I think the movie was intentionally a bit "Forrest Gump"-esque, we're not meant to focus on the Nazis, the Nazi sympathizers, or the treasonous business owners. We're supposed to focus on the human bond, the relationship between the main characters, and how it all comes together at the last minute to resolve the plot (and the Plot).
I'm of a mixed opinion regarding the marketing, on the one hand the plot they uncover is a fundamental aspect of the story and would have definitely drawn more attention, but on the other hand drawing attention to the Plot in the wrong way was exactly what they wanted to avoid, do they leave the Business Plot out of the marketing or do they give in and weaken the whole message of the movie?
Not very well, honestly. Hence the mixed reviews. Amsterdam felt like two different decent movies that didn't fit together. It starts out seeming to be an earnest, whimsical love story between a group of friends and somehow ends up being an antifascist historical drama. The murder mystery is a really brief side plot red herring and what the main characters really investigate for some reason is who is behind the plot to overthrow the President.
Going to take a moment to plug a great biography of him I read, Gangsters of Capitalism Butler was a very complicated person, much like the rest of the Quakers.
I do feel like saying they would've gotten away with it is perhaps a tad overstating their chances
Some say Prescott Bush was supposed to be the liaison between this new government and the nazis, but experts have said it was unlikely because Prescott was already directly working with the nazis and focused on Europe.
His son became CIA director than later President, then one of his sons was president, and another has come close.
Republicans have been loving far right authoritarian governments for decades. trump just did it publicly which is why the party establishment still doesn’t like him. They agree with him, just think he’s too blatant and that will motivate people to vote D.
I personally dream of a technocratic demarchy model of governance where decision makers are chosen randomly from a pool of qualified professionals who opt-in for a given field.
I read about this before. I do believe there is some merit in it. I work for a company that has traditionally moved engineers into management and I can say it has worked very well. That said, a government is not a corporation and there are human aspects that may be overlooked by some engineers. Or that would at least be some people’s concern.
The worst bosses I've ever had were highly technical people put into those roles because they were perceived to be the best with those skills. There was repeatedly little-to-no regard for their soft skills and working for those people was miserable.
I’m sorry to hear that. The way we have managed it has worked but some of that could be that the engineers that were promoted have always or mostly been able to empathize.
The thing about technocracy is that there need to be human concerns and philosophies driving whatever scientifically-driven policy-making it's being done.
Do it wrong and that's how we end up with eugenics. It's incredibly easy to justify horrible stuff using metrics, the essential questions that cannot be overlooked is what metrics ought to be valued and why, and science is not the right method to make the ultimate judgement of what the values of a society ought to be.
Please for the love of the gods don’t put engineers in charge of anything but engineering projects. You want someone to decide about bridges, dams, power, etc?We’re your people. You want someone do decide what rights people should have or economic policy? Keep us the fuck away we’re basically mad scientists.
I think there’s a balancing point where people in positions to exercise political will would use data to inform their decisions… I feel like that was probably the objective.
The point is not putting engineers in charge of everything. Engineers can make policy on infrastructure. Economists can make policy on the economy and sociologists can make policy on social issues. The point is to stop putting people in charge because they belong to party X or are really good friends with person Y.
Ok cool, I’ve seen plenty of people make the argument that stem people should be in charge instead of that we should be in charge of policy we’re experts of
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