jazzdude

Either way, it was still a vote for Biden. Just like in 2016 many votes for Trump were not so much votes for Trump, but votes against Hillary. Biden (outside his age) makes sense: had name recognition (especially among older voters, who are consistent voters), executive experience, more moderate than the other Democrat primary candidates (more attractive to independents and Republicans who hate Trump, and may at best encourage them to vote for the democrat nominee over abstaining from voting, or at worst voting for Trump as a vote against a perceived worse far left candidate). That's why I voted for Trump in 2016 (vote against Hillary), but couldn't bring myself to do it again in 2020. But I also didn't want to vote for Biden either as a vote against Trump; voting as a vote against someone else just doesn't feel right to me anymore. Especially when it means I'd be part of their "popular mandate". It's not "wasting" my vote, it's voting my conscience over voting to be with a (potentially) winning candidate I don't agree with. The Republican party sold it's soul by nominating Trump.

Who doesn't love a good conspiracy? Biden was popular enough to win, moderate enough to pull independents and anti Trump Republicans, and paired with a female VP. He's old, 25th amendment for mental acuity/inability to execute his duties, and bam, 1st female president who's much further left. On a serious note, isn't age a protected class in employment?

I think we're taking a bit last each other with the GPS example, and I'm too lazy to do some more digging (this has been a pleasant distraction from both work and homework). But I think we both agree that there a delicate balance, and it can be hard to draw the line. I also don't think Tesla meets the threshold to hold a monopoly on EVs or their charging infrastructure either, and wasn't my intent. But they were also not the only ones to receive tax credits: several other car manufacturers also received tax credits, though the other manufacturers elected not to pursue EVs (and associated tax credits available to them) as aggressively as Tesla. A startup would struggle to get those tax credits though, as car manufacturing (even in gas cars) has a pretty high bar for entry (lots of capital up front). I think your new examples and arguments are valid shots. It's generally easy to fix symptoms, or make changes to make the short term metrics look good (any of this sound familiar in our AF careers?...). It's hard, and can be uncomfortable, to get after the root causes of the bad metrics or symptoms. If you get a chance to take a statistical modeling class, one thing they harp on is be very careful about extrapolating data to make predictions outside the observed data set. I don't think the government making an investment and it failing is necessarily a bad thing on smaller projects. Cast a wide net on completing ideas, invest in the promising ones, and see what happens (think of it as a public venture capital fund investing in things that benefit society). It's that fear of failure that often paralyzes government, and makes every decision very risk adverse and overly conservative to a fault. Obviously, risks have to be managed appropriately, and not carelessly disregarded. Meritocracy and socialism or communism aren't opposed, at least in theory. You're right, it often suffers from personal greed or ambition in practice. But at the same time, meritocracy and capitalism are not synonymous. My view of meritocracy is a way to manage *power*, and not products, where capitalism/socialism/communism all manage resources. It's easy in capitalism to say it's the same as a meritocracy, but only because in capitalism, money (proxy for resources) can (and often does) buy power. There are other ways to manage power besides a meritocracy ("best" person to wield power based on some measure). Democracies (direct votes), republics (representatives), dictatorships/monarchies (consolidation of power in an individual/family), nepotism (I guess this is the same as a monarchy, but without the "divine right to rule"), anarchy (no management of power). All of those types of government also have some way of determining who is "best" to wield power, whether it's popular vote, bloodline, violence, family/friends, and reflect different underlying cause and norms of that society. And any of those could be fine for an individual living under that form of government, so long as your interests align with the government's interests. At least with a form of democracy you get a say in the decision in the event interests don't align, but even that is no guarantee of fairness, and it's near impossible, especially in our current world, to remove yourself from the jurisdiction of any government. The free market doesn't really exist-it's an ideal that doesn't exist anywhere in practice, at least not at a nation state level. As long as there's an inequality of power between people (or organizations), there will be an influence on the market, whether it's formal or not. So in a sense, government is a monopoly, because the market must adapt and be limited by the rules of the society it operates in, with those rules being enforced by the government. On the other hand, government is not a monopoly because it is how society has agreed/consented/accepted to structure itself, and society also creates the market because people have needs and wants they can not procure/produce on their own, especially if people specialize in their work. So it goes hand in hand, groups of people will organize themselves in some manner, and that same group creates a market for goods/services within itself. Government won't police it's own power, unless those in power do so based on their values/principles. Democracies in theory allow the citizens to be the check on government authority through their vote, but it can lead to mob rule of the government divides the citizenry to maintain it's power. I guess I have to take a stance though after being wishy washy for way too long on the post. Democratic republic seems to be the best balance for a large country like ours, balancing direct votes and the time and logistics to do that for every matter. Meritocracy with caveats (ability to do the job based on technical skills and social/leadership skills). Caveat being that sometimes you don't select the best person in order to give that experience to someone else so they can learn. This encourages cross-functional learning, and prevents job stove pipes due to being locked into one career path, especially when the scope of responsibility requires knowledge and skills across multiple domains. The incentive for moving up is not necessarily more money or power, but to do apply your experiences and skills to do the most good, though admittedly there's some amount of money that does make it easier to embrace that position (not going to do it for free and not meet needs or "reasonable" wants).

No spears here, agree with you. "Best" is a nebulous term, especially with people, since you get there after trading off and considering several variables.

The US holds individualism and meritocracy up as a pretty central tenets on what it means to be American, so it can be jarring when we see things happen counter to that. For a highly individualistic minded person, they'll see their attaining power as a reflection of their actions, and will be less inclined to surround themselves with those from their group/tribe/family. This helps to enable meritocracy, but still can be abused (they could surround themselves with people who would increase their personal gain as the leader, rather than the best person for the job) For a collectivism minded person, they may see their attaining power not as themselves alone attaining power, but their group/tribe/family attaining power, and would be more inclined to place people from their group in positions of power. Sometimes it might actually be the best (or at least acceptable) person for a job at sometimes not. But we see disconnects between our stated ideals and actual execution of those ideals all the time in politics, and at best it creates some unease, but many times it causes anger and frustration. Political parties replace committee chairs and makeup when they take a majority in Congress, often along political lines. Politicians voting along party lines, and not what they personally feel is best for their constituency (their tribe is not the constituency, but their political party). And the public isn't guilt free in this either, and there seems to be at least some support for "political dynasties"; Bush then Bush2 then Jeb's failed primary run, Bill Clinton then Hillary's gov service and run for president. Trump is probably the best example. Probably felt his rise to power was also his family's/inner circle's rise to power, which would be my guess as why he was so unapologetic about filling key positions around him with family. It also helps that doing so also increases his personal gain, whether material or just plain ego. But he also did that in his businesses, so in hindsight it shouldn't have been a surprise. Still wrong, and feels wrong because it's contrary to the American story of individualism and meritocracy. Biden so far hasn't been much better, but in a different manner. He's filled many key positions with women and minorites. Are they the best picks for the job, or did his team artificially restrict their search to perceived disadvantaged groups to sell a political narrative using those positions? Even if you support removing barriers for those disadvantaged groups, it can still feel wrong because those appointments, taken as a whole, seem to again run contrary to the American story of individualism and meritocracy.

Yup, and that's an easy one to point out because it's so egregious. Is it really draining the swamp if you replace said swamp with a nastier swamp? ETA: Meritocracy often gets painted by both sides as a left vs right discussion, but it's really a discussion about how to "fairly" manage power. Both sides abuse power, and neither side "owns" the idea of a meritocracy as a means to manage power in an organization or society.

GPS only went public after the soviets shot down passenger airline that inadvertantly entered their airspace due to a navigation error. It wasn't originally planned for public use. And it wasn't until a decade after that US government also changed its policy on the option to shut off gps to the public for military reasons. I don't think we'll see eye to eye on Tesla. I still believe it was good money invested to see how to create EV infrastructure, so site selection for individual charging stations, and develop technologies to rapidly charge vehicles. Sure, Tesla profited with the help of government (not unlike LM or Boeing), but the government got a roadmap on how to design the EV infrastructure, considerations when dealing with property owners, and empirical evidence to support what standards to use in the future. The alternative would've been to let DOE or DOT try to figure it out on their own. Tax breaks/credits are incentives government uses to encourage businesses (and individuals, for that matter) to take a particular action. For example, it could be locating at a particular area, or accelerate adoption of a particular technology, or to shape their community. Cities bid on Amazon HQ to try and get the HQ in their city. The thought seemed to be that attracting a large tech company would bring "good" jobs to the area, and would boost the local economy (housing, restaurants, entertainment, etc), or perhaps encourage other companies or industries to consider the city. I'd expect the cities bidding based their tax breaks based on the economic gain they believed they'd get, essentially offsetting the list revenue from offering the tax break. I do think in Amazon's case you are right- of course they were going to go to DC and NYC; they need to be close to lobby for their interests. And they were able to get cities to provide free and detailed information about their city's economy. Amazon definitely took advantage of the system to gain information about the market for free. How do you feel about cities subsidizing construction of pro sports arenas/stadiums? I disagree with your view of a free market not accounting for government. The theoretical free market doesn't account for greed and power. There is no such thing as a "free market", never really has been, never will be. To some extent, there has always been external and internal forces affecting markets. Also, by no means does a free market have to also be fair. Governments do shape the market, and (should) instill a sense of order, and enforce what the society deems "fair." Libertarians want less government to make the market free from government influence, but it's built on the flawed assumption that everyone participating in the market will hold identical views on what's fair, and everyone will only act in a fair and decent manner (not be affected by greed). If you got rid of government, would who stop a business or individual from taking unfair actions that benefit themselves? Unchecked, it allows monopolies to form, which then exert heavy influence on the market, and allows them to structure the market further in their favor. So who steps in? If there's no regulating authority (government) to enforce what is fair, then the only alternative is a violent overthrowing of those that are controlling the market unfairly by the people oppressed by that market. Government in some cases does pick a winner, like in your utilities examples. Those are common infrastructure, and heavily regulated. Otherwise, how do you compete 2 electric companies, especially when one paid to hook up power to your house? Should that company be forced to share it's investment in electrical lines with it's competitors? Same with water companies. Or any essential utility. But government should also hold them accountable for providing the essential service. Also disagree on your assessments of progressives and conservatives regarding meritocracy. Across the political spectrum, I think most forms of government support and benefit from meritocracy. Even an ideal communist society/government benefits from a meritocracy to fill supervisory/managerial/leadership roles, just like it benefits a capitalist society. Both democratic (and capitalist) and communist societies/governments get hurt when those in power fill positions using nepotism or favoritism, and can lead to that government falling apart, and governments and societies as well tend to fall short of the ideal in practice. Nepotism/favoritism is required in an authoritative government, because it reduces the risk of a coup by filling key positions with those who are loyal to those in power. Helped lead to the downfall of the USSR (party loyalty over talent). Of course, none of that would ever happen in the US, right?

I'm not sure if it's necessarily what's wrong with America. Making investments solely to help out donors is wrong, and you're right, both sides do that. But that doesn't mean good investments aren't made by the government. Think of it as a strategic investment in new technologies for the common good for all Americans. What Tesla did for electric cars isn't design good electric cars (they are decent, but have issues that legacy car manufacturers have worked out, from manufacturing issues, to just keeping their displays working because they went cheap on flash memory in the car, leading to a safety recall). What Tesla did to make electric cars really viable in practice is to design and implement their super charger infrastructure. And building infrastructure generally isn't profitable, especially up front without some degree of government backing. Would you rather have had government try to figure out how to create a network of electric car charging stations, or to invest seed money in a few companies with promising ideas on how to do it and see where it goes? The latter seems like a very American approach, leveraging resources pooled by the nation to invest in a companies with good ideas from private industry to benefit everyone. Alternative fuel cars aren't popular because the infrastructure to fuel them is extremely limited, making them inconvenient to use in practice, whereas gas stations are everywhere and relatively convenient. And the investment in Tesla seemed to turn out well, with them showing that building the infrastructure for electric cars can be done and be profitable. This plays into a national goal to reduce dependence on fossil fuels to ensure our security. https://www.energy.gov/fe/articles/3-ways-fossil-energy-ensures-us-energy-security The federal government has had a long history in making strategic investments, and guiding research and development in multiple fields of study. GPS and Internet are two major examples of the fruits of that investment that have a major impact in how we live our lives now. But government also invested in advanced aeronautics, space flight, medicine, nuclear energy, clothing, human factors/ergonomics, human physiology, to name a few. Federal grants/loans/contacts are made to research institutions/colleges and private companies to do basic research, or to take scientific theories from basic research and mature into practical technologies for industry to take advantage of. Just because you have a brilliant idea doesn't mean you'll change the world, or even make enough to live on. You generally need someone to invest in your great idea to bring it to market. Why shouldn't the federal government also make investments in ideas it thinks will be beneficial for the country (or world) as a whole? It doesn't stop private entities from doing research on their own, they generally aren't competing directly with another organization that got a federal grants, because the government typically will own the IP since they funded the research, and the government usually doesn't charge to licence out that IP to industry since public funds were used.

True, and is a separate but somewhat related issue concerning what is private information and what is public information. Used to have a degree of privacy because it was hard to collect and correlate public personal data, allowing for privacy because it was time and labor intensive to invade someone's privacy, but technology has drastically lowered that bar. So Facebook or Google tracking your public movements across the internet is a privacy problem, but it's arguably "public" information. It's the same as credit card companies, they track and sell your info to this parties as well. Non digital example would be a private detective following someone around and watching what you do and buy in public. Related, ask those people who signed the Capitol are about to find out the hard way just how much information about who they are and where they go is created just by physically having their cellphone on them even if they didn't use it. Saying anytime you use internet you are using Amazon is hyperbole. They do have a good share of the market, but it's by no means a monopoly, with strong competition. Amazon just had the benefit of being one of the earlier entrants into cloud services. https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-top-cloud-providers-of-2021-aws-microsoft-azure-google-cloud-hybrid-saas/ Sure, you may not be able to cut all ties with Amazon, any more than cutting ties with Qualcomm. Both are providers to businesses, and don't have to sell to the general public (though AWS does). It's difficult as a consumer to boycott subcontractors, but if it's something you truly believe in, you'll find a way. Unlike ISPs, I don't think servers are quite to the point of needing to be regulated as common infrastructure. This is mainly because as long as you can connect to the physically connect to the internet, you still have your choice (as a website or data owner) of what service you use to host your content.

Think a company has a double standard? Stop doing business with that company. That will encourage them to apply an even/fair standard. Twitter doesn't care that the leaders in Iran are tweeting what they are- it allows them access to the Iranian market, so they tolerate it for the money. If a significant portion of their user base was offended by that and leave twitter, then twitter might take action. All they are required to do is to comply with the laws of the country they are operating in, and that standard changes based on the country you access twitter from. Remember with social media that you, the user, are not the consumer, you and your information are the product. Sure they provide a service, but it's not really free, and the sale of your information and advertising is what keeps them in business. I will agree, though, that we are moving in a direction where maybe some aspects of social media are becoming important. (Remember not too long ago people were ridiculed for posting their lives on a blog, which isn't too far removed from what people do on Facebook?) It's why government and industry should encourage using open standards, and support data portability (to make it easier for even possible to pull your info off a platform and move to a different platform). But to ClearedHot's point, those large companies (and not just social media companies) can exert a lot of influence, so yes, we need to figure out how to get to what we as a country believe is right. People have been fighting against several large tech companies and throwing up warning flags for over a decade now, but largely that debate has fallen on deaf ears, both from politicians and the general public (who generally don't care as long as it doesn't affect them directly, like it is now for a small group of people). EFF had been a leading voice in that regard. Here's their short analysis of the whole Trump/Twitter debate: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/01/eff-response-social-media-companies-decision-block-president-trumps-accounts Essentially, they support social media's right to censor and exercise their first amendment and section 230 rights, but very concerned about the transparency and fairness of the actions, and purpose a framework to ensure fairness that the platforms should self impose voluntarily as a best practice.

Exactly (and it's a problem for large companies that have a person or entity as a majority shareholder). Or force you to sell out to a big company so they can cash out on the takeover, potentially including your intellectual property. In our capitalist society/economy, it's not what we say we value that sets what is important, it's where we spend our money. Money is a reflection of what is really valued (and a proxy for time and resources expended) and speaks much louder than words.

Tesla's an interesting case. Yes, they are to newer to market, and had to compete against the legacy car manufacturers. But they also had a lot of capital injected into their business by a wealthy person (Elon Musk) who took interest in their business and their vision, that actually allowed them to compete. So yeah, the small guy can succeed, but only if they can get the right investors. The problem with taking investors is you lose control. Money buys influence, piss off your investors and they pull their money.

Who do you propose should be the arbiter of truth? Should a private entity be compelled to host opinions they disagree with by the government? Those examples have government exerting direct control on information.

We haven't abdicated control of the press to a few tech giants-it's never been easier for an individual to express themselves and communicate (or publish) with wider audiences, even if you're blocked from using Facebook/Twitter/Google/AWS. I mean, the fact that we're having this conversation on BaseOps.net and not Facebook shows that Facebook doesn't control everything. But I do agree that there may be a problem, though I don't think it's a free speech problem, rather a business monopoly problem. A lot of the problems you point to are really problems with monopolies; maybe the big tech companies should be broken apart for being anti competitive (Facebook's strategy after all was to buy up any potential competitors such as instagram, whatsapp, and a while host of small startups). Hard to say twitter is a monopoly though, because other options exist, just not as popular (namely, the open source mastodon). Fortunately, we're starting to see some legal action on this front (FTC Sues Facebook for Illegal Monopolization: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2020/12/ftc-sues-facebook-illegal-monopolization) Apple brings up other interesting conversations. What rights do you have on a device you purchased? Should you be able to repair your own devices instead of having to use an Apple approved repair company and some approved parts (though this argument is being hard fought, primarily farmers against John Deere https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2020/03/its-payback-time-right-to-repair-movement-targets-john-deere/ )? Apple always had a walled garden in their ecosystem, and heavily curate what they allow in. The apple app store has never been a free market-it's a captive market that they fully control in a closed environment. You can't even side load apps onto apple devices without jailbreaking the device first, which comes with consequences and lost features. So if that's what you want to do, their are other phone brands you can buy. Even being kicked off Google Play store is not a problem; you can side load apps on Android, because it's built on an open architecture. This leads to the following questions: does apple have a right to block a competitive app store from being installed on their phone (keep their walled garden), or is that a anti-competitive, monopolistic action? Free market would point to the former. I believe it's the latter (and why I haven't made the jump to iPhone) That being said, apple doesn't really make money selling iPhones, they make their money taking a large cut off revenue from every app that runs on iPhone. An iphone app developer can get kicked off the app store if apple feels like they aren't getting their cut. This one is going to court (Epic Games vs Apple https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/24/21531873/epic-apple-fortnite-app-store-lawsuit ), so we'll see how it'll pan out. If apple loses that case, good chance their stock will take a hit, since that case attacks their core money maker. Unfortunately, Republicans generally have been soft on breaking up monopolies (FTC suing Facebook last year was surprising), so we'll see how the new administration moves on these issues.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not... Getting kicked off Facebook or twitter is not being kicked off the internet. You still have options to express yourself-build a website, forums, etc. Using a phone example, someone or some business blocking your number in their phone because they think you're annoying does not mean your ability to communicate by phone has been restricted. Getting kicked off AWS or Azure because Amazon or Microsoft do not support your business is not the same as being kicked off the internet. You can use your own computer to host your website, and then scale up to bigger and better servers if it becomes popular. It's like losing phone voicemail hosted by a third party-you can still make and receive calls, but you lost a service you wanted that makes your ability to communicate with incoming calls easier. You can always buy an answering machine if you want that voicemail service. Comcast or Verizon blocking your internet service based on the the traffic they see on your home network, or your opinions expressed elsewhere, is what being kicked off the internet means. This would be getting cut off from using the phone.

But the latter makes more money... Plus the old away you remember nestled the news in between entertainment, with fewer network/channel competitors. News and entertainment shows have both managed to break apart from each other and sustain themselves separately, and theirs a lot more competition. This makes that older model harder to do, outside of local channels/networks, with their news being locally focused.

I get that your points. But the political parties wield significant power and influence, and finances campaigns for both Congressional and Presidential candidates, which buys them significant influence over those branches of government. I think it's also why many times a President's agenda shifts in a second term-they've got nothing to lose politically, and no reelection campaigns to worry about, so they are free to pursue what they want over what their party wants. As far as Congress goes, without term limits, if they want to stay in a seat of power, they typically will have to play nice enough with their supporting party's platform. Otherwise they lose their support for reelection, and they lose their influence/power. So that leaves them in a position where to stay in the game, they may have to vote the party line over their beliefs. And since our country is pretty evenly split politically (or at least that's how the parties sell it to the masses), it leads to legislative gridlock. Especially when members from both parties agree on something, but then tack on an unrelated contentious issue as a rider, and end up killing what they all agreed in the first place. Don't know how to fix the problem though. Only way really to do it is to limit how long someone can campaign, and the manner they can campaign in, as that drastically reduces a political party's influence on individual elections. But that'll immediately be protested on first amendment grounds, or you'll have shell organizations that "spread the word" but really are finding loopholes in campaign rules. But I don't see the parties giving up their source of power.

If far right conservatives want to have a social media outlet, maybe they should try harder and not just whine. Especially if they don't want government limiting their speech. And if there's demand for that service, it shouldn't be hard to get a business started around providing that service. I mean, if Pirate Bay (or any number of other questionable at best websites) can figure out a way to stay online when being actually persecuted by governments... https://www.vice.com/en/article/3an7pn/pirate-bay-founder-thinks-parlers-inability-to-stay-online-is-embarrassing

Congress doesn't really directly let it continue-the political parties allow it to continue. Either because they: a. support the action (maybe not personally, but to retain good standing and support from the party for continued reelection), b. because they can't get enough traction to do anything because option a., or c. They don't want to challenge the power so it's there when they can take control of that power because option a.

That's part of the problem. Should be preference for medical/elderly/(insert high risk group), and towards the end of the day should be available to anyone who wants it so thawed doses aren't thrown out. Or something similar to free for all like you said, but have a fast pass line for those folks that allows them to go ahead of everyone else. That way you minimize vaccine doses thrown away at the end of the day. I've got no problem with medical personnel getting pushed to front of the line due to their exposure risk and the importance of their job. Either way, mandating only x group can get vaccine while y group has to wait until some undetermined point in the future leads to waste and slows down the overall effort, especially if you don't force/incentivize the priority group to hurry. Basically, don't be overly strict like NY was (to give the appearance of being fair), because it causes waste. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/nyregion/new-york-vaccine-guidelines.amp.html Something about planning ops based on event based criteria and not time based criteria. And executing on intent vs strict, narrow interpretations on guidance. The other part of the problem is just basic logistics. How much do you send to different locations? Have to balance a site's capacity and demand, and do so in a manner where vaccines aren't just sitting on shelves. But it can be hard to predict demand, especially at specific sites, unless you are making appointments at that site. West Virgina seems to be doing really well with its distribution though. https://apnews.com/article/politics-pandemics-west-virginia-coronavirus-pandemic-2e682c51172839a57ab17ca2b7b8d336 24 hour clinics means getting medical personnel to cover 24 hour ops, there just are not enough of them to do it. Only so many nurses and pharmacists out there, and the nurses have likely been in surge ops for almost a year and are needed elsewhere as well. It's probably overkill anyways, don't think you'll have people banging down the door to get a shot at 3 am. Sure there are shift workers, so maybe a night clinic every so often. Maybe if there's demand for it, but someone's got to pay the nurses and pharmacists giving the vaccine (along with their typical pay overrides for night shifts and overtime), unless you want to use military healthcare workers.

There's an indirect cost as well. To check if someone is eligible, you need people to process and evaluate/verify the paperwork. So either ICE gets a plus up in budget and manning, or a plus up in budget and contracts out the work, or it'll take a while to adjudicate. The more immigrants you need to check, the more it costs. Not that I agree with the following option, but this is probably why "blanket" legalization of anyone in the country could be appealing, it's the cheapest option upfront, and would require no budget debates or tax increases to fund the option. This is in addition to anything for border security. Either way, DoD budget is probably going to take a hit as we move forward...

When selected for UPT, that spot is really tied to a an operational need, which drives a FTU seat, which drives a UPT (or theoretically a cross flow) seat, and not just a generic "pilot" position. So the AF works backwards: operational need -> FTU dates -> UPT dates. For example, just because the C-17 FTU can hypothetically crank out more copilots due to extra capacity available doesn't mean the line C-17 units can absorb them, or that the AF wants to pay for extra C-17 copilots, especially if the AF really wants a F-35 pilot. So the AF may delay a seat in UPT to align with when a seat at the FTU and IFF, if there's nowhere else that UPT seat can be used to fill a different AF need. This helps keeps the AF from having a UPT grad sitting on their hands waiting to class up, when that time/money/position could be used elsewhere within the AF, since there's a finite budget and a limit on end strength driven by Congress. The pilot shortage is about pilots on staff and manning the FTU (which some/many may see as undesirable), and not necessarily about pilots flying the line.

Generally limited to 10% per crew position (CP and IP/AC are separate). Thanksgiving - New Years typically is by lottery (if you can swing a formal upgrade over this time, AETC typically allows holiday, though you may need to figure out where to leave your stuff). Make sure your DO and CC are aware of major events (like marriage or a baby due date) well in advance. They'll do what they can to make sure you get those.

It's not the same job though. They are taking paid vacation from one job, while working their second job. The fact that it's the same employer means nothing, since that employer hired that person to do 2 separate jobs. For example, if a TR takes mil leave at the same time they take PTO from their GS Treasury dept job to maximize their vacation, no one blinks an eye at them getting paid twice to do the same thing by the same employer. What makes it all stupid (and gives an incorrect outside *appearance* of potential F/W/A) is the unfair rules piling up on ARTs over the years that blur the line between their civilian and military status. The biggest of which is tying an ART's civilian GS job to their part time TR status. They can't quit being a TR and just be a GS employee, nor can they typically quit (at will, like any other GS job that's not an ART) the GS job and stay a TR (without repercussions). The GS portion should be decoupled from the TR portion, but they won't do that because they know either no one will take the job (especially if there's a requirement to have military aviation experience in the unit's MWS), or they can't retain full time experience for cheap anymore. Part of the problem is following the AD model of using squadron pilots to fill jobs: a scheduler doesn't need to know how to fly the jet, just the scheduling and crew rest rules. Training shop just needs to understand how to read the training tables (if the A1C in SARM/HARM can do it, why do you need a GS-12+ to do it as an ART?) But all of those can be done by someone without wings for much less money. And if it's something that needs a pilot's inputs, they can get that one weekend a month from a TR assigned to the shop, or anytime from an AGR. Much less important, but related, is forcing ARTs to wear a military uniform while in civilian status, which completely blurs the line between what status they are working in, and creates the appearance of doing *military* work when they are in fact doing *civilian* work. This appearance can lead to thinking they are paid twice for the same work: once for their military leave for their part time TR job (military job), and again for being in the office working in a military uniform they are forced to wear off duty (civilian job). The government is utilizing them like full time AD, without paying them full time AD pay and benefits. This also gives DoD a lot more flexibility in manning, since civilians don't count against end strength, making the positions easier to create/eliminate (maybe not at the unit level) as needed, so long as funding is available. And yes, AD is the better comparison than AGR, as AGRs have limits on how they are utilized.

The challenge isn't just limited to labor issues, but social ones as well, and the social issues often lead to discrimination/racism against the immigrants. We've seen discrimination/racism pretty much every time there was an influx of immigrants. Chinese, Italians, Irish, Jews, Muslims, Mexicans, Hispanics to make a few, all faced racism/discrimination, even if they were here legally. Those international districts in cities aren't just there because that group wanted to be together, but often had to for mutual support to make a living due to housing or job discrimination. And that doesn't even touch the history of slavery and people of african descent in our country. Many times our government just looked the other way (or even participated in the discrimination) until it was forced to address the issue, or another, more hated/feared group started coming in that took on the brunt of discrimination (hey, let's throw the Japanese in internment camps, but those Germans and Italians are okay...) Say what you want up the whole woke movement, but there are racial issues that have been simmering on the back burner for a while that need addressing, but it's nothing really new in our country's history, just new labels and terms, and perhaps more exposure given the internet which makes it harder to ignore.