Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
12 hours ago, elfenix said:

constantly reminded that physicians can be brilliant within their field

Where are you seeing evidence of this on surly?

  • Haha 1
Posted
1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

They in all likelihood would never have existed without a) funding from CPB and PBS and b) airing by PBS stations.  Private funding would have been obsessed with whether they could sell enough ads for Count Chocula in their time slot.

Private funding is always obsessed with growth above all else, even business model sustainability.

When your only goal is growth, and you don't give a shit about outcomes for the people consuming your product/service, you're gonna run that enterprise into ground and ruin everything that made it successful in the first place. It's half the reason I have a career - cleaning up that mess of bad foresight is a very very reliable means for finding work and engagements

Posted
11 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

Daily Wire is making wholesome kids media. Is everybody cool with Ben Shapiro getting a subsidy too? 

S1/E1: Kids, dryness is your friend. 

  • Haha 2
  • Drool 1
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 2
Posted
16 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Private funding is always obsessed with growth above all else, even business model sustainability.

When your only goal is growth, and you don't give a shit about outcomes for the people consuming your product/service, you're gonna run that enterprise into ground and ruin everything that made it successful in the first place. It's half the reason I have a career - cleaning up that mess of bad foresight is a very very reliable means for finding work and engagements

To be fair, Sesame Street was created in the pre-Friedman capitalist era, when business was a bit less psychotic about growth and quarterly reports and share price.

But, profit motive, in whatever form it took in 1968 and prior still was not up to producing educational TV for kids.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
25 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Private funding is always obsessed with growth above all else, even business model sustainability.

Someone needs to read more Tuttle Twins to understand the wonders of the invisible hand.

Posted
13 hours ago, elfenix said:

constantly reminded that physicians can be brilliant within their field but are often complete dumbshits outside of it.

I worked in IT at a hospital for four years, and can confirm this fact. 

Posted
19 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Haha jkates negged this post.  I won't neg back, but I'll call him a fascist cunt.  Cunt. 

He’s established a creepy pattern of defending people who prey on children’s minds and bodies. I really hope he's not involved in any youth activities, like the Boy Scouts or Little League Baseball.

Posted
30 minutes ago, bolverk said:

He’s established a creepy pattern of defending people who prey on children’s minds and bodies. I really hope he's not involved in any youth activities, like the Boy Scouts or Little League Baseball.

Or any position of authority in the Catholic Church. Or the Republican Party 

Posted
9 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Or any position of authority in the Catholic Church. Or the Republican Party 

Agreed, but Baptist should be the more immediate concern.

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Haha 1
Posted
1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Haha jkates negged this post.  I won't neg back, but I'll call him a fascist cunt.  Cunt. 

Haha, I've noticed him doing that quite a bit in DT threads.  Not sure if I've ever actually seen him post.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
1 hour ago, MissingInAction said:

I worked in IT at a hospital for four years, and can confirm this fact. 

I have worked in a place that employs a number of PhD’s.  In the beginning of my time there, I was always impressed when someone had that level of education. 
 

The shine is off.  
 

The human brain is only used by us to what, 20% of its capacity?  Whatever the low number is that gets thrown around?

My theory is that PhD’s have crammed so much knowledge into that 20% of the brain we use in order to excel in their field of choice, that something else was forced out. 
 

Common sense.  The ability to perform basic maintenance checks on a vehicle. Simple bodily hygiene.  How to make a sandwich.  Not putting Dawn liquid into the dishwasher when you run out of Cascade so you don’t turn your kitchen into a scene from Mr. Mom. 
 

That sort of thing. 
 

Anymore, when I meet a PhD, I judge them in a way that asks the question “what has your brain given up to reach this level?”

M.D.’s are susceptible to this.  For God’s sake, there have been instances where someone went into the hospital to have a leg amputated, and they took the wrong leg.  You can make it a lot more easily with one leg than with none.  But no, they still had to go back in and take the other one. 
 

The absolute worst are the rare M.D./PhD.  My daughter works for UT Health in the TMC.  Her former boss was an M.D./PhD.  His family had to have paid someone to give him those degrees.  He’s an idiot. The staff had to babysit him to make sure he doesn’t try to use research grant funds on $2500 bottles of wine or $15k Christmas parties for the staff. 
 

Rant over. 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, Vanilla Strange Gato said:

I have worked in a place that employs a number of PhD’s.  In the beginning of my time there, I was always impressed when someone had that level of education. 
 

The shine is off.  
 

The human brain is only used by us to what, 20% of its capacity?  Whatever the low number is that gets thrown around?

My theory is that PhD’s have crammed so much knowledge into that 20% of the brain we use in order to excel in their field of choice, that something else was forced out. 
 

Common sense.  The ability to perform basic maintenance checks on a vehicle. Simple bodily hygiene.  How to make a sandwich.  Not putting Dawn liquid into the dishwasher when you run out of Cascade so you don’t turn your kitchen into a scene from Mr. Mom. 
 

That sort of thing. 
 

Anymore, when I meet a PhD, I judge them in a way that asks the question “what has your brain given up to reach this level?”

M.D.’s are susceptible to this.  For God’s sake, there have been instances where someone went into the hospital to have a leg amputated, and they took the wrong leg.  You can make it a lot more easily with one leg than with none.  But no, they still had to go back in and take the other one. 
 

The absolute worst are the rare M.D./PhD.  My daughter works for UT Health in the TMC.  Her former boss was an M.D./PhD.  His family had to have paid someone to give him those degrees.  He’s an idiot. The staff had to babysit him to make sure he doesn’t try to use research grant funds on $2500 bottles of wine or $15k Christmas parties for the staff. 
 

Rant over. 

Yep.  And I think both types of doctor suffer from "overspecialization."  Not only are they cramming in a shit ton of knowledge, it becomes increasingly narrow and specialized academically and professionally so that they can no longer see any type of forest for the trees.

Probably all of us suffer from this to one degree or another.  That's one thing I love about this forum: I increase my exposure to different subject matter constantly, from expert types in their respective fields.

Edited by TwiceHorn
  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
Posted (edited)

I agree. I liaise with a lot of PhDs and it’s amazing how they cannot follow simple directions for simple tasks, research anything outside of their area of expertise and just believe anything they read on the internet outside of their field 

Edited by Js1
Posted

Something else occurs.

Since "we" don't like "subsidizing" frivolities like PBS, why are "we" considering renaming the Kennedy Center the Trump Center?

New Republicolibertarian thinking seems to say we should knock the fucker down and let UFC build an Octagon in its place.

And what about those fucking libraries?

  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Beau Vine said:

Haha, I've noticed him doing that quite a bit in DT threads.  Not sure if I've ever actually seen him post.

He's popped into the Youth Minister's (and other pervs) Thread of Shame a couple of times to defend some prominent pedophile or their enablers, who he claims are "good people." And, of course, we can all guess with 99.999% certainty that he fully supports the one who's currently defiling the White House with cheap and tacky gilding and a paved-over Rose "Garden," while planning a major $200 million construction project ($2,222/sf) there that will fundamentally alter its character, and acting as if he never plans to leave.

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Rage+1 1
Posted
3 hours ago, Js1 said:

I agree. I liaise with a lot of PhDs and it’s amazing how they cannot follow simple directions for simple tasks, research anything outside of their area of expertise and just believe anything they read on the internet outside of their field 

Can we add colonels to this mix? I work with a few and damn they just don't know basic shit and are used to having a staff. Welcome to the real world sir, now go get your own damn coffee. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
14 hours ago, elfenix said:

yeah i wasn't talking about toys, doc. congrats on uncritically posting API screed as a defense to the subsidies of oil companies. i'm sure the fact that the oil companies are paying royalties more than makes up for the subsidies and isn't itself a disguised subsidy at all. 

 

I was just having fun talking about toys. Gasoline is a more serious topic. It bugs me that the local, state, and federal governments make $0.90 cents per gallon and tax the shit out of oil companies only to hear people complain about big oil. It makes no sense. 

Posted
On 8/2/2025 at 10:07 AM, TwiceHorn said:

Why didn't the private sector generate Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, etc?

And now we're concerned about private media having to compete with PBS?  Fucking hell.

I think the cutting of funding for public broadcasting is short sighted and wrong.  I think some changes needed to be made but cutting funding is just silly and non productive and political theater.

To the above, when shows like Mr Rogers and Sesame street were created (late 1960s) there were only 3 real channels for television.  Marketing for the fledgling tv industry had to focus on shows that adults watched because that is what advertisers would pay for.  The networks did not have the financial ability to generate exclusively kids shows because there were no advertisers for those shows.  There were cartoons that offered mindless entertainment for kids but not educational.    So getting PBS to do shows like Sesame was great.  A really good use of public funding.

What some are suggesting is that times are different now.  There are literally thousands of shows on network, cable, streaming services etc that are considered educational children's programming.  So it is a fair question whether the public funding is still necessary.  I personally think it is but I can see the argument.

There is also a pretty big distinction, in my mind, from PBS and NPR.  For anyone to suggest that NPR does not have a political lean to liberals/democrats is just foolish.  When Berliner resigned he uncovered a lot of what people certainly suspected.  Berliner was as "inside" as you can get and worked there for 20 years and was a strong liberal.  The staff at NPR, especially the editors, are overwhelmingly registered democrats.  Berliner suggested that there were zero registered republican editors at the headquarters.  May or may not be true but the democrat numbers there are overwhelming.   That is an astonishing fact for an institution that receives federal funding.  It will never be 50/50 but to not even have a few token republicans on the editorial staff just opens NPR up to legitimate criticism by hard core conservatives.  NPR did it to themselves.  Even if in their hearts the editors wanted to be balanced and thought they were being balanced, they just couldn't.  Every human has personal biases.  It is part of our DNA and unavoidable at a subconscious level.  When the numbers of people editing stories is 95% left leaning, then it is absolutely inevitable that that bias is going to creep into their thought making.  Inevitable.  Not every single time.  But over a period of time it is simply inevitable. 

And for certain NPR is not over the top bias like OAN or MSNBC, but it is there.  And there is plenty of programming on NPR that is not political at all.  But they opened themselves up for this by their own actions and hiring practices.  And I have zero objection to any private outfit aligning their staff to a certain ideological similarity, but it just can't exist when receiving public funds. 

As an analogy, if there was a publication of some sort in Texas that prided itself on diversity of opinions and the entire editorial staff of the publication were TAMU graduates, no one here, including myself, would believe the publication was not biased.  We all know aggies that are hard core, moderate and a small group that are actually liberal.  But putting them all together will guarantee a right leaning bent to their reporting.  It is just human nature.  

If NPR announced back in 2024 when Berliner resigned that it was going to look inward at their editorial staff and make some changes and really try to add a percentage of diversity of opinion to their staff then they would have a good argument against the far right wanting to defund them.  Maybe add 20% of conservative leaning editors.  But they didn't.  They dug in and kept the status quo and are now suffering for it.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...