site banner
PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   29467 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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.

9
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

A good state of affairs can be that "everyone kinda knows, nobody makes a big fuss about it, it isn't officially condoned or supported or acknowledged, but people slightly judge the people involved in the deal and don't see it exactly aligned with the principles of a university." Plausible deniability is maintained, disbelief is suspended and a "quantum tunneling" has taken place. It's not necessarily good to separate everything into the black-and-white categories of legal (and therefore supported, and documented, and regulated and defined and socially accepted and considered moral) vs illegal (and beyond the pale and morally corrupt and unacceptable and you're an unperson for it).

Yes, this is called good old fashioned nepotism. When this manager in the team fucked his subordinate and then promoted her, everybody knew about it and many thought it was kind of piece of shit move. It also did not endear the newly promoted person in eyes of many of her colleagues. It was tolerated as lesser evil for many reasons by his superiors unfortunately. Little did I know that what he should have done was telling it transparently by saying that he was not promoting somebody for fucking his brains out, it was just normal HR benefit of "sex partner hiring" he was awarded during standard salary increase negotiations, no big deal. You see, he is really working hard and he works harder with hard-on that he needs to be motivated, his situation is special because he has no time to look for partners as he is working so much. Reading apologetics here in this thread I'd guess he would probably have much more defenders, silly him.

This isn't a manager hiring someone he's fucking. It's an employer hiring the spouse of someone they're pursuing as part of a compensation package. I don't think he difference is particularly subtle.

It is almost exactly the same scenario. There are three people: hiring manager, then there is the superstar fucker and then there is candidate that is being fucked. Superstar is pressuring hiring manager to hire his mistress "or else"- he leaves along with grants on his research or whatever. I can even construct it a such: superstar researcher with millions in grants comes to the hiring office that he fucks this student and she may be leaving for a job in other city. If they do not hire his mistress as an adjunct then he is going with her along with grants because he loves her. Now the same happens with my example of corporate manager: he fucks this young intern and she tells him that she has a good job lined up in another city. Manager sees this as a threat so he pressures his colleague in other department to hire his mistress, he even gets tacit approval from his own superiors because he is now responsible for crucial project and nobody wants to rock the boat for such a silly thing. How exactly is this different: except the fact that university has this as a written policy?

I don’t think the difference exists. Partly because the “spouse” appears to be just someone the candidate is fucking. Mostly because my objection is that one of the responsibilities of people in a hierarchy is to behave well to the people below them. That means giving applicants a fair shake and it means promoting people because of seniority, talent and experience, not because of who they’re having sex with.

Okay, I guess I'll spell it out for you. A manager promoting someone they are fucking (assuming it is not because they are the best candidate for the job) is presumably doing it as quid pro quo for the ass, to improve their own economic situation as they are sharing an income with the person they're fucking, and/or as a sign to future potential romantic partners that putting out pays out.

A manager negotiating a spousal hire as part of a compensation package is attempting to secure a business relationship that is in the best interest of the university and utilizing the various tools at their disposal to do so, including potentially that spousal hire. They aren't benefiting themselves except insofar as performing highly at their job (securing top talent) benefits them, which is precisely the purpose of their relationship with the university.

It not only isn't the same thing it is exactly the opposite.

You are literally describing the same situation. Manager/Superstar researcher is using his superstar influence in order to secure job for somebody he fucks is the same as saying:

Manager negotiating a spousal hire as part of a compensation package is attempting to secure a business relationship that is in the best interest of the university and utilizing the various tools at their disposal to do so, including potentially that spousal hire.

Yeah, that is the point. Manager is negotiating with the company (hiring manager) to secure new business relationship (for his mistress and for himself to the extent of getting potentially a good fuck as a result) and it is in best interest of the company (or else he leaves in the middle of the most important project to competitor or whatever) and he is utilizing various tools at his disposal (e.g. a lunch with hiring manager and his manager etc.) to secure that relationship.

I understand corporatespeak, no need to remind me that "spousal hiring" and "best interest of the company" means "hire somebody I fuck" and "do as I say or else something bad happens". Nobody with IQ more than 80 falls for this shit.

Do you think it is wrong for Superstar Researcher to use his superstar influence to just straightforwardly secure a larger paycheck? Or other terms of employment concessions?

If he tries to secure larger paycheck, then I see nothing wrong. If he tries to secure hot assistant that will give him a blowjob whenever he feels like it or he requires that university signs contract with his brother's firm for security services or that the university hires his nephew for new research vacancy - then yes, I think those concessions are wrong. I hope I will not have to go into the weeds of why I see it as wrong.

Some differences: 1) She would not be his assistant. 2) The number of blowjobs provided is not any sort of thing the university is involved in (i.e., there is zero amount of, "Hey, ya know, you really ought to blow this guy more often to help us out."). 3) The nature of the relationship is ontologically prior to anything having to do with the business relationship.

Let me ask you about this scenario. Think not a university. An employee at some company says he wants to move away, because his spouse took a job in a different city. He asks to go to remote work. They oblige and extend that benefit in order to retain him as an employee. Do you think that this is the same thing as the company arranging to provide him with some quantity of blowjobs in order to retain him? Do you think it is impermissible for him to negotiate this employment concession?

I do not have interest going into technicalities. Leveraging my position and asking my employer to hire somebody I fuck is nepotism, period end of story. Arguments involving softening the language by euphemisms like "spousal hiring", defending it on the grounds of values of family formation like somebody above or digging up these other examples like remote work are unnecessary sophistry.

More comments

You are being utilitarian, I am being deontological. It doesn’t matter who benefits, it’s not a moral way to handle your employees.

To put it another way, there are many, many things that a manager can do which is in the best interests of their employer (corruption, assassination, faking emission tests) but being good business doesn’t make those actions morally acceptable.

I'm actually not being utilitarian. I think that the hiring manager is employed to make a good faith effort to attract the best talent that he can within certain ethical guidelines and spousal hires fall within those guidelines. Even if the hiring manager had some move that fell outside of those ethical guidelines to create higher utility or even if the hiring manager decided that he could create higher global utility by ignoring his task for the university, I would think that he should do what he promised to do when he took the job and hire the best candidate that he can get with the tools at his disposal to do so, and it would be dishonorable to do otherwise.

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