BF2S Forums Pandemic thread

Any engineer worth their crusty salt can tell you that it's bad luck to have a woman design a bridge.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Only navy sailors would be upset about women in the workplace. Why would anyone want to spend 6 hours a day with just men?

i don’t really even know what jay’s remark was getting at. ‘a woman’s job’. what does it mean? white-collar office work? work where your nails don’t get grimy? work that doesn’t involve sweating? it’s like he never left his hick town on long island and imagines he’s still coming home on a trawler at the end of every working day.

publishing has historically been a man’s world. editors especially. how many famous women editors have there been of newspapers or publishing houses? you can probably put it on one hand. it’s almost the embodiment of ‘the old boy’s’ club, (what was) a networked world of private clubs and long liquid lunches, the pub at 2pm, fraternising. men dominated books and they had male editors. i still regularly find senior academics or writers who would prefer to speak to a man, only address their emails ‘dear sir,’ etc. sexism is rife, as in many careers.

publishing is changing. most of the lower positions now have a good gender balance. lots of young women join houses as editorial assistants or become agent’s assistants. but the higher positions are still dominated by men. it’s a lot like schools in this regard. a lot of work is still to be done. but still, who the fuck is going to complain about a near-steady stream of 20-something women coming into the workplace, fresh out of elite grad schools and impeccably styled? even being narrowly misogynist, i can’t see the objection.

it’s telling he has to keep dressing up being an air conditioning technician as a ‘respected career’. as if parents are hoping their kids opt for HVAC rather than that MD/JD. as if people’s eyes open wide at neighbourhood BBQ’s when he starts describing his work of ambling around building sites in steel cap boots with a compliance list on a clipboard. wow!!! man’s work!

Last edited by uziq (2020-05-03 03:55:52)

Spectacular.

"My house is in god's hands."

I imagine any number of spikes won't affect the opinions of some people on the virus and measures in place to contain it. It's going to be difficult for people to not be frustrated at the financial ruin ahead. A $1500 check doesn't amount to a hill of beans in some areas of the country. Entire families being virtually wiped out overnight is something that happens to other people, so they will focus on the more "immediate" threats such as food, electricity, and mass evictions.

(Admittedly in other cases people aren't concerned so much about the essentials as they are just mad they can't go to the park or beach or have big BBQs with the whole neighborhood. Dumb.)

What annoys me about some farmers is the passive aggressive way they bring their profession into completely unrelated social debates. "You like eating, right?"

Pochsy wrote:

"Farmers feed cities" is my personal favorite. Any time they feel small they bust that one out like the white collar workers they're talking to can't contemplate the most basic functioning of the supply chain.

People were upset that Mike Bloomberg told a white collar crowd once that "I can teach anyone here how to be a farmer. You dig a hole, put in a seed, and add some water".

i have no disrespect to the work of farmers. but they seem like a group with very little political foresight. they regularly vote in and support things that are patently not in their best interest.

a huge amount of farming subsidies and favourable trading arrangements came to UK farmers from the EU. a bunch of landowning gentry-types effectively voted to pull out the rug underneath their own feet. then they complain that they can't get the staff and their subsidies have disappeared. in america farmers vote in a guy who prosecutes trade wars on their behalf -- and loses bigly. it's hard to have pity for people who piss upstream into wind.

Last edited by uziq (2020-05-03 17:32:44)

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Expecting gratitude for work put into an essential service like farming probably shouldn't extend into expanding bible study into public schools, or allowing businesses to fire someone for being outed as a homosexual.

To be fair, there is more to farming than putting a seed in the ground and watering it. Having a tomato garden doesn't make you a horticulturist. Agriculture is a science, after all. But as with other fields, there are different degrees of qualification. I think some farmers tend to talk up what they know to a silly degree.

Bloomberg's point was that teaching someone how to farm was easier than teaching them high tech jobs like programming and engineering. And before you say "there is engineering and programming in agriculture", no farmers are programming farming machine operating systems or designing combine engine in AutoCAD.

americans are lethally fat because the government heavily subsidises corn. it's all shit corn that can only be chewed by cattle, as well. the vast majority of it ends up as high-fructose corn syrup. which ends up in every single food product imaginable. american bread tastes like candy. they are all dying of obesity because american farmers need the government to continue their artificial survival. sad!

Do have to remind people that farming is one of the most essential services and that you do not want to be very dependent on a long international supply chain for your food consumption. Farming is a protected profession and has to remain so even if it is uncompetitive. That is probably the most important reason to subsidise the industry over any others.

We're now noticing our dependency on China and others for essential production can pose real problems. There has to be a solution in the future for domestic, flexible rapid scale up in these areas so that we're not resigned to importing basic medical equipment and test kits or other stuff when a crisis hits. It's an important reason corona escalated in the west.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-05-04 00:39:24)

Maybe people would like to go back to spending 40% of their income on food

LOL you sound like a remainer commenting on britain's food supply/agricultural workers.

even with a ready supply of cheap (some would say exploitative) labour from abroad to do the non-automatable bits, UK and US farmers, as well as french farmers, german farmers, dutch farmers (i could go on) have been heavily protected by government intervention and protectionist trade policies. the US and UK farmer is an endangered animal being preserved by immense subsidies.

if you're all for decoupling yourself from the tyranny of the EU, divorcing ourselves from chinese supply lines, etc, then you better be ready to put your money where your mouth is and start paying more for everyday items and comestibles.

being accustomed to cheap food and wasteful consumption does have something to do with it, you're right, in much the same way that our addiction to 'fast fashion' from generic super-factories in the far-east has undermined a lot of the traditional high-street/small boutique and ruined half the planet and its water supply.

Last edited by uziq (2020-05-04 02:44:27)

i didn't say i wasn't. you have to ask what the people who are anti-chinese manufacturing and anti-EU are proposing as feasible alternatives.