[epistasis]

If you look at those titles and assume that they could be cut, without any more information, you are not a serious person and do not deserve to have any budgetary authority anywhere.

At least bother to come up with some reason they should be cut. But you can't even seem to put that into words.

[qcnguy]

https://x.com/MillennialWoes/status/1893134391322308918

Apparently "not a serious person" is the new insult of choice with you guys, huh. What a ridiculous reply.

Of course they should be cut. The slogan of the winning party for the last decade was America First. They ran on that platform. Broadcasting and teaching on a different continent isn't putting America First. There's your reason.

The insistence on not understanding obvious stuff is such a tiresome attribute.

[ben_w]

> Broadcasting and teaching on a different continent isn't putting America First. There's your reason.

You think advertising doesn't work?

$191k/year to promote American interests in Ethiopia may or may not be value for money to the American taxpayer (I honestly don't care because I'm not one), but to think it can't be value for money is to claim that the primary business model of half the American tech giants — and also the business model of X.com, which isn't a giant but is the property of DOGE's most famous figure-head — is fake.

[qcnguy]

The US government isn't a business and isn't selling its services to Ethiopia.

[ben_w]

The US diplomatic agencies, which include USAGM which ran this station, have the business of promoting American interests across the world.

It sells (advertises) the USA's preferences to Ethiopia. Preferences such as "do not interfere with shipping things up the Red Sea or we'll do to you what we did to the Houthis in Yemen". Or preferences like "open your markets to what our businesses want to sell to you". Or, historically, "human rights are in everyone's best interest, you should do more of that because it will make you rich and then you can afford more of our stuff".

Stuff like that.

But to repeat: As I neither know nor care about the national interests of the USA in Ethiopia, I do not say this should or should not be funded — all I say is that this kind of thing *must be considered when deciding if it is or isn't good value, you cannot possibly know a priori just from the title alone*.

[kbos87]

The willingness to think you understand and can have an informed opinion on something neither you nor I nor a twentysomething engineer from Tesla know anything about is just as tiresome.

I’m only arguing that there are complex reasons why some of these programs exist and it requires experience and perspective to uncover that and make informed decisions.