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The United States withdraws from UNESCO

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Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#181
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Thus failing the Game of life at the very core, with corresponding last moments full of regrets if available. Yes we all have met those folks, only fools (or similar but less successful folks) wish they would be those people.

> corresponding last moments full of regrets

That’s why they’re burning money on life extension moonshots.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#182
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, however, people with a good education _usually_ learn think intelligently about a variety of problems. By which I mean, they understand how to fact check sources, how to think critically about information presented to them, and how to validate their own assumptions. Edit: removing a sentence that came across as offensive.

First part yes, second hell no, why the heck the need to do such baseless attacks. We have plenty of sociopathic a-holes in Europe as well, I'd say more than plenty on all levels of society in all countries.

I didn’t think it was an “attack”, but merely an observation and a question.

But I can see how it can read as an “attack”, I’ll update the comment. Thanks for calling it out!

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#184

> America First > anti-Israel American Government became the parody of itself, so sad

You have to sign a document saying you won't boycott Israel, academic journals cancel editions which talk about Palestine, you can't be part of UNESCO for Israel. You can't write a college article critical of Israel or we'll kidnap you off the streets into an unmarked van. You can't be a business and not give a contract to Israel or your employee will tip off the Anti Boycott Office against you. Your Congressmen wear…

The right (same people behind project 2025) planned (and are now executing) an effort to use opposition to Israeli policy (calling it anti-Semitic) as a way to crack down and disrupt liberal and progressive groups across the Us. It’s all out in the open, they don’t hide it.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The Democratic Party lost to Trump, not "the left" and they lost based on either: not opposing the genocide in Gaza or because even ostensibly progressive voters won't vote for a black woman; there's only two data driven possibilities and neither of them is "culture war/identity politics has just gone nauseatingly overboard"

and of course the idea that the Republican Party hasn't been running on "identity politics" would require a wilful ignorance and complete lack of thought about any of their campaigning in the last few decades.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#186
post #40

And it’s wild to think that more than 1/3 of the devs I’ve met in my life support this admin. These are seemingly smart people. The past 10 years or so made me realize I don’t know anything about human nature or intellect. Edit: I am in no way saying conservatism is bad and liberalism is good. I have my values in both.

To be fair, a lot of people were fooled by the first term.

In the first term Trump hired a lot of retired or retiring generals. They may not have been subject matter experts, but that's fine, since they had subject matter experts within their departments, and they had the ability to organize, lead and execute.

But most importantly, most of them had a pretty strong sense of ethics and loyalty to the country and constitution.

The generals, and the people they hired, and even the Trump lackeys who were nonetheless being watched by the generals, helped keep Trump's worst impulses in check.

In Term 2, on the other hand, Trump has explicitly picked people who are completely unqualified (this is a mafia tactic to ensure the individual's loyalty is entirely to you since they know they would never have got the job they did on merit) and their primary skills lie in right wing TV and Podcasts. So these people prioritize effect and show for their followers, and are loyal to no one but Trump. And they've been selected primarily because they're incapable of doing the jobs they've been hired for well, so it's a stark 180 from the first term.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#189
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least it's transparent, like all the other things coming from the executive branch lately. And maybe that makes the damage more lasting, because people can see that US is so mired in populism that it cannot grasp how the SDGs of reducing poverty, accessing sanitation, equality, and -- dare I say -- dealing with climate change are things that ultimately help global security and thus benefit the US.

This is a false dilemma- believe it or not, it is possible for the US to provide support outside of UNESCO

Sure. But you know it won't.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#190
post #40

And it’s wild to think that more than 1/3 of the devs I’ve met in my life support this admin. These are seemingly smart people. The past 10 years or so made me realize I don’t know anything about human nature or intellect. Edit: I am in no way saying conservatism is bad and liberalism is good. I have my values in both.

The online space (Reddit, HN, others) is so deeply embedded with groupthink that people have lost the ability to see other points of view or debate topics of interest. To me it's very clear why the government is leaving UNESCO (and over time the UN at large). The UN is dysfunctional and does not work. It used to be a source of soft power for the States, but hasn't been so for the better part of this century. Meanwhil…

While UN is not optimal and needs a revamp, it is an organization that has almost all countries of the world as members. There is no guarantee that a new organization is going to be any better. Once US leaves UN, why would any other country believe in US to build a better organization, especially seeing that the existing administration in US itself is chaotic.
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