And not saying anything interesting, in any case. It's easy to say "cut more, tax less." Zero effort. Let's see some thought behind it -- what are we going to cut, and why? What are we going to fund, and why?
I feel like a lot of people don't really understand where the money 1) comes from, and 2) gets spent. Balancing the USG budget is a very, very big task.
Indeed this is one of the things I most enjoyed when I first visited DC, the realization of just how recent these historical events really were. Standing on a battlefield in Gettysburg and thinking "This all happened in the 1860s, barely more than 100 years before I was born. I have relatives who lived in this area at that time, and only a few generations back."
When I talk to young people today, and realize how little they know about people and events that were major news when I was young, I understand how it happens. Even for me WW2 is just something from the history books, and yet it concluded just ~30 years before I was born. 30 years before today was 1996.
Our descendants are going to enjoy an enormous wealth of imagery and videos for events that will to them otherwise be just something from a history book. Just imagine what it would be like today if we could see videos of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, etc. Might knock the mythology down a peg or two, though.
"Our descendants are going to enjoy an enormous wealth of imagery and videos for events that will to them otherwise be just something from a history book. "
The question will be at some point, will they be able to tell it apart from AI generated fake ones? (and will they care?)
Already now youtube recommends me some obvious AI generated garbage as WW2 documentations.
And that was just garbage generated for attention (ad money).
Once big actors with money want to rewrite history and flood the web with fake images to spread certain narratives, then new challenges will arise.
I hope enough people still care about facts and guard them.
That's a good point. When I wrote my comment only my optimistic side was engaged ;-). The pessimistic side shares your concerns. I hope that we develop some technologically diffult-to-overcome solutions for preserving the integrity of media. Like methods for cryptographically signing raw content from a digital camera that guarantees it was produced by that hardware. Not a panacea, but a step in the right direction I think.
It's the "if you think the news is all lies, bullshit and agendas you should see the history books" meme.
Lord knows what falsehoods of today will become the official record of tomorrow never mind what lies of the past we just repeat because they're what got written down.
This came up in a Reddit discussion a while back. Snopes has an article about it, in which they quote a source which says that the actual interview happened in 1948.
Indeed, I'd just like to decouple my earning from the whims of corporate overlords who may decide at any moment that I am redundant. I have no serious ambitions to be a billionaire. For that dream I just buy a Powerball ticket once a year or so.
When you're a huge company trying to do business in the US (or any country, for that matter) you have to think very, very carefully before you make an enemy of the government. Google could refuse to go along with this stuff and find itself the subject of a big, expensive anti-trust probe.
Or more simply, a target of a temper tantrum that suddenly declares them a national risk and orders everyone in the government to stop doing business with them.
Not just temper tantrums. This has been happening since the patriot act. Even during Obama’s term where there were obviously no temper tantrums - telco’s were strong armed into sharing call data with the government.
So while the current presidents language is more colorful and entertaining the policy is at least a couple of decades old.
I think it could easily be argued that the reverse is true. Even Donald Trump would think twice about taking on Google. He might bluster about them on Truth Social, sure, but America is a corporatocracy and I'd put my money on Google.
Yes, I know there are examples where he is trying to screw with big corps like Anthropic. But Anthropic is not Google.
I agree. People had already experienced one round of Trump before, and had every opportunity to see what he was planning for this term. There is no reasonable conclusion other than that they indeed wanted exactly what we got.
The US has very low voter turnout. Winning is mainly getting your voters to turn up, but usually apathy wins. Of course the media plays a huge part in this, but voter suppression is the US is fine art.
Personally I feel that non voters effectively voted for Trump, and they should own that as much as die hard MAGA types.
Don't disagree with you in principle but 2024 saw a very, very, very large turnout for US standards - the biggest one... Kamala's 75m+ votes basically are good enough (by very wide margin) to win any previous election (slimmer margin in 2020 than others but you get my point...)
thanks for the correction, I keep forgetting just how awful 2016-2020 years were that 81 million people came out to vote for a senile grandpa (exactly the point I was making, you need strong against case much more than anything else)
> 81 million people came out to vote for a senile grandpa
Yeah, people were getting fed up with the chaos. Biden owes his presidency to Donald Trump, for sure. He tried several times in years prior and could not win on the merits.
Weird, and why didn’t those people show up to vote for Kamala? How did Biden get more votes than Obama, but Trump won the popular vote four years later?
> why didn’t those people show up to vote for Kamala?
Enthusiasm gap. And not during COVID. 2020 was an interesting time as you may recall.
> How did Biden get more votes than Obama, but Trump won the popular vote four years later?
You will be less likely to fall prey to grifters if you look past absolute numbers and realize that the voting age population tends to increase about 10 million every four years. And with turnout generally abysmal, under 60% most times, there is a lot of room for variation.
His whole schtick seems to be getting voters to show up at the polls who otherwise don't bother to put forth the effort. I've heard it said that this was also Mamdani's trick in NYC (heck, maybe that explains why Trump is so smitten with Mamdani).
So GOP politicians do significantly better any time Trump is sharing the ballot with them. I won't be surprised if the 2026 midterms go very poorly for the GOP. And given that Trump won't ever be on a ballot again, I won't be surprised if his control over congressional GOP members starts to noticeably erode even before the midterms. They definitely know how the game works, and they are going to start looking for ways to keep their jobs.
Running against a President (especially one that is not on the ballot) is much easier than people think, all you have to do is pitch that while I may be terrible, your alternative is much, much, much worse which is exactly what the Trump campaign was all about.
It worked because a lot of people bought that story (and many continue to buy it evidenced by DJT's approval ratings among the GOP voters). The whole campaign basically had no platform other than your cookie-cutter "migrant crime", "economy bad" ...
It worked because as bad as the GOP platform was, the dems' strategy was just awful, and their tactical decision making was abysmal.
* focus on abortion, which is an important issue ... mostly to evangelicals
* focus on threats to democracy, which sounded shrill and got blown off
* no real message on the economy, which was widely perceived as floundering under Biden, and was very important to a lot of swing voters
On top of that, Trump's approval ratings on the economy were pretty good when he left office. People remembered that and thought he'd do better.
Then of course there's the whole "hey, let's not tell the senile old man that he basically promised to be a one-hit-wonder, and wait until the last moment to switch to his running mate instead".
In a way, it's impressive that the dems didn't lose by larger margins. Trump wasn't that popular, the dems were just that incompetent. I hope they pull their head out of their ass for 2028. But I'm not counting on it.
I don't disagree but I don't believe there was any way Democrats would have kept power in 2024. They were unable to sell any positive news about the economy (DJT does not seem to have learned this lesson and is doing same stupid thing as Dems did in 2024). The no real message on the economy was real but economy was doing great in post-COVID world especially compared to the rest of the world and there wasn't a reputable financial outlet that did not agree with this (Economist, FT, WSJ, Bloomberg...).
While I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said I do not believe there was a way for Democrats to beat DJT. His machine was just too good and no matter the candidate and no matter the message I don't believe it would have mattered.
Which immigration laws are they enforcing in this case? And are you also going to suggest that the Constitution does not protect foreign nationals inside the US?
The Constitution uses the following in regard to protest in the first amendment
Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It uses this same "right of the people" in the second amendment
... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
In both cases, the right is restricted to "the people." Note in the first amendment, only the final bit about protests is restricted to "the people" the rest is generally protected whether it is "the people" or not.
Note in Heller and elsewhere it was determined "the people" are those who belong to the political class (which is a bit vague, refer to next sentence, but not same as voting class). Generally this is not those on non-immigrant visas or illegal aliens (though circuits are split on this). If you don't have the right to bear arms, clearly you are not "the people" since people by definition have the right to bear arms, which means you wouldn't have the right of "the people" to protest either, no? So it appears since they are not people, they don't have the right to assemble in protest, though they may have other first amendment rights since it's protest specifically that was narrowed to "the people" rather than many of the other parts of the first amendment which are worded without that narrowing.
For instance, speech without assembly isn't narrowed to just "the people." Perhaps this was done intentionally since allowing non-people to stage protests was seen as less desirable than merely allowing them to otherwise speak freely.
Note: Personally I do think non-immigrants are people, but trying to apply the same "people" two different ways with the exact same wording makes no sense. If they can't bear arms they necessarily are not "the people" and thus are not afforded the right to "assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
USA was founded well after the Pilgrims. I don't think anyone in 1776, or even in the Pilgrim days, was thinking a foreigner should have the right to vote for instance.
Most people in the US did not choose to become citizens until the mid 19th century. The process was much easier than naturalization today, though, presuming you were white and in some cases might be required to own property.
US also didn't have Jus soli citizenship until the whole civil war and slavery debacle. You had to go into a local court and show you lived in the US for a couple years, who would swear you in as a citizen. But most people didn't care about voting or holding office enough to bother.
> US also didn't have Jus soli citizenship until the whole civil war and slavery debacle.
Actually, my understanding is that the US did largely follow jus soli. What it wasn't was unconditional jus soli, but the principle was birth in the bounds of the US conferred citizenship except if positive law existed not conferring citizenship.
What are you saying, the US Constitution is bogus because people were racist in 1776? It's undergone amendments and clarifications by the Judicial branch. It's been consistently obvious that foreigners don't have the same rights as citizens here, and tourism or immigration law wouldn't really work otherwise.
You didn't answer my question, but here's what I'm saying:
> If you have to work your way round to "they are not people" for the law to be consistent, consider that it might be a bad law.
I disagree that the law (which has been changed, amended and clarified) has been 'consistently obvious', and I still maintain that the conclusion of 'immigrants aren't people' invalidates the law.
You could make this argument, but the Supreme Court does not seem to agree, they have consistently said that "the people" is basically everyone here. Even those unlawfully here.
That said, the second amendment does have some interpretation that allows for restrictions on temporary visa holders like the student that is the topic of this discussion. But it also has rulings that support it applying to illegal immigrants.
> they have consistently said that "the people" is basically everyone here.
This is absolutely false. DC v Heller cites that "the people" refers to members of the "political community."[] Not "basically everyone here." The interpretation of what "political community" means has been split in the circuits. One court in Illinois found it might include illegal immigrants (who have settled as immigrants) or non-immigrant visa holders that were illegally settling here. This is anomalous. Generally they've found the political community to be something approximating those with immigrant type visas, permanent residency, or citizenship -- barring some exceptions from those like felons.
Even if you dig up the most generous case in illinois (I've forgotten the name) which claims some illegal immigrants are "the people", which it has been awhile since I read it -- even they narrow the political community refered to by "the people" to people actually settling as part of the community and not just basically anyone inside the US in a way that would suggest it applies to tourists or student visa holders using their visa in the legal manner.
What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention “the people,” the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset. As we said in United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U. S. 259, 265 (1990):
"Peaceably" is important. If you think the pro-Palestinian protests on campus are peaceful, try wearing a yarmulke and walking anywhere near them. Or anywhere on many campuses, on any day, protest on-going or not.
Search Google images for "yarmulke palestinian protest" and tell me there aren't many Jewish people fighting for a Free Palestine. Every pro-Palestine rally I've been to has had a contingent of Jewish groups in our midst. You'll only get hated on if you show or wave the Israeli flag.
There are videos of Jews getting harassed and attacked by "pro-Palestinians" all over the internet while they attempt to get to class. Jews have been arrested in the UK "for their own safety" for existing near a protest. Not to mention the rampant ZOG and other related bullshit.
Even if there are Jews at some of these protests (as opposed to random people wearing kippahs), all you're doing is whitewashing violence. Same as Candace Owens and MAGA.
> And are you also going to suggest that the Constitution does not protect foreign nationals inside the US?
I thought it was settled constitutional law that it doesn't? Moreover, during the war on terror, it was established that the president can freely order the murder of non Americans outside the US.
The courts, all the way to the top, have consistently interpreted the Constitution as a document that circumscribes the behavior of the government, not as a document that grants privileges to "the people" or a subset of that (e.g. citizens only).
> has included a lot of people who write near-zero-code, at least at the higher levels of the career ladder
This is something that I would have thought HN readers were pretty familiar with. LLMs can make my code work faster or more prolific, but with 30yoe I spend a fairly significant chunk of my work time doing anything but code.
I'm occasionally reminded the HN's commenting base is much larger than my niche in the industry (VC backed startups + large public tech companies is my background). I had a similar reaction to people thinking Peter Bailis going from CTO at workday to "member of technical staff" at Anthropic was him trading a leadership position for closing jira tickets.
> My implementation speed and bug fixing my typed code to be the bottleneck
I remember those days fondly and often wish I could return to them. These days it's not uncommon to go a couple days without writing a meaningful amount of code. The cost of becoming too senior I suppose.
Anecdotally I've been observing a significant uptick in the amount of code being produced by my peers who are in senior engineer, leadership and engineering management positions.
They can take their 20+ years of experience and use it to build working systems in the gaps between meetings now. Previously they would have to carve out at least half a day of uninterrupted time to get something meaningful done.
> build working systems in the gaps between meetings now
Agreed, I've actually done this. Sitting in a meeting where someone was asking about what tooling we could build, what it might be capable of, what their options were. So while we were chatting I was having Claude build a working demo.
In the end it still needs to be turned into an enterprise app with all the annoying accoutrements that go with that, but for demo work it was phenomenal.
I feel like a lot of people don't really understand where the money 1) comes from, and 2) gets spent. Balancing the USG budget is a very, very big task.
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