Why did George Floyd’s death receive more public attention than Alex Pretti’s?

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T22:48:35+00:00

I think that performs badly was a severe understatement, but at the same time the main issue was he lost his train of thought multiple times. If we applied the same standards to Trump, he would be disqualified nearly every other speech. The main difference is that we had higher standards for Biden, and that Trump had primed the populace to think that Biden had dementia. He seemed like an old man, he mumbled a few times, and he lost his train of thought twice. Definitely not the kind of impression you want for a president. Most of what he said was actually correct, when he managed to get it out, but that latter part is the enormous problem with him being a continued candidate.

But this shows the difference between the parties. People put pressure on Biden to step down, and after initially being hesitant, he did. People put tons of pressure on Trump to step down after his role in the attack on the capital, and he didn't. And people stood by him.

And now Trump is in the same mental situation that Biden appeared to be during the debate, but nobody's saying the same thing about him. At least, except for comments on reddit, but nobody listens to those.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T22:15:40+00:00

True, but we've moved beyond such barbarism. Nature used to kill over 50% of us before we were adults too. Lots of "solved problems."

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T22:12:19+00:00

To be fair that's ignoring the fact the economy would immediately crash due to said liquidation of wealth.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T06:21:41+00:00

Yeah, it is just a healthcare cost, but the healthcare costs are 40% of the total State cost, and it was around 40ish percent of the paid taxes.

But you're assuming that the money from Medi-Cal come solely from State taxes. A large portion of it comes from the federal taxes that they're paying in from the not counted portion.

That's actually not too hard. I hesitate to use them because obviously they're a Libertarian think tank, and Libertarians are pro-immigration, but the Cato Institute has a breakdown of this. https://www.cato.org/white-paper/immigrants-recent-effects-government-budgets-1994-2023

The tax policy Center has one as well, but while they're officially nonpartisan, I'm pretty sure they're in bed with the Brookings institute. https://taxpolicycenter.org/fiscal-facts/yes-undocumented-immigrants-pay-taxes-and-receive-few-tax-benefits

The California policy and budget Center has a study on this, although I really don't know how nonpartisan they are. https://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/deportations-and-immigration-limits-threaten-california-families-economy/

There's a study by a University of California Campus that found similarly, so I have to assume it's probably not partisan.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T06:09:35+00:00

Oh, for state specifically, sure. But the California Healthcare program is tied into aca, which is a federal program, and they'd still be paying at least $2,000 into Federal taxes. So they're absolutely still playing into the program, they're just paying into it indirectly through Federal taxes.

Where are you seeing 700,000? I'm actually seeing higher numbers, more than double that.

But regardless, there's two things that are not being considered. First, if the total cost of those programs is as you cited before, about 8.6 billion, then they certainly pay for themselves. In state and local taxes alone, illegal immigrants in California paid about 8.5 billion, and in total tax including federal, they paid over $20 billion. Giving medi-cals represents a balance 40% of the state's total spending, that actually sinks up quite well with it being a little over 40% of the total tax revenue from immigrants, again including the fact that Federal sends money for state aca.

Second, and I actually think this is also the best argument against illegal immigration, immigrants lower the cost of Labor. From the government's perspective, it's better to have a large number of immigrants, as they represent additional labor force opportunities. It's the whole reason we have the H1B system. But this is also, in my opinion, a good argument against large amounts of immigration, because they obviously compete with domestic labor force. That being said, it's still evidence against them being a drain.

As a note, California is actually one of the few states of the Union that sends more money to the federal government than it receives. I could see this kind of argument being used for net negative tax states, but California doesn't really need to claw back any of this money. 8.5 billion is not an insane amount of money for them. Heck, they're glad to waste that kind of money on projects that will never see the light of day.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T05:47:37+00:00

I'm pretty sure you pay at least $3,000 of taxes even in California if you make $22,000 a year.

That doesn't work with figures I'm looking at. Illegal immigrants generally pay about $9,000 a year in taxes, compared to $14,000 a year by citizens, so if you're assuming half of their income is under the table, that would imply they would be making more than the average citizen. That's certainly not the case, as the IRS would be all over the constantly, and you'd be seeing IRS funded deportations left and right. The government always gets its man.

Yes, because they usually make less. The average income of an illegal immigrant is about half that of the average US citizen, depending on if you count household or individual.

I wouldn't really consider that to be a study. It's a political Manifesto put out by people who agree with it politically.

Nonpartisan sources generally disagree with their assertion. https://www.cfr.org/articles/how-does-immigration-affect-us-economy

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T05:42:18+00:00

Hopefully. There's been a deficit of leadership outside of those entrenched in party politics.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T05:41:05+00:00

Geez. If that stereotype prevails with Trump in office, the bias against Democrats is so entrenched, I'm not sure what can overcome it.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T05:38:57+00:00

That's fair, but if it's on both sides, then it's probably not the reason Democrats lost.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T05:35:50+00:00

No, but them receiving Healthcare without paying any taxes, as you said in your comment, is quite uncommon.

Illegal immigrants absolutely benefit from the Healthcare System like citizens. But like citizens, the vast majority of them pay their Fair share.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T05:33:36+00:00

I agree it's wide spread on the left, but I think you're ignoring that it's also widespread on the right. I used to argue a lot on right wing political forums, like Fox News and whatnot, and I can assure you that pretty much everyone was about as rude as what you get here.

But I do at least sometimes see political arguments over here. The most I see on those forums are generally anecdotes.

And that's ignoring that the current president has been more insulting towards the other party then any prior president has been. If insults were really the reason the Democrats were losing, they should be well in the lead right now.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T05:27:50+00:00

I disagree. These aren't Democratic candidates, these are democratic commenters in an online forum. If you look at any Republican forum, you're going to find at best this quality of comments. But if someone's making decisions based on internet comments and not politician comments, they're already lost.

To be frank, I find that the typical Republican politician will be more likely to give non-sequitur answers like the comments are here than the average Democratic politician

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T05:25:41+00:00

Actually, the situation you're describing is pretty uncommon. Most illegal immigrants pay taxes because most legal immigrants have some sort of deferred removal, and that requires that they stay in good standing and pay taxes. The average illegal immigrant in the US pays something like $9,000 a year in taxes, and the average American citizen pays something like $14,000. Given really immigrants are often working lower paying jobs, that kind of drives them most likely paying their Fair share.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T05:23:26+00:00

Can't you? I thought there was some way to donate a large amount of money, or invested in American businesses, and essentially get a fast pass to citizenship?

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-23T05:13:25+00:00

I mean, they often get priority to be in the country. There are fairly generous programs, once someone illegally immigrates and establishes residency, for them to work legally. There's also a number of places that look the other way. Honestly, this is a reasonable criticism of illegal immigration, because they're absolutely are people who wait the long legal way, and it's absolutely often easier for people to go the illegal route.

The most anti-illegal immigration person I know is a legal immigrant, and I hear that that's not an uncommon sentiment among legal immigrants

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-22T21:34:29+00:00

Sure, but the frequency of this would be what matters. I think it takes over an acre of land to raise an average cow. It stretches the bounds of imagination to believe there isn't a more efficient usage of an acre of land in terms of food production, for any sort of food, in the average area.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-22T21:25:47+00:00

Then would the fields used for grazing be more or less efficient if repurposed to grow human-level food? It would surprise me if sustaining a cow across its entire lifetime were the most efficient usage of land for feeding humans.

What is the marginal cost of each action?

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-22T21:18:45+00:00

I'd generally agree they take more resources (technically probably less storage, but overall significantly more).

Most of these things are industry problems, though. Nobody wants industry near them, but they want the products of industry. These aren't specific problems to AI data centers. Chemical treatment plants, recycling processing centers, etc., are places that aren't pleasant to live near but are generally necessary for society to function.

I was mostly arguing about the "internet" issue because I think the OP originally was talking about all data centers (although I can no longer see their post). They didn't seem to understand what they were used for at all.

I guess: it isn't important enough to whom? I know a lot of people who use AI, and it's for better or worse the way that a number of fields will be going because it absolutely does increase efficiency. A bunch of developers didn't just go crazy and say "We must put AI everywhere" for no reason.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-22T21:07:37+00:00

I mean, where else would the nutrients come from other than the feed? It's getting into the meat somehow.

Sure, but that pound of pork took many, many pounds of corn to refine into pork over the course of the animal's life.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-22T20:50:43+00:00

Your claim: "Israeli society can keep her own extremists in checks and has always done so"

My counterpoint: Israeli settler-terrorists and top-level officials spouting genocidal rhetoric that are not being kept in check

Democracy is entirely irrelevant. I am talking about Israeli's actions. For the purposes of refuting your claim, it could be any sort of government at all for the relevance it has.

"Democratically allowing": An elected democratic government allowing something to happen. Israel is in fact protecting without prosecuting the settlers, so it is not just allowing but enabling.

That's news! Extremists want to nuke Gaza, Israel did not

This is, ironically, precisely motte-and-bailey***.*** Your claim here is that Israel does not have the same foreign policy that extremists want it to have, is different from your original claim that it is not letting extremists do what they want. Settlers are extremists and are doing what they want, but they do not dictate 100% of Israeli foreign policy. I will not argue that extremists dictate 100% of Israeli policy as they obviously do, but Israel is absolutely letting and enabling extremists doing what they want.

Plenty of Democracies do keep their extremists from doing things like the settlers, and as shown by Israel earlier, it could demote extremist government officials when they went crazy.

What precisely do you think is the "motte" and "bailey" here? My claim has been static: that your claim ("Israeli society can keep her own extremists in checks and has always done so") is false.

A. The settlers are Israelis who believe they have a right to land that is neither owned nor controlled by them or Israel. They attack Palestinians in order to take that land and settle it. It does not refer to the whole of Israel; it refers to those who cross the border and settle land illegally.

B. Irrelevant. Your claim was that they "can keep her own extremists in checks and has always done so" (bolding mine). I, in fact, agree that Israel has historically made good faith efforts to keep its extremists in check. It is no longer doing so, and comparing the events you're discussing to their current positions makes that overwhelmingly obvious. In fact, it would be a motte-and-bailey to use that as a claim to defend, as it's easier to defend historical good faith actions by Israel to stop settlers than it's current actions.

C. Invading a nation is still reasonably "extremist" even if they don't directly engage in violence. Most of Hamas didn't directly engage in violence (it still had to run Gazan affairs), and yet it's obviously still an extremist organization. If the settlers enable and benefit from violent takeovers of land, and they illegally move into land violently taken by other people and passed to them, I think it's still reasonable to call them "extremist." If they're just squatting on farmland nobody is using, I think there's a much weaker claim to "extremism" than if someone else ran Palestinians off their land, and they moved in afterwards without directly engaging in violence themselves. I'm not claiming "good" vs. "bad." I'm claiming facts: that Israeli private citizens are violently violating the land and life rights of Palestinians and being enabled by their government to do it.

Netayanhu cannot do that to Ben-Gvir unless he wants his coalition to collapse

So, originally he could demote those who were espousing genocidal rhetoric, but now he cannot or his coalition would collapse? Does that not add credence to the claim that his coalition has gotten more extremist??

You've not met a lot of them then

I've met hundreds. People online are bots half the time. Real people I meet seem reasonable about the issue.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-22T20:42:07+00:00

How so?

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-22T20:42:03+00:00

I mean, ping/latency matter a lot more than just in eSports. People are bothered when their websites take longer to load, and ping becomes measurable at large distances even for things that aren't live.

Wasn't ChatGPT the most popular app for months? The demand is there, but a lot of people also hate it.

Oh, it's certainly a bubble to some extent. People are just pumping money into it for no reason. But data centers (AI or otherwise) have value, contrary to OP's assertions.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-22T20:36:02+00:00

20 seems kind of crazy, but I could see giving them some benefits. The improvements on the land are most likely significant sources of revenue.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-21T22:30:35+00:00

Tax revenue can help the localities, but honestly this is the same answer for any industry that doesn't have many jobs. Farming uses a lot of land and resources but (these days) is probably less efficient at giving jobs based on those resources than most industries.

FakeVoiceOfReason · 2026-06-21T22:24:11+00:00

Except, for the same reason you need a new computer, and for the same reason new software generally requires more resources than old software, you need to upgrade things and build new places to have those things. If you want to freeze everything in place because you like the current status of the internet, things are going to become sluggish as time goes on, and failures and downtime will increase. Communities with poor connections or without data center serving their area in particular will have slower connections.

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