domain:mattlakeman.org
FtttG
23m ago
The Seinfeld is Unfunny effect.
FtttG
25m ago
the concept of "the world is revealed to be an illusion" has been done better
At the risk of spoiling the works in question for myself, which works are you thinking of?
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
36m ago
On a slightly unrelated note, would you happen to be aware of any current experiments with running software they way you would like to run uploads - encrypted, unrootable etc.?
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
40m ago
Some marriage-fraud cases:
Plaintiff Sotir Libarov is a Bulgarian citizen. After entering the United States legally, Libarov married Elizabeth Alonso Hernandez, a lawful permanent resident. On March 15, 2016, Libarov applied to become a lawful permanent resident based on that marriage. USCIS issued a Notice of Intent to Deny Libarov’s application in March 2022, concluding that Libarov and Hernandez had entered into a sham marriage for immigration purposes. In the Notice, USCIS explained that Hernandez said under oath that the marriage was arranged by an acquaintance and that she “was offered $10,000 to enter a fraudulent marriage” with Libarov. USCIS ultimately denied Libarov’s application for permanent resident status on June 15, 2022.
Jin Yin Zhou, a Chinese citizen, married a US citizen in 1996. In 1997, Zhou entered the United States as a conditional permanent resident, ostensibly to live with her husband in New York. But, not long after her arrival, Zhou began living with her boyfriend in Kentucky and had three children with him. Zhou never lived with her husband and eventually divorced him in 2001. Throughout her immigration proceedings, Zhou concealed these facts repeatedly, including when she submitted a petition to remove the conditions of her residence and when she applied for naturalization. Eventually, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) officials discovered Zhou’s marriage fraud and recommended to the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) that she be placed in removal proceedings.
On January 15, 2014, Ansar Hassen Hussen, a native and citizen of Ethiopia, was admitted to the United States on a B-2 visitor visa which authorized him to remain in this country for six months. However, he has never left.
In June 2014, Hussen applied for asylum, withholding of removal, and relief under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), claiming that he had twice been imprisoned and beaten for belonging to a minority political party in Ethiopia. An immigration judge (IJ), however, found Hussen’s account implausible and rejected his application, and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) affirmed, agreeing that material aspects of Hussen’s story did not add up. Hussen filed a petition for review.
While that petition was pending, Hussen married a US citizen, who then filed an I-130 application for an immigrant visa on his behalf. Hussen then filed a motion with the BIA to reopen his proceedings so that he could seek an adjustment of status based on his marriage. He attached affidavits, photographs, receipts for items like a diamond engagement ring, an Islamic marriage contract, and a lease agreement showing that the couple jointly rented an apartment in Virginia. The BIA, however, denied Hussen’s motion to reopen, concluding that Hussen’s evidence was “insufficient” because he failed to provide “clear and convincing evidence of the bona fides of [his] marriage”. From the BIA’s denial of his motion to reopen, Hussen filed a second petition for review.
While Hussen’s second petition for review was pending, he filed another motion with the BIA to reopen the proceedings and to reconsider its denial of his earlier motion to reopen. He attached evidence showing that his wife was pregnant, that they were living together, and that they shared a joint bank account. The BIA denied Hussen’s motion for reconsideration and second motion to reopen, and Hussen filed a third petition for review.
For the reasons that follow: we deny Hussen’s first petition; we grant his second petition, vacate the BIA’s order denying Hussen’s motion to reopen, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion; and we deny his third petition as moot.
In October 2013, Plaintiff Roberto Martinez Olivera filed a Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, on Givovich’s behalf, and Plaintiff Nicole Givovich correspondingly filed a Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status. After interviewing Givovich and Martinez Olivera regarding the petitions in January 2014, USCIS investigated the bona fides of Givovich’s prior marriage with Doroteo Caldera Rodriguez. On April 9, 2014, USCIS Immigration Officers interviewed Mr. Caldera Rodriguez, and he provided a written sworn statement (translated from Spanish to English) in which he stated that he had married Givovich “as a favor so she could obtain her legal residency”. Specifically, he explained that he and Givovich had met when they were taking English classes and were friends for about two years before getting married. He said that Givovich had asked him to marry her to help her obtain her residency status. Mr. Caldera Rodriguez stated that he and Givovich never lived together and were never intimate.
USCIS ultimately denied the I-130 visa petition in April 2023. USCIS explained that the two sworn statements of Mr. Caldera Rodriguez, and the corroborating statements of Ms. Trejo, Ms. Munoz, and Mr. Rojas, provided substantial and probative evidence that Plaintiff Givovich had “entered into marriage with Mr. Caldera Rodriguez for the purpose of evading immigration laws”.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
43m ago
I can well imagine that "brought to life" implies that whatever damage it suffered since or even leading up to death would be repaired in the process of resurrection. Which might raise the question of why damaging it further matters, then, but I suppose it would be disrespectful to intentionally work opposite to God's intended course.
RenOS
something is wrong
44m ago
But he's not accusing anyone specifically of believing the things he's pillorying? He's not claiming all Republicans believe what he said. At worst, maybe you could say his mention of the "Online Right" was overbroad, but the way he capitalized it meant it was different than "anyone online who is right wing". Is the issue that you think no single Republican thinks these things? If that's the case I'm 100% certain you're incorrect.
At least to me, the problem is that it's very unclear who he means, where he gets these ideas from, and how to even productively engage with all this. KMC's post is very specific, he cites specific things that a certain person has said and then makes conclusions that at least reasonably follow from those. Even if you disagree, you can argue quite well with that. Gattsuru is especially careful to link a lot so again, this makes it easy for me to check everything up and engage at specific points.
Turok's post here claims there is a "new narrative on the online right" (from whom? where?), which is mostly the near-opposite of the things I usually hear from broadly self-identifying rightists (as far as I can see, they usually argue that immigrants suck due to crime and welfare, and that if the native populations then has to do the shitty jobs themselves, so be it). Likewise, in the last paragraph, he directly addresses the reader, claims that "many here" believe certain things (again who? in which post?) and admonishes them.
For me, there is not much except to say that while I agree that it sounds stupid, I've not particularly heard of this new narrative, and that the positions he ascribes to "many here" is actually somewhat rare (though certainly not zero, so much I agree with). And most of his post nowadays are like this. Just undirected sneering about people he dislikes. If anything, it would be better if he cited the specific people saying these things.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
48m ago
Do they use mummification or anything to that effect? I'd expect the whole process of worms and rotting to do a number on the current body. Unless... God's skeleton army.
FtttG
1hr ago
I once heard that so many people were requesting to have their ashes scattered at Old Trafford that Manchester United actually bought a dedicated ashes-scattering plot for their fans.
FtttG
1hr ago
Well, he specifically talks about the industrial revolution being a disaster for the human race. It's a few years since I read it, but my vague recollection is that he thought that the pre-industrial tech level was not so advanced as to be incompatible with authentic psychological flourishing. But I admit I could be mistaken.
I read that their original plan was for Switch to be played by a male actor inside the Matrix, and by a female actor in the real world (or maybe vice versa). They wisely decided against it because they reckoned audiences would find it too confusing, but the fact that that was the original plan makes their intentions all the more explicit.
Consider also the scene in which Agent Smith holds Neo down on the train tracks addressing him as Mr. Anderson (i.e. deadnaming him), but Neo insists that his name is Neo and refuses to let himself be killed by the oncoming subway. Now consider also that, at some point prior to filming, Lana Wachowski was feeling such intense despair brought on by their gender dysphoria that they considered throwing themselves in front of a train. With all the high concepts flying around, it's easy to forget what an intensely personal film The Matrix is for its creators. It was not some commercial film they did for a paycheque: for better and worse, they put every ounce of themselves into this thing, and its first two sequels.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
1hr ago
I have nothing to say about America. Let the Americans do that. But on the topic of patriotism: In so far as each citizen is a cell of the body civic - patriotism is a must-have. Imagine the anthropomorphed cells of your own body deciding they'd rather not feel overly invested in your fate! So long as the patriotism isn't generated by stupid means (e.g., citizens bonding over self-destructive warmongering or ideology), having patriotic citizenry is strictly advantageous. Maybe there are diminishing returns at high-levels of patriotism or even disadvantages to excessive patriotism (inability to admit when the country has taken a wrong turn; overestimation of country's capacities?), but it seems naively obvious that the society that citizens feel is justified in its existence will be fitter and better than one in which citizens doubt the same.
Southkraut
The rain fell gentlier.
1hr ago
I agree with your overall reasoning. Our favorite current-day technologies could theoretically be used as the next step in the formation of homo technicus, tool-using man who outcompetes his more natural rivals because technology just makes him better at life, but right now those technologies are mostly used to hook into our path-of-least-resistence hedonism to maximize engagement and minimize agency. In the long run, we'll figure out how to use them more intelligently and efficiently for productive purposes, and how to protect ourselves from addiction and brain-addling engagement-maximization-schemes. Well, "we" - some will, some won't, and the former will make it further into the future than the latter before technology progress makes humans in general obsolete.
2rafa
1hr ago
Fiscal discipline can only be enforced by the bond market, that is the reality. Since both Democrats and Republicans have borrowed and would borrow, the questions around deficit spending are only these:
-
How can we maximize spending to fiscally constrain a future opposition administration/congress?
-
How can we allocate the greatest possible funding to issues we care about?
This bill, while far from perfect, mostly accomplishes both. You can’t mass deport without large scale holding camp infrastructure. $50bn or whatever isn’t enough, but it’s a good start. Immigration is the only thing that matters until immigration is solved (AI matters too, but the state is powerless to stop that march of technological progress).
solowingpixy
the resident car guy
2hr ago
Broadly, it's bad fiscal policy in a way that fiscal policy has been bad in an escalating fashion for the last 10-25 years (Any self-described Republican fiscal hawks need to account for Hastert before we get to Ryan/McCarthy/Johnson.).
What I find interesting in the argument over Medicaid cuts is the fact that Medicaid spending somehow increased by 40% in the last five years? How?! I could see 25% given inflation, and a temporary covid bump makes sense, but we've allegedly had a strong working-class labor market for years.
Is a healthcare system that's rapidly approaching 20% of GDP even reformable?
functor
2hr ago
Effectively there are too many people that have to be pleased by the budget for it to pass. Congress, senate and a bunch of other influential people have to agree to it. These people aren't fully autonomous but are being pulled in various directions by people around them. The result is not much can actually be done to cut spending as each cut will be fought by someone. Musk was probably right from an idealist perspective that the bill increased the debt. However, his view is too based on the corporate world in which he doesn't need to get hundreds of people to agree in order to set policy.
The bill highlights one of America's greatest issues, the inability for someone to ram something through and get it done.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
2hr ago
singularly terrified of the massive increase to the ICE budget
They're not that strong though, glorified policemen. The US Army or Marines could surely roll right over them with numbers and heavy equipment.
Also, is there any need to use language like ingroup and neargroup? Do you just mean friends, leftists, liberals, progressives? Fiscal conservatives? Or do you mean well off, upper middle class, highly educated people? Or maybe you mean civil servants? I'm left guessing here. Surely being more precise would be better.
RE: Uploading.
Do we really need to worry about our uploads being abused and tortured, or sold for parts? By the time technology is far enough along to upload minds, what really is the value of an upload? It can be copied and modified infinitely. Most likely they can be synthesized, procedurally generated or just generated by "AI"s. If a virtual mind is good for anything, then there will be so many of them purpose-built that nobody needs a pre-singularity upload to do the job.
You'll be a useless scrap of data. Just to be very clear about that.
Other than that, I think you reason it out very well. I'd disagree on the assumptions - might even suspect that your motivation is mostly wishful thinking - but the actual arguments flowing from them seem pretty solid.
GBRK
3hr ago
Does anyone have anything to say about the OBBB being passed? I was genuinely surprised to see that no one was posting about it at all in this thread.
I'm broadly against the bill but don't have much of an opinion of the specific provisions. I understand that it's meant to neuter the political power of my ingroup and neargroup and it seems like it's going to be effective at that, so I know I'm going to dislike it regardless of whether it has any actual non-partisan merit. I guess if I had to single out few things in particular, I'm selfishly in favor of renewing the R&D tax writeoffs, but also singularly terrified of the massive increase to the ICE budget... It definitely looks like trump is making a military force loyal to him personally because he doesn't trust the loyalty of the existing forces. There are... historical parallels. I'm (among other things) brazilian, and I can't help but remember the first republic's antipathy towards and neglect of the navy due to their royalist tendencies.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3hr ago
In short terms (based on my experience), I'd say something like "Blue Tribers who like the movie Idiocracy for being 'so true,'" or "racist Progressives who've figured out they hate Red Tribe 'fellow whites' more than they do blacks or browns."
The first time I ever encountered the term, it was in a Substack essay by a "former white nationalist" who pretty much fit that second description — the moment he got out of his diverse, coastal, urban, Blue Tribe bubble into the >90% white "flyover country" and met his "fellow whites" of the Red Tribe, suddenly he wasn't a "white nationalist" anymore. The essay also went on about how "progressive" his politics were, how they were solidly in the tradition of past progressives like Galton and Sanger, and how eugenics are really the most progressive thing (I'd say he's not wrong about that), and that his "project" to "fix" our politics is about reclaiming "solidly Anglo" progressive eugenics from it's "unfair" association with Nazi Germany. (Meanwhile, I noted that his list of past pro-eugenics "Anglo" progressives that started with Galton included the rather non-Anglo Wernher von Braun.)
Basically, this is one of the places where I agreed with Hlynka, that there's a lot of these sorts who are supposedly on the "far-right." (My primary disagreement with him was always that he held being a "principled loser" as the essence of "the Right," and thus pronounced all atheists — and anyone else who disbelieves in "a future state of rewards and punishments" after death — as automatically and inherently Leftists, and thus The Enemy.)
Jiro
3hr ago
What about the atoms in your body that have gone through the food chain and been later used in someone else's body? Who gets them?``
OliveTapenade
3hr ago
Some people think being patriotic is some kind of duty, but I'm not one of those people. Your truest and highest duty as a citizen is to make a thoughtful vote at every given election opportunity.
This is something I'm inclined to disagree with. No comment on patriotism, which I think is a snarl word that admits of too many different meanings to be useful, but I think what you've done here is an instance of fetishism. Voting is one thing that dutiful citizens often do. It is not identical to dutiful citizenship. I think you're mistaking one expression of a duty with the duty itself.
As I would have it, responsible democratic citizenship does require participating in the political life of the community. That often involves voting, but voting itself is not sufficient for it. A responsible citizen may choose not to vote in certain circumstances (as act of protest, for instance); and an irresponsible citizen may exist even while regularly voting. I don't deny that there's a correlation - responsible and thoughtful citizens vote more often, the irresponsible and incompetent vote less - but the correlation shouldn't be seen as absolute. Moreover, there are many ways for a citizen to participate in the life of their community and support their fellows that do not involve voting, and I value a lot of those ways above voting itself.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
3hr ago
Case in point: https://kirkbangstad.substack.com/p/the-case-for-shutting-down-minocquas
One of our state political cranks (a FIB, natch) has vowed to shut down the community's Fourth of July parade because he doesn't think they deserve one.
clo
3hr ago
the corollary:
I care about treating animals better when it makes them more delicious.
ulyssessword
4hr ago
I always treated the 1-10 pain scale as logarithmic, like earthquakes or sound. 7% of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake ("Near total destruction – severe damage or collapse to all buildings.") is 7.8 ("Causes damage to most buildings, some to partially or completely collapse or receive severe damage."), not 0.63 (the scale only goes to 1.0, which are not felt).
Or going the other way, stubbing a toe might be a 3. Stubbing three toes is definitely not a 9. It might not even reach a 4.
Yes, I argue that the democratization of the newly annexed Eastern provinces of the FRG after 1990 is at this point largely seen as a failure by the West German establishment and their supporters. I think this is pretty much bunk because it ignores that a new political synthesis should have been worked out in the first place, a process that should have made reunification real instead of just a BS word for what in reality was annexation.
No, I think the most successful of all democratic transitions should have been and did in fact turn out to be the Czech, because it was the sole Soviet satellite state that in fact functioned as a democratic pluralistic republic before it was Sovietized; and because the Czechs were influenced by Holy Roman / Germanic culture for centuries before that, which made the country ripe for Westernization after 1989.
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