17 replies to this topic

[The Robstar]

Shit. It has been 10 years since the coastlines of Indonesia we're ravaged by those fucking waves. 230,000 people perished. 

 

 

 

Just watched a memorial service on tv. Pretty trippy. 

 

Indonesia, Japan and Samoa all got fucked up, where next?

 

Got me thinking. New Zealand is right on the subduction zone, where I live would be assed raped and obliterated off the face of the planet. Last wave that hit my city occurred in the 60's or 70's. Wasn't that destructive, but I can't help but feel that it's inevitable that another will strike in the future. :S

 

Paranoid? Perhaps, but every time an Earthquake happens, people run to the hills, and for some reason, them Earthquakes have been happening quite frequent as of late where I live :S

 

SPEAK YOUR MINDS AND TELL THE ROB WHAT YA'LL THINK!!!!!

 

 

[Mister Sympa]

Natural disasters are one of my big phobias.

 

I'm VERY luck to live in an area wherein they are unlikely, but I still don't like 'em.

 

Mama took me on the Earthquake ride at Universal Studios when I was five. Still haven't forgiven her.

[Big_Willie_Styles]

Part of it is infrastructure, another general poverty in such areas, and another is population density.

 

Combine all three and you get massive deaths anytime a hurricane, earthquake, or tsunami happens.

 

Which is why Katrina, while still bad, killed ridiculously less, relatively, than the hurricane that hit Haiti a few years after.

[Affray]

I read somewhere that hurricanes/storms that have female names have killed more people than those with male names.

Legitimately, they think it is because people don't take the female named storms as seriously.

On the bright side, it is probably mostly sexists who are being storm murdered.

[Big_Willie_Styles]

I read somewhere that hurricanes/storms that have female names have killed more people than those with male names.

Legitimately, they think it is because people don't take the female named storms as seriously.

On the bright side, it is probably mostly sexists who are being storm murdered.

It's one of those weird studies that "correlation does not equal causation" is made for.

 

Just because female-named storms kill more than male-named ones (names of which are given out randomly by the alphabet) doesn't imply sexism is why.

 

Mayhaps the female-named storms are on average stronger or hit more impoverished areas more often than the male-named ones?

[Affray]

Perhaps not.

That does not remove the chuckle factor though.

[Big_Willie_Styles]

Perhaps not.

That does not remove the chuckle factor though.

Well, it does.  Because it makes the study the equivalent of information lacking any measure of context.

 

It was widely reported in news media that sexism was the reason without any evidence to back it up.  I tried to explain to the people shouting "Of course, rampant sexism is the problem!" with actual facts when this all happened a short while ago.

 

Mostly, I believe this was Philip DeFranco viewers in the YouTube comments section.  (He made the same exact "most of the deaths were probably misogynists, so it's all good" argument you made, by the way.)

[Affray]

Well, when I say "Legitimately, they think it is because....", it is pretty obvious that I am just reporting what they said, not agreeing.

It is funny that people made that connection, regardless of accuracy.

 

I look at something like that and go "Heh, that's kind of funny.", and you apparently take huge offense that anyone could ever imagine saying anything like that and running with it. Chill out bud, not everything is a personal war.

[Big_Willie_Styles]

Well, when I say "Legitimately, they think it is because....", it is pretty obvious that I am just reporting what they said, not agreeing.

It is funny that people made that connection, regardless of accuracy.

 

I look at something like that and go "Heh, that's kind of funny.", and you apparently take huge offense that anyone could ever imagine saying anything like that and running with it. Chill out bud, not everything is a personal war.

Sexism was immediately assumed to be the problem and certain people in the media just ran with that story, amplifying a study that was interesting but didn't really have a lot of supporting evidence to make the sexism claim.  Pointing that out is important.

 

Because... Correlation does not equal causation.

[Affray]

I largely ignore most of what the American news spits out.

You have to sort of read between the lines to get any real information out of most of it.

The rest is a farse and I take it pretty lightly.

[Big_Willie_Styles]

I largely ignore most of what the American news spits out.

You have to sort of read between the lines to get any real information out of most of it.

The rest is a farse and I take it pretty lightly.

I tend to read a lot of political news and current events on a daily basis.  Parsing through it isn't hard after a few months of reading the equivalent of several books a week in political news.  I've been reading like crazy on such stuff since 2008.  Experience with it fosters this ability.  Takes a few months though.

 

Inherent bias is a thing and being familiar with the heavy hitters in political journalism does make opinion pieces occasionally predictable.  Probably why James Taranto is so fun to read.

[Mister Sympa]

I just opt out of news altogether. And if I DO get it, it's from NPR or the BBC.

[Big_Willie_Styles]

I just opt out of news altogether. And if I DO get it, it's from NPR or the BBC.

I don't like reading them very often, those two.  They tend to espouse insufferable puff pieces on things I couldn't care less about.  But Top Gear will always be awesome.  Fuck that History Channel localized bullshit.

[Calvary]

Not gonna lie, I think the Beeb is our most important export. With that being said my source of news is increasingly from Vice. It's the only radical liberal media organisation I like.

[The Robstar]

I just follow a whole bunch of news sites on twitter and FB. Get my juicy gossip at the vibrate of my phone. 

[Big_Willie_Styles]

Not gonna lie, I think the Beeb is our most important export. With that being said my source of news is increasingly from Vice. It's the only radical liberal media organisation I like.

No, your actors and Stephen Fry are.

 

Just like Canada.  Because all these peeps are awesome.

 

Also, this one song by Five Iron Frenzy I first heard on Boston Legal:

 

[Helen]

seems remarkable idea to me is

[No-Danico]

seems remarkable idea to me is

 

Hmmm. Remarkable idea to me is, indeed...