The Glade 4.0

Why is it that the TV news feels the need to talk down to people as if they don't understand the world around them?

On the news the other night when they were following the *dramatic music* DISASTER IN THE PACIFIC
they feel the need to have an entire segment complete with a college professor PhD dedicated to explaining how earthquakes happen and why Japan is so susceptible to said disasters.

Was not plate tectonics and basic Earth science something that should have been taught in grade school or early high school? Are people really this dumb, or does the news just think that they are?

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Lowest common denominator programming. Most people aren't, but some are. Since we want to attract all people we have no choice but to dumb it down.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

YES!


Think of it this way.......just assume you're of average intelligence. That means that on average, half the people you look at on a daily basis are less intelligent than yourself.

I think this thought may be the thought that helps me make it through the day. Thanks, bud!

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

lol, trust me, it helps me through many a day considering some of the meetings I have to sit through.

What about those of us in the 95th percentile?

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Holy shitsnacks!

Most of us have lost all hope in humanity.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Exactly. And since I know the 3 of us here also work (or have worked) in the support field, that just accelerates that conclusion.

Oh boy, somebody needs the "standard deviation" talk.

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You hit the nail on the head there!

Don't you think they add all that extra stuff in just to take up time and keep it on the television? About half or maybe less, of a news broadcast is of pertinent and interesting information. The rest is just time consuming garbage and repeating the same stuff over and over.

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Dream as if you'll live forever...
...Live as if you'll die tomorrow

Vivere Senza Rimpianti

Kirra, you're being really generous, aren't ya?

Yup, this was my first and immediate response to the original question - "filler".

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

Geology is a lot like biology in that several of its fundamental elements are hotly contested by certain religious groups. It's entirely possible that a number of schools avoid the subject altogether, and that there is a large subset of the population that hasn't heard of plate tectonics. It's relevant to the story, and probably a great deal more interesting than a lot of the stuff that people want to report on about the earthquake. I saw a newspaper headline about the nuclear power plant that read something to the tune of, "Can it happen here?!1?1!oneone" Furthermore, having an actual geologist explaining plate tectonics is preferable to the usual method of reporting on science, which is a scientist dumbing down the topic in order for the journalist to understand, followed by said reported attempting to dumb it down further for the intended audience. See if you can spot the flaw in that logic.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I actually like hearing this information again even if I know it. It's still interesting and reinforces knowledge.

True..prolly way less than half


Now they keep showing the same video over and over and over...

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Dream as if you'll live forever...
...Live as if you'll die tomorrow

Vivere Senza Rimpianti

I find it entertaining that potassium iodide tablets are being sold out all over the US.

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Holy shitsnacks!

You probably get more harmful radiation from the Sun than you ever will from Japanese power plants.

Given the winds and the halflife of radioactive isotopes of iodine...and that I don't believe we had any escaping radioactive primary decomposition material...seems like people don't even bother to find out from what it should be that they are protecting themselves from.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I'm annoyed at the incredible hype the nuclear plant has gotten so far. Yes, it's a terrible disaster but it will likely be a small percentage of the overall tragedy. Be prepared for over-the-top resistance to nuclear power. *sigh*

Yeah, I'm mostly pissed about the expected resistance to nuclear power in the future. Nevermind that it is extremely rare for an earthquake of this magnitude to create focused tsunamis towards the site of a nukular power plant.

Not to mention that there hasn't been a nuclear explosion.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

But we can just shrug off a partial meltdown, right? Or even two or three of them?

Extremely rare? But not unheard of, or even unexpected. This is why the Japanese do yearly country-wide drills, to know what to expect and how to respond. OK, sure, they expected no more than an 8.0 in that region - and who's to say that an earthquake of that magnitude wouldn't have caused something similar? Would it be OK if only one or two of the reactors there started having trouble?

As an op-ed piece in the LA Times today pointed out, it is hubris to suggest that we humans will always be in control.

You do realize that the only reason they haven't evacuated a full 50 miles around those reactors is because they have no place to put an extra 200,00 people or so? you have nearly a half-million people already suffering from deprivation, lack of power, water and food.

I should just stop going online. The myopia just pisses me off.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

What are you classifying as "the myopia"?

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According to one story I saw, iodine pills are sold out in California. One guy was sending some to family members in NYC for their protection. *face palm* It's probably the same morons who don't vaccinate their kids.