uziq
Member
+508|3762
i respect the japanese artisan who has humbly and quietly dedicated their entire existence to a lost art of wood joinery perfected in the 1500s or matcha cultivation or whatever. that’s because they don’t go around with their chests poked out acting like society owes them a standing salute everywhere they go.

i don’t have automatic respect for dwayne who left school with 5 GCSE’s and became a carpenter or bricklayer because it was the only way to stay out of the military or youth detention centre, who couldn’t sit still for 7 hours a day to do call centre work and who couldn’t comb their hair and behave to do a public-facing retail job. who ‘got on the building’ at age 16 because their dad was doing it already and the family wanted another cash-in-hand (no tax) income in the household. i don’t respect them anymore than i expect them to have automatic respect for me for getting a distinction in my studies and learning other languages or whatever the fuck. that’s just people naturally following their talents and inclinations. it’s not a ‘service’. shut the fuck up and mind your own business!

isn’t there something a bit, well, precious about all this blue-collar posturing and demanding of respect, etc? seems awfully thin-skinned from the chapped hands brigade. i wonder if the arrogant yet wholly average and unexceptional software engineer types will start acting all sensitive and demanding more respect once AI fully replaces them. ‘we used to make shit in this country!!!!’ such sensitive souls 🥹.

Last edited by uziq (2025-02-25 23:24:46)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6416|eXtreme to the maX

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

what's weird is the blue collar people who also think you have to cater to them on everything else, and who use their essential skillsets to back up their unrelated arguments?
Everyone at every level thinks that.
Everyone including uziqe sneers and belittles up, down and sideways just as much as the next schlub with limited perspective, experience or humility.
Fuck Israel
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6416|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

isn’t there something a bit, well, precious about all this blue-collar posturing and demanding of respect, etc? seems awfully thin-skinned from the chapped hands brigade. i wonder if the arrogant yet wholly average and unexceptional software engineer types will start acting all sensitive and demanding more respect once AI fully replaces them. ‘we used to make shit in this country!!!!’ such sensitive souls 🥹.
Is it any difference from the arts types posturing and demanding of respect, etc? seems awfully thin-skinned from the ink-stained hands brigade.

I'm reasonably confident people at the fuzzy edge of the digital economy will be replaced some time before people who actually perform physical tasks.

I mean, good luck getting chatgpt to fix that burst pipe.
Fuck Israel
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,062|7082|PNW

zeek wrote:

isn’t there something a bit, well, precious about all this blue-collar posturing and demanding of respect, etc? seems awfully thin-skinned from the chapped hands brigade.
that.

i mean, it's one thing for a craft to be respected, and a person's skill in said craft to earn them associated respect. i think that's great. but that doesn't mean their unrelated opinions (vaccines cause 5g) aren't garbage, aren't anti-expert for anti-expert's sake, and aren't way too far out of their lane to be taken seriously by any reasonable listener.

exhaustive 'medical facts' about transwomen in sports, brought to you by the concrete mixer guy coincidentally way more in the know about the topic than your average doctor. lmao. "what, you don't like having driveways?" zing, guess you win.

dilbert wrote:

I mean, good luck getting chatgpt to fix that burst pipe.
blue collar and -ish stuff gets outmoded all the time. how much do you think an net+ cert from the 1990s is worth in 2025? a lot of people who work on old equipment are either retiring or dying of old age. tell a blue collar boomer that there's a special cdl for manual transmission now and they'll probably have a stroke.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2025-02-26 01:25:33)

uziq
Member
+508|3762

Dilbert_X wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

what's weird is the blue collar people who also think you have to cater to them on everything else, and who use their essential skillsets to back up their unrelated arguments?
Everyone at every level thinks that.
Everyone including uziqe sneers and belittles up, down and sideways just as much as the next schlub with limited perspective, experience or humility.
i don’t sneer at anyone in my work or personal life. don’t project your weird anti-sociality and bitterness onto other people.

i’ve just spent practically the last 4 years mixing with expats and international friends alike, basically none of whom have my educational background or career. an extremely wide sample of humanity compared to if i’d just stayed in my lane and graduate networks in the UK. not saying this was any special achievement or needs to be remarked upon - only to say: speak for yourself. i’m perfectly capable of getting along with all walks of life without sneering.

i’m very grateful to the expertise of tradespeople. they are paid handsomely for it. society needs them. i’ve said many times we should keep funding polytechnics and encouraging young people to become them. but this whole idea that they deserve special recognition, or that i should feel bad for lacking their skills, is just more weird egotism from dilbert-knows-best. it’s like you never feel you’ve been sufficiently recognised for the skills you’ve developed, or something. well done at being hands on! can we get back to our lives now?

Last edited by uziq (2025-02-26 01:21:39)

uziq
Member
+508|3762

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

isn’t there something a bit, well, precious about all this blue-collar posturing and demanding of respect, etc? seems awfully thin-skinned from the chapped hands brigade. i wonder if the arrogant yet wholly average and unexceptional software engineer types will start acting all sensitive and demanding more respect once AI fully replaces them. ‘we used to make shit in this country!!!!’ such sensitive souls 🥹.
Is it any difference from the arts types posturing and demanding of respect, etc? seems awfully thin-skinned from the ink-stained hands brigade.

I'm reasonably confident people at the fuzzy edge of the digital economy will be replaced some time before people who actually perform physical tasks.

I mean, good luck getting chatgpt to fix that burst pipe.
where are all these arts types ‘demanding respect’? lmao. more tilting at windmills. you have some weird idea in your head that every person with a BA is an eton toff. i’ve told you repeatedly that it doesn’t even accurately represent 90% of the graduating class from the oxford-tier institutions you rail against.

this super effete, elitist, snobby caste … doesn’t exist. or is only a vestigial rump at this point, anyway. it’s anthony powell stuff. all the real children of power and privilege are working in finance or asset management. or doing PPE and going into politics. the arts?! it’s hilarious to me that you demonise some of the most self-selectingly harmless people.

whatever ‘the fuzzy edge’ of the digital economy is meant to be. i work for an institution that’s over a century old. i think ill be okay.

and clearly large language models are not the worry in the trades. it’s foreign labour. just like you’re terribly racist about your indian neighbours who are reasonably going to replace just about every sub-management engineering role in the next few generations. aren’t all these anxieties why you cheer on populist stupidity from the sidelines in the first place?

Last edited by uziq (2025-02-26 01:31:49)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6416|eXtreme to the maX
You've spent an awful lot of time on this forum ridiculing people who aren't you.

Anyway.

I think I shall buy the box set for the first season of Blake's Seven.
If its OK I'll buy the other three.
Fuck Israel
uziq
Member
+508|3762
i had great fun trolling the forum in an era when trolling was basically contained to video games and web personas. not exactly proud of it but i had the good sense to see when 4chan culture was spilling over into real life.

you seem awfully hurt over tittle-tattle on a video game message board; but which one of us has been a cheerleader for toxic politics with real-world ramifications? i know which way to vote and which causes are worth sticking up for. you are transparently racist about taxi drivers, colleagues, etc. should i feel bad for trash talking over a video game?

i mean, get a grip.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,062|7082|PNW

Dilbert_X wrote:

Anyway.

I think I shall buy the box set for the first season of Blake's Seven.
If its OK I'll buy the other three.
what's next on the dilb shopping list of firearms detritus to deliver by way of bugs bunny?

https://static1.cbrimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Looney-Tunes-Bugs-Bunny-8-Cropped.jpg

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2025-02-26 01:36:46)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6416|eXtreme to the maX
You were banned how many times? I never had so much as an AWM

I get on fine with my indian colleagues, although every meeting ends with me saying "sorry, I can't understand a fucking word you're saying"
Fuck Israel
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6416|eXtreme to the maX

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

what's next on the dilb shopping list of firearms detritus to deliver by way of bugs bunny?
Maybe some better red dot sights and some Dillon parts.
Fuck Israel
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,062|7082|PNW

I'm waiting on your next shipping tracker to show a literal missed left at Albuquerque.
uziq
Member
+508|3762

Dilbert_X wrote:

You were banned how many times? I never had so much as an AWM

I get on fine with my indian colleagues, although every meeting ends with me saying "sorry, I can't understand a fucking word you're saying"
lmao oh noes! a ban from a forum! meanwhile you’re encouraging populist-nativism in real-life politics … you know, stuff that has actual consequences and matters in the real world.

i have never understood why, 15 years later, you still bring up being banned or flaming as if it’s a character flaw. lmao. it’s actually a very funny bit of yours. anyone with a well-adjusted sense of perspective and proportion would not do that, dilbert.

when the hideousness and toxicity of gaming culture leapt over the barrier, so to speak, with gamergate and the beginnings of all sorts of culture wars, i never doubted for a second where my principles are, and that’s generally on the side of not being a racist or fascist. but hey, that’s just me. writing mean words in flame wars when i was 15 or 18 years old evidently didn’t break my moral compass.

and i’ve never caught myself making racist remarks about or jokes at the expense of my non-white colleagues on the internet, either. it’s weird you think that’s socially acceptable but - GASP! - getting an imaginary reprimand by a power hungry moderator on a video game forum is beyond the pale. the fuck is wrong with you

Last edited by uziq (2025-02-26 02:20:55)

Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,818|6416|eXtreme to the maX
OK, you do you.
Fuck Israel
uziq
Member
+508|3762
did you need to be praised for not getting an AWM, like with your ability to dig a patio? where are your parents in all this? it’s a picture of neglect.

you do know those things were a make-believe punishment in an extended roleplay, right? that’s what the internet was before social media colonised it.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+650|4029
Regarding blue collar workers...I get the vibe of resentment from some of the male custodians and security guards. It doesn't help that I am pretty metro sexual (remember that term?) So I would have the dress shoes with the matching watches for different days etc. The gender split for my job is 80/20 female to male. So I always have some lady giving me attention or reciprocating my own. So I get why some would be jealous. This jealousy happens between the support staff too. The Americanized Arab ladies get side eyed by the FOB ones.

Back when I was a car tech I remember the mechanics being resentful of the car salesman. Again I think a lot of this revolves around the attention from women that people receive based on their class. The car salesman always had time to chat up the lady secretaries or invite them out after work.

I realize a big part of why I am in the position of teacher instead of support staff is because my white guy dad was able to get me an education at a decent university. I don't hold that above anyone's head. But I also don't feel bad for the small drop of privilege I do have. Doubly so in regards to any angry white guy custodians or security. The amount of racial bullying and disrespect I had to deal with as a child they didn't have to. In retrospect I think all of that made me stronger than if I was just born some middle class white person in the same community. A lot of them never internalized the whole "everyone is judging you, you need to work hard to fit in" that my mom specifically drilled into me.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+508|3762
imagine being bothered or aggravated by someone wearing colour-matching dress shoes and acccessories, lmao. not exactly a great advert for the rugged individualism and self-reliance of the superlative blue-collar male.

i always found it pretty funny that not being able to dress yourself without a mummy figure is somehow 'male-coded' in their worldview. in retrospect, the caricatured figure of the 'metrosexual' in the tabloid 90s/early 00s was actually a pretty well-timed counterbalance to all the lad mags and yobbism.

as always with these things - and like the MAGA self-wounders you talk about in D&ST - it always comes down to the lower-middle feeling chagrined at the barely secure middle, and so on; these fine gradations and distinctions of class. people will endlessly fulminate and enter into culture wars over 'educated elites' when really they mean someone that went to a slightly better school than them and studied a degree that wasn't strictly vocational. in the grand scheme of things this is al yet more 'crabs in a bucket' while the 1% or oligarch class truly divert society to their own ends. same story with working-class people getting mad at marginally worse off immigrants who are hungrier and willing to underbid them. these people have way more in common than they do with the real elites. hell, even me with my supposed gulf of experience, supposedly struggling to find something normal to say to the workman hired to my place to fix my boiler, has 99% more in common with me than we do with any real elite.

it's funny how much hot air gets spent and how many shots are sent across the bows between HMS STEMite and HMS humaniores. shit is so dumb and full of so much bad faith and delusion about where everything really sits on the totem pole, in absolute terms.

Last edited by uziq (2025-02-26 11:34:38)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+650|4029
Maybe I have just become way more aware of how we dress and present ourselves have a big effect on our social interactions. I always knew it but it is different when you really start putting in the effort. I know to click X if I see a girl with a profile that is club/working class/gym. The dating apps filter guidance counselors, librarians, and teachers to me. And I guess I learned to communicate in the language and style of dress of that class to be successful with them.

They really don't teach that to kids in school. Guys specifically. It is only something I learned through watching and copying others. I am thankful I joined this forum and met a lot of older (white) guys like Kmar, Ken, etc. who encouraged professionalism in dress and appearance as well as behavior. A lot of the young people aren't getting sent those influencers at all. They instead follow the vulgar influencers that you complained about before. I am not sure how appropriate it would even be to teach boys stuff like that. How would a blue collar father feel if his yuppie teacher tries to talk his son into tucking in his shirt?

The STEM vs humanities stuff is so 2014. Undergrad millennial bullshit. It is so odd and old of us to still be talking about it. It is like someone in their 50s debating Clinton. What a disaster of industrial policy for the U.S. by the way. China and Indian combined has 10 times as many people as the U.S. And they spent vast sums to educate more STEM students. Meanwhile in the U.S. we were telling children they need to prove their manhood by working in an oilfield.

And there is nothing wrong with working a blue collar job. But fuck did you need to make a conservative political superstructure around it? I know Teacher Tik Tok can be annoying but we just don't do memes like this.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSrOG823GFx0G8vM6CxMrWvpgtyc7RPkIeINA&s
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,062|7082|PNW

About the closest thing I can imagine to a 'professional comportment' class for general population, public education in America are the various JROTC programs. A retired colonel is probably going to pressure program-entered students into tucking in their shirts with his mere presence in the hallway, even on days out-of-uniform. I'm not sure what's going to happen to those programs in the following years. ROTC is already in the crosshairs for cuts iirc.

I do remember something about you talking about teaching kids about what to wear. I'm guessing you've decided that was a fantastic way to get into trouble somehow.
uziq
Member
+508|3762
JROTC? jordan peterson has an online course for that.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,062|7082|PNW

Every time I see Jordan Peterson, I'm expecting him to launch into a Bondian villain monologue.

e: Anyway, may still be a solid resource for kids, depending? There's no obligation to join the military and they'll teach things like workplace psychology, money management, how to do America taxes, various civic-mindedness and other stuff that would be useful for the general population with idiot parents and should really be a normal class in school. Probably also about boats or planes too, depending on which branch a school is hosting. I don't know if it's still like that in the 2020s. For all I know, it's Trumpers from here on out, and somewhere, a former master sergeant with a chip on his shoulder about the DEI takeover of the Army is drilling Project 2025 into the minds of impressionable young lads and lasses.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2025-02-26 13:53:11)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+650|4029
I agree with the ROTC concept. Great concept. They have an issue with higher rates of pedos though. We going to let the Catholic priest in next too?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,062|7082|PNW

Ideally, people in jobs with high levels of access to other people's children should probably be held to high levels of scrutiny. Do gym coaches get yearly psych evals?
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+650|4029
We should make school fully remote.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,062|7082|PNW

but work culture is furiously re-enshrining mandatory office life post-pandemic.

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