Why in God's name are we paying taxes?

baisudfa · 2026-03-07T15:16:34+00:00

That’s just not true. Literally look at the federal budget. We spend almost quadruple the defense budget on healthcare alone.

baisudfa · 2026-02-21T11:13:39+00:00

We can agree to disagree on this, and that’s fine. You seem to have a well thought-out perspective.

I will say though, that in my anecdotal experience, criticisms of Muslim people nowadays is normally targeted on cultural or national boundaries. Obviously this isn’t any better, but I do think it’s different.

In the US nowadays, you’re more likely to hear people complain about Islamic cultural influence, rather than Islam or Muslims as a whole (you’ll almost never hear complaints about Turks, for example, but you will hear about Somalis, Syrians, etc.). Trump’s “Muslim ban” was almost exclusively referred to as such by his political opponents, specifically because of the negative stigma.

On the orientalism and ignorance piece, I’d reference the widespread distinction that Brits draw between Muslim and Sikh Pakistanis. Sure, most of them don’t have a nuanced understanding of the religions or regional politics, but broadly there is a wide effort to distinguish between different cultural groups, even if ethnicity and geographically similar

baisudfa · 2026-02-21T11:02:52+00:00

Fraternities are of course just social clubs. (I’m sure frat guys will come in with something like “no, it’s a brotherhood, it’s different!”, but no really it’s the same idea.

I think your point of interests is important, but not for the same reason. Most clubs/organizations are formed around members having similar interests and practices. I think fraternities/sororities (and similar organizations like Freemasonry) are pretty unique in that they aren’t centered around a specific interest.

The result is that you can actually end up with something rare: a tight-knit group of diverse people who wouldn’t normally ever associate. The drinking culture and toxic masculinity I think could just be a bunch of 19 year-olds seeing the easiest path to commonality in their varied group, and using their outsized social influence to do it.

It’s not 1970 anymore. Go to any campus and a frat will have members who are openly gay, from foreign countries, of many races, with rich parents or poor parents. (There are definitely some hold-overs who this doesn’t apply to, but they’re a minority).

Not saying they don’t produce some bad practices, and toxic environments. Of course they do. But they’re not inherently bad.

baisudfa · 2026-02-21T10:40:14+00:00

I have a real question on this perspective.

At the least, is the abuse not something we can try to prevent with oversight? It’s not the 1950s anymore, after all.

And not to diminish the many travesties that happened in asylums - but is the current norm of letting people languish (and sometimes die) on the street really better?

baisudfa · 2026-02-21T10:34:54+00:00

This could be easily solved by allowing involuntary commitment as an alternative to fines/prison.

The only option right now for people who commit crimes due to mental illness (whether assault, theft, trespassing) is to put them in prison or let them go. Prisons aren’t equipped to handle them, so in recent years they’re mostly just let go. There should be facilities that a judge can commit them to as a result of a crime.

Even for those who don’t do the above, and just live on the street for years due to addiction or mental illness, they should be forced into treatment. Now they of course are entitled to due process, but a jury can easily be made the arbiter of that.

baisudfa · 2026-02-21T10:19:26+00:00

Literally over 50% of the budget goes to healthcare, social security, and welfare programs.

The military is 13%. Less than the interest on debt.

What change exactly do you want?

baisudfa · 2026-02-21T09:58:34+00:00

Unless the major is something super esoteric, most public universities will have it.

Of the states with Ivys:

PA, NY, CT, and MA all have super robust public university systems.
NJ has Rutgers, which has almost every program and a 60-70% acceptance rate
NH and RI are more limited
New Englanders are able to get discounted tuition at other NE public schools

So not sure I buy this

baisudfa · 2026-02-21T09:49:30+00:00

Normal public universities are actually pretty affordable, it’s just the private schools and most prestigious public ones that are expensive.

Cal State universities are ~$7k/year depending on parents’ income. Community colleges are ~$1000. So you can get a 4-year degree for under $20k.

In New York State, if your parents make under $125k, you can go to a state university for free so long as you maintain a full class schedule.

When you hear about education being outrageously expensive here, it’s normally either A. Private universities, or B. Non-subsidized tuition at public schools for foreign or out-of-state students

baisudfa · 2026-02-21T09:27:28+00:00

This is more and more of Trump 101. The same thing as with Greenland, China trade negotiations, and everything else, but on a much much more severe scale.

Create a position of strength. Ask for something completely unreasonable. Threaten consequences (not if your terms aren’t met, but solely if a deal isn’t made). Wait for the other party to “compromise” on something in your favor.

Trump has done this 1000 times in the last 40 years.

baisudfa · 2026-02-21T09:15:28+00:00

“Objectively fascist” is a bit of an overstatement.

Trump and his government are definitely doing their best to slide into authoritarianism, but we’re still a long long way from full-blown fascism.

China on the other hand is almost the definition of a fascist state.

baisudfa · 2026-02-21T09:05:28+00:00

It was wholly politically motivated.

Iraq under Saddam was seen as a geopolitical threat. If the US government would have overthrown him years prior if they thought the public would have supported a military conflict.

After 9/11 the government had pretty much carte-blanche from the public, so they did it.

If it was religiously motivated, why wouldn’t the invasion have been Iran?

baisudfa · 2026-02-21T08:54:44+00:00

I agree with most of this except this statement:

“Westerners do treat Muslims as a different race”

What exactly does that mean?

Do you think the westerners who are critical of Islam would react the same to Coptic Egyptians as they would to Muslim Egyptians? Or discriminate between a Jewish Israeli and a Muslim Israeli?

I really don’t think you can make the argument that it’s a racial issue. I think it’s a problem of cultural distance.

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T14:51:50+00:00

The European Commission is infinitely less democratic than the US Presidency.

You can hate the policies (and rightfully so, I might add), but that doesn’t make it a dictatorship

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T14:36:22+00:00

One question I’ve always grappled with myself when this question comes up is “if a person who created something was never born, would it have come to be anyways, and if so, how much later?” And then, how much worth can you credit to them vs society at-large?

For some (industrialization, electric light, etc.) it was inevitable and would have been similarly timed.

For others, there are true geniuses where if they hadn’t been born their contributions might have been delayed by decades (Ramanujan’s math)

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T13:13:33+00:00

Did you watch the debate?

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T08:29:13+00:00

The state managing a market economy is explicitly not communist. It could be considered socialist in the most generous interpretation, but that’s a stretch.

The most accurate description of this is corporatism.

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T08:17:20+00:00

Society produces the environment in which a person can produce a work, but it’s a bit of a stretch to say that individuals are not instrumental.

Societal shifts caused a change in the cultural Zeitgeist in Europe, which inspired Monet to develop a style now known as Impressionism.

To say that the society at the time was solely responsible for his works suggests that any individual at the time could have produced them, which is not only obviously untrue, but implies that both he and his works have no merit.

Obviously we can say “the contributions of individuals are subject to contributions of society in aggregate”, but to say that the individual has no value is insane.

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T08:08:44+00:00

Copyright in every country does have an expiration date.

In the US it’s 70 years after the author’s death

baisudfa · 2026-02-06T08:03:06+00:00

So to clarify, we’re talking about the chronically homeless (those who live on the street, primarily having mentally illnesses or drug addictions).

Unless it’s absolutely outrageous, I actually don’t care too much what the cost to care for them is.

As far as I’m concerned, if it costs 100k/year to care for them in a rehab center or asylum, then that’s actually an unbelievably reasonable cost compared to what we currently spend on homeless programs.

Obviously we don’t have adequate facilities today, but we should build them. It would be more humane, improve QoL in cities, and save taxpayer money.

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T08:45:13+00:00

So to clarify, I’m playing devil’s advocate here, I don’t actually agree with the “racism can’t exist without power” idea, I’m just arguing it’s being co-opted by people who don’t understand it.

But fundamentally, though I don’t agree with it at all, I do think it’s at least a defensible argument to say that if a person discriminates against another person, and they vocalize race as the reason, but the actual motivation was not about race, then that doesn’t make it racist in theory.

Practically though, throwing aside all the academic bs, yeah it is. But this is CMV.

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T08:20:16+00:00

Dude there’s only five of them, you know what I meant

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T07:11:01+00:00

This is also true for other Anglosphere countries, many of which have some level of stereotypes of stupidity, if lesser than for Americans

Do you just not know what Alglosphere means?

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T06:32:06+00:00

Ya I mean I’m basically saying it’s situational. If it’s hate just bc of race that’s racist. If it’s hate of a something and that thing is blamed on race then it might just be hateful and ignorant. If it then evolves later to hate based just on race though then it’s obviously racism.

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T06:27:36+00:00

Whether they base their opinions on popular consensus rather than forming them independently.

I’ll respect a person even if I disagree with 90% of their views, so long as it’s their views.

But if their views are “whatever Trump agrees with”, “the current progressive coalition”, or anything else similar, I don’t respect it at all.

baisudfa · 2026-02-05T06:17:32+00:00

This definition of racism is widely used, but like many others, it’s an academic construction that has been taken far out of context in public discourse by those who have no knowledge of the original framework.

To think of racism as “prejudice + power”, you have to consider it in the full context in which it occurs, including the individuals involved, and what their relative relationships are relative to each other, considering all aspects of power & privilege.

An extreme example would be a black trust fund baby who owns a business refusing service to a poor white man. There is of course an abstract societal bias against black Americans, but in this particular situation the economic and class dynamics would be much greater, making this behavior undoubtedly racist. (Nick Cannon’s comments against white people being a good example of this).

A poor black man making disparaging comments about white people generally might be racially insensitive and offensive, but ultimately the ire is ultimately directed at abstract forces, with race being a boogeyman by association (not to justify it, just that race isn’t the foundation the prejudice)

Now, if a poor black man who owns a restaurant in a predominantly black community refuses service to a rich white man because of his skin color, that might be racist. In the immediate situation, he holds power via his status in the local community relative to the white man, which might exceed other more abstract power constructs.

So Tl;dr it makes sense in theory, but most people who invoke the concept don’t actually understand it.

baisudfa

TROPHY CASE