Some skills do take more time to learn. And sometimes, the job is safety relevant, meaning that it could cause harm to property and/or life if done poorly. If I was told that the guy who flips burgers at McDonalds had 1 month of training, I’d not be concerned. But if I was told that the surgeon about to operate on me had one month of training, I’d be freaking out.
A straw man fallacy is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be “attacking a straw man”.
The conversation was about how all labor is skilled labor, then you brought up an entirely audacious hyperbole about a specific career field and argued against your own example. Yes, surgeons need more training than a burger flipper, and yes, they deserve apt compensation for that disparity in time and expertise, but that does not mean that the burger flipper is “unskilled” or that the surgeon would be any more capable of flipping burgers because of their training to be a surgeon. Your “demonstration” was irrelevant to the topic at hand and constituted a bad faith argument. That is what you were being called out on, not the content of the argument itself.
Let’s take a look at the original thesis from @unfreeradical, shall we:
Different kinds of labor take different skills, not more or less, better or worse.
I consider ‘skill’ to be measurable by the amount of time needed to acquire it. You can take somebody fresh out of high school, and turn him into a competent fry cook in a month, but not into a competent surgeon. Hence the surgeon requires both more skill, as well as different skills. Therefore the surgeon/fry-cook example is a counterexample to the thesis, and thus disproves the thesis.
but that does not mean that the burger flipper is “unskilled”
I never said that burger flippers are unskilled, or that they need no training, just that 1 month is enough to learn how to do it. So, basically you’re misrepresenting my argument to claim I’ve used a straw man argument.
No. They said that labor did not require more or less skill. They did not say that all labor is skilled labor. You, ironically, are fighting the straw man.
You said that different labor does not take more or less skill. Perhaps you were trying to make a different point that you are now trying to tease out socraticly.
Do you think making false statements is a valuable approach? Do you think a job requiring less skill is a bad thing or that it should be respected any less than one that does?
I observed that different kinds of labor require skills that differ qualitatively, yet by the inherent attributes of labor emerges no particular ranking among the kinds.
You are conflating a duration of time invested acquiring a particular skill, which is quantitative, and therefore may be ranked, if desired, with a skill itself.
Are such observations broadly relevant or valuable, though, within the context?
Yes. Skill can be measured by the time needed to attain it. Since the skills needed by a surgeon take years to acquire, the surgeon requires more skill than the fry cook. This is a counterexample to your thesis. And by being a counterexample to your thesis, it is relevant and/or valuable. Unless of course, your thesis were to be considered irrelevant and worthless.
You are conflating a duration of time invested acquiring a particular skill, which is quantitative, and therefore may be ranked, if desired, with a skill itself.
With the term ‘training’ I mean all job relevant education. As in, a surgeon whose entire medical education happened within 1 month, not a surgeon who graduated med school and then was trained for 1 month as a surgeon.
Is the hypothetical threat captured in your scenario relevant, credible, or realistic in relation to the particular distinctions from the context?
Yes, it illustrates that for some tasks, training is more essential than for other tasks. Also, why are you asking that?
You know medical training is on the job hands on and every doctor is expected statistically to kill someone, not simply not save someone but actively lead to their death in one way or another.
And yet, they are not only more skilled than someone who is not a doctor, but also more so than their younger self. It’s almost as if one can garner more skill through experience.
The issue relates to whether various kinds of skill express a natural ranking .
Has any suggestion genuinely produced, as a credible concern, the scenario you described, or was it rather constructed as a bogeyman that would obstruct even criticism that is substantive and germane?
Except some skills are much harder to learn and some skills are much more valuable to society than others. I would argue the hard to learn, more valuable to society ones are “better”. I don’t think the people performing them are better or worse, but it’s fair to elevate and celebrate certain jobs over others.
Some skills are associated with greater barrier to acquisition, or are considered as higher in social value, but both attributes are inherently nebulous and overall unquantifiable.
Characterizing certain skills as better, though, based on such comparisons, even if, for the sake or argument, the validity of such comparisons were conceded, is simply a subjective appeal without any meaning deeper than personal preference or bald assertion.
Within the current system of labor organization, by which labor is commodified within the relations between worker and business, labor is valorized not by value to society, with every member of society participating equally in resolving a value for each kind of labor, but rather by the value of workers’ labor toward business interests captured beneath the profit motive, that is, value expressly to the owners of business.
Society is not uniform or monolithic. Society has structure, including various relations based on interests that may be shared or antagonist.
Social value is not intrinsic to skill, nor to any other target of valorization, but rather determined from processes of valorization bound to the surrounding social systems.
It is unequivocal that our society valorizes labor not for benefit shared generally across the public, but specifically for its value to private business.
It is also questionable that a skill itself may carry a demand for respect that is separable from respect as understood by having a personal target.
Their accomplishments already are being plundered.
Otherwise, the discussion would not be occurring, and the conditions from which it emerged would be only fictional.
I am interested in criticizing the systems that have produced the disempowerment, and in building new systems that empower everyone.
You are interested on avoiding criticisms of the systems in which problems are occurring, denying the deeper structure of such systems, fatuously asserting their benevolence, and obstructing possibilities for transformation.
Your accusation about denying reality is dishonest.
You live beneath particular social systems sustained by ideals of a particular historic period, and refuse to see further, while deriding anyone even for trying.
Yeah, I’m an engineer. I’ve been a server, and I’ve washed dishes. I could go back to doing either of those, your average dishwasher could do neither of the others.
Some skills may be more common than others, but their distribution throughout the population is not the same as their occurrence within any natural ranking relative one to another.
Nature is that which occurs independent from the particular intentions of individuals or the particular configuration of society.
Human societies occur within nature. We utilize and transform facets of nature toward our needs and ends. That which we create or produce is not natural.
In various societies, members tend to express different behaviors, are subjected to different experiences, and have different roles and relationships.
At any rate, the distinction is not required in the immediate context. I am now repeating for the third time that the distribution of an item or class of item within a system is not the same as its intrinsic attributes.
While I see your point that all labor has value, skills can be significantly more or less involved to learn and master. There are labor jobs that require certification or ongoing licensure to perform and those that do not. There are roles that involve the health and safety of others and those that do not.
I think the skills involved between fast food and warehouse packing are probably pretty comparable overall, but a blanket statement of “all labor is equal” really doesn’t hold true.
Much to the contrary, every kind of labor is qualitatively different from another, and bound to skill that is qualitatively different from other skill.
Several other contributors to the discussion have conflated various measures related to investment for acquiring a particular skill, with the skill itself.
Skill is not a quantity, nor may it be quantified, nor emerges a natural ranking for skill of various kinds.
Yes a ranking for skill emerges. It emerges from the scarcity and need for that skill. If a skill takes decades to master, there will likely be an inherent scarcity of masters. Those masters are obviously more revered and rewarded, and they should be. If a dunce in only capable of putting things in boxes, something that literally anyone, as well as some animals can do, then they are relatively worthless.
I already addressed your conflation of occurrence within a population for a skill versus its intrinsic attributes, in response to your previous comment.
Different kinds of labor take different skills, not more or less, better or worse.
Some skills do take more time to learn. And sometimes, the job is safety relevant, meaning that it could cause harm to property and/or life if done poorly. If I was told that the guy who flips burgers at McDonalds had 1 month of training, I’d not be concerned. But if I was told that the surgeon about to operate on me had one month of training, I’d be freaking out.
Has anyone ever told you that you might receive an operation by a surgeon who had trained for only one month?
Is the hypothetical threat captured in your scenario relevant, credible, or realistic in relation to the particular distinctions from the context?
They were just demonstrating that the labor of the surgeon does actually require more skill. Because it does, objectively.
In this case it was a straw man argument.
The conversation was about how all labor is skilled labor, then you brought up an entirely audacious hyperbole about a specific career field and argued against your own example. Yes, surgeons need more training than a burger flipper, and yes, they deserve apt compensation for that disparity in time and expertise, but that does not mean that the burger flipper is “unskilled” or that the surgeon would be any more capable of flipping burgers because of their training to be a surgeon. Your “demonstration” was irrelevant to the topic at hand and constituted a bad faith argument. That is what you were being called out on, not the content of the argument itself.
Let’s take a look at the original thesis from @unfreeradical, shall we:
I consider ‘skill’ to be measurable by the amount of time needed to acquire it. You can take somebody fresh out of high school, and turn him into a competent fry cook in a month, but not into a competent surgeon. Hence the surgeon requires both more skill, as well as different skills. Therefore the surgeon/fry-cook example is a counterexample to the thesis, and thus disproves the thesis.
I never said that burger flippers are unskilled, or that they need no training, just that 1 month is enough to learn how to do it. So, basically you’re misrepresenting my argument to claim I’ve used a straw man argument.
No. They said that labor did not require more or less skill. They did not say that all labor is skilled labor. You, ironically, are fighting the straw man.
It was a strawman, or if you prefer, a bogeyman.
It’s not a strawman just because you miss the point so entirely.
Your point is that if you needed surgery, then you would want it performed other than by a cook with a dirty spatula.
Your point is meaningless.
No one suggested that someone performing surgery would not be properly trained.
Some skills surely are less common within some population, and some may require more training above the skill sets generally shared within a society.
No one is suggesting receiving surgery from an uncredentialed surgeon.
Are such observations broadly relevant or valuable, though, within the context?
You said that different labor does not take more or less skill. Perhaps you were trying to make a different point that you are now trying to tease out socraticly.
Do you think making false statements is a valuable approach? Do you think a job requiring less skill is a bad thing or that it should be respected any less than one that does?
I observed that different kinds of labor require skills that differ qualitatively, yet by the inherent attributes of labor emerges no particular ranking among the kinds.
What statements have I made that are inaccurate?
It is inaccurate to say that labor does not require more or less skill. That is what you said.
You are conflating a duration of time invested acquiring a particular skill, which is quantitative, and therefore may be ranked, if desired, with a skill itself.
Yes. Skill can be measured by the time needed to attain it. Since the skills needed by a surgeon take years to acquire, the surgeon requires more skill than the fry cook. This is a counterexample to your thesis. And by being a counterexample to your thesis, it is relevant and/or valuable. Unless of course, your thesis were to be considered irrelevant and worthless.
You are conflating a duration of time invested acquiring a particular skill, which is quantitative, and therefore may be ranked, if desired, with a skill itself.
What is your thesis?
Skills differ qualitatively, but not by expressing any natural ranking as greater or lesser one against another.
With the term ‘training’ I mean all job relevant education. As in, a surgeon whose entire medical education happened within 1 month, not a surgeon who graduated med school and then was trained for 1 month as a surgeon.
Yes, it illustrates that for some tasks, training is more essential than for other tasks. Also, why are you asking that?
You know medical training is on the job hands on and every doctor is expected statistically to kill someone, not simply not save someone but actively lead to their death in one way or another.
🐈 They do spend years in med school before they are allowed to kill a patient, though.
Sure, but the actual effective training starts day one of residency.
It certainly does not end before such a time.
Maybe.
And yet, they are not only more skilled than someone who is not a doctor, but also more so than their younger self. It’s almost as if one can garner more skill through experience.
The issue relates to whether various kinds of skill express a natural ranking .
Has any suggestion genuinely produced, as a credible concern, the scenario you described, or was it rather constructed as a bogeyman that would obstruct even criticism that is substantive and germane?
Unqualified workers in safety relevant professions causing damages or even loss of life has happened.
How was it suggested?
Except some skills are much harder to learn and some skills are much more valuable to society than others. I would argue the hard to learn, more valuable to society ones are “better”. I don’t think the people performing them are better or worse, but it’s fair to elevate and celebrate certain jobs over others.
Some skills are associated with greater barrier to acquisition, or are considered as higher in social value, but both attributes are inherently nebulous and overall unquantifiable.
Characterizing certain skills as better, though, based on such comparisons, even if, for the sake or argument, the validity of such comparisons were conceded, is simply a subjective appeal without any meaning deeper than personal preference or bald assertion.
Within the current system of labor organization, by which labor is commodified within the relations between worker and business, labor is valorized not by value to society, with every member of society participating equally in resolving a value for each kind of labor, but rather by the value of workers’ labor toward business interests captured beneath the profit motive, that is, value expressly to the owners of business.
My man, this is not an argument for or against capitalism.
If two skills are of relatively close societal value, and one is harder to do, learn and master, that craft deserves more respect.
This is not a reflection of any individual.
Society is not uniform or monolithic. Society has structure, including various relations based on interests that may be shared or antagonist.
Social value is not intrinsic to skill, nor to any other target of valorization, but rather determined from processes of valorization bound to the surrounding social systems.
It is unequivocal that our society valorizes labor not for benefit shared generally across the public, but specifically for its value to private business.
It is also questionable that a skill itself may carry a demand for respect that is separable from respect as understood by having a personal target.
You sound like a drunk person at a party arguing with the wall.
Between us, I am the only attempting to provide a meaningful contribution.
If you have one of your own, please offer it. Otherwise, stop making noise.
Skill set should not be a qualifier for a living wage, period.
So, there’s no reason to deny reality with regard to skill. It’s not a constructive contribution. It’s just noise, as you say.
Waxing on philosophic, while bending descriptions and definitions, in order to suit your ill-conceived concept of skill is unhelpful.
It removes the agency and accomplishments of workers. It is unneeded, insulting, and counterproductive.
Workers’ agency already has been removed.
Their accomplishments already are being plundered.
Otherwise, the discussion would not be occurring, and the conditions from which it emerged would be only fictional.
I am interested in criticizing the systems that have produced the disempowerment, and in building new systems that empower everyone.
You are interested on avoiding criticisms of the systems in which problems are occurring, denying the deeper structure of such systems, fatuously asserting their benevolence, and obstructing possibilities for transformation.
Your accusation about denying reality is dishonest.
You live beneath particular social systems sustained by ideals of a particular historic period, and refuse to see further, while deriding anyone even for trying.
Yeah, I’m an engineer. I’ve been a server, and I’ve washed dishes. I could go back to doing either of those, your average dishwasher could do neither of the others.
There is skilled labor. There is no such thing as unskilled labor.
Some skills may be more common than others, but their distribution throughout the population is not the same as their occurrence within any natural ranking relative one to another.
What? What is the natural distribution of aeronautics engineers?
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There is no natural distribution of any social role. A distribution is determined socially.
Further, I already addressed your conflation of occurrence within a population for a skill versus its intrinsic attributes.
You don’t think social forces are natural?
Nature is that which occurs independent from the particular intentions of individuals or the particular configuration of society.
Human societies occur within nature. We utilize and transform facets of nature toward our needs and ends. That which we create or produce is not natural.
In various societies, members tend to express different behaviors, are subjected to different experiences, and have different roles and relationships.
At any rate, the distinction is not required in the immediate context. I am now repeating for the third time that the distribution of an item or class of item within a system is not the same as its intrinsic attributes.
What gives you the right to define what nature is if that’s what it is?
I invoked the term originally, and later clarified the meaning, which is not in my experience controversial.
How do you understand nature?
Idk what takes more skills, but I sure as hell know that you won’t catch me dealing with fast food customers ever no matter how much you pay me
Dealing with abusive customers surely is a skill lacked by many workers generally, and thankfully not needed or even useful for many labor roles.
While I see your point that all labor has value, skills can be significantly more or less involved to learn and master. There are labor jobs that require certification or ongoing licensure to perform and those that do not. There are roles that involve the health and safety of others and those that do not.
I think the skills involved between fast food and warehouse packing are probably pretty comparable overall, but a blanket statement of “all labor is equal” really doesn’t hold true.
It was not implied that all labor is equal.
Much to the contrary, every kind of labor is qualitatively different from another, and bound to skill that is qualitatively different from other skill.
Several other contributors to the discussion have conflated various measures related to investment for acquiring a particular skill, with the skill itself.
Skill is not a quantity, nor may it be quantified, nor emerges a natural ranking for skill of various kinds.
Yes a ranking for skill emerges. It emerges from the scarcity and need for that skill. If a skill takes decades to master, there will likely be an inherent scarcity of masters. Those masters are obviously more revered and rewarded, and they should be. If a dunce in only capable of putting things in boxes, something that literally anyone, as well as some animals can do, then they are relatively worthless.
I already addressed your conflation of occurrence within a population for a skill versus its intrinsic attributes, in response to your previous comment.