[polotics]

Sure, untreated mental illness is a tragedy, and humanity sucks balls at biology, so hard it's as if we wished to be made of silicon. How does this make for a trend or justify the idea that the WEIRD's least-harm decisions explain broader resources allocation in real monetary terms. We're talking about the price of how much concrete pouring in the sad story you linked? (WEIRD: Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic, indeed a dying breed)

[xp84]

I think the story I linked is if anything more damning than "the wall" in what it tells you about the minds who think it's appropriate.

At least "the wall" passes the first smell test: Want fewer people move between A and B: Build wall between A and B. It just falls apart when you fill in the details (visa overstays, tunnels, ladders, etc. etc.)

In contrast, baby-rapist-murderers obviously do not deserve free, very costly surgeries for non-life-threatening[1] conditions that non-murderers don't get subsidies for. For starters, they're baby-rapist-murderers.

But anyway, I just picked one example. I'm sure the Wall costs are thousands of times more than just trans surgeries for prisoners. That doesn't mean there aren't many, many billions wasted on Team Blue boondoggles.

[1] And no, these surgeries don't decrease chances of suicide. Studies don't all agree but some have found that they increase those chances. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38699117/