tThat’s the other part. There is a lot of stick (healthcare costs / insurance tied to work / state of labor rights) that is considerably worse than in peer nations. But there’s a good amount of carrot too. When the stick becomes (much!) worse yet while the carrot disappears? Gonna have a bad time.
I should clarify: By "Regime Change Levels Bad" I mean "so bad that it could induce people seeking regime change." Which is a level of bad that... I don't think anyone really WANTS to see, regardless of their attitudes towards this administration.
Ultimately this all again brings me back to the Bannon quote that keeps haunting me:
"I want to see babies starving in the streets of the United States, their bloated bellies there for everyone to see. If we get there, the American people will allow us to do ANYTHING."
As in there was a weird conspiracy theory that wasn't based in reality. And then people who bought into that became stupid rich and powerful. And then decided "hey the problem with that conspiracy theory was that *I* wasn't the one to decide who gets to live!"
And the big caveat here is that this is JUST an idle musing, I have no proof, I have no indications that this is a thing. It's just a thing I sometimes wonder. In the whole "every accusation is a confession" kinda vein.
Bear with me here. The UN Agenda 21/2030 conspiracy theory basically posited that. I sometimes wonder - again, bear with me! - if some of the right wingers and libertarians who bought into that conspiracy theory basically... Adopted something like that for themselves.
I remember the weird conspiracy theories about... 20 years ago? About some United Nations program that purportedly aimed at culling the world population to make people more manageable in the era of I think Peak Oil.
I fear that is true. I have had this sinking feeling for months now that we have really passed the point at which mass death is avoidable. Especially since it at times feels like mass death is what the ruling cohorts WANT.
People play ball when they have to keep making money to pay all the bills. Especially when, say, protesting endangers the capability to pay these bills. But when those bills become so ABSURDLY unmanageable, when people really just lose EVERYTHING, that's... Not good for social stability.
And there is no possible end in sight unlike with, say, the pandemic. It's only going to get worse.
And this will ultimately test my thesis of continuing emiseration as the primary tool of social discipline in the United States. If that gets overdone, things fall apart.
There is EVERYTHING coming together too. The whole Assault On All Fronts by the administration on everything. Healthcare will get DRASTICALLY more pricey AND harder to get. As will groceries, but also eletricity, and basically everything people use on an everyday basis.
In all seriousness, what's coming is... Possibly going to be Regime Change levels bad. Great Depression levels "miles of soup lines" bad. A kind of bad that likely very few people born in this country have experienced. Hold on to your butts while they still have meat on them.
I never got her and I will continue to not get her or any of the hype around her brand of what to me is just the blandest most vanilla lowest common denominator pop. I mean if that’s your thing, cool, but maybe we should have higher standards?
The whole process is stupefyingly costly and arbitrary and fraught with all kinda pitfalls. GC fees alone are somewhere in the realm of $2500-3000 for marriage based. Employment can be more yet. And the GC application is BEEFY paperwork so you want a lawyer. Which more than doubles the cost.
For consular processing too, right? We did AOS which also took about 13 months - and no interview. (For the uninitiated - consular processing is when the noncitizen spouse is residing outside the US - Adjustment of Status (AoS) is when the noncitizen is already here.)
If a USCIS agent gets an average of 8 minutes to adjudicate the entirety of an applicant's social media, that very clearly indicates they will use some sort of algorithm "AI" tool for screening. And the same thing seems to be planned for this 30 man social media ICE squad.
So, on the "30 people is very few" thing. Yes, they will obviously use LLMs for this. That was clear from the memo that USCIS would now screen all visa applicant's social media where they listed the increased work hours per case as something like 8 minutes per worker per case.
NEW: ICE is planning to hire a team of nearly 30 people to surveil social media 24/7, build dossiers on people, and flag them for arrest and deportation. @dell.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/ice-so...
...and here I thought you were being mean. Reading that tweet, I do think this is likely true. A statement of fact. Not "I bet this guy drinks his own piss. [derogatory]."
