I have mixed feelings. His gist is basically that he agrees billionaires shouldn’t exist and that there’s no ethical billionaire and he wants reforms to make it so they don’t. But he argues that we live in a system where billionaires are inevitable and that it would be stupid not to invest wisely and make billions if he can because if he doesn’t someone else just will and he can use the money for good.

However, even if you buy this narrative of good billionaire, you can just look to his ties will Bill Gates and the Bill and Melinda gates foundation to see that, even if he did mean well, his perception on how to do good is completely twisted.

I get your concern in a sense because kids in Rochester do have it pretty rough. While crime stats in the us and NY are down, violent crime Rochester specifically has stayed pretty steady since the 90s and is higher than national and NY crime levels.

But I don’t think this will be the thing that impacts these kids and school districts the most. The issues Rochester face come from poor incentive management for schools, high teacher burnout and poor employee retention, large classroom sizes, issues with corruption within specific school systems, and concentrations of low socioeconomic people.

I need to admit I left the public education world in NY a while ago. But it used to be that the worse a school performed the less money it got. Because schools only get a small percentage of funding from the federal government that gets pulled from them when they underperform (I very quickly looked at the numbers and it appears Rochester gets less than the national % average in federal funding, about 10% compared to the national 13% depending on what year you’re looking at). So schools with students who needed the most help either lost money or just tried to cover up student issues to hide them instead of address them. As long as this and property tax funding is the model and admin dictates their own salaries, schools aren’t going to improve.

IMO, it’s even specifically DEI policies that briefly helped some schools excel in the us during school bussing. Bussing students forced integration of students from all different backgrounds and socioeconomic groups. Rich and attentive parents with more bandwidth made sure whatever school their kid was at was well funded and well run. Kids from different backgrounds became friends and humanized each other. Kids from poor backgrounds were offered support systems outside of gangs and violence. And these poor kids didn’t poison the well and bring crime to their new schools. Kids are kids. If you offer them opportunities, they don’t choose gangs and violence.

What will really fix schools and improve things for kids

• small class sizes (15 kids MAX)
• force integration
• better support for teachers
• free school lunches
• statewide tax funding instead of property tax

I find the 33/33/33 rule works. 33% of people just like authoritarianism during this period of history. I’m not sure if that’s a constant or because of the current climate making people stressed and weird. But they feel safer when someone says they’re going to take control and fix everything and they feel like they don’t have to think about it beyond that. They will agree with anything their in group says because it soothes them. These are your cultists.

Another 33% are just checked out. They’re stressed in the same way, but instead of turning to an authoritarian to fix the problem they just bury their head in the sand. They feel like they’re too small to fix anything so why even try. These people sometimes still vote if its convenient enough and are complete wildcards when they do because they really have no clue what’s happening. They vote on vibes. This is also where trolls tend to sit.

That just leaves just 33% of people who are paying attention and either aren’t stressed and have the emotional bandwidth, have interest, or have the persistence to pay attention even when stressed to try and do something to stop the authoritarianism (even if that’s just vote).

This leaves 1% which is the literal 1% trying to pull the strings.

I understand the issues with organized religion. It’s just not an excuse to discriminate against religious people in general when most are low on the religious hierarchy and don’t actively hurt or want to hurt others.

What is this, middle school?

Islamic/religious beliefs don’t necessarily infringe on others. I’m not religious. But religion is more complicated than what you’re portraying.

Treating people badly simply for holding a religious belief, so long ad those beliefs do not directly infringe on others (paradox of tolerance blah blah), is bigotry. Using mental gymnastic to say that the people themselves are not being treated poorly is disingenuous.

All these articles are pure hopeium. I check his approval rating daily hoping my country will gain some sense. His approval is higher than his first term. Half the population has has their brains turned to scrambled eggs by social media. And I get the irony of saying this on social media.

People are impressionable and the tech bros who control movement of information have fallen in line behind Trump. It’s going to be a bumpy ride y’all.

If you actually think gay people are accepted the same now as in the 80s then you’re so dedicated to nonfactual pessimism that it’s a lost cause. Is there still room for improvement? Yes. But gay people used to be treated like lepers by general society.

Also its blatantly incorrect that half of society wants to tear down institutions that help black and gay people. Don’t get me wrong. It’s really bad. There are too many hateful people. But never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. I think we both agree people can be very stupid, but really disagree in the way we see that play out. Many who vote maga are low information voters. But that’s because the right wing runs a propaganda machine of the highest order that promises these people the fascists aren’t the bad guys who want to take away peoples rights. Even then, not even half the population voted maga.

You’re not laying out facts. You’re feeding into negativity in a way that exaggerates things in a way that is harmful. For example, you just inferred eugenics might not be a bad thing? Serious wtf my man. You need to get a grip on your pessimism because its warping your mind. You’re seeing threats in a way that you’re horseshoeing into what you criticize.

Yes. Its observable just by looking at culture and society now versus thousands or even just hundreds or tens of years ago and comparing it to the time it takes for even a subspecies to arise. And, as information exchange speeds up due to technology, culture exchanges even faster and society develops faster.

I didn’t say we don’t have in groups and out groups (tribalism). I say we have control over what we consider in and out groups. It’s not idealism. It’s not what the world could be. Its just observable fact. We’ve literally shifted cultural perception in the last 50 years on all sorts of in and out groups (black and gay people are easy examples).

A lot of words to defend bigotry. The human species can be a lot of awful things if we look to our worst nature. Our major advantage as a species is that we evolve faster culturally than most species can genetically. It makes us highly plastic and adaptable to our circumstances. It also means we don’t need to be assholes just because we can be. We can redefine and shape what is means to be an outsider. And, if a human can look at a drawing of a cartoon dog and feel empathy and humanize it and have their brains label it as part of the in group, we can definitely manage to not dehumanize other people just because they have different religions and customs. Appealing to tribalism is a bullshit excuse.

I don’t have cartridges and I’ve had no issue with the ink heads in the years I’ve had the printer.

You’re probably right, but I’m just printing random documents on occasion.

I have an epson eco tank. No more ink cartridges.