Mostly agreed. Maybe someone will be able to do something with it but until we can make predictions there's not much to be done.
DavidTC: What I don’t do is build entire conspiracy theories about kids being taught string theory... and that we should toss the entire thing.
If String theory were attempting to set policy then it would be quackery and not a thought experiment. Ergo all related policies could and should be tossed.
DavidTC: assert that prejudice is best understood systemically
Let me guess, they totally ignore culture, self destructive behavior, and proclaim all differences between races should be explained by prejudice?
The criticism of CRT's core is massively damning. After we establish that the core of CRT is nonsense I'm not sure why there's the need to justify just tossing the entire thing out.
I'm sure there are some "good" aspects, but those can be redone under a sane ideology.
DavidTC: There will officially be no pressure to hire ‘non-white non-males’ if we can implement exactly one law and a Federal agency to do it.
We have already outlawed this kind of discrimination because it's heinous. If you're trying to claim the gov has to encourage heinous behavior until we get a perfect society then I don't agree.
that isn’t the goal of that form of DEI, it’s to hire equally qualified non-white non-men,
If you're going to insist that you hire people in higher percentages than exist in the talent pool, then math suggests you do have to hire unqualified people.
The problem is that isn’t all DEI does.
Then I suggest you stop defending the heinous parts and only defend the parts that are useful.
talking about microagressions... not entirely worthless.
One of the big problems with increasing taxes is our political system will just spend it and the deficit will remain.
We need a way to force politicians to pay for the goodies they promise or to revoke those goodies when the spending doesn't appear.
There are political forces to spend. There are political forces to oppose taxes. They're not actually matched against each other in a way that balances the budget.
For example, if every dollar of deficit spending was subtracted from some political sacred cow (Social Security) so that payments were lowered, then we'd always have a balanced budget. Every program that handed out free whatever would have tax increases to pay for it.
Or alternatively, every GOP effort to reduce taxation would also include actual cuts to something specific because the alternative is they're lowering whatever.
We could have "wholesale restructuring" without "massive cutting".
Force all HealthCare providers to set a price and publish it for every service. This would outlaw these price fixing "networks" and bring the market to bear.
Far as I can tell, no one is claiming that our HC is efficient even compared to other countries.
That's over and above whether or not the various reports I've been hearing are correct. I.e. whether 10-20% of spending is outright fraud and whether we have various boondoggles and such.
RE: Cutting Medicare
Making Medicare more efficient via the market would drastically reduce it's cost without "cuts". There would also be a ton of other positive side effects.
RE: Tax increases
It's unclear if seriously increasing taxes will actually result in seriously increasing the amount of money the gov collects via taxation.
RE: Cutting defense
We have already cut defense if we look at percentage of GDP. We also have the issue the amount of money we need to raise dwarfs Defense spending.
Those were options although just spelling them out goes a long way to explain why the Jews wanted a country so bad.
Big picture that region had two sets of indigenous natives who had opposite ideas on who would be setting up a state and what peoples will be welcomed.
As normal, there were population exchanges and the process of setting up state(s) and winding down empire was messy. See also Britain's pull out of India and the creation of India/Pakistan and so on.
The truly abnormal part was Israel not being forgiven the crimes of it's creation. That's the root of all other problems here.
There shouldn't be "refugees" decades, much less generations, after a state creation conflict. There especially shouldn't be UN support for that.
Everyone is a reasonable person who thinks like I do. The only way I'd act like they do is if I were repressed.
Problem is when I listen to what the Palestinians are actually saying it sounds a lot like they're serious about "No Jews". Unfortunately that means Hamas isn't the actual problem because while they're brutal and repressive, they represent the Palestinians political desires.
Part of their mandate is supposedly trying to stand up locals so they can deal with this issue without international help.
OK, so we have that as a mandate, a ten fold increase in GDP, a massive reduction in the cost of the drugs because they're off patent, and 23 years of effort.
I think it's fair to measure them by teaching how to fish rather than by giving out fish, which long term is their job... but not in their personal best interests.
PEPFAR is self-interested noblesse oblige, not a question of enablement or moral hazard.
When I look at the list of countries it's supposed to focus on, some (Haiti) are just as much a failed state as they were then. I can easily believe we're in noblesse oblige territory there.
Others have had massive economic growth. Vietnam's GDP is 10x what it was.
Is PEPFAR still "helping" Vietnam even if it's no longer impoverished? Is PEPFAR taking credit there? Is Vietnam engaging in moral hazard by not dealing with this?
I also think this program, like all programs, should be forced to justify it's existence against a reasonably high bar. (There's a reasonably good chance it can do that too.)
Big picture we need a good way to prevent the gov from trying to do everything for everyone, and to prevent dead wood from building up. All programs should have sunset provisions.
Again, this program has multiple red flags showing. It's job is to destroy itself and it's thus far failed.
When we have multiple red flags the default isn't to look at what it claims to do and feel good about ourselves. The default is to assume it is off mission and should be destroyed without strong justification otherwise.
Procedurally, I fully expect Trump to be overruled left, right, and center for these reasons.
However that's a different issue than "this program claims to do holy things (and did so in the past) so any effort to examine it, question it, or otherwise hold it accountable is unthinkable".
I also think it's a mistake to examine every dollar spent as though no one will change their actions if that dollar is withdrawn. For example my kid got free lunches for several years here, but subtracting that doesn't leave her hungry because I won't allow that.
It's a mistake to have the soft bigotry of low expectations. It's especially a mistake to write it into law.
At some point it will create problems and enable behavior that shouldn't be.
It is certainly possible that it's still a successful program... but at this point it shouldn't be. Ergo the question should be, why is it still needed, i.e. what has gone wrong to the point where it's still needed.
So without this program the wheels come off? The people of Africa have no interest in staying HIV free? Their governments have no interest or ability to have this happen?
There is a failed state or two in that list, but there are also a lot of countries that have gone a long way upwards. The treatment of AIDS has gotten a lot cheaper. This program has had as part of it's mission turning over this treatment to the locals for the last 18 years or so.
PEPFAR was created as a "emergency" program to deal with a crisis. That's right there in the name. It's been trying to "ensure long-term sustainability and country leadership" since 2008.
So it suffers from the problem that it's mission is to destroy itself.
The life cycle of this kind of program is it's created with great intentions, does good things, and then the iron rule of bureaucracy takes hold and it becomes a vehicle to support the jobs of the program itself.
It's the same issue with charities which claim to "help X" (how can you oppose helping X?) and they spend more money on administration than on X.
I can't tell whether we've hit the point where PEPFAR should be eliminated, but there are multiple red flags here.
It's existed so long that it's original staff presumably has mostly been replaced. It's made no progress on destroying itself over the last 17 years. One of the big problems back in 2003 was the serious AIDS drugs were on patent, but that's no longer true.
Elements of the GOP (who might or might not know more than I do) have problems with it.
It's been 23 years. At what point should we expect people to care for themselves? Would they without our "help"? And why do we have multiple us gov agencies dealing with this?
Every GOP President since I've been alive has been accused of this. After a while we realize that no, the country isn't in danger, the claims are hysteria.
If you want to claim that Trump is different then we should review what claims were made about him at this point the last time he was elected. I was around then.
People on this site were claiming he was going to set up death camps. The closest we got was pictures of children in cages which turned out to be from Obama.
Phil: Did she have to meet any qualification for the sports governing body?
You really should read the link. The "qualification" was apparently checking a box.
And this is the logical outcome of an ideology which claims gender is a social construct which can change based on subjective feelings.
So this outcome is what this ideology claims is desired and appropriate.
And again – how often does this occur?
This ideology is claiming "not often enough".
Or do you think girls can’t beat boys in boys sport?
We separate genders for extremely good reasons. Big picture the "male" package is over powered for most sports. That the occasional girl can bet the occasional boy doesn't change that.
And what is the argument you're trying to make here? That we shouldn't separate the genders in sports? Are you seriously claiming that men beating up women in a ring or on a court is acceptable?
As to the red herring of trans athletes – what exactly is the issue?
And there you go. I post a link to an openly male athlete winning at women's sports because he's willing to check a box that says he's female (see my link), and the counter claim is that's an acceptable outcome because it's rare. (If I'm misstating that stance please say how).
The issue is parents of females don't want their kids potentially matched up against males. Worse, the basic ideology which claims that guy is female because he's willing to check a box looks nuts.
A politician or activist who proclaims this is acceptable or even desirable is also proclaiming they shouldn't be trusted on this issue.
If the movement wants to be believed on "this is medically necessary for children" then they shouldn't be openly undermining their creditability.
On “From Vox: How Democrats should respond to Trump’s war on DEI”
RE: String theory
Mostly agreed. Maybe someone will be able to do something with it but until we can make predictions there's not much to be done.
DavidTC: What I don’t do is build entire conspiracy theories about kids being taught string theory... and that we should toss the entire thing.
If String theory were attempting to set policy then it would be quackery and not a thought experiment. Ergo all related policies could and should be tossed.
DavidTC: assert that prejudice is best understood systemically
Let me guess, they totally ignore culture, self destructive behavior, and proclaim all differences between races should be explained by prejudice?
Yes, I do reject that.
"
Well, now here we are. Complaining about bad DEI instead of CRT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory#Academic_criticism
The criticism of CRT's core is massively damning. After we establish that the core of CRT is nonsense I'm not sure why there's the need to justify just tossing the entire thing out.
I'm sure there are some "good" aspects, but those can be redone under a sane ideology.
On “The USAID Fight Is About Power, Not Spending”
DavidTC: There will officially be no pressure to hire ‘non-white non-males’ if we can implement exactly one law and a Federal agency to do it.
We have already outlawed this kind of discrimination because it's heinous. If you're trying to claim the gov has to encourage heinous behavior until we get a perfect society then I don't agree.
that isn’t the goal of that form of DEI, it’s to hire equally qualified non-white non-men,
If you're going to insist that you hire people in higher percentages than exist in the talent pool, then math suggests you do have to hire unqualified people.
The problem is that isn’t all DEI does.
Then I suggest you stop defending the heinous parts and only defend the parts that are useful.
talking about microagressions... not entirely worthless.
Source?
"
DEI programs are generally good things that people mostly agree with.
Hardly. The way the local program works is we get worthless meetings on fighting microaggressions and there is pressure to hire non-white non-males.
That's somewhere between worthless, unethical, and illegal.
On “Deficits, Debt, and DOGE”
One of the big problems with increasing taxes is our political system will just spend it and the deficit will remain.
We need a way to force politicians to pay for the goodies they promise or to revoke those goodies when the spending doesn't appear.
There are political forces to spend. There are political forces to oppose taxes. They're not actually matched against each other in a way that balances the budget.
For example, if every dollar of deficit spending was subtracted from some political sacred cow (Social Security) so that payments were lowered, then we'd always have a balanced budget. Every program that handed out free whatever would have tax increases to pay for it.
Or alternatively, every GOP effort to reduce taxation would also include actual cuts to something specific because the alternative is they're lowering whatever.
"
We could have "wholesale restructuring" without "massive cutting".
Force all HealthCare providers to set a price and publish it for every service. This would outlaw these price fixing "networks" and bring the market to bear.
Far as I can tell, no one is claiming that our HC is efficient even compared to other countries.
That's over and above whether or not the various reports I've been hearing are correct. I.e. whether 10-20% of spending is outright fraud and whether we have various boondoggles and such.
On “Keynesian Beauty Contests, Schelling Points, and the Omnicause”
RE: Cutting Medicare
Making Medicare more efficient via the market would drastically reduce it's cost without "cuts". There would also be a ton of other positive side effects.
RE: Tax increases
It's unclear if seriously increasing taxes will actually result in seriously increasing the amount of money the gov collects via taxation.
RE: Cutting defense
We have already cut defense if we look at percentage of GDP. We also have the issue the amount of money we need to raise dwarfs Defense spending.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/3/2025”
Those were options although just spelling them out goes a long way to explain why the Jews wanted a country so bad.
Big picture that region had two sets of indigenous natives who had opposite ideas on who would be setting up a state and what peoples will be welcomed.
As normal, there were population exchanges and the process of setting up state(s) and winding down empire was messy. See also Britain's pull out of India and the creation of India/Pakistan and so on.
The truly abnormal part was Israel not being forgiven the crimes of it's creation. That's the root of all other problems here.
There shouldn't be "refugees" decades, much less generations, after a state creation conflict. There especially shouldn't be UN support for that.
On “Keynesian Beauty Contests, Schelling Points, and the Omnicause”
The math of what they're trying to do suggests they need to cut entitlements because that's where the money is at.
In a sane government we'd try to reduce gov spending by forcing HealthCare providers to fix and publish prices so market forces are brought to bear.
The pollical system is so easy for special interests to gum up that we're doing to have insane gov instead.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/3/2025”
It's holding Israel to different standards than normal.
It's an effort to support the idea that "Israel shouldn't exist".
"
1) Jews are a successful minority and thus disprove many of the Left's core beliefs.
2) Much of the discrimination against Jews comes from other minorities and thus disproves many of the Left's core beliefs.
3) Jews are religious and openly have a different culture in a way that goes well beyond foods, and thus disproves many of the Left's core beliefs.
4) Many Jews are white, which disproves many of the Left's core beliefs.
Questioning core beliefs is hard, pretending there aren't questions is much easier.
"
he seemed to understand how just…taking a country could be problematic
That part of the world hasn't been a country for thousands of years, it's always been the outback of some empire.
"
Everyone is a reasonable person who thinks like I do. The only way I'd act like they do is if I were repressed.
Problem is when I listen to what the Palestinians are actually saying it sounds a lot like they're serious about "No Jews". Unfortunately that means Hamas isn't the actual problem because while they're brutal and repressive, they represent the Palestinians political desires.
"
I don't expect it to "eliminate HIV".
Part of their mandate is supposedly trying to stand up locals so they can deal with this issue without international help.
OK, so we have that as a mandate, a ten fold increase in GDP, a massive reduction in the cost of the drugs because they're off patent, and 23 years of effort.
I think it's fair to measure them by teaching how to fish rather than by giving out fish, which long term is their job... but not in their personal best interests.
"
PEPFAR is self-interested noblesse oblige, not a question of enablement or moral hazard.
When I look at the list of countries it's supposed to focus on, some (Haiti) are just as much a failed state as they were then. I can easily believe we're in noblesse oblige territory there.
Others have had massive economic growth. Vietnam's GDP is 10x what it was.
Is PEPFAR still "helping" Vietnam even if it's no longer impoverished? Is PEPFAR taking credit there? Is Vietnam engaging in moral hazard by not dealing with this?
"
North: don’t you think it should be overruled?
For procedural reasons? Yes.
I also think this program, like all programs, should be forced to justify it's existence against a reasonably high bar. (There's a reasonably good chance it can do that too.)
Big picture we need a good way to prevent the gov from trying to do everything for everyone, and to prevent dead wood from building up. All programs should have sunset provisions.
Again, this program has multiple red flags showing. It's job is to destroy itself and it's thus far failed.
When we have multiple red flags the default isn't to look at what it claims to do and feel good about ourselves. The default is to assume it is off mission and should be destroyed without strong justification otherwise.
"
Procedurally, I fully expect Trump to be overruled left, right, and center for these reasons.
However that's a different issue than "this program claims to do holy things (and did so in the past) so any effort to examine it, question it, or otherwise hold it accountable is unthinkable".
I also think it's a mistake to examine every dollar spent as though no one will change their actions if that dollar is withdrawn. For example my kid got free lunches for several years here, but subtracting that doesn't leave her hungry because I won't allow that.
"
It's a mistake to have the soft bigotry of low expectations. It's especially a mistake to write it into law.
At some point it will create problems and enable behavior that shouldn't be.
It is certainly possible that it's still a successful program... but at this point it shouldn't be. Ergo the question should be, why is it still needed, i.e. what has gone wrong to the point where it's still needed.
"
So without this program the wheels come off? The people of Africa have no interest in staying HIV free? Their governments have no interest or ability to have this happen?
There is a failed state or two in that list, but there are also a lot of countries that have gone a long way upwards. The treatment of AIDS has gotten a lot cheaper. This program has had as part of it's mission turning over this treatment to the locals for the last 18 years or so.
It's very fair to ask "what's going on".
"
PEPFAR was created as a "emergency" program to deal with a crisis. That's right there in the name. It's been trying to "ensure long-term sustainability and country leadership" since 2008.
So it suffers from the problem that it's mission is to destroy itself.
The life cycle of this kind of program is it's created with great intentions, does good things, and then the iron rule of bureaucracy takes hold and it becomes a vehicle to support the jobs of the program itself.
It's the same issue with charities which claim to "help X" (how can you oppose helping X?) and they spend more money on administration than on X.
I can't tell whether we've hit the point where PEPFAR should be eliminated, but there are multiple red flags here.
It's existed so long that it's original staff presumably has mostly been replaced. It's made no progress on destroying itself over the last 17 years. One of the big problems back in 2003 was the serious AIDS drugs were on patent, but that's no longer true.
Elements of the GOP (who might or might not know more than I do) have problems with it.
Again, at what point is the "emergency" over?
"
It's been 23 years. At what point should we expect people to care for themselves? Would they without our "help"? And why do we have multiple us gov agencies dealing with this?
On “Open Mic for the week of 1/27/2025”
Every GOP President since I've been alive has been accused of this. After a while we realize that no, the country isn't in danger, the claims are hysteria.
If you want to claim that Trump is different then we should review what claims were made about him at this point the last time he was elected. I was around then.
People on this site were claiming he was going to set up death camps. The closest we got was pictures of children in cages which turned out to be from Obama.
"
Phil: Did she have to meet any qualification for the sports governing body?
You really should read the link. The "qualification" was apparently checking a box.
And this is the logical outcome of an ideology which claims gender is a social construct which can change based on subjective feelings.
So this outcome is what this ideology claims is desired and appropriate.
And again – how often does this occur?
This ideology is claiming "not often enough".
Or do you think girls can’t beat boys in boys sport?
We separate genders for extremely good reasons. Big picture the "male" package is over powered for most sports. That the occasional girl can bet the occasional boy doesn't change that.
And what is the argument you're trying to make here? That we shouldn't separate the genders in sports? Are you seriously claiming that men beating up women in a ring or on a court is acceptable?
"
As to the red herring of trans athletes – what exactly is the issue?
And there you go. I post a link to an openly male athlete winning at women's sports because he's willing to check a box that says he's female (see my link), and the counter claim is that's an acceptable outcome because it's rare. (If I'm misstating that stance please say how).
The issue is parents of females don't want their kids potentially matched up against males. Worse, the basic ideology which claims that guy is female because he's willing to check a box looks nuts.
A politician or activist who proclaims this is acceptable or even desirable is also proclaiming they shouldn't be trusted on this issue.
If the movement wants to be believed on "this is medically necessary for children" then they shouldn't be openly undermining their creditability.
"
Philip: other then trying to make sure trans people could get standard of care and not be harassed in their workplaces.
The two issues that seem problematic are what to do about young trans children and what to do about trans athletes.
https://www.foxsports.com.au/more-sports/bearded-man-smashes-womens-weightlighting-record-held-by-trans-lifter/news-story/92986fdec0b7e855b8b6f6271d938e8d
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.