BF2S Forums Pandemic thread

uziq wrote:

he got a BSc in econ from wharton. you do know what a red flag that is, right? going to business school for undergraduate is for the special needs bus. it's like getting an undergraduate law degree. the world of the business elite trucks in MBAs, like law firms truck in people with JD's from law school, not undergraduate degrees. if you even had a semblance of formal education yourself, you would recognize this.

let's compare with some other recent american presidents, shall we?

• obama: liberal arts undergrad at occidental; columbia political science, international relations and literature joint-undergrad; harvard law school. years working in community organization, civil rights law practice, and the senate.
• bush II: yale history, harvard business school mba. military 'service' (ahem), years working as campaign advisor, texas governor.
• clinton: georgetown foreign service undergrad, oxford rhodes scholarship for bphil in politics, yale law school.years working in law, arkansaw governor.
• h.w. bush: military service in ww2, military grant to yale undergrad in economics and sociology.  senate representative for texas; united nations ambassador.

but i guess an undergrad degree from a business school that can be bought into, and a 'career' in mismanaging your inherited wealth and stumbling through multiple bankruptcies is the same thing. did you know kushner went to harvard despite being dumb as a bellhop, too? wow i guess america's disaster response is in good hands!

the comparisons of trump to reagan are entirely apposite. people aren't 'snobbish' about trump: they are rightly suspicious of someone who has no experience of politics, no proven ability to lead, no understanding of geopolitical issues, etc. reagan at least had relevant work experience and a proper run up to the presidency. trump's inexperience is coming directly to the fore now in the massively bungled response to coronavirus -- with the latest developments today being that trump is now once again railing against china (pointless) and threatening to de-fund the WHO (plainly moronic and the reactions of a wounded child). it is not an accident that america is now the centre of the coronavirus pandemic. it is directly related to your response. sorry but you as a nation are going to have to reckon with that plain unassailable fact, sooner or later.

by the way, i thought you were against this sort of 'credentialism'? you were just accusing me of this a few pages ago. now you're mad that trump isn't respected because he *checks notes* has a piece of paper from the right institution? it seems like you need to figure out your principles, here, at risk of becoming yet another right-wing blowhard who changes his object of anger/envy once a week.

Right, so this really comes down to credentials and gatekeeping. Thanks for confirming that.

uziq wrote:

you complained that trump isn't respected despite having the credentials, not me.

i have never once made any critique of trump in this thread because of the degree he has. are you dense? there's plenty to criticize at hand, without having to delve into weird right-wing talk about 'deep state' and 'elitist media' and their gatekeeping. i would never think anything quite so stupid as 'the media only criticize trump's response because they are snobs'.

it is quaint, yes, that you think he is as qualified to lead a nation as any other president in history, but you can be forgiven your habitual ignorance.

I'm not defending Trump, really. I just have a severe distaste and dislike for journalists in general. The fact that the people with the lowest SAT scores of any undergrad group get to play tastemaker and cultural gatekeeper bothers me. If I could eradicate the entire industry I would. The 24/7 news cycle has irreparably harmed humans and turned them into snarling, narcissistic, overly-partisan and neurotic shells. Discourse is hindered, not furthered by, them and their unrelenting push for clicks and relevancy.

The fact that people get their nearly uniform political opinions from these cretins is a tragedy.

SAT scores and even grades aren't a guarantee of intelligence and competence. Plenty of people who were good students in high school lives go sideways once they are in the real world. A lot of people with bad grades also turn their lives around when in college.

Which is a bigger sign of success anyway? SAT scores or professional success in your career?

jay has just read some misinterpreted/misapplied (no doubt disingenuously employed by some right-wing blogger) statistic and thinks it is in any way relevant.

nevermind the fact that the only colleges that offer 'journalism' undergraduate courses are probably community-college level. it's a subject like the much-maligned 'media studies' or whatever. all serious journalists would get a combined/joint honours in a traditional subject at a prestigious college and then go to somewhere like Columbia for journalism grad school.

jay thinks that undergraduate SAT scores in journalism are representative of the 'mainstream media'. it's more likely that graduates in BA journalism are going to be listing classifieds in the back-pages of the Topeka Times.

jay is a retard. is anyone surprised?

the best thing is that now everyone continually corrects him, he thinks it's because we're one big liberal cabal. he's being positively reinforced in his stupid by all this stuff. it's perfectly quaint.

Last edited by uziq (2020-04-08 05:40:32)

The one journalism major I know writes about cultural events for NJ.com which is owned by the largest newspaper in the state. If you want a deep analysis of Comic Con or a review of local ethnic parades and festivals, he is the person to follow.

National Review is a joke in terms of writers and staff. All of the featured writers were liberal arts majors and professional writers. English, history, "The classics" etc. Handy knowledge base if you want to commit historical abuse to justify tax cuts. NR also has a lot of guest articles by wealthy college students writing headlines like "Why capitalism is the greatest system in history" and "history proves Socialism will fail". The article that I posted in the Iraq thread was by a guy who graduated from a naval college in 2014 and now works at Goldman Sachs. Clearly the most well picked guy to discuss the intricacies of civil-military relations, responsibility of command etc. Oliver North or Wesley Clark weren't available?

And you can't accuse me of parroting or ass kissing Uzique. I read National Review more than I read any liberal sources. I am also brave enough to visit Breitbart to see their takes.

uziq wrote:

so you read totally unqualified sub-journalists on online blogs and bias mouthpieces like the national review instead, gotcha.

you do realize that almost all of the columnists and people writing for the 'fake news' mainstream media aren't graduates of 'journalism' undergraduate courses, right?

this is the same thing as your 'wow he went to wharton for undergrad!' talk. you simply do not have a clue how formal education works.

Unqualified by whose measure? I read mainstream right-leaning digital magazines for the most part. I generally have my opinion formed long before I find a concurring piece. I don't get my opinions from the media, I get my confirmations from the media.

You're far too obsessed with credentials, as always. I don't really give a fuck where someone did their undergrad education five years ago, let alone fifty years removed like Trump. To you, it's the all important measure of a man. I also don't care about grad school. I don't think an extra two years in college in your twenties matters at all whatsoever when you're forty. I don't care what his grades were. I don't care what he studied. None of it is at all relevant. Did he go to vocational college to become President of the United States? Doubtful.

When I judge a person, because I do have to judge people when I hire them, I care about what they've done since college. What are their hobbies? Do they read? Do they work on their car? Do they like to travel? This tells me more about a person than their tie pin does. You know what a degree really means, right? It's a social signal that shows the bearer can follow directions, has at least a decent memory, and can form basic sentences. If they went the math route it means they can plug numbers into formulas. It doesn't tell me the person is creative, or rebellious, or can think outside of the box, it tells me that they can follow directions and put together IKEA furniture.

Academia, for all its affectations to the opposite, does not reward deviation from a very strict path. You MUST do your homework. You MUST turn in term papers on deadline. You MUST study for X number of hours if you hope to pass an exam. You MUST hit certain points in your paper or it will be marked down by the professor. You MUST follow steps x, y and z if you hope to possibly derive answer A. People who do well in these types of formats tend to be cautious, conservative, and terrified of having their heresies discovered. They are risk averse, but ambitious. They are un-creative, but supremely confident that their opinion is correct, even though they would never have the courage to form their own. You can't have that many paradoxes inherent before lay people start pointing them out and distrust forms. The Elite are not Elite. They are strivers not taught to be anything but followers, but convinced of their divine right to rule. If asked to deviate from a script, they flounder.

And it is a script, uzi. There are checklists for getting into Ivy's. Do x number of hours of community service, do y after school activities, score z on your SAT's, play a sport, etc. It has less to do with the student them self, and more to do with the drive of the parent behind them pushing them and shuttling them all over the place between activities. An Ivy education is less a symbol that you yourself are talented, but that your parents understood the game. It tells me who your parents are and what your economic background is. And frankly, I don't care who anyone's parents are or what they've done. I care about the person sitting in the chair across from me fidgeting through an interview. What have they done with their life? Script followers are good for some tasks. They're terrible for others. The fact that the script followers are so convinced of their own supremacy, that they are trying to crowd out everyone else, and force everyone to take their path, is one of the reasons the world is currently falling apart. The world needs more leadership, responsibility and creativity. Looking to academia and their fellow travelers is not the correct path.

Larssen wrote:

Jay wrote:

It's just old. You hated Bush, and you gave Obama a Nobel before he even sat in the chair. You hate Trump. If another Republican is elected after Trump you'll hate him too. It's all as predictable as the sunrise. You think you're being insightful but you're not. Your opinions are predictable and reflect what you see in your own biased media sources.

Hate is a strong word, but it's true that I had a very dim view of Bush's competence, including his neoconservative friends in government. An aimless war on terror, the invasion of Iraq and the ~1 million people who died in the Middle East because of this either directly or indirectly stand as eternal monuments in history to how US foreign policy blundering and stupidity helped shape the 21st century. Your grandchildren and their progeny will read about this time and the wanton destruction that was sowed only with confusion and shame.

Obama to me was a welcome breather from the rampant idiocy that dominated US foreign policies in the 2000s, though he tended to neglect the on-going wars and conflicts instead, which presented its own issues. The difference is that he DID have respect for the rule of law, international alliances and the institutions supporting them. He understood their value and did not steer the US through international politics like some neanderthal brute. US policies became organised again, in a way. Not worthy of a Nobel I would say, but whatever - that committee is a Norwegian thing. Different Europeans remember. Maybe they were so relieved by the change in tone they considered it a miracle, did seem that way to literally the entire planet.

It might surprise you but republican presidents pre or outside of neoconservatism or Trumpism enjoyed some moderate support in Europe. George H.W. Bush and Reagan weren't nearly as hated or vilified as Bush jr. and Trump. Romney and McCain both enjoyed some positive press during their campaigns. It's not 'just politics' causing the negative reaction, but the rejection of reason and the increasingly angry and violent attitude in the US coupled with the nascent view that all countries on this planet are and should be subservient to the United States' interests, or else. The weird thing to me is how Trump and his election signified a complete rejection of your political & bureaucratic institutions (including the republicans) and yet this strain has somehow been absorbed by the republican party in a desperate effort at self-preservation. You now also equate him with the party's philosophy.

As for my sources, please. Honestly I believe Trump and Bush were good for Europe, as they incentivise more rapid development of EU institutions and 'European thinking'. However, my judgment of their competence is hardly derived from some journalists' opinions. It's an objective fact these two presidents were grotesquely incompetent in the international arena. They lack any sort of diplomatic insight or tact, any understanding of foreign cultures and approach every problem with 'smash first' 'think later' methodology.

So before the 24/7 news cycle and the rise of the hyper-partisan media in America, you had a more balanced view of our Presidents. Interesting. I believe you've made my point for me.

If FDR had to deal with the US media after Pearl Harbor like every Republican does:

Jay wrote:

You know what a degree really means, right? It's a social signal that shows the bearer can follow directions, has at least a decent memory, and can form basic sentences. If they went the math route it means they can plug numbers into formulas.

Maybe the dumbed down technical college type 'degree' you did, which wouldn't be called a degree in most countries.
A proper degree isn't like that, but then we've explained this to you before.

As an engineer I learned enough maths to derive from first principles every equation I used through the whole degree, in fact most of the work was deriving those equations so I had a full understanding of what they meant, and how to adjust or evolve them if I needed to.
Whereas I'm guessing you just pulled them out of a book and plugged numbers into them.

Maths graduates 'just plug numbers into equations' you literally have no clue.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2020-04-08 06:52:53)

jay’s entire perspective on higher-education is the ‘chip on the shoulder’, ‘i’m a hiring manager’, ‘small-medium size business owner’ school of thinking. i.e. a collapsed flan of bad thinking and self-aggrandisement.

except that’s not correct at all. the point is to analyse and put together that thinking for new solutions.

do you think people studying math at MIT are uncreative because pythagoras and newton did the legwork before?

Jay wrote:

We did derivations as well, but my point is that none of it is creative. We were applying work that was done by others previously, many times over. There was a script to follow.

If you didn't do anything creative then you didn't do a degree.
Did you write a thesis?

Dilbert_X wrote:

Jay wrote:

We did derivations as well, but my point is that none of it is creative. We were applying work that was done by others previously, many times over. There was a script to follow.

If you didn't do anything creative then you didn't do a degree.
Did you write a thesis?

I didn't have a thesis, I did a senior design project.