The US stops sharing air quality data from embassies worldwide

From this side of the pond, it seems like US is now an (overt) empire which only cares about themselves and would be happy to crush anything and everything which doesn't acknowledge them as the kings of the planet or disrespect them the slightest sense.

> happy to screw themselves in the process of screwing you

heh. There is some region here (Shopsko), with somewhat weirdo's population, and they do have such a saying:

  "i will burn my house if that would burn my neighbour's shed"

Things may also be related to the ideologies Thiel et al are promoting that involve destruction of the state in favor or more, umm, entrepreneurial governance models. Where billionaires can be themselves and the world is their oyster. There are a whole lot of articles circulating that delve into various aspects. I don't know if the ideologies have formal names, but "techno fascism" was among them.

“…Trump is sending a deliberate message…”

Let’s not ignore the obvious—He doesn’t seem interested in government or leadership, but he is interested in power.

If his long arms can take something away, then you must make treaty and negotiate to get it back. And it goes the other way, if China is upset about the service, he can turn it off and see what leverage or opening that gives him in negotiations.

I see these moves as distraction, and power play. It’s difficult to see any deliberation in service of values.

> The U.S. is happy to screw themselves in the process of screwing you.

Don't forget that Trump also hates environmentalism in any form. Air quality metrics would acknowledge that pollution exists, which contradicts his opinions.

Assuming the U.S ends up losing its grip on international relations in the next 4 years, or perhaps 8 if the Republicans are nominated again (something that is certainly possible), who do you think is best positioned to steal the crown? France? Germany? China? Israel?..

Additionally, as a Canadian, I wonder what will happen to us (and I suspect Mexicans are in a similar position) given our undeniable reliance on the United States. Canada, in its current political and economic climate, is not in a strong position, and right wing extremism has been on the rise. Some people are even literally advocating for _merging_ with the United States. While I think that is unlikely, I do wonder what our future will hold?

I personally don't know how to feel about the future.

IDK whether you know it, but in case you don't—you articulated Cippola's definition "stupid is one causing harm to others while not deriving any gain, even taking a small personal loss" above. If you are interested further, I encourage you to check his pamphlet "The Basic Laws Of Human Stupidity". (is "book" too big word for it?)

I must say I got a lot out of it and it's followups. It became much easier for me to understand the world around me, what is happening. And even predict what's to happen sometimes.

What you observe with Trump admin: 1) it's stupidity; 2) it's not low IQ or lack of rationality; 3) it's lack of morals, not caring about good/bad, or even considering good what the rest consider bad (and vice versa); 4) it's social more than individual, it's a "mind virus". (ha!-Musk)

Bonhoeffer‘s "Theory of Stupidity" https://youtube.com/watch?v=ww47bR86wSc (bad morals not low IQ, mind virus social more than individual)

Sabine Hossenfelder "Collective Stupidity -- How Can We Avoid It?" https://youtube.com/watch?v=25kqobiv4ng (more cases, much more analytical, only about the group aspect not individual)

I'm sorry but this is apply to all government no??? not only US

> it forced the Chinese to improve their air quality

lmao, China improves air quality in China for Chinese people

"the world is not all about you" (SURACI)

Good point... I don't imagine you have long to wait with the speed of cuts and the 'trojan horse' agenda....

I'm rather expecting to learn that Tesla cars have air quality sensors and are willing to provide that data for a price.

You mean they don't want to embarass other dictatorships anymore, by sharing even simple things such as actual air quality data?

In my understanding it is not an attack on the country of china, to show their population a glimpse of truth.

It is maybe a slight attack on their government. But governments are not the same as the country, even though governments tend to disagree.

There are two non-moral reasons I can think of:

- By forcing the Chinese to fix their air quality, this indirectly makes then economically less competitive, since they need to tighten their processes.

- Polution travels all over the globe, everyone eventually is impacted.

There are a lot of Americans travelling to or working in China, it is in their interest if nothing else to know the true values.

We breathe the same air.

> Why is it an American interest to help the Chinese with their air pollution

To infect them all with the woke mind virus, so it takes hold and destroys their country.

War won without even a shot fired.

Judging how the US administration has turned against its historic allies, while pandering to authoritarian regimes, I'm pretty sure that it's by design, not reckless.

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I honestly don't see how you can cut government spending at this point without being haphazard. Every administration for the last 70+ years has increased real spending (not to mention expanding executive power along the way, which got us here).

So pointing out that the sky is blue when it is indeed blue would be a form of propaganda as well?

> It undermines efforts of governments to develop their own capacity

If the government is so intent of concealing the problem that it is falsifying basic measurements then surely those efforts are not worth much?

We’re not talking about information that is in any way subjective, relative or biased.

it’s like a government trying to pretend that climate changes isn’t happening by getting pissed at other countries that have accurate thermometers in their embassies..

What is political in sharing scientific measurements? Can you point to a specific person who is irritated by it? Why it irritates you personally?

> Making the issue more political, the US edits and censors the data it publishes for its own purposes. This isn’t a secret but it taints the perception of US neutrality when making this data available.

First I have heard of this, what's the source for the US editing & censoring global sensing data?

> Making the issue more political, the US edits and censors the data it publishes for its own purposes. This isn’t a secret but it taints the perception of US neutrality when making this data available.

Less doublespeak version: The US edits and censors the data it publishes for its own purposes. Thus the data is not viewed as neutral.

The neutrality of some entity is not set by default by God and then “tainted” by their very own actions. The neutrality or lack thereof can be reasoned about directly.

Current USA leadership is not concerned with negative pushback from abroad.

I wonder what data on the US by others is there

The extra tariffs being put on Chinese goods?

This belief has got to be the biggest propaganda victory for the Trump administrations.

It was noticeable in the first term how weak he was on this topic, but apparently losing a nonsensical trade war to them and saying mildly racist things at rallies made him tough on them? More stupidly, did he just say he was tough on China enough that people believed him?

Now that he's losing nonsensical trade wars with US allies and giving the green light to seizing territory from neighbouring countries it just highlights in neon how good he was and is for China, but it's silence (at best!) from the media.

I kinda feel like you're not being charitable with the OP

My read is that the OP is saying that the air quality monitors in China were a massive soft-power win for the US, and it also shamed the Chinese government. So if you start from the assumption that this current administration sees the Chinese government as a rival who should be opposed, then this kind of effort that bypasses the Chinese government and provides a resource to the Chinese people should be supported.

If the administration claims to see China as a rival, but then cuts such an obviously beneficial project, reasonably, you gotta wonder if the administration is telling the truth about it's relationship with the Chinese government.

> We all agree that the ultimate reduction in tax revenues can be less than this first order effect, because lower tax rates encourage greater economic activity and thus expand the tax base. No thoughtful person believes that this possible offset more than compensated for the first effect for these tax cuts. Not a single one.

This is kind of an embarrassing mistake for an economist.

The theory that lower taxes can increase tax revenues is that they increase the rate of GDP growth. For example, with a lower tax rate, GDP might grow at 8%/year instead of 4%/year. Under different circumstances the difference might be larger or smaller, but as long as the lower tax rate improves GDP growth at all, compounding will eventually cause it to yield higher tax revenue at the lower rate. 20% of 1.08^15 is more than 35% of 1.04^15, and 20% of 1.08^50 is more than 370% of 35% of 1.04^50.

This doesn't have to be an instantaneous effect for it to be real.

> There was just as much nationalist on renren then weibo who thought this was US interference.

But nobody ever took them seriously. The man on the street in China could just go outside and look at the air. And whether he liked what he saw or not, he still had to breathe it, so interest in the topic was very high.

Here's a conversation I had with a friend who worked in the Shanghai office of a major international conglomerate:

-----

[me] What do Chinese people think of America? [美国 = the United States]

[friend] Different people have different opinions.

[friend] Some people see it as the promised land.

[friend] Some people are very negative.

[friend] Where I work, there's one guy who is really down on America and never misses an opportunity to point out how it sucks.

[friend] But even that guy says there's one thing for which America deserves our thanks, the air quality numbers.

We left exactly a year after you did and I’d say that it was somewhat better than in the early 2010s. There were still really bad days, but fewer of them. Also depended on which part of Beijing (we were near Beida).

If there is no other source of truth it's easier for the government to change the data rather than the actual air quality.

Everyone and their dog has air purifiers that measure AQI and PM2.5 in Chinese cities now.

They already do, in a sense. The scale used here is different from the internationally used and the categories imply lesser health effects.

I like the take of System Science researchers on this matter -- they say that air/water quality monitoring works exactly because it introduces a feedback loop in the existing system.

Here is a relevant anecodote from Prof. Donella Meadows (who was a major proponent of environemental quality watches):

  During the oil embargo and energy crisis of the early 1970s, the Dutch began to pay close attention to their energy use. It was discovered that some of the houses in this subdivision used one-third less electricity than the other houses. No one could explain this. All houses were charged the same price for electricity, all contained similar families.

  The difference, it turned out, was in the position of the electric meter. The families with high electricity use were the ones with the meter in the basement, where people rarely saw it. The ones with low use had the meter in the front hall where people passed, the little wheel turning around, adding up the monthly electricity bill many times a day.

A few people really don't want to consider that possibility. Every comment about it is downvoted.

Well, Congress hasn't passed a budget and the department is still working on previous year's budget. So either that money somehow ran out unexpectedly, or it's the work of Elon, Big Balls, and the gang.

The people relying on this data aren't even American constituents.

Maybe to you, but not to any of the Trump voters I know. And not to a lot of other people, either. This is in the State Department, not EPA, and embassies spending resources on pollution monitoring sounds like the very epitome of government waste that DOGE is trying to eliminate.

It is not a "pro-science" talking point it is actually a real pro-science without the quotation marks talking point.

Science has been completely under attack for every second this administration has been in power, in every single way, from funding to scientific indpendence to censoring of words that are politically incorrect to the Trump administration.

Suggesting that this is an optional high profile shut down of science rather than something completely in line with what's happening every single day is a very odd take on the matter.

And as to the proof that this is not something that people really care about in a high profile way, the science rallies get about 1/10th the support of other sorts of rallies in those trying to resist Trump's changes.

Yeah what does “air quality data network” even mean? Do they have dedicated circuits between all the consulates and then some pop somewhere all for air quality sensors? If so, then it deserves to be shutdown because that would be grossly over engineered for the task. Imagine, an entire dedicated network and all the gear and lease expense that comes with it to read some sensors from a rest api.

But if it’s purely a spending cut there is no reason why the monitors can’t stay up - the costs are $0.

And that scapegoat will be the other party.

Yeah folks tend to make fun of it, but from my experience missing or simply broken dysfunctional father figure a massive thing for both women and men that they will struggle to cope with (and mostly fail) during their whole lives.

In a free market, Doge would fire Elon.

> Turns out though information is like water; you need enough, but too much and you drown.

How do we slow down or control the flow of information ? Genuine question. I'm just asking to see if there are any studies or proposals that already exist out there.

I've heard people talk about education. But this seems to be part of a long term solution. How can we solve this problem now so that in the next election (next 2 or 4 years) people will not vote against their own best interests ?

Convincing people to quit social medias or stopping listening to TV pundits ? So far that hasn't worked. Facebook/Tiktok just keeps growing.

They exist because of justified lack of trust , and by people taking advantage advantage of that lack of trust.for their own benefit.

(Mis)Information is just the tool.

Being the world leader in everything was whatade the US great, these sort of data networks was part of what made it great.

What made it less great is the decimation of all industry except for PR,finance,services and software. Plus the fact corporates were allowed to buy politicians.

This caused all the wealth to be super concentrated.

The losers were gaslighted and completely lost trust in the system.

Now the vultures come to finish the job. Blaming transgenders and immigrants for all the problems.

> Weeelll, where the population steer it to isn't really determined by any principles. Rather it goes wherever the population steers it to.

Trivially true.

> Sometimes the population gets it wrong, and with open eyes pick an option that takes them to a worse place.

I think any truly governing body steers the ship in more or less the direction they collectively want. I’m anti-elitist but/and I believe that the elites manage to serve their own interests successfully.

You have to ask yourself if you really live in a democracy. Or if the demos is just another scapegoat when things to “bad”. But don’t worry though. These questionable anti-democratic lines of reasoning tend to fall into a contradiction sooner or later.

> Yes, information helps (hence campaigning) but that information has always been gate-kept. That was seen as a flaw.

Aaaannnnd you’re already there. A democracy where the information is gate-kept? By whom? It can’t be the population. Clearly there is some entity above the people. Then how the hell is that a democracy?

> Turns out though information is like water; you need enough, but too much and you drown.

> Anti-vaxers don't exist because of a lack of information. People who voted for tarrifs don't have restricted information. People have shown over and over a willingness to vote against their own best interest

Pray tell who controls either the gatekept information or the overwhelming firehose of information? The People!?

The people are so thoroughly manipulated, you lament. Well what kind of a farce of a “democracy” is one where the rich control the Media, the rich control the politicians through donations, and the rich control who even is realistically (within 99% chance) able to be voted for President of the US?

The latter boils down to two people. Two people chosen by the elites. And you have the gall to blame “democracy” for pushing the Clown Button?

> , as long as you provide someone else to blame.

The anti-democrats are always there to blame the demos. Thank you for your service.

This is downvoted but for those outside the US it's actually true. Or more specifically once the new admin began acting erratically.

For instance, in Canada he has repudiated a trade agreement he himself negotiated in his first term and threatened repeatedly to annex us.

Americans who treat foreigners as abstractions shrug off that sort of thing and assume you can go back to normal but reliability is shot and trust is broken.

In term one the remaining vestiges of Republican and state apparatus ensured continuity on many fronts. That's all gone.

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With huge respect, I’m an European SWE making a little more than 3k net (which means that what’s left after all taxes).

I own a nice house in a countryside village that I bought recently (so at the current market price), 10 min walking distance from the train station. I can afford premium quality food, I have enough money (and time !) to go on vacation 4 to 5 weeks per year (not just holidays but going abroad as a tourist). I own two cars. I’ll have a retirement.

Life hasn’t been cool on me on the last decade : I had to go under a 100+k surgery, I now take a treatment of about 150€/month. My grandmother had a stroke and is now living hospitalized under my dad’s roof. I did a burnout and stayed 1 year at home to recover. And you know what ? Everything of this had barely any impact on our finances. Everything health related : 0 impact.

Now everything is fine, my health is better, I still have strong savings, still own my house, my grandmother is greatly taken care of…

I would never exchange that for the extra 4k I could lose at any moment without notice because life.

Quality of life is something that many people evaluate along very very different metrics at different weights. But losing that $7k and bringing it down to $3k does not look like it will be accompanied by plumbers no longer paying for healthcare out of pocket.

One measure of the lead of the US is how it is a destination for those looking to create great science, a great startup, build a business, or otherwise build a long-lasting contributor to our institutions. Europe, Japan, other places certainly rank highly here too, but the US is by far the biggest player and attracts the most people as far as I can tell.

> For example, in the US the plumber pays for health care. In Europe he mostly does not.

More like in the US he pays for private health insurance (and/or he is covered by Medicare/Medicaid). In Europe he pays for public health system, something like 5% of his earnings, and he may choose to buy private health insurance on top of that (as many do) because the public health system is in shambles.

Easy now, you're gambling with WW3!

Hell.. this escalated quickly..