Yeah, he was just talking today about the importance of diversity in construction jobs and building community wealth.
Ohio Derailment
- Thread starter Jaylotw
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What isn't going to shit would be a much shorter list.
Well. To be fair the issue in Ohio is making a diverse amount of folks sick and displaced
It's wild, isn't it? Most derailments don't cause damage, or don't cause spills...some do, and just don't make news. There's another large one in Houston, right now, although I don't think with a miles high plume of toxic black smoke emanating from it. This particular derailment in Ohio is especially bad, though. Really, really bad.
I'm doing my best to not be political, too. It's nearly impossible. This isn't an issue that just started, but a culmination of years, even decades, of inaction and industry being able to buy it's way out of safety regulations for profit's sake. The railroad companies have lobbied, successfully, for a decade to be able to run with fewer people, fewer safety measures, to run faster, lobbied to have regulations cut that could have prevented this disaster...it culminated in rail workers striking, and our government (both sides had yeas and nays) telling those workers to shut up and get back to work...and those people in East Palestine (and maybe many more people) are paying for what the railroad decided it couldn't. It's an utter failure.
Today's under-30's only want to live in the world created by those who came before them, not maintain it.
Infrastructure creation and maintainance tasks are dirty, dangerous, and require considerable knowledge.
Compared with being a social media "influencer"/entertainer/gossiper who needs little more than a smartphone, or a high tech software coder who needs nothing more than a keyboard, the individual's choice is a no-brainer.
Short sighted and (arguably) selfish?
Kids simply don't think that way. They don't have the perspective of time & experience by definition.
Infrastructure creation and maintainance tasks are dirty, dangerous, and require considerable knowledge.
Compared with being a social media "influencer"/entertainer/gossiper who needs little more than a smartphone, or a high tech software coder who needs nothing more than a keyboard, the individual's choice is a no-brainer.
Short sighted and (arguably) selfish?
Kids simply don't think that way. They don't have the perspective of time & experience by definition.
My cat didn't seem to interested in the news. Wifey and I will keep an eye on it, but that's about it.
Who's going to work for the railroad when they won't even give you sick time? When they've made it clear that they won't even keep you safe? When they beat you into the ground? Who the hell wants to work there?
There are plenty of young people willing to do hard work. Your parents were likely saying the same thing about your generation. I see plenty of people younger than me out on construction crews on the highway. I had drinks with some while I was in Arkansas.
Smartphones and young people didn't cause this derailment. The railroads successfully lobbying our government over years to deregulate their operations caused this derailment.
That's how life was for everyone in earlier times.
No OSHA, no hours rules, no sympathy, no excuses, you got on with what needed doing or they'd find someone who was willing to do the job. The end.
Go to Hoover Dam. There's a full-on memorial & monument to the 112 badasses who died building it.
Multiply by linemen, railroaders, bridge builders, skyscraper builders, miners, power station builders, highway builders, and on and on, from coast to coast, for generations.
(too funny --- I just realized you unwittingly made my argument for me)
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Yeah, no. It's 2023. We don't need to die for our employers. We shouldn't be expected to. The world wasn't better when 112 people died building a dam. Those workers were desperate, it was the Great Depression. They took whatever work there was, and were paid pennies, and a bunch of them died or were injured because no one cared to keep them safe. That's not something we should aspire to. We changed that. I want the world to be a better place in the future.
And the people suffering because of this chemical spill don't deserve it, and shouldn't just roll over because the railroad has always killed people and spilled chemicals.
Responses like this are the reason I can say with confidence that democracy is a failure and it has nothing to do with the people in government.
You've built a world in your mind that does not correspond with reality, and think that strength of belief is enough to change what is actually there into what you wish it was.
Good luck to ya, mate.
Good luck to ya, mate.
I'm sorry to admit that I'm completely missing the point you've been trying to make in this thread, George. From what I've read, @Jaylotw is not asking us all to believe more strongly in the hopes that will change reality. He seems to be calling for awareness of and outcry over the historic trend of industry leaders and politicians prioritizing profit over safety, while skirting as best he can the specific calls to action this forum might shun as overtly political. There are numerous examples over the years of movements to regulate industry for the better or enhance worker's rights/safety, so I can't imagine you're suggesting that's just wide eyed optimism on his part.
Again, I don't understand your point. No one here is suggesting you lobby your congressman to repeal physics. Sure, people today still die in car accidents because we can't vote against momentum and the general squishiness of our bodies relative to metal, but are seatbelts and airbags somehow empty gestures because of human nature? I'd say most of the success of the human race over time has been because of our efforts to make things safer, more efficient, and just generally better.
And here's where I really lose the thread. Are you suggesting that the problems with our national infrastructure are because 20-somethings are too busy on their iPhones to get their hands dirty? The oldest of them have only been able to vote for 11 years and hold jobs for 13. I have pants that have been around longer than they've been in any position to "influence" the state of our country's railroads, bridges, and roads. I'll admit that might be an issue 20 years from now, but when the problems we're facing today were brewing these kids were in diapers or yet to be born.
That brings me to this point:
I'd put it to you that plenty of under-30s
aren't exactly thrilled with this gift wrapped planet we've created for them. We've allowed for a culture of deregulation in which trains derail and rain burning cancer from the sky, and I don't fault them for blaming us when our collective response seems to be "sh*t happens". We should be trying as hard as we can to make the world better for them, and instead we're romanticizing their "badass" great grandfathers who were electrocuted racing to build Hoover Dam in time so six companies wouldn't have to pay a fine that might eat into their profits.
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Campaign all you want. Feel all you want. Be outraged and pissed off all you want. None of those things will change the fundamental situation, which is that humans are hardwired to grab short term personal profit/gain/advantage without regard for any long term consequences that may come about from doing so.
A hypothetical situation to illustrate:
Imagine you had a magic wand---the real deal---that you could wave and instantly every person connected to creating the situations you describe which piss you off would suddenly sparkle and disappear Star Trek tansporter style, to never be seen again.
All that would happen is new people driven by the same perceived personal advantages that motivated the first group would would take their place. Former #2's would become the new #1's, and another version of the same situation would come about. No different than taking out drug kingpins or mob bosses... everyone below them just indexes up a notch, and business continues as usual.
Why? Because for the first 99.9% of human existence what allowed individuals to survive and prosper in a hostile environment was NOT speed, strength, big teeth, or big claws... it was a higher speed processor inside their skulls than other animals, manual manipulators on the end of flexible stalks, and their ability to work in groups. The ability to create teams dedicated to accomplishing specific survival tasks.
And survival and advancement within THOSE groups was most efficiently accomplished with ruthlessness, cunning, deception, plotting, planning, the ability to think in the abstract, and the ability to recognize and take immediate advantage of opportunities to improve themselves.
Darwin took care of any who disregarded the Second Law of Thermodynamics regarding those things for thousands of generations.
And here we are.
Only recently has man created an environment for himself where such behavior is no longer necessary to survive, but the DNA remains.
A hypothetical situation to illustrate:
Imagine you had a magic wand---the real deal---that you could wave and instantly every person connected to creating the situations you describe which piss you off would suddenly sparkle and disappear Star Trek tansporter style, to never be seen again.
All that would happen is new people driven by the same perceived personal advantages that motivated the first group would would take their place. Former #2's would become the new #1's, and another version of the same situation would come about. No different than taking out drug kingpins or mob bosses... everyone below them just indexes up a notch, and business continues as usual.
Why? Because for the first 99.9% of human existence what allowed individuals to survive and prosper in a hostile environment was NOT speed, strength, big teeth, or big claws... it was a higher speed processor inside their skulls than other animals, manual manipulators on the end of flexible stalks, and their ability to work in groups. The ability to create teams dedicated to accomplishing specific survival tasks.
And survival and advancement within THOSE groups was most efficiently accomplished with ruthlessness, cunning, deception, plotting, planning, the ability to think in the abstract, and the ability to recognize and take immediate advantage of opportunities to improve themselves.
Darwin took care of any who disregarded the Second Law of Thermodynamics regarding those things for thousands of generations.
And here we are.
Only recently has man created an environment for himself where such behavior is no longer necessary to survive, but the DNA remains.
A lot of “Zoomers” i guess that’s a generation are getting red-pilled right now. So we’ve had major supply chain issues for 2 years, very flight in the country grounded, this major disaster, basically the worst diversity hirer in history in the DOT.
This was yesterday still no mention of the catastrophe from him but he did say that construction needed more “people of color”.
This was yesterday still no mention of the catastrophe from him but he did say that construction needed more “people of color”.
Suddenly, his name makes perfect sense.A lot of “Zoomers” i guess that’s a generation are getting red-pilled right now. So we’ve had major supply chain issues for 2 years, very flight in the country grounded, this major disaster, basically the worst diversity hirer in history in the DOT.
This was yesterday still no mention of the catastrophe from him but he did say that construction needed more “people of color”.
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Major Red Pilling. Sorry it’s Instagram i dint see it in you tube.
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