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Supposedly you can do it with a stock smartphone or tablet by using the audio hardware to deliberately generate RF noise that works like a WWVB signal. https://github.com/kangtastic/timestation

The problem isn't deporting illegal immigrants, the problem is revoking legal status, abusing detainees, hurting people on the street, and the occasional murder.

Obama years had also the same kind of abuse and killings by the border patrol. At least 56 recorded deaths of immigrants caused by ICE and custody[0]. Some murders were settled to avoid a trial.

Protests against ICE were much smaller then (billionaires didn't fund NGOs to organise them either), so it was easier for the agency to operate as well, and it was quickly memory-holed.

[0] https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/sites/default/files/re...


Any preventable death in custody is a tragedy, but there’s a major difference between a death due to inadequate precautions against suicide or due to inadequate medical care, and tacking someone to the ground in the street and shooting them ten times in the back. I really hope you understand that and are just pretending not to in order to score points.

Edit: also, why is it that whenever someone makes an "Obama did bad stuff too" argument, it's always with the intent of "so you shouldn't be upset about it now," rather than "you should have been upset then like I was, and I'm still upset about what's happening now"?


Oh well. Maybe if Alice doesn't want that problem she shouldn't accumulate so much of one asset that she'd crash the price trying to pay the taxes on it.

Interfering with federal law enforcement is not punishable by summary execution.

Wrong question. The right question is, "were any of them US citizens or legal residents?" And the answer is yes, some of them were. For some of them the use of past tense is particularly appropriate because they are no more.

That is not the right question because a) zero mistakes is not a reasonable standard for any country-scale operation and b) legal residency does not preclude there being a valid reason for deportation such as violating the terms of that residency permit.

What we’re seeing isn’t mistakes, it’s deliberate abuse. You don’t accidentally tackle somebody and shoot them in the back ten times.

Do you actually believe every person getting abused is an illegal immigrant, or are you just pretending because it's the only way to make your point?

If your eyes are closed, then things look the same whether you're in the middle of a calm meadow or on a highway about to be run over by a truck.

If you prefer not to look, maybe because you're convinced there's no truck, or you don't think it would help avoid the truck if there is one, fair enough. But the fact that your personal experience is unchanged is meaningless.


It is well known that news and social media is biased towards outrage. Most issues people get upset about are really not that big in reality and quickly forgotten once the public consciousness moves on to the next thing. If there is someone yelling "look out for the truck" all the time no matter what the rational choice is to ignore them.

Why not complain that there's a point inside somebody's basement and you can't see any distance from that? Why not complain that it's wrong any time you close your eyes? Those would be about as sensible.

Ironically, the site would probably say you can see 20 km from inside the basement.

What's ironic about that? Of course it would. It's working off of large-scale terrain features, not structures. It will also tell you that you can see distant mountains when it's cloudy or you don't have your glasses on.

It's a predictor of what you'll click on. This correlates somewhat with what you want to see, but they don't care one whit about what you want, and the two don't always line up well.

In short, the problem is ragebait. I might open up some app because I want to see cat videos, but when I'm presented with "Polly McPoliticianface LIES about FLOWERS" I'm likely to click in anger about Polly's nefarious actions. Do this enough and you end up with something that just tries to make you angry all the time.


This is inevitable. Ragebait is noting inherent to social media or feed algorithms. Cable news is a 24/7 feed of ragebait. The feedback you provide to the social media (or cable news) algorithm is whether or not you chose to watch it, not why. This is not in conflict with what you want. If you didn't want to hate watch, then you wouldn't do it. That you want it for negative reasons doesn't take away from the fact that you do, in fact, want it.

are you having trouble with the idea that people might not want what their behavioral profile implies? Right now you clearly seem to be interacting with people posting wrong takes, from your perspective, on hacker news. Would you glad if all the internet reconfigured itself tomorrow such that all you could do was read people being terribly wrong about this particular topic? pages and pages of it. "how happy terminalshort must be" the algorithm thinks, a job well done. Right up until someone is wrong about something else you care about

"Want" can get tricky. Does a regretful heroin addict want to take heroin? On one level yes, on another level no.

Nobody else is obligated to do what I want or show me content that I want

Better than actual human customer agents who give an obviously scripted “I’m sorry about that” when you explain a problem. At least the computer isn’t being forced to lie to me.

We need a law that forces management to be regularly exposed to their own customer service.


I knew someone would respond with this. HN is rampant with this sort of contrarian defeatism, and I just responded the other day to a nearly identical comment on a different topic, so:

No, it is not better. I have spent $AGE years of my life developing the ability to determine whether someone is authentically providing me sympathy, and when they are, I actually appreciate it. When they aren’t, I realize that that person is probably being mistreated by some corporate monstrosity or they’re having a shit day, and I provide them benefit of the doubt.

> At least the computer isn’t being forced to lie to me.

Isn’t it though?

> We need a law that forces management to be regularly exposed to their own customer service.

Yeah we need something. I joke about with my friends creating an AI concierge service that deals with these chatbots and alerts you when a human is finally somehow involved in the chain of communication. What a beautiful world where we’ll be burning absurd amounts of carbon in some sort of antisocial AI arms race to try to maximize shareholder profit.


The world would not actually be improved by having 1000s of customer service reps genuinely authentically feel sorry. You're literally demanding real people to experience real negative emotions over some IT problem you have.

They don't have to be but they at least can try to help. When dealing with automated response units the outcome is the same: much talk, no solution. With a rep you can at lease see what's available within their means and if you are nice to them they might actually be able to help you or at least make you feel less bad about it.

But it would be improved by having them be honest and not say they’re sorry when they’re not.

People authentically, genuinely, naturally care about other people; empathy - founded at least partly in mirror neurons - is the most fundamental human nature. It's part of being social animals that live, survive, and thrive only in groups. It's even important for conflict - you need to anticipate the other person's moves, which requires instintively understanding their emotions.

The exceptions are generally when people are scared, and sadly some people are scared all the time.


This point is hard to get across to some HN users sometimes

Is it? Either way that's really missing the point. Empathy being authentic and genuine and natural doesn't change the basic idea that all else equal dragging other people into your problems is a negative. If it helps them solve it, or helps lead to the problem being avoided in the future, that's great. If they're joining you in feeling bad from a place of powerlessness, that's bad.

> the basic idea that all else equal dragging other people into your problems is a negative. If it helps them solve it, or helps lead to the problem being avoided in the future, that's great. If they're joining you in feeling bad from a place of powerlessness, that's bad.

People require empathy and compassion; we need others to mirror our emotions and indeed to share them with us. We are social creatures and it is not normal, healthy or effective to experience (strong) emotions alone. Connecting emotionally with others is not a luxury or weakness, and certainly not "bad"; it's how humans naturally and essentially function.. Yes, it can be done badly and you don't need to be powerless - if your partner comes to you terrified about a cancer diagnosis, acting terrified yourself isn't helpful; but accepting their emotions, seeing them, and responding with genuine emotions appropriate to the situation is essential.

Many highly analytical people - to use a vague, undefined term - tend to think that anyone who comes to them with a problem must want their problem analyzed and solved - if you have a big hammer then all problems are nails, I suppose. Sometimes that is desired but certainly not always, and it can work against what people really need.


That's a fine general purpose attitude, but did you forget we were talking about customer support? It's unfair to them if they're getting invested beyond the surface level (unless we pay them a lot more) and the explicit purpose of talking to them is to get the problem analyzed and solved.

My last comment was intended to be read in that context too, not about interacting with the people you're close to.


Very good point, I did forget the context.

I still think you can have empathy on support calls; I'd even say it's important for the customer to be satisfied. They may be panicked, frustrated, exhausted, etc. Ignoring people's emotion gets bad results; it feels rude.

Of course there are limits, especially time; long stories are inappropriate. Still, I've had many empathetic, brief conversations with strangers on trains (literally) and elsewhere.


It's not "contrarian defeatism" to prefer a robot reading a script to a person reading a script.

I'm glad you appreciate actual sympathy. But that's not what the conversation was about. You're getting mad at the wrong thing.

Also, putting aside everything else, an actual human response burns way more carbon than an AI response.


It's an Americanism. You might enjoy e.g. a Northern European culture more?

Lying means to make a statement that you believe to be untrue. LLMs don’t believe things, so they can’t lie.

I haven’t had the pleasure of one of these phone systems yet. I think I’d still be more irritated by a human fake apology because the company is abusing two people for that.

At any rate, I didn’t mean for it to be some sort of contest, more of a lament that modern customer service is a garbage fire in many ways and I dream of forcing the sociopaths who design these systems to suffer their own handiwork.


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