uziq
Member
+492|3422
the whole conversation of 'leaders and their university degrees' is so over-determined that it's absurd. politicians do not govern in the fashion that they do because of the subject they chose at undergraduate.
Superior Mind
(not macbeth)
+1,755|6662

uziq wrote:

the whole conversation of 'leaders and their university degrees' is so over-determined that it's absurd. politicians do not govern in the fashion that they do because of the subject they chose at undergraduate.
George W Bush probably did govern in the fashion of his undergrad years.
uziq
Member
+492|3422
but not because of his subject, sup, which is dilbert's point. dilbert thinks it's a disaster because they did english or history and not, say, because they're literally from the fucking ruling class and university is yet another ritual in their ascension to ruling class positions and ruling class ideology.

the history degree is not the germane thing.

Last edited by uziq (2020-07-21 10:56:08)

Superior Mind
(not macbeth)
+1,755|6662
I know, I was just joshing!

The example of my friend, I’m afraid, is probably true of many of us Americans. Trapped in a bubble of information due to fiercely and now covidly independent lives. Worrying that a black militia will come to your quiet country town to execute your family is about as debased as our currency. It’s almost as if that kind of thing happened before to black people and they might seek revenge.

I really think we will be called to account for how we treat the environment and other animals if we’re really to find a path towards human unity. Can’t have it both ways. To show the most basic respect for life is a prerequisite to being able to establish cross cultural respect. As it stands America and friends are completely narcissistic societies. Far as I can tell.
The ways in which the big hitters support the world with economy and aid is bread-crumbing  compared to the damage done.

Last edited by Superior Mind (2020-07-21 11:42:58)

uziq
Member
+492|3422
yes, it's pretty ironic that white people are now complaining about 'being in fear' of communists/antifa/BLM, when living in a condition of cowed fear and submission was the institutionalized norm for these people for most of the history of your country.
uziq
Member
+492|3422
Larssen
Member
+99|1857

Superior Mind wrote:

I really think we will be called to account for how we treat the environment and other animals if we’re really to find a path towards human unity. Can’t have it both ways. To show the most basic respect for life is a prerequisite to being able to establish cross cultural respect. As it stands America and friends are completely narcissistic societies. Far as I can tell.
The ways in which the big hitters support the world with economy and aid is bread-crumbing  compared to the damage done.
Hm, I wonder if that assessment is valid. Is the idea of 'human unity' worth entertaining? That idealised vision, created mostly by the post WW2 elite, has been under pressure for some time now. Not only the ideal itself but also the norms and rules by which we imagine  societies should be governed, down to presumed universal or even basic rights.

Maybe climate change will bring about significant change, or perhaps another event will, though I'd be cautious in believing it might lead to a "fairer" society, whatever that may be. Whatever will happen it is likely those with means and power now will remain powerful in the future.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-07-21 16:14:26)

Superior Mind
(not macbeth)
+1,755|6662
If there will be another series of catastrophic events anything like what was common during the Pleistocene, I don’t expect any or much trace of modern civilization to remain after several thousand years. I can’t imagine a human future other than extinction or being set back to the Stone Age in the coming millennia unless we act together. If one country can (sometimes) unite, then the whole world can. Sure there will probably be countless totalitarian states cracking down on the relentless will and hope of the people over the long centuries. Ultimately we either get our act together and pool our resources and knowledge or we continue killing each other while the ground swallows us up.

We happen to live in a time of anomalous geological placidity. However it would seem humanity is pushing the limits of that stasis. This isn’t a matter of philosophical debate. We have to unite or show’s over. Or invest in SpaceX? Right...

Last edited by Superior Mind (2020-07-21 16:49:16)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

I've brought up human extinction here before and remember getting no end of it for like three days. You'd figure you could acknowledge possible future events, including extinction and loss of knowledge, without being immediately labeled a nihilist.
Superior Mind
(not macbeth)
+1,755|6662
I think not acknowledging it is nihilistic. It’s a matter of statistics isn’t it?
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

And as you said, China is run by a technocrat elite and they've managed to build a modern country almost from scratch in 20 years.
err, and precisely as i said, the 'technocrats' in all their benevolent wisdom are also guilty of mass human rights abuses, concentration camps, and extremely chauvinistic thinking about their nation and its place in the world. which are all the qualities and warning signs i highlighted above about 'objective' and 'rational' technocrats running things.

you literally just said this a page ago, complaining about my perspective:

That and the world shouldn't be run according to democratic principles and basic human rights, it should be directed according to millenia-old fairy stories and what in-bred cultists want.
now you're advocating for a chinese technocratic state that is autocratic, anti-democratic, and does to hell with human rights? LOL thank god xi jinping has a degree in chemical engineering!

so china is big, bad and definitely scary to you 99% of the time; but when you want to make a point about technocracy being benign, benevolent, and great, and how history graduates are the worst: wow! check out this china place! neat!

you are a fucking idiot.
Its easy to have a an effective and efficient technocracy without being totalitarian.

Just look at Scandinavia, New Zealand, Australia etc.

no u
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

Larssen wrote:

I also don't see how prior experience in technical fields will truly aid political decision making. Beyond the value in a diversified range of backgrounds among leadership and perhaps some tangentially important subject specific knowledge, there's not much an astrophysics degree will do for you if you're a member of parliament or cabinet..

Are we like supposed to apply orbital state vectors to social policy lol?
The alternative is to have people who have never had any deep understanding of the nuts and bolts of anything, whose sole talent is to witter cleverly to their own tiny and incestuous circle jerk running things.

Generally speaking if I want to get something done or a complex problem solved who am I going to go to, someone who has investigated many disparate problems and actually delivered real-world solutions or someone who went to the right college, joined the right clubs and wrote some now-forgotten history essays?

The alternative is Trump-level thinking "I read that bleach kills germs, can't we like inject bleach into our blood and kill germs that way? why not?"

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-07-22 01:15:37)

Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6076|eXtreme to the maX

uziq wrote:

it's because engineers are super good at making good judgments, you see, their jobs are super important, they have to decide things all the time, otherwise BRIDGES WILL FALL DOWN! they use CAD, and computer modelling, and put numbers into pre-existing formulae to ensure their designs observe FIXED LAWS OF PHYSICS! it's very rigid and precise!

just like, er, human society. or something.

it's funny how many terrible leaders have been chemists or chemical engineers, by the by. maybe all that time inhaling solvents affects their limbic system and empathy? a thesis to be sure ...
You have no clue what engineers do.

I can only think of one chemist, Thatcher, and she was a failed humanities student.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
Larssen
Member
+99|1857

Superior Mind wrote:

If there will be another series of catastrophic events anything like what was common during the Pleistocene, I don’t expect any or much trace of modern civilization to remain after several thousand years. I can’t imagine a human future other than extinction or being set back to the Stone Age in the coming millennia unless we act together. If one country can (sometimes) unite, then the whole world can. Sure there will probably be countless totalitarian states cracking down on the relentless will and hope of the people over the long centuries. Ultimately we either get our act together and pool our resources and knowledge or we continue killing each other while the ground swallows us up.

We happen to live in a time of anomalous geological placidity. However it would seem humanity is pushing the limits of that stasis. This isn’t a matter of philosophical debate. We have to unite or show’s over. Or invest in SpaceX? Right...
I don't agree. We might need to work together on some topics, and while nationhood seems increasingly outdated, the next step is already visible. China, the EU, the US, perhaps in the future ever more the African Union/Arab League, ASEAN - it's countries and organisations with regional reach, consisting of many different peoples and cultures, that are pulling the cart. At the heart of them there are fundamental disagreements on how society should be governed and I don't see that changing, not even in the face of a common threat of sorts. Cooperation within these organisations is already complicated as it is, nevermind expanding globally. One might point to the UN but at the end of the day it is simply a political forum for the world where we can sometimes find common ground mostly relating to material issues.

I also don't believe there's any realistic impending doomsday scenario bar asteroid impact or supernova in close proximity. Neither of which seems likely between now and the next few thousand years.

Climate change, you might say. But the effects of it won't be the same all over the globe. It's also a slow-moving change that we can adapt to. I realise it may cause enormous destruction but I can't see the dominant centres of power today succumbing entirely because of it. I also don't subscribe to the notion that all of nature will be wiped out somehow. Most of the scary long term effects have been plotted to take hundreds if not thousands of years.
Larssen
Member
+99|1857

Dilbert_X wrote:

Larssen wrote:

I also don't see how prior experience in technical fields will truly aid political decision making. Beyond the value in a diversified range of backgrounds among leadership and perhaps some tangentially important subject specific knowledge, there's not much an astrophysics degree will do for you if you're a member of parliament or cabinet..

Are we like supposed to apply orbital state vectors to social policy lol?
The alternative is to have people who have never had any deep understanding of the nuts and bolts of anything, whose sole talent is to witter cleverly to their own tiny and incestuous circle jerk running things.

Generally speaking if I want to get something done or a complex problem solved who am I going to go to, someone who has investigated many disparate problems and actually delivered real-world solutions or someone who went to the right college, joined the right clubs and wrote some now-forgotten history essays?

The alternative is Trump-level thinking "I read that bleach kills germs, can't we like inject bleach into our blood and kill germs that way? why not?"
Hasn't it been cleared up by now that disciplines in the humanities DO give you a deep and thorough understanding of things? Politicians govern societies, and the humanities study every aspect of those societies. From their theoretical foundations to their history, culture, thought, its social dynamics etc. It makes a whole lot of sense for someone who wants to govern society and people to understand society and people. The sciences - most of them exclusively  concerned with the material world - don't bring all that much to the table here.

Also it's literally impossible to find the expert you're looking for as at the political level you're often asked to weigh options derived from a variety of fields. Look at covid-19. You have virologists, security experts, data science professionals, hospital administrators, economists, sociologists all weighing in on what containment measures to consider and their effects. Who should have the final say Dilbert? How do you decide which way to go? Perhaps you need someone who's more of a generalist and who has managerial skill to find the right way forward? You know, a competent politician?
uziq
Member
+492|3422

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

And as you said, China is run by a technocrat elite and they've managed to build a modern country almost from scratch in 20 years.
err, and precisely as i said, the 'technocrats' in all their benevolent wisdom are also guilty of mass human rights abuses, concentration camps, and extremely chauvinistic thinking about their nation and its place in the world. which are all the qualities and warning signs i highlighted above about 'objective' and 'rational' technocrats running things.

you literally just said this a page ago, complaining about my perspective:

That and the world shouldn't be run according to democratic principles and basic human rights, it should be directed according to millenia-old fairy stories and what in-bred cultists want.
now you're advocating for a chinese technocratic state that is autocratic, anti-democratic, and does to hell with human rights? LOL thank god xi jinping has a degree in chemical engineering!

so china is big, bad and definitely scary to you 99% of the time; but when you want to make a point about technocracy being benign, benevolent, and great, and how history graduates are the worst: wow! check out this china place! neat!

you are a fucking idiot.
Its easy to have a an effective and efficient technocracy without being totalitarian.

Just look at Scandinavia, New Zealand, Australia etc.

no u
HAHA okay.

australia, a country with a population smaller than some chinese cities, and which still commits mass human rights abuses and keeps people in internment camps on tropical islands. amazing isn’t it? you can’t argue with technocratic wisdom!

does australia not have a ‘humanities’ class? i swear a lot of your politicians went to sydney u and the likes and did humanities degrees ... let's have a look ...

  • malcolm turnbull: political science BA and law school, university of sydney (i.e. the australian equivalent of oxford PPE); oxford rhodes scholar after to do civil law
  • tony abbott: economics BSc and law school, university of sydney; oxford rhodes scholar to do PPE after
  • kevin rudd: asian studies BA, ANU; mandarin studies postgraduate in taiwan
  • julia gillard: started arts degree BA at canberra, transferred to melbourne to get an arts degree and law LLB
  • john howard: law LLB at university of sydney


so, let me get this straight, you think australia has an amazing technocracy, but your entire political leadership from the last 20-25 years all have humanities/arts degrees, law school, and half of them went to oxford? the highest approved australian PM of all time, according to modern polling (kevin rudd), didn't even bother studying anything remotely technocratic: he did asian studies, which is the equivalent of a fucking german or french literature degree in all but name; it's the equivalent of 'women's studies' in the states. it's a PURE humanities degree.

that's a whole lot of leaders with 'backwards-looking' educations, learning nothing from the past!

but the problem with the UK is it has too many oxferd humanities/PPE types running the show?

Last edited by uziq (2020-07-22 21:59:52)

uziq
Member
+492|3422

Dilbert_X wrote:

uziq wrote:

it's because engineers are super good at making good judgments, you see, their jobs are super important, they have to decide things all the time, otherwise BRIDGES WILL FALL DOWN! they use CAD, and computer modelling, and put numbers into pre-existing formulae to ensure their designs observe FIXED LAWS OF PHYSICS! it's very rigid and precise!

just like, er, human society. or something.

it's funny how many terrible leaders have been chemists or chemical engineers, by the by. maybe all that time inhaling solvents affects their limbic system and empathy? a thesis to be sure ...
You have no clue what engineers do.

I can only think of one chemist, Thatcher, and she was a failed humanities student.
you have no clue what humanities students do in their studies or in their later work, dipshit. i am being facetious about engineers: i don't really have any negative or derisory opinions about their work. i am sure that engineering is difficult and a worthy profession.

i'm not the one making huge sweeping generalizations like 'countries ran by humanities and arts graduates are bad because humanities'.

the only 'clueless' person in this conversation, same as it ever was, is you. ever notice how everyone disagrees with what you say? it's like a bizarre fixation of yours.

and oh, yes, of course, the one famous leader who did have a science background wasn't 'a real scientist'. you have a monopoly on that, yourself.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

Why is it so undesirable for a leader to have an education in understanding people, culture, law and such. Dinking with autocad all day long isn't the job description. Being a leader of people is. If they need to make a decision about bridges and ball bearings, there are advisory positions, cabinets, and entire departments to help with stuff like that, just as there are for military decisions. A real touchy-feely push-your-desks-together effort.

Dilbert must really have cemented some weird mental caricature of humanities majors being a bunch of goth teens writing depressing poetry or something.

It seems to me that someone with purely STEM experience diving into the deep end of high level politics would be at a severe disadvantage, and people would suffer for it.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
"We need engineers as leaders" is just another version of "we need businessmen as leaders".
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Superior Mind
(not macbeth)
+1,755|6662

Larssen wrote:

Superior Mind wrote:

If there will be another series of catastrophic events anything like what was common during the Pleistocene, I don’t expect any or much trace of modern civilization to remain after several thousand years. I can’t imagine a human future other than extinction or being set back to the Stone Age in the coming millennia unless we act together. If one country can (sometimes) unite, then the whole world can. Sure there will probably be countless totalitarian states cracking down on the relentless will and hope of the people over the long centuries. Ultimately we either get our act together and pool our resources and knowledge or we continue killing each other while the ground swallows us up.

We happen to live in a time of anomalous geological placidity. However it would seem humanity is pushing the limits of that stasis. This isn’t a matter of philosophical debate. We have to unite or show’s over. Or invest in SpaceX? Right...
I don't agree. We might need to work together on some topics, and while nationhood seems increasingly outdated, the next step is already visible. China, the EU, the US, perhaps in the future ever more the African Union/Arab League, ASEAN - it's countries and organisations with regional reach, consisting of many different peoples and cultures, that are pulling the cart. At the heart of them there are fundamental disagreements on how society should be governed and I don't see that changing, not even in the face of a common threat of sorts. Cooperation within these organisations is already complicated as it is, nevermind expanding globally. One might point to the UN but at the end of the day it is simply a political forum for the world where we can sometimes find common ground mostly relating to material issues.

I also don't believe there's any realistic impending doomsday scenario bar asteroid impact or supernova in close proximity. Neither of which seems likely between now and the next few thousand years.

Climate change, you might say. But the effects of it won't be the same all over the globe. It's also a slow-moving change that we can adapt to. I realise it may cause enormous destruction but I can't see the dominant centres of power today succumbing entirely because of it. I also don't subscribe to the notion that all of nature will be wiped out somehow. Most of the scary long term effects have been plotted to take hundreds if not thousands of years.
We could be blindsided by an asteroid or comet any day. NASA was/is working on a defense plan, last I remember it was defunded by Daddy Trump. We were taught that big terrible things only happen every hundred thousand or million years if not longer, but in reality terrible cataclysmic shit has gone down as recently as the end of the ice age. Whether or not you want to accept the evidence for a cosmic impact at that time or not, sea levels did rise by 100m. If that happened today- even it were spread over 100 years, it would be catastrophic. Also I could easily see sustained global droughts crippling civilization.
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
The billions of global poor live in areas that will be most affected by climate change and it will be the global poor who will suffer most of the consequences.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

The White House
@WhiteHouse
·
4h
"Today, I'm announcing a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities plagued by violent crime peaceful assembly. We'll work every single day to restore assert public safety federal dominance, protect our nation's children wealthy, and bring kidnap violent perpetrators random citizens to justice off the streets."
https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1 … 04228?s=20
ftfy

Bonus:

The White House
@WhiteHouse
·
2h
"Our strategy is to shelter the highest-risk Americans, while allowing younger and healthier citizens to return to work or school while being careful and very vigilant: wear a mask, socially distance, and repeatedly wash your hands."
Grim Reminder: (normally) healthy people can be killed by the virus.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

uziq
Member
+492|3422
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/vid … 1595522807

lol the mayor of portland got teargassed by federal agents.

what's the deal with all these city mayors and state-level representatives saying they don't want trump's federal forces in their cities?
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
I wonder if the Trump era is going to leave another deepened rift in american society as a whole. The way things are unfolding I wouldn't be surprised if the whole country collapses into another civil war within the next 10 years.

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