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 -
Alot of the better students in my high school went to do nursing because it's easy money and has pathways to move up such as NP. Also anecdotally I've gotten good diagnosis and treatment from NP for stuff I couldn't figure out myself.
In fact doctors are the midwits saddling themselves with debt and a late start all in pursuit of prestige as seen by the PMC for a job that's not as lucrative as it looks.
We can't necessarily trust the BLS statistics to give us an accurate picture of wages in certain professions (notably waiting tables, bartending, some trades, and doctors).
While your average salaried internal medicine doc at the local hospital might only pull down 200k, that's barely scratching the surface of what a doctor can make.
Being a physician opens the pathway to starting your own practice, which can easily lead to a 7 figure annual income. Presumably, this does not get reported as wages to the BLS.
Yep.
There was a local eye doctor with big dreams when I first moved to this area 9 years back who now owns like 6 different offices in two different counties. Actually, I just checked, now its 7 in three counties. Could quite possibly be pulling in 8 digits annually.
Entrepreneurial spirit in the medical field can be rewarded heavily, and because it is gated so heavily, you generally have a built-in advantage for reaping those rewards if you have business savvy.
Of course, entrepreneurs from outside the medical field are absolutely SALIVATING to piece up the medical industry any way they can, and it all seems to trend towards consolidation, where big, established players will eventually come in to compete with you.
Most doctors I've known are happy enough to just build up a big book of patients then sell off their practice.
More options
Context Copy link
Not anymore. Regulatory requirements have pretty much forced doctors into "health systems" where they may nominally have their own practice but they're basically employees.
It doesn't matter because unless they're so incompetent they actually kill people (and even then...) they have job security for life. In other jobs that have great job security like working for the federal government it's widely understood that this comes with a salary penalty. I don't care that doctors can't easily make millions, it's completely irrelevant, what they can do is make a 95th+ percentile income guaranteed for a 30-year career; no other profession in America has that.
No offense, but is this some sort of intra-elite career path feud? Like the management consultants who are mad that software engineers make too much money now?
(Yes, I'm aware that management consultants are striving fakers, and sofware engineers are the white collar equivalent of plumbers, but you know what I mean)
I'm a former management consultant and I'm not aware of anyone being mad about SWE salaries. The job paths are broadly comparable with broad salary scales, competition, risk, limited career length, compensation broadly tracking to productivity (usually more unequivocally so for SWEs), etc.
I feel like people complain about doctors roughly in the same way people complain about longshoremen or garbage men. A guild (or the literal mafia) capturing part of the economy, limiting access and extracting extreme rent, with doctors union arguably being even worse since they not only cost a lot of money but drain top talent from the more productive parts of economy (even within their own sector of the economy!).
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