SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
I looked it up at the Spanish Flu killed at least 15,000,000 over 2 years. I know Jay liked to say the COVID numbers were "Fake Numbers" but it is still something to go by. 1,000,000 people is still a tremendous amount when you consider the modern technology we have like ventilators, antibiotics, disinfectants, mass communication, automated manufacturing, and vaccination. It you unleashed COVID on 1918, it probably would have done as bad as the Spanish Flu. And keep in mind, 1,000,000 deaths and counting.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

Re: stem vs arts, again. Having taken stuff from both sides, anecdotally the majority of snobbery is coming from the stem side of the field. plenty of haughty comments about "soft subjects" overheard while taking electronics, but I don't remember a single moment where we exchanged snide quips about the IT guys or whatever on art class break.

I think sometimes people fire back at the stem snobs, who in turn can't process it. "art snobs!"
uziq
Member
+492|3422

SuperJail Warden wrote:

I looked it up at the Spanish Flu killed at least 15,000,000 over 2 years. I know Jay liked to say the COVID numbers were "Fake Numbers" but it is still something to go by. 1,000,000 people is still a tremendous amount when you consider the modern technology we have like ventilators, antibiotics, disinfectants, mass communication, automated manufacturing, and vaccination. It you unleashed COVID on 1918, it probably would have done as bad as the Spanish Flu. And keep in mind, 1,000,000 deaths and counting.
spanish flu's death figures were much worse for a whole lot of reasons, not least the much-talked-about 'cytokine storms' caused in the immune systems of the (many) young victims, who were recovering from a previous influenza epidemic. it's a little bit like the dreaded covid+flu combinations that people are talking about this winter.

also not to forget that sanitation, healthcare systems, resources etc. were totally nuked in the great war. (the fact that half the population of europe had either been uprooted or mobilized due to the war probably didn't help -- talk about a 'superspreader' event.)

1 million dead is a fearsome number, absolutely, especially in 9 months. another 250k could die by christmas alone. if the vaccines aren't widely successful and immediately effective, this thing could really go places. several of the world's most populous regions are still in their growing first wave, with no signs of it abating except for a deus ex machina-level vaccine.

Last edited by uziq (2020-09-29 11:32:03)

uziq
Member
+492|3422

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Re: stem vs arts, again. Having taken stuff from both sides, anecdotally the majority of snobbery is coming from the stem side of the field. plenty of haughty comments about "soft subjects" overheard while taking electronics, but I don't remember a single moment where we exchanged snide quips about the IT guys or whatever on art class break.

I think sometimes people fire back at the stem snobs, who in turn can't process it. "art snobs!"
it's probably the case that, sociologically speaking, most first-time university students go into the STEM. most upwardly mobile families, or people who want to 'get on', recommend their children go to a technical school/polytechnic/take something like engineering. ever since the sort of new deal-era onwards there has been a consistent push in the american culture to produce engineers and scientists, and so on. almost akin to how soviet russia imagined a caste of technocrat-scientists running ultra-modern machine cities with wild names like Magnitogorsk, or something. cold war. a 'the jetsons' future. etc.

so there has definitely been a valorization and push for it. the country 'needed' engineers; it was a useful job in the era of america's historical development and ascendancy, and has been accounted with relatively high-status ever since.

access to the arts and humanities, and jobs in the arts/culture industry/museum and heritage sector generally, has belonged to a tiny WASPish cadre. it's very 'coastal', including their best schools, unlike the industrial centres or large research campuses in the rust-belt/mid-west (where's the purdue of humanities? berkeley?). the sort of promotion of STEM and the taking-shape of this 'engineer' stereotype is coeval with the development of the modern research university, i.e. large grant institutions with heavy scientific/medical research activity. so there's a separate university culture away from those colonial-era originals and the ivies, with their distinctly neo-classical and european feel, their private clubs and divinity schools.

but i think it's a bit of a stretch to ever claim that the people from new england sending their kids to liberal arts colleges or the tisch school or vassar or whatever-the-fuck have spent their time making jokes about engineers. for what point? it's the post-1950s generations of 'modern' STEM graduates who have the giant chips on their shoulders.

Last edited by uziq (2020-09-29 11:44:00)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

There's probably a certain tragic irony in a stem guy finding unsolicited glee in an arts guy struggling to find steady, well-paying work. "Should've been an engineer!" And then said stem guy ending up serving coffee at a Starbucks as well.
uziq
Member
+492|3422
yeah, all the stereotypes about the job market never really had much veracity to them, and now they're just plainly out-of-date. besides, it's somewhat fashionable and 'bougie' for a 'struggling' philosophy PhD student to work in a coffee shop, or something. these sort of parallel part-time jobs that one does when adjuncting at a college, giving one time to think, read in public, blah blah blah. it's not always the same as privation and destitution. a philosophy postgrad or english major working at a coffee shop or something is only one lily-pad away from law school or selling their soul in the ad business, or whatever.

but anyway, those realities just aren't borne out anymore. now it's the computer science and engineers lot who are finding job-market disruption. dilbert can't stop bitching about the indians, the chinese, etc, just about anyone, really, who starts producing engineers or programmers in quantity.

if you want a reliable, well-paying job and a steady slot in the educated middle-class, the best option has always been to grab a vocation. dentists, physicians, surgeons, etc. mainly. which, see above for all those large research institutions with attached medical schools. that's the 'modern' university culture where all of your small-town-american physicians are coming from. there's probably several schools like it in every state i guess. incidentally, another cohort of people who do not give a fuck and don't spend their time quibbling over 'arts versus sciences' or 'humanities and history are gay lol'. it's only the neurotic fucking engineers.

Last edited by uziq (2020-09-29 11:53:51)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

There's probably a certain tragic irony in a stem guy finding unsolicited glee in an arts guy struggling to find steady, well-paying work. "Should've been an engineer!" And then said stem guy ending up serving coffee at a Starbucks as well.
It is a particular sickness to take joy in the suffering of the less fortunate after you get a modicum of success. Like use your new success to work on a hobby and mind your own business. Collect Magic Cards and harass women in Pennsylvania to build you boxes for it.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+794|6654|United States of America
I have a theory that the vast majority of engineers are just comfortable being miserable bastards. There's the odd few who are well-adjusted, but I did hear in college that they basically had sections of freshman engineering to explain "you're not going to be able to work by yourself on everything; stop being cunts".
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

DesertFox- wrote:

I have a theory that the vast majority of engineers are just comfortable being miserable bastards. There's the odd few who are well-adjusted, but I did hear in college that they basically had sections of freshman engineering to explain "you're not going to be able to work by yourself on everything; stop being cunts".
This does seem to go hand-in-hand with bootstraps fetishism in one part, and disparaging commentary on "group think" on the other. I remember a lot of angry buzz about group projects: how they supposedly taught kids to not think for themselves (as opposed to being able to work on projects as a team). Combining this with their intelligence being placed on a glass pedestal ("I must be so much better than my peers") for the duration of childhood/teen development has probably contributed to a great number of miserable loners who just want to be able to wall themselves off from other people at their job. "Don't go out with girls or they'll accuse you of rape" is, while more unrelated, probably another nail in this coffin.

There is some truth to classroom group projects sometimes being carried by maybe one or two students in said group, so there's room for improvement there. For one, maybe teachers should more closely monitor these projects and make that work isn't being monopolized, for the learning benefit of all group members.
uziq
Member
+492|3422
the irony is that all the best scientific and engineering achievements are, by and large, collaborative.

i wonder how many chinese students or engineers have a huge problem with working in groups? i doubt they have the same special snowflake narcissism.
uziq
Member
+492|3422
https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/covid_third_wave_2.jpg?w=800&quality=85

https://time.com/5893916/covid-19-coron … =100861857

Last edited by uziq (2020-09-30 18:06:33)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
100,000 daily cases by Christmas.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 … tary-chief

Russia is seeking to destabilise countries around the world by sowing disinformation about coronavirus vaccines that is shared rapidly across social media, the head of the armed forces has warned.

Gen Sir Nick Carter, the chief of defence staff, said the propaganda tactic reflected a strategy of “political warfare” aggressively undertaken by Beijing as well as Moscow “designed to undermine cohesion” across the west.

The senior general accused “autocratic rivals” of “manipulating the information environment” to exploit the Covid-19 crisis for strategic gain – including “pro-Russian vaccine politics” – in a speech at the Policy Exchange thinktank.

Their “disinformation narratives” were designed to permeate anti-vaccination social media groups, Carter added, pointing to an example uncovered earlier this summer by Australian researchers that spread rapidly from Ukraine.

In July, a fake press release was posted to websites of the pro-Russian self-declared state in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine. It falsely claimed that the US had conducted vaccine trials on Ukrainian volunteers, some of whom had died.

The trials never happened but the misleading narrative spread in several languages, including on a prominent Australian anti-vaccination Facebook group, despite multiple attempts to fact-check and debunk it.


Carter said it was an example of “digital authoritarianism” alongside well-known Kremlin cyber and hacking attacks, in a rare policy speech delivered with the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, sitting alongside him.
Superior Mind
(not macbeth)
+1,755|6662
What measures could the US govt take to regain the trust of the people- American or not? I don’t think there will be a good resolution to the issue of institutionalized narcissism that is the guiding ethos of American exceptionalism. I don’t think Russia or China will stop their subversion tactics until the war goes hot or America is no more. Will the hackers save us?
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
I think we as a nation need to swallow some hard pills and come to accept that we aren't as great of a country as we imagine. Unfortunately there is a third of the country who will take personal offense to that because being an American is part of their identity in the way that isn't true for most other people. Now accepting that our best days are behind us isn't just an America problem. Russia and the U.K. have this issue too.

One of the hard truths we need to come to accept is that our political openness and diversity is not well suited to great power politics especially in this century. If we genuinely want to compete with China we need to reform and give up on some of the things we have become comfortable with both material and social. We have a very stark choice: turn inward and focus on bettering ourselves domestically and improving the lives of Americans in a system we currently live in or evolve into a more centralized and authoritarian state capable of taking actions that while domestically difficult would improve our international power and prestige.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

I'm of the opinion that the US pulling its collective head out of its ass on a national level, and coming to a large consensus that there is always room for improvement, is actually a more patriotic approach than "la la la greatest country blah blah!"
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

I'm of the opinion that the US pulling its collective head out of its ass on a national level, and coming to a large consensus that there is always room for improvement, is actually a more patriotic approach than "la la la greatest country blah blah!"
"Why do you hate America"?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6075|eXtreme to the maX

Superior Mind wrote:

What measures could the US govt take to regain the trust of the people- American or not? I don’t think there will be a good resolution to the issue of institutionalized narcissism that is the guiding ethos of American exceptionalism.
Take religions and corporations out of the 'democratic' process.
LMAO only kidding.

I don’t think Russia or China will stop their subversion tactics until the war goes hot or America is no more.
Probably the second one, they won't need to fight a war.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

Proposed conspiracy theory:

Trump contracts coronavirus intentionally for the sympathy vote.
uziq
Member
+492|3422
actually worked for boris for two weeks.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6075|eXtreme to the maX
Could Pence nuke Iran if he had a week to himself?
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3422
if you want to see clear proof that the johnson brood are psychopathic, observe that stanley johnson, boris's father and noted public chucklefuck, has been spotted multiple times since boris's near-death experience breaking mask-wearing rules and international travel rules.

imagine sitting at a bedside in an ICU, watching your son possibly die, and then the next week going out grocery shopping with blithe disregard for the mask-wearing measures. jetting off to greece for a holiday during the peak of a pandemic wave.

these people should be neutered.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-02 03:15:39)

uziq
Member
+492|3422
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0ea9ea058669c9cfa9e15d3b53b11be6174e9265/0_0_3500_2203/master/3500.jpg?width=860&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=c2165690746a4a83c611f84152aa0b5f
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
It's really strange that all of the world leaders who down play the virus end up getting it. I wonder what the connection is.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422
ha ha ha. yes very true. if only there was an equivalent ‘cold shower’ experience for climate change denialists. oh wait, half of america is on fire.

The president has had what one person described as cold-like symptoms. At a fund-raiser he attended at his golf club at Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday, where one attendee said the president came in contact with about 100 people, he seemed lethargic.

A person briefed on the matter said that Mr. Trump fell asleep at one point on Air Force One on the way back from a rally in Minnesota on Wednesday night.


i’m getting my flu jab done next week. i was actually quite ill with it last year, over the new year period. took to bed for 10 days. i think over 30 you should
really start taking these things more seriously. it’s a loss to productivity and motivation, if nothing else.

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