61–70 of 420 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That isn't really an argument to simply say people who don't agree with you aren't sane.
[flagged]
Wherever budget cuts are proposed, you can rely upon detractors to present the issue in apocalyptic terms. If we believed all of these claims, then it would be impossible to cut the scope of government spending. Furthermore, if we accepted the premise promoted by some commenters here, then research, which is presented as incredibly valuable - would be unable to be funded or valued in the private market. For these rea…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
who said he's not cutting enough?
For a starting premise, we might define "enough" as a balanced budget.
I'm sure it'll also have other deleterious effects on the economy such as brain drain which would be difficult to reverse.
These kind of policies and that amortization tax law for software development will probably encourage quite some exodus of talent. Would it be to Europe or South East Asia, though?
USA pays engineers like 3x as much as those places. It's still global brain drain destination #1.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please explain how cutting science and medical research helps the country. While you're at it, I'm also curious how you think cutting profitable departments (such as CPFB) or white-collar law enforcement helps anyone other than the president's friends.
Public research is just government subsidies to corporations, which acquire IP for pennies on the dollar for their own profits while leaving taxpayers with the chaff. It’s a net loss for the public good who has to pay twice.
Even then ROI for taxpayers is staggeringly huge in the long run. Calling it a "net-loss" is ... well. It is flat-earth level thinking.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure they care. Research etc goes against a lot of their ideological stances from climate policy to gender to economics (eg: there's barely a trickle down the cups at the top are bottomless) so they're just destroying the institutions that oppose them so they can make more money and retreat to their redoubts or just be dead by the time the repercussions of things like climate change become unignorable.
In a thread here a few months back, I said that one good thing about a new social media platform was that it was full of scientists and journalists. Someone asked, ~"what is about those two groups that you like?" I had to think about it for a minute, but the reply was ~"neither group is perfect, but it's their actual job to find and present the truth." I have no idea why it took me so long to realize that this is why…
And let me guess, the cops' job is to protect and serve?
The situation is both more simple and less simple than that.
Journalists and scientists effective top priority is to serve their employers. Sure they want to report the news and shape truth in the same way that cops want to catch real criminals but all of these people are employed by organizations that have other priorities that take precedence.
Authoritarians hate these groups because they're effectively a competing power center. It's as simple as that. You see the same adversarial relationship between secular authoritarians and the clergy in countries with religious populations. It has nothing to do with truth and everything to do with power. Media, religious, and educational institutions power comes from shaping what people believe, truth in your words.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure they care. Research etc goes against a lot of their ideological stances from climate policy to gender to economics (eg: there's barely a trickle down the cups at the top are bottomless) so they're just destroying the institutions that oppose them so they can make more money and retreat to their redoubts or just be dead by the time the repercussions of things like climate change become unignorable.
Not only do they not care, they actually relish destroying anything they consider to be "woke", like science. It's unfortunate, but modern American conservatism is now defined by hating everything that liberals love. This is a pity, because there should be a balance between "progress" and "government restraint" -- and that is no longer possible.
Talk: "America first!" Actual policy: "America... whatever..." The scale of anti-science policies is historic in their scale and even breadth of topics.