US Politics Mega-thread - Page 8533

On August 24 2017 01:25 oBlade wrote:
Now? You never heard of the Fourth Estate?

On August 24 2017 01:34 Toadesstern wrote:
it's one thing seeing news about Trump talking all this crap to try and hype up his base and wondering how bad the cult might actually end up.
It's another to actually see people on here group up people, in this case journalists, into one "class" of people and to see an argument about how those (presumedly) fellow Americans (from your pov) are the literaly "enemy of the people"...

On August 24 2017 01:33 Falling wrote:
Right of centre professors still exist; no one says they don't. I think statistically they just exist in smaller numbers and the numbers get smaller all the time- Canada is pretty left leaning academically, I understand, but I found conservative instructors and professors... I wonder if there was a selection bias though. I tended to choose history courses with descriptions that included words like 'military' 'imperial' 'political history' or 'European' aka the dreaded history of the old, dead, white man and I wonder if one can more reliably find them there. My sociology professor was an outright Marxist (His advice: ignore USSR and China, read Das Kapital).

On August 24 2017 01:35 Plansix wrote:

They are not a class, it's a profession. They are not appointed.

On August 24 2017 01:49 oBlade wrote:

The class analysis is an old and common idea and it's funny to see the knee-jerk ridicule because mention of it is coming from someone out of your group. They're not elected, are they? They're appointed among themselves to tell you how to think and what to believe, this is a serious responsibility that's not often coupled with competence.

There is no other such job that lets you leapfrog the rest of society to get access to actual people with power, accomplishments, intelligence, achievements, capital, and so forth, and spam them with inane gibberish and then selectively reprint only the most provocative results and deliver huge pieces of media to massive audiences despite having an expert or even working knowledge in no field whatsoever. Because you did journalism at NYU? Your edification is not the objective of the media, it's really not your friend, if you've read a book and read a newspaper the difference is astounding, newspaper is sophistry almost without fail. It's not that there isn't a lot of stuff happening all the time that you should know about, either.

On August 24 2017 01:52 KwarK wrote:

It's not clear from this post that you have a working grasp of what journalism is.

On August 24 2017 01:02 IgnE wrote:


have you considered the rival rival explanation? that republican principles and policies are largely so intellectually and morally bankrupt that educated, thoughtful people would be too embarrassed to ever identify as such even if they ultimately want to pay lower taxes?

my anecdotal evidence suggests that highly educated conservatives are more likely to identify as independent or even, god forbid, libertarian, than to identify as a republican. its like admitting to being a brain dead simpleton.

On August 24 2017 01:11 KwarK wrote:
Incidentally on the liberal colleges front, had my first lecture with a new professor last night and in his introduction to the course he said he was "skipping" Title IX because he didn't do political correctness. Title IX protects people from discrimination and harassment on the grounds of their sex. Apparently that was too politically correct for him. In the time he saved by skipping Title IX he was able to tell us all about Atlas Shrugged and how it changed his life.

I don't think there is very much crossover between people who believe colleges are a massive liberal indoctrination camp and people who have been to a college.

n a steep slope just inland from Waldport, Oregon, a young forestry worker named Jared Foster is at the controls of a large machine called a forwarder. The machine, made by Finnish company Ponnse, looks like it was designed by Michael Bay.

The front section contains a climate-controlled cabin, in which Foster sits, listening to a country music station as he works. The back features a large, articulated mechanical arm with a yellow claw, and a cage that can hold up to 20 metric tons of felled timber. The whole thing is tethered by a steel cable to a large stump at the top of the slope, to keep it from careening down the hill.

In the cab, Foster manipulates a joystick that controls the arm, which gathers up felled Douglas Fir trees as if they were Jenga sticks. It’s taken him a year to master it, and his training has included time on simulators. His supervisor, Matt Mattioda of Miller Lumber, says: “It’s as complicated as flying a plane.” Eventually, when there’s an opening, Jared will get his chance to run the even more daunting harvester that can clear a patch of firs in minutes.

Mattioda and other experts hope the new machines might help the logging industry solve its millennial problem: young people are not attracted to a life in the forest.

He says that the machines are nothing short of a technological revolution for the industry. “A few years back we would have had to clear a slope like this by hand.” Until now, mechanisation has only been possible on flat ground, because vehicles have not had the attractive capability to stay on sloped. Now, winches, tethering, and the wheel system mean that “together these machines can do the work of eight men or more”.

John Garland, professor emeritus at Oregon State University, has spent a lifetime researching the industry and trying to improve its safety record. Earlier, as we drove along a forest road to the site that Miller Lumber was clearing, he explained why the industry has struggled to attract young people to its ranks. “Logging is difficult, dirty, dangerous, and declining.”

Death or injury “can come from trees falling in the wrong direction, or hitting another tree and falling back on someone”, he said. Others come from what are known as “struck-by” injuries, where a loose felled log hits somebody.

Garland talks of a recent Oregon death he investigated as a consultant, where a truck driver “was strapping on logs, and one fell off and struck him in the head”.

“Oftentimes, we lose three or four timber fallers a year in Oregon, and the same in Washington.”

If that’s the most dangerous job in the industry, then there’s a good argument for it being the most dangerous job in the country.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics issues an annual census of the deadliest jobs. In 2016, truck drivers had the most fatal workplace injuries (885), and loggers had 67. But loggers are a far smaller workforce. At 132.7 fatal injuries per 100,000 workers, workers in logging are the most likely to die at work, and almost two and a half times more at risk than those in the next most dangerous profession, fishing.

The decline Garland mentions is not so much in what remains of the industry – indeed with construction booming, loggers are facing a labour shortage. “We went through a terrible recession in the 2008-2012 period. Since then it’s been becoming markedly better.”

Rather, it is in the communities that once fostered large workforces for the industry, but which suffered a series of blows from the 1980s from which few ever recovered.

On August 24 2017 01:50 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


So Trump has been supporting Nazi protests and the Confederacy, and you think the media is the one who's against the people?

On August 24 2017 02:06 IgnE wrote:
what do you mean what subject?

On August 24 2017 02:07 oBlade wrote:

You would have to clarify exactly what you mean with your loaded premise before I could answer with that in mind, because the Confederacy no longer exists and as far as I know the president doesn't support Nazis, although I can't help if this is just going to end up as anyone who goes out in public against bulldozing statues is a Nazi. But yes, the media is against the people. https://ricochet.com/442941/americans-care-vs-media-cares/