Edit: Hah, I get to eat my words. Turns out USDA and APHIS have been trying to fly planes over Mexico to release the sterile flies, but the Mexican government has been restricting the flight days and denying landing permission, which has hampered the program. Looks like the Mexican bureaucracy is the one failing here, and USDA/APHIS might be running pre-emptive releases in the US (but I can't find a source on that). They just agreed to lift those restrictions and cooperate more at the end of April.
Except they got fired, so now there's no one to do that work. We got what we wanted. God help us all 'cause no one else is.
According to the article the cases are in Mexico, so I don’t know that “Latin American origin” is a silver bullet.
Maybe because there is an executive body hell-bent on the slashing expenditures regardless of any perceived benefit?
Other evidence includes the worst measles outbreak of the last 30 years and the second largest three-month economic contraction since WWII only topped by the last iteration of this administration.
We wouldn't be having Trump had that happened.
Up until our international image was destroyed two months ago, we were in a privileged position allowing deficit spending while the rest of the world absorbed the negatives.
Trump certainly doesn't have a solution, but I'm also not convinced he has correctly identified a problem. Nation-state debt from the country whose currency is the de-facto international standard for the world, is categorically different than your mortgage or your credit card debt.
I ask you: do you imagine it can continue forever, with debt reaching arbitrarily high multiples of GDP?
I disagree that it must become unstable, especially on a time frame relevant to anyone currently alive. Perhaps certain resources could be sheparded more sustainably than they have been but I do not think we were previously heading towards a consequence worse than we are currently experiencing.
That argument applied to current administrative actions is like saying "we all die someday, therefore we should all commit suicide right now".
Try: "This is why a competent and well staffed science institute is so important."
Bureaucracy not required.
Everything I know how to do is complicated and people don't understand why it's complicated. Everything else is obviously excess bureaucracy and could be done with a LLM running on a ZX80.
It is incredibly challenging to create orgs that reliably stay on-mission over many years.
As for the terrible salaries and mountains of political crap, that's the real issue here. But these are changeable and shouldn't just be accepted as inevitable as is so often done by defenders of government bureaucracy.
Have you… never worked for a large company? They’re incredibly inefficient! And also, the staff cost a whole lot more.
Do they?
The first two results on Google for "government vs private efficiency" are https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/publicati... and https://www.epsu.org/article/public-and-private-sector-effic..., which both suggest that it is a myth that companies are inherently more efficient than government.
It's also worth mentioning that governments and companies inherently must operate differently. Governments are not set up to recoup investment; in fact, proponents of small government (as opposed to no government) generally recognize that the role of government is to assist in preventing "tragedy of the commons" by funding initiatives and programs that fundamentally do not make sense for a single market player to address. I.e. government helps when there isn't a good path for a single market player to see a good/reliable economic and market-competitive return from their investment.
Not anymore. Great many now believe that there should be no commons, that everything should be owned by someone and leased back to those who use it. Such people see it as the duty of government to efficiently disperse the commons to the highest bidders. Those bidders will then "protect" their asset by ensuring it is put to the highest economic use.
Yeah, if you examine only utilities and monopolies they are not more efficient than the government. That's not a surprise because they don't face competition and are heavily politically controlled.
EDIT: s/accept/consider
Of the ones that survive[1], some may be more efficient, but whether they remain efficient, effective and extant in the long term is not a given.
Sounds just like "enterprise" IT to me, tbh.
This is why some people are optimistic about recent efforts at doing the same in government bureaucracy. It's possible to trend upwards.
Honestly the main problem is the fed gov has terrible pr.
a couple university students in a van going around releasing flies every 10 miles is not a bureaucracy, nor a stand in for a bureaucracy
I did, and I have previously read an article in (iirc) The Atlantic about the screwfly program when it was working. It was a monumental effort to push screwflies back to the Darien Gap, involving widespread coordination of cattle ranchers and government workers, constant flyovers of planes dropping huge numbers of sterile flies, and a massive breeding program.
Two university students in a van can get about as much done as it sounds like. Some problems require coordination, government involvement, and yes, the organization — i.e., bureaucracy — that implies.
(Edit: it was The Atlantic, not The New Yorker. Comment further down has the link, but here it is: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/05/flesh-ea...)
Wait a couple of years, and then maybe.
Now, the problem is that if you alienate your neighbours they stop wanting to play nice. Also, bureaucracies do not work when you fire civil servants indiscriminately. It’s not the bureaucracy doing this, it’s the guy who told you that the country would work better without it.
Plenty of evidence has been piling up with regarding to it.
Feel free to down-vote, does not make your Nanny State any more efficient. :D
You should read more about economics. I can give you resources.
Bureaucracy, as per Weber, is nothing but the rational and impersonal administration of resources and exists in any sufficiently large institution, private or public. It is in fact so efficient that it is omnipresent to the point of being the defining feature of modernity, having replaced familial, personal or arbitrary rule.
Whether it's the old aristocracies of Europe replaced by the Prussian state, workshops replaced by Fordist factories, Guanxi in China replaced by modern administration, all of that is simply introduction of formal management and organization, i.e. bureaucracy.
https://mises.org/mises-daily/myth-efficient-government-serv...
https://mises.org/journal-libertarian-studies/austrian-theor...
What do you think the optimal system would be in that specific case? If you could design it, how would it look? It doesn't have to be realistic, but like an ideal system of justice. Are there any precedents you think are ideal or is there something you have in mind that would make it work better?
If you haven't thought about the consequences of tearing down parts of the system and what will replace those parts, than I think the entirety of your conclusions about this matter should be disregarded and I think most everyone reading this would agree.
First we would have to determine what you and I mean by bureaucracy. It does sound good, who does not like organization? Problem is, if you ever worked for the Government, or dealt with them in some meaningful way, you should have realized it is not so.
I truly hope you will not be caught up in the meat machine of the Government.
https://cr.usembassy.gov/sections-offices/aphis/screwworm-pr...
https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/05/screwworms-are-coming...
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/05/flesh-ea...
see https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/05/screwworms-are-coming...
The last word of the article has a link to a video with very unsettling imagery involving screwworms.
From
"Screwworm eradication lessons from a longtime veterinarian"
https://www.agdaily.com/livestock/screwworm-eradication-less...
An excellent article on the realities of screwworm in USA. It also speaks of topical treatments! Unfortunately though and to our great loss no doubt, it does not go into detail about "the scrotal area post castration" of unsnap_biceps fascination on these posts nor "lambs ...licking the topically applied ivermectin" so titillating to 8note. (FWIW ivermectin pour-ons contain ethanol.)
The article you referred to (and I've seen linked elsewhere in this thread) is about "regular" screwworm (Chrysomya bezziana). The recent outbreak is of New World Screwworm (Cochliomyia hominivorax). The article I've linked suggests that it is much harder to kill than regular screwworm (29% of calves developed myiasis even when treated with ivermectin).
"Ivermectin can be an effective treatment for myiasis, a condition caused by the larvae of certain dipterous flies, including Cochliomyia hominivorax (the New World screwworm). Studies have shown that ivermectin, when administered orally or topically, can help eliminate the larvae and reduce the severity of the infestation, especially in cases of orbital or oral myiasis. "
Given one of the areas they focused on the study is the scrotal area post castration, I don't expect that a pour on would cover that area well enough to be an effective treatment. Happy to read other studies if you have them showing otherwise.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221132072...
is quite funny, where they found that the lambs were licking the topically applied ivermectin, but also that they didnt notice any decrease in parisites for any of the ingestion/injection/topical
they also say theres nothing showing any applicability to cattle
> live demonstrations on how to handle cattle to reduce stress.(Every cow pie released by a stressed-out cow before it gets weighed by meat processers amounts to $6 in lost profit.)
since these departments generally don’t brag about non-sexy things like … screwworms, a certain type of person with tunnel vision, who imagines themselves to be smarter at everything than everyone else that has ever lived, they will imagine they failed not because of their own dipshittery but because of an imaginary ghost foe.
this is perhaps one of the greatest failures of that generation, so many of them seem to have a complete inability to see that other people may be intelligent at something. their tunnel vision is crazy af to see.
it’s gonna be hilarious to watch them cry about the messes they caused. they’ll try to blame everyone else for the mess they created.
> relatively full lives
Thanks to point out the difference between industrial and family farm. However I'm not sure what farms in particular you have in mind but anything commercial has non incentive to let the animal live a "relatively full life": the meat of a relatively old animal taste far from what people are used to eat and is (way) more expensive to produce. Some producers add a few weeks to the legal minimum to let them grow a bit more but nothing near their natural expectancy. Lets take chickens for exemple, here in EU:
- standard are harvest 35 days (32 if for export)
- certified (floor, outdoor) at 56 days
- highest quality (Bio and local certifications): 81 day
- egg poultry final harvest: around 1 year and half when egg production slow down
- natural life expectancy of a chicken: 8-10 years.
> can live happy
"happier" would be more accurate IMHO but as some people point our frequently: we can't know for sure how another animal feels so it's only guess. What we can do is remove the farm fences and do not force them onto the slaughter house. They'll choose themselves to go to what makes them happy.
Joel Salatin practices the sort of farming I'm familiar with: https://www.youtube.com/@farmlikealunatic
This is what happy chickens look like: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VHvDEzpD5es
and happy pigs: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/B6qk0IbCC5U
The figures you quote are not for heritage breeds. They are for breeds which have been selected for extremely rapid growth, often to the detriment of the health of the animal (and presumably the person consuming them).
> the meat of a relatively old animal taste far from what people are used to eat and is (way) more expensive to produce
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coq_au_vin has been the definition of a peasant dish for a century or two at least.
> but as some people point our frequently: we can't know for sure how another animal feels so it's only guess.
Anyone who's spent time with animals knows. As surely as you know if your dog is happy. People are the ones who hide their feelings.
The animals might have been happy (or, at least happier than in a factory farm), but clearly their life were short.
You don't know me, or my experiences, or circumstances. Only your own. So I don't see how it could be any other way. I hope you feel better, friend. And that whoever made you feel that way learns better.
You wouldn’t be saying these things if the aliens came and harvested your children for food.
I once watched a film of a persistence hunter approaching the prey he'd chased for miles. He spoke to it, approached it calmly, sat with it and caressed it, put it's head on his lap and held it for a minute, petting it like a dog and shushing and whispering to it. And then he cut it's throat, and cried as it died.
That's what living on the farm is like. That's real life, fully and authentically felt. In my opinion, all the living things I eat deserve such respect and reverence for furthering my life.
You can feel differently. Lots of folks do.
> You wouldn’t be saying these things if the aliens came and harvested your children for food.
What if the aliens look like plants? What if they're here already? What if they're your distant cousin?
Funny thing - when you look at single celled organisms like bacteria and yeasts under a microscope, they engage in behaviors which seem shockingly like animal behaviors. They seem to explore their environment, have senses, hunt and eat, reproduce, and notably, they seem to dislike specific stimuli. They really meet every definition I can think of for a being which appears to be conscious, including memory, and we eat them by the billions without even knowing.
> all the living things I eat deserve such respect and reverence
How does that help them when you're consuming their flesh without consent? Let's all fornicate with these animals, just make sure to show respect after!
I can kinda understand how factory farming is the bad bit as opposed to a traditional farming, but you have to stop and think, who are we to decide these other beings lives?
Get yourself out of your human-centric, mammal-centric, animal-centric point of view and realize that at the cellular level we're effectively indistinguishable. We can't even talk to Dolphins, who we know are intelligent, and you expect me to discount the intelligence of every other living thing? Laughable. We're all made of the same stuff, all the way down, and humans aren't exceptional.
Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(physiology) Your chief take-away should be that plants know when they're being eaten, and take actions to defend themselves.
The necessity of death in order to further life is why every religion has thankfulness rituals around meals.
These aren't new thoughts, or thoughts unique to me. Look into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism
> who are we to decide these other beings lives?
Some folks, who've asked that question, decided they didn't have the right, and aren't available to talk to any more. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's why Europe won't import a lot of US beef.
I'm not sure whether this is still the case, but the cardboard boxes that McDonald's packages its burgers in in Australia used to have '100% Aussie beef' printed on them, but the beef was actually imported from South America by a wholly-McDonald's-owned subsidiary called '100% Aussie'.
Restaurants are free to advertise that they use domestic chicken. You can even legislate mandatory labeling if you're so inclined. The fact that you think consumers need to be actively prevented from getting US chicken, because they don't have the capacity to decide for themselves contradicts your claim that "Brits are NOT having it".
it's classic dumping, the sort that Trump gets upset about
the US is free to make non-chlorine chicken, and then sell it to places that demad non-chlorine chicken
No. A society, which has chosen its government, has decided that it would like to outsource the individual work of tracking food provenance and safety in the form of ensuring that the only food available is food that meets the standards that the society has decided to set.
This is specialization at work, which is in fact one of the primary drivers of civilization and progress.
No one is saying that people can't make these decisions by themselves. People are saying they do not want to, especially in an environment that is heavily information-asymmetric.
I'm a well-educated, intelligent software engineer. Sure, I could go looking into the details of the production facility for all of the meat that I buy, maybe, at the grocery store - but I certainly don't want to. And if I go to a restaurant, I absolutely do not want to have to spend hours researching their supply chain first.
This is not incapacity. This is intelligent division of labor.
Having "the state intervene here and keep this crap out" isn't going to magically make the domestic chicken cheaper for those people who "have no choice". You're not improving the chicken quality for them, you're preventing them from buying chicken at all.
I sure don't.
in america, you could just sell the ultra poor people a piece of dirt you picked off the ground for a couple cents. theyre still buying "chicken" but its not at all what people want when theyre wanting to buy chicken.
it's not laughable, it's a huge political point mentioned constantly
the average UK consumer specifically does not want US products entering our food supply
the states have decided to address the trade imbalance, rather than the people
Yup.
> directly contradicts the original claim that British consumers have rejected US chicken
No it doesn't.
> the US needs to force them to buy it
Why let the US force foreigners to buy an inferior product?
Better solution: block inferior products from being imported. Then people choose to purchase not-inferior products.
even if this wasn't the case, the substandard US product will end up replacing UK product in everything that isn't labelled (processed foods)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1751-0813....
A bunch of internet commenters, regardless of how informed, generally have no sway in policy. It’s text on a page that can be easily —- and in almost all cases -- be safely ignored.
However, a government administration’s stance to actively eliminate entire segments of a government that are responsible for disease management is an actual problem.
No, b/c to ignore something one must first read it and, in it's reading, waste one's time and effort. Our intellectual lives would be better if the text were never placed on the page to start.
Or are you assuming that just treating livestock will solve the problem?
Think of it this way: Leaving lug nuts loose in new cars does not threaten our nation's auto supply.
But how many lug nuts must you loosen to create hysteria?
And why do I have the peculiar feeling that you've never held a lug wrench in your hands?
Hunt 'em and eat 'em, yummm! If you're tough enough, as I do not doubt, you can eat the screwworms too, once cooked!8-))
Human hosts already had the worms too
and it still killed the worms, allowing their own immune system to function correctly again)
I love this. The whole country is like movie theme parks patched together seamlessly.
I wonder how the king will frame this.
The screwworm cases are in Mexico according to the article, threatening Texas / US cattle. So the framing would be pretty straightforward. One can imagine the word “vermin” rearing its head.