What is the evidence that America is falling apart? From all my reading of American history, America has _always_ been this way. With a wide lens it appears as healthy as it's ever been. This is a genuine question-- I've read a lot of American history, but I'm still a dilettante. It's extremely difficult to tell if there are genuinely new conditions, or if we're engaging in a vigorous political process as we always did.
We live in a world where the sitting president calls January 6 a day of love, and has pardoned the rioters, and then says that people protesting ICE are "domestic terrorists". We live in a world where federal prosecutors are choosing to quit rather than following his orders.
Remember John McCain defending Obama[0]? Do you genuinely believe that the people heading the Republican Party today would ever do that? Contrast McCain's humility and grace in his concession speech[1] with Trump's constant refusal to accept that he lost 2020, and his insistence on exacting revenge on the people who "wronged" him.
No, this is not a "vigorous political process" in action. It's something else entirely.
In the 1800 election republicans thought the federalists will turn America into a tyrannical monarchy, and the federalists thought the republicans will plunge America into mob rule like the French Revolution. They would have never defended each other.
Things look bad if you have a twenty year time horizon, but they look pretty normal if you zoom out to encompass all of American history.
Re Trump exacting revenge on political opponents, that conduct has endless precedent in American history. (Refusing to concede the election does not; but he was forced out of office nonetheless, which I read as a sign the republic is healthy.)
EDIT: I just remembered about the Aaron Burr conspiracy. Aaron Burr lost the 1800 election to Jefferson by one elector (after over a month of gridlock). He then tried to raise a private army to either march on Washington, or to form his own country and secede from the union. In 1805 Jefferson ordered his arrest and Burr was tried for treason (and acquitted!)
>Things look bad if you have a twenty year time horizon
50 year horizon, US erupted into a Civil War. Gotta expand out a bit, but maybe the republicans of 1800 had a point (who we'd call liberal today, but history has a strange way with language).
And yes, Trump has already done decades of damage to the US's soft power. countries are now trying to slowly cut out the middleman of the US and even pulling out of the dollar. the 20 year horizon here is awful.
This is a half-truth that obscures what makes The United States unique. From the day the constitution was signed, it was a compromise between competing economies, geographic incentives, cultures, religious movements, political philosophies, and individual ambitions. This is what makes the country free and prosperous-- it was conceived under conditions that make centralization of power extremely difficult.
But a huge constraint on the current regime's aspirations is that they can only exercise power by sending federal officers and troops into states. We'd be in a much worse place if Stephen Miller could issue an order taking over local law enforcement every time someone harasses his goons.
Yes, but this tension has been there since the founding of the republic. The federalists wanted to centralize power (some much more than others), and the republicans (the "jeffersonians") bitterly opposed it. In his second term George Washington personally lead troops to Pennsylvania to put down the whiskey rebellion.
Zooming out of the 24h news cycle, "all power to a singular person" concerns seem far too overblown. Half the country hates Trump. He won the popular vote, but not by all that much (despite what he may assert). By comparison LBJ, FDR, and Nixon won ~60% of popular vote. Even if he were a young man, I don't think we're in any danger of a caesar.
Why would a small difference in voters supporting him or not matter if he has all the guns and fanatics willing to use them?
The number of Americans willing to check the other person on the ballot is a lot lower than the number of Americans willing to pick up arms when he ignores the law like all the other laws he ignores.
To be clear, a plurality of individual voters voted for Trump and Vance's electors. Trump still had less than 50% of all votes cast. At 64.1% turnout, that means that less than 32% (approximately) of eligible voters voted for Trump.
I think the scarier part is how utterly polarized the US is. The ratings are awful for trump, but it gets really scary when you zoom in.
80% conservateives at worst still support trump, while 7% liberal at best support him. Maybe someone can bring up polling to prove me wrong, but that is utterly unheard of levels of polarization. The only solace here is that independent voters are tanking, so in polls this close that can be the breaking point for all of this.
>Even if he were a young man, I don't think we're in any danger of a caesar.
The scary part is that he's not a young nor healthy man. He can blow the world up and not live to see the utter destruction he triggered. At least Caesar was assassinated and had to be on edge for years. Trump will have lived a full life never being punished and the world will burn afterwards.
From my reading of history the level of polarization was at least as high or higher during the early republic, and obviously higher leading up to and through the civil war. I don't know American history in any meaningful depth outside these two periods, but I suspect there were other periods of extreme polarization. I really don't think this is new.
Comparing the early republic to today is apples and oranges, disagreements and passions are supposed to go down as things settle down with time.
Instead, both parties display an obstinate lack of compromise and wishy-washy, unworkable platforms while the media is only happy to make all of it worse.
Increasing polarization is surely a symptom of problems and that needs to be analyzed, explained and addressed, not excused.
You make it sound like a civil war is a walk in the park, you do need more history and more imagination in order to understand the human cost of obstinance and shallow thinking.
The surface level reading of history is that everyone always agreed centralization of power is bad and operated in a gentlemanly way to further this principle, until Trump came along. But that's not the case at all. In the two parts of American history where I read more or less deeply (early republic and civil war), the factions bitterly vied for absolute power but were prevented from getting it through intangible American magic.
That America works and keeps working for reasons nobody understands. We seem to make a ton of mistakes, and often act in the same way as far less successful countries do, but somehow keep coming out on top. It often feels like our success is despite our actions, not because of them. That's what I mean by "intangible American magic".
I didn’t say that. There’s been a few. Wilson, FDR, Jackson come to mind.
Trump is unique in that the previous folks predated the massive standing army and propaganda capabilities that exist today. The intangible magic is brave individuals and institutions. It’s harder for those individuals with the secret police and army running around.
Much of that was always in dispute and while the “freedom of states” stuff has intellectual appeal and often prevails over shorter periods, the trendline has always been towards one nation.
In the post constitution era, 17 amendments were passed by the house, including an amendment that would make states supreme by law. 6 years after the constitution was ratified, Marbury v. Madison established judicial supremacy for interpreting law, 11 years after that, the court ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland that states are subordinate to federal power.
Political compromise got it done, but centralized power is necessary for survival and prosperity. Congress and the courts realized this immediately. Most of the realpolitik of “states rights” is really about wielding tyrannical power locally.
> Most of the realpolitik of “states rights” is really about wielding tyrannical power locally.
I thought it was so states could knowingly house illegal aliens or illegal drug businesses without doing anything.
Normally states wouldn't have that right, but I see many who think they should have it. Marijuana is still illegal and those undocumented immigrants are also illegal, more federal influence would make it so states cannot legalize those any more, is that what you want?
So states rights goes both ways, it lets states both be more progressive and more conservative than the average.
>I thought it was so states could knowingly house illegal aliens or illegal drug businesses without doing anything.
> Normally states wouldn't have that right, but I see many who think they should have it.
The states are not compelled to enforce federal law. Doing nothing about people violating federal law has always been a right of the states. You are trying to, or already have in your head, conflate non enforcing federal law, with actively violating state law.
Where marijuana is legalized, it means the State made it legal in terms of State law, not that it superseded federal law.
Zero States have made illegal immigrants legal. Some states stop going after them and assisting the federal government in their immigration duties.
You are talking about state's rights and have no idea what the boundaries of those rights even are.
Many states have made it such that there is no functional distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. Identical drivers licenses, access to the same services, and indeed protection from federal enforcement of immigration law.
All of those things you’re mentioning are state services that they can offer to anyone because it’s not a federal issue.
This is what states rights look like and why the right is mocked for referencing it when they foam at the mouth once it’s used for things they don’t like.
It’s similar to people who claim the civil war was over states rights when southern states were pushing to have other state sovereignty ignored over their own laws when it came to returning slaves.
States cannot send their police officers to enforce immigration law, correct (see Arizona v. United States), but many states have gone further to make it illegal for their police forces to honor immigration detainers that federal agencies request when an illegal immigrant is arrested for a crime. That sure looks and sounds like a protection to me.
These people are released, which does make the job of federal agencies more difficult, requiring immigration enforcement action in the streets as opposed to the jailhouse. You prefer it in the street, apparently, but I can certainly understand how others may see how these types of actions start to look like States actively frustrating legal immigration enforcement action. Or that it is de facto circumvention if not de jure.
The states in question have zero obligation to help make the feds jobs easier. The people complaining about this situation feel entitled to other states using their resources to help the federal government enact policies that they want enforced nationwide.
This is why everyone rolls their eyes when conservatives crow about states rights. They don’t actually want state rights, they want their views enforced on the other states.
I’m actually for less of states independence from the feds on a bunch of areas, and immigration is probably one of them, but as long as this is a tool in the toolbox that conservatives are eager to use, I’m going to call them out for bitching about someone else doing the same thing.
Look, I’m not the one who supports street raids, that’s you. I’m not understanding your point anymore. Do you not want immigration law enforced at all?
An illegal immigrant commits a crime, say vehicular homicide. ICE lodges a detainer against this person, and the local PD refuses and instead releases the offender. As a result, ICE runs a tactical team out to go pick him up.
This is the outcome that you appear to believe is optimal, and you are intentionally using emotionally loaded words like "lenient" to attempt to guilt me into retreating from my position that this is, in fact, not an optimal outcome. In many cases like this additional crimes are committed before the offender is apprehended, crimes which are of course 100% preventable, without you and your "leniency".
>Tell me you at least recognize the difference between actively doing something against some group, and merely not helping them?
Technically speaking, you are right. These states are actively working against their own citizens, not the Federal government.
Your initial claim was that some States are merely "not assisting" the Federal government with their immigration duties, which is actually not a choice they get to make since the controlling caselaw (again, Arizona v. United States) prevents them from doing this even if they wanted to. Local cops cannot investigate immigration status, full stop. I point it out that some states actually go further, and passed laws that bar their police from doing the following.
Feds: hey you arrested individual_x, he's in the country illegally and oh by the way has a few other outstanding warrants, can you please hold him at the jail house, we're going to pick him up for immigration proceedings.
Cops: sure thing, let us know when you get here
And now we get.
Feds: hey hold that guy you arrested, he's got a standing deportation order from years ago, hold him until we get there.
Cops: No, in fact, we're going to let him go.
You continued to imply that banning the former is somehow preferable, even though the latter results in ... street raids.
I'm not really seeing how I'm the bad guy here, and honestly I think your real policy preference is simply that no immigration law is enforced at all. You should have the courage to say so, since that is quite clearly the policy preference for a large portion of the electorate, and possibly a majority of the Democratic Party.
> Feds: hey you arrested individual_x, he's in the country illegally and oh by the way has a few other outstanding warrants, can you please hold him at the jail house, we're going to pick him up for immigration proceedings.
> Cops: sure thing, let us know when you get here
> And now we get.
> Feds: hey hold that guy you arrested, he's got a standing deportation order from years ago, hold him until we get there.
> Cops: No, in fact, we're going to let him go.
You’ve accurately described how states who do not want to assist the federal government, send instructions to their employees on how to not assist the federal government
> You continued to imply that banning the former is somehow preferable, even though the latter results in ... street raids.
The latter results in street raids because of the choices of the federal government and the current leader. It is not an immutable law of physics that street raids have to happen.
This is abuser logic. Do what I want or I _have_ to hurt you.
> I'm not really seeing how I'm the bad guy here, and honestly I think your real policy preference is simply that no immigration law is enforced at all. You should have the courage to say so, since that is quite clearly the policy preference for a large portion of the electorate, and possibly a majority of the Democratic Party.
My preferred immigration policies are ones that brain drain the rest of the planet for my countries benefit.
I am calling out how states not enforcing federal policy for free is an example of states rights.
This comment chain started with me responding to `Jensson stating
> I thought it was so states could knowingly house illegal aliens or illegal drug businesses without doing anything.
> Normally states wouldn't have that right, but I see many who think they should have it.
Which is patently false if you believe in states rights unless you are a hypocrite or belief that states only have the right to believe in the federal governments commands
The states have nothing to do with your ignorant hysteria about foreigners. Unfortunately, the reactionary types have turned that into a dog whistle for their imposition on tyranny to deliver freedom, someday, maybe.
Marijuana is illegal. The states have largely chosen to change their laws on the subject as it was determined that it was creating more problems than it was solving. Additionally, the Federal government, while incapable of changing the law, loosened some of the disincentives for the states laws on the subject.
I see conservatives actively oppressing blue states right now. Somehow states rights do not protect civilians from being mistreated, kidnapped and shot by violent agents sent by conservative minority.
> This is what makes the country free and prosperous-- it was conceived under conditions that make centralization of power extremely difficult.
Well, and the isolation of the country by oceans on both east and west, and by the glaciers to the North, which make invasion by any but Mexico or Canada unthinkably expensive.
As for prosperous, a vast, then-untapped swath of forests, thick humus deposited by glaciers, and mineral deposits, all serviceable by waterways unprotected by competing nations, did play a minor role.
I know you didn't ask to problem solve, but... Email your resume to me at vakhmechet@microsoft.com, mention this HN thread. We're hiring for Azure MySQL and sister Postgres team, lots of interesting problems to solve!
EDIT:
"I feel like a firework that exploded in bursts of color (everyone ooed and ah-ed), and then... nothing" ~~> that's a beautiful sentence. Welcome to adulthood!
My experience has been that "chosen family" is a thing that works when you're young, but almost always falls apart when you get older. This has happened to countless people I know. Life throws all kinds of curveballs, incentives change, conflicts arise, sometimes very intense conflicts. Empirically, chosen family is a structure that works in a particular place and time, then disintegrates when conditions change. Real family isn't like that; there is a very strong anthropological connection wired into us that doesn't go away when the situation changes.
Of course it's different for everyone, some families are so tragic they may not be worth preserving, etc. But that's an outlier-- the modal experience is that the power of family is precisely in the fact that you don't get to choose it.
Modern western societies kind of broken that. A culture of Kicking your kids as soon as they are 18 years old is not very conducive to a culture of strong familiar links like, let's say, the culture of early 20th century Sicily.
I moved out at 18 (like most of my peers) and my extended family lives far away to begin with. I think I have an alright family situation compared to some friends, but it's not like I see any of them more than once or twice a year?
If you can get friends who live nearby and come over once a month that's probably closer than the modern us family structure tbh
And I have seen multiple counterfactuals. Even people who are descended from the one who was part of the "chosen family" continue to visit and treat them as family.
An adopted child is also a form of chosen family. As is a spouse.
I think the point that's being made is-- it's a lot easier to stick together over the long term when you spend the first 20 years of your life together in a family unit. It's possible to build long term, stable bonds under other circumstances-- just less likely. It's also possible to screw the former up.
Strongly disagree. Claude Code is the most intuitive technology I've ever used-- way easier than learning to use even VS Code for example. It doesn't even take weeks. Maybe a day or two to get the hang of it and you're off to the races.
The difference is AI tooling lies to you. Day 0 you think it's perfect but the more you use ai tools you realize using them wrong can give you gnarly bugs.
It took me a couple of days to find the right level of detail to prompt it. Too high level, and the codebase gets away from me/the tooling goes off the rails. Too low level, and I may as well do it myself. Maybe also learn the sorts of things Claude Code isn't good at yet. But once I got in the groove it was very easy from there. I think the whole process took 2-3 days.
I actually don't use it in the terminal, I use the vs code extension. It's a better experience (bringing up the file being edited, nicer diffs, etc.) But both are trivial to pick up.
Know Amjad from years ago. We're on the opposite sides of ideological barricades, but he's no terrorist sympathizer. Just a man who loves his people. He seemed extremely pragmatic too-- if he ran Gaza it'd be an economic paradise by now.
He doesn't seem pragmatic because everything I read about him or any time I hear from him it's about this geopolitical issue. Doesn't he have a company to run? What's the point of making this front and center part of your personality. His thoughts on the war in Gaza is literally the only thing I know about him. That and him firing an intern about a weekend project. It's all just exhausting.
How is that pragmatic? If you want to do good things, build a business and donate money or whatever. Getting into Twitter wars with internet strangers and spending on PR to tell everyone what you think about geopolitics strikes me as anything but pragmatic.
It sounds like you're mainly responding and reacting to what people (and media) choose to write about him (a narrative revolving around his political beliefs), rather than how he (mostly) goes about his day to day.
Eh people get consumed by these things. It's very hard to resist when you have a platform and your own people are at war. Very very difficult to get past abstractions and just work to help in minute particulars.
Plus social media is a uniquely deranging technology. Persona on twitter is rarely who the person is in real life.
Two counterintuitive/surprising lessons I've come to appreciate:
1.Talent pools in nation states are extraordinarily deep-- much deeper than they appear. Countries can suffer from brain drain for decades (or centuries!) but when conditions call for it, superbly talented people somehow manifest.
2. The correlation between talent and conscience is weak. Nation states always manage to find superbly talented people to work on problems many of us would recoil from.
This is so much true! Indeed you can find absolutely everywhere absolutely incredible brilliant people in any area you want. The reason for the 1st and 3rd world is that is difficult to come by enough people and then coordinate them: is about critical mass and alignment.
About 2. also 100% true: intelligence/knowledge is totally independent of any other trait.
Right-- talent isn't that useful in a vacuum. You need economic and legal infrastructure that talented people can plug into to be productive. That infrastructure (a) takes a very long time to build and (b) depends on cultural norms that take a long time to evolve and don't find fertile ground everywhere.
I tend to agree with most of what you said regarding all governments and countries. What may not be widely known is that some authoritarian regimes have been accused by expatriates of identifying and indoctrinating intellectually gifted children into their state-sponsored organizations for use by these entities for unmentionable purposes. Of course, it's next to impossible to find written documentation, with specific details since detailed evidence in such states are understandably hard to retrieve. Most of these accounts arrive through word of mouth.
>What may not be widely known is that some authoritarian regimes have been accused by expatriates of identifying and indoctrinating intellectually gifted children into their state-sponsored organizations
Literally every country does this. It's just perspective whether an individual thinks it's okay or not.
If you're on the side doing the indoctrination, you probably agree with it, or are indoctrinated yourself. We all are to some degree.
That is true. But I refer to those parents that sent their children to other countries because they knew the state or gov would not have allowed them to prevent the indoctrination of their children. But yes, we all are to some degree, unfortunately.
Counter-intuitive? The primary motivation for fretting about Brain Drain (whether it is true or not is secondary) is because the people who fret about it are educated professionals, precisely the people who are prone to build their identity around the idea that society thrives and succumbs based on their own existence.
The same people who have unironically latched onto the idea of Meritocracy. A concept/idea that was literally conceived as a parody.
Not always, but sometimes, new things are just better.
One example is null-- a billion dollar mistake as Tony Hoare called it. A Maybe type with exhaustive pattern matching is so dramatically better, it can be worth switching just for that feature alone.
I was a bit eager to start work after three months of waiting for the HSP 1b visa. Tried to keep myself busy with side projects, and got quite far with embedded Rust. But the lack of a "regular schedule" from a job was making me eager to start "proper work" again.
So far, it has been a mixed bag of trade-offs. Made it in time for various events, got to see a few friends for the first time in a while, etc. However, nothing beats the comfort and security of one's parents home, especially during the holiday season.
Probably obvious to everybody, but seriously do not schedule a move in December. If it is feasible, spend the time to make memories with your family and loved ones.
> nothing beats the comfort and security of one's parents home, especially during the holiday season.
A bit morbid, but reminds me of this passage by John Quincy Adams:
> Everything about the house is the same. I was not fully sensible of the change till I entered his bedchamber [...] That moment was inexpressibly painful, and struck me as if it had been an arrow to my heart. My father and mother have departed. The charm which has always made this house to me an abode of enchantment is dissolved; and yet my attachment to it, and to the whole region around, is stronger than I ever felt it before.
Hope you get to spend the next Christmas with your family!
Hope everyone has a healthy, rewarding and prosperous year. Special thanks to @dang and team for keeping this community a great place everyone wants to come back to. I love coming back here every day.
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