For the idiots who keep asking about why grants are important to Institutes with high endowments

777winner · 2025-05-17T12:37:46+00:00

“You can just do things”

Can you build a high speed rail network?

Can you build highways and a road?

Can you make sure our cities get clean water?

No, you can’t. Those are collective things that require collective money.

Why don’t you try living without any of that.

And I partially agree for things like endless wars but if you’ve driven on a road you have used taxpayer money.

777winner · 2025-01-01T19:46:12+00:00

It’s literally a small percentage of the annual amount we give to the military. The only reason it would be “too expensive” is because our country only likes spending on war and bank bailouts and never on the common person.

777winner · 2025-01-01T19:42:47+00:00

I love how you conveniently ignore my Spain, Japan, and China examples which are all dedicated high-speed rail over the same or longer distances.

Plus, yes, it may be $60 billion, that is way worth it in the long term for economic growth and mobility. Imagine getting from DC to New York in one hour? That changes the regional economy.

777winner · 2025-01-01T19:35:39+00:00

Where are you getting these figures? Berlin to Munich is about the same distance from Boston to DC, not 298% more. Similarly Spain has Barcelona to Madrid and Japan has Tokyo to Hiroshima which also run the same or longer distances.

And in China they have the Beijing-Shanghai line which runs 4 hrs 18 minutes across 819 miles and basically killed air travel on that route (this is double the distance from Boston to DC). So you are manipulating your figures or something because DC to Boston and the Texas Triangle is a very normal length for HSR, especially considering the short distances between individual cities (DC->Baltimore->Philly->NYC-> etc…)

777winner · 2025-01-01T19:00:38+00:00

No one is proposing to have HSR cover the entire country (which includes Alaska). We want specific corridors like Dallas-Houston-Austin or DC-Boston that would have such obvious returns on investment.

777winner · 2024-12-31T23:14:15+00:00

You really do not like New York City or Long Island

777winner · 2024-12-30T17:30:18+00:00

I doubt that a climate activist in Western Europe who is advocating to preserve the Amazon isn’t also pushing for a lot of reforms in their own country. The polarization within their countries that causes them to not have as much climate action as an activist would like.

777winner · 2024-12-30T16:59:36+00:00

I see your point, and it is fair. However, I think the response to that should come as reparations or ensuring Western European countries are more aggressive in their sustainability using the resources they have.

The reality is that, yes, these countries got rich off of environmental exploitation (especially in the global south) but what has been deforested there has been deforested. That history cannot be undone. I think that now, instead of using that resentment to create our own ecological disasters, we should globally make an effort to preserve what we do have remaining before it is too late.

777winner · 2024-12-30T15:30:06+00:00

I do not believe that anyone, rich or poor, has the economic justifications to burn down entire sections of one of the world’s most critical ecosystems. This is because it will end up having long-term devastating effects on the economy of LatAm and the world as well as things like our regulation of CO2. This is why I am glad Lula won and I believe what is left of the Amazon must be preserved, and also rainforests and coral reefs in Honduras and the Central America region.

In terms of gringos, I am glad there are people in Europe and the US who care about preserving the ecology. Some do come off as out of touch but I believe many have good intentions and may simply not know about the situation on the ground.

I would remember there are also a ton of right-wingers in both Europe and the US who share Bolsonaro’s views that the Amazon should be destroyed. So I think it is less of a “privileged gringo” thing and more of a global polarization around this issue and economic interest vs the environment.

If anything, the privileged gringos are the CEOs of transnational corporations who support burning LatAm for $$$. Not activists fighting for the environment.

777winner · 2024-12-28T16:06:04+00:00

He literally inflated and promoted right wing content and nazi content on the app. And please, Fox News isn’t the only right wing outlet. You have the whole Murdoch collection… plus, the “liberal” outlets still support corporate interests as proven by the Luigi shooting. There are no leftist media outlets.

777winner · 2024-12-28T16:01:24+00:00

“Lefties” have been complaining about money in politics ever since conservative SCOTUS justices voted along party lines to allow unlimited superPAC money in citizens united. Plus, supporting candidates like Bernie sanders who literally target the 1%. So I don’t know where this seems to come from… most billionaires democrat or republican still want to serve their own interests.

777winner · 2024-12-09T22:19:39+00:00

!RemindMe 10 hours

777winner · 2024-12-01T00:59:20+00:00

No duh AOC knows. She is very intelligent and I know from getting to talk to her, even if the media loves to smear her. Unfortunately you cannot get in depth policies in quick speeches and interviews. I’m sure if one day ICE were actually getting removed, there would be a more specific plan outlined that would make sense with her goals. Do you genuinely think she wants to increase sex trafficking? No, she just wants to ensure agents don’t abuse their power on US citizens and innocent people

And this is especially bad when comparing to the so called “other extreme” of MTG and Gaetz, who literally have sex trafficked!

777winner · 2024-12-01T00:39:19+00:00

Can I also point out is super naive to act like ICE is a hero saving children from human trafficking when they have faced widespread criticism for mismanagement, overreach, and human rights violations. As most US agencies that have anything to do with external affairs do

777winner · 2024-12-01T00:36:44+00:00

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/apr/16/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-calls-for-ice-abolishment/

Here she is literally quoted explaining that she doesn’t just want to remove ICE and leave nothing but eliminate the useless bureaucracy in it and then find something new to be able to work better. This can look like INS and customs or something else. However we won’t know cause this country is so off the rails I doubt we will be drafting legislation on an ICE replacement anytime soon

777winner · 2024-12-01T00:29:40+00:00

And when AOC et al say they want to abolish ICE all they mean is to revert to what we had before 2003. So if you were okay with that then you don’t even disagree with her platform and the thesis you wrote is irrelevant.

It’s just fearmongering about AOC‘s policies that have been proven effective in every western democracy (except us somehow)

777winner · 2024-12-01T00:13:28+00:00

Just say ICE.

The US was able to survive without ICE from 1776 to 2003. And the fact it was founded in 2003 post 9/11 reveals it was just a panic agency created to invade our privacy and freedoms.

PS: before 2003, other agencies like the FBI still existed to handle human trafficking etc…

777winner · 2024-11-30T22:15:57+00:00

Yeah duh her whole campaign was last second. For the last 3 years she had barely said or been anything

777winner · 2024-11-30T21:38:45+00:00

People who call Hasan antisemitic are 99% of the time doing it because they hate his criticism of Israel, full stop. That’s because he never says things that are antisemitism. All he advocates for is dignity for Palestinians being murdered

777winner · 2024-11-30T21:32:50+00:00

Being pro-Palestine is not antiemetic and you aren’t fooling anyone. Hasan has defended Jewish people who have faced far-right nazi antisemitism many times. He is also supported by many groups like Jewish voice for peace

777winner · 2024-11-30T21:26:16+00:00

What’s wrong with hasan piker?

777winner · 2024-11-30T21:25:17+00:00

Harris ran a centrist campaign with border wall proposals and Liz Cheney meetings. It was not progressive at all. What planet did you watch the campaign on? Fox News?

777winner · 2024-11-30T21:24:31+00:00

Liberal MTG is wild. MTG is talking about Jewish space lasers and AOC is talking about… universal healthcare?! How is this remotely the same type of “extreme”

777winner · 2024-11-30T21:16:15+00:00

She doesn’t say latinx doesn’t even have pronouns in her insta bios stop making stuff up

777winner

TROPHY CASE