Missouri isnt really a good example considering MO tends to pay the federal government more than it receives. At worst they occasionally break about even. But the majority of the time they pay their fair share, unlike many other states
PhDs are always that precise given the nature of how the levels of academics work.
A bachelors degree involves a lot of general education even though you also do choose a major as a kind of specialization. Having a bachelors degree does imply some increased level of overall knowledge. This leads people to assume that the same is true for even higher education, but it isnt.
A masters degree is virtually entirely specialized, although still referred to in some general terms like majors are. But ultimately ones thesis and specific aims within their field of study define what their masters really is about.
A PhD is primarily a continuation of that focus and expertise that was established in a masters thesis program. So there are only PhDs in extremely specific concepts. Even though we might call someone a doctor of sociology or history or whatever, they really only have doctorate expertise in something hyperspecific
It doesnt help the confusion that medical doctors are effectively the opposite, as a medical doctorate requires a ton of knowledge across a wide number of fields, although they can then further specialize just as much
Proto human ancestors were also far more capable than we give them credit for. There is archaeological evidence that, possibly as far back as 2.5 million years ago, human ancestors were harvesting specific types of stone in one location before transporting it over seven miles away to a different location where it was being processed. That is vastly beyond the complexity of what most people think homosapiens were capable of only 100k years ago.
People didnt have to build a society in the exact likeness of modern humanity for it to be vastly complex and advanced in its own right
I would think that the primary issue is the potency of fentanyl vs heroin, as fentanyl is far more likely to cause an overdose and to be misdosed than heroin. Fent might have been in the supply on a technical basis in 2013, but it wasnt popularized whatsoever. The average American did not know what it was, and the average user was probably not taking it (at least knowingly).
The spike in 2017 and rise beforehand probably correlates with increased presence of fentanyl in the US market, courtesy of China. Most US heroin was coming via Mexico and not highly related to the Afghanistan poppy production. As the current article notes, most of that production was supplying heroin to Europe and the eastern hemisphere.
China, circa 2014-2015 and just before, was ramping up their supply of illicit analogue research chems to the US. It seems like that mostly dwindled down to just focusing on Fentanyl, and then fentanyl took over as the primary illicit opiate. This also correlates with the same time period that the US was significantly tightening restrictions on legitimate pharmaceutical opiates like Oxycontin. Around 2014-2016 large numbers of patients who, for better or worse, had been legally prescribed pain pills were being cut off of them. Which drastically increased the market of people seeking illicit opiates.
I would think the overall spike is due to the increase in market size due to restricting pain pills, the popularization of fentanyl as a specifically sought substance, the ease of importing fentanyl by bad actors (given that it is a far stronger substance by weight), and the significantly higher likelihood of the end user overdosing. Due to it being a stronger substance, when it is cut with other mediums it would make any given part of the final sold product a toss up in terms of strength. One part of the cut mix might have hardly any fent, while another corner of it might have a lethal dose, even if the user is taking the same amount of the final mixture. The process of producing heroin created a more homogeneous product even if it was cut before making it to the end user. It wasnt a matter of a few grains here of there that meant life or death for the user.
Plus you factor in that junkies have a penchant for seeking out batches that have caused overdoses rather than avoiding them, because they are looking for high strength even if it might kill them. Yet another reason why fent became so popular that it displaced heroin.
I think very little of it has anything to do with Afghan heroin production to be honest
The difference can be pretty staggering between games even released a short time apart. I recently got back into AC games, and while downloading them I noticed Origins is less than 25 Gb, while Odyssey is over 75 Gb. They were only released one year apart.
I havent started Odyssey, so I cant make a comparison, but Origins is a beautiful and well running game at less than 25 Gb of data. I cant imagine Odyssey is significantly more impressive to a point where demanding 3x the data is justified, considering it runs on the same hardware. But I guess I will see soon enough
The “pee” tape everybody talks about was not actually “pee” in the report. It was “P tape”. Which at the time was speculated by many to be shorthand for pedo, and that has only become more and more likely to be true over the last decade
Voters have selected a neoliberal candidate every election for decades. Republicans are even more neoliberal than the mainstream Democratic party is. “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is inherently a neoliberal tenet. “Free market” economics is a neoliberal tenet.
Neoliberal doesnt mean “new liberal” as in “new left wing politics”. It is a rehashing of the term liberal as in classical liberalism. Neoliberalism is a spectrum of political approaches that spans everything from virtually-no-government libertarianism all the way to ineffectual big government (IE mainstream leftwing politics). Its all various approaches to the question “how small can government be while still maintaining the status quo of the social contract, the market, and extractive economic policy?”.
Progressive politics, of most all forms, are closer to classical liberalism because classical liberalism also spawned socialism eventually, just as it spawned neoliberalism. It goes back to the idea that government should actually be something for people, not the bare minimum of whatever placates people while still being able to bleed them dry.
Quite honestly, given the American penchant for electing neoliberals, and the rich man’s affinity for funding them, a neoliberal woman is far more likely to get elected than a woman who isnt. Hence Kamala and Hillary both being nearly elected. The only reason they lost is because they were running against an even more neoliberal candidate whos party has the EC locked up. America elected its first black president because he was a neoliberal. If Obama had been a Mamdani style progressive candidate he would have gotten smacked down by John McCain. He probably wouldnt have gotten anywhere near the nomination
Idk I think its fair to say she knows she got elected in the first place for being such an outspoken toxic person. There is a real chance that the people that actually elected her will turn against her if she chooses a different path. Even if she turns a new leaf, the odds of her constituents doing the same, rather than continue blindly following the cult of hate, is not very high
She stood no chance of winning over enough women in red states to win the election, even though that was obviously part of the political calculus (or lack thereof) in pushing her as the candidate
Bold move to order an entire team of way manlier dudes to tail your girlfriend that is half your age