Bay 12 Games Forum

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/12/628329172/trump-says-no-problem-in-nato-touting-allies-spending-pledges

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Quote from: redwallzyl on July 11, 2018, 06:38:29 pm

I would like to just quickly state the importance of the humanities. Our hyper economic would seems to have not realized that people do value such things, a lot. From my personal experience in college I would say that the skills that they give you are in fact very useful. No amount of people making ignorant statements about them can change that.

One would expect a "hyper economic" world to perceive demand for something highly valued with exceptional acuity, would one not?

Also, there's a joke in there somewhere about trying to prove the value of the humanities to STEM folks with anecdotal evidence.

Not really, our hyper economic world has a lot of issues. We tend to look at stuff through a narrow lens and do things that are rather non efficient because we are too focused on the economic. It is not immediately obvious to a lot of people how such skills are very valuable. Just because capitalist idealism likes to think that it always does the most efficient thing doesn't mean it actually does. Also as an addendum to that, not all value is economic. Capital comes in many different forms. Our modern world likes to ignore everything but the monetary.

What, do you want me to drag up studies showing the value of anthropologists to business? I can do that. Smart companies do in fact employ lots of us. The issue is not however that some do, it's the general disrespect for the softer skills and a solid grounding in more complex concepts that exists in our society. It's not just businesses but many institutions that overlook such skills. This means people with those skills must learn to sell the value to businesses and the public. The issue is that when people want something but don't understand what said thing requires or alternatively don't know they need something. Like seriously, if I say to someone I'm an anthropologist they will have no idea what that is most of the time or an extremely distorted idea. They don't know that valuable skills I have unlike if I said I had (and I don't) an engineering degree. Even lot's of businesses that could hugely benefit from the kind of skills someone like me has have no idea.

EDIT: Getting back on topic, here's fivethirtyeight with the data on abortion polling.

That's a theme in Republican positions. They present everything as binary. Guns being the other prime example. So they go super extreme pulling all the people in the middle in. Nuanced positions are alien to them. The all or nothing thing is really annoying.

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https://www.npr.org/2018/07/09/626095187/spains-socialist-leader-sets-a-new-course-on-migrants-gender-and-catalonia

Interesting, I was not aware that Spain was under new leadership. This looks significantly better then the clusterfuck that was going on before.

My job (current? former? /shrug) is a shit show. This starts out depressing but it ends on one of the happiest notes in my career.

Handed in my two weeks. Bossman got pissed off and fired me, saying I need to learn that my actions have consequences. I think the action he's referring to is asking him if he remembered the ultimatum he gave me a while back ("do what I say or leave") and then resigning by way of sympathy card. I learned that giving two weeks is a joke and I should just quit with no notice.

Called up the new place and moved my start date a week forward, giving me a week of vacation.

Got an email from the old place's lawyer saying that he considers me to have voluntarily quit with notice. I'm getting paid those two weeks and will receive a PTO payout. One week PAID vacation, then one week of double pay once I start at the new place. Even better. I don't think I learned his intended lesson but I think I came out ahead in this. Sending an email to the staff distribution list from my personal email after they locked me out probably helped. I wanted an amicable departure. I was not given one, yet I still took it upon myself to give proper instructions on who the tasks that I used to do for other departments should be forwarded to.

So your asshole boss accidentally gave you two weeks of free money. Hahaha

On my own Job my boss and coworkers are amazing. Everyone working hard together and valuing each other. I was suffering from some kind of heat related or something affliction and almost passed. I told by boss and she immediately did everything she could to help me and was very concerned. Even wanted me to not keep working until after lunch once I had rested awhile and felt better. This is a drastic change from the boss at my last job that just up and fired me for arbitrary reasons. Hooray for being a valued employee!

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/08/626267768/gop-enthusiasm-fueled-by-trump-could-undercut-democrats-midterm-hopes

I'm having a very hard time having any respect for these people. Most of what they spew is propaganda, bullshit, and lies with a dose of straight up racism, confirmation bias and evidence that they are totally wrong only makes them more aggressively ignorant.