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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29463 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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It is possible for things to be a reasonable idea in some circumstances without it making sense to make it mandatory in all vaguely similar situations. It is also possible to conceive of a society where the hiring unit is the family (whether nuclear or extended) rather than the individual, but that is not the society we live in.

It makes far more sense in an Amazon warehouse, where what’s needed is a functional human body, than in academia, which is highly prestigious and where your output depends heavily on your specific background, interests and talent. The difference is that a sufficiently powerful academic can push the university into taking their significant other instead of a more deserving candidate.

It is also possible to conceive of a society where the hiring unit is the family (whether nuclear or extended) rather than the individual, but that is not the society we live in.

This, or the living wage, works for me. As you say, the difficulty is getting there.

The difference is that a sufficiently powerful academic can push the university into taking their significant other instead of a more deserving candidate.

This is why it doesn't make sense for Amazon. In the university case, the university is choosing on the one hand between a superstar for a prestigious position and a somewhat-worse candidate for a lesser position (or even a useless sinecure), and on the other hand between a much inferior candidate for the prestigious candidate and the best candidate (or nobody) for the lesser position. In the Amazon case, Amazon is choosing between essentially interchangeable candidates for the primary position; there's no incentive for them to hire a spouse.

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