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▲ vrganj 3 hours ago

I think the fatal error is using immigration as the key rubric.

Debate about immigration policy is a distraction designed to keep both you and immigrants themselves aggravated and ideally fighting each other instead of focusing on the real adversaries, people like Mr Altman.

You have infinitely more in common with a random immigrant than you have with the oligarch class. Most problems blamed on immigration could be solved with money extracted from people like Mr Altman.

Don't let them distract you. Don't give them control over the issues, don't allow them to make us talk about immigration instead of the fact that a few people own most of the US as well as most likely whatever country the immigrant came from.

▲philipallstar 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Debate about immigration policy is a distraction designed to keep both you and immigrants themselves aggravated and ideally fighting each other instead of focusing on the real adversaries, people like Mr Altman.

There are plenty of things to not like about immigration implementation, and trying to steer everything towards your pet peeve seems mad.

▲vintermann 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

So hyperpowerful tech billionaires escaping accountability is a pet peeve, but immigration isn't?

I wish I could say it was just a conspiracy theory that culture war issues is used as distraction from class war issues. But it's just so undeniable, it would be comical if it weren't tragic.

▲vrganj 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Sure there are. That's the point. Squabbling about implementation details keeps us busy from talking about the architectural design.

I will remind you that this thread was initially about an oligarch getting away with things. Somehow, we're already being drawn into immigration. This thread itself is an in-vivo example of the point I'm making.

▲meowface 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Conspiracist nonsense lapped up by base populists.

(I say this as someone very pro-immigration. Though, I guess I would be, wouldn't I, since anti-immigration people will readily adopt both right and left conspiracy theories.)

▲vrganj 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Which part is incorrect? I invite you to actually address my claims instead of degrading the quality of debate.

Is it not correct that a handful people own most of the US and that most likely the same is true in whatever country a prospective immigrant comes from?

Is it not correct that chances are you and I and whichever immigrant are on the don't-own-most-of-the-economy part of the divide?

Is it not correct that conversation about immigration keeps us focused on being angry with people that generally also are just trying to get by and live a good life as opposed to, y'know, the thing this submission started out about? You can see it happening in this very thread!

▲JuniperMesos 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Is it not correct that a handful people own most of the US and that most likely the same is true in whatever country a prospective immigrant comes from?

No this isn't correct. It's not true that Sam Altman specifically owns most of the US and it's not true of any particular famous rich person either. What it would mean to "own most of the US" is pretty ill-defined, but I think there's no reasonable definition of "owns most of the US" such that any individual or "handful of people" would qualify.

I think this is likely also true for most countries around the world that prospective immigrants to the US might originate from, simply because it's difficult for a "handful of people" to retain ownership of something like an entire country; but there's a lot of countries around the world and it's hard to generalize over every single one of them. Maybe Kim Jong Un specifically can be reasonably said to "own" the entirety of North Korea - although this has fairly little to do with whether or not I benefit from North Korean immigrants trying to move to the place I live.

> Is it not correct that chances are you and I and whichever immigrant are on the don't-own-most-of-the-economy part of the divide?

This is trivially true because no single person or unified entity owns most of the economy. It has very little to do with my opinion of either immigration policy or of Sam Altman and OpenAI.

> Is it not correct that conversation about immigration keeps us focused on being angry with people that generally also are just trying to get by and live a good life as opposed to, y'know, the thing this submission started out about? You can see it happening in this very thread!

Lots of people who are just trying to get by and live a good life (by their own standards) do things that justifiably make other people angry. I agree that the political question around immigration to the US or other western countries isn't directly related to how people should think about Sam Altman; but being unrelated just means it's not really on topic in this thread about this article, not that your opinion about Sam Altman needs to be related to your opinion of immigration to Western countries in any specific way.

▲meowface an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Correct: none of that is correct.

▲consensus1 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

But implicit in your statement is "accept my position on immigration." You are probably not interested in giving in to the conservative position on immigration in order to get them on your side against Altman.

▲vrganj 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't have a position on immigration, I find the whole debate tiring and besides the point.

▲consensus1 3 hours ago | parent [-]

That makes you a supporter of the existing immigration system

▲vrganj 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You're still doing the very thing I pointed out above.

We went from a conversation about Mr. Altman's impunity to one about speculating my stance on some specific immigration system.

The mechanism I described, live for anyone to see.

▲actionfromafar 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The execute-anyone-on-the-streets system? That's a stretch to assume.