A decade ago, citing sources in an online debate was considered normal. I think we should bring that back. If you cite sources, it's harder to lie, and you have to do at least a little bit of research before posting. It…
> Allowance for emergency payments to keep the lights on This article notes that some federally-funded nonprofits "couldn’t access funds to make payroll": https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5115026-white-house-fund...…
> a lot has changed on the Supreme Court since Nixon Both legislation and Supreme Court precedent say that the President cannot impound funds. You seem to be arguing that it's OK for him to impound funds because the…
> Last I saw the judge blocked the mechanism, and needed time to decide on other issues. A second judge is now quite clearly reiterating that the money must keep flowing for now:…
> If the Democrats think they are right they can go to the Supreme Court to force him to spend money with no say in the matter. They did sue, and a federal judge temporarily blocked the "federal spending freeze". >…
> the extremes are not aware that they are on the fringe. They believe that their ideology is widely shared and common amongst everyone. Yeah. I think the way to counteract this is for moderates to speak up against the…
Congress quite literally has the power to pass laws. According to the Constitution, the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"; the President's oath of office requires that he execute the laws…
I actually think Biden/Harris are moderates, and tried to de-escalate things. Whereas Trump is anti-democracy and anti-rule-of-law.
Rather than thinking in terms of "left vs. right", I think in terms of "extreme left vs. moderate left vs. moderate right vs. extreme right". I support moderates over extremists. I support democracy and rule of law. I…
Federal money is allocated by Congress, and the President is required to spend the money as allocated by Congress. The President does not have authority to cut spending.…
The fundamental definition of a democracy is that the candidate who wins the election, gets to be in power. Trump lost the 2020 election, yet tried to stay in power. If Trump had succeeded at staying in power despite…
I think it would be great for the federal government to be more efficient and less corrupt. For example, let's talk about USAID. It would be great if DOGE could make USAID more efficient, to accomplish the most possible…
Everyone deserves a presumption of good faith by default. But Trump has a long history of dishonesty and lawbreaking, culminating in an attempted self-coup in 2020. At some point, he doesn't deserve a presumption of…
Because of Trump's history. Trump attempted a self-coup in 2020 by trying to overturn the election. This attempt was foiled because many judges, public officials, etc. resisted it, including many Republicans. Now Trump…
I tried searching for "#democrats" on my own Instagram account, and I can confirm it's returning no results. Meta issued a statement saying this was a bug, and some people are saying it's fixed, but it's still broken…
I'm not an expert on this stuff, so I'm not sure what's the answer. But this article says that about 90% of pharma marketing dollars are spent on marketing to doctors, not to consumers:…
Hmmm, the marketing question is complicated and I'm not sure what to think. From a profit point of view, presumably the advertising department pays for itself; in other words, the advertising department generates money…
But presumably the advertising department pays for itself, right? So if they cut the advertising department, wouldn't they have less total money in the end? The advertising supports the R&D, not competes with it. (The…
I don't think this article's analysis makes sense. If pharma companies lose revenue, they have to cut something. Presumably the intention is to force them to cut profits. I found this analysis of global pharma industry…
> this Guardian article doesn't mention R&D at all This pisses me off so much. Journalists are supposed to do thorough research so they can accurately inform the public. Instead, we see articles like this. How can we…
Novo Nordisk won the lottery by developing Ozempic, an extraordinarily successful drug. (See e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/business/denmark-ozempic-...) If you cherry-pick the most successful pharma companies,…
That would be nice, but it isn't happening right now. Until the government starts funding drug development, do you agree it's reasonable for pharma companies to develop drugs and then sell them at high prices to recoup…
> Must it be sold to the world at a price that is only reasonable for the richest countries to pay? Is there no possible regulatory system that could avoid 20 years of HIV spread and death in poor countries, while still…
> I think it's only marginally useful for programming to be part of a broad education. On the contrary, I think a few semesters of basic computing can teach a lot of valuable skills: - Basic Python skills are sufficient…
I agree with the author that CS should be more integrated with other departments. But the author focuses on requiring CS majors to study French, and I'm more interested in the opposite: why shouldn't we require French…
A decade ago, citing sources in an online debate was considered normal. I think we should bring that back. If you cite sources, it's harder to lie, and you have to do at least a little bit of research before posting. It…
> Allowance for emergency payments to keep the lights on This article notes that some federally-funded nonprofits "couldn’t access funds to make payroll": https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5115026-white-house-fund...…
> a lot has changed on the Supreme Court since Nixon Both legislation and Supreme Court precedent say that the President cannot impound funds. You seem to be arguing that it's OK for him to impound funds because the…
> Last I saw the judge blocked the mechanism, and needed time to decide on other issues. A second judge is now quite clearly reiterating that the money must keep flowing for now:…
> If the Democrats think they are right they can go to the Supreme Court to force him to spend money with no say in the matter. They did sue, and a federal judge temporarily blocked the "federal spending freeze". >…
> the extremes are not aware that they are on the fringe. They believe that their ideology is widely shared and common amongst everyone. Yeah. I think the way to counteract this is for moderates to speak up against the…
Congress quite literally has the power to pass laws. According to the Constitution, the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"; the President's oath of office requires that he execute the laws…
I actually think Biden/Harris are moderates, and tried to de-escalate things. Whereas Trump is anti-democracy and anti-rule-of-law.
Rather than thinking in terms of "left vs. right", I think in terms of "extreme left vs. moderate left vs. moderate right vs. extreme right". I support moderates over extremists. I support democracy and rule of law. I…
Federal money is allocated by Congress, and the President is required to spend the money as allocated by Congress. The President does not have authority to cut spending.…
The fundamental definition of a democracy is that the candidate who wins the election, gets to be in power. Trump lost the 2020 election, yet tried to stay in power. If Trump had succeeded at staying in power despite…
I think it would be great for the federal government to be more efficient and less corrupt. For example, let's talk about USAID. It would be great if DOGE could make USAID more efficient, to accomplish the most possible…
Everyone deserves a presumption of good faith by default. But Trump has a long history of dishonesty and lawbreaking, culminating in an attempted self-coup in 2020. At some point, he doesn't deserve a presumption of…
Because of Trump's history. Trump attempted a self-coup in 2020 by trying to overturn the election. This attempt was foiled because many judges, public officials, etc. resisted it, including many Republicans. Now Trump…
I tried searching for "#democrats" on my own Instagram account, and I can confirm it's returning no results. Meta issued a statement saying this was a bug, and some people are saying it's fixed, but it's still broken…
I'm not an expert on this stuff, so I'm not sure what's the answer. But this article says that about 90% of pharma marketing dollars are spent on marketing to doctors, not to consumers:…
Hmmm, the marketing question is complicated and I'm not sure what to think. From a profit point of view, presumably the advertising department pays for itself; in other words, the advertising department generates money…
But presumably the advertising department pays for itself, right? So if they cut the advertising department, wouldn't they have less total money in the end? The advertising supports the R&D, not competes with it. (The…
I don't think this article's analysis makes sense. If pharma companies lose revenue, they have to cut something. Presumably the intention is to force them to cut profits. I found this analysis of global pharma industry…
> this Guardian article doesn't mention R&D at all This pisses me off so much. Journalists are supposed to do thorough research so they can accurately inform the public. Instead, we see articles like this. How can we…
Novo Nordisk won the lottery by developing Ozempic, an extraordinarily successful drug. (See e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/business/denmark-ozempic-...) If you cherry-pick the most successful pharma companies,…
That would be nice, but it isn't happening right now. Until the government starts funding drug development, do you agree it's reasonable for pharma companies to develop drugs and then sell them at high prices to recoup…
> Must it be sold to the world at a price that is only reasonable for the richest countries to pay? Is there no possible regulatory system that could avoid 20 years of HIV spread and death in poor countries, while still…
> I think it's only marginally useful for programming to be part of a broad education. On the contrary, I think a few semesters of basic computing can teach a lot of valuable skills: - Basic Python skills are sufficient…
I agree with the author that CS should be more integrated with other departments. But the author focuses on requiring CS majors to study French, and I'm more interested in the opposite: why shouldn't we require French…