A debate on where America was before Trump. Were we really in decline?

[Max_S]

@HMS_Irruncible

Yes, it’s an economically unnecessary price protection scheme. Essentially nothing more than a cash transfer to the disadvantaged.

And I’m actually fine doing a cash transfer to the disadvantaged. But if that’s the route we’re going, we need to be clear that this is a compassionate socialist project going to bail out the rural areas.

When I read post #237 I assumed octopus’s point was that there are national defense reasons to encourage domestic sourcing of strategic resources. Namely, to prevent a dangerous or costly dependance in case of war or some other emergency.

Look at 50 U.S.C. 98h-6 Development of domestic sources, part of the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Piling Act of 1939. It doesn’t subsidize domestic producers per se, but it does authorize the President to purchase raw strategic materials from (and contract processing/storage through) domestic sources. The way the law is written, I would say the President can pay up to five years in advance, which I call… a subsidy.

That being said, I’m also reading that the defense stockpile has been reduced significantly since the cold war years. You can request a copy of the biannual Strategic and Military Materials Report by emailing the DoD here, or I found a copy of the 2015 report on some random website here (2.6MB PDF).

The process they use to determine what and how much to stockpile (rather, what to ask Congress for permission to stockpile) is in part 2 and the appendixes. They base the materials and numbers on a scenario with “one year of conflict followed by three years of recovery/regeneration”, down from three+ years of conflict during the cold war. Really it has nothing to do with compassion or socialism or rural plight.

~Max

[octopus]

But why is it ok for US consumers, such as you and me I’m assuming, to exploit workers in other countries or workers who migrate here? Obviously, avoiding sweatshops isn’t some moral imperative. It’s purely political and counterproductively so.

And no I’m not in favor of the traditional sweatshop. It’s just there is no virtue in exporting misery and claiming to be virtuous because it’s across a line on the map.

[DemonTree]

@Babale

I don’t know about you, but I am an At Will employee, like the vast majority of Americans. I can be fired at any time, for any reason or for no reason at all, aside from belonging to a protected class (which is VERY difficult to prove, unless you can find an email saying “fire his black ass” or something). Anything I post politically online is ‘risking my job’.

I’m sorry for you. I don’t understand why Americans put up with such shitty employment conditions.

@Babale

This is what responsible science looks like. Saying “hey, your data is limited in scope” is not some heinous attack; it is crucially important. For example, we do not currently give children the COVID vaccine, because there is no data on how it affects children yet. Pointing that out isn’t an attack on Moderna or Pfizer, it’s a recognition of reality.

Sure, and if this scrutiny was applied equally and there were no special bad consequences for the authors it would be fine. But you know damn well that nobody would have looked at this paper twice if they had got the expected result and reported that women did better with female mentors.

@Babale

Again, this doesn’t mean we throw the paper in the trash and the authors in PC Jail. It means we check what the study actually says, and make sure THAT is what we base our conclusion on. Anything else is not science, it’s pseudoscience.

No, they just withdrew the paper and the authors got a load of bad publicity. And you do want the authors fired if they espouse views that are contrary to the school’s mission. Which if you are doing science correctly is bound to happen some time or other, because the facts don’t care about politics. Personally I think free exchange of ideas should be a central part of that mission, we’re not discussing widget makers here.

[DemonTree]

@Mijin

Oh, the new argument is we need labor-intensive jobs for the stupid people?

How is that busywork better than giving them something economically useful to do, like enter a training program? Oh, right, they’re too stupid to be trained to do something useful. I forgot they are the subhuman underclass.

You’re calling ordinary people a subhuman underclass? What the actual fuck? And training programmes aren’t economically useful. You have to have jobs to train people to do.

[Mijin]

@DemonTree

You’re calling ordinary people a subhuman underclass? What the actual fuck?

It was sarcasm.
Please look at the chat history.

[DemonTree]

Okay. But no, not every person can do every job. Or at least not well. People aren’t all the same.

We don’t want to end up with a society where only 10% of people can do anything useful because other jobs have been automated out of existence.

[Mijin]

@DemonTree

Okay. But no, not every person can do every job. Or at least not well.

Of course, but I didn’t say that. I said most people can do most jobs. IME.
And I am just talking in terms of potential; most jobs require training of course if not a specific degree.

But I am arguing against the typical kind of “IQ requirement” thinking. In my experience, if you’re smart enough to take care of yourself (get dressed, do grocery shopping etc), you’re smart enough to do most jobs that humans do. It’s just a matter of training and hard work. Which, incidentally, is how many Asian cultures see things.

[DemonTree]

@Mijin

But I am arguing against the typical kind of “IQ requirement” thinking. In my experience, if you’re smart enough to take care of yourself (get dressed, do grocery shopping etc), you’re smart enough to do most jobs that humans do. It’s just a matter of training and hard work. Which, incidentally, is how many Asian cultures see things.

Depends what qualifies as most, maybe. But I don’t think most people could be a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher, or a programmer, or like I said, at least not a good one.

[Irishman]

@octopus

, how can those who don’t have the capability to do work such as computer programming or robotics make a living?

Here is an ice cream shop operated mostly by special needs people with Downs Syndrome or autism.

Ice cream shop in Dallas gives teens, adults with special needs work experience

Funny you mention manufacturing and computer programming. Machining, i.e. making raw metal into complex parts, is a skilled labor job not requiring a college degree, but does involve extensive training to do well. Yet machining is becoming more automated, and machinists are relying more and more on automated systems that machine by computer program.

There is always a need for plumbers, air conditioner repair techs, dental hygienists, nurses and nurses’ aides, office clerks/receptionists, personal shoppers, cosmeticians and hair dressers, dry cleaner operators, garbage collectors, road construction crews and construction workers, grocery cart pushers, pet care providers, and cute kitten video producers.

Well, maybe not the last. And notice I didn’t mention cab drivers, package deliverers, food delivery, newspaper deliverers, cashiers, truck drivers - lots of jobs we currently need but are becoming obsolete due to technology.

Maybe if they would take the jobs, we wouldn’t have to pay foreigners to be our seasonal migrant farm workers. I’m talking about the legal visa holders, not undocumented workers illegally employed by unscrupulous business owners.

@Max_S

When I read post #237 I assumed octopus ’s point was that there are national defense reasons to encourage domestic sourcing of strategic resources. Namely, to prevent a dangerous or costly dependance in case of war or some other emergency.

Yes, that was his point.

@octopus

But why is it ok for US consumers, such as you and me I’m assuming, to exploit workers in other countries or workers who migrate here? Obviously, avoiding sweatshops isn’t some moral imperative. It’s purely political and counterproductively so.

I don’t think it is okay, but how does exploiting Americans improve the moral case? And how do you propose we prevent the exploiting of workers in other countries without underpaying and removing benefits from Americans? You say it is purely political, but I don’t know what that means. I day it is a moral imperative, but there are levels of moral imperative and priority lists. Provide solutions that don’t damage Americans. If the problem is those countries are cheaper because they don’t have the protections for workers that Western societies have, the solution is not to remove our protections, but to drive getting those protections in the other countries.

And in some cases it isn’t necessarily actual sweatshops, but their economies are much less expensive, so labor is cheaper.

[Crane]

@Max_S

If you are trying to imply that Americans today are more or less smart based on the quality of information they are exposed to, today versus in the past, I think your argument is flawed.

No, I am asking: has the internet given an equal voice to those on either side of the bell curve?

[Ruken]

@octopus

Coal mining may be so-called obsolete but manufacturing, agriculture, other forms of mining, etc. are not. Having those jobs exported is not good long term, strategic policy.

Real output in NAICS 31-33 and 11 increased over the two pre-pandemic decades. 2122 (so that we are most generous to your claim and don’t include oil and gas) was flat. Thus, any sector-wide decrease in employment in those sectors was not, on average, due to “having jobs exported” but instead due to increases in productivity of those jobs.

[HMS_Irruncible]

@Max_S

They base the materials and numbers on a scenario with “one year of conflict followed by three years of recovery/regeneration”, down from three+ years of conflict during the cold war. Really it has nothing to do with compassion or socialism or rural plight.

Whether stockpiling is a strategic tool is entirely separate question from whether it’s a tool to stimulate underemployment.

Assuming the stockpile is already maxed out, and there’s no war, it can’t address underemployment unless you overstock it. That’s compassionate socialism.

Assuming the stockpile is less than full, you can capture… what, up to 3 years production? What happens to your jobs project then?

And I assume nobody wants to start a war just to turn over the stockpile and keep struggling farmers afloat. This is America, we only do that for arms dealers.

[Babale]

@DemonTree

Sure, and if this scrutiny was applied equally and there were no special bad consequences for the authors it would be fine. But you know damn well that nobody would have looked at this paper twice if they had got the expected result and reported that women did better with female mentors.

The evidence didn’t show that, so in fact I WOULD be very surprised if they made such an unscientific claim and it wasn’t called out. The data does seem to show that women with female mentors get less citations. The point of contention is whether this is due to female mentors doing a worse job helping students write good papers, or if it is a consequence of gender bias among scientists and their institutions.

@DemonTree

No, they just withdrew the paper and the authors got a load of bad publicity.

They got “bad publicity” in that the flaw in their reasoning was pointed out. Would you rather we ignore flawed reasoning so as not to be mean to anyone?

@DemonTree

And you do want the authors fired if they espouse views that are contrary to the school’s mission.

DUH. I mean… DUH. If someone believes that a company’s mission is wrong, they shouldn’t be working for that company. A man who believes that African Americans or women are unsuited for scientific work due to their inherent inferiority in the field is not just basing his views on incorrect data, he is acting contrary to the school’s mission (to educate students of all races and genders) and should not teach there.

@DemonTree

Which if you are doing science correctly is bound to happen some time or other, because the facts don’t care about politics

Agreed, which is why it is odd you are here defending people who got in trouble because they disregarded actual science in favor of their political bias.

[DemonTree]

@Babale

The point of contention is whether this is due to female mentors doing a worse job helping students write good papers, or if it is a consequence of gender bias among scientists and their institutions.

No it isn’t. Here’s what the paper actually says:

While it has been shown that having female mentors increases the likelihood of female protégés staying in academia10 and provides them with better career outcomes39, such studies often compare protégés that have a female mentor to those who do not have a mentor at all, rather than to those who have a male mentor. Our study fills this gap, and suggests that female protégés who remain in academia reap more benefits when mentored by males rather than equally-impactful females. The specific drivers underlying this empirical fact could be multifold, such as female mentors serving on more committees, thereby reducing the time they are able to invest in their protégés47, or women taking on less recognized topics that their protégés emulate48,49,50, but these potential drivers are out of the scope of current study. Our findings also suggest that mentors benefit more when working with male protégés rather than working with comparable female protégés, especially if the mentor is female. These conclusions are all deduced from careful comparisons between protégés who published their first mentored paper in the same discipline, in the same cohort, and at the very same institution. Having said that, it should be noted that there are societal aspects that are not captured by our observational data, and the specific mechanisms behind these findings are yet to be uncovered. One potential explanation could be that, historically, male scientists had enjoyed more privileges and access to resources than their female counterparts, and thus were able to provide more support to their protégés. Alternatively, these findings may be attributed to sorting mechanisms within programs based on the quality of protégés and the gender of mentors.

Our gender-related findings suggest that current diversity policies promoting female–female mentorships, as well-intended as they may be, could hinder the careers of women who remain in academia in unexpected ways. Female scientists, in fact, may benefit from opposite-gender mentorships in terms of their publication potential and impact throughout their post-mentorship careers. Policy makers should thus revisit first and second order consequences of diversity policies while focusing not only on retaining women in science, but also on maximizing their long-term scientific impact. More broadly, the goal of gender equity in science, regardless of the objective targeted, cannot, and should not be shouldered by senior female scientists alone, rather, it should be embraced by the scientific community as a whole.

[HMS_Irruncible]

@DemonTree

Okay. But no, not every person can do every job. Or at least not well. People aren’t all the same.

You’re familiar with the quote “the soft bigotry of low expectations?” It was frequently seen when it was politically popular to find palatable ways to suggest that black people don’t work hard enough.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t pop up at all when talking about the plight of rural whites, but that’s what we’re doing here.

We don’t want to end up with a society where only 10% of people can do anything useful because other jobs have been automated out of existence.

Automation is going to happen. Job loss is going to happen. The folks who control the means of production are obviously dead-set on ensuring it.

The question is, what’s wrong with automation? Well, obviously something seems wrong if Jeff Bezos puts millions of people out of work to hoard up billions of dollars. But we could also adopt the position that people should have worth and dignity apart from their economic product, and no person should be permitted to hoard up 100,000 years worth of bread for their table, then we can start to get at the root of this problem.

Automation is going to happen. Make-work projects aren’t the way to mitigate the impact.

[Skywatcher]

@HMS_Irruncible

But should we stockpile soybeans to safeguard against price shocks?

2.5 billion pounds of frozen meat?

[Ruken]

@survinga

But minimum wage laws have been studied and they don’t impact unemployment in the areas where they occur.

I strongly caution that anyone who has failed to keep up with the academic literature on this topic and who is instead relying on incomplete (e.g. mentioning Card and Kreuger but omitting Neumark re: NJ) and out of date (and thus missing the entirety of the Seattle experiment, which contradicts the above quote) sources refrain from making sweeping generalizations until they have corrected that error. That goes equally for anyone who would use Seattle as some definitive anti-MW case.

[Mijin]

@DemonTree

I don’t think most people could be a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher, or a programmer, or like I said, at least not a good one.

FOX news has given us plenty of examples of people who were acceptable, maybe even considered good lawyers, who seem like they’d be stumped by a revolving door.

Anyway, I guess we’re not going to agree on this one and it’s hard to prove it either way. I’m not familiar with any experiment of taking N random burger flippers who at least passed high school and giving them the opportunity to train as doctors for free.

But there are programs that have, for example, trained miners to become computer programmers and they have achieved pretty good results. They have tended to be on very small cohorts (e.g. Bit Source in Kentucky trained 10 miners to code, and 9 are were employed as software engineers a year later. I don’t have more up to date data than that), so it’s still debatable.

@octopus

But why is it ok for US consumers, such as you and me I’m assuming, to exploit workers in other countries or workers who migrate here? Obviously, avoiding sweatshops isn’t some moral imperative.

It’s not OK, and hence why there have been the supply chain outrages for many clothing brands (yes, it’s true that after the public fury dies down, companies like H&M and Zara end up “accidentally” contracting out to another sweatshop, but that doesn’t take from the fact that, generally speaking, most people are not OK with sweatshops anywhere).
Also, automation is happening globally. When people suggest that minimum wage will put retail staff out of work, as employers will replace humans with automated checkouts, I point out that one of the fastest adopters of automated checkouts has been…China. You can’t undercut automation, it doesn’t work like that.

@octopus

And no I’m not in favor of the traditional sweatshop.

I’ll take it. This is progress at least.

So now we only need to consider whether it is economically viable for an industrialized country to do this kind of work. If not, then I assume you would not advocate for it, as it seems to be terrible all round.

[Max_S]

I think social media gives everyone a voice, but I wouldn’t say it gives everyone an equal voice.

~Max

[Max_S]

@HMS_Irruncible

Whether stockpiling is a strategic tool is entirely separate question from whether it’s a tool to stimulate underemployment.

If the question is whether stockpiling is a tool to stimulate employment, I have severely misread this conversation. It is actually preferable that domestic sources satisfy demand while operating at less than full capacity so that the government can ramp up production when needed. Adding an extra shift is much cheaper and faster than building a whole new mine.

~Max