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EPA says it will eliminate its scientific research arm

(www.nytimes.com)
250 points anigbrowl | 1 comments | 18 Jul 25 23:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.239s | source
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jleyank ◴[19 Jul 25 00:00 UTC] No.44611189[source]▶
It's really depressing how the US system seems to have existed "on belief". Once somebody set out to damage or destroy it, away it went. Pretty much without a whimper.

As I recall, the system was set up with 3 branches of government in tension. Obviously, that was naive.

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ergonaught ◴[19 Jul 25 00:15 UTC] No.44611292[source]▶
All societies are consensus realities wholly dependent upon participation.

The system was fine but no one has yet constructed a system that can withstand weaponized mass stupidity. Even the ones created to combat corruption fail to account for this danger.

So.

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a_bonobo ◴[19 Jul 25 06:09 UTC] No.44612985[source]▶
Germany has learned this lesson the hard way, with a 'defensive' constitution post-1945. You don't have 100% free speech in Germany, and it is possible to make parties illegal. It's not without its issues (currently, the far-right AfD might be banned using these laws but the whole system has been dragging its feet) but it is a lesson the US should have learned after the first Trump term.

Democracies by default assumed that all players in the system are supportive of the system itself, kind of like all early Internet protocols assumed that there are no malicious users.

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1. triknomeister ◴[19 Jul 25 07:06 UTC] No.44613248[source]▶
Germany has the same fundamental problems. Just the symptoms are different. Look at debt brake etc. And the banning at this point is just not politically possible. It is just a legal fantasy. Over a long term, laws can only reflect the politics.

Germans believe that legalities can ensure politics be conducted in a "desired" manner when the reality is, it just causes more and more factions of the politics to be done outside the legal framework. Politics is like time, it stops for no man and no law.