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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
On July 01 2017 17:32 ShoCkeyy wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2017 13:26 Danglars wrote:On July 01 2017 08:33 Plansix wrote:On July 01 2017 07:41 Danglars wrote:On July 01 2017 07:22 Plansix wrote:
Why does entitlement reform always come with cutting entitlements and the taxes that fund them? It would be like if I was going balance my budget, but also not buy cloths any more because I have enough for the rest of my life. They bankrupt the country and you get no money to spend on anything if left untouched. One hundred trillion in unfunded liabilities is where these stand; that's a whole lotta rich people you don't have sitting around to fleece. And you accuse people of hysterical language and partisan dialog. The federal debt is a real and persistent threat as long as money doesn't grow on trees. It's pretty anti-science to want attention to global warming and ignore the costs associated with growth in entitlement spending. The problem here is that global warming is a real subject. It doesn't matter if you're republican or democrat, it's very real. The same with health insurance, both very real subjects. And I feel that part of the government is choosing to ignore what's in their faces for personal pride, and it will get millions killed. As a Floridian, I definitely notice it getting hotter every year. This year it's just been unbearable to go outside of your house for more than 30 minutes. The point is, stop ignoring shit. Everything cost money, but if you don't invest, you don't ever grow.
Tell me, if insolvency and the growth of entitlement spending outpacing revenues somehow a fake subject for you?
Also, going outside and "noticing it getting hotter this year" is routinely derided as anectdotal and scientifically illiterate. Unless you can deeply feel and appreciate halves of a degree. If it doesn't work for cold summers ("that's weather variability you stupid denier"), it doesn't work for days you want to stay inside. Appreciate real subjects with a dose of reality, please.
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Reading Trumps tweets is funnier to me than anything on TV.
Laughing my ass off at the new material he put out today.
What a time to be alive.
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did danglars ever specify/cite the study he was referring to yesterday? I remember a lot of talk and claims, but I'm not sure we ever got a proper cite.
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On July 02 2017 00:23 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2017 17:32 ShoCkeyy wrote:On July 01 2017 13:26 Danglars wrote:On July 01 2017 08:33 Plansix wrote:On July 01 2017 07:41 Danglars wrote:On July 01 2017 07:22 Plansix wrote:
Why does entitlement reform always come with cutting entitlements and the taxes that fund them? It would be like if I was going balance my budget, but also not buy cloths any more because I have enough for the rest of my life. They bankrupt the country and you get no money to spend on anything if left untouched. One hundred trillion in unfunded liabilities is where these stand; that's a whole lotta rich people you don't have sitting around to fleece. And you accuse people of hysterical language and partisan dialog. The federal debt is a real and persistent threat as long as money doesn't grow on trees. It's pretty anti-science to want attention to global warming and ignore the costs associated with growth in entitlement spending. The problem here is that global warming is a real subject. It doesn't matter if you're republican or democrat, it's very real. The same with health insurance, both very real subjects. And I feel that part of the government is choosing to ignore what's in their faces for personal pride, and it will get millions killed. As a Floridian, I definitely notice it getting hotter every year. This year it's just been unbearable to go outside of your house for more than 30 minutes. The point is, stop ignoring shit. Everything cost money, but if you don't invest, you don't ever grow. Tell me, if insolvency and the growth of entitlement spending outpacing revenues somehow a fake subject for you? Also, going outside and "noticing it getting hotter this year" is routinely derided as anectdotal and scientifically illiterate. Unless you can deeply feel and appreciate halves of a degree. If it doesn't work for cold summers ("that's weather variability you stupid denier"), it doesn't work for days you want to stay inside. Appreciate real subjects with a dose of reality, please.
But then there is the overwhelming scientific evidence, government agencies most of our allied nations and our own department of national security that say climate change is a major threat. Entitlement spending can be addressed without cutting entitlements to critically low level or eliminating them. The conservative efforts to smother or eliminate entitlements are actively harmful to addressing the problem. The same with climate science and their irrational fear of over regulation destroying the economy.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On July 02 2017 00:15 m4ini wrote:Show nested quote +On July 01 2017 23:51 LegalLord wrote:On July 01 2017 23:19 m4ini wrote:On July 01 2017 22:36 LegalLord wrote:
Trump also reestablished the National Space Council just last night. Dunno what will come of it but I can say quite confidently that I was really quite unhappy with how Obama dealt with space and it's one of the few things that Republicans tend to care more about. But during fiscal years 2011 through 2014, Congress approved less than requested. NASA’s funding decreased to a low of $16.9 billion in fiscal 2013 before increasing to $19.3 billion in fiscal 2016. You can't really blame Obama for how he handled "space" (although he did cut funding a bit, it was nowhere near the numbers that were approved) if congress approves considerably less than proposed by him. Congress deserves its own amount of flak for how badly it handled space - and I'm not all that confident that Trump could do it better (he tends to fuck up everything he touches; my "hope" is more of a whimsical sort of "I hope things go better than before" than a realistic hope for a better tomorrow) - but don't give Obama more credit than he deserves. His space policy was completely and utterly short-sighted. I wouldn't call it short-sighted.
What would you call it? NASA was sent into a spiral of space irrelevance as Obama sought to empower a space industry that really won't be as good as we hope it will be. I could say more but I already have plans to write more about that (in my Rocketry blog series) so I'll leave it at that brief blurb for now.
On July 02 2017 00:15 m4ini wrote:Show nested quote +
For one, he basically gutted NASA in terms of useful contributions towards the future. He ended the Shuttle, an understandable choice given the fact that its retirement was at least two decades overdue by 2011. He cancelled Constellation, which although kind of understandable given how expensive it was, was done in quite a shitty way that left NASA without any real plan for the future. The Space Launch System is a rocket designed by politicians rather than engineers and while it could work eventually, its complete and utter lack of hype is well-deserved. NASA still does good work but does so without any direction.
So you're saying he gutted NASA by finally retiring the Shuttle. As you rightfully said, way overdue. So that's really not a negative thing to do, in fact it should've been done already 20 years ago.
That's only part of it. True, the Shuttle was many years overdue for retirement - IMO Challenger was the proper time to start to consider replacing it. But why did it continue to exist? Simple: because its capabilities, however overpriced, were still necessary. Remind me, what alternatives does NASA have for launching astronauts?
On July 02 2017 00:15 m4ini wrote:He also didn't just stop Constellation on a whim, but based on results of the Augustine Commission. Granted, he could've doubled NASAs budget and give constellation a go, but i don't really think that'd be a smart thing to do.
My "four years vs seven years" number was from the Augustine Commission report - which I've read through in the past. Well, we're seven years past the Shuttle retirement, still no ability to launch astronauts. Great predictive powers. Overall that report was not really to my liking, as it was a bit too focused on finances at the cost of everything else. Hell, if you really want to launch people at the cheapest possible price, you know what you should do? Fuck that seven billion spent on development of CC, just pay Russia whatever its asking price is for their Soyuz capsules for the next decade and a half (starting 2011). $60 million a seat, $80 million a seat, doesn't matter, still cheaper than $50 million a seat plus $7 billion up front for CC. And it's likely only good up to the end of life of the ISS, which at this point looks like 2024 (and I'm not sure it's going to get extended further than that). Worried about it going up to $100 million a seat? I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to just agree to a 50-seat contract at $80 million a pop. But unless you think that's a good decision, there's obviously more to it all than just mere cost.
Was Constellation more trouble than it was worth? Maybe. It was certainly more expensive than any sane person would be comfortable with. It's not too unreasonable to point out that Mars may be a project that is DOA, simply because we're not willing to foot the bill and Russia, Europe, and China are all more interested in the Moon than in Mars. Maybe under that realization, it would make sense to cancel Constellation $10 billion in, $90+ billion to go. That would be a fair assessment. But that's not exactly how it went down - it was a bit more of a unilateral change in direction. Let's just say that if we did ultimately have to give up Constellation, it should have been done with a hell of a lot more thought as to what would follow. A decade of development to have basic LEO manned capabilities, along with a rather directionless Mars program? Not really the kind of push I would hope for.
On July 02 2017 00:15 m4ini wrote:
The SLS is worthless in its current state, and it'll be very hard to give it even a reason to even exist.
I wouldn't go quite that far - while not the best of projects, it does occasionally have its moments. It's probably not an awful idea to just suck it up as the most feasible plan for Mars that we currently have and let the engineers pick up the scraps. I definitely would not have chosen that path, that's for sure, but it's what we got.
On July 02 2017 00:15 m4ini wrote:
The SLS is not designed by "politicians", but "republicans".
What are you trying to get at? That Republicans fuck up everything and it's just Democrats that really care about good space work? Sure, Alabama, a Republican stronghold, is basically the hub of space pork, but also an important hub of space achievement in general. I'm really not sure what your point here is.
On July 02 2017 00:15 m4ini wrote:
It's the same shit like the shuttle all over again. It's WAY too expensive to be useful. Don't get me wrong, i think the shuttle is cool, but objectively it was a monumental failure regardless of the accomplishments. The SLS is the same minus accomplishments: the money would've been spent better elsewhere.
The Shuttle was expensive and it never achieved its goals of cheap space travel on a multi-purpose transport vehicle. As a science project, though, it would be hard to say that the Shuttle was a failure. Sure, it was poorly conceived - but it gets shit on far more than it deserves. It just survived well past obsolescence.
On July 02 2017 00:15 m4ini wrote:Show nested quote +
Obama with the help of Congress played the "balance the budget" game on NASA and in the process sort of left it without a direction. If you think Trump's idea for a direction for NASA is wrong, I would not disagree. But the trajectory NASA is heading on is lamentable, the private industry won't have much success if NASA takes another plunge, and honestly we need to sit down and reassess the direction NASA is heading. Because right now we are just boldly going nowhere. I could hope, at least, that such a discussion would yield some fruitful pushes towards a better future.
If you look at what Obama actually tried to do, i would say that, at least in our current timeframe, was a really smart thing to do. Not as flashy as riding an explosion to the moon, but for "the future", it would be by far one of the best options. People need to get rid of the image of the Space Shuttle/Saturn V when they think "NASA". That's not all the NASA is.
What did he do that was a good investment into the future? Cancel all the more far-reaching programs in favor of the SLS and developing private companies? The former is universally terrible, the latter is understandable but ultimately not a decision I agree with (again, I'll be writing about that in more depth later). Trying to focus on NASA's other, less flashy but nevertheless very important, functions? Ok, that's not a bad idea - but ultimately those Saturn V and Space Shuttle missions are not something that should be neglected so willy nilly; that has a lot of value from that scientific perspective of what NASA is supposed to accomplish.
On July 02 2017 00:15 m4ini wrote:
I personally don't think that neither Mars nor Moon would be of any benefit to humanity currently. While i do love space and space exploration, there's far more pressing matters currently where the NASA could be the solution, or at least a big player - sadly, that would require people in power who don't think the earth is flat, 6000 years old or similar.
Disagree strongly. Again, will write more about it in the future. The fact that there is water on the Moon makes it far more valuable to long-term space endeavors than those who aren't fully aware of the implications of that would realize. But trust me, water on the Moon is a game changer.
Mars is a straight up science project. But a good one nonetheless.
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I think Trump might not be aware of the deep distrust many states have for the government he runs.
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On July 01 2017 09:49 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Wow, very happy to AZ on that list. I figured we would have served them up on a platter.
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On July 02 2017 01:57 crms wrote:Wow, very happy to AZ on that list. I figured we would have served them up on a platter.
I'm not that surprised; AZ is one of those very anti-government places iirc. lotta people there with a lot of suspicion/distrust of government intrusion.
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Sweden33719 Posts
So this is just his standard reply when he doesn't get a reference? Sounds exactly like his reply about the lack of corners in oval office.
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United States42387 Posts
On July 01 2017 22:27 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Sooooooo, according to Alex Jones, there is a conspiracy to abduct children that serve as sex slaves on motherfucking Mars.
Remember folks. Jones is amazing and the NYT is fake news.
The weird thing is that he thinks it took NASA 20 years to get the child sex slaves to Mars. If I were ordering a child sex slave and they said they'd picked one out for me and they'd arrive in 20 years I'd want my money back.
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On July 02 2017 00:39 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
Reading Trumps tweets is funnier to me than anything on TV.
Laughing my ass off at the new material he put out today.
What a time to be alive.
Every day I get a little bit sadder that this man is representing our nation.
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On July 02 2017 02:28 NewSunshine wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2017 00:39 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
Reading Trumps tweets is funnier to me than anything on TV.
Laughing my ass off at the new material he put out today.
What a time to be alive. Every day I get a little bit sadder that this man is representing our nation.
Definitely is a bit sad, but I also gotta admit, watching Trump go 0-100 from mostly presidential to ranting lunatic in minutes is pretty hilarious.
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United States24637 Posts
That tweet is misquoting the video. It is all conjecture at this point.
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American man and his daughter experiences the horror of socialized healthcare at a somewhat rural hospital in Denmark situated literally next to a music festival with 130K (very drunk) attendants (and thus having a source population much larger than what it usually handles):
So, today my daughter ended up in the emergency room. While spending time in Denmark, my little girl fell off a tree on her side and got hurt. Well, after 15 years, it was time to experience the Danish socialized medicine again. Has it really become a death trap like some in the US swear by? Is it really slow, inefficient and heartless like any other government agency? Well, as an aggravating situation, the hospital we went to is in the city of Roskilde, that these days lends its name to the "Roskilde Festival", one of the largest summer music festivals in the world. More than 130.000 people come here to enjoy the music and some alcohol, so a lot of people show up hurt in one way or another. When we arrived at the hospital, there was a steady stream of people being brought by paramedics from the festival site to the emergency room. Most of them with foot injuries. So, I expected to be there for hours, waiting to be seen. After signing in, we barely warmed up the waiting room seats, when they called my daughters name. The doctor saw her immediately. None of that seating in a smaller room, waiting for another long time. Immediately she started asking my daughter questions and decided an X ray was in order. She then gave us directions to get to another part of the hospital and on we went. We checked in over there and same thing: barely 5 minutes and they whisked us in the room. The nurses there were so nice and accommodating to my daughter. Initially they wanted her to lay down for the X ray, but those movements proved too painful for her, so they immediately changed course and figured out a way to do it standing up. Less than 30 mins later we were back at the doctors room where they had analyzed the X ray and concluded she didn't have any fractures. For good measure they then did a urine test, to check if her kidneys were bleeding and also negative. So my daughter was OK, just a nasty bruise. They sent us on our way. This whole experience took less than 90 minutes and I felt they thoroughly examined her. The weirdest part of all this? In no moment were we asked for insurance or credit cards or any form of payment and no bill was produced. In reality, the Danish society, politicians and citizens believe that taking care of each other is a duty of the country. Something that everyone has a right to. The best care possible to everyone, no matter your skin color, income and occupation. We are all humans and deserve healthcare that is not driven by a profit motive, but by a will to keep people safe and healthy. In these days where millions of people stand to lose access to health insurance in the US, it's hard to understand how people can have a heart to let that happen, while at the same time calling the healthcare system in the US the best in the world. I experienced something that what's not only better, but has heart and compassion in it, something the US could learn from... Just an update, as many were worried about my daughter: She's in great shape, playing in the woods, running, jumping and happy as ever. Thank you to everyone that expressed concern 
source
Don't take this for more than it is though - one man who had a very positive experience. There are issues with the Danish healthcare system and this one experience is obviously not useful as an exhaustive analysis of a healthcare system. I just thought that since there was no particular discussion ongoing it would be appropriate to spread a little sunshine.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Every American I know who has ever had an emergency condition abroad has spoke in glowing terms about their experiences with the UHC system in Europe. At some point it's just time to admit that the US got it totally wrong and fix that shit.
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On July 02 2017 03:13 LegalLord wrote:
Every American I know who has ever had an emergency condition abroad has spoke in glowing terms about their experiences with the UHC system in Europe. At some point it's just time to admit that the US got it totally wrong and fix that shit.
Also, fun fact: The danish system costs less public money then the US system. And the US system also costs additional loads of private money.
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2015/oct/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective
I'd highly suggest you take a look at the numbers to see just how shitty the US system is in comparison to basically anything.
The US system is just inexcusably bad by basically any comparison. The only reason you don't have an uprising going on is that most of the people in the US simply don't realize that healthcare doesn't have to be that shitty.
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EPT
