6 ms·

Caste system, as in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XmB59Ax4cE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XmB59Ax4cE ? Along the lines of https://www.orwellfoundation.c

Caste system, as in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XmB59Ax4cE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XmB59Ax4cE ? Along the lines of https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/#:~:text=If%20one%20harbours,true%2c%20are%20inadmissible%2e https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel... , I'd maintain the US national fiction is "the US is a classless society". lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPpjU1UeAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPPpjU1UeAo vs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TQmo5TvZQY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TQmo5TvZQY vs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__HPfmvaWRw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__HPfmvaWRw

ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
> US national fiction is "the US is a classless society" I wouldn't say that. It's just that we believe that there's no birthright caste. Mobility is possible between all classes. Sometimes, though, it's really difficult; just not impossible. Big difference, in mindset.
- yunnpp 9mo ago
  "Mobility is possible between all classes." So it isn't classless?
  - ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
    Exactly. We have classes. We don’t have birthright castes. Different animals. That’s why I wouldn’t say that “the US is a classless society.” It was kind of awkward phrasing. Sorry.
    - aebtebeten 9mo ago
      Not sure if the birthright castes are any more stably stratified: according to https://www3.weforum.org/docs/Global_Social_Mobility_Report.pdf#page=7 https://www3.weforum.org/docs/Global_Social_Mobility_Report.... , the US actually ranked worse in 2020 than the UK for social mobility? (for 2025, see https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Degrees-of-Difference.pdf https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Degre... )
      - ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
        Still different from birthright castes. With a birthright caste, you're stuck. Even if you make a lot of money, you're still an untouchable. In the US, if you make a lot of money, you can become upper class, even if you still have some "rough edges." I actually know a number of folks that have done exactly that. I also know folks that have done the opposite. Started off on top of the heap, and ended up skint. We definitely have strata. Hollywood stars represent an interesting one. They are sort of what folks aspire to be, but they are nowhere near the top of the heap. In the UK, Elon Musk would never be a toff; no matter how much he has, but in the US, he's King of the Hill.
        direwolf20 9mo ago
        How do people know your caste? Is it on your ID document?
        deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
        gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
        In India maybe. In the US (or some other places) it might be easier to have someone analyze your tax docs. "So what do you do?" is not a popular conversation opener these days..
        deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
        aebtebeten 9mo ago
        I guess that's where we part ways: just as the US is the world's richest 3rd* world country, I'd call ERM the richest upper-middle-class person in the US, but not exactly upper-class... (just as a datum point: ERM is the opposite of an éminence grise, in just about any of its senses) * in the economic sense. In the political sense, by definition the US is 1st world [after what happened to Yugoslavia (former leader of the non-aligned movement) I'm surprised Carney is brave enough to attempt to revive a "2nd World" ... surprised; but pleased!].
- gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
  https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/joint-review-class-by-paul-fussell/comments https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/joint-review-class-by-paul-fuss... What makes the firepit so heartbreaking is that it’s almost an example of attempting upward mobility the correct way, since — as you note — in the upper echelons of the American class system, taste and style and behavior are what really stratify people. The problem is that the purchaser lacks the class background to understand the shibboleths and so gets led terribly astray. It’s like some poor fool trying to seem very educated and cultured by reading The New Yorker (if you want to impress, try the New York Review of Books, or better the London Review of Books).3 This information asymmetry is what defeats so many attempts at direct social climbing. You can’t make a frontal assault on the class above you. They will see you coming. It's heartbreaking that hackers (and "technocrats", with the sole exception of the above masters of p-hacking??) have not really taken into their system that cultural mobility >>> economic mobility, given how much easier it is on paper.. (I'd say HN is a laudable attempt tho at uh CULTURAL REVOLUTION that parallels this admins' :) I think someone else said that even the "Jobs-Powell dynasty" is going to take a couple generations to get close to the Drumpfts? (How about the Vance dynasty?) Oh. I try to remember theres often an implicit downward in front of mobility https://archive.ph/2026.01.23-052820/https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/joint-review-class-by-paul-fussell#:~:text=downwardly%20mobile%20family%20attending%20an%20upper%2Dprole%20college. https://archive.ph/2026.01.23-052820/https://www.thepsmiths....
yunnpp 9mo ago
Not sure what the latter videos are about, but that Orwell Foundation link is packed with some serious ham. Thanks for sharing.
- aebtebeten 9mo ago
  You're welcome. A "lagniappe" is a bonus, so the videos are just bonus tracks. (if you want an exercise with them, however, attempt to figure out by which means the folks depicted in which video make a living: a) by what they do "gur guvatf jr yvxr qba'g pbfg n ybg bs zbarl" b) by what they own "ubzvrf ba ybpx sbe vafvqre genqvat" c) by what they know "V chg gur BT va 5.0 TCN" hints in rot-13)
  - gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
    >The things we like don't cost a lot of money True for Hiroyuki when it comes to "specialty" beer that have to be drunk out of "specialty" glasses on "specialty" occasions XD
    - aebtebeten 9mo ago
      Red plastic Dixie cups only count as "glasses" if the specialty occasion is an "American-themed party" :-P
      - gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
        https://www.youtube.com/live/Pfde8A4CuSI https://www.youtube.com/live/Pfde8A4CuSI Even the titles XD I guess because it's hard to see in that one? Yes he has a bit of a Japanese fratboy vibe https://youtube.com/shorts/QsG1WYq_1h8 https://youtube.com/shorts/QsG1WYq_1h8 It's only specialty because I don't recognize it :) A different bottle (& glass) for each vid https://youtube.com/shorts/IJbtuHf https://youtube.com/shorts/IJbtuHf https://www.youtube.com/live/ckrdZp1fQZw https://www.youtube.com/live/ckrdZp1fQZw Let's see if the pollsters are right :)
        9mo ago

ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago

> US national fiction is "the US is a classless society" I wouldn't say that. It's just that we believe that there's no birthright caste. Mobility is possible between all classes. Sometimes, though, it's really difficult; just not impossible. Big difference, in mindset.

yunnpp 9mo ago
"Mobility is possible between all classes." So it isn't classless?
- ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
  Exactly. We have classes. We don’t have birthright castes. Different animals. That’s why I wouldn’t say that “the US is a classless society.” It was kind of awkward phrasing. Sorry.
  - aebtebeten 9mo ago
    Not sure if the birthright castes are any more stably stratified: according to https://www3.weforum.org/docs/Global_Social_Mobility_Report.pdf#page=7 https://www3.weforum.org/docs/Global_Social_Mobility_Report.... , the US actually ranked worse in 2020 than the UK for social mobility? (for 2025, see https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Degrees-of-Difference.pdf https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Degre... )
    - ChrisMarshallNY 9mo ago
      Still different from birthright castes. With a birthright caste, you're stuck. Even if you make a lot of money, you're still an untouchable. In the US, if you make a lot of money, you can become upper class, even if you still have some "rough edges." I actually know a number of folks that have done exactly that. I also know folks that have done the opposite. Started off on top of the heap, and ended up skint. We definitely have strata. Hollywood stars represent an interesting one. They are sort of what folks aspire to be, but they are nowhere near the top of the heap. In the UK, Elon Musk would never be a toff; no matter how much he has, but in the US, he's King of the Hill.
      - direwolf20 9mo ago
        How do people know your caste? Is it on your ID document?
        deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
        gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
        In India maybe. In the US (or some other places) it might be easier to have someone analyze your tax docs. "So what do you do?" is not a popular conversation opener these days..
        deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
      - aebtebeten 9mo ago
        I guess that's where we part ways: just as the US is the world's richest 3rd* world country, I'd call ERM the richest upper-middle-class person in the US, but not exactly upper-class... (just as a datum point: ERM is the opposite of an éminence grise, in just about any of its senses) * in the economic sense. In the political sense, by definition the US is 1st world [after what happened to Yugoslavia (former leader of the non-aligned movement) I'm surprised Carney is brave enough to attempt to revive a "2nd World" ... surprised; but pleased!].
gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/joint-review-class-by-paul-fussell/comments https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/joint-review-class-by-paul-fuss... What makes the firepit so heartbreaking is that it’s almost an example of attempting upward mobility the correct way, since — as you note — in the upper echelons of the American class system, taste and style and behavior are what really stratify people. The problem is that the purchaser lacks the class background to understand the shibboleths and so gets led terribly astray. It’s like some poor fool trying to seem very educated and cultured by reading The New Yorker (if you want to impress, try the New York Review of Books, or better the London Review of Books).3 This information asymmetry is what defeats so many attempts at direct social climbing. You can’t make a frontal assault on the class above you. They will see you coming. It's heartbreaking that hackers (and "technocrats", with the sole exception of the above masters of p-hacking??) have not really taken into their system that cultural mobility >>> economic mobility, given how much easier it is on paper.. (I'd say HN is a laudable attempt tho at uh CULTURAL REVOLUTION that parallels this admins' :) I think someone else said that even the "Jobs-Powell dynasty" is going to take a couple generations to get close to the Drumpfts? (How about the Vance dynasty?) Oh. I try to remember theres often an implicit downward in front of mobility https://archive.ph/2026.01.23-052820/https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/joint-review-class-by-paul-fussell#:~:text=downwardly%20mobile%20family%20attending%20an%20upper%2Dprole%20college. https://archive.ph/2026.01.23-052820/https://www.thepsmiths....

yunnpp 9mo ago

Not sure what the latter videos are about, but that Orwell Foundation link is packed with some serious ham. Thanks for sharing.

aebtebeten 9mo ago
You're welcome. A "lagniappe" is a bonus, so the videos are just bonus tracks. (if you want an exercise with them, however, attempt to figure out by which means the folks depicted in which video make a living: a) by what they do "gur guvatf jr yvxr qba'g pbfg n ybg bs zbarl" b) by what they own "ubzvrf ba ybpx sbe vafvqre genqvat" c) by what they know "V chg gur BT va 5.0 TCN" hints in rot-13)
- gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
  >The things we like don't cost a lot of money True for Hiroyuki when it comes to "specialty" beer that have to be drunk out of "specialty" glasses on "specialty" occasions XD
  - aebtebeten 9mo ago
    Red plastic Dixie cups only count as "glasses" if the specialty occasion is an "American-themed party" :-P
    - gsf_emergency_6 9mo ago
      https://www.youtube.com/live/Pfde8A4CuSI https://www.youtube.com/live/Pfde8A4CuSI Even the titles XD I guess because it's hard to see in that one? Yes he has a bit of a Japanese fratboy vibe https://youtube.com/shorts/QsG1WYq_1h8 https://youtube.com/shorts/QsG1WYq_1h8 It's only specialty because I don't recognize it :) A different bottle (& glass) for each vid https://youtube.com/shorts/IJbtuHf https://youtube.com/shorts/IJbtuHf https://www.youtube.com/live/ckrdZp1fQZw https://www.youtube.com/live/ckrdZp1fQZw Let's see if the pollsters are right :)
      - 9mo ago