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This makes absolutely no sense from any angle. US politics is so messed up right now. The entire right is lost in a personality cult and is driven more by trigg

This makes absolutely no sense from any angle. US politics is so messed up right now. The entire right is lost in a personality cult and is driven more by triggering the libs than actually effecting change for their fellow citizens or the country as a whole. And the entire left is on a rampage to make sure they alienate as many people and supporters as possible and would much rather focus on symbolic protesting on issues they have no impact over as opposed to real issues they can help. The center is sensible and fairly effective but was small to begin with and is rapidly getting squeezed from both sides. Re: this specific issue, it’s very obvious that universal programs are always more successful. They build a strong political and support base across the spectrum of voters without creating any losers who are deliberately excluded that would be motivated to end them. Further, more often than not any sort of means discrimination costs way more than the money saved through the means discrimination. And that’s even before the hoops the means discrimination adds to the lives of the poorest to prove their eligibility. The means discrimination should be done once on the income tax side. There’s an extremely well established process for that and will be done anyways. Setting up ad hoc processes for each program on the benefit side simply doesn’t make sense. And yet contra all the information we have the people proposing these policies will go out of their way to make their own policies less effective and more expensive as we’re seeing with these unnecessary riders.

fakecontent000 3y ago
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niceice 3y ago
Harvard has $50 billion dollars and only accepts about 2,000 students/yr.
- Kon-Peki 3y ago
  The Harvard endowment per student is insanely large, but you don't need to exaggerate by only including the undergrad class. They're well past granting 9000 degrees per year; I wouldn't be surprised if they hit 10000/yr within 10-15 years. [1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/05/harvard-awards-9926-degrees-over-the-2022-23-academic-year/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/05/harvard-award...
api 3y ago
I blame social media algorithms for the hyper polarization insanity. They run the discourse now. “Own the libs” and unhinged Trump cultism on one side and “virtue spiraling” and toxic negativity on the other are what maximizes engagement. If it’s negative, offensive, triggering, or insane it goes to the top of the queue because it keeps people on the site arguing and raging. Social media is a toxic destructive industry. I call them “tobacco companies of the mind.” If Musk finally kills Twitter he will be a hero. He should buy Instagram or TikTok after that.
- devaler 3y ago
  I am going to adopt the phrase “toxic negativity”. I’m not yet familiar with “virtue spiraling”, however.
  - api 3y ago
    Virtue spiraling happens on the far left or the far right as well as within religious movements. It’s when people try to outdo each other on appearing virtuous and mobbing one another for being insufficiently so. It ends with everyone being shattered and atomized and hating each other and the movement collapsing. The toxic negativity I see on the left is a general attitude that basically everything is evil and horrible and hopeless. Any attempt to bring up good news leads to a counter attack or minimization of it. Also tends to go with discourse where the main topic is how awful the other side is. (The right hate circle jerks like that too but the tone is more aggro and less depressive.) It’s self defeating and depression inducing and generally unpleasant. Today’s discourse is just generally toxic and stupid everywhere and like I said I blame the algorithm. Algorithmic social media took everything bad about media driven discourse and turned it up to 11.
- jghn 3y ago
  > “Own the libs” and unhinged Trump cultism on one side and “virtue spiraling” and toxic negativity on the other This resonates. Despite being someone that the vast majority of US citizens would characterize as "left", I was commenting to my partner the other day that as I'm getting older I feel more and more like Archie Bunker. I live in a deep blue area and I can't help but roll my eyes at half the stuff that gets discussed. I almost always agree with their starting point and their general sentiment, but then it just goes off in a wild direction. And then of course the other side. It's like watching Voyager hurtling itself out past the solar system. They just keep running in a wild direction. There was a time where I'd pay more attention to right wing media as I found it overall better. A couple of decades later, hoooo boy.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lapcat 3y ago
> The center is sensible and fairly effective Citation needed. Who do you consider the "center", and how have they been effective? Senators Manchin and Sinema, for example, seem to be for sale to the highest campaign contributor and have been a veto holding back many bills from passing through Congress. And Biden himself is now one of the least popular Presidents in history, so it appears that the American public doesn't consider him effective.

fakecontent000 3y ago

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niceice 3y ago

Harvard has $50 billion dollars and only accepts about 2,000 students/yr.

Kon-Peki 3y ago
The Harvard endowment per student is insanely large, but you don't need to exaggerate by only including the undergrad class. They're well past granting 9000 degrees per year; I wouldn't be surprised if they hit 10000/yr within 10-15 years. [1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/05/harvard-awards-9926-degrees-over-the-2022-23-academic-year/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/05/harvard-award...

api 3y ago

I blame social media algorithms for the hyper polarization insanity. They run the discourse now. “Own the libs” and unhinged Trump cultism on one side and “virtue spiraling” and toxic negativity on the other are what maximizes engagement. If it’s negative, offensive, triggering, or insane it goes to the top of the queue because it keeps people on the site arguing and raging. Social media is a toxic destructive industry. I call them “tobacco companies of the mind.” If Musk finally kills Twitter he will be a hero. He should buy Instagram or TikTok after that.

devaler 3y ago
I am going to adopt the phrase “toxic negativity”. I’m not yet familiar with “virtue spiraling”, however.
- api 3y ago
  Virtue spiraling happens on the far left or the far right as well as within religious movements. It’s when people try to outdo each other on appearing virtuous and mobbing one another for being insufficiently so. It ends with everyone being shattered and atomized and hating each other and the movement collapsing. The toxic negativity I see on the left is a general attitude that basically everything is evil and horrible and hopeless. Any attempt to bring up good news leads to a counter attack or minimization of it. Also tends to go with discourse where the main topic is how awful the other side is. (The right hate circle jerks like that too but the tone is more aggro and less depressive.) It’s self defeating and depression inducing and generally unpleasant. Today’s discourse is just generally toxic and stupid everywhere and like I said I blame the algorithm. Algorithmic social media took everything bad about media driven discourse and turned it up to 11.
jghn 3y ago
> “Own the libs” and unhinged Trump cultism on one side and “virtue spiraling” and toxic negativity on the other This resonates. Despite being someone that the vast majority of US citizens would characterize as "left", I was commenting to my partner the other day that as I'm getting older I feel more and more like Archie Bunker. I live in a deep blue area and I can't help but roll my eyes at half the stuff that gets discussed. I almost always agree with their starting point and their general sentiment, but then it just goes off in a wild direction. And then of course the other side. It's like watching Voyager hurtling itself out past the solar system. They just keep running in a wild direction. There was a time where I'd pay more attention to right wing media as I found it overall better. A couple of decades later, hoooo boy.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

lapcat 3y ago

> The center is sensible and fairly effective Citation needed. Who do you consider the "center", and how have they been effective? Senators Manchin and Sinema, for example, seem to be for sale to the highest campaign contributor and have been a veto holding back many bills from passing through Congress. And Biden himself is now one of the least popular Presidents in history, so it appears that the American public doesn't consider him effective.