Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Fugus]

You are giving Musk way too much credit. His claim to fame is using other people's intelligence to get rich, his own ideas almost always fail. He is not smart enough to pull anything like this off. Just look at the incompetent kids he had running DOGE, look at his complete failure of twitter purchase, look at why Paypal pushed his dumb ass out.

If Musk isn't writing a check for some talented engineers to make their own thing it's always going to be a failure. That's the only thing he has ever succeeded at. He can't even get grok to stop insulting him ffs. Even when he has talented engineers to make his own idea, it's still a failure see: Cybertruck.

Read up on Musk a while back and you are 100% correct.

He was born rich and his only knack was for finding promising companies and buying them. Then he would let them self govern and they would thrive till he got a bug up his butt and tried to manage them directly at which point he ran them into the ground and was either bought out by the other investors or sold them before they were worth less than he bought them for.

All his own works though failed as bad as a legitimately run Trump business.

[Odinfrost]

Sure. The problem is the venue. Not that you're historically unpopular with artists and are accusing them of breaking the law for obeying the law. The venue's the problem. Hey, was it a problem in 2024? I think it suddenly became a problem in 2025.

I am just assuming the venue wants its payment upfront.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Saw that Trump signed a bill today that made non consensual explicit content, especially deepfakes, illegal.

"Wait did Trump do something good for once?"

Looks inside

Written in the house by Democrats, voted on in a near unanimous bipartisan approval with complete veto proof majority.


Trump: "Yeah I did that"

[Odinfrost]

Saw that Trump signed a bill today that made non consensual explicit content, especially deepfakes, illegal.

"Wait did Trump do something good for once?"

Looks inside

Written in the house by Democrats, voted on in a near unanimous bipartisan approval with complete veto proof majority.


Trump: "Yeah I did that"

Question. You said near unanimous. Who the fuck were against it?!

[DarkTZeratul]

Question. You said near unanimous. Who the fuck were against it?!

Two Republicans: Massie and Burlison. Massie said he thought it was a slippery slope that could be abused, and Burlison didn't explain his no vote.

[Mazza]

Question. You said near unanimous. Who the fuck were against it?!

Apparently 2 republicans: Thomas Massie (Kentucky) and Eric Burlison (Missouri). Massie says the law is a slippery slope, ripe for abuse and will have unintended purposes, Burlison didn't comment but has shown to be a big supporter for AI.

So some "MUH MY FREE SPEECH" and "ALL AI SHOULD BE UNREGULATED FOR PROGRESS", I would guess.

[Draco-Onis]

You are giving Musk way too much credit. His claim to fame is using other people's intelligence to get rich, his own ideas almost always fail. He is not smart enough to pull anything like this off. Just look at the incompetent kids he had running DOGE, look at his complete failure of twitter purchase, look at why Paypal pushed his dumb ass out.

If Musk isn't writing a check for some talented engineers to make their own thing it's always going to be a failure. That's the only thing he has ever succeeded at. He can't even get grok to stop insulting him ffs. Even when he has talented engineers to make his own idea, it's still a failure see: Cybertruck.

Musk is just another shade of Trump, the reason the cybertuck failed is because he overrode his engineers. When it comes to Grok he is doing what he does early days of his ventures which is to let the competent people run the show unless it's something he is obsessed with like making Grok racist. Tesla is going to eventually merged into his X venture since it will be a "robotics" company. His entire grift is selling the future now that there's zero chance car sales come back.

[Xath]

Apparently 2 republicans: Thomas Massie (Kentucky) and Eric Burlison (Missouri). Massie says the law is a slippery slope, ripe for abuse and will have unintended purposes, Burlison didn't comment but has shown to be a big supporter for AI.

So some "MUH MY FREE SPEECH" and "ALL AI SHOULD BE UNREGULATED FOR PROGRESS", I would guess.

I hate and I do mean hate agreeing with Republicans but yeah this law is the definition of slippery slope and was also near political suicide to vote against.

[En Sabah Nur]

Trump is complaining that Harris followed the law.

For a man that isn't even sure if a president has to follow/uphold the Constitution, yeah, this tracks.

[Mayhem]

The american tip system only exists to make menu prices look cheaper, that's it.

If it was eliminated tomorrow and they had to pay the servers a living wage it's not coming out of the owners wallet it's still coming out of the customers. Menu prices just raise to account for paying the standard 20% gratuity.

So not taxing tips is just stupid, it's literally their salary but coming from a roundabout way so owners can make their menu prices look cheaper than they actually are. Some servers at high end places are easily making 6 figures and they don't have to pay taxes? Just some arbitrary ruling Drump used to farm extra votes.

You'd think that because of that meals are cheaper in the US, but on average meals in the US cost more than in Europe. So meals aren't more affordable, and people don't earn a living wage, win/win.

[Kathandira]

You'd think that because of that meals are cheaper in the US, but on average meals in the US cost more than in Europe. So meals aren't more affordable, and people don't earn a living wage, win/win.

More expensive, less beneficial to health, and with a ton of waste. 'Murica.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I hate and I do mean hate agreeing with Republicans but yeah this law is the definition of slippery slope and was also near political suicide to vote against.

The problem with the slippery slope logical fallacy isn't just that it's a fallacy, but because you literally can stop anywhere in the slope and Republicans will often stop you LONG BEFORE you need to stop. Let's say a law goes 2%, and the right place to stop on policy is at 50%, but 100% is too far. Republicans will often dig their heels in at 0% and claim slippery slope, because when it comes to making laws in America the slope isn't slippery when you have to have majority support for each step.

[Al Gorefiend]

Work requirements for medicaid is something the right is correct about imho. It even has exceptions for volunteer work, which is a very positive change from previous iterations of a proposed "no-freeloaders" bill the Republicans have tried pushing since the 80s.

The GOP’s draft proposal would establish a nationwide “community engagement requirement” that would mandate Medicaid recipients to work, volunteer or attend school for at least 80 hours per month to maintain their benefits. It includes many exceptions that would allow pregnant women, new mothers, anyone under 19 and members of certain other groups to keep their coverage without working.

Okay, sensible.

Supporters see them as a crucial step toward putting people on a path to supporting themselves and as a tool to weed out those who aren’t willing to put in the effort to improve their circumstances.

Of the few things that keep me from going too deep left, this is one of the biggest. I fully agree. Zero circumstances where someone cannot even volunteer their time, in fact saying something like "why should I have to volunteer my time to continue receiving benefits?" Has got to be the most selfish and unempathetic response to a regime going full speed ahead on lacking empathy.

[Flarelaine]

aren't you wow'd by the star power of hulk hogan and scott baio?

Scott literally who?

Hulk Hogan I know, I used be in awe of him when we first got cable 40 years ago (and my age was still in the single digits).

[btlcryct]

Work requirements for medicaid is something the right is correct about imho. It even has exceptions for volunteer work, which is a very positive change from previous iterations of a proposed "no-freeloaders" bill the Republicans have tried pushing since the 80s.



Okay, sensible.



Of the few things that keep me from going too deep left, this is one of the biggest. I fully agree. Zero circumstances where someone cannot even volunteer their time, in fact saying something like "why should I have to volunteer my time to continue receiving benefits?" Has got to be the most selfish and unempathetic response to a regime going full speed ahead on lacking empathy.

It should be changed to new parents, not just new mothers. What if, god forbid, the mother dies during childbirth and now the father is the only parent? It also needs to include disabled people from being exempt, at least on a case by case basis. Someone like Stephen Hawking, but without his intellect, can't really even volunteer somewhere in order to be able to maintain their coverage. Yes, there are a ton of disabilities that can, but there also a ton that can't.

[Endus]

Of the few things that keep me from going too deep left, this is one of the biggest. I fully agree. Zero circumstances where someone cannot even volunteer their time, in fact saying something like "why should I have to volunteer my time to continue receiving benefits?" Has got to be the most selfish and unempathetic response to a regime going full speed ahead on lacking empathy.

The alternative you're talking about is people who don't want to work being forced, under duress, into work. And there's a word for that.

That word is "slavery".

Especially here where you're talking about forced "volunteering", where the enslaved aren't even getting paid for their work.

Here's some other issues beyond the slavery point (which really should be enough on its own);

Here's the data on unfilled jobs in the USA; https://www.bls.gov/charts/employmen...yment-rate.htm

7.2 million open jobs. Now, let's consider unemployment; https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Also 7.2 million people who count as "unemployed". Easy, fit one person to one job, right? Even if we ignore the difficulty of ensuring that we have enough qualified people in the right locations for all those jobs with no complications (because unemployed people often don't have the resources to move across country for a shitty job), the figure for "unemployed" only counts those who are able and willing to work and have actively looked for work in the last 4 weeks. So, let's look at a broader take;

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

Normal unemployment is the U-3. Let's consider the U-6, which includes everyone who's able and willing to work and have looked for work in the last 12 months, but not the last 4 weeks, plus those employed part-time but who want full-time work. The rate bumps from (most recently) 4.2% to 7.8%. That's another 6 million Americans, who want work, but if everything magically worked out perfectly for everyone, there still wouldn't be any possible job for them to fill. Because the U6 covers 13 million Americans, and there's only 7.2 million jobs to fill.

You can't maximally employ everyone, even if every possible barrier to doing so is removed. It's an impossibility.

So why, in an ideal situation, would we be forcing people into slavery to do make-work jobs that nobody needs doing, just to earn government benefits? That's not just slavery, it's intentional cruelty, for the sake of inflicting that abuse alone; there's no possible economic gain here.

The idea that everyone should work is deeply fucking weird. We don't apply this standard to children or retirees or many of the disabled, and we don't try and deny them government benefits on the basis of their lack of productive work. You seem to act like enslaving people against their will to do pointless work nobody needs done is "empathy", and I have absolutely no idea what twisted logic path led you to such a deeply weird and unempathic conclusion. Forcing people into slavery isn't ever the "empathic" response, dude.

[NED funded]

Work requirements for medicaid depend on what are your goals.

Adding work requirements means>

- You would need to do the paperwork in order to prove you are working (This is extra work in order to get benefits)

- Sometimes when you lose your job and hit a hard time it worsens the situation if you also lose medicaid. The point is to have a net to catch you if you fall.

If you oppose this things thats fine. But you need to be able to accept that people will be dropped and their life will be a lot worse

Endus rant against people having to work is weird xd

People should work, its part of the virtues baked in our society. Now you can have different values but if you call your opposition supporters of slaves then there is no discussion to be had

[Al Gorefiend]

The alternative you're talking about is people who don't want to work being forced, under duress, into work. And there's a word for that.

That word is "slavery".

Especially here where you're talking about forced "volunteering", where the enslaved aren't even getting paid for their work.

Here's some other issues beyond the slavery point (which really should be enough on its own);

Here's the data on unfilled jobs in the USA; https://www.bls.gov/charts/employmen...yment-rate.htm

7.2 million open jobs. Now, let's consider unemployment; https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Also 7.2 million people who count as "unemployed". Easy, fit one person to one job, right? Even if we ignore the difficulty of ensuring that we have enough qualified people in the right locations for all those jobs with no complications (because unemployed people often don't have the resources to move across country for a shitty job), the figure for "unemployed" only counts those who are able and willing to work and have actively looked for work in the last 4 weeks. So, let's look at a broader take;

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

Normal unemployment is the U-3. Let's consider the U-6, which includes everyone who's able and willing to work and have looked for work in the last 12 months, but not the last 4 weeks, plus those employed part-time but who want full-time work. The rate bumps from (most recently) 4.2% to 7.8%. That's another 6 million Americans, who want work, but if everything magically worked out perfectly for everyone, there still wouldn't be any possible job for them to fill. Because the U6 covers 13 million Americans, and there's only 7.2 million jobs to fill.

You can't maximally employ everyone, even if every possible barrier to doing so is removed. It's an impossibility.

So why, in an ideal situation, would we be forcing people into slavery to do make-work jobs that nobody needs doing, just to earn government benefits? That's not just slavery, it's intentional cruelty, for the sake of inflicting that abuse alone; there's no possible economic gain here.

The idea that everyone should work is deeply fucking weird. We don't apply this standard to children or retirees or many of the disabled, and we don't try and deny them government benefits on the basis of their lack of productive work. You seem to act like enslaving people against their will to do pointless work nobody needs done is "empathy", and I have absolutely no idea what twisted logic path led you to such a deeply weird and unempathic conclusion. Forcing people into slavery isn't ever the "empathic" response, dude.

So the alternative to "enslavement" is doing jack-all? You're saying that even expecting people to volunteer, is forced enslavement?
Expecting people to do anything at all, even for the good of society, is forced servitude?

[Tech614]

You'd think that because of that meals are cheaper in the US, but on average meals in the US cost more than in Europe. So meals aren't more affordable, and people don't earn a living wage, win/win.

This is definitely not true, at least not compared to France and UK. From my own experience lol. Sit down restaurants in both of those countries where on par with here in Cali(which is more expensive than most of the rest of the US so hate to see the comparison to Iowa or something). in Cali servers get $16.50 minimum wage plus tips, which is like $14 more minimum wage than they get in most other states so shit is expensive here and France/UK where comparable.

Fast food might be cheaper, and grocery stores might also be but you ain't really tipping for those unless you like getting scammed by doordash.

[En Sabah Nur]

Endus rant against people having to work is weird xd

Not when you use a couple of braincells to understand its a "rant" against force xd

Or is forcing people to work a minimum of 80 hours per month for free so that they can get medical care a good thing to you?

Endus' "rant" is correct.