We only have 2 major political parties, and one of them has decided science and learning are evil…and like half the country votes for them. We’re completely fucked.
Correction: half of the voters vote for them. If all the apathetic people started to vote, Republicans would be forced to adapt or would never win any election anymore.
Correction: less than half of the voters vote for them, but because of the way the government is structured they still control half or more of the government and can take the presidency despite losing the popular vote and now control the Supreme Court forever.
We also have to consider how many people are salvagable but are voting for republicans as compromise candidates, much like how radicals tend to do with SHADOWLORD JOE BIDEN
Yup, in total numbers, the apathy party is a clear lead ahead of the Democrats and unaligned voters keeping a spirited competition for second, and Republicans place in a solid 4th.
The problem is that FPTP doesn’t consider non-participation and the unaligned voters aren’t an organized party and oh yeah the Republicans are hell bent on codifying that being more spread out entitles them to be more equal than others at the ballot box.
I mean tbf Erdogan mostly lost his shit after it became obvious that being Turkey but not laicite doesn’t magically make the cypress question go away during accession negotiations.
That one ultimately bit the Cypress Turks in the but though, now they’re starting to worry about Turkey annexing them because of Erdogan.
That is clearly not true.
We also give massive tax breaks to corporations that then don’t do the things for which the breaks were given — e.g. Foxconn in WI. Build a chip plant? Nah we’re good.
Reminder that the US Congress gave AT&T and Verizon BILLIONS of dollars to build out a national broadband network decades ago. They pocketed that money and didn’t lay a single meter foot of fiber with zero consequences.
Billions of taxpayer money gone to AT&T and Verizon? Sounds like their infrastructure should be seized and nationalized.
Wait till you hear about how much money the US (and Canada) spent to bail out private railroads. The same railroads that are openly hostile to running nationalized passenger rail. Even being allowed to have passenger train wheels touch their tracks is like pulling teeth so we can forget about actual, functional intercity rail like they have in the developed world.
Let’s be aware, were not even giving our troops proper armor and helmets vs IEDs, nor are we taking care of vets who lost their minds (and body parts) fighting for freedom. Instead, were cutting fat checks to Lockheed Martin for experimental tanks with active camouflage, or planes that are way too expensive and don’t work very well.
So we’re not just spending tax dollars on the military, we’re spending it badly on the military, and then cheating our soldiers of their benefits (who we funnel from the poor who have no other opportunities).
Joining the armed forces will ruin your life, unless you personally know a governor or senator who will vouch for your character. And then still you have to get past senior officers who want to ruin you.
Also every year in the service, roll a D20. On a 1 you’re either dead or too shot up / blown up to have a quality of life. You get to live the rest of your life a shell of who you once were.
Counter-recruitment writes itself.
Don’t forget the “fast attack” ships that cost twice what they were bid at, and have hulls that crack when you exceed a slow crawl.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence-class_littoral_combat_ship
On 10 May 2022, it was reported that six of the Navy’s fleet of 13 Independence class LCS suffered from hull cracks above the waterline where the deck plate and shell plate join. The cracks may develop if the ships travel faster than 15 knots in seas with maximum wave heights of about eight feet.
Well, yeah. The US military fights for the interests of its plutocrats, not for freedom. In the 1920s the whole red scare was used to push freedom, specifically the freedom of property rights (that is, for rich men to own everything) and the freedom to starve from poverty.
ADAPTIV ( on Wikipedia ) is one of the current projects on active camouflage.
They’re kinda cool when we don’t think that ultimately these technologies are used to kill people and take their stuff.l
It feels like one of the few positive outcomes of the Cold War was the Sputnik shock.
The public and politicians suddenly got very worried about actual scientific competitiveness and winning a competitive race on something other than bombs.
I wish we’d have a similar moment when it came to China and infrastructure.
This is a country that was built by railroads. Even today, you can see the strings of towns spaced to the size of a steam locomotive’s water capacity. But what do we see from that legacy now? The Acela, an effort that would barely be competitive in the 1970s, on a minimal set of routes. Meanwhile, the Chinese are laughing from the windows of their 300kph trains.
(Yes, I’m aware that American freight rail is efficient and impressive, but somehow almost every other industrialized country has figured this one out)
I wish we’d have a similar moment when it came to China and infrastructure
It’s a shame that the culture in mainland China is so isolated because otherwise some Americans might have bit of an existential crisis about this right now if they knew.
In the top tier Chinese cities, people board the train by scanning a qr code on their phone, which is linked to a wallet in their chat app. The subway system is extensive, well though out, clean and fast. Most of the private cars are electric, and when a car isn’t the right choice, the sidewalks are often smooth and suitable for an electric scooter or bicycle. Food and transportation is cheap, even when ordering food to your apartment or house. 5G mobile internet is smoking fast and cheap. The local equivalent to Amazon.com delivers just about anything in a day or two. Over the course of a year I watched the city building an entirely new subway line - they just decided it was needed and bam! They built it and it didn’t take 10 years. Most importantly, the younger generations have a real chance to do better than mom and dad, which is what every generation needs, and the last couple American generations seem to have been robbed of.
I’m an American and was surprised and impressed on my first few trips. Why don’t American’s have anything like this yet? Why is the US so bogged down in the little things that it can’t dream anymore? It can hardly solve it’s most basic problems at the moment. I wish more Americans could see how far it’s slipped.
(Just because this is Lemmy, no, I’m no Chinese shill. There are other issues there and I wouldn’t wish their system of control or surveillance on anybody.)
But what do we see from that legacy now?
It bothers me so much. I wanted to pay for a friend’s ticket to visit us. By train, it was $200, a 16hr trip, of which 2/3rds was by bus thanks to Amtrack’s garbage infrastructure/system.
By plane for the same trip, it was a $180, 2hr direct flight.
It’s so god damn ass backwards. Trains produce a fraction of the emissions of planes, so why are we ok with trains being uncompetitive?
politicians suddenly got very worried about actual scientific competitiveness and winning a competitive race on something other than bombs.
They just feared possible military applications and didn’t want to fall behind.
Point completely taken, but they at least managed to provide some window-dressing that they were advancing the state of science and knowledge.
You are fucking high if you think that sputnik was a “scientific endeavour”.
The only reason the Soviet Union agreed to launch sputnik was because of the perceived threat it made to the west in the dominance of Soviet rocket technology.
And the only reason the US took up the challenge was because of the “missile gap” that was spun by the military industrial complex.
Is this an old tweet? This year alone $1.2 trillion was passed in spending on infrastructure at the federal level.
We have backlogged projects, let alone maintenance on existing infrastructure, not even getting to the costs of upgrading ancient infrastructure - a lot of municipalities still use clay pipes.
Right now deferred maintenance is roughly a trillion dollars.
IDK about where you live, but I travel a lot for work and in my area and the places I travel there is a ton of work being done that has started in the last few months. If you want to ignore reality and wallow in your memes, I won’t stop you; but, you’re wrong.
Anecdotal. 1.2 trillion in infrastructure spending barely touches the overall need. If that were all used to fix what is breaking, it would just do that. But then it wouldn’t cover new projects, projects in planning stages since they like to fund “shovel ready,” and it doesn’t touch the shit show that is private utilities.
It’s a start, but we’ve got decades of catching up to do. Also consider that your 1.2 trillion figure is a multi-year cost.
Except the US hasn’t been spending on infrastructure for a long time. Obama wanted a similar sum and that was almost a decade ago. We’re not improving, we’re barely maintaining.
That’s because infrastructure improvements have to be completed using taxes from the rich and corporations.
You’re right, investment in infrastructure has rebounded, but its easy to ignore the hard fought battles and just be cynical. But also things aren’t perfect and our priorities can be better. For me that’s investments in health care for all and making higher ed cheaper.
Two years ago, President Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (“BIL”) into law. The BIL directs $1.2 trillion of federal funds towards transportation, energy, and climate infrastructure projects, most of which is distributed via state and local governments
Eh sorry buddy on lemmy we hate the USA and love China. Also blame everything on capitalism, even - and especially - if it has nothing to do with it
Having legitimate criticisms of the country you live in
wHy Do YoU hAtE aMeRiCa?!?!