The government may not be out to intentionally "get" anyone, but it's still very capable of harming when it intends to help.
That's what's behind a lot of the consternation over government responses. A lot of lives are at stake, and not just those which might be taken by COVID.
From the moment the government decided to declare a state of emergency, multiple surveillance bills with support from both sides have been pushed. Rand Paul did well to point out the people like Lindsay Graham and Dianne Feinstein haven't wasted a second trying to expand government powers instead of helping Americans. The government is clearly out to get people, there is no question about it.
City populations are some of the most unequal in all society. Extremes in close proximity. I've read research on this in the past, although I don't have any links at the moment.
"Given a choice between preventing the spread of disease and avoiding mass casualties that are bound to result, and living our lives in ignorance, we chose ignorance."
You're like someone who's complaining their rights are being trampled because the fire department is yelling at you to leave a burning building.
Edit: to whoever downvoted, here's Chavez next to Chomsky, "one of the intellectuals who fights the imperial hegemony of the elite that rules the United States": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p3kvvZfdpE
He isn't some foreign affairs expert. He made the decision to support Chavez based on the information he (and we) had access to at that time, much of which painted Chavez favorably.
We, of course, came to know later that the house was rotting on the inside. But that's just hindsight
I'd say that there isn't as big a language barrier in understanding Indian politics. The English language media landscape in the country is thriving and there is a massive, vibrant internet presence.
India's democratic roots also mean that information is far more transparent.
To be fair, it's generally much easier to find someone who understands what one particular form of injustice looks like than it is to find someone who knows what actual justice looks like.
Well, to be fair, many American right-wing politicians have supported worse, including Saddam Hussein and Saudi royalties. If we discredit political pundits based on who they sided with, the only people remaining would be total misanthropes. Or those who never said anything so far. Maybe that's for the better...
I assume the Saudi reference is in relation to recent NYT articles. That's fair. But since you bring up Saddam, it is more correct to say that he enjoyed majority left wing support, not right.
There's plenty of offenders in American politics, regardless of party. Coloring your comment that way makes it seem less valid.
A long and respected career at MIT in linguistics does not make him an expert on international events. (He may still be one, but linguistics at MIT is not qualification for that.)
I’ll give Chomsky credit for successfully pivoting from linguist to polemicist before his so-called deep grammar was thoroughly debunked. If he’s actually an expert at anything, it’s only self-publicity.
He is not a joke in his field. He is highly intelligent. He has carte blanche to publish commentary on any topic he chooses, and some pundits will pick it up and say see, this well respected and smart guys says this, listen to him!
You'll likely deal with each of these no matter which route you go; these things just occur naturally. School provides a little safety margin, but at a cost. And there's a different cost to not going to school. Choose your own adventure.
It’s amazing how controversial Marx is 150 years later, and I’ve only ever met one actual “authority” on the matter outside Marx’s actual writings. (And I’m in economics!)
Makes me think there’s something very lasting about his ideas, moral interpretations aside.
It's almost as if it hasn't even been 50 years since people were last dying because of the evil extremist ideologies from the 1900s! Tens of millions dead in the last hundred years.
I think that Marx's observations about the exploitative power structures and inherent problems with naked capitalism weren't wrong and they haven't been solved either.
It's fairly easy to sense problems. Harder to identify and analyze the nature of a problem. Yet harder to come up with practical solutions that aren't worse.
No, they don't need one. The article shows how some groups are pushing for legislation to allow news orgs to form a cartel, in order to compete with the likes of Google and friends, who themselves enjoy a high concentration of market share.
So, instead of promoting a competitive economy with fewer cartels, there's a push to promote cartels within the economy, ostensibly to... compete?
Nice. These are, indeed, interesting times. Cartel economy it is!
I'm kind of tired of the trades "break your body" argument.
I think just as many bodies routinely get destroyed in office environments—especially in tech. You know the trope. Sitting all the time under artificial light breathing nasty "inside" air staring at screens in open office environments with a lot of mental stress. Etc.
In each case, blue collar or white, proper care can be taken to avoid these injuries. Especially in blue collar trades.
I think your last point holds true, but it's really not an equivalent amount of stress you're putting on your body in an office. You can always go outside more after work and remain physically active to counteract the damage you're doing by sitting in an office all day, but if you're in a physically intensive trade, you can't avoid the damage you're doing by remaining less active after work.
Also you're going to have less energy to do the physical activity you want to do.
I paved roads for a summer at 18 and even though I was a very young energetic kid, I was barely getting anything out of my evening workouts or soccer games with friends after 10 hours outside shoveling asphalt.
Sure I might get some RSI, but my welder friend has to contend with someone on site accidentally creating phosgene gas. I don't feel like the two levels of potential self harm are in the same ball park.
Your welder friend could also end up with RSI- depending on how much grinding he does in a day. That was the main reason I quit being a mechanic, it's actually easier to prevent RSI in an office environment by careful selection of equipment, whereas running a grinder for an hour with your wrists at a funny angle since it's the only way to get the tool into the work is sometimes just required.
Sure but you don't get carpal tunnel from screwing up once, you get it by screwing up over and over for a decade. Trade injuries are often one shots. Being said if you don't have the discipline to avoid posture injuries you might not have what it takes to survive a trade.
Plumbers pick their own work conditions as they are often self employed. So uh kinda? Mostly not. Heavy things are still heavy and still need to be lifted. You're probably not going to bring in a jack.
My best friend was a HVAC repairman and is a programmer now. He's happier as a programmer. Some people are happier as an HVAC repairman, and more power to them. However it's not the norm for people who have done both.
Plumbing isn't the only kind of blue collar work, but I expect even there the work safety has improved considerably. Many things that used to be heavy are now light (copper and lead vs PVC and other plastics), many things that used to be toxic are no longer required or have safer alternatives (e.g., solders), and in general the cultural expectation for a plumber to risk life or limb for a job is far lower.
And if you're working in a factory, conditions have improved far more drastically. Worker safety is serious business given OSHA and legal liability associated with workplace injury.
Happy to hear about your best friend; I doubt it extrapolates, but it doesn't matter much to me--I don't have a dog in the fight.
Sounds like you should spend some time in a trade. It's still worth doing don't get me wrong but there are more risks, they are harder to avoid, and with worse consequences.
That's what's behind a lot of the consternation over government responses. A lot of lives are at stake, and not just those which might be taken by COVID.