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| ▲ | mexicocitinluez 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/forei... Which part exactly is "far from reality, lacks substance and objectivity"? | | |
| ▲ | anonym29 14 days ago | parent [-] | | In lacking objectivity, is it not objectively false that "millions" have died from this? | | |
| ▲ | mexicocitinluez 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It's hyperbolic. People WILL die because this funding is cut. And the estimate IS millions. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The reason people vehemently support the ending of USAID is because while they give aid with one hand, they simultaneously use the other to trigger instability that ultimately leads to conflicts and war. And if even if a single one of these wars can be prevented, you're looking at millions of lives saved - certainly if we include the displaced who lose everything. For instance here [1] is an article detailing various times USAID has been weaponized to try to overthrow various countries. A somewhat amusing one is them starting a Cuban social network with the goal of creating a "Cuban spring" uprising which failed and ultimately just turned into a giant honey pot for Cuban authorities. Recently USAID workers had a to spend an entire day shredding classified docs [2] including with offering guidance for what to do when the paper shredders 'need a rest.' You don't classify operations that are done transparently and in good faith. And this is not even touching on the massive corruption in the entire operation when you end up shipping billions of dollars to loosely accountable NGOs who in turn hand it off to other groups and on down a line to some small amount eventually gets genuinely spent. USAID was involved in the Haiti Earthquake efforts where hundreds of millions of dollars were spent, on something, to eventually construct a total of 6 permanent housing units. [3] Whatever good USAID may have done, could be far more effectively done by another organization without all of their baggage and corruption. --- [1] - https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/04/03/cuban-twitter-and-other... (archive) https://archive.is/IQl36 [2] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/11/usaid-staff-... [3] - https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-red-cross-raised-... | | |
| ▲ | rbanffy 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > without all of their baggage and corruption. It's not corruption - it's all by design. USAID is the soft-power side of foreign policy. Aid is distributed according to political needs and the desire to influence and produce specific outcomes for certain groups, while maintaining a notion of fairness and generosity and facilitating diplomacy. Still, objectively speaking, millions will die because the US threw out the baby with the bath water. | | |
| ▲ | antifa 14 days ago | parent [-] | | But it also looks like they threw the baby out on purpose while intentionally misleadingly marketing themselves as bathwater dumpers. | | |
| ▲ | rbanffy 14 days ago | parent [-] | | Oh yes. The destruction of trust in public democratic institutions is part of the plan. |
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| ▲ | Smeevy 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | >Whatever good USAID may have done, could be far more effectively done by another organization without all of their baggage and corruption. So what exactly is being proposed to fill in the gaps created by getting rid of it? Where is this perfect organization that will step in (with appropriate funding) to continue all of the good works and none of the bad? If we're to assume that the goal in destroying USAID was to end corruption, then it stands to reason that a thoughtful and effective replacement would have been considered prior to its dismantling. The absence of such a replacement and the lack of any discussion pertaining to it renders your argument disingenuous. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 14 days ago | parent [-] | | The nature of our political system is such that in the future, whether in 4 years or 12, the 'other side' will be in control and generally work to undo what the previous administration did, even if only out of spite. So most of the stuff being cancelled in contemporary times should be viewed more as being rebooted, with a bit of a delay. But personally I would question whether just giving things to people is truly helping them. For instance take the earlier NYTimes post talking about USAID providing AIDS medicine. If we truly care about Africa's AIDS issue, then why are we just providing medicine instead of helping them to building out manufacturing/labs in Africa, independently manned, and capable of independently producing generic medicine without foreign assistance? USAID was funded with tens of billions of dollars. How much does one lab/plant cost? In any case, shouldn't the goal of truly benevolent aid to create a scenario where you will realistically no longer need to provide aid in the future? Of course if you teach a man to fish, that man's no longer dependent upon you. But if you just give a man a fish each day, he'll do whatever you demand to keep getting that fish. | | |
| ▲ | Smeevy 14 days ago | parent [-] | | Even more disingenuity. You are simultaneously defending cynical abuse of government systems and high-minded altruism. >The nature of our political system is such that in the future, whether in 4 years or 12, the 'other side' will be in control and generally work to undo what the previous administration did. So most of the stuff being cancelled will, in some form or another, be rebooted in the future, even if only out of spite. "Everybody is awful. Especially the people with whom I disagree." >But personally I would question whether just giving things to people is truly helping them. For instance take the earlier NYTimes post talking about USAID providing AIDS medicine. If we truly care about Africa's AIDS issue, then why are we just providing medicine instead of helping them to building out manufacturing/labs in Africa, independently manned, and capable of independently producing generic medicine without foreign assistance? Your argument is that we should industrialize Africa countries to make their own medicine rather than giving it to people who are literally dying? I suppose that orphans and grieving parents should take solace that there's a long term plan being discussed by people who have no intention of following through on it. >Shouldn't the goal of truly benevolent aid to create a scenario where you will realistically no longer need to provide aid in the future? Of course if you teach a man to fish, that man's no longer dependent upon you. But if you just give a man a fish each day, he'll do whatever you demand to keep getting that fish, let alone when his life depends upon it. That man should, of course, starve to death so your taxes are reduced by a fraction of a penny. We all know that Rwanda is just a week away from being a global manufacturing powerhouse anyway. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 14 days ago | parent [-] | | This is not an either/or scenario. If one wanted to maintain the handouts while simultaneously working to ensure they won't be necessary in the future, we absolutely could. And it doesn't take years to spin up plant and lab, months at most. But we do nothing of the sort, and there's no logical reason for this, unless the entire point is to create dependencies. And when I speak of the US political system I'm obviously not speaking of this side or that. Both sides operate the same way in regards to each other, with all the sophistication of two children in a playground spat. --- Actually there's even a simple litmus test here to evaluate your own belief in "high-minded altruism." Imagine Russia or China decided to start pumping billions into projects in rural America: food banks/free healthcare/etc - lots of free stuff, but with no effort to create sustainability. Beyond this there would be no strings attached and no further aims than improving the life of rural Americans. Would you again support such "high-minded altruism"? | | |
| ▲ | Smeevy 14 days ago | parent [-] | | We're well past hypotheticals here and it is pointless to talk about what we "could" do. The decision has been made to let food and medicine expire in warehouses and to withhold funds to aid organizations both domestically and abroad. There's no second part to this plan. Promises have been broken and will not be renewed. Also, local NGOs absolutely care about sustainable solutions to problems. Aid workers are not some mustache-twirling, dependency-creating villains. The argument against "giving a man a fish" is very convenient for people that don't want to do anything to help. Starving people need food. They don't love starving. They're not starving out of spite or to make us feel guilty. Even if it's their own fault they're starving, basic morality mandates that we try to help. I'm not religious, but less misery in the world, by any means necessary, seems a worthy goal. As for Russia and China helping out rural America, I wish they would. At least someone would be helping then. I would, in fact, welcome their assistance in urban areas as well. I do regular volunteer work with a little free pantry nearby and it is cleaned out every single day. That is a societal failure and the US government just made it worse on purpose. I'm responding out of order to your statements, but the "both sides" argument you have here is a false equivalence. I don't love the Democratic party, but there is a wide gap in cynical manipulation of the law and procedure between them and the Republicans. Are you intimating that Democrat legislators sat on Supreme Court nominees while waiting out a Republican presidency? That a Democrat-controlled congress abdicated their budgetary and oversight responsibilities to a Democrat president? There is a clear difference in respect for institutions between our two political options and saying "they're both bad" seeks to minimize the misconduct of American far-right conservatives and overstate the failings of our wembling, capitulating, center-left Democratic party. I understand that you are most likely tired of reading this from me and I appreciate the time you have taken to do so. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 13 days ago | parent [-] | | NGO workers may not be 'mustache-twirling villains' but USAID literally is, well perhaps sans the mustache. They are actively and regularly used to destroy and/or manipulate countries while operating under the pretext of aid. Their purpose is not to help other countries, but to manipulate them. What I'm saying about sustainability is not some outside angle. Look at most of any effective charity doing work in impoverished places and it's always about sustainability. In the most typical example you don't simply give water to people - instead you encourage, and if necessary - assist, them in building wells. Charity will eventually run out for one reason or another, and when your entire system has been built with no focus on sustainability you can create catastrophic scenarios. And I don't really think there is some huge gap in between the parties - they both keep stooping to ever new lows in order to get one off on 'the other side' all while they are both are in almost complete harmony when it comes to corporate handouts and warmongering. As I'm sure you're aware I could list a zillion things the DNC has done, but I don't really see the point? Do we give each side -1 point for each time they screwed people over, and see who gets the lowest score.. and probably still not change our views? It's pointless. And no, why would I be tired of reading what you're writing? What fun is there is in talking to somebody you agree with? 'Yeah man, you're so right, and so I am. Yeah... yeah.' Having a good healthy debate is far more pleasant. For instance in our little conversation you really shattered my stereotypes by stating you'd be happy with Russia or China providing support to rural areas, and that's always a fun thing! | | |
| ▲ | Smeevy 13 days ago | parent | next [-] | | >NGO workers may not be 'mustache-twirling villains' but USAID literally is, well perhaps sans the mustache. They are actively and regularly used to destroy and/or manipulate countries while operating under the pretext of aid. Their purpose is not to help other countries, but to manipulate them. Since the tone of our conversation has turned more reasonable, it is my hope that you can see how sweeping this generalization is. Given the amount of misinformation surrounding USAID (just check Snopes, man), I'm loath to accept this claim on its face. I reject your assertion that the world is better by destroying USAID and replacing it with nothing. This is costing lives both foreign and domestic. If I withheld promised food and medicine from starving and sick people, they would die and it would be my fault. I don't see any reasonable conclusion otherwise. You can try to argue otherwise, but I would refuse to endorse such vile callousness. >What I'm saying about sustainability is not some outside angle. Look at most of any effective charity doing work in impoverished places and it's always about sustainability. In the most typical example you don't simply give water to people - instead you encourage, and if necessary - assist, them in building wells. Charity will eventually run out for one reason or another, and when your entire system has been built with no focus on sustainability you can create catastrophic scenarios. I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I'm not seeing your point here. You're advocating for a "correct" kind of assistance and the world just doesn't work that way. There's many different kinds of charity and assistance and they all serve different purposes, so your argument is just simplifying a complex interplay of variables to a single equation. I applaud the long-term strategic view you are espousing, but you appear to be falling into the trap of assuming that all of these problems actually have solutions. We can wax poetic about teaching a man to fish, but that man is going to die if we don't give him a damn fish first. The clean, elegant solutions to global problems you're alluding to aren't being implemented because they're difficult and fraught with peril. This is going to be a little offensive, but do you honestly believe that no one else thought of trying to make these beneficiaries self-sufficient? It's hard and people were (and are) trying. Regarding a point system about political malfeasance, why not? If we're going to engage in relativism, we should at least know how they stack up relatively rather than waving our hands and saying "everybody sucks." It's irresponsible and intellectually lazy. Also, if you can list a single Democrat misdeed on par with January 6, delaying Supreme Court appointments, or abdicating the power of the purse then please do. Just one. Anything. The catch here is that is has to have actually happened. It can't be some slopped-up "they wanted to do this" or unrealized conspiracy. It has to have actually happened in America on Earth within the last 3 decades. After that, I'm okay with counting as well. We all need to keep track of how power is applied with neither tribalism nor nihilism. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 12 days ago | parent [-] | | Apologies in advance for the link bombing in this response. I want to make it clear that what I'm saying is not off the cuff. USAID was founded in the early Cold War era precisely as a weapon against the Soviet Union and the "international communist conspiracy." An amusing quote that is taken verbatim from the Foreign Assistance Act, which you can read here. [1] You can also see this is the funding prioritization. USAID was being funded with ~$50 billion. That's substantially greater than the budget of, for instance, NASA even as we approach the dawn of the space age. The government does not value "high-minded altruism" more than it does maintaining supremacy in space, but they certainly value maintaining dominance of other countries above it. You can also see the exact issues I'm focusing on in academic analyses, such as here [2]. USAID also operates in complete contradiction to international agreements on aid such as the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. [3] You will note that point #1 is "ownership" which is again focused entirely on sustainability by ensuring that developing countries own the means to sustain themselves. Rejection of this is not normal and USAID was actively criticized for such. FOCAC [4] is the analog Chinese equivalent (for Africa at least) and they are actively and they're openly attacking USAID's behavior in a way that has generally been highly effective in developing true soft power in Africa, because it's not like these countries don't know what we're doing. Quoting the Wiki on FOCAC, the Chinese position is that "Each country has the right to choose, in its course of development, its own social system, development model, and way of life in light of its national conditions... Moreover, the politicization of human rights conditionalities on economic assistance should be vigorously opposed to as they constitute a violation of human rights." And FOCAC has indeed been highly involved in the deploying of permanent structures, training of locals, and much more. --- As for the US political stuff - ok fine. I'll raise you formally legalizing indefinite detention without trial, including of American citizens on American soil, signed into law, and advocated for, by Obama. [5] I'm really tempted to on some rant here, but again I just don't see the point. [1] - https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-1071/pdf/COMPS-107... [2] - https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-22219-3_... [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_level_forums_on_aid_effec... [4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_on_China%E2%80%93Africa_... [5] - https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/president-obama-signs-in... | | |
| ▲ | Smeevy 12 days ago | parent [-] | | This may be a good point to recap. It is not my intent to misstate your rationales here, so please tell me if I have mischaracterized your viewpoint. Nuance is tragically difficult to convey on HN. -- Your initial argument, which I believe we're still discussing, was "Whatever good USAID may have done, could be far more effectively done by another organization without all of their baggage and corruption." The implicit assertion here is that USAID was rightfully defunded and that that was correct given the way it has conducted itself since 1961. You have submitted evidence regarding its creation and the underlying intent therein as well as documented instances of poor, ineffective behavior. My argument is that the manner in which USAID was defunded is indefensible because it was done without consideration of existing obligations, thereby creating a vacuum of support. To this point, I haven't seen any argument to my issue with the method of USAID's dismantling. We're talking about real harm to real people's lives and livelihoods and you've ignored that aspect entirely and countered with more information about the organization. Let me say it plainly: I do not care about USAID the agency and its history. I care about the careless way in which its contracts and programs were ended. Saying and proving that USAID was bad doesn't justify canceling the good works for which it was responsible. -- A second point of discussion was on the nature of effective charity. This is an altogether deeper topic, so bear with me on this: You are advocating that charitable organizations should be working to solve root problems and not just providing material assistance. Additionally, you have stated that charitable contributions are not a sustainable means of helping people in the longer term. My argument is that that you always need both. As I've done more and more volunteer work and gotten out of my comfort zone of affluence, I've become much more dismissive of any proposed "perfect" or "optimal" solutions. There is a tendency, especially in America, to reject any solution that doesn't completely solve a problem. The alternative to the rejected solution typically being to continue doing whatever is currently being done. Can you see how this appears to be what you're engaging in? Giving food to poor people is not an optimal solution. I agree that it would be better if the poor people got their own food, but that's not happening right now. Stopping the conversation at what "should" be happening might make us feel better about ourselves, but it does nothing to combat human misery. This point is also a distraction from my fundamental question: Should USAID have been dismantled without a transition plan? I don't mind that we've veered off into the nature of effective charity since that is a topic in which I have an interest, but I believe that we're here because of a rationalization on your part to downplay the impact of USAID's work. Since we're talkin about people and their actual lives, we have to be aware of outcomes. There is no shortage of talk about "how" to help people and a dearth of people actually doing something about it. USAID, in a very real way, was involved in doing some positive things both domestically and abroad. That is gone now and your argument seems to be that the outcomes could have been better if something that never happened was done instead. -- Following that, there is a side discussion relating to what I'll refer to as "bothsidesism": Your original assertion is that defunding USAID is not as severe as it may seem now because the other party will come back and rebuild that organization when they're back in power. You expand the argument to say both sides operate in largely the same manner. My response, minus substantial snark, is that the is that there are exceedingly clear differences in conduct between the two political parties, particularly as it relates to abuse of power and procedural rules. Thanks so much for reminding me about indefinite detention. I hope Dianne Feinstein rots for eternity for shoehorning that clause into a budget bill. It was disgusting then and they tried to backpedal into limiting it and just making it worse. I don't see how legally drafting, passing, and signing a terrible provision on a bill is on par with the abuses of procedure that I mentioned. You are correct, though: this part of the discussion will not be particularly fruitful. I would ask that you reflect on the horror show that has been the last 2 months and ask yourself what the news would look like if Joe Biden did any of the same things. -- Finally, jlcases reminds us that serious discussion on the internet is even more difficult in the age of AI. Thanks, jlcases! | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 12 days ago | parent [-] | | My view with cancelling USAID is that the world is a better place because of such. Could it have been made even better if somehow we were able to selectively pick and choose 'worthy' programs and work to transition them out? Maybe, but perfect is not the enemy of good. And the reason I say maybe is because I have high doubts such a transitioning could have been done effectively in anything like a remotely viable timeframe. What genuine impact is felt with USAID's demise will be able to filled by the countless other aid organizations working in places like Africa. And while perfect is not the enemy of good, bad certainly is. And altruism without consideration of the consequences can easily become harmful. A recurring example is with food. A country will suffer some force majeure and be flooded with ongoing international donations of food. This sends the price of most basic foodstuffs plummeting, local farmers lose their livelihood, and suddenly the country becomes completely dependent upon foreign powers for food. This also happens when countries are encouraged by global organizations to lower food tariffs. This is one of the many ways that altruism can be weaponized - intentionally hurting by "helping." As for the politics stuff, I do not agree that refusing to advance a Supreme Court Candidate is worse than enabling legal indefinite detention of citizens without trial or representation. And, with all due respect, I'm fairly certain you don't think so either. I can't comment on the past two months because I'm generally quite supportive of it, though I did not vote for Trump either time. In general though I think the notion of an 'advanced economy' is farcical: You take all of the most critical parts of your economy, ship them off elsewhere, and largely replace them with superflous luxury goods and services. I see this as both exploitative and unsustainable, and it creates behemoth multinational corporations that, in many ways, end up having even more power than governments. I'd like to imagine we learned a lesson or two from the East India Company. But perhaps it's like 1984, we did learn lessons - just the wrong ones. | | |
| ▲ | Smeevy 11 days ago | parent [-] | | We are unfortunately destined to disagree on these points and definitely some others. You do write very well and I believe you have some reasons for your positions, but they don't appear logically consistent to me. Just to descend into pedantry: "Perfect is the enemy of the good." That's the aphorism. The misapplication undercuts the argument you're making from a composition standpoint. It's like you're saying "the sword is mightier than the pen." Your position on ending USAID is impractical on a moral basis. If the solution you're comfortable with is to risk people dying when the alternative was to take a period of time to responsibly transition obligations, then I conclude that the immediate welfare of those people is less important to you than the shuttering of USAID. Was the situation so dire that we couldn't even ship food and medicine for which we had already paid? This is the equivalent of addressing the trolley problem by arresting the bystander and turning your back on the whole troublesome thing. This fragment is also disappointing for me: "[...] if somehow we were able to selectively pick and choose 'worthy' programs [...]". Somehow? All of USAID's programs were actively reporting status and commitments and that information was not utilized. I understand that you support one of the outcomes, ending USAID, but the collateral damage was entirely avoidable. You're creating a false urgency here and I can't quite determine if it is a blind spot in your reasoning or a rhetorical trick. You also counter with: 1) a "slippery slope" argument that leads to the expedient conclusion that we should leave everything to someone else because we wouldn't want to harm someone by helping too much and then having something go wrong thereby leaving them in a worse position than they would be otherwise. That's very convenient. 2) an implicit accusation that all USAID programs existed without consideration of consequences. I say "all" because the existence of any USAID programs that were thoughtfully implemented with sustainability in mind are prevented from sliding down your slippery slope because anyone else would have to do as good as or better than USAID in order for it to make any difference in the outcome. Can you see how fallacy-ridden your reasoning is here? You should reconcile these beliefs against an ethical framework. Just pick one or two and think about it. | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme 11 days ago | parent | next [-] | | This turned out surprisingly lengthy. I want to support my claims with examples to make it clear that this isn't just hand-waving or off the cuff claims, so such as it is! I am not opposed to shipping aid that was already paid for if it would go to waste otherwise, but when we speak of transitioning programs in general, that would require an audit of each and every program - which is likely impossible. The reason is that when USAID does things it is done indirectly, by relying on contractors, subcontractors and other entities. Let's consider the rebuilding of Haiti. They were involved in that operation, spearheaded by the Red Cross, which ended up spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build exactly 6 permanent housing units, and exactly 0 people were held accountable. How could this happen? If you look at their disbursements they're always going to go to plausible sounding entities, for plausible sounding amounts of funding, that plausibly contribute to a goal in a logical way. So to actually audit this you need to get down on the ground level, worldwide, and start auditing those contractors. But each of them will also be doing the exact same thing on down a chain with ever less reliable accounting and other variability. Even if you can finally get to a 'leaf node' they may have plausible shells entities setup, may have 'gone out of business', or maybe they never even existed and it actually turns out the leaf-1 node sent you on a wild goose chase. It's just not really practical. This is why I think auditing each program is simply not viable. --- My fundamental argument is that USAID is an agency that uses aid as a weapon, which misaligns their efforts. This was the point of their founding and has been clearly demonstrated by contemporary actions as well, let alone the classified programs they were involved in. Because of this, I think their dismantling is making the world a better place. Could it have been done even better? Maybe, but then we're back to the above. You can also see this weaponization in Haiti. After the earthquake USAID decided to spend some of their funding [1] getting people to vote for this [2] fine fellow and against this [3] lady, a constitutional law professor and widow of a former president. "Her platform for the presidency included a focus on education of the youth of Haiti, and lifting the long-standing and restrictive constitutional conditions on dual nationality. She specifically promoted opening government positions for members of the Haitian diaspora. Manigat also aimed for a more independent Haitian state, one less reliant upon and subject to foreign governments and NGOs." Instead USAID encouraged people to vote for a musician with no political experience who was "notorious for his cursing on stage, cross-dressing as well as using homophobic slurs." He'd eventually end up being sanctioned by the US and Canada for being involved in drug trafficking to the US, human rights violations, and overtly backing armed Haitian criminal gangs. His reign also unsurprisingly featured excessive corruption, him taking millions in bribes (in a country with a GDP/capita of less than $4k), and more. It's likely that the main reason USAID was backing him is because his opponent was in favor of a more independent Haiti. Who would have been better for Haitians? But who would be better for the US? Hahaha, I'll grant the drug trafficking kind of makes that a harder question than it should be, but obviously I mean in more of a geopolitical Haiti-US sense than a personal one. Haiti remains in a completely horrific state, and I don't think "aid" that comes with these sort of strings attached is helping anybody, and is certainly causing substantial suffering. And this is a fairly softball example of weaponized aid! --- [1] - https://cepr.net/publications/revealed-usaid-funded-group-su... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Martelly [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirlande_Manigat | |
| ▲ | 11 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | jlcases 13 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's great to hear! Building that semantic structuring module, especially with a MECE approach, would significantly enhance the pipeline's value for complex downstream tasks like knowledge graph creation or advanced RAG systems. The challenge often lies in defining the right hierarchical taxonomy and relationship types for diverse document domains. If you're exploring approaches, principles from enterprise knowledge management and structured ontologies might offer useful parallels. Excited to see how this evolves! It addresses a critical gap in the ML data preparation landscape. |
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| ▲ | 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | bigstrat2003 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Saying "millions have died" when nobody has died is disingenuous, even if one honestly projects that millions will die. You don't get to use the past tense until the event actually happens. |
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| ▲ | systemdlover 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Realistically, it will be at least in the tens of millions |
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| ▲ | dopidopHN 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I had the same initial reaction but time will tell. |
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| ▲ | NilMostChill 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-adm... Though I'm counting that as future potential costs and deaths. Ignoring the obvious opinion of the author, anybody who has ever worked on any sort of medium to large scale migration, refactoring or rewriting of a computer system knows that's a comically ridiculous timescale and when it inevitably fails there will be consequences, counted in both money and lives. But that's a (very near) future fuck-up that he will almost certainly spin or move the goalposts for. That you can draw a direct line to right now, not much other than all the cuts to critical infrastructure. To be clear, I'm not arguing against cuts and efficiency initiatives, i'm saying he's an idiot who doesn't know what he's doing, so his implementation will be shoddy and dangerous. See: The Cybertruck, The Boring Company, The Decline of X. As you are implying though, nothing major so far, aside from USAID i suppose (or the VA), does removing systems actively (and provably) preventing deaths count? These are systematic problems that will take a while to shake out into their inevitable consequences. He'll probably still fail upwards though, unless he gets luigi'd or just drops dead of a ket induced heart attack or something. | | |
| ▲ | anonym29 14 days ago | parent [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | NilMostChill 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | So given you didn't address any other part of the reply am i to assume you agree ? Future consequences and poor outcomes based on current day incompetence and mismanagement ? To address your reply: If you don't know the phrase "there is no ethical consumption" then looking it up might be interesting reading for you, it's a large part of the plot from the last half of "the good place", if that helps at all. Anyway ,it's the same idea but taken to it's logical conclusion, everything everyone does is causing harm in some way somewhere down the chain and therefore it's impossible to do anything without some harm being caused. If that's your point then i agree, but specifically here i was pointing out the direct point to point link between removing monetary aid and the deaths of people relying upon that aid. You asked for costs on money and lives, and while i think billions and millions were hyperbole there are still directly attributable deaths, even now. The key part here is the "directly" The difference between "physically taking away someones food until they starve to death" vs "participating in a societal structure that routinely lets people starve to death" one is direct taking an action to achieve an outcome, the other is not. I think those numbers will grow significantly larger in relatively short order, i think it's naive to think DOGE is running on any platform of competence but it's entirely possible i'm wrong. However, there's not a lot of evidence i am wrong, | | |
| ▲ | anonym29 14 days ago | parent [-] | | There are two points I'd like to address here. >So given you didn't address any other part of the reply am i to assume you agree ? Future consequences and poor outcomes based on current day incompetence and mismanagement ? With your post I was replying to? I do agree with large parts of it. I think Elon Musk brought a "move fast and break things" approach to the Federal government, which has traditionally not been a place where that approach is welcome, and the "break things" part certainly carries a different level of impact when the thing being broken is the single income source of many people who either neglected to adequately financially prepare themselves for retirement, were unable to avoid unexpected financial difficulties in life, or otherwise wound up in a situation where they were left otherwise destitute in old age (e.g. romance scammers stole their entire private retirement balance). That said, to answer the core question being asked: "does removing systems actively (and provably) preventing deaths count [as killing people]?", I don't necessary think so as a rule of thumb. I see a fundamental difference between initiating an act of violence designed to deprive someone else of their life or safety, and overly hasty bureaucratic maneuvering to attempt to streamline efficiency, however reckless the latter may be carried out. This doesn't necessarily mean I condone the approach DOGE is taking, either. >To address your reply: You asked for costs on money and lives, and while i think billions and millions were hyperbole there are still directly attributable deaths, even now. I am sorry if I phrased my question poorly, I was not attempting to ask whether this could or would cost hundreds of billions of dollars and/or millions of lives, but rather whether it has cost billions of dollars and/or millions of lives, as the original post made by ZeroGravitas seemed to imply, from the way I read it. | | |
| ▲ | NilMostChill 14 days ago | parent [-] | | Ah, that makes sense. As i alluded to in my post i don't think it has hit the hyperbolic numbers provided in the original post. I suspect they will be hit in the short-ish term 1-3 years, but these kinds of things are notoriously difficult to calculate, especially when the actual data around it will almost certainly be purposefully obfuscated. As you said though ,that wasn't what you were asking. "Move fast and break things" is a concept referring to not worrying too much about breaking existing solutions or integrations while *improving* them. Declaring a laughably unrealistic timescale to replace a system millions of people rely upon to survive isn't innovative or groundbreaking, it's reckless and dangerous, bordering on callous. There could genuinely be an argument made that he's so narcissistic and delusional that he genuinely doesn't realise how badly this is going to pan out, in which case the intent might not be malicious but accidentally killing tens/hundreds of thousands of people because you don't think things through isn't a good enough excuse for me personally. But then you get statements like "empathy is a weakness" that point to him at least partially understanding what's going to happen and just not caring. i'd like to address a specific reference in your reply: > neglected to adequately financially prepare themselves for retirement, were unable to avoid unexpected financial difficulties in life To me that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of just how difficult modern financial stability is to achieve for a large proportion of the population. Living paycheque to paycheque can sometimes be neglect yes, but i'd wager that far more instances of that are due to the increasing gap between cost of living and actual wages. It's difficult to plan for retirement when you work a 60 hour week and are only just covering rent and food. It also doesn't address the fact that social security is funded by taxes, it's not a handout, people make financial decisions based on the information they have, the information they had was "pay your taxes and when it comes time to stop working you'll get some assistance". If you want to kill it, fine, stop taxing people to pay in to it, removing it after an entire lifetime of paying in to the system is basically theft. | | |
| ▲ | anonym29 14 days ago | parent [-] | | >To me that shows a fundamental misunderstanding of just how difficult modern financial stability is to achieve for a large proportion of the population. Living paycheque to paycheque can sometimes be neglect yes, but i'd wager that far more instances of that are due to the increasing gap between cost of living and actual wages. It's difficult to plan for retirement when you work a 60 hour week and are only just covering rent and food. I try to take a very humble approach in evaluating what I'm entitled to. I don't believe that I'm automatically entitled to a large enough income to build long-term prosperity just because I am working 60 hours a week. At the end of the day, if I spend 60 hours digging ditches to lay fiber that is mostly used for Netflix, Youtube, and adult video content, I have delivered less value to society than if I spent 60 hours developing a new pharmaceutical drug that saved a hundred thousand lives, haven't I? It's certainly not fair, but life does not drop all of us into the adult world with an equal upbringing, an equal education, or the equal training necessary for us all to produce the same amount of value. If I want to achieve a higher income, I see that as fundamentally a "me" problem, not a problem with other people - it means I have a duty to go above and beyond, to work harder, to study longer, to research which skills have higher demand in society, to educate and train myself, and to strive for the goals that I want to achieve, because I don't believed I'm really "owed" much besides the right to life, liberty, private property, and the pursuit of happiness, which is not the same thing as a right to happiness itself, I might add. This also means I don't think I'm entitled to wage increases that match the rate of inflation. If I want to extract more value from employment, I have a duty to make myself more valuable. I don't necessarily think everyone is capable of becoming a multi-millionaire, but I do think (almost) everyone is capable of working harder, studying more, watching less TV, buying less "wants" rather than just "needs" (recall that the most prolific purchasers of lottery tickets are the bottom two quintiles), of saving up money diligently, of being more frugal than we are, etc. Obvious exceptions apply to people with profound mental or physical disabilities, of course, but most of us are not quadriplegics or suffering from severe schizophrenia - and even those kinds of barriers haven't prevented people like Stephen Hawking or Terry Davis from going on to produce profound and noteworthy outputs. Obviously that's not the bar for people suffering from such disabilities, but I think most people are capable of much more than we give them credit for. >It also doesn't address the fact that social security is funded by taxes, it's not a handout, people make financial decisions based on the information they have, the information they had was "pay your taxes and when it comes time to stop working you'll get some assistance". If you want to kill it, fine, stop taxing people to pay in to it, removing it after an entire lifetime of paying in to the system is basically theft. I agree that this is a problem, and simply stripping people of benefits they spent a lifetime paying into is as fundamentally unfair as forcing them to pay into a program with no choice to opt out was. The solution needs to be compassionate, and it logically follows to me that the people calling for radical reform should be the first to offer self-sacrifice to be part of the solution. I'm a big proponent of allowing everyone to have the option to permanently opt out of receiving benefits for life from these programs, in exchange for a small tax credit or deduction to offset the FICA taxes they will continue to pay in to help fund benefits for the current or near-current retirees. I'd be the first to volunteer for such a program. | | |
| ▲ | NilMostChill 14 days ago | parent [-] | | I think that rather than a fundamental misunderstanding this is more of a fundamentally different outlook between us. I understand the draw of seeing 'value' as a metric by which to judge things but i don't generally take that approach myself. I find that what constitutes 'value' is too nebulous a concept on which to place foundations. That isn't to say it isn't useful and that i don't use it, just that it's less of a core belief than it is a useful tool in some contexts. To take your example of netflix, youtube and adult content, some may see that kind of entertainment as a valuable contribution to modern society and thus by being the facilitator you are contributing to society as a whole. Youtube especially is the vehicle for a lot of information dissemination (both good and bad, for whatever metric you use for such things). Spending that time making a pharmaceutical drug that then gets bought and shelved because it undercuts profit margins on an existing product because of corporate greed means you'd have essentially contributed to profit margins rather than society as a whole. Or just absorbed my the private medical complex as a whole. See : Insulin And i wasn't implying people were owed anything for just existing, i specifically implied they were owed the service that they had paid in to for their whole lives. Whether or not you are entitled to wage increases in line with inflation isn't the point i was making (the economics behind it are fascinating though), i was saying that the idea that people being negligent as a major contribution to lack of retirements funds is a faulty premise in a lot of cases, because it isn't that they could have and chose not to , it's that they never had the opportunity. > I don't believed I'm really "owed" much besides the right to life, liberty, private property, and the pursuit of happiness, I agree with the not owed much sentiment but i can't see how you resolve that with "except these somewhat substantial concepts", especially when you throw "private property" in there. Working from a baseline you aren't owed anything means you aren't owed those things, you go back to pre-civilisation times, you get what you earn and keep what you can defend. As soon as you start introducing societal concepts such as the right to liberty or private property then you introduce the idea of societal expectations and obligations, from all included parties, including governing bodies. Even societies with small tribal numbers had the idea of looking after the elderly to a degree. > I try to take a very humble approach in evaluating what I'm entitled to and it seems a very privileged view of how modern society currently 'works'. A lot of the things you have said are applicable to a specific subset of the population, namely lower-middle to upper-middle class ( the traditional class system is a shitty metric but people know it so... ) . They don't work for anybody near the poverty line and don't apply to people who are already wealthy. > I don't necessarily think everyone is capable of becoming a multi-millionaire, Agreed > but I do think (almost) everyone is capable of working harder, studying more, watching less TV, buying less "wants" rather than just "needs" Look up the actual poverty line statistics to see what kind of numbers you are looking at for who can afford "needs". > (recall that the most prolific purchasers of lottery tickets are the bottom two quintiles) There is a reason for that and a reason why it's sometimes considered a "poverty tax". With no good options for upward mobility the idea of a very low chance at changing your life is much more appealing. People with money don't need to win the lottery, so why would they buy lottery tickets? > of saving up money diligently, of being more frugal than we are Partially agreed, see my response about actual poverty statistics. > Obvious exceptions apply to people with profound mental or physical disabilities, of course, but most of us are not quadriplegics or suffering from severe schizophrenia - and even those kinds of barriers haven't prevented people like Stephen Hawking or Terry Davis from going on to produce profound and noteworthy outputs. Obviously that's not the bar for people suffering from such disabilities, but I think most people are capable of much more than we give them credit for. How about the ones that aren't actively providing 'value' or are in fact providing negative 'value'? That is one of the reasons i find 'value' based belief systems, when considering people, to be a weak foundation. Stephen hawking is a bad example because he was 'valuable' before his disability kicked in fully. Modern society is set up for the 'average' person, anybody deviating from that average is working from a starting deficit. > I agree that this is a problem, and simply stripping people of benefits they spent a lifetime paying into is as fundamentally unfair as forcing them to pay into a program with no choice to opt out was. The solution needs to be compassionate, and it logically follows to me that the people calling for radical reform should be the first to offer self-sacrifice to be part of the solution. Agreed and currently the head of the division in charge of creating and applying those solutions (or deciding to cut existing ones) in the US government thinks empathy is a weakness and is a multi-billionaire. > I'm a big proponent of allowing everyone to have the option to permanently opt out of receiving benefits for life from these programs, in exchange for a small tax credit or deduction to offset the FICA taxes they will continue to pay in to help fund benefits for the current or near-current retirees. I'd be the first to volunteer for such a program. This is interesting as a concept, though i doubt many of the current governments could pull off the administrative side of such a system. I also think, they'd actively fight any such suggestion, because given how things are now they'd have a large proportion of the current and future generations opting out, not because the governments want to provide a safety net, but because they couldn't deal with the shortfall in the budget. This would need to be part of a much larger suite of programs and support mechanisms, you think there's a homeless/drug addiction/crime problem now, just wait until you get a whole generation of people who have concrete proof they won't have a viable means of survival once they hit retirement age. |
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| ▲ | mexicocitinluez 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > was taken from others without their consent Wait, what? Since when our tax dollars taken from us without consent? What are you talking about? | | |
| ▲ | bakugo 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Since when our tax dollars taken from us without consent? Since forever? You can't just opt out of paying taxes. | | |
| ▲ | mexicocitinluez 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Wait, is the government forcing you to work? Did I miss that somewhere? Is there a provision in the constitution that forces an American citizen to get a job and pay taxes? That's not even pointing out that you 100% have control of who makes tax policy through this little tiny mechanism called voting. | | |
| ▲ | bakugo 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Wait, is the government forcing you to work? No, my own body forces me to work, because fulfilling the basic needs required for my survival costs money. | |
| ▲ | anonym29 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'd like to address two points here: the first being the idea that taxes are voluntary, and the second being implicit claims about the nature of the democratic process itself. I will raise some labelled and ordered questions if you care to respond, I understand that this is a subject that can lend easily to hostility, but I want to remind everyone that I am not necessarily refuting what you are saying here, I am just asking follow-up questions to achieve a better understanding of your point of view. I hope we can continue this dialogue respectfully, and if at any point any points I am raising strike you as disrespectful or unkind, please let me know. First: If paying taxes hypothetically became completely optional, and there were no legal penalties for not paying them (coercion, threat of force, state-sanctioned violence), 1a. Do you think tax revenues would stay almost the same, or be dramatically reduced by this change? 1b. Do you suppose most people would still voluntarily choose to pay taxes of their own free will if there were no individual consequences for not paying them? 1c. If answering in the negative to 1b, how do you characterize taxes being any more "voluntary" than the act of handing my wallet to an armed robber can be considered "voluntary"? i.e. if the motivating force that compels me to pay is a threat of force (either implicitly and roundaboutly, through the legal system, which eventually ends with one staring down the barrel of a gun, or explicitly and expediently, just skipping the other steps and going straight to staring down the barrel of a gun), isn't that ultimately the same act of extortion being justified with / "backed up by" the same threat of force from the same mechanism (firearm) regardless of whether it is by one man calling himself a robber or a million men calling themselves a government? Second: As individuals, we do not exercise "control" through the democratic process, we express preferences. 2a. From my understanding (please correct me if this is wrong), the DNC has made it clear in both 2016 and in 2024, that the voters do not get to pick the nominee, the DNC's superdelegates do, and they retain the right to nominate candidates that do not have the majority or plurality of popular support even from within their own party, right? 2b. Expanding out to a broader level, does your comment intend to suggest or imply that all results of democratic processes are inherently and automatically voluntarily consented to by the populace on the basis that we were all allowed to vote on it? 2c. If the proposition made in 2b were true, wouldn't that necessarily imply that we both voluntarily consented to the election of Donald Trump, or the invasion of Iraq in search of WMD's that didn't exist? I can't speak for you, but I certainly did not consent to either of those. 2d. If, on the other hand, the proposition made in 2b were false, why is it we can choose not to consent some democratic process outcomes, like a president that we disapprove of, but not others, like the specific details of tax policy? |
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| ▲ | sorcerer-mar 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sure you can: move! Or do you mean "you can't benefit from all of the security, infrastructure, and social investments in our country and not pay taxes to it?" | | |
| ▲ | anonym29 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Hasn't this frequently been used as a go-to talking point of xenophobic nationalists pretty extensively in the past? I'm not accusing you of expressing either xenophobic or nationalist sentiment, but don't we have a social responsibility to avoid legitimizing these types of highly divisive talking points? Also, isn't there room for a middle ground here? I'd love to sign up to opt out of receiving any social security or medicaid benefits permanently for the rest of my life in exchange for a small tax credit or deduction, smaller than the amount I'd expect to receive out of these programs. What's the downside there, if I'm still paying in grossly more than I'm receiving in benefits, and could be liberating taxpayers from a financial responsibility to me that they already can't afford, and which I don't need? I'd prefer to be part of the solution to the deficit, but me leaving the country only exacerbates the problem, given that I pay in close to an order of magnitude more than I get back in return. I'm anti-war and not a fan of the defense industry, shouldn't I be allowed to stay and express policy preference for less defense spending, even though I benefit from it? We also cannot assume that everyone is drawing from collective infrastructure investment just because we're all forced to pay into it. Some people use well water, have their own microgrid that is disconnected from the public one, and go out of their way to only utilize private toll roads, private medical services, etc for ethical reasons. Shouldn't we at least give people the freedom of choice to opt out of taking from the collective pool of resources if they do not need to, and in turn, because their utilization is lower, offer them some form of limited incentive to do so, as long as they are still paying in more than they're getting out of the system, ultimately? Is it fair to give gifts to people who did not ask for them or want them, and then expect the same sacrifices in return from the recipients, regardless of whether not these public services are even utilized or necessary? | | |
| ▲ | sorcerer-mar 14 days ago | parent [-] | | > I'd love to sign up to opt out of receiving any social security or medicaid benefits permanently for the rest of my life in exchange for a small tax credit or deduction, smaller than the amount I'd expect to receive out of these programs. And if you go broke and end up starving on the street, everyone else just needs to bear that cost either through watching you starve to death or by paying to feed you? It turns out that in practice, the number of people who think they can achieve your proposed outcome is far, far higher than the number that actually does achieve it. > I'd prefer to be part of the solution to the deficit, but me leaving the country only exacerbates the problem, given that I pay in close to an order of magnitude more than I get back in return. Sure but you're not leaving the country because, like GP, you are aware you get far more value from your taxes in indirect services. > shouldn't I be allowed to stay and express policy preference for less defense spending Sure can! Vote. |
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| ▲ | bakugo 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Sure you can: move! To where? Another country that also forces you to pay taxes? I'm sure there are places in the world where taxes don't exist, but if they were places worth living in, I'm sure way more people would be moving there. > Or do you mean "you can't benefit from all of the security, infrastructure, and social investments in our country and not pay taxes to it?" Nobody said anything about whether or not the benefits that result from taxation are worth it. Just that it's mandatory, which it effectively is for the vast majority of people. | | |
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| ▲ | kreetx 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's how they are used, not the taken part - they are taken according to law, thus consent. Though, money printing (i.e, inflation or borrowing money from the FED) basically seems to happen without consent. | | |
| ▲ | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 14 days ago | parent [-] | | > It's how they are used, not the taken part - they are taken according to law, thus consent They're also used according to law. That's why there's sometimes talk of a "government shutdown" in the US: it happens when Congress is close to their deadline to write/pass the budget law. |
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| ▲ | 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | woodruffw 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | They’re presumably talking about things like USAID and PEPFAR. (We haven’t seen the costs of slashing these materialize yet, but with PEPFAR in particular there’s a very good chance millions will die without access to the drugs provided under the program.) | | |
| ▲ | sorcerer-mar 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Including more than half a million children born with HIV! | |
| ▲ | anonym29 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Under this logic, aren't all preventable deaths (no matter how much it costs to prevent that death) the same as murder? Doesn't that technically make all of us guilty of murder if we are not all spending our entire paychecks preventing the deaths of others? | | |
| ▲ | woodruffw 14 days ago | parent | next [-] | | No, I’m talking very specifically about things that were previously funded but are not, for what are nakedly callous reasons. (There’s no need for logical extremes here: PEPFAR wasn’t a very expensive program.) | | |
| ▲ | anonym29 14 days ago | parent [-] | | Why does this not expand to inexpensive programs that haven't been previously funded, but could be? I've read that we can save lives for a handful of dollars per life in Africa with greater access to medical care, mosquito nets, antimalarial drugs, etc. If getting rid of existing affordable aid is murder, why is failing to render new affordable aid not? Doesn't this inherently place an incentivization mechanism and inherent preference for the old ways of doing things, when newer ways can be more efficient and save more lives with fewer dollars? | | |
| ▲ | woodruffw 14 days ago | parent [-] | | The short answer is that removing the aid you were previously providing is more morally salient than not helping in the first place. Short answers aside, could you stop with the indirection? The original question was whether millions of people could die due to funding cuts. The answer is yes, regardless of your moral views about how you should spend your own money. |
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| ▲ | mexicocitinluez 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This is a false equivalency. No one is saying you need to donate your entire paycheck. | |
| ▲ | sorcerer-mar 14 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | We're not talking about avoiding all preventable deaths. We're talking about taking life-saving treatment away from people who were being effectively treated at a nominal cost. Taking treatment away from them in lieu of a very good reason is tantamount to murder. "Empathy is weakness" or "going after the woke mind virus" or "Organization X is a criminal organization [non-evidenced]" or "we need more cushion for tax cuts for the wealth" do not qualify as good reasons. |
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