Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

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>>We are literally going into a deficit to send money to other countries. Do you realize how insane that is?

You mean the international development fund that's being raided right now? You know that it exists because US realized that it's cheaper(as in - LESS money spent overall) to help countries develop, so that US is less likely to engage militarily with whatever conflict happens in those countries eventually? It's part of being a global hagemony - it's not insane, it's just good business strategy. Out of all people, Musk and his cohort should be able to see this.

>>That's a lot of money that could go towards not being in debt.

The whole idea is that you'd be in more debt if you didn't do this, because you'd spend another trillion dollars on yet another conflict somewhere because people got fed up with having no access to fresh water and food and now there's a war that US just "has to" intervene in. Aid money is meant to explicitly prevent this.

> so that US is less likely to engage militarily with whatever conflict happens in those coutries eventually

Or you know, we can stop getting into wars? Did our adventures in the middle east advance US interests?

> It's part of being a global hagemony

It's called overextension and almost every historical power declined due to internal rot coupled by continuously getting into conflicts, which, wouldn't you know, drained the treasury.

>>Or you know, we can stop getting into wars?

Ah yes, "just stop". I mean, but all means - please do.

>> Did our adventures in the middle east advance US interests?

They made a few american corporations extremely rich and justified balooning the military expenditure. Whether that's in US interests or not - you decide.

>>It's called overextension

It's part of projecting your might as a superpower. The same reason why American taxpayers are paying billions of dollars to station troops in Eastern European countries - not out of charity but because it's explicitly in American interests to do so. International Aid is the same - "we're giving you money now so that we don't have to spend more money fighting with/against you(cross out one) in the future". "stop getting into wars" has the same energy as "just stop tipping" or "just stop spending so much money on the military" - imagine how quickly your entire national debt would be wiped out if you did that!

> because it's explicitly in American interests to do so

Please elaborate, and be precise because every interventionist argument is like, "but our trading partners, but our allies" but always fails to link exactly how that improves the lives of Americans. So tell me exactly what we are afraid of. If its trade tell me exactly what the comparative advantage is or what the resource we need is. And if its defense, tell me exactly what the threat vectors are, not just, "the island chains".

We've doing truly stupid things in the name of bullshit concepts like "containment" which led us into Vietnam, or "stabilizing the region" which led us into the middle east.

We can start with the Burmese scholarships that gives 300k per student; please tell me exactly what the American interests are.

>>So tell me exactly what we are afraid of

That's your(American) argument, not mine. When I ask why is America building anti-missile batteries and stationing their troops in my country, the answer is "because it furthers their interests". There is of course always some bullshit of "because it improves our security" - but everyone knows that's not true. They are here because they want to project they are a superpower and therefore have bases all over the world, not because they love us.

>>We can start with the Burmese scholarships that gives 300k per student

Well I had to look it up, and apparently this is what Trump said about it:

"We also blocked $45 million for diversity scholarships in Burma. Forty-five — that’s a lot of money for diversity scholarships in Burma. You can imagine where that money went," Trump said.

I wish he was more specific. What is he insinuating, exactly?

>> please tell me exactly what the American interests are.

Having a population of burma(a historically very active conflict area) that is well educated and more likely to oppose the military Junta? Of course no one will ever say that openly, it's "humanitarian aid".

> Having a population of burma(a historically very active conflict area) that is well educated and more likely to oppose the military Junta

Ok so you haven't told me how this furthers Americans interests, that's pretty much every BS power projection argument I've heard for my entire life.

> When I ask why is America building anti-missile batteries and stationing their troops in my country,

Depending on your country, I'm ok with removing the batteries :)

Hey, if I told you I happened to be an expert in this field, hypothetically, and I said this was a vast oversimplificaiton, would you be willing to listen to an expert?

Or do you not trust experts at this point time?

> Or do you not trust experts at this point time?

I work alongside highly skilled experts in my job and I've never heard them say anything remotely like this when someone disagrees with them, so I'm pretty skeptical that you actually are one. This sounds more like something that a rebellious high-schooler would say

I’m not a foreign policy expert.

The question is if an expert could change your view.

And by your response I suspect the answer is yes.

I'm pretty open minded so if you have a detailed answer, I would love to hear it. Just to be clear, I'm not a fan of hand wavy answers around like "stabilizing" or "soft power" because I feel like vague language masquerades corruption and misuse of funds. What I want to know are the direct causal links between our money and our interests.

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