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 -
Yeah, that's a good point, but the problem is, for example: the kind of guys who would have gone into teaching instead of doing blue-collar work, because their families wanted them to get out of the manual labour grind and improve themselves, are still going to go into teaching today, but the guys who got a job on the assembly line instead of becoming teachers are not going to do that today.
It's not a simple choice between "well gee will I study to become a primary school teacher or get a job in the box factory, I have the skills and aptitude for either". The guys who got a job in the box factory were not academically qualified to be teachers (I'm not saying they were stupid, I'm saying they were never going to be teachers and they knew it, their families knew it, everybody knew it).
So it's a bit like the "learn to code" mantra - if there aren't any box factories anymore, those guys are not going to be teaching nine year old boys how to read gooderer.
So there is going to be a tranche of people who would have done manual labour/blue-collar work, but now manufacturing is either off-shored or automation is coming for those jobs. What do you do for them? Some of them may be able to start up small businesses of their own (there is certainly plenty of room for 'local guy to do small handyman jobs around the town') but not all, and certainly not all of them are going to be able to pivot into teaching.
AI is probably coming for the white-collar jobs as well, but there may be more wiggle room there for "okay so maybe I'll re-train as a teacher". I think something like a jobs programme probably is the best we can hope for, and there is a ton of work in the voluntary/public sector that could be done under the aegis of that, but it'll be tricky to implement: local government that isn't cutting the grass or filling the pot holes because of lack of budget to do that kind of work. Voluntary services that need a handyman/janitor/caretaker but don't have the funding to employ one full-time.
These are called community employment schemes over here, I don't know if there is an American equivalent, but if manufacturing/heavy industry is now dead as a source of employment, unless you're expecting everyone to start becoming an Uber driver or the likes, then some kind of government jobs programme is what is needed. The ideal would be "these are real jobs where people are employed at market rates and get health insurance and pension benefits" but the problem of course is no money to pay for that, so that's where government has to step in and then we're talking about spending even more on social security/social services which is another problem in itself: where does the money come from to pay for that, unless we're expecting the Miracle of Superhuman Intelligence AI to make things so cheap, and the economy so booming, that there is the magic money fountain flowing to pay for all this.
More options
Context Copy link