[dan_can_code]

The cynic in me thinks that the US is going to roll over and take this fascist shake down. The optimist in me thinks that the people will rise up with a resounding NO and do something about it. Right now I'm not sure which I believe.

[unsnap_biceps]

I think the former is most likely. The people are largely unhappy with how things have been and it's unlikely to get materially worse for the majority of people in the near term, so I don't think there will be a fire lit under enough of the population to rise up.

If it gets bad enough that most people are starving, rather then just struggling, we'll see action, but I doubt it'll get there anytime soon.

[lanstin]

The weird spanner in the works is that while people may be unhappy, they are unhappy because of things they believe that aren't true. Covid response in the US wasn't that bad; global warming really is causing the floods and fires and hurricanes and the EVs really are helping, as would methane emissions rules and so on; if people think the bi-coastal elites are looking down on them (and they are), like so what; that's not a serious problem. If the wealthy don't pay enough taxes, the middle class will be harmed. Making sure black folks and other historically disadvantaged groups do better will raise the quality of life for all of us; if we don't encourage the successful migration and acculturation of people from around the world, our population will decline and our economy will decline. If we don't invest in science, we will loose power and knowledge to those that do. The entitled white folks that teased all the kids that were good at math and science in the 1970s etc. might wish it weren't so, but it is so.

But they now believe that movie actors are drinking the blood of babies and that China somehow rigged up the increase in CO2 as a way to confound us. They think scientists are mostly lying.

It's not clear from an information theoretic perspective how to restore stability to the US system.

Maybe once they've killed a million immigrants, I'm sorry had excess mortality in the camps in the hot SW and in Cuba, and things all around them are worse for their own children and families, they will repent and embrace truth, justice and the American way. One can hope.

[pstuart]

It's a third rail to touch but important: "wokism" has been weaponized by the right, and for low information voters (i.e., a majority of the population), voting is an emotional act. Hate and anger are powerful emotions.

[KennyBlanken]

> Covid response in the US wasn't that bad

...what?

Trump's son-in-law was put in charge of supply distribution, refused to invoke the defense production act, and when they finally did, Trump took ages to actually "order" ventilators. They refused to implement testing because they knew that tests would show how bad things were and justify measures that would hurt the stock market.

Trump largely didn't do anything at first because COVID-19 was most severely impacting the coastal blue states because of higher population densities.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/did-trump-kushner-igno...

and https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/jared-kushner-let-th...

They routed supplies away from blue states to red states. He sent ventilators to Russia, FFS:

https://ru.usembassy.gov/delivery-of-u-s-ventilators-to-russ...

Trump told states to get their own PPE (because blue states needed them more badly than red states, and he didn't want red states to have to pay for it), then the feds outbid state agencies for PPE. And when that didn't work, just outright had customs steal them:

https://www.warren.senate.gov/oversight/letters/warren-deman...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/how-the-federal-gove...

Our state's orders for PPE was impounded at the port by the feds, who them claimed they had no idea what anyone was talking about. Our state got a bunch of PPE because the NFL football team owner sent his team's 737 to China to pick up masks and gowns (which turned out to have all sorts of problems, like being sized for children.)

Our governor stopped just shy of saying "yes" when asked if he'd sent state troopers into NYC to meet the plane and escort the truck.

https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/04/14/baker-mum-on-whether-st...

> If the wealthy don't pay enough taxes, the middle class will be harmed.

"Will be"? It's been going on for decades. Bush and Trump tax cuts made it even worse and skyrocketed the deficit to boot.

[flaminHotSpeedo]

Ugh it sucks to be reminded of all that bullshit. Though it's good not to forget.

But I think the earlier comment may have been referring to the restrictions in the US relative to other countries. Most other countries were much more severe for their lockdowns

[subpixel]

I think what the commenter meant to address was the right-wing perception that mask mandates and shutdowns were the first step that ends with the government taking away your guns.

[switchbak]

The president just threatened Greenland with military action. That is absolutely fucking unprecedented in living memory, and well before.

And that passed without much more than an exasperated sigh.

No, I think the populace will go along with whatever these folks deem acceptable. It’s like a bad movie.

[unsnap_biceps]

The latest is that the US is gonna take over Gaza and deport everyone there. I do wonder if there's any hot button items anymore.

[nrawe]

I'm not American, but my read of this announcement looks something like:

* The Trump Administration doesn't believe in the two state solution stalemate. * They have leverage over The Netanyahu Administration in Israel due to the ongoing military support needed. * The Netanyahu Administration wants to incorporate Gaza into Israel as also doesn't believe in two state solution but cannot do so without repercussions. * US could take over Gaza as the West won't sanction it, China needs to sell to it, RoW not an issue. * Trump wants US to take over Gaza, use US corps and workers to rebuild paid for by Israel, and then sell back to Israel at a later time.

I don't agree with that position but I think that's what the deal looks like overall.

[franktankbank]

What does Israel produce that we want? Are they paying cash for this service, seems expensive, how did they manage to get so much US dollars?

[nrawe]

They are the US's proxy against Iran in the Middle East, primarily, which makes it a strategic relationship. Addition, based on the 2022 data, the US imported $21BB from Israel and had a trade deficit of ~$7BB.

[lovecg]

My (perhaps naive) take is that we all got “Trump immunity” from the first time around the rollercoaster and understand that a lot of it is ineffective bluster that never goes anywhere. Look at the tariffs that’s already been “delayed”.

[paulgb]

In a normal administration, gutting the NSF would be the main story. If his statements on Gaza are indeed just bluster, they still succeed in focusing attention away from his current actual actions.

[jcgrillo]

When their children are being drafted to go die in some war things will change rapidly. I'd give it a coin flip that's where we're headed right now.

EDIT: To be clear, that's predicated on assumption things are fundamentally different here and now from Germany in the 1930s. If not, we're already cooked.

[AlexandrB]

> To be clear, that's predicated on assumption things are fundamentally different here and now from Germany in the 1930s.

It's hard to take stuff like this seriously. Even if you're worried about fascism specifically, why Germany in the 1930s and not Italy in the 1920s? The latter seems more relevant to the present moment. I think the reason is that the German Nazis are the bad guys of history and these kinds of comparisons have less to do with historical parallels but more with Godwin's Law.

[jcgrillo]

The economic conditions that were present in both Italy and Germany in the inter war years just aren't present here and now. That's why I think there's a chance we can avoid fascism. Or maybe I'm wrong. We'll find out!

[pjc50]

With all these things, part of why it's so exhausting is having to deal with most of the statements being totally bullshit. They chuck around threats without restraint, but they only carry out some of them. So far.

Protesting for Gaza was squashed last time by basically everyone, and will be again.

[UncleOxidant]

The majority of americans aren't paying much attention and aren't going to notice things are off until things have really gone off the rails, but by then it'll be too late. There's also a lot of "It can't happen here" attitude (apparently because we're special or something) which is exactly the kind of conditions that make it more likely to happen.

[MandieD]

Living in Germany quickly made me understand that Germans were not special - as in, did not have some unique weakness that made them particularly susceptible to fascism. The corollary, that Americans did not have some innate virtue that prevented it, took longer to really get through my thick head.

American Exceptionalism is a hell of a drug.

[leptons]

Deport all the people who harvest crops, and people in the US will be starving pretty quickly. It could happen within 1 year. And this is exactly the track we are on right now.

[AlexandrB]

I don't really get this argument or why it's adopted by left-wing commentators. It assumes that supply and demand don't exist and the agricultural industry couldn't get workers if they paid market rates for such labor. It's basically advocating for immigration as a way to subsidize the agricultural industry by giving them a desperate workforce they can exploit.

[leptons]

You can't make a change like this, this quickly, and expect people not to starve. Crops will be literally rotting on the vine while farmers desperately plead for people to work long hours in hot fields for low wages. Do you know anyone who would do that? No? I don't either. I'm not sure how you expect farmers that work on thin margins to suddenly be able to offer a higher wage that Americans would do this work for. It's honestly insanity to expect this to work out in the short term.

I'm not sure why conservative commentators can't see the result of this knee-jerk policy of deporting every illegal immigrant, and even those with birthright citizenship. It's a scorched earth policy, and you are only going to reap ashes from it.

[mcphage]

> it's unlikely to get materially worse for the majority of people in the near term

That’s pretty optimistic…

[aqueueaqueue]

It just needs something small to be taken away or happen that ignite and capture the collective imagination.

[jacobgkau]

Something small like in-person gatherings for several years in response to a pandemic? Like someone else in the thread claimed was a made-up problem that's only in peoples' heads?

It's really interesting seeing how widely varied peoples' definitions of these things are.

[mastersummoner]

The pandemic was a national emergency. Covid was an extremely contagious disease without a lot of existing immunity. The right call was made for the safety of several hundred million Americans. Most other countries made the exact same one.

[jacobgkau]

I wouldn't say most other countries made the exact same call, only because there are plenty of people who think we didn't go far enough. When the comment I was referring to said "Covid response in the US wasn't that bad," I actually wasn't sure whether they were saying the lockdowns weren't that bad or their effectiveness wasn't that bad. (I can kind of assume the former based on the rest of their messaging, but still, there's a range of opinions people had/have about it.)

[aqueueaqueue]

I'm glad to have lived in a country where they had strict lock downs pre-vaccine. I imagine there are funerals I didn't have to go to as a result. But flip side people could claim I was under martial law etc. stripped of my freedoms.

I thank NZ for leading the way.

[galangalalgol]

People only care about the freedoms to do things they themselves enjoy. Nothing new about that. Much like people only care about authoritarian overreach when the opposition is in power. We should always care, because the power taken by one will remain for the next. Eventually if too much power accrues to any branch it will end the separation of powers. It may have already happened, and once it does, there are no parties, only that boot. Authoritarians are all the same party, they exist at the integer wrap of left vs right. It is why you see extremists from both ends swapping parties far more often than those towards the middle.

[iterance]

Nine missed meals.

[bamboozled]

If it gets bad enough that most people are starving, rather then just struggling, we'll see action, but I doubt it'll get there anytime soon.

It's mostly too late to do anything at that point. People won't even have money for ammo.

[bilbo0s]

Something depressingly self defeating about people paying money into the system to acquire ammo for the purposes of..

bringing down the system?

Win or lose, I'm thinking money is flowing up to the same people.

[bamboozled]

lol yeah...

[Dalewyn]

>The people are largely unhappy with how things have been

This is an understatement to say the least, and the fact it's been denied and even refused by the powers that be until today is why the pendulum has swung as hard as it has.

Americans wanted change, and they finally got it with ferocious retribution because it's been held back for so long.

[lanstin]

Like the old Mencken quote:

`Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.`

[pstuart]

The sentiment I get in this regards is that people are angry and want to "burn it to the ground", without any thought of what might possibly take its place.

[kenjackson]

The weird thing is these same people will tell you the US is the greatest place on Earth and if you don't like, then leave!

[kristjansson]

Exactly. Freeways and airports and fallow fields fully paid for. Cheap imports and complete and utter physical security. BLM land to hunt and graze and drill and fell. Rivers that don't catch on fire, not even a little bit. And it would be so much better without the got-damn'd feds.

[allturtles]

The real U.S. In these people's minds, the federal government and its millions of employees are a parasite sucking the blood of the real U.S., not a part of it. I will leave analogies as an exercise to the reader.

[pstuart]

They literally worship the flag.

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

― George Carlin

[mastersummoner]

I'm confused. Are you saying specifically that you think the experiences described in this article are for the good of the country? Or do you think they're an exaggeration/lie.

[pizlonator]

I don’t think that’s what the comment said at all. You’re extrapolating too much.

Explaining the pendulum swinging violently because folks didn’t feel heard is not the same thing as saying that it’s a good thing that the pendulum has swung so violently.

[Dalewyn]

I'm a Trump voter (2016, 2020, and 2024) so I obviously find all this a good thing, just for transparency.

That said, that is tangential and irrelevant to explaining how and why the pendulum swung back as hard as it did.

Trump won his first term in 2016 because Americans were fed up with the Bush+Obama status quo of endless wars and waste. Drain the swamp, fuck the establishment! As the sentiment of the day went; remember Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party? Biden winning 2020 was a sharp rebuke by the powers that be; how dare the people demand change and elect an outsider, how dare the people demand peace and effective government. Biden and Harris's 2024 campaigns likewise were based strictly and ultimately on continuing the status quo; Harris "had no policy" in large part because the "policy" was the status quo.

Trump winning again in 2024 with a historic campaign is a sharp rebuke to that, he is the people's retribution for being denied and refused for so long time and time again. For voters like me and us, NASA and the like having their funding slashed and denied is merely collateral damage for a greater and long-awaited cause.

[tmerse]

Trump won his first term in 2016 because Americans were fed up with the Bush+Obama status quo of endless wars and wast

Does this include threatening Greenland with military action or does it not count as war if there is little resistance to be expected?

[Animats]

NASA is ripe for some cuts. The Senate Launch System is a waste; both Space-X and Blue Origin have cheaper big boosters. There are too many NASA centers. The Space Force can take over Canaveral. The moon base should be all robots.

[throwaway_2494]

> I'm a Trump voter (2016, 2020, and 2024) so I obviously find all this a good thing, just for transparency.

Burning the system down because of hurt pride doesn't sound like a good thing to me.

Your agent of retribution is now threatening my country.

It's because of people like you that I now have to start thinking of what I have to do if they start massing troops in Buffalo. No wars indeed...

And just so you know, invading us will never work. You are right to not want the US to enter a war. Because it has lost every war it has ever started.

[Sharlin]

And no Trump supporter can actually spell out clearly what that cause is besides "own the outgroup" and a religious faith in everything getting better for the cult member despite every single piece of evidence pointing to the contrary (unless you already happen to be a billionaire, of course). And I mean religious in the literal sense: a belief that some ill-defined paradise awaits the true believers and it will be worth it in the end even though it kind of hurts that their faces are being gnawed by the leopards (but at least the outgroup’s faces are being eaten too so it’s all right).

[jltsiren]

More like Americans repeatedly vote for change, because the change they got four years earlier was too bad. It reminds me of Chile, which keeps oscillating between socialist and conservative presidents every four years.

[yibg]

Roughly half the voting population wants a king. It's not just rolling over, this is welcomed with open arms.

I try to understand how the "other side" is thinking about this. Disagreements on policy aside, why would "freedom loving Americans" want a king that can rule unilaterally?

Not trying to start a flame war or pose a gotcha question, I'm genuinely curious. What am I missing?

[tokioyoyo]

Not an American, but my 2c - a good chunk of people are actively trying to find a reason why their lives are worse than others, haven't gotten better in decades, and are seeing how life is fine across the pond despite not being the richest country in the world. They'll keep blaming everyone, and everything, and whatever comes into their sights. At the same time group of people will exploit it for their gains, as "fighting for a cause" is historically the best way to somewhat control people's emotions.

Every week a new target will be set, and no matter what will be done, people won't realize that the cause of their own problems are internal. Canada, Denmark, Mexico, Panama, you name it. At the same time there's a superpower (China) that is actively trying to unseat the leader. Superpower with more people, better manufacturing, more potential for the future income, more manpower, not cool with getting bullied and etc. That will also make the citizens unhappy, because "how dare China be better than us?!".

It also doesn't help that Americans aren't having children, which is objectively bad for the future of the leadership. The push for natalism, banning contraceptives, choice and etc. is points towards "you will have children no matter what and you will love it" scenario.

It's like a culmination of multiple problems that have been left rampant for the past couple of decades. Now they're trying to frantically swing the pendulum, but there's a chance that they'll end up pulling it a bit too hard so it will break.

[yibg]

I don't disagree with any of this and I can definitely see this in the election results. But this has been the case for a while now. The US has lagged other developed nations on many indicators for a long time. Income inequality, life expectancy, education, you name it. There was a lot of heated debates and intense feelings during the Obama era too.

But this time around something seems to have changed, where his supporters are ok with trump and team doing whatever. Be a forever president, rip up the constitution, rule by decree.

[roelschroeven]

But ... I'm not American, I'm just looking in from the outside, but to me it seems that all these things (income inequality, life expectancy, education, ...) are things that the Democrats try to improve while the Republicans want to limit social security, decent health care, and try to tear down decent education. Yet people vote Republican? To try to improve the things that Republicans will not improve?

It's a sentiment I often see, not just here, and I just don't understand it.

[msandford]

Democrats say they want to improve these things, then get in office and worry more about trivialities then doing the work of governing.

A green new deal that set out to get electricity to people's houses at $0.08/kwh and stood a reasonable chance of doing so would have been a great start. That's not what it was, alas.

You can't just look at what the parties say they want to do when they're in power. You have to look at what they actually spend their time and energy on while in power.

Both parties are pretty hypocritical when it comes to stated goals vs revealed goals.

[tokioyoyo]

My sister is naturalized American, and the way she describes it — even if dems were well-intentioned, they had no guts to pull the trigger to make things better. Because pulling that trigger will, for sure, hurt a lot of people and they care about their image.

I can see some truth to it while living across the border. The things move extremely slow due to enormous amount of legislative barriers and opposition. When you make any big disruptive change, obviously families will suffer, incomes will be lost and etc. So, if you want gigantic changes (good or bad) for a huge country, you need either backing of super majority of people or ability to be above the law because everyone would be afraid to go after you. From my point of view, that’s why China can do drastic changes to their established sectors (tech, private education, construction and etc.) and keep pivoting as necessary. Sure, I don’t agree with their political ideology. However they have an enormous bureaucracy that will sit down and rewrite laws when the goals change.

I’ve met some Republicans throughout my travels, and after some drinks have heard how they want to feel proud of their country. How they used to be proud of their land, origins and etc. Nowadays, they just don’t feel it.

It would be very dumb of me to generalize, but when a good chunk of people don’t feel proud of anything in their lives, it shows signs of cultural weakness. A weakness that’s incredibly easy to exploit as the feeling of pride actually feels good. Current admins are giving a sense of hope that they’ll restructure entire government to some point where citizens will be proud of their progress.

[kelipso]

An alternative perspective from someone say in the de-industrialized US Midwest four years after Obama was elected would be something like the following. They voted in Obama. Instead of improving income inequality, life expectancy, education, etc., the Democrats brought in a bunch of social changes. Life expectancy lowered in the US and I think lowered even more in the Midwest (mostly because of drug use, but economic factors must have contributed to drug use). In the end the Democrats didn't improve anything and they voted in Trump.

Biden comes in, it was similar, maybe worse because of inflation and increased income inequality. Imposed a bunch of social changed as well. Democrats say a bunch of things and all that ends up happening is a bunch of social changes that most of the country find strange. Now we have Trump again.

[roelschroeven]

> and they voted in Trump

Did that help things?

[drawkward]

Because, for many, Christianity|Whiteness|Capitalism|Patriarchy|* is a more sacred and immediate value than Democracy. (You are beginning to see this on the left, albeit with different values, with the inteolerant woke, and those who demand you vote "blue no matter who".)

[khazhoux]

I think you're misrepresenting. His side won, and now they get to do what they want. It's always that way, no? Like, isn't that the point of an election?

[Sharlin]

You’re describing an autocracy, a dictatorship. Of course they aren’t allowed to do what they want, there’s supposed to be this thing called the rule of law, "checks and balances", separation of powers, any of that ring a bell? Plus a two-party system is a fundamentally malignant example of democracy, not to even mention the crazy amount of power the POTUS has compared to well-functioning democracies.

[khazhoux]

I didn't mean "do what they want" as in ignoring law.

I meant "do what they want" as in: the winning party gets to choose the policy. The winning party can ignore the will of the losing party.

[stingrae]

They get to do what they want within the rules established by the courts and constitution.

[yibg]

And this time, people don't seem to care about that anymore. Despite the right supposedly being the group that's all about the constitution and rule of law.

[mike_hearn]

That's true in theory, but it's not what's happened in the recent past. A lot of the problems Trump faces are due to "rules" established by the civil service itself - often directly and unashamedly just to spite him, and stop him implementing the policies he campaigned and won on. There's no theory of government in which this is supposed to play a part.

For example, the civil service passed new rules in the dying days of the Biden administration intended to stop Trump implementing Schedule F. This didn't come from Congress or the courts. They just passed it themselves. Trump is the boss so can undo that rule with a new rule, but they passed it within a framework of yet more rules they made themselves to slow that down so - if followed - it will take months. This is purely self serving protectionism and has nothing to do with democracy or the Constitution.

There's an interesting document here [1] that goes into all the ways the civil service betrayed Trump in the first term. Betrayal is a correct and moderate term to use. They were doing things like forging documents, lying to appointees about non-existent laws, refusing to prosecute legally clear cut cases in order to propagate woke ideology (e.g. discrimination against Asian Americans), deliberately keeping their bosses in the dark, refusing direct orders to do work if it would run contra to woke ideology and many more things.

From the Trump team's perspective the rules are largely fake: when they align with what the left want they're followed to the letter, when they don't they're ignored or subverted without consequence. He played that game in his first term, and is apparently no longer willing to do so. It's hard to know what Congress will do but presumably they're aware of the fact that their own laws have created this situation to some extent (even if not the full extent). It wouldn't be surprising to see civil service reform bills appear soon.

[1] https://americafirstpolicy.com/assets/uploads/files/Tales_fr...

[throwaway_2494]

>There's no theory of government in which this is supposed to play a part.

This is resistance. It is justified. Expect more of it.

[mike_hearn]

OK, well, but that sword cuts in both directions. There has been eight years of subversive #resistance to Trump and now he holds the whip hand, with allies who are highly effective. What's happening now is their own #resistance.

[realusername]

No that's not how elections work, there's supposed to be a separation of power. In theory, he only has the executive branch.

Democracy isn't electing kings.

[ergonaught]

By the time there is any actual mass recognition of what is happening, nevermind any attempt to intervene, it will be far too late.

There was a successful coup and the USA as such has fallen, now presumably on the route to failing.

[khazhoux]

Not a coup. Trump said he was going to dismantle the government, and the majority empowered him to do so.

[nicce]

If we want to predict things, look no further than Project 2025

[addandsubtract]

An auto coup is still a coup.

[joe_the_user]

The thing I find strange is that the other wealthy and powerful stand for the destruction of things that gave the US a huge competitive advantage. The average person isn't hit immediately by the destruction of science. But a far-sighted person with some power should by self-interest not want this.

And this, I think, points to the corruption of the entire political class in America with just being upshot.

[whatthedangit]

I believe that what we're not accounting for is the belief among many wealthy people that scientific research and all other intellectual labor will soon be automated by AI.

I believe that what those wealthy people aren't accounting for is the need for some class of humans to act as a translation layer between the expert AI systems and the rest of us in order to allow the discoveries and results to percolate through human institutions.

Or, rather, they may be underestimating the bottleneck that will be introduced by trying to hoard all of those results within their own circles of trust and influence.

[lanstin]

More fucking morons. The gap with biomedical research isn't in the realm of language models, but in the amount of information that exists in biology that we don't know. I'm not sure what percentage of all the genetic data on Earth we've sequenced, but it's not much, and we still don't quite have a mechanical understand of a single cell, much less some complex multicellular organisms with proteins affecting gene expression, cell membrane receptors being reused in 50 different tissue types, molecular secretion and diffusion altering our minds functioning, and electrical currents synchronizing brain firing at a distance.

No LLM trained on PubMed will be able to suss this all out - more data is needed.

Even in pure mathematics, where I am currently a grad student and as needed a big fan of trying to get LLMs to explain stuff to me at 1 am, they just aren't that good. If it's a popular question where I could have tried math overflow, sure, it's probably just going to get some details weirdly wrong, but for subtle complex concepts, it's not making some golden age of truth and understanding.

And God help the LLMs trying to understand physics that are trained on all the BS on Youtube and the blogs.

[DecoySalamander]

But are they wrong? I'm pretty sure that I can ask any LLM to produce a followup for "Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" and get one as good, or even better than the original. Lack of percolation would actually be an improvement.

[joe_the_user]

Sure, LLMs may indeed produce plausible bs akin to the classic bs paper you mention. But it should be considered that all science is being gutted, including unambiguously substantial fields (biology, physics, chemistry).

[lanstin]

You can see it just here - Paul Graham made money making a web store in the 1990s (which I can tell you wasn't that hard), then investing his money in a bunch of internet startup (a bit rarer, but I feel like a large percentage of the people that wanted to be rich and had 1 start-up success in the 1990s succeeded); he regards this as equivalent to inventing the standard model of particle physics or inventing the mRNA vaccines, rather than a reasonable capable person at a very lucky time to be good at programming.

Andreesson has the same blindness - he wrote the first web browsers (having not invented HTTP or the web or browsers) and parleyed that into a fortune by investing. I guess he's a skilled investor, a smart financial person, but there is no evidence that he has some special science expertise or extraordinary intelligence. From my observations, one can understand nothing about science or the physical world and do well with software and investing.

As far as "far-sighted," the history from 1980 onwards is the destruction of many things in society devoted to the long view in favor of short-term financialization.

[jethro_tell]

They don’t need anything else though. Technological advancements helps society as a whole but if you have more money that you could ever spend who cares?

You can buy another countries tech if it benefits you or just move.

[bloopernova]

The wealthy will just take their money and leave the country.

And for all you HN readers supporting these massive changes: you'd test changes beforehand and plan their deployment carefully if this were software. So why why do you support explicitly not doing those things when the livelihood of 300 million people depend on the economy being stable?!?

And before the inevitable derail or whatabout attempt: Don't play political games with people's lives.

And, again, everything is political, including every aspect of discussions on HN.

[alienthrowaway]

> So why why do you support explicitly not doing those things when the livelihood of 300 million people depend on the economy being stable?!?

Culture warriors only care about about their "side" winning. It's not an intellectual battle, but an emotional one. Rules be damned, their side is winning and dishing out retribution for, and rolling back decades of defeat on the battle for social values - civil rights, race mixing, gay marriage, LGBTQ rights, and the gall to elect a black president, BLM, #metoo, etc.

[jimkleiber]

Precisely. This is probably not a long-term constructive plan, but rather "they punched me, I'm gonna punch them back 10x harder." (didn't Trump even say something like that before?)

Vengeance can make people do crazy things and the craziest thing is how people don't realize vengeance can destroy them just as much, if not more than their intended target. Not so much shooting ourselves in the foot, more like stabbing ourselves in the heart.

My life and work is to help people to realize how responding with hate or indifference will destroy us, and that responding with love is the only way through.

[bamboozled]

Where do you suppose they will go? Russia?

[aqueueaqueue]

Elon can live anywhere in the world. Very rich people are global citizens. They cannot be patriotic.

[jcgrillo]

We allow them to live. Never forget how much we outnumber them by.

[kadushka]

Who are "we"? Software engineers with comfortable lives? Minimum wage workers? Police force? Military?

[jcgrillo]

wE

[kadushka]

What if I don’t agree with you - am I still one of “we”?

[goatlover]

We also don't have a hive mind.

[kbelder]

So shrill.

[yibg]

A few countries may not want him after this.

[bamboozled]

Yeah, Elon is mostly wealthy because of the USA and what is gave him. The fact he wants to destroy it seems seriously self-destructive.

[Arkhadia]

Sure. I can’t tell you how much I love my tax dollars fluffing the pockets of god knows what while also having to deal with insane inflation due to no accountability in government. More than have the country welcomes the purge

[RajT88]

I live in the US; born here, lived here all my life.

The former is 100% how it will go. The only question is: how bad will it get?

A poster down thread mentions a million dead immigrants. I personally think it will just be in the low 6 figures. Maybe high 5 figures.

[jcgrillo]

It wouldn't take much of that to completely destroy the U.S. food supply chain. Those 9 meals separating us all from anarchy will go by quick.

[numpad0]

I thought the US has quite a bit more people than millions in total, regardless of which groups you wish to include or exclude.

[spacemanspiff01]

So I am moving all my money to cash, I would rather not invest in a fascist state.

[refurb]

If only HN had a reminder option.

The doom and gloom in these comments is truly funny. I remember the exact same when Trump won the first time.

It’s like HN has no memory.

[cmurf]

I think it’s distinctly not funny people who voted for a rapist think they’re good people.

Trump as POTUS ordered the VPOTUS to overturn an election, and when Mike Pence refused the order, Trump sent a mob to have the VPOTUS assassinated. It’s distinctly not funny, though very memorable, that people who voted for Trump again think of themselves as American patriots.

I remember the racist lie of birtherism.

You can grab them by the pussy, they let you do it. I remember it.

I think some are addicts to the anger, drama, and depravity of Trump TV. Perhaps they can be treated like drug, sex, and shopping addicts.

The stupid and malicious are probably lost for our lifetime. The best thing to do is cut them off. They’re not good people. They voted for a rapist, that’s how desperate and low they’ve become.

I remember Mike Pence boilerplate Republicanism wasn’t good enough. Trumpers want and need an abuser. They voted for that, not despite it.

A good deal why we’re here is liberals coddled Trumpers, forgave them in advance, helped to normalize the depravity by inviting Trumper friends and family to all the usual social functions, despite the insanity. We were too nice. And this is permission. We gave them permission all along.

Kick abusers to the curb. All of them. They’re not good people. Stop trying to make them better by lying about who and what they are. Stop normalizing the depravity. That’s the beginning.

[refurb]

It’s absolutely fascinating how divorced from reality people’s worldview can get to the point that the level of arrogance gets so high that people proudly declare their responsibility to be judge, jury and executioner of vast swaths of the permanently unredeemable population.

Ironically I assume this is how people like Hitler took power.

“Kick Jews to the curb. All of them. They’re not good people. Stop trying make them better by lying about who they are. Stop normalizing the depravity. That’s the beginning.”

It’s almost like I’m reading the moustache man’s words himself.

[cmurf]

You replaced my word "abusers" with "Jew". Abusers should be kicked to the curb. Jews were not ever merely kicked to the curb during WW2, they were mass murdered.

Your attempt to be treated as some sort of victim is denied.

[error_logic]

Trump was surrounded by establishment Republicans last time.

This time no checks and balances exist within the administration, and the supreme court has been turned.

I wish I could laugh.

[Gareth321]

Yeah this thread is like being on Reddit. "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" The hyperbole was thick and fast last time he was elected, with accusations of fascism and certain doom. It turns out, he didn't in fact blow up the world. Quite the opposite. He was the first president in decades not to start a new war. People were inoculated during that first term against hyperbole. Even if "fascism" were to appear now (and I firmly believe it has not), people would no longer care. Well done those of you who cried wolf so vociferously. Trump is president because of you.

[khazhoux]

There was just an election! The people literally just voted for this.

[csa]

> The cynic in me thinks that the US is going to roll over and take this fascist shake down. The optimist in me thinks that the people will rise up with a resounding NO and do something about it. Right now I'm not sure which I believe.

At this point, almost certainly the former.

1. Most Trump supporters do not think that there is a problem.

2. “Regular people” — that is, the folks who don’t track news — won’t notice any problems in their day-to-day lives until after said shakedown has been completed.

The only way large swathes of people will demand action is if they are hit hard in the wallets in an immediate and clear way (e.g., rapid price increases to one or more critical goods or services) or if a critical process (e.g., social security checks) gets disrupted. I’m not sure the current types of changes will reach that level.

[robbiewxyz]

From what I gather, life for most of these "regular people" in Germany was still very much in the tolerable range until well into WWII.

This was a very weird realization and one that left me pretty sad.

Edit to clarify: I also mean no condescension toward "regular people".

[csa]

> From what I gather, life for most of these "regular people" types in Germany was still very much in the tolerable range until well into WWII.

Correct.

I’ve heard some harrowing stories about the moment of realization straight from the mouths of some of these people.

Edit: To be clear, I’m referring to my family and their friends who lived through it.

[pizlonator]

> I’ve heard some harrowing stories about the moment of realization straight from the mouths of some of these people.

I’d love to know more.

[csa]

> I’d love to know more.

Probably not news, but here are a few big ones that I remember from our conversations:

1. Family member lived in a rural area. They could see the train line that ran between two major cities. I can’t remember the exact order of events (e.g., construction), but at some point they noticed packed trains turning off the main tracks to go to a facility. Packed trains went in, and empty trains came out. At first they didn’t think anything of it… just resettlement stuff or war stuff or whatever. But then it continued. And continued. The rumors started. Everything was hush hush. Nobody dared to ask the authorities. Only later did they learn that it was a concentration camp and what actually happened there. That one kind of blew my mind… they had no idea about what was going on except vague rumors, most of which were wrong.

2. One family member had access to privileged information about the war (in the later stages of the war). One bit of info they knew was about causalities, and how certain assignments were less survivable than others. The propaganda machine made it seem like it was noble to go fight the war that would inevitably be won, but this person knew with a reasonable degree of mathematical estimation that some of the kids being sent off weren’t likely to come back. They said it was tough to look those parents, especially mothers, in the eyes when they made some comment about hoping their kid came home safely. My family member knew that these parents would likely never see their son again, and all for what was looking like a lost and/or questionable war effort that was still playing on nationalist sentiments.

3. This really isn’t that interesting, but… The propaganda late in the war made it seem like Germans in general and the troops specifically were eating well with an abundance of good food, while people who actually grew the food had to do things like use sawdust and straw as filler in their bread. They had a long list of accommodations that they told me that they made so that they didn’t feel hungry, and I don’t remember them all. The cool thing is that there were ways for the rural folks to get access to food beyond the rations. Sometimes they could sneak some extra food to the city-dwelling family members, but the folks in the cities seemed to have it tougher. They were sort of bitter about how the food situation got progressively worse as the war progressed as well as the total disconnect from reality that the propaganda was presenting.

Note that these were stories that were told to me decades ago about stuff that had happened many decades before then. I’m sure that some stories were embellished while others were muted. I’m also sure that some of the details were “lost in translation” — either via my mediocre German, their mediocre English, or the limits of language assistance that some of the bilingual folks provided.

I don’t really feel like I did these stories justice.

[jventura]

Almost 80 years has passed, some details get lost, but it is important to keep things like that alive in our consciousnesses. Even if you didn't to justice to those stories, I still read them with attention. Thanks for them!

[pizlonator]

Thank you for sharing!

[kenjackson]

The old quote, "first they came for ..." was written by a Nazi sympathizer -- until he was in jail by them. It's rooted in truth how it played out to him.

"First they came for DEI and I didn't speak out, because I was not Black..."

[palmfacehn]

And what of those who speak out against it because they find it belittling personally? What of those who do not want to be included as a token or talisman, but would rather participate based upon their qualifications and merits? Are we allowed to speak out and have differing opinions on DEI or will you compare us to National Socialism collaborators?

[kenjackson]

Do white people feel like tokens because the merit of other people isn’t considered?

DEI makes sure that everyone is part of the merit process.

It’s like how white people feel like Babe Ruth is an all time great, but say Josh Gibson isn’t because he played in the all black league. But playing in the all white league doesn’t count against you at all. No one considers them any less.

[alienthrowaway]

> What of those who do not want to be included as a token or talisman, but would rather participate based upon their qualifications and merits?

There were plenty of companies like Coinbase that ignored DEI initiatives and requested that employees leave "politics at the door" - and we all knew what kind of politics they meant. You could have voted with your feet.

I'm fully onboard with employees asking employees to be respectful to their colleagues regardless of gender, race, creed or color, that's just good for business.

[palmfacehn]

> You could have voted with your feet.

I have voted with my feet by avoiding the self-announced inclusive. My objection is specific to reducto-ad-hitlerum.

[nerdponx]

I don't know why you're being downvoted.

> 1. Most Trump supporters do not think that there is a problem.

Talk to any conservative -- even people who are/were skeptical of Trump -- or browse any conservative-leaning social media. It's clear that the people who voted for Trump fully understood what they voted for: they wanted what's happening. Project 2025 is a good thing in the eyes of many. Maybe they think politicizing the whole executive branch is a little distasteful, but in the eyes of literally millions of Americans, it's a means to a well-justified and long-awaited end.

[WgaqPdNr7PGLGVW]

> Maybe they think politicizing the whole executive branch is a little distasteful

They believe it has already been politicized by people who hate them.

[nerdponx]

That's a great point as well. "They've been doing it to us for decades, what's happening now isn't any worse".

The Project 2025 document is really interesting along those lines as well. It's close to 1000 pages, but you can skim pretty much any section that isn't about the military and get the idea. Politicizing the executive branch is an explicitly stated goal, over and over. And furthermore, the push to disband the department of education is specifically an overly political, not because it's ineffective in its mission, but because it's "a one-stop shop for the woke education cartel" -- and yes that is a direct quote.

[csa]

> Maybe they think politicizing the whole executive branch is a little distasteful, but in the eyes of literally millions of Americans, it's a means to a well-justified and long-awaited end.

This is a very tight and succinct summary of many conversations I’ve had with conservative family and acquaintances.

> I don't know why you're being downvoted.

The votes on my comment are going up and down like a yo-yo.

I’m pretty sure it’s because I used the term “regular people”, and I used it in quotes. I get the sense that some people are reading more into that phrase than I intended.

[leptons]

One thing conservatives are famously not good at is anticipating the consequences of their actions. What could possibly go wrong with immediately deporting all the people who harvest our crops?

[DecoySalamander]

But what if they are replaced by government workers who are made redundant? It might just balance out.

[leptons]

I'm not sure how a person working a desk job for the government suddenly being told to work long hours in hot fields picking crops is going to work out. And if you hadn't noticed, most people working for the government don't live in the middle of farmlands or anywhere near them. I'm not sure how you can think this could work out at all.

Your comment also tells me that this was never about immigrants taking our jobs.

You seem to be living in a right-wing fantasy world that really doesn't exist. Things are going to get really bad in the country with this administration, the first two weeks have been extremely messy. No, these policies are definitely not going to lower the price of anything - we're on track for wild inflation with these plans. The leopards are going to be well fed though!

[thinkingtoilet]

These "regular people" that you seem to condescendingly speak about absolutely notice it at the pump and at the grocery store. They aren't mindless robots.

[csa]

> These "regular people" that you seem to condescendingly speak about

There was zero condescension in my tone or intent.

I put “regular people” in quotes simply because I think most people who do follow the news absolutely don’t realize that the vast majority of people don’t.

A simple litmus test for this is to ask random people you meet outside of your personal social and professional circles (e.g., the front desk person at the gym, a cashier at a grocery store, a rideshare driver… whatever) a simple question like “Who are our US senators?” or “What is the NIH?” I’ve done this, and the sentiment was largely “don’t know, don’t care”.

This isn’t a criticism. It’s just an observation that some issues that some folks on HN care about (e.g., details about how lesser known parts of the government function — for example, what’s happening at the NIH and NSF) just aren’t on the radar for large swathes of the population.

> absolutely notice it at the pump and at the grocery store. They aren't mindless robots.

I think we agree on this, right?

And my point is that price changes for most things won’t hit immediately.

1. There have been delays in most of the tariffs.

2. The impact of some tariffs will take longer to hit than others. Fresh food will be fast. Goods with longer shelf lives canned goods, alcohol, and prepared foods might take a while.

[nyc_data_geek1]

If your engagement with politics, civics and public policy begins and ends with how much groceries and gas cost, then you are the perfect consumer, and something less than a thinking, rational human with agency and awareness. What is a human without curiosity or critical thinking, but a biological consuming robot? Which incidentally is what the new department of education will try to create a population of, by destroying public education.

Edit: Scratch that, they plan to abolish the department of education

[jcgrillo]

Thank you for writing this in such a polite and erudite manner. You saved me from posting an obscenity laden ad hominem.

[dionian]

Don't states have their own DOE?

[alienthrowaway]

States also have their national guardsmen, does that mean it's a good idea to disband the army?

[philjohn]

Yes - and states actually control much of the curriculum.

However, the DOE does things like make sure there is funding for children with additional needs, which lets be honest, are not going to be replicated in certain states if the DOE is indeed disbanded.

[nyc_data_geek1]

Does this mean there is no value in maintaining federal education standards, or do we want to let states decide if they want to abolish theirs as well?

[TylerE]

Boy are those folks gonna get what they voted for…

Price of eggs dropped yet?

[technothrasher]

I just had a follow up conversation with a lady at work who had said she was voting for Trump because things like eggs were too expensive. Her comment about egg prices now was that she didn't understand why liberals were saddling Trump with egg prices, because the president can't control things like that. She literally did a complete 180 on the topic seemingly without any self awareness. I don't know how to reach people like that. I honestly don't.

[nyc_data_geek1]

I fear there is no reaching some.

Orwell wrote about this in 1984 (and also, incidentally, fought fascists on the ground during the Spanish Civil War):

"To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink."

[spacemanspiff01]

I am moving all of my assets to cash. Maybe no one else cares, but I do, and I would rather invest in a functional democracy.

Never know, if enough people divest , people might give a shit.

But I'm not holding my breath.

[cft]

Time to leave HN for me. It's become a cesspool of this vitriol.

[alextingle]

Which bit of that is vitriol?

[zamadatix]

If I were to be fair to cft the comment does really seem much different than ones which said they can't wait for people to rise up against Biden because he's a communist. I.e. just a short comment throwing charged political labels rather than discussion the actual meat under consideration.

I'm not all that big a fan of that style comment rising to the top threads like this myself, even though I likely lean very opposite of cft on political matters and what I think the impact of this will be like.

[cft]

BTW, I have a written many (widely cited) papers supported by NSF grants during my PhD and postdoc. So it's not a political view, my practical opinion is that NSF needs to be cleaned up. A lot of big grant money goes to outright hopelessly useless stuff.

[zamadatix]

There are extremely well cited papers for and against various COVID-19 topics but you could sooner convince me the Earth is cube shaped than research publishings in academia are free from being politically charged.

[kfrzcode]

s/sess/cess

[cft]

upvoted

[jccalhoun]

He's an old man. I don't know whether to hope he dies of old age soon or to hope he doesn't because that would mean JD Vance would become president.

[kilroy123]

This is classic anacyclosis in action so none of this is surprising to me. I've talked about this for years, hell even here on HN.

We're at the final stage of the cycle—ochlocracy. (Mob rule)

I don't think Trump will be king, to be blunt he's too old and not skilled enough.

I'm worried about the next guy or the one after that.

[amelius]

This will probably decide it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

If one party wants to do things democratically at all cost, and the other party wants to bring down democracy, then the latter will win.

[pfd1986]

Wouldn't rise up lead to a coup? Isn't this exactly what Trump is waiting / routing for?

[mjfl]

Reposting because my previous comment was unjustly flagged: The US just facilitated a genocide in the previous administration. This is not just me saying this - this is the consensus ruling of the International Court of Justice at the UN.

[freshpots]

Barring all of the hyperbole of your comment, I find it astounding how you're unaware of this with such a "thumb on the pulse" of world news:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/feb/04/benjamin-...

Trump said Palestinians have “no alternative” but to “permanently” leave Gaza due to the devastation left by Israel’s war on Hamas. He described Gaza as a “pure demolition site” and claimed Palestinians would “love to leave Gaza”. “I don’t know how they could want to stay,” he said.

Trump’s comments marked the first time he has publicly floated the permanent relocation of Palestinians from Gaza. The US president’s remarks in effect endorsed ethnic cleansing of the territory over the opposition of Palestinians and the neighbouring countries.

Trump is literally for completely ridding Gaza of the Palestinians so Israel can colonize it. An ACTUAL genocide.

[mjfl]

The consensus ruling of the International Court of Justice is not hyperbole, it's a fact. Are you going to call the UN antisemitic like Benjamin Netanyahu did?

And actually, you in fact can argue that Trump has been better on the issue than Biden. Multiple news outlets have reported that it was Trump that forced the ceasefire:

- https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trump-forced-netanyahu-to-make-a...

- https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64825

- https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-01-13/ty-article/.p...

- https://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-official-trump-envoy-sway...

Everything you find with regarding Trump is rhetoric while his actions have been much more peaceful than Biden's.

Which brings me back to my main point: it's absurd and hysterical to be claiming that Trump is uniquely fascist here. Whoever is freaking out now about him, and was not freaking out about Biden, is a fraud and should be called out as a fraud.

[lern_too_spel]

The US was telling Israel to hold back and trying to get aid into Gaza. That's not happening anymore. https://abcnews.go.com/International/shutting-usaid-major-im...

The US was in favor of a two state solution. The US is now saying that half of one state, by population, is no longer available. It's clear to anyone with two neurons to rub together that the other half is gone within the next four years.

[myvoiceismypass]

Kinda amazing that Trump had been acting as de facto president all year even before the election - telling Congress what to do, meeting with Netanyahu, Putin, tons of other heads of state, and he now suggests that Israel just get handed Gaza. Just like Bibby wanted.

[tehjoker]

> Trump is literally for completely ridding Gaza of the Palestinians so Israel can colonize it. An ACTUAL genocide.

This was the goal of the Biden administration. The difference now is that without Israel demolishing Gaza every day, the resistance has demonstrated they cannot be dislodged. Trump has no credibility. They simply cannot do it and both the U.S. and Israeli officials that enabled this are war criminals that should be prosecuted immediately.

[mjfl]

Hasbara bots are out in extreme force.

[tehjoker]

you said it brother (or sister)

[emmelaich]

ICJ has not done so; it will take years to make a determination. (And it should fail IMHO).

And I don't think that the US was mentioned by the ICJ, even if it had confirmed genocide.

[mjfl]

they ruled that it was plausible enough to pursue the case

[mewc]

What is happening is a good thing. rm corruption -rf

[cycrutchfield]

The corruption is currently in the White House, they could start there?

[Sharlin]

Ah, yes. Billionaires who funded the campaign with hundreds of millions, being delegated powers that the president does not have the authority to delegate, getting free access to classified information without any clearance, demanding things they have no authority to demand, promising buy-outs they have no authority or intention to ever honor (if you believe otherwise, I have a hell of a lot of bridges to sell you), crippling programs and agencies meant to keep normal hard-working citizens safe and healthy, everything in order to steal as much taxpayer money as possible? That corruption?

The only government efficiency they’re concerned with is the efficiency of funneling other people’s money into their own pockets. Even Putin’s oligarch buddies are nowhere that bold nor think they’re that much above the law.

[jimkleiber]

Some people think politicians make money in corrupt ways but the richest people in the world do it through very clean ways. Almost as if very very rich people are super genius, but the semi-rich people are just corrupt.

Ironically, the essence of a confidence trick, or con artistry, is to convince people that you're superhuman, much much much smarter than everyone else.