Fair enough. I've only ever had experience with construction in the SE region (FL, GA, MO, etc). I've honestly never even met a farmer. Perhaps it's different. Or we can't generalize everyone by absolute statements.

In Florida DeSantis passed a bill this year or last year that made it a crime to drive an illegal to and from work. What happened is a mini-exodus of illegal laborers as they were scared of FL.

Immediately after stage legislature reps basically openly said "don't worry this law is symbolic please don't leave"

The anti-immigrant this is mostly a way to rile up their base. Ultimately the GOP (and DNC) have to respect the monied interests. Very large companies who indirectly benefit from illegal labor stand to lose a lot from deporting illegals. Ie AT&T doesn't hire illegals. But they have a contractor to build a fiber network in a city. That contractor doesn't hire illegals. But they have a subcontractor who does. When you ripple your way down eventually you have illegals.

Prices for many things will go up for every Americans as well, which is dangerous for politicians.

If price of labor goes up, everything goes up with it. And while a small portion of workers will see increased wages (low skill, low wage laborers), the net effect would inevitably be higher prices for majority of Americans.

GOP understands this. That's why I think their strategy of using this as a rallying cry to drum up the xenophobia is such stupid short-term thinking.

It will eventually get to the point you'll be forced to shoot yourself in the foot. It's madness.

Right now majority of the people in this country support the mass deportation of all illegals. Not just GOP, majority of everyone.

That would inevitably mean detention centers (aka concentration camps) in all major urban centers where tens of thousands of illegals would be held until they could be deported.

Even if you used 10% of all airplanes in this country, it could take over a year to get rid of them all.

Realistically, we're talking about putting millions of people into camps for years.

It's madness we've all gone mad

In my experience Republicans with skin in the game who understand how the bread gets buttered aren't as xenophobic as the poor ones.

For example I work in construction and many projects would grind to a halt without illegal labor. Everyone implicitly understands this so we all agree to look the other way.

Illegals are willing to work harder jobs, work with more enthusiasm, and with lower pay. Costs of construction would skyrocket without them.

The most xenophobic ones are the ones that feel threatened by the presence of illegals. Ie low skill and low wage.

Did everyone just collectively agree to forget 2016? The polls were all favoring Clinton by a dramatic margin. CNN famously had a headline where they predicted Clinton had a 99% chance to win off of the polls.

And what ended up happening? 538 (before bought and neutered by ABC) gave the odds 65-35 or so, in Clinton's favor. Trump ended up winning that 35%. This year, according to polls, Trump's odds are better than in 2016. Kamala has the upper hand, but

A) lots of things can change suddenly before the election (like the Hilary emails thing)

B) polls are not the ultimate arbiter of who will win an election- actual real votes are

C) Trump more than likely has some "extracurricular plans" in store, much like Jan 6th, that has a chance of working.

Tldr: don't get drunk on positive news. Keep a level head and you'll see this election is still very close to a coin flip

People believe just because someone interacts with some sort of digital device, it makes you an expert on computers. The thing is, it depends on the type of operating system you are interacting with.

For example when I was young, my father would buy those big old gray computers from yard sales. I would mix and match the pieces inside to build my own PC. I broke a lot of shit but learned a lot.

The operating system was one where you more or less had total control over the computer. By 12~13 I was using CD-Roms to load different Linux distros and play around with all sorts of different things.

This experience basically taught me how operating systems work at a fundamental level. How it needs a kernel, how it loads and maintains services, packages, etc. How file systems work and learning how terminals are useful. Scripting languages, and eventually coding applications.

Compare and contrast that to the young kids of today. What do they get? A phone and a tablet. You can't open it up. You can't tinker with it. The OS is closed off and is deliberately made as difficult as possible to modify. No mouse, no keyboard. Streamlined UIs with guard rails.

You get what you get and you don't get upset. That doesn't leave nearly as much room for exploration and curiosity. It's a symptom of our computers becoming more and more railroaded. More and more control by large companies.

It's really sad, I think. Fairly soon I believe every device will be a "thin device" or essentially a chrome book. Very little local processing power and instead it'll essentially stream from a server.

Americans love dogs. Even the brainwashed MAGA loonies. I can't believe she is a successful politician and thought this would be an OK thing to include in a book.

Usually psychos who make it into power understand the public sentiment enough to hide certain things like this.

Maybe it was a calculated risk- an attempt at courting controversy like Trump does and just dramatically backfired.

It's sort of like how YouTube ran at a loss for a long time. The idea is to get ingrained in the market and make up the money later.

Right now Meta has the best VR / AR that is easily accessible. If some new idea or technology catapults VR into a more popular position, then Meta is in a prime position to take advantage.

Will that happen? I don't know, but Meta seems to think so.

I think it's a short-sighted move by Universal. Granted, maybe they know something we don't (Tiktok getting banned soon), but the benefit in TikTok for artists isn't necessarily the revenue but the promotion of their songs. They are short clips, usually no more than 15~20 seconds long. Lots of people use the songs in their videos, lots more people listen to a clip and want to listen to the full thing -> they go to youtube or apple music or whatever where Universal presumably would make a much larger share of the revenue.

There are lots of ways to hide money and protect your assets, and many of them perfectly legal.

Lot of it stems from laws made to protect regular people in debt (bankruptcy laws, getting rid of debtors prison, etc) but people with money use them too

Imo it's a worthwhile price. Otherwise credit cards would just take money straight from your wages if they could.

And who doesn't do it?

OSS operating systems. The more proprietary software you run, the less and less you actually own your computer and the more it becomes a tool to advance the interests of megacorps.

This is why I don't trust any government trying to justify any warlike behavior. It's all a scam. There is no justification good enough for civilians and young men to suffer and die.

The politicians play chess and we die

America is a country with over 300 million people and it's bigger than Western Europe. There's going to be a lot of variance. Someone growing up wealthy in San Fransisco is going to live in a different America than someone growing up with a single waitress mother in Louisiana.

The average homicide rate in the US is 5 per 100,000. The town of Boca Raton, FL has a homicide rate of 1 (less than half of the European average of 2.5) and Baltimore / St Louis / New Orleans can sometimes reach 30+ on bad years (worse than some Brazilian and Mexican cities).

When you ask about the shitty laws, we have to remember that the US is almost like 50 different countries in one. Every single state you will have a different experience as well. In Illinois school districts kids in elementary school may take home school laptops free of charge. In Panhandle Florida the kids aren't getting that.

In Florida you can go to a one of the many kava bars or smoke shops and purchase a kilogram of kratom. If you drive through Louisiana with that kratom you can get charged with a felony comparable to being caught with heroin.

Do you get what I'm saying? There are many different Americas - even in the same geographical area. In SE Florida there are a wild mix of different ethnicities and cultures. There are Haitians, Jews, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Brazilians, Vietnamese, Jamaicans..

You can live in the same city but have a totally different experience. The Brazilians may hang out with mainly other Brazilians and go to the Brazilian restaraunts / clubs / grocery stores and not ever go to the Jewish deli that all the Jews love as a staple of the town. It's like you walk around the same area and depending on the cultural lens you put on, you experience a different reality.

HAVING SAID ALL THAT

I think America is a good country to live in. Why? Because it's better than the vast majority of the world. You earn more money. You are safer. You have more opportunities and there's better infrastructure, healthcare, etc than in vast majority of the world.

Yes, there are serious problems. Wealth inequality is splitting the country in two. Healthcare is expensive. There's an opioid epidemic. We have high rates of gun violence. Etc etc

But having come from a relatively well-off third world country, I've seen the difference in QOL first hand and it's massive. America is a good place to live.

I cut off a close friend of mine when I decided to get clean from heroin. I used to use drugs with him and he was my weed dealer. He never sold me heroin, but his friends did.

I feel bad because he messaged me 5 or 6 years later saying he got clean too and said he was sorry for anything he did. He honestly didn't do anything wrong, I just felt like I had to prioritize my sobriety.

I still haven't contacted him. He was my closest friend for years. I wonder how he's doing.