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> I generally agree with Musk's politics

Children are dying in Africa as a direct result of his actions right now.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/04/14/g-s1-...

No, they're dying because of a global financial system which systematically steals from them by corrupting their governments into making decisions which benefit large western corporations at their expense, while depriving them of resource royalties and opportunities to work for themselves.

International trade agreements and political over-engineering of the global order are to blame.

Where are all the other concerned countries stepping in to help since the US has left? Why is the US the only country that is considered responsible for the problems of foreign countries while every other country is given the luxury of focusing only on their domestic affairs?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_development_aid_agenci...

US is clearly not the only country.

I guess other aid agencies are already busy with their existing programs and can't easily step in when the country with the biggest GDP stop suddenly.

If that's what you want to happen, you say "in a year, we're going to cut off this aid" so that there is time for someone else to step in.

But they just cut it off from one day to the next in a place with challenging logistics, ensuring that some of the world's poorest people are likely to die so the world's wealthiest man can muck around in politics as a hobby.

US was giving less percentage of their GDP on foreign aid the other western countries.

Americans consistently overestimate how much is USA helping others.

The US cannot possibly ever win the hearts and minds of the entire population. It is a classic example of "damned if you do and damned if you don't"

The desired outcome isn't capturing hearts and minds, it's preventing easily preventable diseases and deaths for what amount to pennies in the federal budget.

Sounds like it should be part of the UN or WHO. Not for the US to fund through political appointees to gain favors.

The US was easily winning the hearts of minds of most people before Trump randomly decided to shoot America in the foot.

No, we've been hated since Vietnam. There was a brief period after 9/11.

From my prospective everyone hates America, but weirdly wants to migrate here at he same time. (Except for the online minority who threaten to leave but never do)

Why should we send $240 million to Zambia? Is it the United States taxpayers' responsibility to treat all of the developing world's problems? How much foreign aid is enough?

The United States is approaching 37 trillion dollars of debt. There will be no aid to Zambia or any other country if we default on that debt.

> Why should we send $240 million to Zambia? Is it the United States taxpayers' responsibility to treat all of the developing world's problems?

If you see someone drowning in the river, and you stand by and are a good swimmer, is it not your responsibility to help?

> There will be no aid to Zambia or any other country if we default on that debt.

US Foreign Aid was a trivial amount of money buying much soft power around the globe. China for comparison has almost double the foreign aid amount the US had, relative to GNI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_development_aid_sovere...

I’m struck by how some still seem unable to grasp the power of soft influence. Africa now has even fewer incentives to side with anyone but China. America’s strength has long rested on its deep alliances and its knack for creating prosperity abroad—but that advantage is eroding fast.

Are you struck at the possibility of a inner-city family on welfare, or poor rural areas thinking that the US should be spending fungible dollars on them and not someone half way across the world?

The people who oppose foreign aid oppose aiding Americans also.

They do through lowering taxes.

Is the current administration planning on increasing aid to those people?

It seems like they actually plan on cutting it, so I don't think your argument has any weight.

They do by lowering taxes. This money can be used to keep local communities funded.

We will probably never be in agreement with government having more money to inefficiently distribute vs keeping it in the pockets of the earners. Sorry.

Well they are not doing that they actually planned to cut local welfare even more. So you make your poorer people poorer and lost influence over the world. I'm honestly struck with that.

Politicians which are drastically cutting foreign aid usually doesn't increase it locally because they do not agree with the whole concept.

They do by lowering taxes. This money can be used to keep local communities funded.

We will probably never be in agreement with government having more money to inefficiently distribute vs keeping it in the pockets of the earners. Sorry.

Help me understand how HIV treatment in Zambia makes Americans better off? What is the "soft power" that it buys?

And if $240 million is trivial, they can just send it to me instead.

Your link does not say that. It says that there have been models predicting an increase in deaths over the next 'x' years while giving stories of numerous people who are facing bureaucratic hurdles moving over to the alternative clinics. The death projections assume there will be no replacement for USAID which is not a reasonable assumption. As the article emphasizes, they are already being replaced - though it's taking some time to get over the hurdles and get the bureaucracy working more effectively.

But this is part of the reason I am quite happy with USAID being ended. The goal of effective charity should be to make itself obsolete. We can see both that that was entirely possible here, but also in no meaningful way pursued at all. They could have spent those years and millions of dollars funding the infrastructure and other pipelines necessary make sure people were aware of and could easily access these state (or other private charity) clinics. Instead they just acted as a dependency creating drug distributor. In one case having a guy literally just handing out drugs, at his discretion, at a truck stop.

    I generally agree with Musk's politics

You mean fascism? Absolute control over media and speech? Racism? White supremacy?

And what is your definition of consensus? If everyone strikes a compromise, is that evil ? If majority strike a consensus, is that not consensus; that is, does it have to be total in order to be called consensus?

Is majority a consensus? Of course people agitate for getting full victory

Full consensus is evil incarnate

So when there’s broad agreement that something is a good idea like, I don’t know, making sure the water is drinkable, your reaction to that is it’s “evil incarnate”?

> There needs to be opposing forces among the elite or else we're sure to walk down the path of totalitarianism.

This is false dichotomy. Our only options are not either a single consensus, or a balance between good and evil. We can have a balance of reasonably good intentions, too.

Genuinely, what do you mean by "I generally agree with Musk's politics"?

Most billionaires are pretty bad, and Musk is among the worst of them.

I had a think for a while about the least bad billionaire, and I'm going to go with Taylor Swift. The worst thing she does is have an astronomical personal carbon footprint, which is true of all billionaires.

So if a full consensus says that Nazis are bad, then they are themselves bad, not the Nazis ? And if Musk is the best of the billionaires, that says an awful lot about the others, which paints a very, very hideous world that I definitely don't want a consensus on.

The guy paves the way towards totalitarianism, but please, tell me about we should have people like him because it prevents totalitarianism.

Spreading hate, white supremacy, and normalizing Nazism - do you support those things?

The elite mainly follow Trump now - find one who is willing to stand up to him and Musk. That would be contrarian - courageous, in fact.