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> The embassy also wants people to set their social media profiles to public. Good thing I have no interest in visiting the land of the "free" anytime soon.

kubb 1y ago
Yeah that country is toast, better look elsewhere.
lnsru 1y ago
Well I had a plan to do some museum/nature trip there and slowly gathered resources for it. But I don’t know if I want full visa+border control experience. I guess Iceland and Adriatic Sea countries will get my vacation budget instead.
childintime 1y ago
I was thinking about presenting at a conference in the USA in november, but the risks and abuse associated with entrance are now so high, it's out of the question. The world can no longer center on the USA. The tr*mp administration seems to think they are inviolable, that they can solve every problem with the military. They'll be caught with their pants down. A $400 drone can now take out a $2B piece of equipment. That waters the mouth of any adversary. A great humbling is coming.
- msgodel 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - ujkhsjkdhf234 1y ago
    What problems are you talking about? Be specific.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      >What problems are you talking about? Be specific. The one where these people don't have work papers, so they can't work the kind of above the table jobs you need to work to fully support yourself so they wind up being a drain on our social safety nets. The average working American in my state can't even afford "good" healthcare but we're happy to let these people in sign these people up for state healthcare and benefits (at least in my blue state, perhaps the red states have stringent criteria that makes them ineligible) and doll out millions of dollars of contracts to all sorts of entities that facilitate this process. It's absolutely nonsensical policy. And this is without even examining the effects on supply and demand of labor, cheap housing, etc, which I'm sure aren't great. I don't hate the immigrants. They're mostly fine people. But I would enact the most unspeakable horrors upon the people who actively created this situation were I given the opportunity. And the people who really ought to be pissed are the people who are in favor of adjacent political policy (broad safety nets, permissive legal immigration policies, etc) because the peddlers of the illegal immigration situation cast shade upon all them. Edit: Some of you really need to re-read that second to last sentence.
      - matwood 1y ago
        > The one where these people don't have work papers, so they can't work the kind of above the table jobs you need to work to fully support yourself so they wind up being a drain on our social safety nets. Legal immigrants and many undocumented workers without employment authorization pay Social Security taxes, analyses show. Some undocumented immigrants use fake Social Security numbers or ones they may have had before their work permits lapsed. In 2022, for example, undocumented immigrants paid nearly $100 billion in federal, state and local income taxes, including nearly $26 billion in Social Security taxes and $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank. (The report takes into account both employer and employee contributions to Social Security and Medicare taxes.) But they are not eligible to receive Social Security benefits if they are not lawfully in the US. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/01/politics/undocumented-immigrants-social-security https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/01/politics/undocumented-imm... > The average working American in my state can't afford "good" healthcare You're going to blame the complete lack of affordable healthcare in the US on...immigrants? Ok.
  - roxolotl 1y ago
    Mass immigration has been a fake specter used by the right to get votes for decades now. How did it impact you, or even those close to you personally negatively? I can tell you some positive impacts: - Most western countries are concerned about economic cliffs around retirement benefits due to falling population. The US is not because so many people, used to(?), want to move here. - Our food is subsidized by those willing to work awful hours at awful wages. As a humanitarian I hate this but I suspect most people would be upset to have to eat food picked at wages white Americans are willing to work. - Most studies show more people equals more production equals more economic prosperity. The solution to an illegal immigration problem is to loosen immigration rules and create pathways to citizenship.
    - msgodel 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - roxolotl 1y ago
        > Without freedom of association people stop socializing when you get a plurality population, you can see this everywhere in the US. Can you elaborate on this? To me, again just being honest and genuine, it reads as a racist dog whistle which says “without a shared cultural baseline this country will collapse”. I’ve worked with local immigrant advocate groups and have multiple immigrants living on the same street as me. They largely want nothing more than to be part of American society. Is this a range? Absolutely. Different people want to be part of society to different extents. But it’s very rare to find people who won’t be kind and welcoming to you if you are kind and welcoming to them. On housing that’s obviously true. There are two solutions there. Reduce the demand, or increase the supply. Given that the demand is “humans wanting shelter” any attempt to reduce demand is clearly immoral. So the answer there is to up the supply. I also genuinely want immigrants. At a minimum they bring delicious food I get to enjoy.
        text0404 1y ago
        This person believes in the (white) replacement conspiracy theory and is trying to articulate its tenets without referencing or naming it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement_conspiracy_theory_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement_conspiracy_t...
  - tastyface 1y ago
    I no longer have any interest in talking or negotiating with any of you people, but I’m happy to take personal measures to exclude you from polite society in any way I can.
- kcplate 1y ago
  > A $400 drone can now take out a $2B piece of equipment. That waters the mouth of any adversary. Aren’t you actually arguing for these kind of enhanced vetting measures with this realization? If anti-US sentiment is high and if the barrier to sabotaging a $2B system is a meager $400…why wouldn’t you do everything you could to prevent people who might be inclined, supportive, or even publicly indifferent to doing your country harm from entering with your blessing?
  - lantry 1y ago
    These "enhanced" vetting measures don't actually provide any protection against these kinds of attacks. All they do is increase the anti-US sentiment, which increases the number of people interested in attacking us.
    - kcplate 1y ago
      Sure, it may increase anti-us sentiment, but I don’t think you can confidently say that “enhanced vetting measures don’t actually provide any protection” because there is simply no way to know or measure what didn’t happen if you didn’t have foreknowledge of the planned attack that you foiled by your vetting. My attitude is, if you try to get in to the US you must want to be here for some reason. If that reason is to create some form of chaos, I don’t give a shit if you are made more irritated by the process. If your reason is peaceful and this discourages you…I’m sorry, it’s unfortunate, but we have folks that wish us harm and we want to protect everyone best we can…including you, Traveler. If just being inconvenienced makes you want to harm us, well you are exactly the type of person that should probably be vetted out—and hopefully you were.

kubb 1y ago

Yeah that country is toast, better look elsewhere.

lnsru 1y ago

Well I had a plan to do some museum/nature trip there and slowly gathered resources for it. But I don’t know if I want full visa+border control experience. I guess Iceland and Adriatic Sea countries will get my vacation budget instead.

childintime 1y ago

I was thinking about presenting at a conference in the USA in november, but the risks and abuse associated with entrance are now so high, it's out of the question. The world can no longer center on the USA. The tr*mp administration seems to think they are inviolable, that they can solve every problem with the military. They'll be caught with their pants down. A $400 drone can now take out a $2B piece of equipment. That waters the mouth of any adversary. A great humbling is coming.

msgodel 1y ago
[flagged]
- ujkhsjkdhf234 1y ago
  What problems are you talking about? Be specific.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >What problems are you talking about? Be specific. The one where these people don't have work papers, so they can't work the kind of above the table jobs you need to work to fully support yourself so they wind up being a drain on our social safety nets. The average working American in my state can't even afford "good" healthcare but we're happy to let these people in sign these people up for state healthcare and benefits (at least in my blue state, perhaps the red states have stringent criteria that makes them ineligible) and doll out millions of dollars of contracts to all sorts of entities that facilitate this process. It's absolutely nonsensical policy. And this is without even examining the effects on supply and demand of labor, cheap housing, etc, which I'm sure aren't great. I don't hate the immigrants. They're mostly fine people. But I would enact the most unspeakable horrors upon the people who actively created this situation were I given the opportunity. And the people who really ought to be pissed are the people who are in favor of adjacent political policy (broad safety nets, permissive legal immigration policies, etc) because the peddlers of the illegal immigration situation cast shade upon all them. Edit: Some of you really need to re-read that second to last sentence.
    - matwood 1y ago
      > The one where these people don't have work papers, so they can't work the kind of above the table jobs you need to work to fully support yourself so they wind up being a drain on our social safety nets. Legal immigrants and many undocumented workers without employment authorization pay Social Security taxes, analyses show. Some undocumented immigrants use fake Social Security numbers or ones they may have had before their work permits lapsed. In 2022, for example, undocumented immigrants paid nearly $100 billion in federal, state and local income taxes, including nearly $26 billion in Social Security taxes and $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank. (The report takes into account both employer and employee contributions to Social Security and Medicare taxes.) But they are not eligible to receive Social Security benefits if they are not lawfully in the US. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/01/politics/undocumented-immigrants-social-security https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/01/politics/undocumented-imm... > The average working American in my state can't afford "good" healthcare You're going to blame the complete lack of affordable healthcare in the US on...immigrants? Ok.
- roxolotl 1y ago
  Mass immigration has been a fake specter used by the right to get votes for decades now. How did it impact you, or even those close to you personally negatively? I can tell you some positive impacts: - Most western countries are concerned about economic cliffs around retirement benefits due to falling population. The US is not because so many people, used to(?), want to move here. - Our food is subsidized by those willing to work awful hours at awful wages. As a humanitarian I hate this but I suspect most people would be upset to have to eat food picked at wages white Americans are willing to work. - Most studies show more people equals more production equals more economic prosperity. The solution to an illegal immigration problem is to loosen immigration rules and create pathways to citizenship.
  - msgodel 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - roxolotl 1y ago
      > Without freedom of association people stop socializing when you get a plurality population, you can see this everywhere in the US. Can you elaborate on this? To me, again just being honest and genuine, it reads as a racist dog whistle which says “without a shared cultural baseline this country will collapse”. I’ve worked with local immigrant advocate groups and have multiple immigrants living on the same street as me. They largely want nothing more than to be part of American society. Is this a range? Absolutely. Different people want to be part of society to different extents. But it’s very rare to find people who won’t be kind and welcoming to you if you are kind and welcoming to them. On housing that’s obviously true. There are two solutions there. Reduce the demand, or increase the supply. Given that the demand is “humans wanting shelter” any attempt to reduce demand is clearly immoral. So the answer there is to up the supply. I also genuinely want immigrants. At a minimum they bring delicious food I get to enjoy.
      - text0404 1y ago
        This person believes in the (white) replacement conspiracy theory and is trying to articulate its tenets without referencing or naming it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement_conspiracy_theory_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement_conspiracy_t...
- tastyface 1y ago
  I no longer have any interest in talking or negotiating with any of you people, but I’m happy to take personal measures to exclude you from polite society in any way I can.
kcplate 1y ago
> A $400 drone can now take out a $2B piece of equipment. That waters the mouth of any adversary. Aren’t you actually arguing for these kind of enhanced vetting measures with this realization? If anti-US sentiment is high and if the barrier to sabotaging a $2B system is a meager $400…why wouldn’t you do everything you could to prevent people who might be inclined, supportive, or even publicly indifferent to doing your country harm from entering with your blessing?
- lantry 1y ago
  These "enhanced" vetting measures don't actually provide any protection against these kinds of attacks. All they do is increase the anti-US sentiment, which increases the number of people interested in attacking us.
  - kcplate 1y ago
    Sure, it may increase anti-us sentiment, but I don’t think you can confidently say that “enhanced vetting measures don’t actually provide any protection” because there is simply no way to know or measure what didn’t happen if you didn’t have foreknowledge of the planned attack that you foiled by your vetting. My attitude is, if you try to get in to the US you must want to be here for some reason. If that reason is to create some form of chaos, I don’t give a shit if you are made more irritated by the process. If your reason is peaceful and this discourages you…I’m sorry, it’s unfortunate, but we have folks that wish us harm and we want to protect everyone best we can…including you, Traveler. If just being inconvenienced makes you want to harm us, well you are exactly the type of person that should probably be vetted out—and hopefully you were.