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PlanksVariable

133 karma · joined September 11, 2025

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PlanksVariable··on Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says
I'm saying most people are motivated by self interest, not that you have nothing to offer in return.
PlanksVariable··on Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says
Both the far right and far left throw around accusations of "ethnic cleansing." Both are ridiculous, but considering the U.S. population shifted from 85% white to 55% white in the last few decades, and even today most immigrants come from Mexico, India, China, etc., there really doesn't seem to be much evidence that we're actively trying to limit the flow of non-white people into America. Besides that, there are valid reasons why people want to limit or increase immigration that don't justify hysterical accusations of ethnic cleansing.
PlanksVariable··on Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says
More people are impacted by mass immigration than immigrants and employers.
PlanksVariable··on Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says
The reality is many people come on temporary visas, as tourists, as students, etc., and overstay. This policy is some attempt to address flows of quasi-legal immigration.

It's unfortunate there's friction to the process, but it's by design. 15% of American citizens and permanent residents are foreign born, the highest it's been in 50+ years, so people are successfully making it through the process. Ideally we'd have better levers to (1) modulate the rate of immigration, (2) simplify the process of legal immigration, and (3) still somehow limiting illegal immigration, quasi-legal immigration, overstays, etc. This is not the ideal solution.

> it feels necessary to say: people who come here to contribute their skills and experience don't all come along on an H1-B/L1

Do people migrate to "contribute their skills" to a foreign country, or to improve their lives? Maybe I'm a cynic, but I suspect the vast majority of people throughout history have migrated to improve their lives, not to altruistically benefit a foreign country. And that's fine, that's normal. It's what motivates people, and the U.S. has a long history of being shaped by ambitious people, especially immigrants, who wanted to improve their lot in life.

> nor do they only come from white or european countries.

I don't know if that's necessary to be said, because who thinks that? In recent decades, 85%-90% of immigrants to the U.S. are not white. >90% if you include undocumented immigrants. The trajectory of America from a white majority to white minority country is fueling at least some of the immigration backlash today. But I think for most people, it's a feeling (right or wrong) that jobs becoming harder to find, houses are becoming harder to afford, and more and more people are competing for fewer resources.

PlanksVariable··on Google's Antigravity bait and switch
The Claude Code CLI is very popular. Are they aiming to make it more like that?
PlanksVariable··on Wired headphone sales are exploding
“If people are defecting to wired from EarPods”

This assumes that people are switching from wireless to wired headphones organically, and the main assertion of the article (wired headphones are popular again) isn’t actually manufactured.

Although it’s possible Apple influenced the article, it makes no sense for them to push the “wired over wireless” narrative. AirPods are a $25B/year business with very high profit margins. EarPods are a tiny fraction of that, and it’s not worth manufacturing a narrative that undermines their successful AirPods business even for the chance of upselling.

PlanksVariable··on 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
And for how many more years are we going to be calling this a post-Covid market correction?
PlanksVariable··on 2026 tech layoffs reach 45,000 in March
Surprised it took this long. I feel bad for the employees, but I can’t remember the last success they had. Metaverse, VR, throwing absurd money at AI and for what?
PlanksVariable··on Wired headphone sales are exploding
So who is the client? In all of the article’s photos of celebrities, they’re wearing Apple EarPods. Is Apple trying to convince people to buy their $19 EarPods instead of their $250 AirPods?
PlanksVariable··on 60 Minutes Havana Syndrome report finds U.S. government tested energy weapon
Yes.
PlanksVariable··on What Happened to Fry's Electronics
I just left a similar comment about my local Fry’s in California. They replaced all the employees, who had been knowledgeable and helpful, with people who knew absolutely nothing about the products. I thought maybe it was just at our store, shame to hear it happened all over.
PlanksVariable··on What Happened to Fry's Electronics
They replaced all the workers at our local Fry’s with people who knew nothing about the products, weren’t friendly, and often spoke little English. It was odd. I don’t know that it happened at all Fry’s our just ours.

But online shopping became so convenient, more and more of my purchases started going through Newegg and Amazon.

PlanksVariable··on Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
Crashing the economy? In the past year the S&P 500 rose 14%, unemployment is at 4.4%, and inflation is around 2.7%. There are many things to criticize Trump for but the economy has not actually crashed.
PlanksVariable··on Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
Yes, and also pushing identity politics down voters’ throats, selecting an inept candidate without a primary, their desperate attempts to buy votes with debt forgiveness, and opening the border, which escalated to a full-blown crisis leading into election season.

If we extrapolate Trump’s health today compared to where he was at just a year or two ago, I think Republicans will face the same dilemma the Democrats did soon. It will be interesting to see how they handle it.

PlanksVariable··on Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
Isn’t the VP generally the shoe-in nominee? Vance lacks charisma and gravitas, but he only has to be better than the Democratic candidate. For every Bill and Barack, the Democrats have also given us a Kamala, Hillary, and Al. Never underestimate their ability to pick a loser.
PlanksVariable··on ICE using Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid data
I agree, but I’m clarifying the facts: they’re claiming an administrative warrant gives them authority to enter a house, not no warrant as OP stated.
PlanksVariable··on ICE using Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid data
They currently use administrative warrants but I’m in favor of requiring judicial warrants.
PlanksVariable··on ICE using Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid data
Immigrants do bring important social and cultural capital. But nobody here is arguing in favor of no immigration.

The standard among countries all over the world is to regulate the flow of immigration via immigration law and deportation of people who violate that law.

How could a massive influx of people happening faster than a system can react not strain the system? I saw this firsthand in schools and hospitals where I grew up, and there are numerous examples throughout history from around the world of the disruption it can cause.

PlanksVariable··on ICE using Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid data
The question is about deporting illegal immigrants specifically, i.e. people who are in a country in violated of its immigration laws.

I think the main benefit is the same as with any law: if you have a law with no consequences for the people who break it, you don’t really have a law. If we don’t have immigration laws, we have an open border and with an open border, we can’t regulate the rate at which people enter the country. This rate can easily exceed the amount that the country reasonably accommodate, which negative impact on housing, healthcare, welfare, transportation, civic cohesion, and education systems.

Immigration law is standard around the world, with deportation being the standard response to people who violate that law. The more interesting question here is how you think a modern country will function and continue serving the needs of its citizens when it stops enforcing its immigration laws.

PlanksVariable··on ICE using Palantir tool that feeds on Medicaid data
Why? Deportation is a reasonable response when a person violates a country’s immigration laws. That is the standard around the world.

Alternatively, you have an essentially open border, which obviously can lead to unmanageable waves of immigration that strain a country’s housing, healthcare, schools, welfare, and other resources, among other effects.

Disruption to peoples’ lives happens when we have administrations who arbitrarily decide not to enforce the immigration law (e.g. the previous administration). It sends mixed signals to potential immigrants, and leads to the outcomes we have today when we decide to resume enforcing our laws.

PlanksVariable··on 'The old order is not coming back,' Carney says in speech at Davos
Counting deportations is half the equation. If Biden was deporting roughly as many people as Trump, but there are 4X as many people crossing the border, it wasn’t good enforcement. Look at net illegal immigration to get the impact, and it’s estimated the number of illegal immigrants increased by 3.5 million people during Biden’s term.
PlanksVariable··on 'The old order is not coming back,' Carney says in speech at Davos
During Obama’s presidency ICE wasn’t dealing with protestors actively interfering with day-to-day operations in cities throughout the country. Remove the protestors, and the probability of a civilian getting shot goes to ~0. Of course dozens of non-citizens died during those years.

I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make with your data. The first doesn’t even cover Biden’s term, which again, is what I’m talking about. The second is extremely disingenuous because doesn’t take net illegal immigration into account. Even if Biden deported a similar number of people as Trump, he let far more people in: the net number of illegal immigrants in the country during Biden’s term is estimated to have risen by 3.5 million people.

When is the last time you questioned your priors?

PlanksVariable··on 'The old order is not coming back,' Carney says in speech at Davos
Yes, Obama increased deportations, and deported people at a faster rate than Trump. But that’s completely irrelevant when we’re talking about the Biden administration, who did not continue this policy, who reversed it, who allowed an unprecedented number of illegal immigrants through his executive orders and policy set by Mayorkas, with many millions more granted asylum status with reduced vetting. This was not reported by the news media until it inevitably reached crisis level.

The very fact that Obama deported more immigrants, and Trump is deporting fewer but with riots in the streets should clue you in to the effect that media has over you.

PlanksVariable··on 'The old order is not coming back,' Carney says in speech at Davos
Your actions have consequences. But who could have seen that coming?
PlanksVariable··on 'The old order is not coming back,' Carney says in speech at Davos
Sure, recent past administrations enforced border protections and prioritized deporting immigrants with criminal records. And that’s irrelevant.

The Biden administration did neither. They took active measures to strip the Customs and Border Protection Agency of its scope and authority through executive order from their first day in office. Their policies directly led to over 2.4 million border encounters in 2023 alone, the most ever recorded in the history of the country.

This wasn’t policy they campaigned on or announced. It wasn’t something the American people wanted, and it polled terribly even among Democrats. But they did it anyway.

Conversely, Trump had the voter’s mandate to secure the border when he entered office, but he’s managed it so poorly, created terrible optics, and has Democrats marching in the streets in every major U.S. city in support of illegal immigration. The Republicans make the Democrats look like PR masters by comparison.

PlanksVariable··on Anthropic's original take home assignment open sourced
And Anthropic will never land heavyset_go with their attitude. I guess we’re at an impasse.
PlanksVariable··on 'The old order is not coming back,' Carney says in speech at Davos
Who said Trump hires the best people for the job? That’s not what I said.
PlanksVariable··on 'The old order is not coming back,' Carney says in speech at Davos
You could make a case that January 6th was a catastrophe.

But a Trump-led coup? That’s quite a reach. I’m sure Trump got a thrill from the show of support. But I don’t believe even Trump thought those protestors could stage a successful a coup and overthrow the U.S. government. It’s fantasy.

PlanksVariable··on 'The old order is not coming back,' Carney says in speech at Davos
The first message is “don’t open the border.” People don’t want an open border. Not in America, not anywhere else. If there weren’t videos of thousands of people streaming across the border every day during Biden’s presidency, we wouldn’t be dealing with Trump 2.0 today.

Second, don’t announce to the world you’re limiting your VP search to Black women, or any other Constitution-violating hiring criteria. Americans are tired of identity politics. And you’ve done a disservice to your running mate because they’ll be labeled as a “DEI hire” instead of the best person for the job.

Third, don’t nominate an idiot as your running mate.

Fourth, don’t force the idiot running mate on the world as a presidential candidate because you hid the president’s cognitive decline until the last possible moment in a humiliating live TV debate.

I could go on, but you probably get the message.

PlanksVariable··on 'The old order is not coming back,' Carney says in speech at Davos
Were Biden and Obama accurate representations of the median American when they won? Isn’t that a contradiction?
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