DirtyWaterHotDog
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User ID: 625
DirtyWaterHotDog
3d ago
Unfortunately, change usually comes from violent revolt. Olds don't fight. Geriatric welfare is a democratic phenomenon.
SK is primed for revolution. Every man serves in the military. They had a (failed) emergency and subsequent (successful) impeachment last year. The leader before that was ejected in a anti-govt protests. So far, jobless men giving into a 'laying flat' depression rather than violent retaliation. Not sure how long that will last.
South Korea is a fascinating nation. A first world nation where everyone seems miserable. Strong contrast with India, where people live in literal filth, yet seem happy and content. What's the main source of this deep nihilism ?
DirtyWaterHotDog
3d ago
don't need to use my money to study tuna for "sustainability" reasons
Fisheries is a massive industry. We're seeing widespread collapse of wild populations for crabs and migratory freshwater fish.
Agriculture, fisheries & husbandry are always subsidized by govts. Govts move research burdens away from the farmers, by making public universities do the heavy lifting instead. These jobs were not created as a result of DEI. The 'tuna research' guy was in his job since the mid-1990s. It's indirect social-welfare.
US will experience a "brain drain"
The US is defined by brain-gain like no other nation before it. It has selected for 2 things : Intelligence (high skill immigration) and agency (the kind of person who will seek gold an ocean away). Brain-gain is practically American industrial policy. Cooling down would still imply brain-drain on the balance.
DirtyWaterHotDog
6d ago
Vivek and Vance seek power. Ackman seeks money. It's different.
Lastly, the current trading system, while far from perfect or fair to the U.S., has served us extremely well so we need to be prudent in how we change it so as not to upset the world order in such a manner that it disadvantages our country over the long term.
The fear is palpable
DirtyWaterHotDog
9d ago
because of low hanging fruit like the Common Crawl
You're underselling the size of Common Crawl. At that pretraining scale, the emergent properties of the model are near identical. Shady data is useful for turning models into experts at narrow tasks. But if the task is generic and isn't gated by access to shady data, then the models will give identical answers.
Broadly speaking: Model_output = function_of(prompt, post trained personality, conditioning information)
I am assuming that the prompts were identical and the post-training personalities don't factor into this exercise. That leaves conditioning information.
Fields like programming (Github) and News (Twitter) have private sources that Openai or Grok can leverage to get an edge over their competitors. Other fields like Physics, gaming & image creation are amenable to simulation and therefore improvement through RL. Lastly, private data collection can help fill in gaps for applied fields where there is a rift between what is written and what is understood. (medicine, law, etc). Macro-economics is none of these 3. There is no simulation, no private corpus, no information that an expert can feed into an LLM that improves its intuition on how markets work. In such cases, the LLM will default to a logical process that emerges from the median knowledge of its public corpus.
This means that models will give identical answers.
DirtyWaterHotDog
11d ago
4o, o3 high, Gemini 2.5 pro, Claude 3.7, Grok all give the same answer to the question on how to impose tariffs easily.
Bruh, they're all trained on the same base data.....ofc they give the same answer. It's like seeking the true religion, and then interviewing 5 different people in Saudi Arabia.
The models diverge in post training areas (coding, creating writing, etc), but not on long-tail questions like 'how to implement tarrifs effectively'.
DirtyWaterHotDog
13d ago
Neither are unconventional but....
- Banana bread should always be toasted. toasted till the (salted) butter burns. Heaven on earth.
- Pain Perdu = French toast. But, instead of adding sugar into the mixture, you sprinkle it on the soaked bread and then toast it in butter.
I suspect Brazilian cheese bread will toast great.
DirtyWaterHotDog
21d ago
They aren't anywhere near the city of Dnipro, but they control the other side of the bank for the last 400 kms leading to the mouth.
These are the control maps as they stand: [1] [2]. The 400 km stretch gives them plenty of bottlenecks to choke Ukraine's economy with plausible deniability and limited military intervention.
DirtyWaterHotDog
21d ago
Could you elaborate on this ? Do you mean the GTA ?
25% of Canada's population lives inside of Greater Toronto and Greater Montreal. Ofc they get to decide regional and national outcomes.
- Greater Toronto controls Ontario.
- Greater Montreal controls Quebec
- BC / Vancouver are wild cards
- Greater Montreal + Greater Toronto control national politics because they have more people than all the remaining provinces combined (Alberta, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland)
For all intents and purposes, the nation of Canada is one consequential urban corridor containing 50% of its population (Quebec City -> Toronto). The remaining Russia sized mass doesn't get a say, because it is the minority. That is how it should be. For comparison, the Boston - NYC - Philly - Baltimore - DC corridor only contains 14% of Americans.
DirtyWaterHotDog
24d ago
What's your current take on the ongoing Ukraine diplomatic drama? Are the Trump Talks likely to lead to the Trump Treaty? Or are they just ongoing comedy and flailing? What does a durable peace treaty look like these days?
Trump squandered hard won leverage for nothing in return.
Ceasefire is a good idea. But the terms hugely favor Russia. By freezing current boundaries, they give Russia full control over the Dniper river. For all intents and purposes, this will doom Ukraine to Russian control. Trump held all the cards, gave Russia everything they wanted, and asked for nothing in return. I don't get it.
The standard argument is that American resources can't be stuck in Europe. The next war will be in the Indo pacific, and resources need to be focused there. I agree on all points. But then, why not force Russia to economically decouple from China ? Post-Ukraine-war, Russia has become economically dependent on China, ending up as the clear junior partner in a fast developing 2nd front. Before the war, Russia was economically coupled to the EU. From an objective perspective and from the perspective of political maneuvering, this sudden ceasefire doesn't help him or his allies. The US might be able to refocus on China militarily, but I don't see them gaining economic leverage on China.
Everything from now is speculation and likely won't happen, but Trump's actions increase the possibility of the following events if nothing changes. Here goes: Ukraine is too dug in. Lot more Ukrainians will die before they formally concede. Now that Ukraine is caught with their pants down, Russia is free to mount a fresh offensive come spring. EU will have to choose between focusing their large capital expenditures on reindustrializing vs rearming. With the (arguably misplaced) paranoia of a hot-war with Russia, they will be forced to pick the latter. Therefore, they'll losing vital ground to China as it eats more of Europe's high-skill industry lunch. Ukraine's reliance on EU will make it bad optics for Europe to repair ties with Russia. As a result, Russia will build deeper ties with China formalizing the 2nd front for good. By creating strong incentives for an economically strengthened China, a concrete China-Russia block & a weakened EU, I fear that Trump might have kick started the end of the empire.
I don't believe that Trump is a Russian asset. But the man is following every step of the 'is a Russian asset' playbook.
P.S: My fanfic assumes that the publicly shared details of the deal are what the deal is.
DirtyWaterHotDog
28d ago
Agree. There aren't a lot.
The last 2 years have been especially lame. For me, ZFold3 (2021) was the last 'special' phone.
But, ones I use daily are:
-
Folding phones - I had the Samsung folds and it isn't a gimmick. The huge screens make a difference. I loved being able to point the point at any angle, rest it on a surface and take photos of myself without needing to ask a bystander.
-
Remote trigger - specifically, the ability to press the samsung stylus buttons to take a photo. They enshittified this one though. The S25 stylus lost this feature and the ZFold 5 doesn't allow you to store the stylus inside. This paired well with folding phones because I can place the phone where ever, and take a photo from the button on the stylus.
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Better GPS & fitness tracking - I put them together because they're usually used hand-in-hand with the smartwatch. GPS is just better (agressive) now. I use it for skiing and it tells me my top speed, tracks my runs and all the standard fitness stuff down to the second. Eats your battery really fast though.
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Location based actions - Auto switching my ringtone/vibrate/notification profiles between work & home locations.
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Picture in picture - Not exactly new. But now stable in all new phones. I can have a floating window playing youtube on my phone 24x7 without affecting the smoothness of the phone.
As I type this, they're all minor.
I has a OnePlus 3T in 2017. It was a substantial improvement on every aspect of my previous smartphone experience. Between the 3T in 2017 and the S25 in 2025, Not that much has changed.
There is AI stuff ofc:
- Better camera post-processing
- Google Lens
- Google Translate
- Insane image editing (removing objects, moving people within the scene)
But for some reason that feels like its own thing.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1mo ago
Yes! And my younger cousins seem to agree. You speak of MMOs, but back then, the MMOs were special too. (Ragnarok, WOW)
IMO, media peaks in a certain era and you just have to accept it. New art forms appear to have a sweet spot at the intersection of maturity and novelty. That's when their best versions are created.
For example, take movies. They hit this sweet spot from 75-95. Jurassic Park, Rocky 1-4, Terminator 1-2, Die Hard, Shawshank, Godfather, Schindler's List, Star wars etc. There are equally great movies made after 95, but they don't have the same novelty. There are equally important movies made before 75, but they seem to lack maturity (of exploiting the art form). Afterall there are only so many stories to tell. There are only so many heart-strings to tug at.
For games, that happened between the late 90s - Mid 2000s. Half life 1 - Skyrim marked an era of special video games.
A telling sign of the end of this era is when authenticity takes a back seat to subversion & commentary. This is most stark with architecture. Mid-way through modernism (right after mid-century modern and at the beginning of Brutalism) Architecture ran out of authenticity. Sometime in an earlier era, Architecture had peaked and run out of novel ideas. So everything novel fails to evoke primal emotions and everything evocative is derivative. I see this trend with games. Where everything is about references, callbacks and subversive characters. It doesn't mean it can't be interesting or entertaining. Borderlands 1 & 2 did an amazing job at exactly this. But, it can't ground an era and wears-out-its-welcome quickly. Ofc, there are still great games (Souls-likes, Larian, etc), but ofc, they're derivative. Derivative works will never be as special as the 'the first'.
Over long time horizons, there are paradigm changes. As the core constraints and tools of a field change, it allows for novelty. But it can be decades of centuries between such paradigm shifts. Until then, a mature art form must languish between derivative and subversive.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1mo ago
The American problem is the lack of sufficient home support for this to gracefully happen
I had all the classic traits of childhood ADHD : Loud mouth yapper, easily distracted and stress-driven ultra focus. Home support alone could not have saved me. My parents had no idea what they were dealing with. The problem wasn't caused by them either. I got the same standard strict-south-Asian upbringing that turned my peers & cousins turned into compliant adults.
School should provide initial resources to help students understand their quirks. The 0->1 step can be huge, and that's where schools have the most impact. Additionally, schools see 100s of kids a year. They're best equipped to pattern match the student to their unique quirks.
Some kids can't be a fixed by parents alone.
boys who are a little too male
I suspect the same. My dad was a know-it-all Tarzan incarnate. He was always outdoors and would spend his summer in forests (literally) collecting dead butterflies & hunting rabbits. ADHD is passed down dad-to-son, and I suspect he had it too. But back in his day, he could could get all his physical energy out. I grew up in a school without a yard. Sports were banned. The contrast couldn't be starker.
I've recently found drums to be the best way to exhaust ADHD energy. Strongly recommend. That's a couple of positive anecdotes towards - "ADHD people need something to exhaust their physical energy on".
School alone is pretty ineffective
Agreed. As much as school can help equip parents and do the 101, the rest of the struggle is on the parents & the child. The school can't be handholding the child through 12 years of special education. It's not sustainable. (I can feel a suburban-sprawl / car-culture / death of community rant welling up in me. Imma shut up)
With all that being said, ADHD meds are a game changer and should be viewed as complementary to behavioral interventions.
The first time I took Vyvanse, I was bewildered by new abilities that my siblings & friends insisted all normal people are able to do without extra meds. Most importantly, the meds got my life in order so that I could spare time for learning good habits. The meds helped me follow routines, and my body started learning discipline meds-or-not. Nowadays, I skip my meds on the regular and can still salvage 70% day in a way that I never could before. I wish I'd gotten started 20 years ago. Even if I'd weaned off them, school and college would've been manageable. I would've had fewer struggles with bullying, basic orderliness and studying subjects that my ADHD brain had deemed uninteresting.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1mo ago
Agreed.
I too like Pete better. (as much as should 'like' a politician)
He doesn't shamelessly exploit his tribal membership cards. (any more than standard politician amount) It would've been easy for him to ride a 'Gay' or 'Veteran' wave, but he's stayed true to an Obama-eque eloquent-statesman image.
As a shameless YIMBY, I was surprised that he took transportation. All good transportation policies are uphill battles and the head-of-department for failure. Successful projects considered underused, wasteful & go massively overbudget. (Peak usage for new infra takes years to pick up). Failed projects have all of that and also don't get finished. By those standards, he's done a good job as transportation secretary. There was the whole FAA coverup that Trace leaked, but even he seems to like Pete. So I won't hold that one against him. Pete's also younger, and I like that.
Newsom definitely comes off as slimy. Also his California Governor term has bad optics. The zombie-ville SF & LA wildfire videos will not do him any favors. He is more likeable than Kamala & Hillary, but that's a low bar.
1 Politician vs 25 Undecided Voters
I like to think of myself as a good public speaker, but I can recognize when someone is straight up better. This guy is so good. (Obama and Trump too). Supreme wordcels. Vance is a good speaker too, but he doesn't have the necessary flair to stick his landings.
Before anyone comes around calling Pete a 'McKinsey consultant lite'.........I view that as a positive.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1mo ago
Does anyone else see the way various people on the American left, particularly left leaning media, have been doubling down on "Trump is Hitler," "Harris ran a flawless campaign," "the voters are just sexist, racist, stupid, and evil," and so on, and that they shouldn't change policies to win over voters, except maybe by moving even further leftward
I see visible splintering in the democratic party.
Pelosi (Geriatrics) & Kamala (DEI Dems) want to hold onto their remaining power. They have been doubling down. Basically milking the population for the last bits of anti-Trump hysteria that won them the 2020 population.
Younger Vanilla Dems (Pete, Newsom) think their best years are ahead of them. They are trying to gain power. They've done full U-turns on woke era issues (Pronouns, trans people in sports, DEI). Example 1 . Example 2.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1mo ago
Took a look. Damn, family based immigration is a straight exploit.
Immigrate illegally -> have a child -> wait 20 years -> get a greencard for both parents -> sponsor all the siblings and children.
It is a long con, but securely brings the whole extended family over 1-2 generations. A part of me feels thats anyone who spends 30-ish years of their life working around the system deserves a green card just for the effort . But, im not the median motte commenter.
I would have expected limits to chain immigration. Like, someone who came as a family based immigrant cant sponsor family based immigrants. Or that you can only sponsor minor siblings. But it's quite liberal. The long waitimes seem to be the only throttling tool on hand.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1mo ago
Americans think other nations can read their minds.
After Trump's tantrums, every nation is is questioning their goodwill with America.
Among nations, anti-immigration rhetoric is perceived as xenophobic rhetoric.
America first is seen as an acknowledgement of American transactionality in every partnership.
Philippines is our little brown brothers
This is infantilizing. It has a population and GDP equivalent to Vietnam, a nation to whom America lost its most recent war in the Indo-pacific.
Non-western nations understand that white lives matter more. That's why Ukraine was important. If America is okay with letting whites die in Ukraine, then there are going to be objectively fewer fucks to give when brown nations are in crisis. America's strongest military alliance (NATO) is Trump's hobby horse to beat on. Why would a non-NATO nation be treated any better ?
If China is the to be the next global superpower, it makes sense for Philippines to ally with a natural trading partner next door, rather than their colonial ex-masters on the other side of the world.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1mo ago
China has technical excellence and no taste. (at least in the way that the west can appreciate)
- In few fields, they have both technical excellence and taste - Mobiles (Nothing phone, Oxygen OS, Xiaomi Mix phones), Drones (DJI)
- In most fields they have technical excellence and don't require taste - Most medium-skill manufacturing & shipping.
- In the remaining fields they have technical excellence and no taste - Cars (Xiaomi SU7 Ultra, MG Roadster), Animation (Gaming & Entertainment), music
Black Myth Wukong & NeZha 2 were major points of contention because people couldn't decide if they were sufficient indicators of taste. The arguments scissored on if you believe taste is universal or cultural. IE. Should Chinese expression of taste be understandable from a western lens ?
never truly be a more attractive partner than America
Which was the crux of my original post. An America that believes in so called 'American values' is irresistible. Trump's America is not that. Trump's America is not an attractive place. (specifically this 2nd iteration).
constrained by what the American voting public can stomach
The possibilities for what voting Americans can stomach has expanded toa point of discomfort with Trump's return to power. Perceptions matter. China's boogeyman status is based on perceptions / propaganda (whataboutism around Tiananmen) and so is America's 'prosperity for all' free world order. I agree with your impression of China. But, nations can be oddly shortsighted when China comes knocking with a wad of cash in tow.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1mo ago
to facilitate the transfer of US military resources from Europe to the Pacific
Why do it in a roundabout manner ? The cold-war with China is in full swing. It's 10 years too late for appearances.
the adults actually have everything under control at all times
Has that ever been true? Vietnam, Afghanistan & Iraq were net negatives for the US. The country has a storied tradition of wasting money in ways that 'adults' would deem unwise.
this was a genuinely impulsive decision on Trump's part, and that he's not following any particular ideological roadmap.
Same here. Trump (and those who he listens to) is a tactical genius and strategic buffoon. He's good at bullying as a means of getting small wins. But, he lacks the patience for grand games. His evaluation of the world is simple and myopic.
<semi_rant_begins>
China's rise and its inevitable challenge to America's supremacy had kicked off by 1978. Their current momentum has been half-a-century in the making. It took the half-century before that for America to build Pax-Americana into what it is (was?) today. Even at full-throttle it will take America ~2 decades to craft a new public image of itself. Trump wants to draw new cards. But, the old cards were good, and it may take a few draws before America finds itself with good cards again. In the short term., change will likely be for the worst And if the cards don't work out, the long term might be doomed as well.
Think about it, 2015 America was in a great place. The first world wanted nothing to do with China. There was balance.
Western Europe, Japan, SK & America were aligned in keeping China at arms lengths from their markets. BRICS nations were seen as long-term possible contenders to the first world. South Africa is aligned with the west. India didn't get along with China. Brazil's location makes it naturally align with America. Russia allied with China, but had delusions of grandeur that kept it from ever being subservient.
In this world, even if China had won, who would be in its umbrella ? Iran, Pakistan, Russia, SEA, Africa & some South American countries ? That's the grand alliance ? What did America have to fear ? Between South Asia, Poland, Turkey & HispanAmerica.... the 1st world had enough mid-industrialization partners for outsourcing low-margin industries. If robotics automation stayed on track, the 1st world's requirement for offshore labor would've ended right as these aforementioned nations became too expensive for outsourcing. Biden ran a cluster-fuck of a govt. But, the pre-2016 neolib consensus seemed to be doing just fine.
In 2025, I'm not so sure.
Will Europe, Canada & HispanAmerican nations seek opportunistic short-term deals elsewhere, instead of operating within America's umbrella ? China has a lot of money to throw around. Canada could solve its housing problem if it formally allowed Chinese nationals to park money here. Europe could make their money go further if they opened up to Chinese shopping portals like Temu and embraced Chinese electronics (Huawei, Xiaomi). Chinese belt-and-road style loans might start looking tempting to feudal countries if their elites weren't America educated (and therefore America aligned). Small nations would get on their knees and suck Xi off if China offered to divert the fire-hose of Chinese tourists to their nations. India could adopt a China-style make-everything-in-house strategy going forward. It wouldn't take it to first-world-dom, but it could operate within its means. India is poor, but 1.5 billion is a lot of consumers.
America dominates many sectors, but it is especially powerful in Tech and Entertainment. Guess what, both sectors are trivial to disrupt. Semi conductors, Pharmaceuticals and Heavy engineering take decades to build excellence in. But tech and entertainment can be disrupted overnight.
It would take less than 2 years for China to offer full replacements for O365, AWS and Windows. They already have competent alternatives for Facebook, Google, Tesla & Apple ready to go. Where would that leave the magnificent 7? With NeZha 2 & BlackMyth, they're already showing technical excellence in entertainment. Yes, America tells better stories, but that's only because American stories resonate. If Trump continues being a bully, will anyone want to see the next Rocky 4 or Captain America ?
I still don't get what was so broken about America that Elon & Trump needed to turn everything on its head.
<\semi_rant_ends>
horror stories from Canadians
I've posted about this extensively on TheMotte. But here it goes again.
Since the 70s, Canada has imported India's lowest-skilled. While Indians were considered model immigrants everywhere else, Canadian-Indians were busy committing 9/11-level terrorist acts. Canadian-Indian bad actors are part of a large web of criminal gangs, human trafficking rings, and drug distribution cartels. Trudeau turbocharged this problem by opening the floodgates. In India, the flight of uneducated and unskilled migrants to Canada was rampant enough to become a meme. Many among us (governments included) warned Canada that these channels were being exploited to facilitate crime. Trudeau did not heed our advice. The outcomes are a result of Canada's stubbornness.
Indian immigrants in other nations do not have the same demographics. They're well-integrated, peaceful, and high-earning versus conservative, uneducated, and of flexible morality. Of course, #NOTMOSTCANADIANS, but you get my point. Projecting Canada's problems with ethnic Indians onto other nations makes no sense, and the statistical differences prove my point (crime, earnings, education).
50% of the extant population in my county was supplemented with Indians like Canada has seen.
Ethnic Indians are 5% of Canada's population.
If the stories of off-the-boat Indians shitting in bodies of water like it's just what you do are true, it's fucked.
You're scared of the bogeyman. These people don't exist.
I have never met an Indian who shits in bodies of water. I've never seen it among people I know in India, let alone outside the country. The kind of Indian who does it can't speak one sentence in English, let alone get a passport or a visa to ever exit the nation. I don't want to laugh at their misfortune. Street-shitters are a desperate and downtrodden class of people. They're barely tolerated in AC restaurants in India, let alone a foreign nation.
"You can't make me go back! Anything but that!" attitude of second-generation Indian-Americans is profound.
Ah, I'll leave this for another day. The ABC vs. Chinese or ABCD vs. Indians conversation is strongly colored by insecurity, ungroundedness, and colonial mindsets. For now, I'll say that it has little to do with their dislike of India. India (and developing nations in general) run on survivalist mentalities based around class systems. Second-generation Indians are insecure about their place at the top of the survivalist-Indian hierarchy. Their actions should always be viewed with that fact in mind.
And then there is the shameless nepotism and scamming. It's more or less known that if you make the mistake of putting an Indian in charge of hiring, suddenly your company is hiring only Indians. That most resumes from Indians and credentials from institutions that service mostly Indians are completely fake and can't be trusted. I've seen repeated stories out of Canada that local education institutions, which have leaned into servicing Indians, have become so overrun with fraud that employers have begun just chucking applications from those institutions in the garbage. Been burned too many times.
You have causality backward. White people are unwilling to work for wages that desperate Indians agree to. This makes it so that the only people who meet the hiring bar and are willing to accept the wages are Indian immigrants. Similarly, Tier 3 Canadian institutions start cash-cow programs with little educational, career, or prestige value. The only kind of person who sees value in such a program is someone with ulterior motives. The program gets fraud-friendly candidates because it’s structured to only draw fraud-friendly candidates.
Detached from the outcome attitude.
While we're exchanging anecdotes, my experience has been the opposite. Doctors back in India are caring, invested, and treat you like a human. I've found American doctors to be cold and impatient.
I've never had an experience where an Indian went one millimeter outside of the minimum of their job description to service a customer.
My experience couldn't be more different. My Indian (and first-gen Chinese) coworkers clearly work harder and produce higher-quality outcomes than the natives. But the natives keep getting rewarded because the company can't afford to lose citizens.
The Viveks of the world speak in broad terms that these Indian workers are just better than me.
Yeah, Vivek felt resentful and hurt in his comments. I don't agree with his comments, but I can see how your average white person would feel attacked by it. Fair enough.
My way of life is disappearing, my culture is being squeezed out, my history is being erased, my co-ethnics aren't reproducing.
Yeah, it has to do with your co-ethnics. Indians (among other first-gen immigrants) are more spiritual, family-oriented, and 90s-American-like than native 2025 Americans. Your complaints are rooted in Gen Z Americans rejecting classically American values. Don’t point to us immigrants. This is all you. If it is any solace, this seems to be a global problem. Everywhere, urban kids of the next generation are rejecting ideas that their 'elders' held close to their hearts. Time is ruthless.
I've seen very little self-awareness from Indians about what they are really fleeing from or what makes them different.
I see your point. For every Indian who seeks integration, there are smart and educated Indians who ghettoize. It's how immigration works. Jews, Italians, Cubans, etc.—they all ghettoized in their first generation. In time, they integrate.
I don’t agree with your Japan analogy, though. America exported every part of its culture for a whole century. It forcefully molded workers at other English-speaking corporations into pseudo-Americans. America is a 'global' phenomenon. Irrespective of the truth, that’s the image it portrays and sells. If immigrants drink the Kool-Aid, then that’s on America for shoving it down our throats. You might argue that this was the doing of the filthy globalists, and it isn’t the will of 'true' Americans. But to me, that just sounds like you saying that you're a powerless normie who is angry about being powerless in their country. If you didn’t want to be flag bearers of globalism for 50 years, then you should've found your way to power and reversed the trend. Even in 2025, Trump may cosplay as a nativist, but he's as global coastal elite as they come.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1mo ago
I've heard of deals around $50k in New Jersey. It's not that bad. You need to give your wife a good life for 3-4 years, and then you can divorce on amicable terms.
I dislike it for the same reason I dislike drastic changes in general.
It's supposed to replace the existing EB-5. Stable regulatory environments are central to being considered business-friendly. People plan their business around the stability of the EB-5. Drastic changes to the regulatory environment does permanent damage to a nation's perception as being business worthy. Now, the US has a big dick, oodles of goodwill and a strong precedent of stability. So these changes may not cause visible damage in the short term. But, it accelerates the long-term cultural shift away from the US and towards the Indo-Pacific. These changes take decades, but their impact can be felt immediately in the aftermath of trigger events. Covid was one such example.
Secondly, I'm not sure it will have takers. Around the world, there are around 400k (UHNWI) Ultra-high-net worth-individuals. (People with more than $30 million). Americans, Chinese and Europeans constitute a majority of them. Americans and Europeans don't want a new passport & are at war with China. That leaves about 50k people in the rest of the world, who would want the Gold Card. Most Gold-card/EB-5 equivalents are investment visas. Looking at the announcement, the $5 million seems to be a direct spend instead of an investment. That's a lot of money down the drain, and rich people don't throw money down the drain. Why wouldn't someone get a citizenship for EU nation or Canada instead ?
Overall, it's a great option if the EB-5 coexists alongside it. Terrible if it replaces the EB-5.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1mo ago
My accusations weren't this strong, but I've made similar points.
Altman having a child changes things. I welcome Altman to the 'pseudo-visceral stake in the future club'. Congrats to him and his husband.
I'm in support of gay men adopting children and adopting rituals of traditional marriage. Yes, they're only nominally monogamous, but that's good enough for me. I prefer an effort to maintain optics of normalcy, instead of forcing the culture to accept a public lifestyle that's way outside the overton window. Don't care about what happens behind closed doors. I've seen a few twitter dog-whistles accusing him (and gay men in general) of being pedo groomers. Real unsavory stuff.
It doesn't change that Altman comes across as a uncanny-valley predator (in a lizard person sort of way), but that's par for the course for billionaire tech CEOs. Can't exactly fault him for that.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1mo ago
Speculation: The UK was in the midst of massive decolonization. I'd make sense to conservatively ration food if you're in the midst of a divorce from your agricultural suppliers.
DirtyWaterHotDog
1mo ago
Is it a stereotype if it's true ?
Yes, but that's because they believe they can have their cake (their Indianess, communities ties) and eat it too (be in a clean & wealthy place).
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