rbetts
Joined 16 years ago
Karma
525
Submissions
146
Member since
Sep 10
Recent submissions
Comment · 1 year ago
The claim we are arguing is "anti-DEI stuff is predicated on the idea that civil rights are bad and that white (straight dude) rule is good.". You said this claim is an ad hominem fallacy. I quoted someone in the administration who is literally saying "competent white must be in charge," an exact example of what the claim is stating.
Comment · 1 year ago
Uh huh.
> U.S. State Department hire Darren Beattie wrote on X: "Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men."
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-darren-beattie-state...
Comment · 1 year ago
I regularly receive responses from my reps here in Massachusetts. They also hold town hall meetings where you can ask questions and listen first-hand. I attended one last night and spoke 1:1 with my Congresswoman for a moment afterwards.
I'm sure there are districts where this is not the case in the US - but I hope everyone with concerns reaches out to their elected officials and takes an hour once or twice a year to listen to them in person when they are present in their districts.
If your rep doesn't answer you, tell your neighbors and vote for one who will.
Comment · 1 year ago
There are some US States that participate in solar credit markets. Basically, utilities are required to purchase some number of solar production credits. Solar energy producers can sell their credits to these utilities.
Comment · 1 year ago
Perhaps we agree that sustaining fair societies is a continual march of institutional and cultural building - not something imposed by a document or stamped by 1800's England. I would never argue that US-Iraq style nation building would succeed, for example. In fact, it is a counter example of violence being sufficient to get from 0 to 1. The US applied extreme violence over a population and failed to establish a persistent democratic order. The basis of civilization, as I read history, is more a consequence of surplus than violence.
I see, in the chaos of Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, as examples, the results of institutions and cultures effectively destroyed by outside violence, in many cases regressing from 1 to 0.
Thank you for sharing your point of view - certainly thought provoking for me.
Comment · 1 year ago
So easily you gloss over millions of Americans who fought to end slavery, who fought for women's right to vote, who fought for desegregation, who fought for labor rights,... The "comfortable life" in America isn't a 300 year old gift of extra judicial killings - it's a continued culture across 10 generations of individuals and communities fighting for ever fairer freedoms under a shared rule of law.
Comment · 1 year ago
They were fired by the administration. Looks to me like the system working. Government agency does something stupid. Congress investigates. Situation corrected. I'm looking forward to that oversight of the current administration. Enjoy your kite.
> In November 2024, FEMA fired a supervisor for directing relief workers to avoid assisting homes displaying support for President Donald Trump in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton. In response, the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation into political discrimination at FEMA and held a hearing with former Administrator Deanne Criswell. This week, FEMA informed the Oversight Committee that it has terminated three additional employees for failing to uphold the agency’s standards of conduct. The agency is also implementing additional training to reinforce that political affiliation must never be a factor in disaster relief efforts.
https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-applauds-fema-for-...
Comment · 1 year ago
The problem isn't not enough money. It's not enough distribution of money. Income inequality in the US is at 1929 levels.
Comment · 1 year ago
It seems more likely that the EU will retaliate by taxing (or prohibiting) US services.
Comment · 1 year ago
It is easy to under-estimate the diversity across US States. I don't think many Europeans look at Hungary, Poland, or Bulgaria's justice systems and extend that to an opinion on EU justice in aggregate.
This isn't to excuse the abysmal state of affairs in large swathes of the US. Just to say that the US is rarely sufficiently uniform to summarize as a single entity, especially in topics like justice systems where States have significant sovereign power.
Comment · 1 year ago
Diminishing sectarian hierarchy and placing the church above everything else is a clever strategy for an organization seeking to control your thoughts, your actions, your relationships, your financial obligations, and even your eternal fate.
Comment · 1 year ago
A comparison of testing criticality across countries would be interesting to read if someone knows a decent reference. My sense (which I don't trust) is that test results matter at-least-as much or more in other places than they do in the US. For example, are England's A-levels or China's gaokao tests or Germany's Abitur tests more or less important than US SATs/ACTs?
Comment · 1 year ago
On the topic of the colonization of India, "Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India" is an illustrative book - especially if you want more context to draw conclusions about the scale of wealth taken from India.
Comment · 1 year ago
Thank you for doing work that makes python better for millions of people.
Comment · 1 year ago
I'm unaware of ways to prevent abuse of the environment by corporations other than regulation. Do you have some evidence or documentation that these standards are applied differently to Space-X than other similar companies? Can you show some paper trail that the submission wasn't processed in good faith?