EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
I know what you're here for. What's his bias? Politically I at least like to think of myself as a true moderate, maybe (in US context) slightly naturally right-leaning but currently politically left-leaning if I had to be more specific.
User ID: 1043
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3d ago
It's been interesting to see the small subset of people claiming that LLMs are necessary to assist with their real, minor, or potentially imagined disabilities, which is normally a favorable crowd, going up against the more traditional artist crowd. Who has more clout? Will business-type overall support for LLM's overshadow the artist opposition? Will normal people's increasing usage factor in to the conversation, or are the opinion of normies irrelevant to the artistic space? In that way it will be interesting to see where it all lands.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3d ago
For my generation, a few aspects, but to me the core appeal was the sort of human (male) survival-adjacent aspect. You are in a world alone, you survive, beat down the wildlife, bend it to your will, build things that leave a permanent mark on the world, etc. Scratches a bit of the human itch that way. There was also originally a bit of the self-taught pride, because you had to go to the wiki to figure out how to actually make stuff (the game literally had no tutorial for over 6 years!) or consult YouTube to set up some limited automation via some jank unintentional mechanics (for example, to originally boost a minecart to crazy speeds, you had to have little smaller minecarts spinning in tiny circle tracks tangential to your main track) so if you did something notable (or creative/effortful, especially in a server with friends), it was impressive! And also, for those of us in school or college, it was a nice side outlet that felt a little more wholesome than the games like counterstrike, Dota2, League, etc. that were just getting going at the time. Plus, updates were frequent, so you could re-discover and build on your knowledge (for free) a few months or years after last playing, or maybe a friend would start up a server, so you'd potentially go in cycles of binging.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3d ago
Ah, well yes I'd say so, so that's a good point. Anyone college age or younger when it started getting big 2010-2011, so I'll admit that only captures... maybe half? Dunno if it really "counts" the older half Millennial parents playing it with their kids. I'll admit I'm '93, on the tail end, so that might skew my perspective slightly. Considering also the male-coded aspect, maybe it's only about a quarter of Millennials? Still, curious if any broader theme resonates, or if the whole thing is making a mountain out of a molehill.
There's this fascinating twitter thread (unroll link for better reading) about A Minecraft Movie, and how it is fundamentally a Zoomer movie on an emotional level, not just a subject matter level. Specifically, he calls it (followed by some key excerpts, though I recommend the entire thread):
the most reactionary movie I've ever seen and the future zoomer world order is bright and wonderful. I would have called it "The humiliation of the coward Jack Black and the end of irony"
... [A]fter this introduction, when [Jack Black] sends the mcguffin to earth to be found by the main character, the movie’s language changes. It is no longer gen x nihilism, or millennial irony after Jack Black is put in prison in hell, and we change protagonist to Young Zoomer Henry.
The reason the movie resonates with the Zoomers is because it reflects their own life experience back at them, and they pick up on that in a subconscious way even if they can’t articulate it.
The real plot of the movie is that a boy is SUCKED against his will into a RECTANGULAR PORTAL into a world that is HYPER STIMULATING and OVERSATURATED, where the people he meet tells him it is a beautiful world of “creativity”, but it’s actually a really simplistic world of base Id expression and Id satisfaction
... On a literal plot level, the antagonist of the movie is some witch pig lady. But on an emotional level, Steve is a villain, the shadow of the protagonist of the movie. The main character Henry is a genuinely creative and smart kid. This is illustrated by him being able to draw well, and being a literal math genius, who can engineer a functioning rocket from scratch. Jack Black is a “Creative”, which is illustrated by him making silly faces and yelling random nonsense. When Henry and the other cast of characters are stuck in minecraft world, they are not actually aided by Steve.
... The story ultimately never portrays “the minecraft world” as a good place, but a place of indulgence, of Id expression and satisfaction... [Steve] is a gooner. And the film itself utterly rejects him: there is no ambiguity here, the minecraft world is bad, and the real world is what matters. “being creative” in minecraft is shallow and hollow, and is a bad outlet for your talents.
The hypersaturated world of hyperreality, of the media-mediated reality that was forced on the zoomers, as their parents plopped a phone or ipad on them as children, is a shallow and hollow mimicry of the real world, and exposing children to “minecraft” at age 9 is not going to make them more “creative”, it is just going to make them into autistic gooners. It is not really a minecraft movie. It is a movie about the zoomer life experience, and a genuine and open confrontation with prior generations. The minecraft branding is arbitrary. The emotional core of the movie, and there truly is a genuine human emotional core, is a genuine inter-generational dialogue.
And I say, the reason the zoomers like it, is not some ironic doubly irony joke where they pretend to like a bad movie - that is just what it looks like to millenials, because “that’s what millennials do”. The reason they like it is because they resonate with a story about being raped by a magical portal that sends you to a fake world you have to escape from. And that is extremely genuine and real, and the movie totally succeeds in expressing something, that possibly haven’t been captured in art before, with the novelty of our technological-historical situation.
I don't know if I ever thought of it this way, but now I kind of can't unsee it. I genuinely wonder if Zoomers will end up feeling bitter towards Millennials like me in much the same way we feel in many cases bitter towards Boomers, but instead of a grudge over amassing self-serving stock market wealth and monopolizing limited housing stock, it's despairing over the perhaps mishandled human-technological interaction surface that emerged after Millennial founders and users created the modern mobile-social-internet landscape.
But in a way maybe this is all healing for Zoomers? There is definitely some actual awareness and maturity that their brains are on some level being cooked, they know they use TikTok too much, but there's still some earnestness left despite all that. Also, Minecraft is a weird thing because it is one of the few completely crossover experiences between Zoomers and Millennials, but even so, the actual experience is somewhat different. For Zoomers, it's a simple childhood exploration time and a cultural touchstone, with some nostalgia and force of memes and videos. For Millennials, it was more overtly a sea change in gaming (constant updates, a rise in indie titles, graphical reversion), more directly creative as a more adult/late teen outlet, and with nerdy overtones. Spending time in Minecraft and building things creatively were quite literally different for the two age groups, in the aggregate. At least in this viewing, Jack Black's Steve represents on some level the disconnect between the two generations that are so close in the overt trappings, yet so far in their emotional response to modernity.
... showing over and over again that Jack Black, as a stand in for gen X nihilism and millennial irony, is totally oblivious, that he doesn’t “get it”, that he is a clown who is not in on the joke... It’s funny, engaging, and genuine. And Jack Black is not in on the joke. That’s what makes it work and that’s the point, and as the credits rolled in the theater, two zoomers who were leaving turned around and waved and smiled and yelled something to me, and I had no idea what they were saying, and I think that’s beautiful.
Thoughts? Is he way off base here?
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
3d ago
This is the kind of minor pedantry I actually appreciate!
If you want to invest, there are options for fancy ones I don’t know much about, but for me the kindle paperwhite is easily hits the perfect portability price and convenience factor combination. Also press and hold brings up the dictionary on a word, just confirmed. Recommend to buy a nice leather case for it - some also have grips on the back side you can even fasten them sorta to your hand! Adds to the feel though some might like the original size and thinness. Brightness and color temperature settings are good as well. And apparently the new version is a bit more responsive too
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4d ago
If you aren’t yet burned out on time loop, although it’s unfinished and the first loop takes like 20 chapters to happen, The Years of Apocalypse is also very good and in some ways better! Might be up your alley given those criticisms.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
4d ago
I would copy the cash to investment ratio of Buffet. So not a full retreat but liquidate some.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8d ago
As a broad historical pattern going back millennia, I should observe that upper classes almost always adopt technologies, cultures, and other aspects from foreign countries before the lower classes do, partly but not entirely due to increased exposure. I'd imagine there are some lower-class American things that seem high-class in Europe as well, but haven't been to Europe so don't know for sure.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8d ago
Uh oh. Chat am I cooked? My father and his father are genuinely some of the best people I know. Kind, reasonable, good fathers and husbands, charitable, and extremely hard working. Genuinely don't think I can measure up. Is my self esteem doomed?
My dad has visited all those countries (though Thailand the fewest times), and his experiences match up for sure. Said Japan was remarkably older than expected, but SK was extremely vibrant and modern feeling. But does architecture really reflect success? You know, during the United States' most successful century, a lot of cities were frankly total crap to live in for a good portion of the time. Smog and smoke everywhere, urban overcrowding, the occasional riot, etc. I'd say it's less about confidence or architecture or dynamism than it is if people care, on an individual level, strongly, about their fates. In that sense, as long as the structuralists don't stifle the individualists too much, we're probably OK, macro-scale. Individual welfare is another matter entirely.
There's one big point about the US I disagree with. West-coasters might be less traditionally polite, but are far more open about experiences than other parts of the country. My sister is in college in upstate NY and it was quite an adjustment even in the small things - people are far less likely to strike up conversations, no one responds genuinely to "how was your day" to strangers like they do back out West, and the casualness to which you treat others in some ways translates to a very egalitarian society, where someone rich might genuinely have similar mannerisms to someone poor, (though not in all areas). I would say rather than respect being lost, it's a different kind of respect.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8d ago
Two thoughts: One, the quotes on which the article is based are real, however. While I obviously have a dim view about AI-only articles, it's not like the opinion on which it is based is wholly fabricated. There's even a link to the original plagiarized tweet that served as the seed. So while the specific words might be AI-generated, the opinions and facts behind them still strike me as fairly representative. In that regard it's totally fine to engage with the post, and it isn't all that different than a human's post (other than the AI is probably a little less careful with their specific phrasing... but an unskilled human writer might make similar mistakes).
Two, my impression is Silver, who has been on a few-month-long tear recently on Twitter, is just doing regular engagement-bait confirmation bias stuff. Rather than say "he's been captured" I would say let's look at the more likely reason - it's an emotional, not intellectual, reaction. He's frustrated about Democrats and their nonsensical, misguided strategies in the last few years. Many agree with him. Of course, these posts happen more frequently when you get twitter-brain. Even data scientists are emotionally vulnerable to human network effects, where our brains are incapable of realizing twitter has enormous selection bias. Nope, our brains don't care, they find it very hard to correct for the bias. Much like how your sense of humor is developed by the people around you and their reactions. Is that population-representative? Often, no. But the brain doesn't care because the brain (often rightfully) assumes you care more about the opinions of those immediately surrounding you then the larger population. It's just that adjacent people have been hijacked and replaced with twitterati.
So, the good news is that I believe pretty strongly that if you remove twitter, you remove the problem and things can revert. The other good news is that this isn't actually all that abnormal. If you treat twitter-Silver like a woman who doesn't want her problem solved, but rather just wants some listening and sympathy (I mean that in the most charitable way), you see this is fine and just regular human things. While some good actual-ideas discussion happens on twitter, it's rare and tends to get overshadowed.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
8d ago
As I said, I don't think this is really the reaction any of you had to the comment. Charitably, I think that you feel this way consciously, because you dislike racism, and so you avoided letting your mind make this hard-to-explicitly-articulate, but obvious inference.
I mean I know it's the internet and all but I really do try to be genuine in all of my posts. I am 100% serious when I said that looking at "Tatishe Nteta" doesn't clock any particular ethnicity to me. Like, sure, maybe if I sat and looked at it for 30 seconds or so I might make some guesses, but that's not where my brain went, and I'm not in the habit of staring deeply into every single comment. Again my first reaction was "I feel out of the loop - did I miss something?" because I also tend to assume good faith first. My brain, in other words, got sidetracked by trying to guess the OOTL bit, then skipped past the comment until I saw there was a mod post below. It took me ages to clock who this Hanania guy is and still I don't really have a strong sense, for example, so random unfamiliar name-drops aren't unexpected, that's my stronger prior expectation.
Anyways, I object to posts on this forum that rely too much on innuendo and consensus-building and things like that, so even if it didn't have a racial angle I'd still be annoyed at a comment just going "Oh." We aren't mind-readers, and shouldn't have to be, and often overly-short comments waste everyone's time on extended side-bars because they aren't explicit enough. In other words, everyone here should have a vested interest in avoiding Poe's law traps. I think you agree, right? Someone is welcome to make offensive statements and argue for them, but they have to argue for them, not just rely on innuendo to do all the work. And honestly, I never even disputed the fact that his name might be relevant information -- I just want it to be, again, explicit.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
9d ago
Oh man that gave me a good genuine laugh. Definitely hope that was immortalized somehow. Perfect to bring out at a major life event later!
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
9d ago
He’s trying to sharpen his arguments for his book, I think.
Well, some of the oldest deliberate burials we know of (predating civilization) in the IIRC 100k-30k range had bodies that were accompanied by tools. If the concept of ownership were not in effect, burying a perfectly good tool with the dead would not be a thing at all… if we are talking longer than that, it seems reasonable to extrapolate modern human behavior backwards rather than desperately grasp at other animal analogies or something.
Even with our narrow look into mostly civilizational era human behavior, the sheer exponential explosion in human accomplishment, society, potential, and complexity makes comparisons to ill defined pre historic eras somewhat useless. Especially when examining modern human constructs. Scoping in the entire homo genus to talk about problems unique to the last few thousand years seems bonkers. Historians first think property rights and inheritance showed up in the village to town transition in the 5500-3500 BC range, at least per my notes from class with an actual professor, though possibly earlier when we start seeing agrarian-urban centers show up maybe 11k-1500 BC in different spots.
All of this to say that the burden of proof is in your court! For example, you’d be hard pressed to find notable eras of history without war. Unless we somehow missed some awesome society somewhere as a major proof of concept that war-free life can be possible, war seems like a reasonable default.
On a more personal note, I am Mormon. According to the Book of Mormon, after Jesus’ personal visit to a group in the Americas, there was actually peace for about two or three generations, at least so the story goes, and came alongside people having all possessions in common. This implies to me, which is also visible in society at large even without a spiritual outlook, that while humanity is its current ‘sinful’ self, a true no-property society is impossible, or at least there is a natural hard limit to how long society can go without war and major contention. People are jerks too often for that. Early in our church’s history, we even tried a version of this a few times, and it worked OK for a while but eventually broke down. An ideal heavenly society though? You are absolutely correct. No ownership is absolutely a thing. It’s just not currently feasible nor sustainable.
You might however find some accounts of our church’s attempts (there were several) at changing the paradigm interesting. Basically, everything would get signed over to the local bishop, who would then re-distribute first needs, then wants equally. You might find Building the City of God: Community and Cooperation among the Mormons" by Leonard J. Arrington, Feramorz Y. Fox, and Dean L. May an interesting read.
Speaking historically, property rights emerge most primitively, naturally, and originally from the simple fact that no two plots of farming land will produce the same. These differences compound over generations. There's also a human emotional component that things you view as "yours" naturally receive more full effort in cultivating. If you stack on top of that how craft specialization emerges in societies with surplus agriculture, the fundamental ideas of property already emerge, zero capitalism required.
You might find it interesting to peruse this list of human universals, where I will begrudgingly accept that anthropologists have assembled something useful. These are traits that exist in literally every single known human society. Not some, ALL. You might observe a few relevant entries: property, preference for own children and close kin, inheritance rules, economic inequalities, division of labor, envy, symbolic means of coping with envy, trade, males more likely to engage in theft, reciprocal exchanges, and gift giving, just to name a few. You may notice that many of these (aside from obviously "property" already being its own entry) presume that property is a real human thing. Yes, that means in literally all of human history, we haven't found a single society that doesn't have the concept of property. I'd argue ownership is similar enough to be near identical.
Edit: In light of your comments below pointing out that just because something is natural or even universal doesn't make it good, sure, that's true. But the approach needs to differ. If something is truly universal, the best we can do is mitigation! Not abolition. We cannot abolish war, it is not human. We can however mitigate their frequency, severity, and impact.
What you are trying to do is completely replace something that fundamentally cannot be altered. As such, you're philosophically barking up the wrong tree altogether. And we already have a word for the societal negotiation of laws governing how to mitigate the bad effects of property being a thing. It's called politics. You cannot escape politics.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
10d ago
You've convinced me I overstated the case. Good comment. But still, there are some considerations that make it not entirely clear-cut. This map taken from this Naval War College report on an oil blockade demonstrates that yes, there are a number of choke points for trade flows out of China. I should note however that Taiwan being Chinese controlled or not makes a big deal to Japan/SK, but doesn't necessarily provide a better defensive blockade escape route in general - there's already quite a bit of water in that direction, as you can see, that directly isn't a choke point for non-Taiwanese conflicts, where Taiwan is surely sitting out.
Naval mining would be pretty effective yes in the straights but in a blockade-first scenario (i.e. not-war) I don't see it happening (would the surrounding nations be mad? Almost certainly. And it would hinder trade to our own allies too - Japan/SK are supplied via the same channels). There's also the matter of scale to consider. Although the PLAN doesn't have great force projection capabilities right now, the US naval readiness is also quite lackluster, which is fairly well-documented. The US would only be able to bring over a little over half of their fleet, I bet - would it be able to sustain a blockade operation against thousands of ships attempting to blockade-run for more than a couple of months? The US would probably say yes, but I actually think that's uncertain. There are a lot of ships that transit, and all of them would need to be checked or identified on some level. Again I struggle to come up with a scenario where Taiwan would ever be an active participant in a blockade (would be poking the bear) unless they were already under existential threat. And going down that reasoning just leads to circular, tautological reasoning (you can't threaten Taiwan's existence and then use actions it would take to secure its own existence as evidence for threatening Taiwan's existence). Even then, it seems to me a far more likely scenario that China is blockading Taiwan, which I think the PLAN is currently capable of doing (if just barely).
So yeah, we are basically left with the war scenarios. Blockades are already acts of war on some level. The linked report concludes that an oil embargo probably wouldn't work, but the reasons given are mostly non-military. I stand corrected on that front.
Either you've completely missed the point or, much more likely, I made the point way too clumsily and misled you. I wasn't presenting a worldview or anything like that, nor trying to provide a comprehensive accounting of all the factors at play.
I'm simply making an observation/claim: when conflicts are primarily feelings-based (deliberately a broad category - set up in contrast to more practical considerations like security concerns, economic considerations, and other more direct impacts - maybe "material" would be a better word?) there's a temptation and tendency for observers, even intelligent ones, to sometimes go "that can't possibly be the main reason(s), there must be some practical aspect I'm missing". They conjure up reasonable-sounding material reasons that either do not exist or are immaterial to the roots of the conflict, and assign them excessive weight. That's not to say emotional considerations are, ipso fact, irrational, nor to say that emotional considerations can't be strategic either; I merely observe the tendency for people to keep searching for non-emotional reasons even when they already have the most important pieces right there in front of them.
As the two most recent examples go:
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Russia says they want to invade Ukraine to restore a pan-Russian empire. Western observers go "that seems like a weak reason to actually invade a country, so really they must be worried about NATO military aggression" when the reality is that Westerners just severely underrated Russia's own stated reasons.
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China says they want to reunify Taiwan with force to restore a pan-Chinese empire. Western observers go "that seems like a weak reason to actually invade a country, so really they must be worried about US military aggression/encirclement" when the reality is that Westerners just severely underrate China's own stated reasons.
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To extend it even a little farther, at risk of diluting my point, Dick Cheney and co say they want to forcibly export democracy to the Middle East. Western observers go "that seems like a weak reason to actually invade a country, so really they must be wanting more oil" when the reality is that Western observers just severely underrated the idiocy of neocons. This is a little post-hoc but I think it works.
The Taiwan issue isn’t just an emotional matter—it’s deeply tied to historical legitimacy, national identity, and decades of unresolved civil war politics. You may disagree with the PRC’s claims, but characterizing them as purely irrational makes real understanding impossible.
To be clear, "historical legitimacy" is a matter of feelings. "National identity" is a matter of feelings. Politics, abstractly, are feelings. At least in the sense that they only weakly and indirectly correspond to the fundamental physical prosperity of a country.
I absolutely agree with you that it's actually of critical importance to understand that "hurt feelings" are powerful and need to be understood as valid - or at least, if not valid, then necessary to understand - and indeed are common motivations for conflict throughout history. I'm very aware of the seriousness of some of those feelings in the China-Taiwan issue. Ignoring and downplaying them is often the result of hubris and/or ignorance. But if we zoom out a little bit, that's still all they are, feelings! Whether strategically deployed or entirely organic, that doesn't change their nature.
From a moral perspective, I would further advance the argument that however understandable the above reasons might be, these are still bad/insufficient moral reasons to invade an effectively sovereign and separate country. That wasn't my main point however. Hope that clears things up.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
11d ago
I agree that it’s one the more philosophically tricky questions around. However, time and circumstance are hugely important factors here. The Civil War is worlds apart because it happened, in historical terms, more or less immediately. A better analogy would be, would either North or South Korea be justified (or heck, forget justified, would it even be rational) in finishing off the unification, today? Obviously not. Time and ability to self govern strongly determine ‘legitimacy’ as an independent state, and Taiwan and South Korea have demonstrated both. It’s not even close. Most of the original combatants are dead! it’s truly intergenerational now. Wars of reunification within a few years of the split wouldn’t bat an eye - and didn’t, really. If the PRC had actually gone through and invaded in the decade or so after WW2 the US would maybe have been annoyed or supplied arms or whatever but on some level that’s still an “understandable” war. The only thing that weakens these protections is when a state effectively goes into collapse. For example, I am on record as being decidedly “meh” about Israel grabbing Syrian land in the civil war period (not to get into a big discussion there but just as an illustration).
If we did get in to the Civil War philosophy, I think the important point is that American political philosophy (with the Declaration of Independence as an example) generally held not quite that it was only a consent of the governed thing, but also that subjects needed to have been oppressed or have some notable grievances on order for rebellion to be justified - to the best of my knowledge the consensus was not as simple as “anyone can revolt at any time for any reason if the people support it”. Under that logic, the South would only be allowed to secede for “good reason” or something like that - simply seceding because a president they thought they wouldn’t like won, and on fears of what he might do, hardly rise to that level.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
11d ago
My honest first reaction was simply what I said: “is this guy supposed to be famous or is there some in-group reference I’m missing?” Even linking his faculty page like you did would have been a more effective point and IMO a valid comment. In fact, pointing him out as someone with an obvious career stake and bias towards finding bias IS a good point. I just strongly believe (and the rules are aimed at) putting a little extra effort into being explicit about things is healthier for discussion. It’s not good to habitually rely on people guessing at meaning, and deliberately underbaked comments allow the worst kind of motte and bailey because it necessarily involves some degree of projection.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
11d ago
While I appreciate the direction of thought (control over Taiwan certainly does enable more “offensive” options), it’s incorrect to say that anyone, even a coalition, would be able to effectively blockade China. They simply have too much coastline and too large a navy. Maybe 20 years ago yes, but currently? No. That’s not projected to change in the next 20 years either no matter how big a peacetime buildup of their neighbors.
Also, I personally believe the South China Sea moves to be primarily about resources (fishing, oil, etc) than a power projection, but reasonable people can absolutely disagree there.
It’s still hard to believe, even despite intellectually knowing why, how many Americans and even Mottizens display an astonishing capacity to rationalize bad foreign actors. China wants Taiwan primarily out of essentially hurt feelings; the fact that this is a batshit insane reason to start a war over a territory that has self governed with no major problems for over 30 years is so outrageous many are tempted to look for deeper meaning when there is none. Even if the US literally sent 10x the arms to Taiwan, do you know the impact that would have on Chinese national security? Almost literally zero. Zero. Nothing. Nil. Zilch. Nada.
Hell, Taiwan doesn’t even present a regional influence threat. They don’t and couldn’t project power into the South China Sea for example. The only vague threat is as a refuge for Hong Kongers and other dissidents, and even that is far overblown.
Well, maybe some of it has to do with America’s short memory when it comes to the potency of war fever. A lot of Americans try to pretend they didn’t support the Iraq war, but the opinion polls at the time don’t lie. I’ll grant there was some government deception of course but that doesn’t fully explain it.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
11d ago
It’s not concise, it’s not valuable. Is everyone supposed to know who this is? If so, the comment is straightforwardly disallowed; if not, I think as part of the compact of making non-sneering comments you are obligated to at least gesture at saying something informative and you know, make an actual point.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
21d ago
What an insane fan-fic reality that would be. At least you acknowledge that your position is at odds with the courts and thus ipso facto illegal. The lack of a typical social contract with an illegal immigrant does not immediately imply that all rights are forfeit, in fact the Framers explicitly rejected that notion. The idea is that the court should make at least a passing effort to assess whether deporting him to El Salvador specifically would seriously endanger him; rather, the courts already determined in 2019 this to be the case, so if he is to be deported, such an assessment much be overturned. This is at least superficially reasonable. There is a universal duty that the government not be party to reckless endangerment, even of foreigners. Until the process finishes, tough shit, the government can't do what it wants. It doesn't have to be a mega-detailed process, but it does have to happen. I'll say that personally, I don't find him super sympathetic. I also have mixed feelings about asylum laws in general - the country has a long history of welcoming people from countries in trouble, and prospering because of it, but just because a person's home country is a shitshow isn't a valid reason to illegally immigrate nor on its face create a substantial danger to return, and I do strongly resent the rhetoric of some on the left to this effect. Furthermore, I don't have that much sympathy for Republicans either because of how many torpedoed the last immigration compromise bill, which among other things would have hired a lot more judges so that cases exactly like this wouldn't drag on forever and consume government resources so much. The solution to policies you dislike is legislation, not intra-governmental disobedience. I'm pretty sure the legislature could curtail asylum laws, for example, if you so dislike them. Because remember, Garcia was both granted a stay on deportation AND the law also currently requires a certain process to be followed for such people to actually be deported. If you dislike this, the remedy is clear: change the law! The government is not, in fact, entitled to pick and choose which laws to follow, nor does your 'higher law' reasoning about social contracts supercede the actual laws.
Obviously, as a Mormon (member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, whew) I think you're actually on the right track. It's so blindingly obvious that the Catholic church is bumbling along, with zero internal consistency, for centuries and centuries. It shows up all over. Even today, Catholics are very loud about a number of major issues, but very small numbers of actual Catholics actually agree with their own church's doctrine, much less practice it, and that's even before you look at any history at all. Don't get me wrong, I respect Catholics, I get along with many, I still view the religion as an overall net good, etc. but their doctrine is a mess. I genuinely extra respect the Catholics who attempt to pull the doctrine together into a coherent whole, but I just don't see the hand of God guiding them.
Now, doctrinally, to me, this all goes away quite neatly when you give up on the idea of the Catholic line of authority being unbroken. Clearly they strayed, it's self-evident, so my own faith has the nice idea of needing someone to restore and clarify things and have a modern guide/prophet. I'm not saying that people don't find any inconsistencies in Mormon doctrine, there's a people component to be sure, but it's several orders of magnitude less. I strongly reject this idea that doctrine is developed by groups of people hashing it out. Council of Nicea? Convened by Constantine, he basically says I don't care what you produce as long as it's something unifying, and once you do, we'll burn the writings of dissenters and exile anyone not with the program. All this to say you should meet with the missionaries :)
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