Comment by pcbro141 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pcbro141 | Hacker News Reader

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Progressives and 'woke politics' are the reason the US let its infrastructure crumble? I don't follow your logic. You are saying progressive weakness is the reason America has let its infrastructure crumble, and why America doesn't have universal healthcare, why its education system isn't as good as it should be? That sounds wrong.

I see a lot of claims lately that 'woke politics' are the reason the US has let itself crumble and underperform for decades (relative to its potential), but 'woke politics' is a fairly new thing, and progressives generally aren't against infrastructure spending or universal healthcare or investing in education/science/tech, so I don't see the connection. The 'woke'/progressive politicians actually tend to favor this type of major investment/public spending more than the right does.

The adoption of critical theory as a base for policy directions ("woke politics") is not what caused infrastructure to crumble. Infrastructure crumbles because it costs money to maintain while it does not return profit in the short term when maintained. In the long run crumbling infrastructure leads to a loss of profit or opportunities for such but by then those who decided not to invest in maintenance are long gone from their positions.

However, the adoption of critical theory does play a significant role in bringing about the decline of western society since it leads only to deconstruction of existing structures without providing functional alternatives.

This thread is predictable degenerating into "Whatever my pet peeve is, is going to be the fall of western civilization"

Yet the education & healthcare system are funded more now than ever. It seems like throwing money at the problem does not make the problem go away; throwing money at the problem may make it worse. More expensive government has opportunity costs & enables the state to have more totalitarian control. How & why did education & healthcare get bloated?

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