This is slashdot. The only thing we do with Nikon anything is argue about how to pronounce "Nikon".

What makes you think the tariffs will disappear? The Republicans support them and the Democrats are fine with them.

Actually a real concern, though the analysis fell into The Shallows of Slashdot again. Yes, the GenAI is an easy choke point to monitor, but it's hard to lock it down in advance while maintaining relevance in the changing world. To encourage usage the Chinese government will have to leave it open to some degree so it can respond to reality, even when they don't like the reality and plan to change it. (In contrast to the YOB approach of reality manipulation via gibberish and lies?)

However what a GenAI does can be recorded and then used against the "loose thinkers" who are trying to do something an authoritarian dislikes. The Chinese are particularly good at playing this game. They don't go after everyone who steps on a toe. They pick and choose their targets to take out the bravest troublemakers and intimidate the wannabe troublemakers. Self-censorship works best and many of the victims wind up brainwashing themselves... (More like Putin's approach?)

But I bet the story doesn't generate any Funny. I don't see much potential for humor in this one.

Point should be that most "people believe what they want to believe", but I can't find any sign of that oldie in the discussion. (Nor Funny.) On the basis of that folk saying, of course most people don't like any science that conflicts with one of the things they prefer to believe. Take the Bible, for example. Bad history and worse literature, but a LOT of people want to believe it.

I think a "real" scientist is capable of believing whatever the evidence shows, but most scientists are rather like most people.

Interesting that the privacy-related topic induced no reaction on Slashdot... We're just too jaded now?

Also, just to be clear:

I don't give a rat's arse which party you support.
I *do* care about what policies you support.

** uncommon

Maybe not blaming people on a self-help site would have helped them not to radicalize

They self-radicalized long before the word "incel" entered the common parlance. Which is what happens when you create an echo chamber of a bunch of angry lonely men and base post visibility on engagement.

Why do I care what the UN's preferred wording is?

You made a false claim about the origin of the terminology. You should care about being factually accurate.

The correct and proper legal term in the USA is "illegal alien"

It literally is not. That term, while it exists in the US code, is incommon. The most common term in the US code is just "alien", and when specifically discussing the undocumented, "Unauthorized Alien". I didn't include a discussion of US code just so you could pretend it didn't exist.

And I'm sorry if you don't like being called out for wanting cheap, exploitable labor to pick your damn cotton,

I'm struggling to understand what your argument is. You seem to be declaring that any job involving cotton is inherently slavery, even if the people are free to come and go as they choose and are paid for their labour. If that's not your argument, then please clarify, as otherwise, I'm baffled.

Democrats want cheap labor they can exploit.

Democrats (aka, the party that is constantly pushing for bills for higher minimum wages and mandates for better working conditions, while the Republicans do the opposite, pushing deregulation) want above all a regularized system with rules and oversight to prevent abuses. Most also want a path to citizenship for people who work for a given number of years with no criminal record (7 years is a common number suggested, though even decades would be better than "never"), though this is secondary to the primary issue. What Democrats do not want is a masked gestapo kidnapping people who want to be in the US working, from in front of their children, and throwing them into "Alligator Alcatraz".

These things are the exact same thing that the immigrants themselves want. You can't sit here and pretend to be an advocate for immigrants when arguing for policies that they are opposed to and opposing policies that they support.

No, I think the funniest part is hearing from all the suckers who still can't admit they made any mistake supporting the YOB.

All of us tend to do (and say) a lot of stuff without thinking. When asked, most of us can say why, even if those me-side explanations sometimes include confabulations. But the YOB has always thought less than average and now his brain is so broken that his attempts at explanations are just strings of gibberish and lies--and yet the fools continue to believe. He is only creating new problems and not even solving any of the fake problems he's been screaming about for over 10 years now.

The story did get some Funny comments. But who's laughing?

s/Someone/Somehow/

Mod parent funny, though the stronger flavor of the joke I was hoping for would have included something about the endangered jobs list being written by a GenAI and the Microsoft researchers intervening to get themselves off of the list--but failing in their attempts to get themselves included on the list of safe jobs.

However, looking at the long term track record of Microsoft Research against the reported budgets, I suspect the whole thing might be an AI confabulation. "This is not the Microsoft Research you were looking for because it never existed." All of those researchers were just GenAI sock puppets?

First, why not just admit you want slaves to pick your cotton?

I had no idea that slaves were free to go at any time. And if your concern is abusive employers, then the solution to that is regulation and oversight.

Undocumented migrants to the US go through great risk to get employment opportunities that, while terrible from the perspective of US norms, are far more than they have available at home. That's why they come in the first place. What they DON'T want is, just to pick a random example, a masked gestapo kidnapping them in front of their children and throwing them into something its creators lovingly refer to as "Alligator Alcatraz". They came to work.

Second, they are a net drain on the economy because they send more money back home than they add to GDP.

Asserting things flatly in contradiction with the research does not make it true. Once again, to repeat: the economy is not a zero-sum game. Labour creates wealth; it does not redistribute from some fixed pool. Their labor creates wealth in the US, but they are given only a tiny fraction of that. And on that they pay taxes for services that they are barred from receiving. From the pittiance they have left, the majority furthermore gets spent within the US.

Total remittances from the US amount to $98B; this is a mixture of remittances from undocumented workers and documented. Documented immigrants are vastly more common than undocumented (14,1% of the US population vs. 3,2%) and tend to earn much higher salaries (though they remit a smaller % of them), so only a relatively small fraction of that (a few tens of billions) is from undocumented workers. In terms of the share of the workforce, 6,7% of the workforce is undocumented and 18,6% are all immigrants combined. Keep these numbers in mind when you look at the next number: the US economy is 30 TRILLION dollars. E.g. the value that undocumented workers remit is in the ballpark one-thousandth of the economy, yet they're 1 in 15 workers. The value that all immigrant workers remit is in the ballpark of 1/300th of the economy, and they're one in five workers. And remember that it is work that creates wealth.

There simply is no comparison: the amount that undocumented workers contribute to the economy is vastly, by orders of magnitude, more than they earn, let alone remit.

Third, the correct and legal term is "illegal alien". "Undocumented migrant" is a BS euphemism invented by left-wing reporters to support a political agenda.

"Undocumented migrant" is not modern, did not originate in the US, and has its roots in academic and international discourse. It is the preferable language of the UN since 1975, aka half a century. Alien" is a perfectly valid legal term, although "illegal alien" is rarely used in the US code (the US has a wide range of alien categories referenced in the code, including "resident and nonresident", "immigrant and nonimmigrant", "asylee and refugee", etc aliens). "Unauthorized alien" is probably the most common adjective phrase, although just "alien" is more common still (for example: 18 U.S.C. 1325, "Unauthorized Entry by Alien"). "Migrant" and "alien" are not synonyms, and require unique terminology - migrant is much more specific, and "migrant worker" more specific still. "Illegal" is malformed terminology and commonly inaccurate. For example, a large fraction of people who are in the US without authorization did not enter the country illegally, but rather overstayed visas. It is also illogical to refer to a person as illegal, rather than an act.

(This is also a good time to drop a reminder that being in the US without authorization is generally a civil, not criminal, violation)

Also, just to be clear, if you wrote your post coming from a personal perspective:

Don't define yourself relative to others. If you do, you will never be happy, in a relationship or out of one. I mean, sure, you may get the initial "sugar rush" from a new relationship, but you will be doomed to destroying it due to overdependency on the other person for your happiness and self-esteem, which is something that cannot be sustained. You need to be able to find happiness and respect for yourself on your own.

But if that's not about you, then just let this stand as an aside to anyone who needs to hear it.