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TV/Movies Megathread

Started by Eddie Teach, March 06, 2011, 09:29:27 AM

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Razgovory

Because of this thread I've started watching the show.  I've finished three episodes.  From what I've watched you could transplant the story into the US with very few changes.  The events depicted in the show and the response by authorities have plenty of analogs in US history and current US policy.  The obvious one is global climate change.

I haven't finished the show yet but the question in the back of my mind the entire time is "Would we have done better?"  The answer is probably not.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

mongers

Quote from: Razgovory on June 09, 2019, 03:26:06 PM
Because of this thread I've started watching the show.  I've finished three episodes.  From what I've watched you could transplant the story into the US with very few changes.  The events depicted in the show and the response by authorities have plenty of analogs in US history and current US policy.  The obvious one is global climate change.

I haven't finished the show yet but the question in the back of my mind the entire time is "Would we have done better?"  The answer is probably not.

Thanks Raz, that's a good recommendation for watching the show.

Also I think something similar might be said about some situations in this country i.e the Grenfell fire, what could possible go wrong with putting people in a primed bonfire after having destroy much of the original inbuilt fire protection.
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

grumbler

The US did, in fact, have a disaster that resembled Chernobyl in the sense that bureaucrats were making bureaucratic decisions based on their desired to seem to be the "can do" types that their bosses wanted to see:  the Challenger disaster.  Read https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Appendix-F.txt Richard Feynman's appendix to the Rogers Report (irnically, not in the main report because Rogers feared it was too negative).  The money quote:

QuoteConclusions

   If a reasonable launch schedule is to be maintained, engineering often cannot be done fast enough to keep up with the expectations of originally conservative certification criteria designed to guarantee a very safe vehicle. In these situations, subtly, and often with apparently logical arguments, the criteria are altered so that flights may still be certified in time. They therefore fly in a relatively unsafe condition, with a chance of failure of the order of a percent (it is difficult to be more accurate).

   Official management, on the other hand, claims to believe the probability of failure is a thousand times less. One reason for this may be an attempt to assure the government of NASA perfection and success in order to ensure the supply of funds. The other may be that they sincerely believed it to be true, demonstrating an almost incredible lack of communication between themselves and their working engineers.

   In any event this has had very unfortunate consequences, the most serious of which is to encourage ordinary citizens to fly in such a dangerous machine, as if it had attained the safety of an ordinary airliner. The astronauts, like test pilots, should know their risks, and we honor them for their courage. Who can doubt that McAuliffe was equally a person of great courage, who was closer to an awareness of the true risk than NASA management would have us believe?

   Let us make recommendations to ensure that NASA officials deal in a world of reality in understanding technological weaknesses and imperfections well enough to be actively trying to eliminate them. They must live in reality in comparing the costs and utility of the Shuttle to other methods of entering space. And they must be
realistic in making contracts, in estimating costs, and the difficulty of the projects. Only realistic flight schedules should be proposed, schedules that have a reasonable chance of being met. If in this way the government would not support them, then so be it. NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative, so that these citizens can make the wisest decisions for the use of their limited resources.

   For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

However, US nuclear power plants are run on a completely different basis than the Soviet ones were.  You have two teams in US nuclear power plants:  operators, and NRA regulators.  They have something of an adversarial relationship, as the NRA regulators are there to find flaws in the way the operators operate, and delight in doing so.  No NRA regulator would have allowed the operators at Chernobyl to operate as they did.  This double layer of observation and adversarial management is one of the reasons nuclear power is so expensive.

In the USSR, the state ran the plants, and criticism of the way they were operated was criticism of the party (the bit in the show about the censored report that explained exactly how the RBMK-1000 could fail as it did was true).

So, yes, the same bureaucratic bullshit that led to the Chernobyl disaster occurs elsewhere, all the time.   In at least some cases, this tendency is recognized and countermeasures implemented.  That doesn't happen in totalitarian states because it implies that the state is fallible, which means that totalitarianism itself is unjustifiable.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

The Brain

The NRA people are also armed.
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

Tamas

QuoteSo, yes, the same bureaucratic bullshit that led to the Chernobyl disaster occurs elsewhere, all the time.   In at least some cases, this tendency is recognized and countermeasures implemented.  That doesn't happen in totalitarian states because it implies that the state is fallible, which means that totalitarianism itself is unjustifiable.

:yes:


That's the key for limits in drawing parallels between inept reactions and organisations.


It also reflects on what, BTW, is the key advantage of a working democracy: flexibility. Sure it can be chaotic and you can end up with morons in charge, but if a change is necessary it can be made without questioning the legitimacy of the system and institutions.

Josephus

Deadwood The Movie.

It was good fun. Sort of like going to a school reunion and seeing how people have aged, and it dawned on me, fuck I must have aged too.

The Calamity Jane chasing down her old lover plot was silly, but otherwise B-
Civis Romanus Sum

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world." Jack Layton 1950-2011

Zanza

Watched "The Rocketman" about Elton John. Good film, despite me not even being a fan of his music. I knew more songs than I had thought. Not the same level as Bohemian Rhapsody or A Star Is Born when it comes to "music" films I saw recently.

Razgovory

Quote from: Tamas on June 10, 2019, 04:17:41 AM
QuoteSo, yes, the same bureaucratic bullshit that led to the Chernobyl disaster occurs elsewhere, all the time.   In at least some cases, this tendency is recognized and countermeasures implemented.  That doesn't happen in totalitarian states because it implies that the state is fallible, which means that totalitarianism itself is unjustifiable.

:yes:


That's the key for limits in drawing parallels between inept reactions and organisations.


It also reflects on what, BTW, is the key advantage of a working democracy: flexibility. Sure it can be chaotic and you can end up with morons in charge, but if a change is necessary it can be made without questioning the legitimacy of the system and institutions.

In the US these type of economic disasters tend to be caused by private entities rather than governmental ones.  Instead of paranoia, national pride, and careerism such events are typically caused by greed.  Fortunately western countries are very, very, careful when it comes to nuclear though that might partially in response to events like Chernobyl and 3 Mile Island.  In the Missouri they had to evacuate an entire town and bulldoze the place because of dioxin poisoning.  The worst disaster did not happen in the US but in India.  A factory owned by a US company killed thousands at Bophal.

The US government has frequently take a caviler approach to the lives of people serving it.  Watching the Soviet soldiers doing the cleanup made me think of US sending soldiers charging in to a mushroom cloud during the atomic testing in the 1950's.

Two parts that stood out to me in the show.  One of the character's attitude toward the disaster changes completely when he finds out that his work in the clean up will result in his death.  The 2nd thing was when the KGB head comes in to talk to one of the main characters and reminds of him of the his work for the party and how he had compromised himself long ago.  Because that's what living in a dictatorship does.  It makes you compromise yourself.  It makes you complicit.  Some more than others, but in the end everyone is complicit in some way.  That is the very foundation of despotism.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Tonitrus

Quote from: Razgovory on June 10, 2019, 02:39:26 PM
...made me think of US sending soldiers charging in to a mushroom cloud during the atomic testing in the 1950's.

Or letting John Wayne try to play Genghis Khan.  :(

KRonn

Quote from: Tonitrus on June 10, 2019, 03:05:10 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 10, 2019, 02:39:26 PM
...made me think of US sending soldiers charging in to a mushroom cloud during the atomic testing in the 1950's.

Or letting John Wayne try to play Genghis Khan.  :(

Hmmm, I think I remember that.   :hmm:

mongers

'Paths of Glory' - what an excellent, significant film.
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

Savonarola

Rocketman (2019)

CB and I caught an early evening showing.  There was an elderly gentleman who had fallen asleep during the previews; and for the first five minutes of the film I though someone on screen had fallen asleep at the AA meeting and was snoring loudly.

Sort of a biopic, sort of a musical and sort of a bunch of music videos strung together.  I'm not sure it all worked (it reminded me of the movie version of "The Wall"); but it has its moments.  A number of the dance numbers are really impressive and the costuming is fantastic.  The singing is performed by the actors; it's not bad, but it's not Elton John.  As a biography, well it's more in the spirit of Elton's life rather than a factual account.  I enjoyed it; at least it's different than the standard paint-by-numbers rock biopic.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Duque de Bragança

Quote from: mongers on June 12, 2019, 09:02:38 PM
'Paths of Glory' - what an excellent, significant film.

:thumbsup:

Great one. Last time I watched it?  At the Cinémathèque for the Kubrick retrospective, though it is a fixture of classic cinema channels.

mongers

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on June 13, 2019, 11:43:36 AM
Quote from: mongers on June 12, 2019, 09:02:38 PM
'Paths of Glory' - what an excellent, significant film.

:thumbsup:

Great one. Last time I watched it?  At the Cinémathèque for the Kubrick retrospective, though it is a fixture of classic cinema channels.

:cool:

Duque, I bet that was a cool event to go to.
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

Duque de Bragança

Quote from: mongers on June 13, 2019, 12:04:52 PM
Quote from: Duque de Bragança on June 13, 2019, 11:43:36 AM
Quote from: mongers on June 12, 2019, 09:02:38 PM
'Paths of Glory' - what an excellent, significant film.

:thumbsup:

Great one. Last time I watched it?  At the Cinémathèque for the Kubrick retrospective, though it is a fixture of classic cinema channels.

:cool:

Duque, I bet that was a cool event to go to.

The queueing part not so great, but apart from that, yes. ;)