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THE BROWNS BOARD

Televangelists - Last Week Tonight


MLD Woody

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1. St. Francis Dam, 1928
Self-taught engineer William Mulholland built this LA dam on a defective foundation and ignored the geology of the surrounding canyon. He also dismissed cracks that formed as soon as the reservoir behind it was filled. Five days later, it ruptured, killing 450 people and destroying entire towns (along with Mulholland’s career).

2. Kansas City Hyatt walkways, 1981
Walkways crisscrossing the hotel’s multistory atrium collapsed, domino-style, raining debris and hundreds of people onto the packed dance contest below. The cause: grossly negligent design and use of beams that could support only 30 percent of the load.

3. Vasa, 1628
Three hundred years before the Titanic, the Vasa was the biggest sailing vessel of its day. The overloaded ship ruled the seas for all of a mile before she took on water through her too-low gun ports and promptly capsized.

4. Northeastern US power grid, 1965
A single protective relay tripped in Ontario, overloading nearby circuits and causing a cascade of outages that left 30 million homes without power for up to 13 hours. A fragile, redundancy-free design ensured that it would happen eventually.

5. McDonnell Douglas DC-10, 1970s
Nearly a thousand people around the world lost their lives while the kinks were being ironed out of this 290-ton competitor to Boeing’s 747. Blown-out cargo doors, shredded hydraulic lines, and engines dropped midflight were just a few of the behemoth’s early problems.

6. Firestone 500 tires, 1970s
These steel-belted radials allowed water to seep under the tread, which caused the belting to rust and the tread to separate, typically at high speeds. Dozens of deaths later, Firestone blamed consumers, then recalled 10 million tires.

7. Purity Distilling Company tank, 1919
You gotta keep your molasses somewhere – how about a rickety tank 50 feet tall and 90 feet in diameter in the middle of Boston? The structure was painted brown to hide the leaks. Eventually it burst (possibly exploding from fermentation), sending waves of molasses up to 15 feet high into the city and killing 21.

8. Skylab, 1973
America’s first space station was hopelessly damaged at launch because designers failed to account for the aerodynamics of the meteoroid shield and solar panels. When crews weren’t busy making repairs, they complained of the extreme heat on board.

9. Citigroup Center, 1978
Last-minute changes to structural braces of this Manhattan tower left it vulnerable to collapse in high winds. With a hurricane bearing down on the city, builders rushed to strengthen it by welding 2-inch steel plates over 200 weakly bolted joints.

10. R101 airship, 1930
Seven years before the Hindenburg disaster, the British thought 5.5 million cubic feet of hydrogen in a bubble of fabric would make for a fun way to get around. On her maiden flight, the airship’s cover was blown open by wind, and from there it was oh-the-humanity city.

Christopher Null

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I didn't watch the video and so I have no idea why you responded with those but I do know the Kansas City Hyatt walkways is a classic engineering disaster which we discussed in school (informally. I was in electrical, not civil, engineering) it serves as a sobering reminder of how seriously engineers must take their jobs and the consequences if we don't.

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Steve got it. Trying to ridicule all TV evangelists by posting about the worst

of them... if fine with woody, but he doesn't like the same tactic

used on engineers. Kinda obvious...

rain.jpg

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Oh I suspect you could guess but let me venture that yes there are some bad televangelist out there in the world. There are also some bad engineers.

Sound like a good guess?

 

WSS

Umm... I guess. If by bad you mean "bad at their jobs" then sure. If by bad you mean "actually a bad person" then that's probably true too.

 

But I must have missed the examples of engineers preying on the stupid/desperate with religion, basically acting as conmen, to this scale.

 

If Cals response was an attempt to say "well this thing you like is bad too!" he did a pretty poor job of it.

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Steve got it. Trying to ridicule all TV evangelists by posting about the worst

of them... if fine with woody, but he doesn't like the same tactic

used on engineers. Kinda obvious...

rain.jpg

Engineers aren't supposed to save souls, have moral high ground or preach the coming of the lord. Invalid comparison in my opinion.

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The content is different, but the logical structure of the argument is the same. I simply

flipped the setup structurally, only I used engineers. Turnabout is fair play.

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Except it really isn't Cal...

 

These televangelists are purposely taking advantage of people for monetary gain. The examples you posted were terrible accidents.

 

The scale of this real issue vs your made up one aren't the same either.

 

I think you're just reaching at something here because I posted a thread that puts part Christianity in a negative light. Are you trying to defend their actions?

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The content is different, but the logical structure of the argument is the same. I simply

flipped the setup structurally, only I used engineers. Turnabout is fair play.

Not at all. You have one group preying (no pun intended) on those looking for a miracle. The other group accidents of a colossal nature.

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Yes. Different content. Same mo on generally dissing an entire group of people.

Basically, the same structure. The title doesn't say

"crazy nutjob evangelists taking advantage of goofy people who believe what they say"...

 

it says evangelists.

 

 

and I didn't say "crazy nutjob engineers taking advantage of goofy people who believe in what

they design".

 

Qubbling about the very end content/details doesn't make the basic logical structures

stop being the same.

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Yes. Different content. Same mo on generally dissing an entire group of people.

Basically, the same structure. The title doesn't say

"crazy nutjob evangelists taking advantage of goofy people who believe what they say"...

 

it says evangelists.

 

 

Actually, it says Televangelists.

 

More to the point, why offer such a general rebuttal to an entire segment of people when Woody has highlighted with a video a particular few?

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Because "televangelists", and Woody says it shows part of Christianity in a bad light.

 

I personally don't call that Christianity. I've always wondered if they are conmen, or just plain

not in their right minds, and/or have serious emotional issues.

 

But it isn't just televangelists. There are all sorts of the same preachers who never get on tv.

 

Maybe those engineers had serious emotional issues. Maybe they were just incompetent.

 

But basically, woody is slurring Christianity with this element of dingbats on TV, always pleading for more money,

etc etc etc.

 

But the engineers were either totally incompetent, or they took a job for big, big money, knowing that they

didn't have a clue how to successfully engineer what they engineered, but took advantage of those officials

who hired them, not knowing any better.

 

We don't really know. But basically, Woody posted this as a slur toward Christians in general, pointing out the

worst.

I posted, sarcastically, the same thing, basically. I posted as a slur to engineers in general, by pointing out the worst.

 

To show a video of teachers, or lawyers, or doctors, in the same "worst of them" scenarios... and it's basically the same

logical slur structure.

 

Arguing that teachers don't engineer or preach doesn't change the basic structure of what woody was doing. See?

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Not searching hard at all.

 

I said basically. You and Tiam ignored "basically".

 

You libs do that to have a pseudo-legit point.

I use words for a reason.

 

You attempting to be marginalizing my points by parsing out particular words is nonsense.

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Not searching hard at all.

 

I said basically. You and Tiam ignored "basically".

 

You libs do that to have a pseudo-legit point.

I use words for a reason.

 

You attempting to be marginalizing my points by parsing out particular words is nonsense.

Easy with that 'lib' label being tossed around there, guy. Can't call a spade when there isn't one. That being said, I don't consider those on TV to be the better representation of Christianity. I consider those people on the tube to be hustlers.

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True, I take the lib thing back for you.

 

You're just contrary......

 

some have proven to be hustlers in the worst way.

Some, I still wonder if they are all there, to say it politely.

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