As a European I'm dumbfounded how this issue alone isn't deciding elections in the US. Somehow everyone just accepted having their identity stolen every once in a while.
I'm in my 40s, and I don't know anyone personally who's dealt with any kind of significant issue due to identity theft or fraud.
Like, occasionally my credit card company will call me up about some fraudulent transactions and then they'll mail me a new card and take the fraud off my bill.
A problem can be simultaneously incredibly acute for an unlucky subset, structurally really problematic, and also on average have very low impact. Those problems generally don't decide elections.
I traveled to the Caribbean on a cruise. I figure one of the staff found my wallet, which had my original Social Security Card in it. Years later, I find a letter from the IRS about unpaid taxes on income over the previous 3 years. My SSN had been used for fraudulent filings, despite my residence always having been in California. There was also the discrepancy of overlapping tenures at cleaning companies across the eastern seaboard and overlapping tenures at tech companies on the west coast.
I talked to the IRS and I got audited (naturally). My income tax returns were withheld for about 7 years plus the 3 that had fraudulent filings. One day, I got a check from the US Treasury for all the back-returns plus interest. It was worth, I guess. Some individuals had also tried to get various loans, phones, etc in my name but my credit was sub 500 at the time, so they were denied. I kinda got lucky and unlucky at the same time.
I periodically receive OTPs I didn't request, because malicious actors are trying password stuffing with really old credentials of mine from data breaches. It's relatively frequent.
Identity handed to Musk's businesses, along with all of the personal history there, is mind-boggling. But MAGA doesn't care, and all the enabling congresspeople will just say "omg, we didn't know that we should care".
I suppose it's not as bad as believing/promoting the lies that got the US into two wars in Iraq, but it's still bad and sort of feels like it goes into the same bucket.
You would be shocked how Blase people are about it.
The credit card companies block a transaction and issue a card replacement and everyone feels OK again.
I have had a couple of PayPal alternatives accounts opened using my email address. Still feel on edge about it. Holy shit. The only thing which gives me a modicum of peace is I get free credit monitoring from the Equifax boondoggle.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but non of your links refer identity theft in Europe (Turkey might be considered Europe in some geographic definition, but when people talk politics/law they typically mean the EU).
That silly little phrase gets smugly mentioned on this site so often that it should be labeled a parody of itself. As a European myself, I can't generalize shit about people from my enormous multi-ethnic continent of several hundred million inhabitants and dozens of states, mini states and assorted autonomous regions. It's full of contradictions, problems, social disasters, bureaucratic fuckeries, authoritarian nonsense, simmering brands of racism/xenophobia and other assorted crap that varies widely from one little part of its landscape to another, sometimes drastically.
Many other Europeans on this site should consider climbing down from their imaginary pedestals of moral superiority. Very little about either past or present day Europe (insofar as you can generalize about it at all) merits such a sense of superiority, at all. It all comes with trade-offs.
Reading some HN comments from "As a European" types, you'd think they were already living in a wonderfully socialist version of the singularity, and it got built right next to the Pearly Gates, where it daily receives the airy blessings of winged angels.
> Reading some HN comments from "As a European" types, you'd think they were already living in a wonderfully socialist version of the singularity, and it got built right next to the Pearly Gates, where it daily receives the airy blessings of winged angels.
Hearing stories about the US, that is indeed how it feels. I pretty regularly read unironic stories of people that literally lived on the street because of some random misfortune. I just can’t imagine that happening in my home country (e.g. socialist paradise), and I’m inclined to believe much of western Europe is the same.
Like I clearly said, there are tradeoffs in all of these comparisons, but they include unpleasant or downright shitty things about Europe too, and because you can't imagine that happening in your home country doesn't mean you can generalize about Europe being completely superior to the US in all such ways, or the US being as you generalize it in all ways.
2032 just to start is way too late. The invasion will start before the end of the current US presidential term. Although it's useful to plan for the best case as well, I guess.
Emotions aren't that special or mysterious. They are just a low-power analog decision-making mechanism. Making a machine driven by emotion would be trivial.
We don't know how to make a machine that can experience emotions (or if it's possible at all, or if it's in fact already been done). But then the same can be said about any other type of experience.
Same. I went back from Gemini to Claude yesterday, because Gemini was writing decidedly worse code, at times not even able to stick to Python syntax. Using Aider.
Do you have that friend who knows the answer to anything and who you thought was a genius until smartphones appeared and you started googling his answers? LLMs are that guy.
For programming stuff that can be immediately verified LLMs are good. They also cover many cases where search engines can't go (e.g. "what was that song where X did Y?"). But looking up facts? Not yet. Burned many times and not trying it again until I hear something changed fundamentally.
The replies are hilariously illustrative of your point. Why do you guys keep working for theese evil capitlists taking away the bilions of value you generate and leaving you with pitiful hundreds of thousands (+free snacks)? You should start a cooperative or something.
It's not about patriotism. Many people outside the US, myself included, see a problem with authoritarian superpowers per se. Although now that the US is rapidly drifting towards authoritarianism, that just seems like an inevitable future to prepare for.
Agreed. Within the US though a lot of it is definitely patriotism. But even for Europe a new super power on the block is not necessarily a good thing.
Would you prepare for such a future by banning TikTok and placing tariffs on all goods like BYD cars? I would say no. Those acts are done out of patriotism.
Can you source this? Does Russia have immigrants constantly coming in from these countries that claim to dislike it?(this isn't anything about immigration policy)
My workplace is over 50% Hispanic out on the warehouse floor. They are here because they prefer America, not because they hate it.
First I'll say that I say this as my view as a Brazilian, that actually have a very good and default opinion about the U.S, as far as a Brazilian can be.
U.S is an economic powerhouse, Russia isn't. So yes, U.S attracts worldwide immigration. And of course, who goes to the U.S, already go there because... like it. If they didn't liked it, they wouldn't go.
But Latin America population is almost 700 million. Those who go to the U.S are a small minority, and specially from countries that are very much, to be kind, not going well, so they see the U.S as an example to be followed, like the Cubans and Venezuelans in the U.S.
But Latin America isn't only them.
I suggest checking some polls on the subject on China/US, and you'll see majority of latin americans have positive opinion about China¹, with numbers actually similar in some countries to the U.S. While 16% have positive opinions about China in the U.S, it's 61% in Chile.
And of course, I'm not even considering the governments here, which I think should be the main point, as they are the one who will drive the countries relations.Most Latin America governments, see the U.S as a country that would never let another economic world power rise in the Americas continent. Majority of Brazilians believe that Brazil should reduce use of Dollar², and Trump made specific threats to countries that try to avoid dollar.
This view is actually very widespread, but is worse between leftists, the leftists in most part of Latin America are more what we call "Anti-american", because of U.S Operation Condor that imposed right-wing dictatorships in the region. And it goes even newer, as Brazilian former President's Dilma Rousseff was spied back during Obama terms. That was discovered in 2013 or so.
The whole Trump U.S thing in Panama it's because of the growing influence China was getting there, too.
Are you referring to 2020 attempt or the 2024 murder? He was a lot more than just nuisance in 2020 and could have become the gravity center for future anti-war sentiments. In 2024 Putin murdered him just because he wanted to and there was no downside.
