How to safely make space for attic ladder installation
JBR, the white things are knobs and the tubes going through the wood are just that tubes for knob&amp; tube wiring, since you don’t know much about electrical you may want to identify another location.  It is quite possible the old wiring is still in use.

I have a 1930 farm house that almost all the K&amp;T was still in use 5 years ago. Just a few new circuits that were NMB cables or Romex (a brand , the white and yellow cables)

Added reference:
The NEC requires the protection of the wires per 320-23 , and NM cable refers to this section also 334.23

Be very cautious around the old K&amp;T wiring that insulation is extremely old and I have been zapped more times than I can count crawling around in old homes with K&amp;T. 

If you add a permanent ladder you will also need to protect all the wiring, the Romex can have some boxes added and extended to get it out of the way but I would suggest a pro to do any work on the K&amp;T if it is still in use , it can be done but not many sparkys will do patch work on K&amp;T and some jurisdictions do not allow it.