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[–] 168 points 1 year ago (7 children)

And still some people think it will be fine in 3.5 years.

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  • [–] 33 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    It absolutely won't be.

    But it might be moving in the right direction.

    Regardless, will take decades/generations to fully recover from this, if ever.

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  • [–] 38 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    No, you'll never recover. Your previous status was the result of a very specific set of historical circumstances (specifically the fact that you were the only major power left standing after World War 2) that aren't going to repeat. If you fall, the best you can hope for in terms of recovery is to equal the other developed countries of the world. You'll never exceed them again.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago

    Unfortunately Americans cannot stand being told they don't live in the greatest country on earth. It's a wonder that fascism took this long to win in the US, because it's fundamentally hyper-compatible with American Exceptionalism which every American besides a tiny fraction of far-leftists believe to be inherently and unshakably true.

    Where do you go from there when most of your population wouldn't accept a trade alliance that doesn't massively favor the US? Because even if Trump is impeached tomorrow that's what Fox News will be running all day every day to successfully torpedo anyone attempting to rebuild the country.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Which is fine. Really would love to not have a fall happen, but ultimately if the rest of the world can thrive and move forward even with our current idiocracy taking hold, I can live with that. All I hope for is that this will pass and we can rise up from it.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Especially given that even in the best case scenario the period of recovery will be 8 years maximum. No matter who will be the next president, the one after will be another angry conservative, and I don't believe there will be a lot of progress after.

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  • [–] 131 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Or another way to look at it- cutting nearly 75% of scientists. Can't have climate change if there's no one working! Watch them find some money to give to ExxonMobile to 'study' the impacts of fossil fuels. Wonder what that report will say! /s

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  • [–] 55 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    That's only the half of it. Look at the rest of the policies, look how they want to cut Medicare and food stamps and other safety net programs.

    Make no mistake, this administration wants to see people die.

    This is the end game the technocrats have been working towards, this is how they're enacting their eugenics. They want poor people, disabled people, disadvantaged people, to die. They believe they are culling the weak members of the herd for the sake of the betterment of "their" kind (rich, white, "healthy", etc).

    These policies aren't stupid or ineffective, they are cruel and insidious by design

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  • [–] 46 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    A healthy, broadly educated population, which feels safe and secure, are incompatible with, and toxic to, conservative and authoritarian ideologies.

    They need you to be sick, stupid, and scared.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Turning the US into Russia 2.0

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    America is still slightly ahead of Russia there, due to the legacy of the USSR. Not that Russia's billionaires aren't doing their best to privatize education and keep it out of reach of the peasantry since the fall of communism.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    the oligarchs of russia sends thier children to elite or standard western colleges, russian is a shithole even for them for education.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, and a lot of the 56% college grad rate is boomers who were educated before the fall and are now dying off. We will see it drop precipitously in the next 20 years or so, and the quality of the education of the newly graduated decline.

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  • [–] 43 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    As non-american I'm becoming increasingly convinced republicans are actually lead by traitors wanting to destroy the US.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Since Trump is Putin's puppet, that makes sense.

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  • [+] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)
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  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    So do the Democrats...

    I hope they fix their system, but I have no idea how they could.

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  • [–] 87 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    Has an empire ever been so complicit in their own demise?

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Probably all empires seed their own demise, I would guess

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  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    But so deliberately? In what world does a half intelligent person believe this to be a good long term strategy?

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Most of the US believes in this, or is just unaware. That's how its been for most of history around the world.

    ...The remarkable issue here is the elites/rules we handed the reigns now drink their own kool-aid. The very top of most authoritarian regimes are at least cognisant of some hypocrisy, even if ideology eats them some.

    The other is that people are more 'connected' than ever, but to disinformation streams. I feel like a lot of the world (especially the US fancies) themselves as super smart on shit they know nothing about because of something they saw on Facebook or YouTube.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    No, most of the US does not believe in this. This admin got less than half of the people who even voted in the election. Which is only like half the voting population anyway. You're looking at less than a quarter who chose this, and many of those didn't even understand what they were voting for.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Yes, many times. Historically, it seems like the very strong empires first defeated themselves and once they were sufficiently weakened for outside forces to be able to threaten them ... they still kept being self sabotaged by their own elite who prioritized maneuvering against each other for temporary power/wealth grabs over working together to face the outside threats.

    The late Roman empire has a bunch of good examples: blatant corruption, over taxation of the poor, many assassinations, sabotaging their peers that were trying to improve the situation, constant civil war, the battle that destroyed the military backbone of the western Roman empire was fought between romans, ... And all that while the empire was being torn apart by outside invasions.

    Or a more recent example: the polish Lithuanian commonwealth had a paralyzed government thanks to corrupt elites with veto powers in their parliament of nobles (sejm) and only once the nation was mostly destroyed and the nation on the cusp of final destruction, did the sejm introduce some sensible new laws, but it was too late.

    With smaller regional powers you can have cases like "they were in a golden age and had never been as powerful, but then the mongols appeared", but with hegemon empires the failure of their inner workings is always going to be instrumental in their own demise.

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  • [–] 40 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Brain drain is a difficult downward spiral to break out of once it starts.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago

    This is something I think a lot of people don’t realize; It’s a cascading failure. It’s not just that some competent people will leave the country. The rest of their teams will have to bear the extra burden and be demoralized. They will then feel compelled to leave as well.

    It’s happened numerous times in both the public and private sectors. Now they’re deliberately trying to do this shit on a national scale. If we ever recover from this, it’s going to take decades…

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  • [–] 37 points 1 year ago

    This is a huge opportunity for countries who always played second fiddle in science and tech.

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  • [–] 106 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Never played a conquest game where you stop researchers from giving your empire a tech advantage over others.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It's a popular strategy for Fascists.

    the Nazis and the OG Fascists did it, and so did the communist Chinese.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    China currently churns out more college graduates than any other country, and the rate is increasing.

    And they had a hell of a way to go given that it was less than 1% when they took over.

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  • [–] 58 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    Speed running towards Idiocracy by 2028

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Idiocracy with fascist characteristics.

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  • [–] 56 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Hey Europe and Canada, anyone still looking for a scientist that just wants to do lab work? I prefer chemistry, but am happy with micro too. Just let me interpret data, please. I'm stuck somewhere where titrations are the most complex process.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    If you have an Irish grandparent you can get a passport. Lots of work here and Americans are welcome.

    Otherwise work visas that turn into residency aren't difficult to come by with sponsorship and it's not the kind of sponsorship that makes you a slave.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    How about a great grandparent. My grandma was born in NYC but great grandad came from Ireland into Ellis island.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Mmmm. I'm not sure tbh but I don't think so. If your grandmother had an Irish passport though that might work. Worth checking if you're considering it.

    My sister lives in the UK a long time now and all her kids have an Irish passport. It's actually a great passport to have for travel. EU is obviously wide open but most places accept it without much (or zero) effort.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    A country for REAL (white Christian male) Americans.

    When are you people going to get the message. It was never a country that was about equality. It was about enrichment for a select group of people. When their privilege was threatened, the veil came off.

    None of this changes until the rest of America decides enough is enough. That might never happen. If it does, it won't be for years or decades.

    The US died on Jan 20th, 2025.

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  • [+] [S] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    I'd argue Johnson sealed our fate when he rolled over for Confederates after the war.

    But really the argument could bemade that the moment European explorers realized they could just kill people and take their homes away and nobody would stop them, they decided to make it a core part of their identity by rationalizing everything they can, and dismissing whatever they can't.

    The devil works hard, but colonizers work harder.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The country built on brain drain, assumes it is great without the brain.

    I hope the scientist find favorable places that value science.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago*

    remember germany, they wouldve develop thier own atomic weapons if wernt the persecution of the jewish and asian scientists. same thing happen in the cold war, persecution of"communism" caused some chinese scientist to flee, and resulted in the CCP gaining access to hydrogen bombs from fission bombs much quicker than any other country.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Wait, the bottom ones are PreK-12 students.

    How are they planning to reduce the number of children?

    Is this why they hired RFK?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    a dumb population is easier to control than an educated one. They don't plan on reducing the number of children, no they need more to produce for the wealthy. What they need are dumb kids that will grow into dumb adults. uneducated adults are more likely to have A LOT of kids. So you strip education, you strip healthcare, you make abortions illegal across the board, thus you force the population to keep pumping out new workers. many will die, the strong idiots will survive.

    They're turning the country into cattle.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 year ago* (9 children)

    Europe will welcome them with open arms.

    People starts to realize that having a higher wage in the US doesn't translate into a better quality of life.

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  • [+] 14 points 1 year ago (5 children)
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    In the "first world" sphere that regularly ignores and denigrate any country that could be perceived as inferior even if it's not necessarily, then yes, maybe. We're doing great over here in some places that are often overlooked.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Unfortunately I think Trumpism is lowering the bar. Maybe right now it's not fascism everywhere, but there's no doubt that on a decades time the world will be more fascist than it would have been without Trump.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I have confidence in the one step backward, two steps forward doctrine. If our current government is any indication, we're heading in the exact opposite direction of the fash trend for the foreseeable future. There's hope. Please don't lose yours!

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Yeah.

    I'm in Australia, I suspect you might be also, but for reference a few months ago our centre-left party ground our centre-right party into the dust in a landslide election victory.

    I suppose I agree that its not all bad news.

    However, I'm gravely concerned about the US trajectory and I'm certain it will have an impact here sooner or later.

    Right now our PM is trying to negotiate the current tariffs. The US will want us to increase military spending, and reduce investment in science and research. We might resist, but it's certainly pressure to move in the wrong direction.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago*

    no, but it safer than if a authoritarian is control, like trump, Russia, and china. until those other countries in europe starts attacking science(defunding, jailing them, or alternative "science") its better than the US.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    Quality has nothing to do with the money they gain, but whith what they can buy for it, apart of the quality of the public services. Higher wages in the US mean nothing, when even this isn't enough for education and health, which in the EU isn't a problem. There the people don't lose their existence base because of hospital bills or to pay the studies of their children.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Europe will welcome them with open arms.

    The next step in the authoritarian playbook will be to limit the movement of educated people. Soon enough, those people won't be able to leave even if they wanted to.

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  • [–] 44 points 1 year ago

    Deeply unserious managers of empire continue to self-cannibalize their own productivity in an effort to go even more all-in on financial capital, all while the global south is doing its best to pivot towards more favorable relations with countries like China. When the US Empire runs out of countries to exploit, and financial capital ceases to be profitable, it will have no developed industrial base nor a strong scientifically trained worker base to pull itself back up. The US is cooked, this is just speedrunning the demise of the empire in a faster and harder fashion.

    The good news is that the worse this gets, the more favorable the conditions for organizing become, and the more vulnerable to revolution the state becomes. We can legitimately take advantage of this, and gain mastery over capital, rather than the inverse. We can re-industrialize, become socialist, and begin the long and difficult but necessary path towards legitimate progress. It won't be easy, but it will be doable.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago

    Making everywhere else, great again.

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  • [+] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 62 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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