olofscience

He was trying to say, "whoosh".

Whatever it is, you won't get it from a random opinion article and a single photo of a paid-for billboard...

Remember The Hundredth Monkey? He was posting some of the worst hate here...he's passed now.

Not "allowing" people to wander out of the bad areas is unlawful imprisonment. Are you sure this happened before? And are you not only okay with it, but you want it to happen more?

That's like saying you'll only consider fixing a gushing fire hydrant when you've finished drying the street. It's never going to happen or be solved until you fix the root cause. Nobody, and I repeat, nobody likes being a homeless addict. Nobody is given any incentives to be a homeless addict. You're angry and upset, it's understandable. But you should listen to yourself - you're not making any sense.

Popularity or voting doesn't really invalidate a particular argument. Only facts do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

Then they'll have to answer for their violence and thefts through the legal system. As for being drug addicts, as nigel99 said, that's a medical and mental health problem, not a criminal problem. Then offer them something that actually improves their current situation. Like treatment for their addiction, safety, and some hope. It's not the homeless people's fault is it? It's also pretty unrelated. So are the homeless people. Also, where do you think homeless people come from? Most of them used to be "innocent people in the residential neighbourhoods" too. You can ship all of them out into the desert, and you think no more homeless people will be created? You're just looking at the symptoms, not the root cause.

Neither do homeless people. Who you're describing are criminals and yes, they do need to be responsible for their actions. But not all homeless people. You've just decided to paint all homeless people as criminals...yet you voted for one.

And once you do that, there'll DEFINITELY be no more homeless, right? /s There's a reason they "prefer" to be homeless. There's also a reason they do drugs - it's because every other alternative they have is worse. What you're suggesting is like jailing people for getting cancer. They didn't ask for it, getting cancer is punishment enough, and what you don't realise is what separates us from them is just sometimes...luck.

It's weird how some people think "more punishment" is the solution to the homelessness problem. It's not like people want to be homeless. Nobody, I repeat NOBODY does. Thinking that they need to be punished so they'll be motivated not to be homeless is the most messed up thing ever.

For individual companies they're looking for the potential to have 10x returns (i.e. 1000%) but (at least in the UK) they do expect 9 out of 10 startups to fail so they just roughly break even, so I guess they aim for slightly more than that. The high BoE interest rates have been brutal on the startup scene here, but they were swimming in money as recently as 2020. I even know of one who managed to sweet-talk a VC into investing in 2019 when they had no prototype, and not even a real product.

When you can just put your money in a savings account and get 5%+ interest (like now) risky startups aren't very attractive. When you make close to 0% on your money due to low interest rates (2010-2018) then startups were relatively more attractive and VCs had lots of business. Yet base698 here thinks that Trump (who wants control of the Fed so he can print money) or a VC (Vance) would change that somehow.

Sorry, I misunderstood this statement you made: Agreed on this, but this has absolutely NOTHING to do with who's in power whether dem or republican. I can argue that the "money printing party" already stopped when the Fed hiked interest rates to 5+%, so the new administration can do nothing and keep it that way. But given Trump's history, and Vance being a VC, I think it's unlikely.

Wait...so the man you're hoping to stop the "money printing party" and stick it to the banks, hedge funds, and VCs...is an actual VC?

Interesting how you didn't comment on my post about Trump wanting the Fed to print money in 2019...

I was being too specific, I guess - I think base698's meaning is generally "the rich" and hedge funds and VCs were just the representatives. In any case, I meant the rich - the rich will win, no matter who you vote for. Even bankruptcy is just a tool used by the rich to avoid liabilities.

Oh, I'm definitely aware of that. But...do you remember what Trump wanted? Zero or negative interest rates. Back in 2019. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-11/trump-calls-on-fed-to-cut-interest-rates-to-zero-or-less https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/business/economy/bonehead-trump-jay-powell.html I'm not saying that voting Democrat would make things better for most people - they won't. For VCs and Hedge funds, it's heads they win, tails you lose. They'll win, no matter who you vote for. Years later you'll be looking for another outsider, the crazier the better. Then they'll win while leftists like me keep despairing why people don't vote for our non-solutions.

Not sure you understand where VCs and hedge funds get money from, but I'll be bookmarking this to return to in a few years.

I would also like to know what this is.

Thanks. For additional clarification, correct me if I'm wrong, but are you hoping for the following: Trump will heavily restrict immigration, causing house prices to drop infrastructure (roads, etc) to be relieved salaries to grow Trump will appoint Elon Musk to make the government more efficient by firing 70+% of government workers freeing up more funds for... (ok you'll have to fill me in here as I don't know what things you want funded) Trump will slap tariffs on goods from China and the rest of the world causing a renaissance in US manufacturing, therefore more jobs It's good to want better things for places like Santa Monica, but we disagree on how to solve it. But it's a complex system so I'm gathering data to check what works and what doesn't.

Sorry to hear about the issues in your town. Could you share the name of the town? I'd like to check again in 4 years if anything improves for it.

Millions of people have connected those dots. But are they the right dots? You've stopped looking.

Agreed on your post except for this last sentence. I hope I'm wrong though.

This is basically expected - with other countries electing rightwing populists like Geert Wilders, Milei, Duterte, Orban, etc. Labour winning here in the UK is a fluke - the UK isn't going left, it's just the right was divided between two parties. I am under no illusions that this rightwing march will continue, globally. So why is this happening? Basically, most people are unhappy for a mix of reasons, and they feel that there's something wrong with the system, but can't quite pinpoint what it is. They also somehow feel that it was better in the past - and in some ways they would be right! So they vote for the craziest outsider who tries to simplify the problem (e.g. immigration, wokeism, drugs). If that doesn't work, they throw them out and vote for the next person promising a solution. Duterte was elected in 2016, and he blamed all his country's problems on drugs. It's a simple problem, he said. He promised to "solve the country's problems within 6 months" of getting elected. Upon election, he then embarked on a massacre of 30,000 people. This was back in 2016. No points for guessing whether this worked (it didn't). For western countries it's immigration. True, unemployment is pretty low. But those jobs don't pay well, and people are unhappy with those jobs. It feels right to blame immigrants for creaking infrastructure (too many people) and high house prices (too much demand, not enough supply). Not enough money for infrastructure and services (we're spending too much on immigrants' welfare!) On the surface this explanation sounds right and rightwing people don't look any further. Leftwing people mostly don't either - we just try to "disprove" the talking points like how immigrants help the economy, etc. But we don't offer an alternative explanation of the causes of the problems. But the rightwing people aren't lying about their unhappiness - jobs don't pay well. Infrastructure IS overwhelmed. House prices are WAY too high. But they've missed the actual root cause. In any case, I'm not going to discuss the actual root causes right now. But I'm going to make a prediction - 4 years from now, the rightwing people will be as unhappy as ever. They'll get some dopamine hits from "owning the libs", but they won't be happy, and their problems won't be solved with 4 more years of Trump. No matter what problems come in the next 4 years, Brent for example will blame the left for either causing it, or "allowing" it to happen. The right won't take responsibility for any problems that will happen, because despite being in control, they don't feel in control. And they don't feel in control because despite what they say, they don't really know the root cause of the problems. Only understanding will stop the fear.

Sorry, you were ranting so much that I didn't realise that was your answer to my question. Which still sits within my predictions anyway (of being utterly ridiculous). Still, you've failed to explain what your criteria was, what is the reasoning behind those "not a nothingburger" examples? And no, "because some lib said it" is not really a valid answer.