151–160 of 172 posts
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Can you recommend some good "The Peter Principle" books? I'm unfamiliar, would love to learn.
“The Peter Principle” by Laurence J. Peter
While climbing the middle ladder, something snapped in me, or perhaps covid accelerated the process. A year or so ago, I was working on my undergraduate thesis project in deep RL, I had been working on the project for 8-9 months at the time. Due to covid, lack of support and computational resources from the university, I was behind, and making progress was difficult. Shortly after I submitted the thesis, I felt an ee…
Well, yes and no. On one hand, we're all destined to mortal frailty and death, and most of us will experience things worse than a nightmare and have to keep on going. On the other hand, to live is a precious gift with more beauty and potential than one can imagine, especially if focused on the other part.
This kind of social class theory is unfortunately not one that yields a lot of leverage, while simultaneously promising to cause a lot of hurt. (It also reads as if it betrays some hurt feelings on the part of its creator, IMO). I think this is why it's traditionally, historically, so incendiary to talk about class theory. Also, here we are at the point in history when even reclusive billionaires are starting to chan…
Of course, like any way to divide up people there is ample opportunity for harmful and mean stereotypes. But I don’t think that alone is why discussing class is so explosive in America.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-bir...
This was an interesting take but I'm a little disappointed that the author didn't take the language idea further. As in, in this author's conception of class based language, what's an example of "straight talk"? How do the elites "babytalk" to the Michael Scott-gentry middle class? Most interestingly, what would "powertalk" be in this conception of class? Would it be raw datasets and financial spreadsheets? Because t…
Babytalk from the Elites to the Middle Class would be something like the all staff meetings for Penguin staff complaining that Penguin Canada is publishing another Jordan Peterson book or Politico staff complaining that Ben Shapiro was invited to write an entry in their outside opinion section. Or potentially some of the corporate higher up talking up social responsibility actions that are at best token. I'm more int…
Elites don't do this (as much) to the middle class because: 1) they (members of middle class) aren't as easily interchangeable 2) they're workhorses that produce a good ROI 3) the elites clearly see the delusional reality most of the middle class lives in, and are happy to egg it on to keep the machine churning.
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The metaphor definitely breaks in the middle ladder. Why not just do labor, middle management, owners like in the first part of the piece? I get that everyone hates NYT opinion writers but that’s like 20 people - not a social class. Also do software engineers fall into upper middle class or high skilled labor? I think they’re in both. Or maybe I just don’t have any interactions with the middle ladder in real life and…
High skilled labor. A lot of Software Engineers think they are highly educated intellectuals but are in reality skilled tradespeople on the tools.
This is a really well-written article. I am not sure if this spin on the cited references is novel but it is the first I am seeing any of it. I am jarred how well it describes the "middle" of society, including how many of my own behaviors/beliefs are captured. One thing I am having trouble with is the connection between Michael and the "educated" ladder, even though a big portion of the article is dedicated to that.…
Yeah, I really want to know where the author is getting their model of PhDs. Are we talking about literature departments or chemistry labs?
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The metaphor definitely breaks in the middle ladder. Why not just do labor, middle management, owners like in the first part of the piece? I get that everyone hates NYT opinion writers but that’s like 20 people - not a social class. Also do software engineers fall into upper middle class or high skilled labor? I think they’re in both. Or maybe I just don’t have any interactions with the middle ladder in real life and…
High skilled labor. A lot of Software Engineers think they are highly educated intellectuals but are in reality skilled tradespeople on the tools.
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Sorry, I meant 3-in-4 are female, not 1-in-4. > A very confused sexism. To an uncritical thinker, it might definitely seem that way. To address the "liberal arts college" aspect, I mean specifically they're insulated from a lot of the reality of the rest of the world. I specifically mean the Dartmouths, Browns, etc. of the educational world. I mean people for whom a $200,000 education to have a $35,000 - $115,000 a y…
> I occasionally work with and consult for these people. Now I'm curious. The world you describe seems quite hostile to someone with your beliefs -- how and why are you in it?
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Babytalk from the Elites to the Middle Class would be something like the all staff meetings for Penguin staff complaining that Penguin Canada is publishing another Jordan Peterson book or Politico staff complaining that Ben Shapiro was invited to write an entry in their outside opinion section. Or potentially some of the corporate higher up talking up social responsibility actions that are at best token. I'm more int…
Good point about corporate-speak as elite-to-middle babytalk. I would hazard a guess that the closest thing to straight talk is at the possible inception of a union. Not after the union is formed and established - I don't think there's a lot of straight talk between UAW and GM nowadays - but if someone like Musk is afraid the gigafactory workers are banding together, he might be forced to talk to them directly. Unfor…