supplied_demand

==giving more money to an underperforming school only makes it worse.==

Is there no circumstance where more funding would help an underperforming school? It certainly “can” make it worse in instances, but there are many reasons that a school might be underperforming. To imply that more resources would fail to help any of those problems is quite a leap.

What if the student-teacher ration is 40-1 and more funds allows for another teacher, might that make the school better?

What if the school is only open for 4 days due to low funding, might an additional day of school make it perform better?

What if a school has multiple disabled students slowing down the curriculum, but no funds to give them personal support, might more funds help it perform better?

== put them up in hotels until their claims of asylum are adjudicated, which takes years. How is that not open borders==

You answered right before asking, their asylum claim must be adjudicated. If it is denied, what happens?

== Because that's how it sounds if you're not willing to actually deport anyone.==

We do and have always deported plenty of people. Obama (1st term) and Biden both deported more people than Trump did in his first term.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/us/trump-biden-immigrants...

== we'd be better off with 0 immigrants and 0 crimes==

Thanks for saying this, it lets us know where you stand regardless of the facts shared.

==But you don't think that admitting, say, half the populations of all the world's best-known failed countries like Somalia, Haiti, Syria, El Salvador, DRC, etc.==

This has never happened, is not happening now, and has not been proposed by any current political party. Open borders is a falsehood that has never existed in our lifetimes and nobody is proposing today. If we are going to discuss the topic, let's stick with reality.

At the same time, my ancestors who immigrated from southern Italy didn't speak English, were very uneducated, weren't considered "white", didn't have the same cultural expectations, and brought all their problems with them. All of this happened during the golden age of American progress and growth (the exact era we are trying to "make again"). I find that interesting.

==such a newcomer is well-suited to get ahead by subverting the Western societal framework, such as by taking advantage of our lax approach to property crimes==

And yet, study after study shows us that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than American-born citizens [0] [1] [2] [3]. Let's move past the fake hypotheticals and discuss the known facts.

[0] https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w31440/w314...

[1] https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2020-10/working-pa...

[2] https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/05/13/is-there-a-con...

[3] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/30/upshot/crime-...

In my experience (US-based), small business owners are one of the most celebrated segments of the population. I assume it is a small business if there are no other employees with which to celebrate.

There is lots of help and support available from the SBA to special tax breaks.

== Most people hate SAP but don't know what to do. Caught in catch-22, they hate it, but don't trust any other options==

I think it is worth pointing out a little nuance I learned while working at SAP.

- The IT department tends to hate SAP due to its insane complexity and never-ending configurability.

- The business users (procurement, A/P, finance, etc.) tend to like it because once it is set up, it “just works” for them.

It’s important to know that the buyer and user might be different folks/departments.

== In the real world, Australia is significantly closer to A and further away from B than France is; and, unsurprisingly, France has significantly greater immigration-related social problems than Australia has.==

Your example completely ignores the facts of history and geography in favor of simplicity and a narrative.

Australia is a former colony, France is a former colonizer. Australia is an island, France is a small part of a much larger continent. Density is considerably higher in France than Australia.

There is a large immigration blowback happening in Australia today, even with your ideal policies.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-27/have-the-political-wi...

== But they don’t know how to reconcile “can save a few” with “can’t literally bring all poor people here without destroying our country.”==

It’s also possible that they hold a fundamentally different view than you and aren’t just naive idiots.

The phrase “destroying our country” is very charged and completely unsubstantiated in your comment. It’s almost like you are falling victim to the same type of emotional reaction you accuse others of holding.

== the country had to import those adults from some other country whose people did have children==

Those people chose to come the US for the opportunity as they have throughout history, even when birth rates were high.

== Protecting and promoting families as a national policy is the right solution in my opinion==

So you agree that we don’t need to wait for more people to have kids to pay for the policy because we could just adjust our spending priorities. Glad we are on the same page.

== So it's impossible to create a welfare system in order to encourage families. People need to have children first so that they can be made to pay for it.==

This ignores some important facts. First, lots of immigrants already pay taxes and don’t receive government benefits. Second, we already run a continuous deficit. Third, we could choose to shift existing spending priorities to more pro-family spending.

It would cost about 1/3 of our military budget to pay for universal pre-K 3/4.

https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2022/6/2/total-...

I'm sure the elimination of free, educational content will be great for the working class.

== On paper Trump is a centrist in many ways because he doesn't seem to have strong values either way.==

He has enacted much of the Project 2025 agenda, which is a right-wing, authoritarian playbook.

==I had to look up many of the recent examples to assume who they were talking about.==

Seems you are only paying attention to one side if you had to look up the examples, as they are all quite recent. It doesn't seem like we are going to see eye-to-eye on things, as you completely dismiss facts, like the Democrats introducing actual legislation (multiple times) to stop gerrymandering, in order to lecture me about my own biases.

==You might want to look into his other politicians use their charities, such as the Clintons.==

Trump doesn't have a charity anymore because he was found guilty of stealing money from kids. This is your party, accept it. Enjoy your day.

==This is the sort of win at all cost mindset that's driving this in the first place. Neither side is proposing a real solution.==

Except that Democrats introduced bills in 2021 and 2024 to stop partisan gerrymandering [0][1]. They also introduced a joint resolution for a Constitutional Amendment to stop the spread of money into politics [2].

Guess which party didn't support the bills. The Democrats would be fools to unilaterally stop things like raising money and gerrymandering without legislation that would also stop Republicans. Based on those actions, we can assume one party does want it and has introduced the "real solutions" you are searching.

Were you aware of these actions?

[0] 2021: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/267...

[1] 2024: https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/u-s-senate-democ...

[2] https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-joint-re...

The point is that the entire party did a complete 180 on one of their strongest bedrock principles. These people still call themselves conservatives while supporting an administration that holds almost zero "conservative" stances.

They believe in power, period.

Were all the grand juries and juries Democrats too?

The Big Beautiful Bill passed without any Democrats voting for it. Democrats are not great (or good) by any measure, but they did not confirm all the appointments that are doing this.

==Six nominees received no supporting votes from any Democratic senators or independent senators who caucus with Democrats: Hegseth, Russell Vought for director of the Office of Management and Budget, Gabbard, Kennedy, Howard Lutnick for secretary of commerce, and Linda McMahon for secretary of education. ==

https://ballotpedia.org/How_senators_voted_on_Trump_Cabinet_...

==I'm not exactly sure which side you're even talking about.==

Based on your response, you are plenty sure.

==Democrats are calling on blue state leaders to redistricting in response to TX, so literally the same thing.==

The key phrase here is "in response to TX" which proves it is not literally the same thing. Just like if someone hits you in the face and you respond by hitting back, it is called self-defense and is treated differently than assault or battery.

==What about the Biden administration threatening to pull funding over anti-semetic issues?==

Threatening to do something is different than doing it and demanding payments.

==On a side note, is ICE actually "disappearing" people ==

Yes, it has been well-documented. Here is just one example: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/ice-deports-3-u-s-citize...

==Who set the precedent? What was FDR's party?==

Going back 80 years to find your "counter argument" kind of proves my point.

==just the usual stuff about fights over state preemption vs city independence.==

It's in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation has spoken about it plenty. Here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/26/trum...

and here: https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/heritage-prez-tells...

==The gift becomes US property when it is over a certain amount. ==

This explains how Hegseth signed the deal with Qatar that allows him to keep a $400 million free plane even after his Presidency. https://www.thedailybeast.com/pete-hegseths-secret-deal-to-g...

== The Democratic White House chose to not invite Tesla to their EV Summit. That was not political?==

I never said they weren’t political, but if you want to compare disappearing Americans to not inviting someone to a summit go-ahead. It kind of proves my point.

Have you entertained the idea that those people may have committed crimes? Can you explain the fake electors plot to me? Why did they send fraudulent electoral certificates from 7 different states?

Some of the people you mention were already known criminals (D’Souza, Cohen, Manafort, etc.). You can defend them, but that is your choice.

Can we stop claiming “both-sides” every time there is a blatantly anti-democratic move by the current administration?

One party is trying to change their electoral map mid-cycle, one party is covering for pedophiles, one party is strong arming universities and news channels to toe the line, one party has federalized the national guard to help disappear people, one party is currently building concentration camps, one party is calling for states to take control of cities to stamp out political enemies, one party is accepting bribes from other countries, etc., etc.

Democrats aren’t great, they aren’t even good, but the “both sides” rhetoric is severely misplaced.

You can “free trade”, “federalism”, “protecting minors”, and “personal freedom” to the list.

The arguments are not made in good faith. They only cared about Epstein when they thought it was a tool to attack political enemies. Now that the story has changed, they want everyone to just move along.

When he started at DEC in 1982, they had 67,000 employees and almost $4 billion in revenue. It seems like that type of success and size would imply some institutional knowledge. Their revenue, income, and employee count started stagnating in 1989. He worked there until 1998.

No need to keep going back and forth on this as you seem to have dug in your heels.

https://sutherla.tripod.com/infsoc/computers/dec_pl.html

==why did they usually do it==

I'm not entirely sure, maybe they did it to give people a narrative to distribute? I just know what they are doing now, which is forced starvation and violence without warning. The exact thing people warned about before the conflict started.

Why would you forcibly starve a population of civilians if your goal wasn't to eliminate them? Why have they blocked outside journalists from entering Gaza for over 600 days if they weren't trying to hide their actions? Starving civilians in an area where you control the airspace and coastline isn't a "spiral of violence," it is a war crime.

In this comment, you invent a conspiracy and apply it to me in order to have something to attack. You even used scare quotes to make it extra bad.

These performances kind of prove that you know the facts aren’t in your corner. The BBC video you are commenting on refutes your point about IDF always warning civilians before strikes:

==“I witnessed the Israeli Defense Forces shooting at the crowds of Palestinians," Anthony Aguilar told the BBC. He added that in his entire career he has never witnessed such a level of "brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed, starving population".==

I don’t recall many people denying Israel’s right to protect themselves against Hamas (I’m sure some did). The concern was them using it as an excuse to perpetrate the Palestinian genocide they wanted all along. That is what we now see. Your comment seems to use the familiar playbook of equating Palestinians and Hamas to muddy the waters.

It is a pretty clear echo of the US’s response to 9/11. People were considered traitors if they didn’t support a full military invasion and occupation. In the end, that was clearly the wrong move.

He worked there starting in 1982. When do you think the dot-com era started?

I remember a lot of people predicting it would lead to this from the start. The response was often along the lines of “If you don’t support Israel’s invasion, you are pro-Hamas.”

If those people had a come-to-Jesus moment, great. That said, they probably owe an apology to the people they demonized as supporting terrorism.

== if you want to stamp out a young engineers creativity, start them working in a big org.==

Jim Keller’s own biography kind of dispels this notion. He worked at DEC for 16 years when he was a young engineer (24-40 years old).

== What you end up with will always be better than what you started with.==

That is quite the absolute statement. Could you share some data to back this up?

== I think the main reason people put forth the “latent fetish” explanation is in order to argue that pornography is harmless.==

I think the main reason people blame their fetishes on porn is in order to avoid confronting their inner compulsions.

== Also, most of the versions of the fantasy I have violated conservation of energy, and therefore cannot be physically achieved. Why would I want to want something impossible? ==

I’m not sure, but it’s probably something you should unpack with a therapist. Blaming porn is the easy way out. Exploring why you are personally drawn to it is the hard work.

Can you clarify how it “harmed” you? You didn’t quite answer that question.