I don't know the case of this particular situation, but its certainly plausible that people will make decisions based on trying to secure a certain bet outcome. The prediction markets are clearly not a passive presence...

I have had some incredible medical advice from ChatGPT. It has saved me from small mystery issues, like a rash on my face. Small enough issues that I probably wouldn't have bothered to go into a doctor. BUT it also failed to diagnose me with a medical issue that ended up with a trip to the ER and emergency surgery.

A few weeks before the ER, I was having stomach pain. I went to the doctor with theories from ChatGPT in hand, they checked me for those things and then didn't check me for what ended up being a pretty obvious issue. What's interesting is that I mentioned to the doctor that I used ChatGPT and that the doctor even seemed to value that opinion and did not consider other options (and what it ultimately ended up being was rare but really obvious in retrospect, I think most doctors would have checked for it). I do feel I actually biased the first doctors opinion with my "research."

> I do feel I actually biased the first doctors opinion with my "research."

It may feel easy to say doctors should just consider all the options. But telling them an option is worse than just biasing their thinking; they are going to interpret that as information about your symptoms.

If you feel pain in your abdomen but are only talking about your appendix, they are rightfully going to think the pain is in the region of your appendix. They are not going to treat you like you have kidney pain. How could they? If they have to treat all of your descriptions as all the things that you could be relating them to, then that information is practically useless.

It sounds strange to me that you would use GPT to start consulting to your doc, as if you suddenly know better than them. You don't want to be doing their job for them.

If I used GPT for my medical issue last year and everybody took my word for it, I would be dead.

I've related self-dianoses of minor issues to a doctor, immediately followed up with a proviso that I don't put a lot of credence into non-professional opinions. The doctor was supportive that patient directed investigations had value. There is a threshold where an informed patient can be useful for treatment.

Yeah, I personally know a couple people where self-research found the correct diagnosis, and I am one of them. We had a fantastic primary, who worked with us quite closely and did a lot of research after we found some new information from him.

Doctors don't know everything and don't have access to everything, they are just quite a lot better than the alternatives in the vast majority of cases, so your default odds are much better following their recommendation than anything else. Training is worth a lot, and everyone also knows it's not perfect, and that's entirely fine.

Neither "the worst case would be" nor "everything is a sliding scale" are good single hueristics. There are rarely There are rarely good single hueristics, but implying them tends to color discussions strongly.

Any competent doctor is aware that patients are likely to misdescribe things. If you walk in and say your appendix hurts, they absolutely should try to clarify that rather than just assuming you have appendicitis.

Totally missing my point.

Say you have bladder pain and chatgpt tells you that is a common indicator of appendicitis. If you go to the doctor and tell them you think you have appendicitis, they will think you are saying your appendix hurts and look for causes of pain in that region. They will not look for bladder-related pain, because you did not tell them what hurts.

Extrapolate that to all the possibilities for all conditions- something that the system is not equipped for. Doctors do not know that bladder pain is a possible indicator of appendicitis because of experience or logic; they know because it is part of their education because the system has learned that over time. The system does not account for people filtering their symptoms through chatgpt.

Further, it's still bad. It still increases the permutations the doctor is required to consider for no reason. Doctors make mistakes- they make mistakes often. Knowing a bit of medicine can be very helpful for patients. Weaponizing them with a predictive text machine is not the same thing.

> I do feel I actually biased the first doctors opinion with my "research."

This has been a big problem in medicine since the early days of WebMD: Each appointment has a limited time due to the limited supply of doctors and high demand for appointments.

When someone arrives with their own research, the doctor has to make a choice: Do they work with what the patient brought and try to confirm or rule it out, or do they try to walk back their research and start from the beginning?

When doctors appear to disregard the research patients arrive with many patients get very angry. It leads to negative reviews or even formal complaints being filed (usually from encouragement from some Facebook group or TikTok community they were in). There might even be bigger problems if the patient turns out to be correct and the doctor did not embrace the research, which can prompt lawsuits.

So many doctors will err on the side of focusing on patient-provided theories first. Given the finite time available to see each patient (with waiting lists already extending months out in some places) this can crowd out time for getting a big picture discussion through the doctor's own diagnostic process.

When I visit a doctor I try to ground myself to starting with symptoms first and try to avoid biasing toward my thoughts about what it might be. Only if the conversation is going nowhere do I bring out my research, and then only as questions rather than suggestions. This seems to be more helpful than what I did when I was younger, which is research everything for hours and then show up with an idea that I wanted them to confirm or disprove.

> Each appointment has a limited time

A doctor is typically scheduled at 6 patients/hour. In that time they also have to chart, walk between rooms, make up time for the other patients that inevitably went over time, et cetera. The doctor you're seeing probably has a goal of only talking to you for 3 minutes.

> A doctor is typically scheduled at 6 patients/hour.

This is untrue. General practice physicians are usually at 3 patients per hour. Some specialists can get in the range or 5 or more per hour if assistants handle most of the prep and work.

The average across all specialties is around 3, though.

> In that time they also have to chart, walk between rooms, make up time for the other patients that inevitably went over time, et cetera. The doctor you're seeing probably has a goal of only talking to you for 3 minutes.

I've been through two different medical systems due to job changes/moving. Both of them gave me the option of a 20 minute or 40 minute appointment slot, with the latter requiring some pre-screening to be approved by the staff. I got the time every time I went.

If your doctor is only giving you 3 minutes you need to find a new one.

I know you qualified your assertion of three patients an hour with general practice, but there are plenty of specialty practices where six patients an hour is common. Dermatology and ophthalmology clinics often run at that pace (at least in the US). Some surgical clinics can run at that pace for follow up visits (not for initial visits)

That's exactly what I said in my 3rd sentence.

My aunt died from this (my opinion). She spend two years confusion her diagnosis and treatment, and borderline harassing her doctors, by thinking her own research was on point and interpreting all her symptoms through that lens. In the end it wasn't borrelia, parasites, 5G, or any of the other fancies, but just lung cancer that was only diagnosed when it was very well developed.

There’s a difference between mental illness and active participation.

People not suffering from mental illness will typically not blame 5G for their health concerns.

You're a lay person. You know there is a thing out there called 'foo'.

You've read things that compellingly claim that foo causes xyz symptoms. You also know that some people that have obviously palpable disdain for you claim that foo could never cause these symptoms.

You have xyz symptoms. Are you mentally ill if you think that foo could be the cause?

Are the compelling claims from experts in foo or xyz? Is the disdain?

Both present themselves to you as experts.

What’s “compelling”? I’d suggest that any medical theory that relies upon a vast global conspiracy to hide the truth about 5G cannot possibly be compelling.

If someone can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not, they are not well.

> I’d suggest that any medical theory that relies upon a vast global conspiracy to hide the truth about 5G cannot possibly be compelling.

Except some vast global conspiracy isn't the only way you could arrive at 5g having some deleterious effects on some subset of people. Were xrays for shoe fitting some vast global conspiracy? Or leaded gasoline? Or any number of things that turned out to be more dangerous in hindsight?

Whether you feel this way or not, institutional trust is gone.

And as for what's real or what's not, you're probably decent within your areas of expertise. Once you get outside of that range, you probably don't know the difference between real and not for plenty of things. What the hell does your average person really know about things like 5g? It might as well be magic.

The issue is that the line between "silly conspiracy" and "ignored/suppressed actual problem" is not clear, especially when the topic is politicized even in the face of overwhelming one-sided evidence. "Compelling" is a subjective judgment by the speaker, and for that matter, so is "mental illness"

I'm annoyed enough by coworkers asking "is the server down?" that I try not to do the equivalent to other people at their jobs, particularly doctors.

> what it ultimately ended up being was rare but really obvious in retrospect, I think most doctors would have checked for it

I'm not so sure. Doctors are trained to check for the most common things that explain the symptoms. "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras" is a saying that is often heard in medicine.

ChatGPT was trained on the same medical textbooks and research papers that doctors are.

I think this is a misconception. The reason this phrase is so commonplace is because doctors, and particularly medical students, often consider esoteric disease they learn about in medical school and in part of their training. If doctors are always trained to check for the most common things, then the phrase would not be common in the first place no?

This is ultimately the same difference between a search engine and a professional. 10 years before this, Googling the symptoms was a thing.

I have a family member who had a "rare but obvious" one but it took 5 doctors to get to the diagnosis. What we really need to see are attempts to blind studies and real statistical rigor. It's funny to paint a tunnel on a canvas and get a Tesla to drive into it, but there's a reason studies (and the more blind the better) are the standard.

The real story hear your doctor actually listened to you. I appreciate what a lot doctors do, but majority of them fucking irritating and don’t even listen your issues, I’m glad we have AI and less reliant on them.

I mean - obviously if they're not listening their chance of the latter is pretty low.

Doctors hate to hear this, but if you're so poor in communication and social skills that the patient can't/won't follow you any care you've given, your value is lost.

Personally, I think the value in ChatGPT in health is not that it's right or wrong but that it encourages you to take an active role in your health and more importantly to try things. I've gone through similar issues with ChatGPT where it's convinced me that if A is true, therefore so must B though that may not be the case.

In the future, I think I'll likely review things with ChatGPT and have an opinion and treat the doctor like a ChatGPT session as well--this is opposed to leading the doctor to what I believe I should be doing. I was dismissive about the doctor's advice because it seemed so obvious but more and more, I feel that most of our issues are caused by habitual, daily mistakes--little things that take hold seasonally or over periods of stress that appear like chronic health issues. At least for me.

You should've let the doctor do its job. if he reached a different conclusion then you can tell him what you researched. and he will make a decision having already done his own research without biasing him

We have the same kind of issue as software engineers. Users come to use with solutions to their problems and want us to implement the solution. At that point the lazy path would be to just do that. If you have bad management, software engineers might even be punished for questioning the customers.

What you want instead is that the users just describe their problem, as unbiased as possible and with enough detail and then let the expert come up with an appropriate solution that solves the problem.

I try to do that as well when going to the doctor.

Which is exactly why the AI, at least the ones of today, should never be used beyond the level of (trusted or not) advisor. Yet not only many CxOs and boards, but even certain governments which shall not be named, are stubbornly trying, for cost or whatever other reasons, to throw entire populations (employees or nations) under the AI bus. And I sincerely don't believe anything short of an uprising will be able to stop them. Change my mind.

I agree. AI right now is at a level of "knowledgeable friend", not of "professional with years of real world experience". You'd listen to what your friend has to say, but taking pills after one of their suggestions? Dumb idea. It's great to brainstorm things, but just like your knowledgeable friend that likes reading Wikipedia pages a bit too much you need to really check it's not reaching to conclusions too quickly

The sad truth is that it is because while we all appreciate hard work and a good job, that isn't what is needed to move forward in the world of business. Creaky leaky products held together under the hood by scotch tape and string are fine. You don't make more money having a better product. A more performant tool. Better benchmarks. End users, aside for writing tools for other engineers, don't care. They really don't. Word 95 probably opens faster than word today.

Management has realized this. Hey I can outsource to bangalore/hyderabad/east europe/ai, get something that barely works, and just market the crap out of it. Look at the sort of companies, products, and services that dominate markets today. These aren't leaders in quality or engineering. They are leaders in marketing. Marketing is what sells. Marketing can sell billions of steaming turds. Nike shoes are pieces of shit but it's marketing that makes the brand and provides all value in the stock. The world doesn't value quality. It values noise and pretty feathers.

> but even certain governments which shall not be named

Why can't you name them, and give us some context? Is this based on public info, or not?

Not the original commenter, but you may have noticed a wee kerfluffle between a large nation-state's "Secretary of War" and a frontier model provider over whether the model's licensing would permit autonomous lethal weapon systems operated by said - and I cannot emphasize the middle word enough - large _language_ model.

I try to avoid priming any expert when I come to them with a problem for exactly that reason. I tell them what's happening, and what I've tried, but not what I might think because if I'm coming to them then I don't know what the solution is, so I figure I would just be adding confusion.

This is true for many free weather APIs out there. But our weather API is global so we’re not just passing through a single government feed. There’s quite a bit of engineering to normalize all of the data sources. Japanese alerts for example are just XML feeds. All the sources update on different schedules, and have different forecast ranges, so it's a challenge to make sure the best forecast is returned at request time.

Some of our data is proprietary. The lightning strike data is from our own lighting detection network. We also offer the only hail forecast model available which was developed in house :)

It's a fair question. There's a lot of free sources of data out there. This app is powered by our own Weather API: https://www.xweather.com/weather-api

The data is aggregated from global meteorological offices and other sources (some free, some paid). Some of the datasets are proprietary to us. For example, the lightning layers come from our own lightning detection network, and certain forecasts (like hail) are developed in-house.

This app was built to showcase our data. The vector mapping tools are also available via API. https://www.xweather.com/mapsgl

Thanks for catching that, and including browser details.

Never heard of freemediaheckyeah, I love it. I will have to add ours to the list. One thing that makes us different is we have a LOT more data in one app. If you explore all the layers, you can see tropical cyclone/hurricane data, lightning strikes, hail, renewable energy, and wildfire data. You have to change the focus (top left corner) to see the other collections of layers.

Xweather Live is an ad-free vector weather map built to showcase our weather APIs. It's a fun app with lots of data layers and features.

Feedback welcome!

Thanks. Mainly commenting to bookmark this for an aviation project I’m working on. Let me know if there’s anything that differentiates you - particularly for aviation. Thanks.

Awesome! Our data, like wind, is for ground level applications (we don't have data for higher altitudes). But we do have proprietary lightning data which may be of interest to you. If you go to the top left corner and change the focus from "General Focus" to "Severe" you will see a new collection of layer options related to severe weather. There you can see actual lightning strike data, as well as lightning forecast areas. Most airports use our lightning data!

Thanks!

Out of curiosity, how long did this take to write and what AI stack did you use?

All of the data, including the AI endpoints (Phrase API - https://www.xweather.com/phrases-api), and mapping tools were built using our weather API and MapsGL SDKs. I don't know the exact number of hours but its been worked on for about a year. You could spin up a really basic mapping site like this using the SDKs in a matter of hours.

Very cool site! Would you know of any similar maps that explore climate zones or micro climates?

Thanks. There are quite a few cool projects out there. Someone just shared a link to a collection of free weather maps: https://fmhy.pages.dev/misc#climate-weather

In the future we will also be merging another project into this app which is a collection of data from personal weather stations across the country. That data is really cool because it can fill in coverage gap. https://www.pwsweather.com/map/?ob=temps

> In the future we will also be merging another project into this app which is a collection of data from personal weather stations across the country. That data is really cool because it can fill in coverage gap. https://www.pwsweather.com/map/?ob=temps

I have four stations uploading there - looking forward to see the result!

This is an absolutely horrific thing to make a person do. I see comments that say "well someone needs to do it." Then why not volunteer?

They are volunteering! They need the money.

Yes, also this region was ravaged my violent communists (Maoists) not so long ago. So they have very few opportunities.

I imagine myself as the one paying someone to do horrible things and uttering this line, and it makes me shudder.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46921505 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46922271

Who is making them work this job?

Mr Poverty and Ms Hunger

This is not new. The British boast of banning slavery but they will never tell you about their invention of bonded labour. They imported bonded labour to South Africa, Guyana and other parts of their empire.

Now companies can use the Internet to keep the labour remote. Doesn't even require a degree.

Curiously, it's the Indians who have taken it upon themselves to master the practice of bonded labour and draw benefit from its ongoing existence.

Do you not think a person who is literally in poverty and who is actually hungry needs the job?

Of course. And since they truly need it, we may as well make it as cheap and abusive as possible, right?

They should be paid a premium above market rate? Why? Generosity?

"The market says this women is low value. Why should I disagree?"

A take for the ages.

yeah how else do you want to organise who gets paid what? its nice and virtuous to claim that poor women should get paid more.

but there's simply not that much money to redistribute, unless more companies provide employment and drive labour demand up - exactly what is happening in this article.

so you can gesture all you want about women being poor and deserving more money, but it doesn't mean anything. you can't pay them above market rate, where will the money come from? certainly not taxes - there's simply not enough to go by.

Honestly, I love this comment, and I’m going to save it.

You’re so convinced that money is more important than human dignity you use the word “generosity” as invective. It can be hard to remember that this point of view exists, so thank you for the reminder.

its easy to talk about "human dignity" but its hard to talk about practical concerns on how to get the money for the dignity. please tell me, how do you expect the poor women in villages to get above market rate? unions? then the companies wouldn't even step foot in India and would rather move to Cambodia or Bangladesh or Ghana.

Where did I say that? I'm explaining to the parent poster.

She can quit anytime she wants, let's not compare this to indentured servitude, Sanjay.

This is a consequence of communism and big government of India.

I don’t think she can quit anytime soon unless she wants to be homeless. If she has option she wouldn't be doing such kind of job.

Generally, Indians live with their parents until their marriage. So I am guessing she won't be homeless.

Subtle argumentation is not one of your strengths, Leo.

I get why a firefighter may be asked to take risks to save lives. We should not ask these women to take these risks so that billionaires can become trillionaires.

Here in Minneapolis, there have been multiple anecdotal reports of ICE being able to remotely unlock cars, disable them, and even open windows. Whether its true, its certainly seems possible.

Its made me very concerned about public safety if we allow our government to have this power. I actually believe being able to own and use a vehicle freely should be protected under the 2nd amendment.

Im picturing a world where the US could mass disable vehicles based on the owners score in their fancy new palantir database. We should have the right to flee danger and use a vehicle for that.

I also think the second amendment should be applied encryption for the same reason. Encryption is essential to the people's ability to mount a defense against tyranny.

Remote unlock is on many cars via an API.

It's the same API being used on your phone to remote start / unlock / open windows etc.

It's not unlikely to think that ICE has mandated these companies to corporate.

> Its made me very concerned about public safety if we allow our government to have this power.

ICE says it can legally enter homes without a warrant

So we’re beyond concern now

>ICE says it can legally enter homes without a warrant

Source for this claim, besides the usual exemptions that are available to all law enforcement (ie. exigent circumstances)?

Here's a representative news article about it (WaPo because they were first in the search results): https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2026/01/22/ice-me... (paywall-avoiding: https://archive.is/bsdv9)

They've come up with a memo saying that non-judicial warrants can let them break in. This has historically been very much not allowed.

Edit: As a quick explanation, this is more or less a separation-of-powers thing. The rule has been that for the executive to enter someone's home they need a warrant from a judge, a member of the judicial branch. They now say that an "administrative warrant" is enough, issued by an immigration judge -- but immigration judges are just executive branch employees, so this is saying that the executive can decide on its own when it wants to break into your house.

They wrote a memo saying they could.

not saying you’re wrong, but we have to get in the habit of sourcing our claims! whistleblowers testified to Congress about this memo that began circulating around mid-2025.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26499371-dhs-ice-mem...

Some people also need to get in the habit of researching a claim by themselves.

Pretty sure doing your own research turns you into a conspiracy theorist; so I don’t think we’re supposed to do that anymore.

Haha that's a good one. Maybe just do a "@grok is that true?".

No it doesn't. Conspiracy theorists don't actually do research. If they did, that might risk invalidating their theory.

At least some conspiracy theorists do selective research.

IMO, the problem is that you must learn what "research" actually entails before attempting it, so that you don't fall into the trap of that fallacy.

Most people… eh. I don't know about the rest of the world, and my experience was in the 90s, but for me GCSE triple science was a list of facts to regurgitate in exams, and although we did also have practical sessions those weren't scored by how well we did Popperian falsification (a thing I didn't even learn about it until my entirely optional chosen-for-fun A-level in Philosophy; I don't know if A-level sciences teaches that).

Just watched this yesterday, YouTube LegalEagles: “Unbelievable ICE Memo Just Leaked”

https://youtu.be/MGr-yWEu0hc

> Source for this claim, besides the usual exemptions that are available to all law enforcement (ie. exigent circumstances)?

Context and discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGr-yWEu0hc

The TL/DR: administrative warrant vs an actual "signed off by a judge" warrant

And, to be clear, an administrative warrant IS NOT A WARRANT. It's essentially a memo.

Source for the exigent circumstances exemption ?

>I also think the second amendment should be applied encryption for the same reason. Encryption is essential to the people's ability to mount a defense against tyranny.

The second amendment only protects the right to arms. Firearms certainly, others as well (swords, if anyone gave a shit about them, body armor for sure, perhaps even others not normally considered to fall under its protection like grenades). If the Constitution protects encryption or un-pre-sabotaged vehicles, the 2nd amendment isn't the portion that does so.

The government will soon be able to geofence areas to keep vehicles out of. Wonder if you will get a warning as you get close or if they will just cut out.

"Warning, you are approaching a closed zone. Stop your advance. Compliance is mandatory. Mobility privileges for this vehicle will be revoked"

One time, I was in a shopping mall and I had filled my cart at Target. I checked out, and proceeded to the parking lot where I was supposed to meet a Waymo. I had arranged for it to pick me up in the designated "Ride Share/Taxi Pickup Area" which was quite near the Target, but across the "street" and next to the cluster of bus stops.

I passed an obvious and ominous sign that indicated the border of the "shopping cart zone" and immediately my cart's wheels locked up! I was mortified, because I knew it'd do that! But my Waymo's over there, man! What was I supposed to do about it?

Obviously, Target has every right to corral their carts in places where they can go retrieve them. Theft is a huge, huge problem. But I was also constrained in pickup areas and I had figured, innocently, that the "Designated Ride Share" zone was the correct place to meet a Waymo with groceries.

So I had to bail everything out of the cart, and carry by hand. I learned my lesson. Only drop the Waymo pin someplace where my cart won't be kill-switched!

There was an app linked here a few months back that unlocks them from your iphone. I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

That exits essentially for aircraft today, albeit not automated. Try flying your little Cessna too close to the capitol mall or any number of sites in the world. You’ll very quickly and very unceremoniously be intercepted by other aircraft with big guns telling you to get the hell out.

It only works Like that because fences are hard to build at 5000 Feet. Remote disabling vehicles is a very different thing.

Some of this is over-the-top paranoia. If ICE wants to get into your car, they'll just break the window.

It's been very long established that nobody has a "right" to operate a motor vehicle. It's something you are permitted to do under the terms of a license, and it's fairly regulated (though not as much as in some other countries).

> Some of this is over-the-top paranoia. If ICE wants to get into your car, they'll just break the window.

Then when I get to my car I can see the broken window and report it or at least know someone broke into my car. With remote entry law enforcement or ice can get in and out potentially without notice.

Just because police/ice/thieves/etc can break down my door and enter my house does not mean I am on board with giving any of them a key.

> It's been very long established that nobody has a "right" to operate a motor vehicle.

You do have a right to ownership though if it’s paid in full and you have the title. If I fully own my vehicle but someone else can control or disable it remotely then they are tampering with my personal property.

"Mechanics lien" are a thing, and the government has plenty of machinations to avoid someone from registering their car or updating a registration, which does have case law for being an action prior to taking someone's vehicle as an asset seizure. Civil asset forfeiture also has extensive case law for being used with vehicles.

When it comes to brass text and if the chips are down, your right for vehicle ownership is HEAVILY skewed state-side if they don't want you to have one. Whether it should be or not, and regardless of how much an individual's mobility and freedom is reliant on them owning a car in modern America, it's still a de-facto "privilege" rather than a "right".

> your right for vehicle ownership is HEAVILY skewed state-side if they don't want you to have one.

Correct me if I'm wrong but you and SoftTalker appear to be writing under the influence of some questionable assumptions.

The fact that the government can excuse and routinely do something while getting away with it doesn't mean that the getting away or the actions themselves are right or justified.

The discussion here is about the compatibility of government's actions with the spirit of the Constitution which doesn't provide an exemption for habituated wrongs.

brass text?

brass tacks*. That's what I get for generating half of my comment with speech to text.

>It's been very long established that nobody has a "right" to operate a motor vehicle. It's something you are permitted to do under the terms of a license, and it's fairly regulated (though not as much as in some other countries).

Sure you do, in private nobody can be prevented. You need a license and insurance to drive on public roads.

It’s pretty common to have unlicensed off road vehicles, especially in the mountain west. Farmers and ranchers often have at least one of these. There’s plenty of recreational users as well.

Compare the numbers of farmers and ranchers to the rest of the population.

How many recreational users have private land in sufficient quantities?

That doesn’t mean that this isn’t true in a technical sense. It’s correct that it isn’t feasible for the majority of the population.

You’ll sometimes also see small communities with private roads that allow unlicensed vehicles, such as retirement communities, but they often have their own standards for what is allowed.

What’s your point? It’s true.

It’s true in the same way that it’s technically true anyone* can buy a football team.

* anyone with a few hundred million in the bank.

It seems like a moot point --

If you are driving off-road, or completely on private property, you're not really driving the vehicle to "go somewhere" or commute or transport people/goods.

It isn't really feasible to use a vehicle for actual transportation without using public roads, at least in these United States.

So what possible cause or reason would any law enforcement have, for going into a vehicle like that and searching it? I mean, compared to someone driving on a public road and "going somewhere" while "carrying stuff" in there? Nearly none, right?

Farmers who own their farm is the traditional group that would qualify. That population is much smaller than it used to be to my understanding though.

I do! I call it my “driveway.”

Related: 20 days until the Daytona 500!

basically every farmer.

So is the argument that only farmers should be able to have a vehicle?

ICE has to be near your car to shoot the tires out, but not to remote disable.

> I actually believe being able to own and use a vehicle freely should be protected under the 2nd amendment.

Driving is a privilege, not a right. People are required to demonstrate a level of skill in order to not hurt and kill other road users too much and there are other considerations as well. I, for one, do not welcome people driving with compromised or no vision, or being subject to occasional loss of control whilst having a seizure etc.

I also don't think that it's a good idea to allow a person to continue driving if they've previously used their vehicle as a deliberate weapon.

> if we allow our government

This is so tiresome when people who don't have a single tank think they are in a position to allow people with tanks to do this or that.

Things happen because their value for people in power exceeds the value of your consent. And you have fewer and fewer ways to make your consent any more valuable to cross the threshold of relevancy.

I know it's an attractive illusion to believe that people have a say. But it's time to shake it off because this veil is one of the things used for control.

You underestimate both the capacity of an armed citizenry and the hardware that we have at our disposal.

There are in fact privately owned tanks in the US.

This is misleading. While there are privately owned tanks, they are all old, and lack any weapons (other than as a battering ram).

They likely could cause a lot of trouble for a local police force, but would not stand up to any infantry force in the world.

So in an actual conflict with the U.S. government, none of those tanks would be more than symbolic. And whole a general gorilla insurrection in the U.S. would be nasty, examples like Wako demonstrate that even mid-sized stands would be severely overwhelmed.

The whole idea that a Second-Amendment rebellion in the U.S., absent the military joining on the side of the rebellion, is just a fantasy.

It is misleading, but not for the reasons you state.

There are private tanks in the US with functional weapons, including both mounted MGs and the cannon. In fact, there’s a place in Uvalde, TX that will let you come drive and shoot theirs for a couple grand.

> none of those tanks would be more than symbolic

Correct, but that’s not why. A tank would be worse than useless in an insurgency.

> The whole idea that a Second-Amendment rebellion in the U.S., absent the military joining on the side of the rebellion, is just a fantasy.

No one is seriously suggesting going up against the US military with an irregular force in the US. The point is that an armed citizenry cannot be subjugated without destroying everything worth having. It’s a suicide pact between the People and the state.

I thought the point of an armed citizenry is so that they could shoot at each other as both sides think the other has gone bad. Let’s face it, even right now it isn’t the people unified for or against the government, it’s roughly two groups of people that hate each other, one side has control of the federal government, the other side has control of some local and state governments, either side sees the other as tyrannical, and it’s just luck that they haven’t started shooting at each other yet.

This idea that citizens would somehow unite against a tyrannical government has always been a fantasy, even during the revolutionary war.

Tell that to the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, the Viet Cong, Mao, and George Washington.

Just because the government has tanks does not mean "we have tanks and nukes, therefore we'll win" has proven true across military history.

The US has lost multiple wars to goat herders in pickup trucks with small arms.

As Ukraine has demonstrated, a shaped charge and consumer drone is highly effective against even heavy mechanized armor. ERA doesn't work well for multiple hits, and drones and HMX/RDX are cheap.

Tell your history lesson to a Reaper drone. You can see how modern version of people's insurgency could look like in modern Gaza. This is exactly how would citizens vs. US play out. With Palantir painting the targets on the appropriate backs and declaring anyone in the blast radius as domestic terrorist.

What makes you think the army will go along with it? Sure some will, but expect many soldiers will rebel.

The Navy is currently blowing up random boats in the Caribbean (including double taps on survivors) because reasons.

Sure, and from what I hear that's at the level of "war crimes", but those civilians the US armed forces are killing aren't US civilians.

People sign up for a variety of reasons; to keep their own safe is one of them, and that reason is incompatible with being the aggressor in a civil war.

Bro the way you brush off the US military already moving into the 'murderous war crimes' phase and thinking there is an upper bounds of the direction already in motion.

Did you think you would ever so casually brush off the US Navy straight murdering people with 'sure, we're doing that but...'?

Edit: A large group of Federal agents just murdered a 37 something American on the street, on video. He had a permit to carry, and his largest crime appears to have been traffic tickets. Prior to shooting him to death they were video'd pistol whipping his face.

These people are just fine with murdering Americans.

> Did you think you would ever so casually brush off the US Navy straight murdering people with 'sure, we're doing that but...'?

As I'm not American, I was already in the set of people they'd be willing to kill when ordered.

Are *the military* more likely to kill other Americans today? I do not think so.

But as I'm not American, I'm more worried that the chance of a B83 heading my way has gone from "No way!" to "3%".

> A large group of Federal agents just murdered a 37 something American on the street, on video. He had a permit to carry

There was a kid a few years back, killed for a toy in an open-carry state.

My country of birth is not, contrary to what some claim, envious of the 2nd amendment; rather, it is glad to ban firearms. Even so, we see the hypocricy of killing those who exercise their rights.

Americans harassed my mom for wearing a mask during COVID when she was going through cancer treatment. They would rather she just died than 1. They wear masks 2. Be made to feel bad they didn't care about her dying.

The grocery store she shopped at literally had to setup special hours people like my mom could shop without being harassed and pushed to tears. She died knowing most of her community didn't care if she died if it inconvenienced them. 1 million Americans died and today they say 'COVID wasn't a thing'. 1 million Americans died and they say it's nothing.

Americans don't care who dies. They/we are fucking trash now. My grandfathers' generation were good people but whoever we are now, we are so lost. I grew up on Star Trek TNG American ideals and grew up Catholic and believing in the 'be kind' parts and thought my neighbors shared that but they don't.

My condolences about your mum; I lost mine during the pandemic, though Alzheimers' causing her to forget to drink water rather than cancer, and the frequent closing of international borders meaning I couldn't even be there for the funeral.

That said, you've shifted the goalposts here: the one and only thing I was disagreeing about was the military. The military are the final arbiter of what happens, when the civilian government turns evil.

Seeing all the toadying and the way red hats are becoming the new brown shirts… I hope the ocean separating us is sufficient to keep me safe.

I cannot say, an am not saying, for certain that *the US military* are going to be not-evil, because unlike everyone else in the US federal government today the majority of the US armed forces are competent enough to keep quiet, and quiet makes it impossible to tell.

But what little gets out, from specifically the military? It suggests they take their oath of allegiance to the constitution seriously.

If the military is as bad as all your other non-military examples… well, even 25 years ago I was wondering how a new American civil war would play out, and if nukes would get involved.

I didn't know how to respond. I'll concede the discussion. It's nothing compared to your loss. I am so sorry that you went through that and that your mother passed. Wasn't going to say something, but I need to acknowledge how sad/horrible that is.

They went along with Iraq despite knowing it was a lie.

"We knew they didn't have weapons of mass destruction when we rolled up and didn't immediately get gassed"

The current US administration is not competent to ensure continual financing in real terms.

If the White House keeps up current threats against allies it may find nobody willing to lend them money, and therefore the government will be forced to inflate its way to balancing the books each year; if they follow through with kicking out the undocumented migrant workers (even if they improve their current behaviour and limit themselves to *only* undocumented migrant workers), they mess up US agriculture at the same time; there is also visible corruption and self-dealing within the government.

The question is the level, rather than the existence of these factors.

There's been another authoritarian in my lifetime who messed with farms by actually kicking out non-native people in the way Trump threatens, demonstrating even worse corruption, and that actually did try to fund the government with inflation rather than my hypothetical of "will be forced to": Mugabe. It didn't go well for Zimbabwe, and the US military can observe what happened there and decide if that's what they want to see in the US.

0 of them will “rebel”

You really think the US government can bomb its own citizens with impunity and not completely destroy their own industrial base that makes bombing citizens possible? The US government would very quickly collapse.

Refineries and factories don't work without people and are exceedingly vulnerable to locals.

At the moment the government with 15% hardcore support is rounding up people on the streets en masse, violating decades of established practices, while harming industrial base that depend on work of those people. And somehow pretty much everyone peacefully goes along with it. Or get occasionally shot.

That is exactly the point. It's working because everyone is peacefully going along with it. They have the consent - or at least acquiescence - of the governed. That's why they have no issues.

It is, therefore, not remotely relevant to your post starting this whole thread off saying that the consent of the governed is irrelevant and all you need is tanks.

> They have the consent - or at least acquiescence - of the governed.

They don't have the consent. And all they needed to get acquiescence was a bunch of poorly trained goons with masks, weapons, suv-s and official mandate. Not a single tank was needed yet.

Consent is irrelevant.

The only saving grace is that actual people with tanks (ie military) might at some point say 'nah'. Which I think they did in case of Greenland. Simply because it was too weird for them as opposed to Venezuela and Iran.

GP is implying if you aren't committing terrorism, you support the regime. Which is... certainly an opinion.

And? Minnesota is under strike right now and Arizona's AG just told its citizens that they can legally shoot ICE if they don't properly identify themselves or have a warrant or legal cause to arrest them. Still 95% of the nation is operating as normal, but that isn't possible when people are being actively bombed.

You can't imagine 95% of the nation operating as normal when they see in the news that another armed domestic terrorist cell got bombed every few days while being told the country is safer now?

Fear makes a lot of well intended people comply.

Make no mistake, the immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota are only a training ground for how to undermine civil rights for us all. Everyone is ok targeting te immigrant populations because they are "illegal" or live in a gray area of legality. But eventually these same tools will be used against us.

> Everyone is ok targeting the immigrant populations

To echo another commentor, we're not. And even if we were, this is not how it should be done. Enforcing the laws is one thing, but we have to have due process. Without due process, we have no rights.

Due process for EVERY person in the legal territory regardless of who or what they are. Otherwise it's way to easy to say, "they're the other, and have no rights", and they are already using this line.

Which is absolutely unconstitutional. The constitution says the 4th amendment protects all people, not just citizens. It's been upheld many times by the supreme court. This administration is knowingly and willingly trampling the constitution. The midterm elections can't come soon enough. And in the meantime we all need to get in the streets. Anyone can manipulate social media. But you can't manipulate the narrative when there is an overwhelming number of brave people in the streets clearly and peacefully protesting.

> Everyone is ok targeting te immigrant populations

No, we're not.

I think the GP means the collective "we" is OK with it, evidenced simply by the fact that it is happening.

How can you watch the protest and organization in MN and conclude people are "just letting it happen". Quite the opposite.

Sorry, bad wording. I was using the "you all" in the same context as the parent's "collective we". Yes, there's tens of thousands out in the streets protesting, but also yes there's tens of millions who aren't.

I think it's millions, not tens of thousands protesting.

I hate that the online world is so polluted with America Bad that we cannot even have a good discussion. There is literally nothing American citizens could be doing right now that would meet with approval from outsiders.

Hello. I posted the above comments before I'd read asa400's amazing insight right at the top of this discussion, that post has given me the perspective I was clearly missing when I posted these. I was never coming from an "America Bad" position, but I was definitely failing to appreciate the nuances of protest in such a heavily armed country.

A lot of the world would not tolerate the amount of illegals that the US has within its borders.

You are getting downvoted, but this is a fair point. The only other country with a higher estimate for illegal immigrant population is Russia. The next closest Western European country is France, with barely over half the rate of the US. [0]

[0] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/percentag...

In the poorer parts of the world, people absolutely detest illegal immigrants (or basically most working migrants as well) because they are taking jobs from the locals. They hate refugees because there's not enough resources to go around to use in feeding and housing them.

Welcoming people in because "no-one wants to do those jobs" is very much a luxury belief of the well off.

I think the number of people who welcome immigrants for this reason is actually quite small, and is mostly business owners. And to be fair, they are not entirely wrong -- all evidence we have suggests that many of the jobs are so hard that getting citizens to do them would require bumping the wage 3, 4, 5 times, and even then it is a tough sell.

What I think has happened culturally is that Americans see us as the shining beacon on the hill, where everyone wants to be, and so we feel sympathetic to those who will do whatever it takes to come here. There are lots of cultural references historically that reinforce this mythology. Call it American Exceptionalism or whatever, but the mythology is real.

Between our own loss in confidence and the onslaught of 'America Bad' inundating the online dialogue, this mythology is dying in a hurry. Makes me a little sad, honestly, because I am of the opinion that a nation benefits from a strong mythology. Sometimes that is served by religion, but in the US it has for a long time been 'Land of Opportunity' and associated beliefs. I dare anyone to go to the US Capitol tour and watch that 15 minute intro video about the founding of the country and not come away with a tear in their eye. It's quite moving, even if it is largely a fabrication.

It's always the land of opportunity for those who want to come in and displace the existing inhabitants. Fun when you're the one displacing until you are on the other side.

Yes, thank you.

I meant "we" in the sense that our country has yet to put an end to it and there is still a majority of people either actively in support of ICE or remaining silent.

Then argue for democratically changing the law to make them unambiguously legal.

Selectively enforcing only the laws you want to is the key enabler of corruption.

> Selectively enforcing only the laws you want to is the key enabler of corruption.

Like expanding Presidential immunity specifically for a President with 34 existing felony convictions?

Or the admin refusing to even investigate the agent in the Good shooting (https://www.axios.com/2026/01/14/ice-trump-minneapolis-inves...) while going after her widow (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/us/prosecutors-doj-resign...)?

Current ICE/Homeland Security actions are unambiguously illegal.

The problem is that without an independent congress the US system is able to descend into authoritarianism. The court has (reasonably) decided that on many broad issues regarding presidential actions and abuse of authority only congress (via impeachment and removal) is able to constrain the president.

The current congressional majority has, for now, decided to allow the president to do almost anything he wants, regardless of the law and constitution.

> Selectively enforcing only the laws you want to is the key enabler of corruption.

That's what the OP is saying.

Congress has been neutered and there's been efforts to ensure that it stays that way.

Congress hasn't been neutered, they can reclaim their power at any time. Republicans in power simply refuse to act at all.

That they neutered themselves doesn't make them any less neutered.

I'm skeptical about their ability to reclaim it, too. Lots of them remember being terrified and running away Jan 6, even if many now pretend not to... and SCOTUS has been on a tear wiping out long-standing legislation Congress was quite clear about like the Voting Rights Act.

To extend the analogy, Congress hasn't had their balls removed, they simply aren't humping other dogs right now.

I'm not an expert, but while many of SCOTUS' rulings have been against the plain letter of the law, few of the decisions ruled out Congressional power in those areas categorically. Congress could pass a new Voting Rights Act, or redefine the EPA's powers over wetlands, or any number of things, they just choose not to. And of course, even with a Democratic Congress, getting past the veto may be impossible.

> Congress could pass a new Voting Rights Act, or redefine the EPA's powers over wetlands, or any number of things, they just choose not to.

They could, and SCOTUS could toss it, like they did bit by bit to all the important parts of the first.

Or just invent a new legal standard, like the "history and tradition" one they used in Bruen, Dobbs, and Bremerton.

It’s the literal plot of Star Wars

Obama was "Deporter in chief"

You are just wrong.

America didn't even really have borders for most of it's existence, as the very idea of a Nation wasn't really a thing until into the 1800s.

We had a purposely pourous border with Mexico until relatively recently.

How many mexican immigrants do you happen to think live in Minneapolis?

While a pan-US national awareness is widely seen as emerging during the civil war the rest of what you are saying is disingenuous. Prior to that it was a selection of colonies etc. which very much had borders because skirmishes over taxation rights was a thing.

There was significantly more inter ethnic strife in the US pre WW2 than most people seem to appreciate, much of it relating to if encountered (by whatever means) people should be settled/assimilated/rejected. There were riots/protests of this type in major cities at least between the civil war and the 1930s, and state policy reflected this, such as with the Chinese exclusion act which would hardly have been possible without a border.

No. One old man and a bunch of malicious zealots at his side are introducing a tremendous amount of instability into the country and the world at large; just like they did with his first term, only now less inhibited.

The problem is the old man and his enablers have zero respect for the law, whereas the other team does (they are not above reproach but in this regard they are distinctly different).

This makes the fight unfair, as without law all we have is unbridled violence as a tool and that is a path to ruin for all.

> have zero respect for the law

They are simply enforcing a law that people have had every opportunity to democratically change in the decades since it just stopped being enforced properly, and yet they failed to secure a democratic mandate to do so.

Complaining from that position is far from being on a moral high ground.

Along the same lines, anyone who thinks this is just about immigration should ask themselves what all these tens of thousands of ICE agents are going to do when all the immigrants are finally deported.

Are they just going to go home and go back to their old jobs? Or do you think the Administration is going to find something else for them to do.

Deportations aren’t all that high. The raids are theater.

Thinking that they’re going to deport all the immigrants isn’t realistic or supported by the numbers. Immigration control is a constant ongoing operation in every country. This administration is just making a big show out of it for political points.

My point still stands. The country will obviously not be permanently swarming with ICE agents violently grabbing immigrants off the street. There is going to be mission creep. If this isn't obvious then I don't know what to else I can say to convince you. Immigration is clearly just a pretext to establishing a national police force.

Remember this thread when you hear for the first time that ICE agents are tasked with doing something that has nothing to do with immigration enforcement. Coming soon.

It looked like your jeans might be knock-offs. Customs violation. Time to flashbang your kids.

Hitler's regime didn't start out making death camps for Jews. The initial plan was to deport them, with camps for holding and processing. That was unrealistic given the volume of people to process, which led to the detention and work camps converting to death camps.

This is relevant to mention because the number of people in ICE detention right now is spiking: https://tracreports.org/immigration/quickfacts/detention.htm...

Just saying, similar outcomes could occur here. It's happened before. Their goals being unrealistic doesn't mean they'll stop, and may be part of their justification for doing even worse things than they're already doing.

>the immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota

If you think this is only immigration enforcement you haven't been paying attention. That was ostensibly what Trump campaigned on. That is not what is happening in Minnesota and other previously safe places. What is happening is a massive terror campaign against all US citizens who don't happen to be the right color. And increasing, against everyone.

I have a hunch most people recognize this, but many are ok with it. I have hope (But not confidence) people will see this in the upcoming US elections and more broadly. This is transparent authoritarian behavior.

Edit: Challenge: If you downvoted the parent post here (It's currently grey), I would love to hear why you think this doesn't match the pattern. Are you living in the US? I in general am struggling to understand my fellow US citizens, given the history of our nation.

I expect masked ICE agents to be deployed to polls in purple and blue states to "prevent non-citizens from voting" (i.e. to scare minorities away from polls)

Bet. Lets see if we can get this up on polymarket, bet on it.

You already lost your own bet.

"A pair of armed and masked men in tactical gear stood guard at ballot drop boxes in Mesa, Ariz., on Oct. 21 as people began early voting for the 2022 midterm elections."

They might be "off-duty" but this is during Biden's admin. They're immensely more emboldened now and local LE will absolutely not enforce any laws restricting this.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/06/election-officials-facing-ar...

The goalposts moved when ICE's hiring standards fell to "any individual at all".

> deployed to polls in purple and blue states to "prevent non-citizens from voting" (i.e. to scare minorities away from polls)

MOST states (purple, blue, red) have mail-in voting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_voting_in_the_United_St...

They're working on that.

Challenging the rules: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/supreme-court-revives-...

Changing the rules at USPS: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/how-this-new-mail-rule-c...

And I'd fully expect some fuckery via executive orders closer to the election, and SCOTUS to use the emergency docket to let them "temporarily" be enforced.

It is being restricted. My red state has gone from allowing mail-in ballots that were allowed if they were postmarked by election day, to requiring them to be in by election day. When the postmaster general is a Trump appointee, and the mail has slowed down over the last few years, it makes me wonder if this is deliberate.

Correct, which the administration is also trying to remove.

For now. The tyrant controls the post office.