site banner
PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   30491 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024

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.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

These days the doctors are on the receiving end of class rage though, everyone is mad at us on both the left and the right, thinks our job is easy and easily automated, and wants us to make less money. Thus my long ass rant.

It is pretty astounding to hear that health spending occupies an increasingly larger share of GDP yet doctor compensation is worsening.

That said I do it because I want to help people and I like teaching. It's also interesting as hell. Medicine is hard because it is much poorer define than most knowledge work which means there is a lot of room to learn and research and for your job to stay interesting over the course of your career.

I obviously don't know anything but from the outside it does seem like one of those things where the more you learn and the faster you think on your feet the more good you can do. When, you know, the cases aren't boring and you have to remind the patient yet again that they don't get better unless they actually take the meds as prescribed.

It is pretty astounding to hear that health spending occupies an increasingly larger share of GDP yet doctor compensation is worsening.

I think this should be pretty intuitive if you think about government and academic spending. More administrators and more middle managers are rampant everywhere and drive up costs. Market activity is somewhat protective against this, but healthcare has too much going on that doesn't resemble a market.

...faster you think on your feet the more good you can do...

One of the remaining perks that hasn't eroded is that you bring in the revenue for the hospital. Even an IM doc brings in 4-5 times their salary in revenue to the hospital. This gives some independence, should we choose to use it (we often don't because residency beats that out of us). You want me to fill out a yearly HIPAA training. Fuck off, fire me if you want. You won't.

This patient is having an emotional breakdown and really needs it? I'm skipping my mandatory meeting and spending time with the patient and their family.

Moments like that matter a lot.

Also, if you are smart and motivated you can discover entire new ways of helping people, stay on the bleeding edge, redefine what the standard of care is...and so on.

Even bad patients can be rewarding when you finally help them to the ah-ha moment.

Good stuff is out there.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats