Some confounds/conflations in the above? Like, I agree with the truth value of the specific examples you’ve cited, but I think I disagree with the implicit claim that they’re necessarily entangled with the thing Kaj is quoting.
e.g. yes, juvenile military institutions don’t prevent people from being deliquent or discourage future criminality, but that’s not to say that they don’t cause those people, while embedded, to be reliable for object-level tasks and deadlines.
Similarly, the absolute horror and chaos that was Vietnam War combat, and the subsequent shredding of the psyches of people who didn’t volunteer to be there, seems fundamentally different from e.g. modern duty on an aircraft carrier or WWII quartermastering. It doesn’t seem incoherent or contradictory to say both [military culture promotes reliability] and also [being drafted in Vietnam screws you up, military schools don’t fix teenage delinquency].
I also note that both examples cited talk about people who don’t self-select in, which—if relevant—wouldn’t surprise me.
I think “implausible because personality traits are pretty stubborn” is an overconfident statement—personality traits are pretty stubborn, but being thoroughly embedded in a culture that forces you to practice certain skills and surrounds you with coherent social pressures is also pretty stubborn. And in point of fact, while within that context, culture clearly dominates over personality traits, whatever else happens afterwards.
If I’ve misunderstood your claims, please forgive and correct—I feel like I might’ve missed your crux.
Some confounds/conflations in the above? Like, I agree with the truth value of the specific examples you’ve cited, but I think I disagree with the implicit claim that they’re necessarily entangled with the thing Kaj is quoting.
e.g. yes, juvenile military institutions don’t prevent people from being deliquent or discourage future criminality, but that’s not to say that they don’t cause those people, while embedded, to be reliable for object-level tasks and deadlines.
Similarly, the absolute horror and chaos that was Vietnam War combat, and the subsequent shredding of the psyches of people who didn’t volunteer to be there, seems fundamentally different from e.g. modern duty on an aircraft carrier or WWII quartermastering. It doesn’t seem incoherent or contradictory to say both [military culture promotes reliability] and also [being drafted in Vietnam screws you up, military schools don’t fix teenage delinquency].
I also note that both examples cited talk about people who don’t self-select in, which—if relevant—wouldn’t surprise me.
I think “implausible because personality traits are pretty stubborn” is an overconfident statement—personality traits are pretty stubborn, but being thoroughly embedded in a culture that forces you to practice certain skills and surrounds you with coherent social pressures is also pretty stubborn. And in point of fact, while within that context, culture clearly dominates over personality traits, whatever else happens afterwards.
If I’ve misunderstood your claims, please forgive and correct—I feel like I might’ve missed your crux.