It is the opposite of a steelman to you. It is a matter of perspective in that if a person finds a leap forward in the consolidation of power and wealth to be abhorrent or illogical, then the act of pointing out that that is happening is itself abhorrent or illogical.
Unemployment lowering wages isn’t up for debate, cash-rich folks buying at the bottom of the market is not imaginary, and no one is trying to make the point that the tariffs somehow appeared emergently like weeds in the grass — we all agree that they are being imposed intentionally by people. There is no part of what was written there that is trivial to disprove.
Why do you think it's a good idea to buy olive oil from Tunisia instead of from California? Are you aware of how much CO2 is released to ship a trivial commodity across the atlantic ocean?
Just a guess as he said his favorite olive oil so could it be one tastes better? I imagine like many other things taste can be effected by the region it is grown in.
As for your other point in a perfect world we would all care about global climate change but many are not going to eat something they don’t like to do their part. But really cargo ships are small fish in such a big problem. Ban private jets or cruise ships would be way more beneficial.
Help me understand your viewpoint here - is the assumption that an entire ship is dedicated to shipping trivial commodities and the cargo isn't co-mingled with anything else? At the same time, what isn't counted as a "trivial commodity", and should ships _only_ be used for those items?
It just seems like the only things we should be importing from across the globe are things that absolutely cannot be produced domestically. For example, I've heard that coffee beans only grow in certain climates, so that would be a commodity that makes sense to import.
Pretty much everything else, including this supposed Tunisian olive oil, just sound like luxury goods to me, and should be priced accordingly.
GHG emissions from boat transport are actually a very low % of the total GHG emissions from producing that food. Moving it across the country on a truck would certainly produce more emissions than shipping it by boat from abroad.
> Formal education just works better for some of us than video tutorials or self-paced learning
I don’t agree with this at all. Anecdotally, the autodidacts I’ve met are way more knowledgeable about subjects they’re passionate about compared to those who received a formal education for it. This applies to both computer science, but also psychology majors who I’ve met who can’t even tell me the difference between Freud and Jung.
Are you actually saying that nobody exists who learns better when taught in the best ways we currently know how to teach, and in the way all formal education currently works? That everyone is better off teaching themselves with no help?
You are disagreeing if and only if this is what you are saying.
I mean, you can disagree with it based on your anecdata, but mine backs up my assertion which is why I made (and qualified) it the way I did. I specifically thrive in live sessions with an instructor knowledgeable on the material who can provide direct feedback, and I am not the only one. "Works better" is a qualifier on the effectiveness of the education on an individual, not the effectiveness of it on all individuals.
The key to learning accessibility is flexibility. Some thrive on self-study, some thrive on video tutorials, some thrive on audio lectures and others in live exercises. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if this also applied to specific topics: fundamentals of cooking might be better via live instruction, while iterating on a recipe is often fine with self-study or video tutorials.
The point is the flexibility, to allow people to learn in a way that's best for them, so they're more likely to continue learning throughout their lives.
Over the past 40 years I've become aware of a LOT of people who had difficulty staying engaged in self-paced learning sessions, especially pre-recorded. Without the dynamics -- questions and interactions -- that other students can pose (or you can pose), it's tough to maintain your attention for a solid 50 or 90 minutes. Not that all courses must be in-person, but I'd there to be a mix, with more in-person opportunities for course material that needs Q&A and interaction and examples, like courses heavy in math or theory, or recitation sections.
> When it came to the vote, Ukraine’s version passed by 93 votes to 18. The US voted against, alongside Russia, marking a major shift of its position on the conflict and previous votes.
> The US version was also adopted (93 in favour, eight against and 73 abstentions), but Member States also voted to add the European Union amendments with 60 in favour, 18 against and 81 abstentions.
What is the endgame in that world, keep sending weapons? At some point there won't be anyone left to fight. At some point a concession will need to be made, and those concessions can lead to better times.
There is no world where NATO/US invade Russia. That is literally the end of the world.
I agree, I think only a tiny number of additional weapons need to be given to Ukraine.
Perhaps two dozen Trident missiles equipped with nuclear warheads would be all that's really necessary. Russia is only invading because Ukraine believed it would honor its word in the Budapest Memorandum, which was why it surrendered its key strategic defense. With that agreement breached, Ukraine deserves its deterrents back.
I also agree that a concession will need to be made, and I think that's very appropriate. Reparations need to be paid for the war of aggression, and those guilty of war crimes need to be given fair trials by international tribunals.
I don't think they were equating the US to North Korea (where is China mentioned?), but saying that since the US can no longer be relies on for protection (instead of the sheriff we're at best the anti-hero that will maybe protect you if there's something in it for us). This means countries need to put up a stronger front themselves since there's no larger stabilizing force to rely on.
It's interesting, because I'm sure Trump and Musk take advantage of the benefits that the regulated market provide (even when they just ignore it to their benefit because most others don't), but I'm not sure they've really considered what it means when that stability and security is gone, in more than a "I'm the biggest so I'll be okay" type of sense. There's a lot of positive externalities from that stability that maybe they are discounting too much (such as a relatively peaceful world, since it's been a while since we had a World War).
Bear in mind that after WW2 the US didn’t want European countries arming up too much, and was quite happy to pick up the slack and set the pace. Eisenhower in particular was pretty clear he didn’t want a heavily armed Germany or Italy, for reasons that should be obvious, and was Dubious about France. It was the US that wrote the heavily pacifist Japanese constitution.
Threatening to annex Canada and start a trade war to try to compulse them. Invoking Canadian nationalism instead. Note: he arranged the previous "trade deal" he claims to hate now.
Starting a trade war with Mexico, this is actually a source of Fentanyl and I can understand.
Camerading with dictators ( Russia), voting the same as them in the UN. Claiming Russia isn't the aggressor ( wtf), even China didn't agree with it.
Threatening a country being attacked and bullying it's president. Taking advantage of the situation to bully them for resource extraction.
Threatening Europe and stability in Europe:
Threatening Germany and interfering publicly with it's elections.
Threatening the UK and interfering publicly with it's elections
Disrespecting NATO and it's citizens who have died when US invoked article 5 on 9/11
US is getting more and more hate from literally everywhere in a very short time because of Trump. A lot is changing very quickly and it won't take 4 years until Trump is gone. We're 6 weeks in...
The entire world is pretty sure that Trump & Vance will take the US in a dictatorship. A lot of this is smoke and mirrors to keep everyone distracted and busy in the mean time ( personal opinion)
Pointer: just look at Tesla in Europe. Some countries are reporting a 45% drop in Tesla sales while the EV market expanded 40%...
Eg. Tesla sales dropped 70% in Canada in January. 81 % in Australia, 60% in Germany, ...
When people will stop US subscriptions ( eg. Netflix) and it's becoming noticable ( eg. Stocks). That will be a point of no return (eg. I think it's already going to be visible from Canada).
> US is getting more and more hate from literally everywhere in a very short time because of that. A lot is changing very quick and it won't take 4 years until Trump is gone.
> The entire world is pretty sure that Trump will take the US in a dictatorship and is going to loosen ties.
Do you have a source for this or is it just some vibey rant? That last part seems ridiculous.
What seems ridiculous about it? Aggressive expansion of presidential power. A compliant judiciary that just handed the president immunity while in office. Constant comments about not having elections 'next time around'. Erosion of first amendment rights. Concentrated media ownership. Constant outright lies while in office.
He is giving many good reasons to be anxious or concerned. Are these normal behaviors? Is his conduct likely to weaken our institutions, rather then strengthen them?
The lack of self-awareness and celebratory exclusion of most of humanity from this assertion is deeply concerning.
Is there a reason that you consider people in vietnam, indonesia, the philippines, slovakia, mali, and dozens of other countries that are recent/ongoing victims of the rapacious and ultra-violent "good europeans" or the liberal-imperial US in recent ( < 100 years ago) history to be either:
A) Not part of the world (since you're explaining the GP statement about the world)
B) Or are somehow a self-evidently inferior subspecies for whom you assume it is impossible for people on HN to be friends with?
If you use "all the people in the world" and "a handful of majority-white former or current imperial-colonial powers" interchangeably, I don't see how anyone can assume in good faith that you're not carrying water for a set of very unpleasant european ideas used to rationalize dehumanization.
Look at the entire thread and notice my comment explicitly referenced the GP comment and the prior dialogue. This can be expressed as a set of logical axioms, and I hope that you are simply bad at reading comprehension.
1. "Everyone on earth hates X now"
2. "Well, not the whole world, that's not a serious claim"
3. "My evidence that it is indeed true that everyone on earth hates X is that a majority of white western europeans hate X, as will all of your non-american friends, all of them."
4. "Equating a majority of white western europeans as evidence of the feelings of all people on earth is implicitly exclusionary and illogical."
5. "I'm going to ignore the original claims being discussed and their context even though there are literally nested comments to show associated thoughts and doing so violates the basics of reading comprehension."
So that should catch you up. Again, I'd like to assume good faith but "pretending top level comments don't exist or inform subsequent comments" indicates some kind of learning disability or lack of socialization.
Canada - Ontario ( most populous province) - ends contract with Starlink and refuses to sell US alcohol ( 1 billion $/ year). I know a lot of Canadians and they are stopping US subscriptions everywhere.
Remember that white european imperial powers + NATO are not the global majority HN challenge [impossible, apparently]
At this point, basic facts no one disputes in other contexts are furiously downvoted when it inconveniences an increasingly authoritarian and racialized europe.
Hello, you seem to have been in a long coma, but welcome back from 1930.
The thing about today is that former European imperial powers have ceded their colonies to the people living there.
How did those military bases get there? And how did they remain? You are either very ignorant or you are intentionally mendacious to avoid the obvious reality that your prosperity and their poverty are deeply connected.
You’ve got it wrong there. All our prosperities around the globe are very much connected, which is why having a vindictive zero-sum mindset in the White House causes so many problems around the world as we are seeing.
Also, do you really not see how you prove yourself wrong when the only remnants of colonial times you can find are a few french military bases that are even being withdrawn from right this moment?
> US is getting more and more hate from literally everywhere in a very short time because of Trump.
This is the top level comment in the thread.
We're at the level of psychosis now where you're arguing with and furiously downvoting matters of agreed upon fact that are like... HTML elements.
If you are angrily in denial about which elements are nested, I can also well understand you might believe that western european empires and their successor states are in fact, the only human beings on earth.
I have friends who live in south-east asia and western africa and they cannot understand why I am so tepid to negative about Trump domestically, because everything he is doing is very positive for their countries.
Probably the reason you haven't heard about this is that intelligent people with options will tend to not maintain friendships with people who think of them as part of a lesser race without the right to interests or opinions.
Many don't seem to realize that removing bureaucracy and installing loyalists is exactly how a dictator becomes a dictator
And that's exactly what Trump is doing.
Eg. 6 january, it's really not that hard to see that Trump wants to cling to power and just earn an insane amount of money ( Trump coin, Melaniacoin, ... ), ignoring court orders, ... ( It's project 2025 and happening for weeks)
Claiming to have won the previous elections, with no proof
Do you have any proof that he isn't? Everything seems to support my opinion that Trump wants to be a dictator. He literally said so himself.
"I'll be a dictator for one day", we're currently 6 weeks in.
My concern about checking my own circle is that it is an inherently biased approach. I'll add that I'm not the biggest Trump fan. In fact, according to the political compass tool (take with a grain of salt, I guess) I'm quite liberal. If I go to a liberal circle, of course they're going to confirm this rhetoric that Trump is going to take the US in a dictatorship.
Al Green was being disruptive and frankly let his emotions get the best of him. There were even democrats who voted in favor of his censure.
Your point about removing bureaucracy and installing loyalists is solid. Though, to say it is exactly how a dictator becomes a dictator is of course an oversimplification. There's more to it than just that.
Also, keep in mind that this is happening within a democratic framework. Removing bureaucracy and installing loyalists can be done in pursuit of objectives other than obtaining dictatorial power:
- Margaret Thatcher in the UK reduced government size through privatizations and appointed conservative loyalists to implement her policies, operating within democracy and stepping down after her term.
- Nelson Mandela in South Africa transformed the bureaucracy from apartheid to a democratic system, installing officials loyal to the new democratic vision, and served two terms before stepping down.
- Ronald Reagan in the US cut regulations and appointed conservative officials to support his economic policies, also within democratic bounds.
In all of these, removing bureaucracy and installing loyalists was framed as efforts to enhance efficiency or fight corruption, not to consolidate absolute power.
Now, Trump is no Nelson Mandela. On the flip side, he is no Adolf Hitler.
There is a lot of alarmist rhetoric going around (such as "Trump will take the US in a dictatorship") that I think will prevent people from seeing what is actually happening (be it good or bad).
That is my attempt at being rational while being bombarded with propaganda from both left and right.
He said publicly during the election that if he won “you won’t have to vote anymore” several times, including on a Fox interview.
During protests in his first presidency in 2020 he asked his security advisors “Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?”
Combined with his persistent attempts to overturn the result when he lost to Biden, and retribution against Repubican election officials that certified Biden wins, and I’m frankly confused what isn’t clear about what’s going on.
I think it’s Eurocentric to imply that China is morally inferior to the US. Yes the United States have more personal liberties, but China has less wealth inequality. While the US is more democratic, we have had many questionable elections in our history. Most notably in favor of the victor, Nixon committed treason by sabotaging peace talks in order to influence the ‘68 election [0]. Giving more recent examples of questionable elections would be too controversial and political for HN.
When discussing nuclear proliferation, North Korea is pretty much the worst example and should be mentioned.
Nitpick: I assume you really meant US centric and not "Eurocentric", as as you point out european countries are more in the middle of it and look at each camps from a distance while being involved with all of them.
In practical terms, we can see how Huawei is not banned in the EU, the EU isn't in a tariff war with China either, while it's also not a clear Chinese ally, also having a independant stance from the US in most geopolitical fights.
> I think it’s Eurocentric to imply that China is morally inferior to the US.
Apart from the genocide of the Uighur, the brutal oppression of Tibet, the complete lack of even the pretense of democratic rights, the total lack of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and on and on. Last I checked not wanting your ethnicity eliminated or brutally repressed isn’t just a European thing.
I'd love to have those answers too but it seems like DOGE doesn't care about transparency as much as they claim to want that. Elon keeps touting open source and transparency but the transparency is only in the form of poorly researched, cherry picked tweets from him which are often false. I could actually get behind DOGE if they were properly publishing all the financials of the agencies that they're auditing and programs that they're cutting. Without that, it's completely unaccountable.
The receipts still aren't there, even though they had said they'd be up there before Valentine's Day (now they just say "coming over the weekend", I wonder if they'll make that deadline or have to update the text again...).
Transparency would have been most important before they started randomly cancelling contracts, but it seems they didn't bother.
Who is the "they" you're talking about? Assuming you mean "the establishment executive branch agencies", it's not like you're getting that answer from Trump and Musk either.
We have no idea what they're actually cutting, whether that $100M would have gone to something genuinely useful, or if it was going to some wasteful project.
Well, we do sorta find out, when we hear about a single mother being unable to provide food for her children because she's capriciously and arbitrarily lost her SNAP benefits.
DOGE is a train wreck, and like in any train wreck, a lot of innocent people get hurt, and no one knows what's going on in the midst of the chaos.
I agree with you, but I feel like this argument is kind of lost in a place like HN where even if the $100 million was going to ensure that orphans got warm beds and enough vitamins, someone would come along and say "yeah but why is that the government's job?" and ignore the point that, well, if you want to debate what is and isn't the government's job, you should probably do that in such a way that doesn't disrupt the lives of people who were accepting legally distributed aid.
They could've done the advisory role investigating and proposing improvements with a normal review process as promised instead of just going in there and being a bull in every china shop smashing things up regardless of whether or not it's useful.
Instead, you're getting to debate whether or not something was a good idea after it was already destroyed.
If you believe the system is fundamentally broken, and has become an instrument graft to funnel taxpayer dollars to DC bureaucrats, NGOs, special interests, political allies, propagandistic media, etc., that would be a much less effective way to fix it.
I realize many people don’t believe this, and believe instead that government corruption and waste in the US is non-existent or acceptably low, and we shouldn’t rock the boat.
But if they don’t believe that, their actions make sense.
I don't think this counts. The most detailed it gets is this:
Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS for $505 Million. What exactly is that? People with AIDS already have housing options. They have the same options as other people. There is literally nothing in that line item that explains why half a billion is needed for that. Where's the report, wheres the description of number of employees to administer, and an explanation of why thats needed.
Another thing: In the period between 2012 and 2019, the
number of full-time equivalent (FTE) employees
at HUD declined from 8,576 to 6,837, a
reduction of 20 percent. This loss of staff
presented serious risks to HUD’s ability to meet
the needs of its customers, protect against
cybersecurity threats, and deliver on the
mission.
Where is the backup of that statement - "HUD’s ability to meet
the needs of its customers, protect against
cybersecurity threats, and deliver on the
mission. "
Protecting against cybersecurity should literally be handled by a different org within fedgov!
Also why 2000 more employees? Are they also taking an elevator down the limestone mountain and riding around on bikes to file a loan?
The stories coming out of DOGE are like this, how do you expect me to read this PDF without a ton of cynicism?
It is totally inappropriate for a tax base to fund something over $1M that has nothing backing up what it is for. Let's get rid of FRAUD and ABUSE!
I should note that I try to avoid flagging unless the entire comment is an outright attack and there is nothing of substance whatsoever in it. The "these are things they don't want to answer" is partially fitting that criteria, but I simply focused on the implicit question.
I figured a comment like that is better (and a bit funnier) to to simply disprove than hide. And I didn't need much work to disprove it. Any little nudges to help peope realize that "yes, a good 95%+ of government budgets is publicly viewable" is a good step forward.
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