Francis Fukuyama on the U.S. as a declining power:
American decline is a direct product of Trump's rise since 2016.
It is as if Trump had decided to do everything in his power to weaken the United States vis-à-vis China.
He has polarized an already polarized country, cut funding for basic scientific research, and attacked American universities which are the best in the world.
He and his colleagues have openly stated that their domestic opponents — the Democrats — are a far greater threat to the future of the United States than either China or Russia.
There is agreement among America's friends and rivals that the United States has become something of a rogue state that is contributing to global instability and disorder — as well as something of a laughingstock.
This sounds nice, but it's a great way to undermine the welfare state.
The strongest welfare states in the world (the Nordics) tax everyone, including nurses. And they give everyone universal healthcare, childcare, pensions, education in return.
When the middle class has skin in the game, they defend the system. When welfare is 'just for the poor', it becomes a poor program: stigmatized, underfunded, easy to gut.
That's why billionaires keep pushing this idea. The real scandal isn't that this nurse pays $12k.
It's that Jeff Bezos pays $0.
1 This is largely anti institutional rhetoric.
2 bad incentivizes also exist for independent researchers
3 there are also huge disincentives for doing bad work. You pretty much have to disappear from the face of the planet if you get exposed for fraud
4 i could keep going
@JohnHolbein1 Wouldn’t say it’s useless… hard to know what targets you have to hit in academia to be successful. But yeah if someone is giving you 10 quick tips to become asst prof right after your phd then yeah nah
A professor at my uni has a poster outside his office which reads “no stupid people allowed”
This article, conveniently only a page long, has since been taped to his window, right next to his sign (where it has surprisingly stayed)