SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Fred Reed's mathematical analysis of Trump's Wall proves that Trump is insincere, proves that Trump is mathematically incompetent, and earns Fred Reed an honorary nerd card:
https://fredoneverything.org/the-wall-the-sound-and-the-fury-and-not-much-else/
More math!
~childo
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Trump's Wall Is Mathematically Unlikely
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 91 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Dealing with failure is easy:
Work hard to improve.
Success is also easy to handle:
You've solved the wrong problem.
Work hard to improve.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Sunday January 07 2018, @08:23AM (15 children)
As already noted, this guy is incompetent. Which is par for the course when discussing immigration. The fear isn't that the wall will be a money pit / boondoggle that never gets built, the terror is inspired by the idea that it might actually be built and that it would slow the invasion of illegals..
Nobody on the Pro side even attempts to debate the issue in good faith because they KNOW they are all lying. None of their stated arguments withstand more than a moments scrutiny and they dare not state their actual reasons so any attempt to debate the subject quickly collapses into "RAACCIIIIST! HATER!"
Prove me wrong. Give me a solid REASON for importing the third world that makes sense for existing Americans. I can give an almost unlimited list of reasons NOT to do it.
Lets start with the simpler questions. For most of the open borders crowd, even illegal immigration is objected to, the very description offends. Why? Why must the United States and the other Western nations be the only ones who must not decide who can and can't enter, who can and can't join as citizens and receive the benefits implied with that. Why is it perfectly OK for Mexico to have strict immigration laws and enforce them at the same time their President is lecturing US about how racist and unjust it is for us to consider enforcing our similar laws? Why is it universally accepted that Asian countries can remain Asian, African nations can not only control entry it is considered polite to avert one's gaze from the ongoing genocide in many areas against former "colonial" whites. Why? Can anyone answer WHY for any of these questions?
Of course not. Pointing and shrieking, anonymous cowards hurling tired insults, nothing more.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @09:10AM
Yes, I am the esteemed assteller. I can see the future of your ass.
You enter a mysterious dark alley that appears out of nowhere. You sense two enigmatic entities and instantly realize they are malevolent, so you attempt to flee. However, while attempting to escape, you fall face-first on the ground and all of your clothes vanish. The two entities that were chasing you jump on your buttcheeks and reveal themselves to be evil children's toys. "Reeeeeeeeeeady?" the two toys chant in unison, getting ready to jump into your bare snappyhole. Before they can leap, however, a strange man interrupts them by saying "Wait! Use this!" Suddenly, a strange machine appears out of nowhere; its appearance is that of a solid iron cube with a metallic arm resembling one from a crane game protruding from the top. The toys ask, "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat dooooooooooooes iiiiiiiiiiiit doooooooooooooooooo?" The strange man replies, "Iiiit puuuuuuuuuuuuts iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit uuuuuuuuuuuup hiiiiiiiiiiiis buuuuuuuuuuuutt!" The strange machine's arm then moves and drops something that looks like a counterfeit US quarter into your ass, which inflicts extreme tickle upon it! Following this, the machine starts rapidly inserting counterfeit US quarters into your asshole, creating a level of ass tickle that none could ever possibly comprehend!
Such a thing is happening to you... right now!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @09:49AM
Mexico's constitution requires that the racial makeup of the nation not be changed.
Until very recently, the existence of black people in Mexico was not acknowledged. They couldn't specify their race on government forms, and then they'd get in legal trouble because they were incorrectly specified. Mexico was basically trying to deport their own citizens for being black.
Bonus:
Non-citizens can't own Mexican property. Americans who illegally cross the border into Mexico can get a decade in prison.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:17PM (1 child)
It does really make you wonder what the strategy behind unchecked illegal immigration is. Why is it being pushed so hard? What could the reasons for promoting it possibly be? I don't believe all the useful idiots for a single second who claim it's for diversity, equality, brotherhood, and helping your fellow "global citizen". Their claims are so blatantly preposterous to anyone who has had close contact with reality. So, why? It's such a simple question. I suppose if I were to look past the superficial facades of the organizations and people pushing the hardest for the global agenda, I might find some answers.
Ah well. A good exercise for some other lazy day.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday January 08 2018, @02:55AM
It's simple, cheap stuff. Businesses want cheap labour and people want to buy cheap stuff built by that labour.
You want to stop illegal immigration, bust the people hiring them. This won't happen because too many people want cheap stuff and it is easier to wring your hands about the illegals then actually stop it. The last thing the law and order people who do all the bitching is to actually enforce the laws about hiring illegals.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @01:50PM
I'm relatively liberal, but I certainly think US immigration policy and enforcement needs to be addressed. But pissing away umpteen billions on a wall that isn't realistic, feasible or practical - let alone wanted by the border states - isn't the way to do it.
The number of illegal border crossings has been going down for the last several years, which is a good start. Preventing employers from hiring workers who are not here legally, or who are not here on work visas, is a step in the right direction. Plus, let's arrest and deport all of the people - including the millions of Europeans - who have overstayed their visas.
Regarding the educated Europeans who are living and working illegally in the US: they are taking skilled labor positions and non-minimum wage jobs away from Americans and legal immigrants. This group is not working in the fields or in slaughter houses. They are not washing dishes or cutting grass. They are preventing qualified - and legal - workers from filling those higher wage positions.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 07 2018, @01:57PM (2 children)
Hasn't been the national policy for over a century, but didn't hurt us one bit while it was.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Sunday January 07 2018, @05:02PM (1 child)
Some third rate prose some otherwise unknown Jew nailed to the pedestal of a French gift decades after it was built isn't U.S. policy or law. And I'm not letting you get away with conflating the controlled, legal, immigration through Ellis Island with the modern desire for unlimited uncontrolled illegal immigration now. We rejected a fairly large percentage of those poor starving huddled masses and sent them back for one reason or another. I will also note that after that flood we had similar problems with integration and closed down the flow almost entirely between 1924 and 1965. So yes, it did hurt us, we just retained a survival instinct then and stopped when it became painful. We also had vast unsettled swaths of land in the 19th Century. Probably most important, we had no welfare state so about one in five who came in eventually went back home.
So as predicted, you have not addressed my concern. What is the urgent need for millions and millions of third worlders?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 07 2018, @05:59PM
So, you resent the Jews, hate the French, and are afraid more immigrants will swamp your idea of culture altogether?
No urgent need for immigrants here, but when my ancestors arrived from Europe (in the early 1800s) they too were scum of the earth debtors with less than nothing to their name.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:19PM (4 children)
> Lets start with the simpler questions.
Yes. You talk like a border wall could be effective.
> it would slow the invasion of illegals..
Perhaps, but how much? Doubt it would do enough to be worth the immense cost.
It's not just the cost in money, it's the cost in reputation. We in the US have always prided ourselves on being smarter than those warmongers and idiots in Europe. European nobility tried endlessly to paint the US as an unstable, experimental nation governed by ignorant peasants (ewww) that couldn't possibly survive more than a century. The Civil War handed them a bushel basket of arguments and reasons in support of what they very much wanted to believe. And then, the Civil War ended with the nation not only intact, but rid of the shame of slavery. They still doubted, still wanted to doubt. The US built the Transcontinental Railroad just a few years later. Then the US economy passed Britain to become number 1 in the world. And then we built the Panama Canal. And then there was WWI, and WWII. It was hammer blow after hammer blow. There were still people who wanted the US to fail, still tried to argue the US was going to fail, but after WWII everyone else could see that they were wrong and just laugh at them. The US didn't rest on its laurels either. Landing people on the moon impressed the hell out of the whole world.
Since the moon landings, the US has stumbled. The mess in Vietnam was underway even as we landed on the moon. We finally got out, having accomplished nothing good. We were supposed to be smarter than that. We not only had overwhelming force, we had the brains to use it effectively, or not use it if it wasn't effective. We were not into brute force. And we won the Cold War without turning it Hot. We were the shining light on the hill, the example to the rest of the world that they too could all become democracies, that it would work, and everyone would be happier and better off. We didn't need to build a wall. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Walls were for losers.
Since th end of the Cold War, we've been bungling away our reputation.
And now, we have a President who got elected in part by promising a Big Beautiful Wall! WTF?! What happened to being smart, sophisticated, savvy Americans? Now we're aspiring to be a bunch of spoiled, obese wantons who don't want to be bothered with thinking and education. The wall is just about the dumbest, most ineffective, expensive brute force idea we could have possibly embraced for securing the border. It's Al-Qaeda's dream come true, if we go ahead and actually try to build and maintain it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Sunday January 07 2018, @05:42PM (1 child)
I have eyes. Israel built a wall, it worked. Hungary only built a fence, but it worked. China built one, it worked. Nobody can point to an example where a wall failed to control access. Because a wall can be breached with sufficient effort is not a reason to avoid building one. If it cuts the flow in half it will pay for itself in the first year of operation. And it almost certainly will achieve that, if from nothing other than psychology. That big beautiful wall is going to say "YOU ARE NO LONGER WELCOME TO INVADE US" and cut the number who try.
Again, i can smell your fear, and it isn't that it will be a waste of a puny $18B. You fear it will work. Why?
Yes. Why? Could the Immigration Act of 1965 have anything to do with it? Could trading a space program for a welfare state have anything to do with it? Could our growing poz load have anything to do with it?
Stop with the squid ink. The Soviets built walls to imprison their own population, who were fleeing for their lives as fast as they could. We are trying to stop an invasion.
Go read some Carlyle and begin your journey to the Dark Side. Yup, they did say that and History is proving many of their criticisms valid. For example Carlyle said our form of government was only working because most people were too busy expanding into all that virgin territory to squabble over political power and control of resources. But that once we filled up the land we would have the same problems as Europe. Well we filled up and the Old Republic is dead and all but forgotten.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @07:19PM
>Israel built a wall, it worked.
It's working for Israel, that's true. Good example.
>Hungary only built a fence, but it worked.
They had a fence on their border with Austria and it was working, but they turned off the electricity and tore it down. That was an odd decision.
>China built one, it worked.
It worked until the Manchus went through it and conquered China (look up the Qing dynasty sometime).
>Nobody can point to an example where a wall failed to control access.
What about the Maginot Line on France's eastern border? What about the Atlantic Wall on Europe's western shoreline?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @09:07PM (1 child)
Our current reputation: idiots who won't build a wall to save themselves, very easy to take advantage of, not too smart/sophisticated/savvy
Step 1 for improving our reputation is a wall.
A good reputation is one that is beneficial to us. The goal isn't to be liked or disliked, or to be feared or not feared. A mix of those is sensible. You seem to think that we should be loved by all, but respected by none. This isn't to our benefit. Letting the world walk all over us does us no good.
Picture a kid getting bullied. Should he try to buy friends? Maybe he should give cookies to the bullies every day, and that will make them respect him? No. That isn't how life works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:35AM
Sorry, the idiots are the ones who voted for Trump. You may not have had good alternatives, but you could vote for someone with no chance of winning as a protest, or just stay home in disgust.
A wall is not going to save you from immigration or getting taken advantage of. Your politicians take far more advantage of you than the immigrants, you need to sort them out. Building a wall does make you look stupid, because it isn't the solution to the real problems you face.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @03:38PM
You know about those special helmets people wear? Might help reduce the frequency of your seizures.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday January 08 2018, @04:08PM
How much more do you want to be paying for your strawberries? Your lettuce? Your dinner at your restaurant?
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
This sig for rent.