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So much of conservative policy just seems very shortsighted to me. Cutting the pandemic team, cutting the cybersecurity team; homelessness, prisons and so on co

So much of conservative policy just seems very shortsighted to me. Cutting the pandemic team, cutting the cybersecurity team; homelessness, prisons and so on costing orders of magnitude more than it would cost to eliminate or reduce them. It's just that people can't stomach less well off people getting a hand, or prisoners being treated nicely. But now we're left with the largest pandemic in a century, one of the largest governmental hack ever and will end up paying trillions to fix it instead of the millions of prevent it. I read a comment last week about how if fire departments didn't exist already, there is absolutely no chance that they would get introduced in this modern era of politics.

jpxw 6y ago
I think it’s worth pointing out that there is nothing “conservative” about cutting funding to a pandemic response team. “Republican”, perhaps. But not “conservative”. Note that many countries with broadly left wing governments, such as those in Europe, were also not prepared for the pandemic, and will also pay a high cost.
kevin__ 6y ago
I think a large part of the problem with conservative policy positions (at least in the US) is that they're mostly unchanged from 30-40 years ago. Despite mountains of evidence on things like work requirements for government benefits, multiplier effects of stimulus spending vs tax cuts, benefits of expanding healthcare coverage, and many more, the conservative positions remain the same. I would guess this is likely because these positions are more based on philosophy than they are on actual economics or other evidence-based fields. This was a reasonable position when there wasn't strong evidence to either prove or disprove these arguments, but at some point the evidence becomes overwhelming, and those positions should no longer be considered serious. We're long passed that point on a number of issues, but it sure doesn't seem like anything will change anytime soon.
- devdas 6y ago
  Isn't that exactly the meaning of conservative? They want to preserve the status quo of that time.
  - chillfox 6y ago
    Yep, it sure matches if you actually pay attention to their actions.
  - kevin__ 6y ago
    Sure, I guess in a dictionary sense of the word. But that obviously doesn't match their behavior in that case. They wouldn't be arguing for lower taxes or cuts to social security if they were only interested in preserving what existed in 1980. They wouldn't be attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade or gut the Civil Rights Act.
    - loopz 6y ago
      Think 200 years earlier, slavery and widespread poverty. The aim is bsckwards to good ol' times.
- imtringued 6y ago
  Same with the central bank. Supply side stimulus forever, even though the supply side has been saturated with funding. It's like dousing a farm field with fertilizers and herbicides to improve yields even though you couldn't sell half of last year's harvest. You end up selling your produce for less than last year even though the value of your company has gone up according to the stock market. It doesn't take a genius to understand that things are doing better when supply and demand are balanced. You need a combination of multiple strategies. Actually it's even worse. Too much fertilizer and herbicides will cause unintended consequences.
TameAntelope 6y ago
GOP actions have not been in line with conservative ideology for some time now. A conservative concept is, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." but as you pointed out, even something as basic as that has zero support in the current American political climate on the right. I want to support ideas that deal with issues at their source, in targeted and specific ways that have exponential payoffs later, but I'm forced to support sweeping "just give them houses and they're not homeless" solutions because at least those folks are trying to help, and anything is better than nothing.
zepto 6y ago
“we're left with the largest pandemic in a century“ Sure, but not actually doing any worse than Western Europe. Also, those same conservatives actually did invest billions in vaccine development and production capacity in the US. Literally twice as much as the EU did, and the result is a vaccine rollout that at 5x the rate.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  That wasn't my point. Obviously there is now way to know for certain, but there's a possibility that if Trump's administration hadn't cut the pandemic team, this whole thing may not even have happened in the first place. It may be a bold statement, but don't forget that said team's job was exactly to have people on the ground in China and other places, looking for new viruses and ringing the alarm early. Spending billions to come up with a vaccine is orders of magnitude more expensive than millions preventing the pandemic in the first place. Similarly, one could argue that if Trump's administration hadn't gutted the cybersecurity team, we may or may not have caught the SolarWind hack much sooner. Again, there's no way to know for sure how well preventative measures work, all I know is that while those teams were in place, the hacks and the impact of viruses were much smaller.
  - zepto 6y ago
    > there's no way to know for sure how well preventative measures work This is true. It’s not a valid counterfactual to compare against an imagined ideal. It’s just as possible to consider that the pandemic response team had degenerated into ineffectiveness, and by disbanding them Trump made things better. This is why imagined counterfactuals aren’t helpful compared vs comparing with an actual benchmark.
    - ehsankia 6y ago
      When you get both the worst pandemic and worst hack in a century right 1-2 year after killing the very teams whose job it is to prevent said catastrophes, at what point do you stop blaming things on bad luck?
imtringued 6y ago
It's not just conservative policy, although I admit that it has been a prominent source of backwards thinking. The problem is ... everyone. There is no party vs party war. There is a system of underlying issues that transcends party lines. It's just that some people are hit harder than others which forces a bigger response from them. There is too much emotional thinking instead of just looking at the problem and figuring out what solution is the most agreeable for everyone.

jpxw 6y ago

I think it’s worth pointing out that there is nothing “conservative” about cutting funding to a pandemic response team. “Republican”, perhaps. But not “conservative”. Note that many countries with broadly left wing governments, such as those in Europe, were also not prepared for the pandemic, and will also pay a high cost.

kevin__ 6y ago

I think a large part of the problem with conservative policy positions (at least in the US) is that they're mostly unchanged from 30-40 years ago. Despite mountains of evidence on things like work requirements for government benefits, multiplier effects of stimulus spending vs tax cuts, benefits of expanding healthcare coverage, and many more, the conservative positions remain the same. I would guess this is likely because these positions are more based on philosophy than they are on actual economics or other evidence-based fields. This was a reasonable position when there wasn't strong evidence to either prove or disprove these arguments, but at some point the evidence becomes overwhelming, and those positions should no longer be considered serious. We're long passed that point on a number of issues, but it sure doesn't seem like anything will change anytime soon.

devdas 6y ago
Isn't that exactly the meaning of conservative? They want to preserve the status quo of that time.
- chillfox 6y ago
  Yep, it sure matches if you actually pay attention to their actions.
- kevin__ 6y ago
  Sure, I guess in a dictionary sense of the word. But that obviously doesn't match their behavior in that case. They wouldn't be arguing for lower taxes or cuts to social security if they were only interested in preserving what existed in 1980. They wouldn't be attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade or gut the Civil Rights Act.
  - loopz 6y ago
    Think 200 years earlier, slavery and widespread poverty. The aim is bsckwards to good ol' times.
imtringued 6y ago
Same with the central bank. Supply side stimulus forever, even though the supply side has been saturated with funding. It's like dousing a farm field with fertilizers and herbicides to improve yields even though you couldn't sell half of last year's harvest. You end up selling your produce for less than last year even though the value of your company has gone up according to the stock market. It doesn't take a genius to understand that things are doing better when supply and demand are balanced. You need a combination of multiple strategies. Actually it's even worse. Too much fertilizer and herbicides will cause unintended consequences.

TameAntelope 6y ago

GOP actions have not been in line with conservative ideology for some time now. A conservative concept is, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." but as you pointed out, even something as basic as that has zero support in the current American political climate on the right. I want to support ideas that deal with issues at their source, in targeted and specific ways that have exponential payoffs later, but I'm forced to support sweeping "just give them houses and they're not homeless" solutions because at least those folks are trying to help, and anything is better than nothing.

zepto 6y ago

“we're left with the largest pandemic in a century“ Sure, but not actually doing any worse than Western Europe. Also, those same conservatives actually did invest billions in vaccine development and production capacity in the US. Literally twice as much as the EU did, and the result is a vaccine rollout that at 5x the rate.

ehsankia 6y ago
That wasn't my point. Obviously there is now way to know for certain, but there's a possibility that if Trump's administration hadn't cut the pandemic team, this whole thing may not even have happened in the first place. It may be a bold statement, but don't forget that said team's job was exactly to have people on the ground in China and other places, looking for new viruses and ringing the alarm early. Spending billions to come up with a vaccine is orders of magnitude more expensive than millions preventing the pandemic in the first place. Similarly, one could argue that if Trump's administration hadn't gutted the cybersecurity team, we may or may not have caught the SolarWind hack much sooner. Again, there's no way to know for sure how well preventative measures work, all I know is that while those teams were in place, the hacks and the impact of viruses were much smaller.
- zepto 6y ago
  > there's no way to know for sure how well preventative measures work This is true. It’s not a valid counterfactual to compare against an imagined ideal. It’s just as possible to consider that the pandemic response team had degenerated into ineffectiveness, and by disbanding them Trump made things better. This is why imagined counterfactuals aren’t helpful compared vs comparing with an actual benchmark.
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    When you get both the worst pandemic and worst hack in a century right 1-2 year after killing the very teams whose job it is to prevent said catastrophes, at what point do you stop blaming things on bad luck?

imtringued 6y ago

It's not just conservative policy, although I admit that it has been a prominent source of backwards thinking. The problem is ... everyone. There is no party vs party war. There is a system of underlying issues that transcends party lines. It's just that some people are hit harder than others which forces a bigger response from them. There is too much emotional thinking instead of just looking at the problem and figuring out what solution is the most agreeable for everyone.