Not jumping blindly into your BS false equivalency speaks actually positively about general understanding. Baltimore was a maintenance disaster about lack of protective measure of the pillars (which had only a bunch of rotten wooden beams to deflect incoming ships), which is pretty different from building bridges that collapse on their own.
I think we will find that it is a ship maintenance issue not a bridge maintenance issue. Who owns the ship? Who is responsible for keeping it "ship shape"?
Indeed. Three steps forward, two steps back. The reason I'm not building the proverbial bunker in the back yard yet is because I think we still have some ability to prevent total catastrophe. The extremists and authoritarians have made some terrible gains, but we haven't seen the unraveling of all the progress made in the last 60 years. Not by a longshot. Not yet, anyway. If people don't pay attention, they could do more damage. So while alarmism is bad, but I think a certain amount of alarm is warranted, and maybe even helpful.
I think the answer is probably in the maintenance history of the vessel and engine in themselves, and the truth such as it may be behind the ship’s “clean bill of health.” Power failures aren’t super uncommon but for it to choke the entire engine like that too kind of suggests to me that the fuel pumps weren’t able to pump. So why is that? Probably cutting corners.
So you admit it isn’t different at all. If I build the best bridge in the world designed for use at the giant turtle river crossing and the giant turtle hits the bridge and knocks it down, I failed to make an adequate bridge and the penalty for my failure is I don’t have a bridge, and everyone who wants to blame me for my negligence can just point to the fact I didn’t make it giant turtle proof. It’s literally no different to making a bridge handle a certain amount of weight or a certain volume of traffic. You make it adequate to the tasks that’ll challenge it. In Russia’s case it was handling road traffic (which is more than “falling down on its own” but I think you might not grasp that?) In America’s case it’s checking that fuel pumps aren’t filled with gunk during the inspections but that might cut into the shift supervisor’s nineteenth coffee break so I don’t blame you for being OK with allowing ships to hit bridges, but I do blame you for not understanding why it’s bad for bridges.
I mean, yeah, and I think it’s a pretty silly hair to split in the context of “which formerly great power’s infrastructure is crumbling?” Either way the answer is “both” and the reason is “much leaner maintenance schedules.”
I actually specifically pointed how it is. Not that I expected any sort of honest reading from your part, but whatever.
The surveliance is across the board. Everything. Everyone.
The bigger worry is how long the current "zeitgeist" will last, and whether it continues through the next generation, or longer. It came to the fore for me again was because of some parts of an article in Politico today, e.g.
They are neurotic. They're not well behaved, so much as emotionally repressed. At the same time, they're spoiled and entitled, just like every generation supposedly is compared to the generation before it. But some differences is how addicted they are to screens, and how medicated they are. Another difference is that the lack of patience, constant surveillance and hair trigger consequences that comes with a lack of patience have conspired to supplant parenting. Parents have their hands tied, teachers have their hands tied and the kids are being left to screens and meds.
That suggests the dynamic between the girl and her mother was already fraught and spiraling out of control. Obviously we can't know all the details, mental states, etc., but there was something troubling going on there.
I forgot to thank you for this. It was very kind of you to say.
If we don't educate and laud The Accord in the schools of The Accord, it will break down. Like any relationship that doesn't invest in the relationship. A crisis of maintenence, it was said? But time and effort are not infinite. We really can't fix everything at once. What has taken the place of "middle school American social studies?" If you're saying that doesn't seem to happen so much?
Geography it seems. What I remember from my school days was that "Social Studies" changed from year to year depending on your age. It would be called "Social Studies" some years, "Civics", "History", "US History", "World History", "Humanities", but it was understood that "History" and "Social Studies" were the interchangeable generic names for anything in that category, then included in that class would be geography, current events, politics, ancient history, archaeology and so on. We would always discuss politics and current events in Social Studies including any Presidential elections going on. We would even hold mock elections in class. I remember being a little surprised at how badly Mondale lost, because he won the mock election in my classroom.
Civil servants have their own political opinions and it's quite difficult to not let those influence their jobs.
Oh so you don’t actually have a problem with the genocides but it’s the “rights” you think will get taken away from you under Trump where you draw the line. Well. To the victor shall go the spoils eh?
Yeah, I think you critically misunderstood your own post. Which is only a little embarrassing really.
