base698

The big two, one of which is not found by DOGE: 1) USAID turned it's overseas propaganda network inward after the 2016 election (InterNews is one of primary orgs). There was a theory on the new/dissident right that the consistent messaging across academia and the news networks was because of a concept called "the cathedral". It was similar to the iron polygon but a fusing of the bureaucracy and press/academia. This theory, which I bought, seems to be wrong. It turns out it was just good old fashion money and people with guns. Mike Benz was on a press tour discussing it a couple of months ago. Maybe that was by design to help get the word out given it seems to be an early target. In addition, politicians are directly on boards of charities funded by USAID, in some cases pulling in 500k salaries. So the whole thing seems to work like a patronage network. Part of the database is online and searchable here: https://datarepublican.com/ if you want to know if any of your local charities are funded by it. That account regularly interacts with Elon and direct action seems to have come from it. 2) There appears to be $100b in entitlement payments to entities with no SSN. Seems to be directly from DOGE Apparently Musk bought ads for Superbowl with his own money to explain some of it.

Weird read on it: > I just had a good call with President Trump. Canada is implementing our $1.3 billion border plan — reinforcing the border with new choppers, technology and personnel, enhanced coordination with our American partners, and increased resources to stop the flow of fentanyl. Nearly 10,000 frontline personnel are and will be working on protecting the border. > In addition, Canada is making new commitments to appoint a Fentanyl Czar, we will list cartels as terrorists, ensure 24/7 eyes on the border, launch a Canada- U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering. I have also signed a new intelligence directive on organized crime and fentanyl and we will be backing it with $200 million. > Proposed tariffs will be paused for at least 30 days while we work together https://x.com/JustinTrudeau/status/1886529228193022429

People use telephones to sell drugs, maybe you'd advocate putting telecom execs in jail? Ross got more time than El Chapo and some of the evidence brought to light was fabricated. He did 12 years as a first time offender. Think he paid his due.

Do you support intelligence officials who are supposed to be non partisan distributing propaganda for one party over another? What about drumming up support for a war on false pretenses, ala Iraq?

There's a lot of talk about this in conservative circles online. It's referred to sometimes as "ideologies" fulfilling the void left by "God is Dead" of the postmodern era. Veganism, transgenderism, CrossFit and even skydiving fill the void. Skydiving has real sacrifice and sometimes the angry sky gods punish indescriminitely for no reason, despite doing everything correctly. The punishment for the sin of 200 jump wonder on a cross braced canopy can be swift as well. Always thought it mapped nicely as a religion replacement when I was younger.

The capital class shipped all the manufacturing jobs to Mexico and Asia depending on industry. When the peasants complain they just say, but robots will take your job or we will bring in more immigrants! Learn to code dummy! Oh wait, now we will import those too. Glad you are too unmotivated to revolt, and when you knock over some barrier ropes in the Capitol we can clutch our pearls about it being worse than Pearl harbor then bring in even more people. The only people that can live like a 1990s truck driver with a below average IQ are immigrants willing to work half market rate because they have some fake qualifications. Before anyone suggests it, yes I generally agree with a minimum wage that matches inflation, but I don't know how that fixed driving 2 hours to your McDonald's job in a metro willing to pay it.

I didn't say genius level, I said top 5%. Iirc genius is a 150 IQ which from a Google is somewhere between 1% and 0.1%. I'm fine with the bar being 1% if that's what you are arguing. I'm trying to allow for mistakes and bad days and setting the bar at 5%.

It doesn't appear to be rigorous in all cases. I've worked with H1Bs that are incredibly competent but it's the exception and not the rule. Coupled with some of the cheats like Infosys and the sheer number I've seen, I find it hard to believe it's not abused en masse. I was at a cafe at Amazon and it was almost 80% Indian. About two decades ago I was on a team at Verizon that had 3 white people out of 40, the rest Indian H1B. They primarily hired agency so the H1B was held by the agency and not Verizon. A lot of people I've worked with end up citizens (H1B is supposed to be non immigrant). A H1B on my team I gave the renewal for just reached out for a reference. She worked with me longer than six years ago and still doesn't have a green card. I know a lot of H1Bs that are here longer than a decade.

It's the 95th percentile. Top 5% seems like a good line.

There should be tests that allow people in that are sufficiently rigorous. Illegal is sufficiently vague. Did they rape someone or get caught up working long hours at a startup?

I'm not making an argument that it's always been this way just the form of a particular type of killer changes. The subset of incel type killers in particular.

Elon had a 1400 on the SAT. That's about the bar where we should let people in. There are probably other tests (Google interview would be an example) that would make sense, so long as Google isn't using it to suppress wages. Transparency would go a long way.

That would be the incel mentioned above. To be more explicit evil exists and takes whatever form of the society around it religious or not. Today it's columbine style school shooters before 1990s it was serial killers. https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-explains-the-decline-of-serial-killers

Yes. That pool is much smaller depending on where the line is drawn. Melania vs a couple of thousand home coming queens.

Tested against whatever your favorite benchmark: Google interview panel, IQ Test, SAT, all of them you don't think he would score high enough to warrant admission? It's reported he got a 1420 on the SAT which puts him in the top 5%. I'm fine bringing whoever over if they can raise/bring money to start a business or if say the cap is $200K a year on salaries. I don't think we should bring retail managers or basic development jobs over.

Choose the form of your destructor. In an Islamic society you get suicide vest bombers. In our society you get disaffected young men shooting up schools. Numerous myths cover the phenomenon.

I think it's more helpful to classify which oligarchs form a symbiosis with the movements. Tea Party was solidly from the Koch era. GW Bush was an era by oil and gas, defense. Team blue had finance, tech, academia and media through most of the 2000s. The new tech side grew in power in this time and the old guard wanted to bring them to heel. You see things like Zuckerberg being brought before Congress and beat into submission. What you see today is a new class, the new tech, not getting their due and in some cases revolting the pressure put on them by the old guard. A subset revolted (Thiel, Elon, Andresson) and has now remade the Republican party. The party in 2024 is not the same as 2010 or 2001.

If the only solution can be the elimination of guns then why does it matter how they happen and other alternatives to stopping them?

Do you expect Elon, who has created trillions in value for the US, including I assume hundreds of thousands/millions for you, wouldn't meet the standard? Do you also assume Melania would not meat the standard of being a rich guy's wife? Are these cases different than bringing cashiers making $45k over or an Indian developer working on an accounting database for $120k a year?

I still consider myself an independent. I was anti neocon/establishment when it was a left leaning movement focused on anti corporate and anti war. I stayed and the left went corporate medicine, corporate media, and corporate everything. I say that as a corporate whore myself. I just don't want my employer who already has absolute power to enter my home and state life.

I've always thought it was a great miss of that data set that the type of incident is not recorded, only demographic data. An incel that walks into a school and shoots children or shoots up a movie theater is different than a gang shooting or workplace violence. The solution to stopping them may be totally different for different types of shootings.

Elon replied to this thread: https://x.com/RobertMSterling/status/1873175206073626660 The summary: there are about 10x the H1Bs as is supposed to be. 800kish vs 80k. Mostly weighted in tech with second highest being accounting. The average pay is relatively low for tech at $120k. 75% of which are less than 150k. Reading through subreddits with a high concentration of new graduates they seem completely unable to find employment, even students from top schools with a 4.0. In my circle most of the employees that were newer or without a solid background (good school with some experience) have been unable to find work after layoffs. I do not believe we should be importing nearly a million people at below market rates into an environment which is challenging for our own graduates. Elon replied to the above and added he was talking more about the higher skilled and stated the H1B needs actual standards and was aware of its abuse.

Over the years I've had jobs that allowed for periodic work from home. Nothing that was on a fixed schedule but if you had a repair man coming to your house, or wanted to go to a boogie across the country they would usually allow it. I went remote in March of 2020, at the time I held a director level position at a fortune 10. Managing people remotely was slightly less challenging than I expected, but knowing what was going on outside the org was impossible. I've switched jobs twice since. The first was trying on remote and known for being cutthroat. While there they forced me to move back to the West Coast and I declined so I found a new job. Onboarding to a new company is impossible remote. If the company is good at it it's still difficult getting to know people if you aren't there. As a remote worker there is no chance you run into someone randomly and discover a place they can help you or you them. Even putting faces to names is difficult. Remote work life ranges from completely normal, to complete slacking to dystopian hell. Certain employees that have task queues and monitoring and forced cameras on all day can't enjoy living like that. I definitely couldn't work like that. If you have reasonable demands, accountability and are left your own devices then it is amazing being able to see your kids and wife at lunch. Given Elon's stance, what he did at Twitter, and what he likely is going to do at the federal government I will be surprised if a.remote job is possible in 4 years. The trend is certainly away from it. People have less tolerance for seeing a $180k a year project manager or HR girl flaunting working from a pool on TikTok. The demands are going to be higher from now on.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/prison-and-crime-much-more-than-you TL;DR As a deterrent no. As incapacitation, some times. Hiring more police is more effective use of tax payer money.