 10 at the time, decided to live with his father, as he had the Encyclopaedia Britannica and a computer, things which Maye could not afford to give the children as a single parent.

In 1979, [Maye Musk] divorced Errol Musk. Two years later, Elon, who was about 10 at the time, decided to live with his father, as he had the Encyclopaedia Britannica and a computer, things which Maye could not afford to give the children as a single parent.

I thought the right could meme?

The right's memes will not be used against the right's house.

Maye Musk, like Quentin Tarantino's father, has a blue name because of her kid, not the other way around.

I’m still not convinced that she lied about working at McDonald’s. I think it more likely that she lied on her resume about not working at McDonald’s. Of course, that shows not just ignorance, but shame at being associated with the working classes.

Not listing a job on your resume is not “lying”. It’s totally normal and acceptable to omit meanial labor jobs when applying for professional jobs.

It's trivially easy to prove, you can see all of your work history on ssa.gov.

So either she doesn't want to engage, no one on her staff has realized this paper trail exists, or she really didn't work there. Or she worked under the table.

I had two jobs in the 90s that I got W-2s for and paid taxes on that don’t show up on my SSA work history. I’m currently in the process of trying to prove I worked these jobs for the SS benefits when all the paperwork has long since been shredded. Totally plausible to me that she worked there and can’t prove it.

Small businesses? Totally possible that they pocketed the deducted payroll tax and never reported to SSA. Many such cases.

Yep. This is possible.

There's a theory that she did it in Montreal, right? Doubt you'd find that on ssa.gov (or want to publicize it).

She specifically claimed that it was a particular McDonalds in the Bay area, didn't she?

Yes but at the same time if she did work at a McDonalds in Montreal shifting the local to the states seems like a natural "bending of the truth" given how her campaign has been trying hard to downplay her family's ties to Trudeau and the wider Canadian left.

yes, you're right.

Elon Musk is technically is an elite and has contributed greatly to society.

Which is the more central example of our Elites as a class: Musk, or the management of Boeing? Would you say that Boeing has demonstrated a solid track record of solving difficult problems?

The planes fly, don't they?

Except when they don't

The rockets don't, though.

Well, speaking from personal experience, the management at Boeing spans quite a wide social demographic. And yes, they do have a history of solving difficult problems, but the current management is a different set of people than those problem solvers, being made up mostly of SoCal Defense industry or Jack Welch era GE castoffs who's primary competancy is spreadsheet optimization. The hard charging problem solvers were mostly made up of people like Musk or tech industry types- move fast and break things used to be a very valid approach to aerospace, as long as your breakage was confined to flight test only.

Like everything, it's hit or miss. Elites being necessary doesn't imply all elites are good or competent.

OK, now that we know some elites are bad and incompetent, who gets to decide when the public is owed an explanation? The elites themselves? The ones you just said are "hit or miss"? The Dalai Lama? Some Guru? The Bishop of Rome? Greta Thunberg?

The decision that was reached in the enlightenment is that the public does; the actions of elites who serve the public are accountable to the public. And I'm all ears for criticisms of the enlightenment, but you're coming right up against the very reasons people even wanted democratic rule in the first place.

All i am saying is that elite are necessary. People overreading into my comment to mean they are better, and heaven forbid some bad people are promoted, as this this doesn't happen for non-elite roles too or anything else in life.

Alright, let's back up a step.

Fix what?

There's a problem where our current system of elites take a thing, fuck it up beyond all belief, and suffer zero consequences. I've mentioned the Boeing space program as an example, but we could use education or the economy or the criminal justice system or the twenty-year occupation of Afghanistan. This problem has gotten pretty bad, to the point that it is at least arguably jeopardizing the stability of our nation. That's the fix I and I think other people here are claiming is needed.

Sure, we need elites. There's always going to be a need for talented leadership. But I think there's a pretty strong argument that our current leadership is not in fact talented. And it seems to me that the problem isn't just that they're "hit or miss". The problem is that they've demonstrated that they can consistently miss for multiple decades running with zero consequences for them and disastrous consequences for us.

All i am saying is that elite are necessary.

Are they though? Our rather are the bulk of our current crop neccesary? How much real value is there in spreadsheet optimization? If 1 in 10 Boeing executives were Thanos-snapped out of existence would the Airline industry be changed in any meaningful way? What about a quarter or even half of them?

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