Speaking as an academic from the UK, there has been a growing sentiment of weariness about spending time in the US. From hallway jokes about getting snatched at the border and spending two weeks in detention camps, to people re-evaluating their conference and career choices to avoid the US, this marks a major shift in the mindset of the current generation of PhD students and early-career academics that will probably have untold implications for long-term research and innovation horizons...
Every year I spend some time with PhD students from my alma mater (we play CTFs) and it's always a good opportunity to see how their research is going, or what grants they've been getting, or which conference they're trying to frantically submit to.
They're still doing research, and the funding hasn't completely dried up. But a lot of the people I talked to were international students, and the gallows humor of being deported was palpable. Made a slightly illegal turn in the van? Better make sure the cops didn't see you, or ICE is going to deport you back to where you came from. Hiring is completely frozen, and there is talk of potentially cutting down or "asking" students to graduate early. I overheard one of the professors talking to another about their students who were in limbo because their visas had been cancelled. It's pretty grim.
> ...messages discussing the Trump administration’s treatment of scientists had been found. The researcher was reportedly then accused of writings “that reflect hatred toward Trump and can be described as terrorism”.
Everything that doesn't fit official government line is an extremism and terrorism. It has been that way in Russia and other authoritarian countries. Looks like that is getting imported into US, and without any tariffs at that. I'm perplexed though why does the US population want it (i live in CA, and that doesn't help understanding the whole US population), especially giving that any of those authoritarian countries is also orders of magnitude worse than US economy-wise (even the economy poster-child China has per capita GDP just 1/7th of that of US).
The same reason the school bully and his entourage wants see your lunch thrown on the ground. It's jealousy, it's tribalism, it's establishment of a power hierarchy. It's evil.
Our country has been taken over by a cult of cruelty and othering.
"The French researcher in question was in possession of confidential information on his electronic device from Los Alamos National Laboratory— in violation of a non-disclosure agreement—something he admitted to taking without permission and attempted to conceal.
Any claim that his removal was based on political beliefs is blatantly false."
You're quoting a statement from the Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs. Given the well-documented history of lies from the current administration, why should we take a statement from a person under their control as fact? It'd be a different thing if such a statement came from the french side, but according to the article you posted they haven't given one.
Let's not forget that the VP literally admitted to creating fake stories to influence public opinion. At this point, any statement by the administration & people under their control should be taken as evidence to the contrary, unless it's corroborated by outside sources.
It is hard to believe a French researcher, traveling from France to the US, was in possession of confidential information he retrieved from a US national lab. It is harder to believe they didn't arrest him for this.
>It is hard to believe a French researcher, traveling from France to the US, was in possession of confidential information he retrieved from a US national lab.
Not at all, it's much more believable than the original story. Traveling scientists frequently work at national labs.
>It is harder to believe they didn't arrest him for this.
Nondisclosure agreements are civil in nature, not criminal.
They always have been, overstaying your visa is an example of a civil violation, placing it in the purvue of ICE. You have less protections/rights afforded to you in civil proceedings versus criminal ones.
> This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy
So they check all your messages at the border? Do they dump your entire phone or what is happening there?
This has been happening since before 9/11 how much I do not know. I never travel with digital gear to the US. I do not work in any secret capacity but my employer prohibits me from brining any work equipment through the border to the US.
You should keep in mind that the media isn't unbiased. It's mostly owned by global corporations that want to continue profiting from labor arbitrage, who don't always give us all the details.
For example: the Canadian woman who was detained at the border. Not many people heard that she was working here illegally (self-employed while here under a TN visa that doesn't allow that).
Edit: I call it arbitrage because (oversimplifying) they manufacture a product for one hour of labor in one country and sell it for one hour of labor in a different country. It's only viable because it takes advantage of a difference in wages between the labor markets.
Well, at least maybe your moral compass needs some calibration? I typically go out of my way to avoid personal attacks here. But it's hard to do so if the reaction to "people get detained and locked up for more than a month with bad medical care" is: "oh great, no more far left".
We not should celebrate a slide into authoritarianism, which always starts with bullying weakly-positioned groups first, but the government has already floated with the idea of deporting Americans (and apparently already deported American kids [1]).
Do you actually prefer if people with a different political view than yourself are just… removed?
I don’t even know where to start with that. Consider whether you have a broken moral compass or something. Consider moving to an actual dictatorship country instead of supporting the introduction of dictatorship in a new country?
Edit: beaten to the “moral compass” thing. Well said, above.
> Do you actually prefer if people with a different political view than yourself are just… removed?
Do you think that the whole "diversity statement" and DEI shticks were exactly tools of removal of people with different political views from academia?
US academia political activity is what made it attractive target for Trump administration. I'd prefer that it didn't happen or that US didn't have a president willing to destroy the academia, but I'd also prefer that universities would act as non-partisan entities. I think Boaz Barak summarized it well [1]
On a separate note, US searching/detaining/refusing entrance to other countries' nationals happened all the time [2,3,4,5,6,7], I don't think it's newsworthy or should change your position on visiting US.
I mean, search engines do exist, but I live to serve.
Anecdotally, there was a fascinating divide generated by the media and government to form some level of societal pressure( see 6,7,8,9 ). Granted, shaming and otherwise making life harder for people, who choose not to follow societal dogma is not exactly new ( 1, 2, 3, 10 ), but it has reached much higher levels during covid years ( 4, 5 ) and in some places resulted in involuntary rendition to quarantine camps ( 11, 12 ). And those don't even touch the informal ways people were openly talking about in groups.
Wait, what. Are you saying that refusing to comply with quarantine measures is comparable with expressing a (legal to express, under the first amendment) opinion?
What argument are you actually trying to support with that barrage of references?
Sigh, you are being obtuse on purpose and I am starting to doubt we will get anywhere useful in this interaction. Allow me to paraphrase you:
You: Do you actually prefer if people with a different political view than yourself are just… removed?
Me: Covid
You: Relevance?
Me: Links with my commentary showing relevance to 'Do you actually prefer if people with a different political view than yourself are just… removed?'
You: Too many links.
Also you: Are you saying that refusing to comply with quarantine measures is comparable with expressing a(n) [..] opinion
Fuck man. No. Being quarantined for expressing an opinon is bad. Being deported for having an opinion is bad. Can you see how things can be bad at the same time? Why is that so hard? Because wrong side is having the opinion? Because the opinion you like is being targeted? Be fucking honest for once.
In other words, I am saying what I am saying. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. I am saying rules apply both ways. I am saying that if you undermine rights at one point, you don't get to whine about undermined rights being undermined further ( doubly so if you cannot understand the connection between the two ) but just not in the direction you wanted.
And I kinda knew this conversation will go that way, but I engaged because I hoped that some of the people learned their lessons. I wrote a meaner version of this post and I removed it for two reasons:
1. HN rules
2. It is pointess. You think that you are not only right, but rigteous.
I noticed there was no #3 in your list: there's no reason to be mean if you're trying to have a genuine discussion. You could actually just stop with "there's no reason to be mean" -- what purpose does that serve? (Trying to hurt others?)
I (another third party) still don't know what you're trying to say. It seems like you are equating "private citizen physicians not accepting patients who refuse to follow medical advice with respect to vaccinations" with "the government is deporting people with different opinions on the Israel/Palestine conflict"? Or generally equating "public health" with "differing opinions"?
I absolutely think they are different. Measles is back now in the US and puts everyone at risk of physical harm, because people have chosen to not get vaccinated without good reason. I don't think that is remotely comparable to differing opinions on the ethical situation between Israel and Palestine.
I think it would be more fruitful if you spend some time refining your message to distill what you're trying to say. Maybe less is more.
Yes, everyone, including those with preexisting immunity, because of the risk of breakthrough infections.
Previous infection as well as the vaccine is only 97% effective against future infection, which means a significant amount of people are getting sick despite making the right choice and getting vaccinated. The fringe loonies are ruining things for everyone.
Not bad, but if you know this then you also must know that the symptoms on that infection are mild and the number of of those people are small[1] so not quite the case of " significant amount of people are getting sick" as you are eager to claim.
You know.. outrage as such, performative or otherwise does not really do much to bolster one's argument. For the record, neither does emotional appeal with 'think of the children'. Or at least not that often on this internet forum anyway.
Ah. Let’s all be cool and un-emotional and let the children die from a preventable disease. Because cool heads are more important than lives. Right, got it. You’re an idiot. Bye!
Really? You’re writing that “Being quarantined for expressing an opinon is bad”, as if that’s a thing that happened.
People were quarantined in order to slow down spread of a disease. When they broke quarantine, they were hunted down and detained because they broke (Australian) quarantine laws. If you can contort yourself into believing any of those cases were about freedom of speech, let me know.
Likewise, laws were passed to mandate vaccines for certain jobs. Some who refused lost their jobs over it. This was not about speech or freedom of opinion. It was about protecting the lives of people they interacted with in their jobs.
As far as I know, millions of people around the world protested in public about the lockdowns, quarantines and other measures. I the US, at least, they were allowed to do that. I know China didn’t permit such protests, but this debate is not about China. You are intentionally conflating freedom of speech and freedom to do various other things, and then accusing me of not debating in good faith.
In the links I so helpfully provided ( I will focus on #8 ), Guardian did note that FB was tasked with combating 'vaccine hesitancy'. And did FB take actions to combat that hesitancy in US? If so, is that censorhip? If so, is it related to speech?
If you want to know what happened at a private tech giant in California, ask someone who works there or an investigative reporter who writes about such things.
I notice that you’re not disputing my claims that nobody in the US was secreted away in a concentration camp over a refusal to vaccinate, or over refusing to comply with quarantine rules. You’re also not disputing that refusing vaccines is not an act of speech.
You’re just trying to exhaust me by throwing a lot of arguments at the wall to see what sticks. It’s not working; you’re not convincing me that the US government under Trump is not breaking new ground by removing people’s rights.
Why indeed? I suppose we will need to do some meta analysis.
Is it because maybe your post attempted to undermine my point by stating:"Really? You’re writing that “Being quarantined for expressing an opinon is bad”, as if that’s a thing that happened."?
<< I notice that you’re not disputing my claims that nobody in the US was secreted away in a concentration camp over a refusal to vaccinate,
Why should I? It is not a claim I made, nor is it my objection. You can have it. Hope you feel more validated.
<< You’re also not disputing that refusing vaccines is not an act of speech.
Amigo. I want you to focus. You are already all over the place and I do not want to distract you with shiny stuff on the horizon. We will get there.
<< you’re not convincing me that the US government under Trump is not breaking new ground by removing people’s rights.
Because, my fake false equivalency buddy, I am not arguing that, despite you clearly trying so very, very hard to impose that framework onto this conversation. You might be trying, so c for effort?
<< If you want to know what happened at a private tech giant in California, ask someone who works there or an investigative reporter who writes about such things.
Hmm. So things only happened if they are investigated by a reporter?
On the top of my head I can cite the cases of Lee Dunn or Billy Thompson who didn't call for violence and these are not the only ones. Please learn about the UK.
It seems that these were cases of blatant racism. But for the sake of the argument, if the cases were comparable, someone else doing it as well does not make it right. Whataboutism. We can disapprove all of all cases where people get detained unjustly.
Well, two down, then. That leaves about, oh I don’t know, 207 countries with universities. Probably at least a hundred of those are functioning democracies where you can expect rule of law and due process.
I live in a Northern European country, you don’t have to lecture me about how free speech law works here.
It remains a fact that you cannot be deported from most countries (including my home country) for allegedly expressing a particular political opinion, without at least first being put through a legal process to determine that you did in fact express that opinion.
As for that particular law you mention in France or Switzerland, please support the claim with at least one example from each country of someone serving prison time over calling someone a “fat lesbian”. I don’t believe it for a minute.
It's a fact, I'm afraid.
Disclaimer: I don't even like the guy, he makes money off conspiracy theories about Jewish people. But it's a fact that he got sentenced to prison for saying a journalist is a fat lesbian.
That’s pretty eye-catching. My French is a bit rusty, did he get 40 days imprisonment?
Normally in European countries, an insult, slander or libel would render a fine only.
I’m not sure it follows from this case that the US has better protections for speech, though. It certainly used to, but the argument being made here is that the Trump administration has reduced free speech protections lately.
This whole "freedom" thing is what led to Trump administration, which routinely thinks they are above the law, being in power. And if you think its not that bad, just wait till 2028 when Trump will coup the government like he tried in 2020 except this time he will succeed.
People need to be on a tighter leash. And as for who holds the leash, nobody = the leash is the law, and anyone who tries to circumvent it gets punished. Nobody is above it, even if you feel like the law is unfair - work to get the law changed if that is what you want.
People were warning that Trump is going to tank the economy - it was in a positive state in 2016 from Obama and he deficit spend like crazy while also lowering taxes, which contributed to recession under Biden in a large way, but of course Covid is to blame.
Now, without Covid, its pretty clear that he basically tanked the economy for no good reason.
People were warning that Trump is going to weaponize the government to go against people opposing him.
He is doing that now.
People were warning that Trump is going to ignore the law and the legal process.
He is certainly doing that now.
People were warning that Trump is going to implement policies based in racism.
He is certainly doing that now.
And we aren't even half a year into his term.
But sure, pick the few points that didn't happen as justification.
I really do wonder what it feels like to live with ideological blinders on sometimes. Must be a nice feeling to live in reality thats probably happier than what actual reality is.
I mean, he and his cronies have even said they would do most of these things. One thing we have learned is that they mean what they say. If they say we would like to put US citizens in a prison in El Salvador or Tesla protestors are domestic terrorists they also mean it. The reason it hasn't happened yet is that they are slowly boiling the frog of ignoring court orders, etc.
I was referring to him targeting hispanic immigrants only in unconstitutional ICE deportations, without legal process. Plenty of rhetoric in his tweets/truth social about how the immigrants here are all criminals. Whether its racism or the belief that Democrats are importing Mexicans to increase their voter base or a mixture of both due to his dementia, then its
As for racial rules, what you are talking about is really affirmative action, which was ruled unconstitutional in 2023. Through the legal process, most importantly. There are arguments that you can make on both sides, but just so you understand the idea for affirmative action isn't to punish whites, its basically to inject diversity into campuses so people become more homogenius (which is a good thing) and you have things like kids from racially poor communities getting a chance of getting a degree getting a start at building generational wealth. Its been proven many times over that if you prop up the lower class of the population, everyone benefits. While affirmative action isn't the best way of doing this, its far from bad - plenty of studies done on this.
However, Trump is not ending institutional racism, he is basically axing funding for programs in schools that align more politically left with a shotgun approach, not giving a fuck about cutting actual programs that may be of value to society. This is vindictive punishment of a man child that lost in 2020, probably coupled with some racism (because Trump has a record of being racist against black people)
You can't even say those predictions were wrong because we are still squarely on "gays in death camps" trajectory. People who predicted death camps in 2016 also predicted an insurrection, and they were right. People were calling that a crazy prediction up to 1/6/2021, and then it happened for all to see.
I don't know if Americans are grasping how much the attitude is changing outside of the US.
My mom has booked a multithousand dollar vacation on a cruise set to depart from Florida. They would only be there for a few days.
They are still asking the company to just fly to the first non-US stop and then board. And crazy enough the company might actually accomodate this since hundreds of people have inquired according the agent she talked to.
People really distrust the US government now.
As we Dutch say: trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback.
I think the perception of America was just as critical, or even moreso, during the GWB presidencies and iraq war. (I imagine nixon and the vietnam war were thought of similarly). There's a tendency for people to have some historical amnesia and think of trump as qualitatively different somehow. But I can assure you that GWB was truly reviled especially in northern europe metro areas, and Americans was viewed then similarly to how it's viewed now.
I'm old enough to know, and no, it's not the same. Bush never claimed that Canada is a US state, never hinted at invading Greenland, never repeated Russian propaganda.
We thought the Gulf War 2 was under false pretenses of "Weapons of Mass Destruction", sure. But what Trump is doing is plain betrayal of trust amongst allies.
Yes, it was bad then, but it's even worse now, because of Trump's attitudes towards Europe, desire to annex Greenland, his coziness with Russia, and his hard-core support for Netanyahu and total disregard for the plight of the Palestinians.
Incredible to see this play out here and good to see that this got unflagged now. I only saw this earlier (while this submission was still flagged) due to someone somewhere else mention that https://news.ycombinator.com/active exists.
Probably worth keeping an eye on it from time to time to get an idea what did not make the cut for whatever reason.
More on topic, I am wondering if this scenario shows that even wide-spread gun-ownership does not protect against state power (lawful or not). If ICE agents would kept getting shot during these type of arrests by people thinking they are about to get abducted by a gang and using their gun in self-defence, ICE would not do it this way. Therefore I am thinking that the agents are confident that just signalling that they represent a US federal (?) agency is enough to prevent bystanders and arrestees (?) from escalating.
The moment you see it. People will call you crazy, and and an alarmist, and hyperbolic, but it's your duty to call it out and to keep calling it out from the moment you recognize it until it goes away. And don't let anyone tell you you're wrong, because the number one tool of fascists is plausible deniability. They thrive on Hanlon's razor. The love to play in a gray zone, to get you upset, and then to say "you're overreacting" when you call them out for exactly what they're doing. Don't fall for it.
The comment pointing out that this story is flagged is itself flagged, for some reason.
Since you might have showdead off, I'll repeat the point.
And to add to the point, this isn't a snapshot. It's a trajectory. Look at my favorites for a list of good, important stories which were flagged here lately.
Look at PG and Garry Tan's Twitters, where they praise the DOGE team. Look at the point-blank refusal of the mod team here to permit a discussion on these false flags in their own thread, rather than just in comments. You don't need to be a savant to notice the pattern here.
> Nope, not yet, this post dropped three pages in 5 minutes. I guess someone's feefees got hurt.
Please refrain from nonsense HN conspiracy theories. The HN algorithm is and has always been designed to encourage good behavior on the site, favoriting the overall health of discussion on the site over any particular topic and penalizing pages where participants interact poorly. Yes, that means many important topics get automatically downranked because the participants in those topics disagree on the topic strongly enough to engage in upvote/downvote wars and other signals of bad conversational behavior. That is an acknowledged result of the long term algoritm design.
HN has been very clear over the years that their primary goal is for people to debate interesting topics well here, and the overall quality of discussion on HN compared to other sites suggests there is some validity to their approach.
When I was young I thought liberties that we viewed as important were something that was provided to all. That it should not matter where you come from. I still think everyone should strive for this.
> nationalism, ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual or group interests.
if your highest priority is to the concept and ego of your country, rather than how that country serves its population, then your core values align with the interest of the political establishment and machine rather than with the interests of people. a political establishment's growth and maintenance is damaged by a population's ability to impact it, which means it's damaged by democracy, which means it's damaged by freedom.
That's false. The way you phrased this is that I just need one example to debunk, I'll gladly take the easy win. Here it is: https://freedomhouse.org/country/mongolia
I worked for US companies for over a decade, and travelled there multiple times a year. I worked remotely from my home in the UK as a software engineer and and CTO, including as CTO of a YC startup for a number of years.
I would not travel to the US any longer, it's just not worth the risk. From the outside it's how I imagined Germany looked in the mid 30s, but streamed live in HD.
For context I'm a white British man, and whilst I wouldn't go out of solidarity and disgust at the treatment of people who don't look and talk like me even if I wasn't worried about myself, right now I would also be seriously concerned for my own safety. I wouldn't trust rogue ICE agents to know exactly what things are permissible on an ESTA visa waiver vs B1 vs B1 in lieu of H1B.
Genuinely and without hyperbole, if you have the ability and means to leave for a different country, you should consider it in case it becomes something you can no longer do in the future; even if you don't believe your government will prevent you, I suspect other countries will start making it a lot more difficult for US citizens to get visas in the coming years.
I used to like xkcd, but he has made some comics that have had a pretty negative effect on society as a whole.
Famously, I think that comic #1357 is a (https://xkcd.com/1357/) great example of unintended consequences. Most average people think it's unreasonable to get fired from a typical job for supporting a given party so the idea that "free speech isn't free from consequences" doesn't really ring true. Most people seem to believe in a principle of "free speech" that goes beyond "freedom of speech only protects you from the government", you could call it the principle of open discussion or something. This whole idea of "community" moderation in this fashion is inappropriate when the actual moderation is only done by a handful of unaccountable people and executed with an invisible recommendation algorithm. When you get banned by a social media website, that's not the same thing as being kicked out of a bar. Social media websites are funded by advertising companies. The kind of people who use this comic were living in a venture-captial funded web2.0 utopia and did not realize that the town square had been privatized. Reddit, Tumblr, etc. did not see the coming wave of censorship coming in the name of advertiser-friendliness. Twitter users did not realize "It's a private company, they can do whatever they want", goes both ways when their site got bought out by a right wing guy.
I also see comics like #538 (https://xkcd.com/538/) used to justify a total pessimism around cryptography at all. Like "why bother encrypting your hard drive or data when the government can just beat you with a hose". It's not hard to see why this is a terrible argument.
xkcd is fine, it's very quotable, it's just that his well of "nerdy humor" has seemed to run dry. Most of his comics are rehashes of old ideas/jokes at this point. And when it comes to politics, xkcd just seems to tow the democratic party line, even when it's disastrous like supporting kamala or hillary.
If the government does not need to prove to a judge that you are not a legal citizen BEFORE they have any right to move you, there is no such thing as due process.
ANY violation of "innocent until proven guilty" makes the entire concept null and void. ANY bypass of seeing a judge before punishment means anyone can be punished for anything at any time.
The Constitution is extremely clear that you cannot harm someone's inalienable rights until you have done due process.
You MUST treat any suspect of anything as having all rights enshrined in the Constitution until the state has PROVEN otherwise.
If you defend these deportations at all, you are anti-democratic and anti-constitution. The moment you let the ends justify the means, you threw away democracy.
Literal serial killers and assassin-wannabees are entitled to all constitutional rights before they have been convicted. The only acceptable option is if everyone is assumed a fully legal resident until you prove otherwise.
If you support the deportation of these people because they are gang members, whether that is even true or not, without them getting due process, you are the Bad Guys
Xkcd hasn't been very political, but this is appropriate.
Regardless of your political persuasion, what's happening to folks here legally is doing irreparable harm to our country's image and standing.
We need researchers to remain competitive. China is putting out more advanced research in key sectors than we are. Most of the papers in AI that I read are from Chinese institutions.
If we think we can compete without immigration, we're going to find ourselves in a world of hurt.
And on the topic of free speech that predicated all of this: it's great that we get so offended by what other people say. It's the litmus test for how free our speech really is. Once we start punishing people for free speech, whatever their ideology or party affiliation may be, the same tactics can be used against us when the political tides turn. If you advocate for free speech and then do something like this, then you're not a free speech advocate.
First generation immigrant here so I feel entitled enough to respond.
<< If we think we can compete without immigration, we're going to find ourselves in a world of hurt.
The issue has been gamed well by the political class. It does not help that 'both sides' use language to further confuse the issue and score points with their chosen audiences.
That said, why.. or even how, would an American worker compete on salary. That, you will find, is the source of most of the discontent. That the target of that discontent is amusingly misdirected is quite anothe matter altogether and speaks only to the strength of propaganda apparatus in US.
<< It's the litmus test for how free our speech really is.
True.
<< If you advocate for free speech and then do something like this, then you're not a free speech advocate.
1. There are plenty of US citizens that say the same things
2. This demonstrates that anything that runs afoul of whatever party is in charge will subject an immigrant to extra-judicial removal without due process. That's a scary precedent, and people all over the world are watching and learning that America is not a safe place to hinge your future on.
Regardless of how you feel about this person, there are other levers and mechanisms. Impinging upon freedom of speech in a country that prides itself upon it and revoking legal residential status is scary.
Telling someone you disagree with or even hate their ideas and their politics is one thing. Removing their rights and crushing decades of their work and their future fitness envelope - built on countless opportunity costs, some of them based on "choosing America" - is quite another.
I don't care if the person is pro-Palestine, pro-Israel, pro-LGBT, pro-MRA, pro-Scientology, pro-Church of Satan. We should not damage the American brand. We should not impinge upon our laws and constitution.
Everyone in the world should want to come here, and we should be able to take our pick of the hardest workers and brightest minds. Some of those people are Israeli, some of those people are Palestinian and Muslim, some of those people are Chinese. We should be able to get them all and grow stronger. We're supposed to be a melting pot.
You want to know another thing that's orthogonal to our discussion? I don't think we're in this place of hate naturally. I think the platforms and the marketers and the engagement algorithms and the coordinated psyops have put us here. I think people are mostly kind (or at worst neutral) to one another. We've got a whole lot of battles to fight if we want to avoid extreme polarization ripping us apart.
This country was literally founded on terrorism oops, sorry, "revolutionaries"
Many founding fathers had strong ties to the smuggling industry, the Boston Tea party was the kind of vandalism that would put you in prison for life now, and there was constant and brutal aggression towards loyalist citizens including stealing their land and physically assaulting them.
No amount of Hamas chants will harm the US. Hamas is only effective in Palestine because people are outright propagandized and have almost zero hope for their lives. Or they are literal children.
In fact, if you ask the FBI, the threat has consistently been white dudes with guns trying to do things like bomb federal buildings, do hate crimes, and attempt to abduct a sitting US state governor.
Should we deport all white guys with guns? I'll tell my brother to pack his stuff.
>Once we start punishing people for free speech, whatever their ideology or party affiliation may be, the same tactics can be used against us when the political tides turn.
This is with the underlying ideal that neither side has the right answers. Which was true back in the era of sane politics.
Except this doesn't really apply anymore, as we know that one side is objectively stupid, and with the modern age, there is zero to none fact checking or social responsibility.
In the same way that there are restrictions to free speech in yelling fire in a crowded movie theater, there absolutely should be restrictions on anything having to do with the popular right talking points, with appropriate jail time, as those fall into the same category now, with people taking Ivermectin for Covid and dying because Joe Rogan told them so.
And if the laws are in place, and the wrong party ever takes charge again and uses those laws against you, that should be a motivator to not let that party take hold in the first place.
Everything is getting flagged that seems anti-currently elected's actions. I tried to raise it here, seems like HN for various reasons is over talking about this topic:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43570025
I got some useful replies there but it is still hard to conclude something pernicious isn't happening.
I wonder if an upvote / flag ratio threshold would stop some of the abusive flagging that is happening.
Speaking as an academic from the UK, there has been a growing sentiment of weariness about spending time in the US. From hallway jokes about getting snatched at the border and spending two weeks in detention camps, to people re-evaluating their conference and career choices to avoid the US, this marks a major shift in the mindset of the current generation of PhD students and early-career academics that will probably have untold implications for long-term research and innovation horizons...
Every year I spend some time with PhD students from my alma mater (we play CTFs) and it's always a good opportunity to see how their research is going, or what grants they've been getting, or which conference they're trying to frantically submit to.
They're still doing research, and the funding hasn't completely dried up. But a lot of the people I talked to were international students, and the gallows humor of being deported was palpable. Made a slightly illegal turn in the van? Better make sure the cops didn't see you, or ICE is going to deport you back to where you came from. Hiring is completely frozen, and there is talk of potentially cutting down or "asking" students to graduate early. I overheard one of the professors talking to another about their students who were in limbo because their visas had been cancelled. It's pretty grim.
Did you mean wariness?
Academic
Weariness
Also see "French scientist denied US entry after phone messages critical of Trump found" (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/trump-musk-f...).
> ...messages discussing the Trump administration’s treatment of scientists had been found. The researcher was reportedly then accused of writings “that reflect hatred toward Trump and can be described as terrorism”.
Everything that doesn't fit official government line is an extremism and terrorism. It has been that way in Russia and other authoritarian countries. Looks like that is getting imported into US, and without any tariffs at that. I'm perplexed though why does the US population want it (i live in CA, and that doesn't help understanding the whole US population), especially giving that any of those authoritarian countries is also orders of magnitude worse than US economy-wise (even the economy poster-child China has per capita GDP just 1/7th of that of US).
> why does the US population want it
The same reason the school bully and his entourage wants see your lunch thrown on the ground. It's jealousy, it's tribalism, it's establishment of a power hierarchy. It's evil.
Our country has been taken over by a cult of cruelty and othering.
That was fake news:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/03/20/french-researcher-den...You're quoting a statement from the Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs. Given the well-documented history of lies from the current administration, why should we take a statement from a person under their control as fact? It'd be a different thing if such a statement came from the french side, but according to the article you posted they haven't given one.
Let's not forget that the VP literally admitted to creating fake stories to influence public opinion. At this point, any statement by the administration & people under their control should be taken as evidence to the contrary, unless it's corroborated by outside sources.
It is hard to believe a French researcher, traveling from France to the US, was in possession of confidential information he retrieved from a US national lab. It is harder to believe they didn't arrest him for this.
>It is hard to believe a French researcher, traveling from France to the US, was in possession of confidential information he retrieved from a US national lab.
Not at all, it's much more believable than the original story. Traveling scientists frequently work at national labs.
>It is harder to believe they didn't arrest him for this.
Nondisclosure agreements are civil in nature, not criminal.
Are civil affairs litigated at the border by custom agents now?
They always have been, overstaying your visa is an example of a civil violation, placing it in the purvue of ICE. You have less protections/rights afforded to you in civil proceedings versus criminal ones.
yes
I wonder how many of the media sources who reported the original story will also report the correction with equal coverage.
This story has basically evaporated from the public after the correction came out. That should tell you everything you need to know.
> This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy
So they check all your messages at the border? Do they dump your entire phone or what is happening there?
This has been happening since before 9/11 how much I do not know. I never travel with digital gear to the US. I do not work in any secret capacity but my employer prohibits me from brining any work equipment through the border to the US.
It happens in other countries too. I've been required to unlock my devices when entering Canada and Europe.
You should keep in mind that the media isn't unbiased. It's mostly owned by global corporations that want to continue profiting from labor arbitrage, who don't always give us all the details.
For example: the Canadian woman who was detained at the border. Not many people heard that she was working here illegally (self-employed while here under a TN visa that doesn't allow that).
Edit: I call it arbitrage because (oversimplifying) they manufacture a product for one hour of labor in one country and sell it for one hour of labor in a different country. It's only viable because it takes advantage of a difference in wages between the labor markets.
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Am I a lone crazy person? Perhaps, perhaps not.
Well, at least maybe your moral compass needs some calibration? I typically go out of my way to avoid personal attacks here. But it's hard to do so if the reaction to "people get detained and locked up for more than a month with bad medical care" is: "oh great, no more far left".
We not should celebrate a slide into authoritarianism, which always starts with bullying weakly-positioned groups first, but the government has already floated with the idea of deporting Americans (and apparently already deported American kids [1]).
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/27/us/children-us-citizens-d...
Do you actually prefer if people with a different political view than yourself are just… removed?
I don’t even know where to start with that. Consider whether you have a broken moral compass or something. Consider moving to an actual dictatorship country instead of supporting the introduction of dictatorship in a new country?
Edit: beaten to the “moral compass” thing. Well said, above.
> Do you actually prefer if people with a different political view than yourself are just… removed?
Do you think that the whole "diversity statement" and DEI shticks were exactly tools of removal of people with different political views from academia?
US academia political activity is what made it attractive target for Trump administration. I'd prefer that it didn't happen or that US didn't have a president willing to destroy the academia, but I'd also prefer that universities would act as non-partisan entities. I think Boaz Barak summarized it well [1]
On a separate note, US searching/detaining/refusing entrance to other countries' nationals happened all the time [2,3,4,5,6,7], I don't think it's newsworthy or should change your position on visiting US.
[1] https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/3/28/barak-harvard-m...
[2] https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/us-entry-horror-...
[3] https://firrp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/September-2024_...
[4] https://immigrantjustice.org/press-releases/three-travelers-...
[5] https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-us-keeps-mistakenly-depo...
[6] https://www.propublica.org/article/can-customs-border-protec...
[7] https://thepienews.com/indian-government-gives-student-trave...
Is it not what effectively was argued for during covid years?
I don’t follow. Please elaborate.
I mean, search engines do exist, but I live to serve.
Anecdotally, there was a fascinating divide generated by the media and government to form some level of societal pressure( see 6,7,8,9 ). Granted, shaming and otherwise making life harder for people, who choose not to follow societal dogma is not exactly new ( 1, 2, 3, 10 ), but it has reached much higher levels during covid years ( 4, 5 ) and in some places resulted in involuntary rendition to quarantine camps ( 11, 12 ). And those don't even touch the informal ways people were openly talking about in groups.
[1]https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-03-27/should-d... [2]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9549707/ [3]https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/149/5/e20220... [4]https://www.wusf.org/health-news-florida/2022-12-27/thousand... [5]https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/column-why-workers-... [6]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10127050/ [7]https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211209-how-to-talk-to-v... [8]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/12/facebook-... [9]https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... [10]https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/02/04/3837965... [11]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-59486285 [12]https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-03/camps-open-to-address...
Wait, what. Are you saying that refusing to comply with quarantine measures is comparable with expressing a (legal to express, under the first amendment) opinion? What argument are you actually trying to support with that barrage of references?
Sigh, you are being obtuse on purpose and I am starting to doubt we will get anywhere useful in this interaction. Allow me to paraphrase you:
You: Do you actually prefer if people with a different political view than yourself are just… removed? Me: Covid You: Relevance? Me: Links with my commentary showing relevance to 'Do you actually prefer if people with a different political view than yourself are just… removed?' You: Too many links. Also you: Are you saying that refusing to comply with quarantine measures is comparable with expressing a(n) [..] opinion
Fuck man. No. Being quarantined for expressing an opinon is bad. Being deported for having an opinion is bad. Can you see how things can be bad at the same time? Why is that so hard? Because wrong side is having the opinion? Because the opinion you like is being targeted? Be fucking honest for once.
In other words, I am saying what I am saying. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. I am saying rules apply both ways. I am saying that if you undermine rights at one point, you don't get to whine about undermined rights being undermined further ( doubly so if you cannot understand the connection between the two ) but just not in the direction you wanted.
And I kinda knew this conversation will go that way, but I engaged because I hoped that some of the people learned their lessons. I wrote a meaner version of this post and I removed it for two reasons:
1. HN rules 2. It is pointess. You think that you are not only right, but rigteous.
I noticed there was no #3 in your list: there's no reason to be mean if you're trying to have a genuine discussion. You could actually just stop with "there's no reason to be mean" -- what purpose does that serve? (Trying to hurt others?)
I (another third party) still don't know what you're trying to say. It seems like you are equating "private citizen physicians not accepting patients who refuse to follow medical advice with respect to vaccinations" with "the government is deporting people with different opinions on the Israel/Palestine conflict"? Or generally equating "public health" with "differing opinions"?
I absolutely think they are different. Measles is back now in the US and puts everyone at risk of physical harm, because people have chosen to not get vaccinated without good reason. I don't think that is remotely comparable to differing opinions on the ethical situation between Israel and Palestine.
I think it would be more fruitful if you spend some time refining your message to distill what you're trying to say. Maybe less is more.
<< Measles is back now in the US and puts everyone at risk of physical harm
Everyone?
Yes, everyone, including those with preexisting immunity, because of the risk of breakthrough infections.
Previous infection as well as the vaccine is only 97% effective against future infection, which means a significant amount of people are getting sick despite making the right choice and getting vaccinated. The fringe loonies are ruining things for everyone.
Not bad, but if you know this then you also must know that the symptoms on that infection are mild and the number of of those people are small[1] so not quite the case of " significant amount of people are getting sick" as you are eager to claim.
[1]https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/measles/exper...
Measles kills people. You’re defending behavior that kills children. Kindly get out, preferably through a window.
You know.. outrage as such, performative or otherwise does not really do much to bolster one's argument. For the record, neither does emotional appeal with 'think of the children'. Or at least not that often on this internet forum anyway.
Ah. Let’s all be cool and un-emotional and let the children die from a preventable disease. Because cool heads are more important than lives. Right, got it. You’re an idiot. Bye!
I'm not the poster you're responding to, but I'll just confirm as a third party that your arguments have been very hard to follow.
Really? You’re writing that “Being quarantined for expressing an opinon is bad”, as if that’s a thing that happened.
People were quarantined in order to slow down spread of a disease. When they broke quarantine, they were hunted down and detained because they broke (Australian) quarantine laws. If you can contort yourself into believing any of those cases were about freedom of speech, let me know.
Likewise, laws were passed to mandate vaccines for certain jobs. Some who refused lost their jobs over it. This was not about speech or freedom of opinion. It was about protecting the lives of people they interacted with in their jobs.
As far as I know, millions of people around the world protested in public about the lockdowns, quarantines and other measures. I the US, at least, they were allowed to do that. I know China didn’t permit such protests, but this debate is not about China. You are intentionally conflating freedom of speech and freedom to do various other things, and then accusing me of not debating in good faith.
<< as if that’s a thing that happened
In the links I so helpfully provided ( I will focus on #8 ), Guardian did note that FB was tasked with combating 'vaccine hesitancy'. And did FB take actions to combat that hesitancy in US? If so, is that censorhip? If so, is it related to speech?
So tell me, what really did happen?
Why are you asking me?
If you want to know what happened at a private tech giant in California, ask someone who works there or an investigative reporter who writes about such things.
I notice that you’re not disputing my claims that nobody in the US was secreted away in a concentration camp over a refusal to vaccinate, or over refusing to comply with quarantine rules. You’re also not disputing that refusing vaccines is not an act of speech.
You’re just trying to exhaust me by throwing a lot of arguments at the wall to see what sticks. It’s not working; you’re not convincing me that the US government under Trump is not breaking new ground by removing people’s rights.
<< Why are you asking me?
Why indeed? I suppose we will need to do some meta analysis.
Is it because maybe your post attempted to undermine my point by stating:"Really? You’re writing that “Being quarantined for expressing an opinon is bad”, as if that’s a thing that happened."?
<< I notice that you’re not disputing my claims that nobody in the US was secreted away in a concentration camp over a refusal to vaccinate,
Why should I? It is not a claim I made, nor is it my objection. You can have it. Hope you feel more validated.
<< You’re also not disputing that refusing vaccines is not an act of speech.
Amigo. I want you to focus. You are already all over the place and I do not want to distract you with shiny stuff on the horizon. We will get there.
<< you’re not convincing me that the US government under Trump is not breaking new ground by removing people’s rights.
Because, my fake false equivalency buddy, I am not arguing that, despite you clearly trying so very, very hard to impose that framework onto this conversation. You might be trying, so c for effort?
<< If you want to know what happened at a private tech giant in California, ask someone who works there or an investigative reporter who writes about such things.
Hmm. So things only happened if they are investigated by a reporter?
You literally wrote “Being quarantined for expressing an opinon is bad”.
I wrote that this is irrelevant because nobody has been quarantined for expressing an opinion. Then you deny making such a claim.
You’re obviously mostly interested in wasting my time so I’ll disengage from this discussion now.
> It is not a claim I made, nor is it my objection
What is the claim or point are you trying to make?
I think I am out of points. I actually am close to stopping posting altogether.
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Well, inciting violence is a crime in many countries. Next time, please show your sources so that everyone knows you are defending a racist: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c703e03w243o.amp
Are you saying the free speech of Racists should not be defended? Sorry, that's what it seems like from your comment?
On the top of my head I can cite the cases of Lee Dunn or Billy Thompson who didn't call for violence and these are not the only ones. Please learn about the UK.
It seems that these were cases of blatant racism. But for the sake of the argument, if the cases were comparable, someone else doing it as well does not make it right. Whataboutism. We can disapprove all of all cases where people get detained unjustly.
Replace "blatant" by "implied" and yeah.
There was no mention of any race being inferior to any other in these posts.
The court guessed that this was the man's true belief. Same with the student that got expelled from the US for implying he supports Hamas.
This is not whataboutism: the original comment I replied to was precisely about Brits being afraid of the US government on free speech.
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The US can also put anyone in jail for a Facebook post, or as in this case a single student newspaper article
Well, two down, then. That leaves about, oh I don’t know, 207 countries with universities. Probably at least a hundred of those are functioning democracies where you can expect rule of law and due process.
Sorry to disappoint you but people in Europe don't have as much free speech as in the US especially in the press.
In European countries like France or Switzerland you get sentenced to prison time for describing someone as "a fat lesbian".
Free Speech is much better in the US.
I live in a Northern European country, you don’t have to lecture me about how free speech law works here.
It remains a fact that you cannot be deported from most countries (including my home country) for allegedly expressing a particular political opinion, without at least first being put through a legal process to determine that you did in fact express that opinion.
As for that particular law you mention in France or Switzerland, please support the claim with at least one example from each country of someone serving prison time over calling someone a “fat lesbian”. I don’t believe it for a minute.
https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/justice/l-essayiste-fran...
It's a fact, I'm afraid. Disclaimer: I don't even like the guy, he makes money off conspiracy theories about Jewish people. But it's a fact that he got sentenced to prison for saying a journalist is a fat lesbian.
That’s pretty eye-catching. My French is a bit rusty, did he get 40 days imprisonment?
Normally in European countries, an insult, slander or libel would render a fine only.
I’m not sure it follows from this case that the US has better protections for speech, though. It certainly used to, but the argument being made here is that the Trump administration has reduced free speech protections lately.
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Nah.
This whole "freedom" thing is what led to Trump administration, which routinely thinks they are above the law, being in power. And if you think its not that bad, just wait till 2028 when Trump will coup the government like he tried in 2020 except this time he will succeed.
People need to be on a tighter leash. And as for who holds the leash, nobody = the leash is the law, and anyone who tries to circumvent it gets punished. Nobody is above it, even if you feel like the law is unfair - work to get the law changed if that is what you want.
I've been reading hilarious comments about what Trump will do since 2016.
I remember the "gays will be in death camps" from reddit.
People were warning that Trump is going to tank the economy - it was in a positive state in 2016 from Obama and he deficit spend like crazy while also lowering taxes, which contributed to recession under Biden in a large way, but of course Covid is to blame.
Now, without Covid, its pretty clear that he basically tanked the economy for no good reason.
People were warning that Trump is going to weaponize the government to go against people opposing him.
He is doing that now.
People were warning that Trump is going to ignore the law and the legal process.
He is certainly doing that now.
People were warning that Trump is going to implement policies based in racism.
He is certainly doing that now.
And we aren't even half a year into his term.
But sure, pick the few points that didn't happen as justification.
I really do wonder what it feels like to live with ideological blinders on sometimes. Must be a nice feeling to live in reality thats probably happier than what actual reality is.
I mean, he and his cronies have even said they would do most of these things. One thing we have learned is that they mean what they say. If they say we would like to put US citizens in a prison in El Salvador or Tesla protestors are domestic terrorists they also mean it. The reason it hasn't happened yet is that they are slowly boiling the frog of ignoring court orders, etc.
The only institutions having racial rules are left wing institutions like universities and they're generally racial rules against asians and whites.
Which is exactly what Trump is ending with DEI ban.
Trump is actually the president that is making institutional racism illegal.
I was referring to him targeting hispanic immigrants only in unconstitutional ICE deportations, without legal process. Plenty of rhetoric in his tweets/truth social about how the immigrants here are all criminals. Whether its racism or the belief that Democrats are importing Mexicans to increase their voter base or a mixture of both due to his dementia, then its
As for racial rules, what you are talking about is really affirmative action, which was ruled unconstitutional in 2023. Through the legal process, most importantly. There are arguments that you can make on both sides, but just so you understand the idea for affirmative action isn't to punish whites, its basically to inject diversity into campuses so people become more homogenius (which is a good thing) and you have things like kids from racially poor communities getting a chance of getting a degree getting a start at building generational wealth. Its been proven many times over that if you prop up the lower class of the population, everyone benefits. While affirmative action isn't the best way of doing this, its far from bad - plenty of studies done on this.
However, Trump is not ending institutional racism, he is basically axing funding for programs in schools that align more politically left with a shotgun approach, not giving a fuck about cutting actual programs that may be of value to society. This is vindictive punishment of a man child that lost in 2020, probably coupled with some racism (because Trump has a record of being racist against black people)
Renaming racial admission rules "affirmative action" does not get rid of the racial hierarchy built into these rules.
Whether the goal of those rules is to "inject diversity" or not does not change the racial hierarchy.
You can't even say those predictions were wrong because we are still squarely on "gays in death camps" trajectory. People who predicted death camps in 2016 also predicted an insurrection, and they were right. People were calling that a crazy prediction up to 1/6/2021, and then it happened for all to see.
I don't know if Americans are grasping how much the attitude is changing outside of the US.
My mom has booked a multithousand dollar vacation on a cruise set to depart from Florida. They would only be there for a few days.
They are still asking the company to just fly to the first non-US stop and then board. And crazy enough the company might actually accomodate this since hundreds of people have inquired according the agent she talked to.
People really distrust the US government now.
As we Dutch say: trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback.
I think the perception of America was just as critical, or even moreso, during the GWB presidencies and iraq war. (I imagine nixon and the vietnam war were thought of similarly). There's a tendency for people to have some historical amnesia and think of trump as qualitatively different somehow. But I can assure you that GWB was truly reviled especially in northern europe metro areas, and Americans was viewed then similarly to how it's viewed now.
I'm old enough to know, and no, it's not the same. Bush never claimed that Canada is a US state, never hinted at invading Greenland, never repeated Russian propaganda.
We thought the Gulf War 2 was under false pretenses of "Weapons of Mass Destruction", sure. But what Trump is doing is plain betrayal of trust amongst allies.
It's gaslighting via ye olde "both sides" reasoning:
"Oh, don't worry, all the politicians are corrupt liars, so the current administration is just like the preceding ones. Nothing to see here!"
Thank you for calling this out!
Yes, it was bad then, but it's even worse now, because of Trump's attitudes towards Europe, desire to annex Greenland, his coziness with Russia, and his hard-core support for Netanyahu and total disregard for the plight of the Palestinians.
Incredible to see this play out here and good to see that this got unflagged now. I only saw this earlier (while this submission was still flagged) due to someone somewhere else mention that https://news.ycombinator.com/active exists.
Probably worth keeping an eye on it from time to time to get an idea what did not make the cut for whatever reason.
More on topic, I am wondering if this scenario shows that even wide-spread gun-ownership does not protect against state power (lawful or not). If ICE agents would kept getting shot during these type of arrests by people thinking they are about to get abducted by a gang and using their gun in self-defence, ICE would not do it this way. Therefore I am thinking that the agents are confident that just signalling that they represent a US federal (?) agency is enough to prevent bystanders and arrestees (?) from escalating.
I suspect the intersection of gun-carrying civilians and foreign PhD students is rather small.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_R%C3%BCmeysa_%C3%... -- for the student mentioned in the caption
https://explainxkcd.com/3081
So at what point does it become acceptable to call a spade and spade and point out that this is fascism?
The moment you see it. People will call you crazy, and and an alarmist, and hyperbolic, but it's your duty to call it out and to keep calling it out from the moment you recognize it until it goes away. And don't let anyone tell you you're wrong, because the number one tool of fascists is plausible deniability. They thrive on Hanlon's razor. The love to play in a gray zone, to get you upset, and then to say "you're overreacting" when you call them out for exactly what they're doing. Don't fall for it.
I think we are in this situation because the boy cried wolf
I think Cassandra better explains our current predicament.
Now.
Nope, not yet, this post dropped three pages in 5 minutes. I guess someone's feefees got hurt.
It's on the front page now.
Don't confuse a snapshot for a trajectory.
The comment pointing out that this story is flagged is itself flagged, for some reason.
Since you might have showdead off, I'll repeat the point.
And to add to the point, this isn't a snapshot. It's a trajectory. Look at my favorites for a list of good, important stories which were flagged here lately.
Look at PG and Garry Tan's Twitters, where they praise the DOGE team. Look at the point-blank refusal of the mod team here to permit a discussion on these false flags in their own thread, rather than just in comments. You don't need to be a savant to notice the pattern here.
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> Nope, not yet, this post dropped three pages in 5 minutes. I guess someone's feefees got hurt.
Please refrain from nonsense HN conspiracy theories. The HN algorithm is and has always been designed to encourage good behavior on the site, favoriting the overall health of discussion on the site over any particular topic and penalizing pages where participants interact poorly. Yes, that means many important topics get automatically downranked because the participants in those topics disagree on the topic strongly enough to engage in upvote/downvote wars and other signals of bad conversational behavior. That is an acknowledged result of the long term algoritm design.
HN has been very clear over the years that their primary goal is for people to debate interesting topics well here, and the overall quality of discussion on HN compared to other sites suggests there is some validity to their approach.
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Nationalism is not compatible with freedom.
When I was young I thought liberties that we viewed as important were something that was provided to all. That it should not matter where you come from. I still think everyone should strive for this.
> Nationalism is not compatible with freedom.
Why?
definition:
> nationalism, ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual or group interests.
if your highest priority is to the concept and ego of your country, rather than how that country serves its population, then your core values align with the interest of the political establishment and machine rather than with the interests of people. a political establishment's growth and maintenance is damaged by a population's ability to impact it, which means it's damaged by democracy, which means it's damaged by freedom.
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> Nationalism is not compatible with freedom.
That's false. The way you phrased this is that I just need one example to debunk, I'll gladly take the easy win. Here it is: https://freedomhouse.org/country/mongolia
Having a strong identity and being proud of it is not the same as nationalism, but I see your point. Definitions are always hard.
I worked for US companies for over a decade, and travelled there multiple times a year. I worked remotely from my home in the UK as a software engineer and and CTO, including as CTO of a YC startup for a number of years.
I would not travel to the US any longer, it's just not worth the risk. From the outside it's how I imagined Germany looked in the mid 30s, but streamed live in HD.
For context I'm a white British man, and whilst I wouldn't go out of solidarity and disgust at the treatment of people who don't look and talk like me even if I wasn't worried about myself, right now I would also be seriously concerned for my own safety. I wouldn't trust rogue ICE agents to know exactly what things are permissible on an ESTA visa waiver vs B1 vs B1 in lieu of H1B.
Genuinely and without hyperbole, if you have the ability and means to leave for a different country, you should consider it in case it becomes something you can no longer do in the future; even if you don't believe your government will prevent you, I suspect other countries will start making it a lot more difficult for US citizens to get visas in the coming years.
We're flagging xkcd now? I can't think of more iconic programmer humor. Who doesn't like xkcd?
I used to like xkcd, but he has made some comics that have had a pretty negative effect on society as a whole.
Famously, I think that comic #1357 is a (https://xkcd.com/1357/) great example of unintended consequences. Most average people think it's unreasonable to get fired from a typical job for supporting a given party so the idea that "free speech isn't free from consequences" doesn't really ring true. Most people seem to believe in a principle of "free speech" that goes beyond "freedom of speech only protects you from the government", you could call it the principle of open discussion or something. This whole idea of "community" moderation in this fashion is inappropriate when the actual moderation is only done by a handful of unaccountable people and executed with an invisible recommendation algorithm. When you get banned by a social media website, that's not the same thing as being kicked out of a bar. Social media websites are funded by advertising companies. The kind of people who use this comic were living in a venture-captial funded web2.0 utopia and did not realize that the town square had been privatized. Reddit, Tumblr, etc. did not see the coming wave of censorship coming in the name of advertiser-friendliness. Twitter users did not realize "It's a private company, they can do whatever they want", goes both ways when their site got bought out by a right wing guy.
I also see comics like #538 (https://xkcd.com/538/) used to justify a total pessimism around cryptography at all. Like "why bother encrypting your hard drive or data when the government can just beat you with a hose". It's not hard to see why this is a terrible argument.
xkcd is fine, it's very quotable, it's just that his well of "nerdy humor" has seemed to run dry. Most of his comics are rehashes of old ideas/jokes at this point. And when it comes to politics, xkcd just seems to tow the democratic party line, even when it's disastrous like supporting kamala or hillary.
If ever there were a post that should be unflagged...
If the government does not need to prove to a judge that you are not a legal citizen BEFORE they have any right to move you, there is no such thing as due process.
ANY violation of "innocent until proven guilty" makes the entire concept null and void. ANY bypass of seeing a judge before punishment means anyone can be punished for anything at any time.
The Constitution is extremely clear that you cannot harm someone's inalienable rights until you have done due process.
You MUST treat any suspect of anything as having all rights enshrined in the Constitution until the state has PROVEN otherwise.
If you defend these deportations at all, you are anti-democratic and anti-constitution. The moment you let the ends justify the means, you threw away democracy.
Literal serial killers and assassin-wannabees are entitled to all constitutional rights before they have been convicted. The only acceptable option is if everyone is assumed a fully legal resident until you prove otherwise.
If you support the deportation of these people because they are gang members, whether that is even true or not, without them getting due process, you are the Bad Guys
Honest.
Every American should feel ashamed by this national idiocy.
I see HN has gotten to the point where xkcd gets flagged.
Xkcd hasn't been very political, but this is appropriate.
Regardless of your political persuasion, what's happening to folks here legally is doing irreparable harm to our country's image and standing.
We need researchers to remain competitive. China is putting out more advanced research in key sectors than we are. Most of the papers in AI that I read are from Chinese institutions.
If we think we can compete without immigration, we're going to find ourselves in a world of hurt.
And on the topic of free speech that predicated all of this: it's great that we get so offended by what other people say. It's the litmus test for how free our speech really is. Once we start punishing people for free speech, whatever their ideology or party affiliation may be, the same tactics can be used against us when the political tides turn. If you advocate for free speech and then do something like this, then you're not a free speech advocate.
First generation immigrant here so I feel entitled enough to respond.
<< If we think we can compete without immigration, we're going to find ourselves in a world of hurt.
The issue has been gamed well by the political class. It does not help that 'both sides' use language to further confuse the issue and score points with their chosen audiences.
That said, why.. or even how, would an American worker compete on salary. That, you will find, is the source of most of the discontent. That the target of that discontent is amusingly misdirected is quite anothe matter altogether and speaks only to the strength of propaganda apparatus in US.
<< It's the litmus test for how free our speech really is.
True.
<< If you advocate for free speech and then do something like this, then you're not a free speech advocate.
Also true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came
Don't you think having terror supporters in the country is causing an "irreparable harm" too?
That's 100% orthogonal.
1. There are plenty of US citizens that say the same things
2. This demonstrates that anything that runs afoul of whatever party is in charge will subject an immigrant to extra-judicial removal without due process. That's a scary precedent, and people all over the world are watching and learning that America is not a safe place to hinge your future on.
Regardless of how you feel about this person, there are other levers and mechanisms. Impinging upon freedom of speech in a country that prides itself upon it and revoking legal residential status is scary.
Telling someone you disagree with or even hate their ideas and their politics is one thing. Removing their rights and crushing decades of their work and their future fitness envelope - built on countless opportunity costs, some of them based on "choosing America" - is quite another.
I don't care if the person is pro-Palestine, pro-Israel, pro-LGBT, pro-MRA, pro-Scientology, pro-Church of Satan. We should not damage the American brand. We should not impinge upon our laws and constitution.
Everyone in the world should want to come here, and we should be able to take our pick of the hardest workers and brightest minds. Some of those people are Israeli, some of those people are Palestinian and Muslim, some of those people are Chinese. We should be able to get them all and grow stronger. We're supposed to be a melting pot.
You want to know another thing that's orthogonal to our discussion? I don't think we're in this place of hate naturally. I think the platforms and the marketers and the engagement algorithms and the coordinated psyops have put us here. I think people are mostly kind (or at worst neutral) to one another. We've got a whole lot of battles to fight if we want to avoid extreme polarization ripping us apart.
This country was literally founded on terrorism oops, sorry, "revolutionaries"
Many founding fathers had strong ties to the smuggling industry, the Boston Tea party was the kind of vandalism that would put you in prison for life now, and there was constant and brutal aggression towards loyalist citizens including stealing their land and physically assaulting them.
No amount of Hamas chants will harm the US. Hamas is only effective in Palestine because people are outright propagandized and have almost zero hope for their lives. Or they are literal children.
Funny, the last time we got all antsy about teenagers chanting stuff on college campuses, several children were shot by the national guard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
Seems to me, the threat isn't actually teenagers.
In fact, if you ask the FBI, the threat has consistently been white dudes with guns trying to do things like bomb federal buildings, do hate crimes, and attempt to abduct a sitting US state governor.
Should we deport all white guys with guns? I'll tell my brother to pack his stuff.
Yes, I think we should probably deport or imprison anyone who breaks into the Capitol to overthrow the lawfully elected government.
Oh wait, not those kinds of terror supporters? Just student Gaza protestors and Tesla vandals?
>Once we start punishing people for free speech, whatever their ideology or party affiliation may be, the same tactics can be used against us when the political tides turn.
This is with the underlying ideal that neither side has the right answers. Which was true back in the era of sane politics.
Except this doesn't really apply anymore, as we know that one side is objectively stupid, and with the modern age, there is zero to none fact checking or social responsibility.
In the same way that there are restrictions to free speech in yelling fire in a crowded movie theater, there absolutely should be restrictions on anything having to do with the popular right talking points, with appropriate jail time, as those fall into the same category now, with people taking Ivermectin for Covid and dying because Joe Rogan told them so.
And if the laws are in place, and the wrong party ever takes charge again and uses those laws against you, that should be a motivator to not let that party take hold in the first place.
we're flagging xkcd now? :(
The fascists on HN are working overtime.
Everything is getting flagged that seems anti-currently elected's actions. I tried to raise it here, seems like HN for various reasons is over talking about this topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43570025
I got some useful replies there but it is still hard to conclude something pernicious isn't happening.
I wonder if an upvote / flag ratio threshold would stop some of the abusive flagging that is happening.
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oh wow lol, did not expect that.