The "sleep" thing gives me the creeps so in my head I'm just going to think of it as the difference between "response time retrieval" and "background consolidation".
I do think it points at something bigger than just attention architecture: "memory" isn't just storage, and merely longer context isn't the same thing as having a better understanding of the source data.
I'm looking at this through the "personal AI" lens, where I think the missing "memory" layer seems to be consolidation & prioritization. It's not enough to just pattern match and grab the right emails, notes, etc, stuff them into the context window & hope, but instead it's useful to consider offline processing and turn events into durable state: clusters of observed data becomes episodes, assumptions, contradictions and power confidence for suggestions.
That also pushes up the need for provenance & inspectability. It's going to be interesting to see what kind of memory consolidation strategies are required for each domain use case.
I think you are missing the most important part - forgetting. The missing "memory" layers is consolidation, prioritization AND forgetting (what is not important).
Also not too sure about provenance and inspectability - it is part of memory. If the source is deemed 'important' it will survive forgetting. If not, then maybe not. And its ok. I am sure you dont know the exact source who told you that the capital of France is Paris. You forgot, and its no big deal.
I had 10 years of work experience and had been married to my wife for two years, together for five, when I applied for my spousal visa. We had already gone through the UK visa process to bring her there, but decided we wanted to try the USA.
Despite being able to show 10 years of consistent working history with income far exceeding the minimum, because I didn’t have a job lined up in the US (who would, or could, in that scenario?) we had to ask my wife's elderly parents to sign affidavits of support to prove I wouldn’t become a "public charge".
There were several times where we felt so insulted by the process, the length, the cost, the targeting from scammy law firms, that we almost gave up. People who have never been through the legal immigration process don't quite understand the amount of work it requires and stress it causes. I feel for the thousands of people who now have little certainty over their futures, and it feels necessary to say: people who come here to contribute their skills and experience don't all come along on an H1-B/L1, nor do they only come from white or european countries.
A green card is NOT a visa my friend. Getting a green card is a very involved process.
So why would you need to leave the country, if you couldn't figure out why you don't want to issue one in the year+ it takes to jump through the hoops
Just a fun fact, getting a green card means signing up for ten YEARS of tax liabilities in the US. And those 10 years start, AFTER you relinquished it...
"Green card" literally refers to US permanent residency cards; it's called that because the physical cards issued by the US are/were green. "Other contexts" are riffing on actual green cards as a metaphor, and if speakers in other contexts want to talk about legal specificities, they should use an accurate term...
OK so apparently when you file for an IR-1 visa, the IR-1 is the sticker they put in your passport that gets you into the country. But once you get the card, it replaces the visa. So the card is not the visa.
Today I learned. Before this thread, I was under the same impression as bluesea.
Correct and it's a typical process for many countries. You get a visa so you can stay past the tourist time (often 90 days and with an intent to apply for residency), and then while in country you apply for residency (the green card). One of the issues in the US is the process can take so long you end up overstaying your visa. Logically you should be able to extend the visa or the gov. shouldn't care since it's their fault it's taking so long. But, it's better for one side to simply declare these people illegal.
The equivalent of greencard in most countries (permanent residency) usually requires that you're in the country, not outside, and the process is heavily reliant on you being present in country and able to show history of legal (temporary) residence.
The majority of people granted greencards are family/relative sponsored who apply outside the US. Only in the past 15 years have employee sponsored greencards surged, most of whom have temporary visas.
I think it's more like: the US is the most generous country in the world regarding immigration, funding global health, funding global defence, funding global aid, but Europeans and others (including a lot of the young American left) talk about it as though it's the worst country in the world. So why bother, when you can just spend your money on your own citizens the way most countries do and fund loads of internal benefits?
Because I think we've been generous because we recognize the benefits that come to us for being so generous. Proper generosity recognizes that the other's well-being relates to our well-being.
For example, giving funding to USAID to try to stop the spread of Ebola helps people in DRC, Uganda, and other countries directly affected, but can also help the US not have Ebola spread here.
Helping Mexico improve their economy can help people in Mexico not immigrate to the US.
I believe our generosity also benefits us much more than we can see when our perspective collapses and we see life from fewer and fewer dimensions. And I think we can collapse into the "us vs them" mindset that so many others have collapsed into or we can go the other direction and realize it's "us with them" and then we look at generosity differently.
It's unfortunate, by and large the republican voters seem to have looked at the wreckage of the USSR and the continual looting and decline in quality of life that countries like Russia are enjoying under a kleptocratic regime, and they took their fingers out of their collective noses for just long enough to say "yeah I want that for here!".
Not really, voters didn't want this, and they hate it when they are told what's happening. The media silently accepted Trump's lie at face value when he said he knew nothing about Project 2025, despite anybody with half a brain realizing it was a lie. Reporters acted like they had less than half a brain, so that they wouldn't get bopped on their nose by their editors, who in turn were already bowing down to Trump.
The "faction" lied about their intentions in order to be elected. That in itself isn't uncommon, but what is uncommon is the degree to which it lied. Most Republican voters, when told about the actual policies being implemented by elected Republicans, don't believe the reports, and assume that nobody would be enacting such stupid policy. Yet the voters keep voting for them.
"1. SEAL THE BORDER, AND STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION"
"2. CARRY OUT THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY"
You're acting like Trump's immigration policy was buried in some "Project 2025" whitepaper nobody has ever read.
Also, his immigration policy remains popular. According to Harvard-Harris, "Deporting all immigrants who are here illegally" remains above water at 55% support (including 33% of Democrats), 45% oppose: https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/HHP... (p. 26)
The implication for Trump and his constituency is that this only applies to brown people. White people are, naturally, not immigrants, even when they are. That's why 100% of the examples Trump would use would be of brown people.
Yes they did. Of course they didn't want to be targeted themselves, but the rhetoric was very explicit about what would happen, and they already had a preview of it in 2016 and voted even more favorably for this regime this time around.
> The media silently accepted Trump's lie at face value when he said he knew nothing about Project 2025
Not true. The media was very vocal about it, and it was obvious that he was on board with it.
> Most Republican voters, when told about the actual policies being implemented by elected Republicans, don't believe the reports, and assume that nobody would be enacting such stupid policy.
This isn't true. The recent ouster of Thomas Massie is a clear example of this. However, even if that were true, Republican voters still overwhelmingly prefer this to the alternative (Democrats), and polls show this today.
> Yet the voters keep voting for them.
Indeed. Not sure how you can acknowledge this but somehow believe it's not what the voters want.
There is no contradiction between the points made so far. His base loves it and the majority of americans do not. He won by a marginal victory just like in 2016. The current system favors the Rs and the Rs have worked to gerrymander every state they've controlled since 2010, and they've used everything in their power since the obama years to make sure they control the courts. Poll after poll shows americans don't like Trump (or Biden for that matter or the Democrats) but because of the moment in 2024, Trump took a marginal victory and consolidated power, which Democrats never could do and never wanted to do.
The simple statement that none of this is what voters want if we're talking about a majority of them is just true. To say otherwise is to be ignorant of history since the 90s and the Rs under Newt Gingrich to this day, and how effectively as a party they've consolidated power in America. I'm not really saying it's evil or smart or anything (I do think it was smart and bold). But, polls do consistently show a majority of Americans have never been so pessimistic about the country and their leadership in both parties.
I don’t agree that even engaged republicans actually know what’s going on. In my experience some of them are the most hoodwinked - they literally believe that all the immigrants being detained are criminals, that everyone sent to CECOT was a terrorist, that DACA recipients have all been allowed to get green cards and just not bothered to, etc.
First, you're making a big logical error by replacing "voters" with "Republican voters" or the even more narrow, extreme, and unrepresentative group of "Republican primary voters".
If people knew they were voting for Project 2025, why would Trump disavow any connection to it during the campaign? It doesn't make any sense.
> Republican voters still overwhelmingly prefer this to the alternative (Democrats), and polls show this today.
Republican voters care less about policy than about the team. Take key Democratic policies, and present them in polls without the Democratic label, and Republicans support them. Add in the label and they don't support them.
It's not hard to understand that politics is mostly treated as sports-team affiliation these days.
Republicans don't vote for Republicans because of policies, they vote for Republicans because they identify as Republicans.
And, claiming that the Massie vote, of just the extreme primary voters, represents the public's will? That's ridiculous. Massie still got something like 45% of the vote, among that extreme and unrepresentative bloc of voters, after Trump going hard after Massie for trying to release the Epstein files.
The Massie vote is about extremist Republican's subservience to Trump, not about whether anybody actually likes policies. People despise Trump's Epstein coverup.
Because the industrialization of America is over, and has been for decades. USA doesn't need low-wage, immigrant workers anymore. The railroads have already been built, the fields have been plowed, and now that's all done by big automated machines. Everything that cheap workers used to do that was valuable is now automated.
Who does the farming? Who does the cleaning? Who builds the buildings? Who are the line cooks? That should be obvious.
But it should be just as obvious that there are plenty of immigrants who are also necessary because they bring new ideas, their education, their incredible work ethic, to fill in the gaps that the US clearly has.
There is one thing that unites all of us (and I do mean us, as I am one of them). We all dream of a society where our hard work can become prosperity for ourselves and for everyone else, a plot of fertile soil that is worth sowing. We all come here with a dream.
And I personally don't mind so much that I'm uplifting people that don't agree with my existence. I just wish that they could stay out of our way so we could all benefit.
I think there are many jobs Americans have decided the just don’t want to do - at a large scale. That said many do.
There is a completely different dynamic with job shops like wipro and others sponsoring “high skilled visas” which are only used to undercut certain labor markets.
I'm not against tightening up the constraints to prevent what becomes indentured servitude dressed up in red, white, and blue. That doesn't help the American people or those who carry within them the American dream. But fixing that is not everyone's actual intent, and that does really bother me.
And your point? The US has an issue where at a certain price point labor has no interest. Reality is that is multiplied if it actually requires real work in a field, rudimentary construction, etc.
This is not a visa issue, but one we solve with illegal labor and visas.
The real solution is visas and making those that done want to work and sponge off social services, actually work.
My kiddo graduates soon, her baby daddy owes $75k in back child support - say 7 years. He’s talented enough to make $150+ wood working. Refuses to do anything because the man/etc. Branch not far from tree.
I’d love to turn a POS like him in such that someone equally talented and wants to contribute can, take a percentage. The person gets a visa, the dead beat gets servitude. No take on the servitude just taxes maybe going off to pay the debt.
The US is a land of opportunity, but also a land of a bunch of idiots that are entitled.
I don't know anything about that situation, but it sounds difficult and I'm sorry that it's happening to your loved ones. I'm not sure you can make someone work if they don't care to, though. Like, take the common example of debtors having their driver's licenses suspended for their debt. Is that really helping anyone? They certainly won't be any closer to paying it off.
I can't disagree with your final assertion there, but there's really very little you can do besides offer greater incentives that get people to genuinely want to work. And I know there's not a market for that and that the rich are keeping the purse strings tight. So it goes.
Whoa there. What's wrong with "undercutting labor markets"? Last I heard, when a profession (e.g. doctors) decides to limit the number of practicioners in order to charge a higher price to the public, that's a bad thing. It benefits the people currently employed in that profession now, but it hurts others who wants to join, and it hurts the public who wants to get the service (e.g. healthcare). The sum of hurt is greater than the sum of help. Cartels are harmful; they don't stop being harmful just because there are borders involved.
I mean, it's one thing if you think immigrants commit more crimes or use more taxpayer money. These are both false, but at least the argument could hypothetically work. But if you say that even perfectly law-abiding, non-welfare-using, good-work-performing hypothetical immigrants shouldn't be allowed in because they would "undercut labor markets", that's plain nonsense. Such nice hypothetical immigrants should be invited in large numbers and everyone would win from it.
If someone has no specials skills beyond what a current citizen college grad has, why is there a need for that individual to have an H1 or related visa? Many visas get issued to people that take the equivalent of a University of Phoenix degree.
Without immigration an imminent depopulation crisis is on its way to America.
We are actually blessed to be in demand as an immigration destination as well as a culture and infrastructure uniquely set up for it.
Squandering that advantage to satisfy xenophobic ideology is yet another demonstration of the Republican Party’s lack of fiscal responsibility. See also: completely random war in Iran, ICE budget increases spent on kicking out taxpayers/customers, tax cuts for billionaires, the current record high budget deficit, $1.8 billion fund for Trump brownshirts, etc.
To be honest, the depopulation crisis is not something we are likely to be able to stop in the long term. But curtailing immigration certainly won't help, and the US would be uniquely positioned as an immigration destination to weather the storm of rapid depopulation better than other countries if it continued its status as an immigration center.
Recommended reading:
After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People
Or really any other book on the subject, I'm not married to that one, it's not a perfect book it's just one that's easy to find because of the distinctive cover.
I don't care to get into talking about Israel. It's a country with the population of Ohio, so if it's an anomaly, it's an anomaly. The only discussion I can get into that country is going to get distasteful.
You're putting the cart in front of the horse. If the US economy didn't need low-wage immigrant workers, we wouldn't be complaining about them in the first place, because they would've gone somewhere else where the jobs are.
The fact they're coming the US literally means its economy needs them.
Of course we could all wax philosophical and say "Nobody needs a Frappuccino every other day, we just want it," but then nobody needs to live in a prosperous economy anyway.
> The fact they're coming the US literally means its economy needs them.
Not necessarily. As just one example, it could mean one of their family immigrated for a well paying job, and now they want their parents, or other family, to join them and they don’t have skills in a high paying industry.
The presence of low income wage earners does not, by force of nature nor economics, require them.
Having said that, I tend to against minimum wage policy.
There's always work available if someone is asking for a low enough wage, that should be self-evident. How does this prove that the population at large benefits from more people being willing to work for low wages?
Classical economics would argue that higher population tends to increase productivity (economies of scale and specialization) while lowering wages, increasing land value, and improving returns on capital. Free trade has a very similar effect. You can find this analysis in all standard texts (Smith, Riccardo, etc) and even progressive works such as Progress and Poverty by Henry George.
Different groups are free to have different opinions of this tradeoff. Big landowners benefit immensely while working class renters only suffer.
I wish i could ill find the video, the farms in CA certainly do need labor. In the 90s when there was another - people south of the border are taking jobs bs - an interview er asked people waiting for for support at a welfare office in Salinas (lots of farms) offering jobs in the fields. Unanimous nope.
They are needed and often do more than those that are citizens.
Remove, or at least tighten the requirements, for welfare.
Your argument seems to be the equivalent of: if the (illegal? surely some of them) immigrants could get welfare they also wouldn’t do those jobs.
As welfare increases to the point where it starts to competes with jobs, it seems sensible to expect welfare will compete with jobs. Especially when you take in to consideration the expenses welfare recipients don’t incur as a result of not having to attend the workplace nor dress for such.
Low quality bait comment, cherry picking a few kids of well educated well-off immigrants who turned out to be rockstars growing up under the exceptional US economic conditions. It's called the exception, not the rule. If those kids were to grow up in some underdeveloped country, none of them would have achieved anything noteworthy which proves the US itself and the conditions it offers is the secret sauce, not immigrants alone by themselves.
Also, some people on your list are absolute red flags I would rather not have in my country, which is proving my point that good border controls and strict visas are essential.
It’s amazing how close and how far you are at understanding my point simultaneously.
Without committing to some wildly contradictory logic, the xenophobic political party in charge of this country cannot be simultaneously in favor of mass deportations, denaturalization, and generally closing the borders while being against denaturalizing and deporting Melania Trump and Elon Musk for obvious visa violations. There is also contradiction in the way the right wing has gotten cozy with big tech companies run by immigrants who entered the country on the H1B visa they demonize so fervently.
Just imagine the outcry if Obama was from South Africa and was standing behind the president's desk talking about how he's running a new illegal government agency.
Nah, there was just more economic activity to draw people in. By every other measure it’s been more hostile than average.
But you are right that it is ending, just wrong about what: it’s the high economic activity that attracted people which is disappearing thanks to the same people that hate migrants.
> By every other measure it’s been more hostile than average.
I'm not sure there's a "just" here: compared to peer countries, the US is either middle-of-the-pack[1] or significantly more accepting of immigrants[2] depending on which number you pick.
(This isn't to somehow imply that the US isn't hostile to its immigrants, because it is. But the question is whether it's more hostile.)
The parent post says it’s the high economic activity that attracted people even though the US has been more hostile than average by every other measure.
So it's as if the US was a honeypot with a flyswatter.
By the way, your [2] is useless to prove your point: you can't compare absolute numbers (for instance Iceland vs the US).
I don’t think I agree that it’s hostile by every other measure. The US’s immigration system is cruel and capricious, but assimilating into the US seems to be a lot easier than, for example, France or Germany. The US is unusual among its peer countries in not requiring immigrants to speak the “official” language fluently, in accepting public displays of ethnic or religious background that aren’t ambiently European Christian, etc.
(Again, I must emphasize that this does not make the US good. Only that the bar is perhaps lower than people who are assimilated into any particular country may realize.)
I would suggest that the proper metric is not the number of immigrants, which after all the parent commentator implied would be the case because of higher economics drawing them in, but a combination of the following
1. the amount of violence directed against immigrants legally allowed in by governmental forces.
2. the chance of legally allowed in immigrants will have immigration status changed without due process.
3. what percentage of Immigrants fear that 1 or 2 will happen to them.
I believe these two conditions seem to exist in the United States currently, although not sure how many immigrants it affects.
I am unsure if there are other countries that have a similar situation, I would expect if there are they must be relatively few in number.
The closest type of situation would be, I suppose, racial oppression focused on particular groups that have become undesirable according to a country's government.
Sorry but this is just patently untrue. Are you American? Because in my experience, most Americans just don't realize how arbitrary and capricious the US immigration system is.
Pick any other developed country and the process is generally fairly simple. With some you can just apply for a temporary work visa (possibly without a job) or just apply to immigrate. If you stay in many places long enough on a temporary visa you pretty much get residency and ultimately citizenship.
Beyond what's possible, the time frames for doing anything with US immigration is ridiculously long. Like if you, as a US citizen marry someone overseas it can take upwards of 4 years to get a green card for your spouse and they won't be able to visit the US at all in that time. Why? Because filing a marriage petition means you've shown "immigrant intent" so you'll never get a visit visa (B1/B2) again. Also, the president may well just ban your country from getting any visa. 75 countries are currently on that list.
It's also incredibly easy to make a mistake at some point in the process and that may end up getting an approvable case denied or, worse, you end up with an improvidently granted benefit that cannot be repaired, even if it was an honest mistake.
That is for a different scenario. It means that if you already have a residence permit, you have to wait 8 years before you can apply for citizenship. OP is talking about marriage green card. For 75% of cases in Sweden it is less than 15 months to get a residence permit.
Funnily, I had a German friend complain about this change and then I came across this Reddit thread.
Many European countries actually adopt a similar policy. Off the top of my head, the Netherlands requires those who want to become a resident to obtain an MVV visa from a consulate abroad, even if you are already in the Netherlands legally, except for a small list of allied countries.
Germany also has similar rules, forbidding short stay individuals from becoming a long-term resident without interviewing abroad. It also ensures that any individuals who are denied are already abroad, without the need to enforce their departure.
That’s not true. Germany explicitly allows you to stay in the country to transition from a temporary visa to long term.
> However, the law provides several exceptions where you can apply for the new residence title while staying in Germany with your current permit. These exceptions allow a switch from a temporary purpose (like studies) to a more permanent one
These timelines are wildly optimistic. Boundless is selling a service and I'd recommend nobody actually uses it because you're really paying for nothing. Things like "you are responsible for the information you provide". Part of the reason you get an immigration attorney is to identify likely issues, go with you for your interview, know when (or even if) to apply for an immigration benefit and to put their name as the preparer (ie putting their reputation and career on the line for their advice).
Boundless seems like knowing a guy in the neighbourhood who helps you fill out immigration forms, typically called "notarios". Some will call themselves "paralegals" without working for an actual lawyer. It's a scammy business.
So here's the general process.
1. Petitioner (US citizen or LPR) files an I130 and I130A for their overseas spouse. That requires a lot of documentation to prove your status, that it's a bona fide marriage, biographic information for your spouse, proof that you're both free to marry (ie evidence of previous marriages and that you're divorced/single);
2. USCIS spends 12-15 months processing this. It then gets sent to the National Visa Center ("NVC") who spend another 3+ months looking at the documents, after which you're "documentarily qualified" ("DQ");
3. At this point, your foreign spouse can now make an appointment with an embassy or consulate for an immigrant visa interview. Depending on their country this may be realtively quick (within 1-2 months) or really long (12+ months);
4. The foreign spouse will need to get a medical exam done to check for vaccines, communicable diseases (eg TB), etc. This has to be done within a certain period of the interview;
5. The interview happens and the officer asks whatever they want to ask. If it's approved, your pay the fee and your passport is stamped. You're given a packet to hand over to CBP when you enter the US. It can be denied. The officer may ask for more information, which can add months of delay. Or it can go into a limbo called "admin processing";
6. The spouse travels to the US and is now a permanent resident, assuming CBP lets them in (they have discretion not to btw). You may then have to wait for months for your green card and you're waiting for that to get your SSN so you can work, get a bank account, get on a lease, etc.
It's more realistic to say this will take 2-2.5 years and maybe take 4+. In that entire time the foreign spouse won't get any kind of visa to visit the US so if you want to be with your spouse, you need to live in another country or visit often for a very long time.
So how can go wrong? Lots of ways. Here's a non-exhaustive list:
1. The foreign spouse's entire immigration history is under scrutiny. If they visited their then partner(before getting married) and didn't tell the embassy or CBP about that, it can raise misrep[resentation] issues. and may just cause delays;
2. If they've ever applied for a visa and been denied, this too will be scrutinized;
3. Ideally you only need a police report for the country you live in (to prove no criminal history) and that's relatively easy to get. It might not be. Or you may need it for a bunch of countries if you've lived in multiple over the previous 5 years;
4. USCIS gets to decide where your interview is going to be. Prior to this administration, that could be where you were living. For example, if you were from Mali but living and working in the UK, then you could schedule it in the UK. Now the administration has decided you must be interviewed in your country of birth. If that country has no US embassy (eg Afghanistan) then maybe your country of residence can be used or it might be a country neighbouring your country of birth;
5. What if you applied for asylum from that country? Let's say you are from belarus but claimed (and received) asylum in the UK. You might spend a year trying to tell USCIS that you can't travel to Belarus for your interview;
6. How did the US citizen (or LPR) get their green card? Was it through marriage? This is what USCIS calls a "pivot case" and they view it harshly, particularly if, for example, a Ghana man was married in Ghana, travelled to the US, got divorced in the US, married a US citizen, got citizenship themselves, got divorced and then married somebody else from Ghana. USCIS is increasingly taking the position that this may well be immigration fraud, arguing the man had multiple wives, the divorce was a sham and the second spouse was their spouse all along. It's up to you to prove that's not the case. In this administration that can lead to revocation of their green card or even denaturalization;
7. Was the foreign spouse ever in a cultural or religious marriage? This gets real tricky because what counts as "married" and "divorced" varies by country and, depending on the country, can be hard to prove. Also, some countries have a lot of falsified divorce decrees (eg Nigeria). This can add months as you have to prove they were free to marry;
8. The president may come along and decide to ban visa issuance to your foreign spouse's country. USCIS seemingly takes the broadest definition of this. So if you were born in one of those countries OR have ever had citizen, you're covered by the ban. There's no judicial recourse for this, thanks to Trump v. Hawaii. If so, you're just in limbo probably until Trump leaves office;
9. The black hole after the interview can be "administrative processing". This can mean anything. It can mean something as simple as "we don't like this case". IIRC I heard that 85% of cases in admin processing ultimately get approved but the case may sit in limbo for years and may take a court challenge to resolve it;
10. If you end up taking too long after your interview, your medical exam may expire and you have to do it again. Hopefully the embassy officer asks you for an updated copy but they don't have to be that nice;
11. Between the interview and coming to the US things can happen that USCIS or CBP argue are of material interest. Maybe you get charged with something, even if it's just a traffic offense. You might not fill out the forms correctly. You might not even be aware of it. It might not stop USCIS or CBP making a big deal out of it; and
12. CBP can arbitrarily decide to deny you entry at a port-of-entry even with a valid immigrant visa stamp in your passport for pretty much any reason.
I dare you to find any marriage immigration benefit that's as capricious, arbitrary, time-consuming, restrictive and Byzantine as the US system.
Sweden is a white hegemony, the US is not and has never been. It's not a fair comparison when the US has literally always been composed of immigrants.
If you want a white hegemony, move to goddamn Sweden and leave us alone. That's not the US and to suggest otherwise is anti-American and ahistorical. If you clearly hate what this country stands for, then please do yourself and everyone else a favor and leave. Jesus Christ.
As I recall, we had to drive to the US border and turn around to "enter Canada" to process our landed immigrant letters. That was a while ago, so it's possible that there is more involved now... Was curious as they asked about our stuff and car(s), and we pointed out "at home, in Canada" which got a smile.
Canada requires you to (re)enter under your newly granted status in some circumstances, but that is entirely different from requiring you to leave the country before you can apply for a change of status, and to remain outside of the country while the application is processed. I was free to come and go from Canada as a temporary visitor while I waited to get my PR, and I had the option of applying from within the country as a non resident as well, with some caveats.
Indeed, but there are counterexamples as well. In the UAE you enter as a tourist and get a resident visa while you're there. They take away your passport for at least a couple of weeks so you can't leave either.
Simila in Ireland: you are not allowed to seek work while in Ireland on a holiday visa, you can only apply for work permissions/visas from outside the country, and depending on the type of visa you get (general work vs critical skills), your spouse might have to wait a year before they can join you.
Sure, but AFAIK a green card is more like indefinate leave to remain: it's not a visa as such, but a thing you can apply for after you have already lived in the country for some amount of time (on a visa of some other form, generally one which allows you to legally stay for the required time in the country) which gives the right to stay permanently. So it doesn't make a lot of sense to require leaving the country to apply first.
I see, that is different indeed, and rather silly to force you to apply from abroad!
Seems like it's a ploy to get all the undesirables out of the country, then it's "oops your application was denied, or it takes years to be approved, you can't come back. Sorry not sorry!"
Green card is completely independent of whether you're in the US. You can get one without ever having set foot in the US, and you can live in the country for 15+ years and still not be able to get one.
Note - I immigrated to Ireland from the US and went through the visa process (including huddling in the cold in January at 4 AM at burgh quay, and years later, writing a scraper for their insanely bad appointment system that managed to actually be worse than huddling in the cold)
It's pretty normal not to be able to look for work on a tourist visa in most countries - are you suggesting this is unusual? As far as spouses, they used to have an incredibly asinine system where they told you your spouse _could_ work, without sponsorship, if they got a special form, but getting this form was de facto impossible. It was a very Irish approach, in retrospect. The campaign to fix this was, eventually, successful. (https://reformstamp3.wixsite.com/home)
Fwiw I’ve seen confused or misleading posters reply to this change with statements along the lines of ‘this only means that they don’t allow tourist to apply for greencards in the country’.
Which is nonsense, it applies to all non immigrant visas such as work visas. But it’s a line you’ll see various people try to claim as if this isn’t devastating to every spouse of a us citizen who now can’t get a greencard without leaving their us based job and family.
How is this the same? You can't apply for a green card on a holiday/tourist/non-working visa. You have to be already in the country for many years before you can do that.
> Despite being able to show 10 years of consistent working history with income far exceeding the minimum, because I didn’t have a job lined up in the US (who would, or could, in that scenario?) we had to ask my wife's elderly parents to sign affidavits of support to prove I wouldn’t become a "public charge".
This seems entirely reasonable. You had as much time as you could have liked to apply for jobs after deciding to try the USA. Fortunately you were able to take advantage of an alternative that didn’t require that.
I’m not really sure what you were going for writing that. You think 10 years working in country A should entitle you to a work permit from country B?
> nor do they only come from white or european countries.
Why should that matter? If country B decides to only allow white and / or Europeans to apply to live and work in country B, that is entirely fair. It’s not people-from-outside-country-B’s privilege to decide what country B does or doesn’t do.
> people who come here to contribute their skills and experience don't all come along on an H1-B/L1, nor do they only come from white or european countries.
But out of the pool of people who come from poor countries, who don't have jobs lined up in the U.S, and aren't here on a skilled worker visa, a large fraction of them will end up relying on welfare benefits.
Family-based visas are a huge loophole in U.S. If you look at most of the immigrant ghettos in the country, they're fueled by family reunification. In my own extended family we have several people, who came here based on my dad's sponsorship, who are a drain on the government. (The sponsorship commitment is basically never enforced.)
The uncertainty is one of the main reasons why I didn't bother to go the F1->H1B route and ended up leaving the US again.... but that was a decade ago.
Given the opportunity, at the time, I would have happily taken steps to prove my presence would be of benefit. Instead, I had to spend my time asking family to give me their pension statements.
Later, I was recognized for that potential benefit. Last December, I became a citizen.
1. Citizens have a right to enter at ports of entry, can refuse to hand over social media accounts, etc. Greencard holders are still at the discretion of border officials.
2. Citizens can wander the world and live abroad for however long they fancy and always be allowed to return to their country of citizenship when things go awry. Greencard holders can't do that.
3. Citizens get consular protection, greencard holders don't.
I lived in central Europe for two years. Had to wait in line for 20 hours halfway through my time there to renew my visa, otherwise it wasn't much of an issue.
Actually, if you do something bad enough, your citizenship can be removed. This is true in the US, UK, India, and maybe others. The exact procedures and criteria vary.
If you leave the country for more than 6 months, you need to seek prior approval, and you definitely can lose it. I was on Green Card and when I crossed the border, I was questioned by the customs officer as to why I didn't get my citizenship yet because it was 15 years I was on GC and the point of the GC wasn't to be literally permanent. I quickly got my citizenship after that just in case the same thing happened again.
If you get arrested for a major crime, you can lose your GC but you can only lose your citizenship if you lied or committed fraud at the time of your application, or if you committed treason against the government.
>If you leave the country for more than 6 months, you need to seek prior approval, and you definitely can lose it.
Doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
>If you get arrested for a major crime, you can lose your GC but you can only lose your citizenship if you lied or committed fraud at the time of your application, or if you committed treason against the government.
California and New York are the most famous examples but asking perplexity I got:
As of the current 2026 rules, the states that do not require ID at the polls are: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin, plus Delaware has a special affidavit process if you do not have ID
In some of those locations non-citizens can vote in local elections, like Maryland and San Francisco. Also in some of those locations you get registered by the DMV, like California, and non citizens mistakenly have voted in Federal elections (which is a crime).
Note I am not endorsing the latter as it can come up in future citizenship applications.
There’s the answer I was actually expecting. Yes, in some LOCALITIES, (which “Maryland” is not) non-citizens can vote in things such as school board elections. Voting in any statewide or federal election as a non citizen in any state is still a crime.
Wish granted: You are no longer a citizen because you never "proved you were beneficial". Please remit $100,000 to the Citizenship Payment Service immediately to avoid being downgraded to serfdom. /s
Framing it that way is backwards and anti-democratic. Democratic citizenship is something the government "owes" you because it is imposing control on your life. It is not some kind of magnanimous gift of club membership, you already deserved to have a say in what's being done to you.
That's why most Americans (and their children) have never once been required to "prove" that they are "beneficial", and it's why people the government is controlling in jails are still citizens rather than objects.
I looked it up, and we were required to complete form I-864 "Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the INA". My wife, her grandmother, and her grandfather all needed to complete one, and when considered together, prove that they earned 125% of the HHS poverty guidelines. As my wife didn't have provable income (we were moving together), we needed to dig into their social security income and complete the forms. I remember feeling sad that I needed to ask for such personal information from them.
My salary in the UK was many multiples of this guideline, but _earning potential_ is not considered. Pragmatism is not really a service offered by USCIS, it's too political. To be on-topic: this move will disincentivize smart but not-yet-wealthy people from immigrating to the "land of opportunity". It was already harder than it had to be.
It has always existed, but how strictly it’s interpreted (i.e., just cash welfare, or also Medicaid, SNAP, and other means-tested benefits) has shifted between administrations. If you applied during Biden’s administration, I could believe the public charge rule was applied very laxly, particularly because it’s rare to get direct cash welfare in the US these days, and even less for an extended period.
Whoah. I never had that bit LOL. You got special treatment :) They did an eye test and made me get some vaccination records from when I was a kid.
The craziest bit I found was the GC interview where they test your spousal relationship. Expected questions like "What side of the bed do you sleep on?", "Who takes out the garbage?" -- instead they spent 30 minutes interrogating my wife about the military base she was born on and spent the first 6 months of her life at ("Who was the commanding officer at the time?"). It was like something out of a KGB script.
This is complete nonsense. All other countries, including the UK, Australia and most of Europe has immigration systems that are just as stringent if not more so.
Notably, and very relevant, the UK recently made it substantially harder for UK citizens to bring over spouses to the point that even teachers don't meet the income thresholds necessary to qualify.
Australia is more expensive AND takes longer than the United States for the equivalent spousal visa.
Sorry, which part of my personal experiences was nonsense? Immigration is hard, and yes, I'm aware of challenges in the UK as I moved my spouse over there in 2014. Do you have an experience with immigration that you can speak to?
I think you're responding to a comparison I didn't make. My point wasn't that the US is uniquely difficult compared with the UK or Australia. My point was that legal immigration is difficult, stressful and often misunderstood, including for people who are clearly trying to contribute and follow the rules. I'm aware the UK system has become much harder since I used it, and I'm not disputing that. But "other countries are harder" doesn’t make my experience nonsense.
Your experience wasn't nonsense. Your expectations are nonsense. If you think immigrating to another country should be straightforward and easy, then it's your expectations that are wrong. I also immigrated to the US and it was just as tough, even though I came well before Trump and from Canada.
It should be straightforward and easy to make the application. That doesn't mean that it has to be especially likely that it is approved. There is no reason for it to be so byzantine in any country.
Is the goal here to be the same as others or to be better than others? The US immigration system is far from great at the best of times, but it's becoming worse over time.
It's not an ideal outcome it's a very non-enviable multi-decade process working menial jobs and being at risk of something benign like a traffic stop escalating to imprisonment at any time. This fantasy that illegals are living in luxury is how they boiled the frog on people who "did it the right way." They want to get rid of everyone.
To support your position the official DHS Twitter account tweeted a picture of an island paradise with the caption America after 100 million deportations. There are only an estimated 12M undocumented immigrants a 37M legal immigrants including 23M naturized citizens.
There's too much demand for their labor. You'd have to go after the businesses that hire them in a way that would hurt certain constituents. TPTB have given themselves the Sisyphean task of rounding up enough of them to appease a nativist base that's been riled up with conspiracies about people invading them, but not so many that it would make economic number go down.
Or you can simply move to a country that actually apreciates you and doesnt treat you like unwanted subhuman garbage. We have few in Europe, with QoL and happiness higher than US average, sometimes much higher. Just dont make the mistake of comparing salaries directly, US is massively more expensive if you plan to stay long term (ie healthcare) and/or have kids.
You would also have enough time to actually enjoy life, not just work till death/health issues come in some empty prestige rat race.
> Where else would people get opportunities that could match the United States? I can't think of any country that would even come close.
Isn’t that comparative?
If you are in the EU then the US seems like a holy grail because pay is higher. If you have dual citizenship you can probably avail of the EU safety nets if you had to go back.
If you’re in South East Asia, any EU choice is a huge improvement. Lately there has been strong immigration to Germany for example instead of coming to the US.
After naturalization and giving up my original citizenship, I am a little envious of people with dual citizenship of US + any EU country. It really doesn’t get better than that.
> If you are in the EU then the US seems like a holy grail because pay is higher. If you have dual citizenship you can probably avail of the EU safety nets if you had to go back.
One of the reasons pay in the US is higher is because the EU taxes ordinary people fairly heavily to pay for those social services. But also because of systematic cultural differences between the US and EU that lead to the US having a more dynamic economy that generally pays people more.
> If you’re in South East Asia, any EU choice is a huge improvement. Lately there has been strong immigration to Germany for example instead of coming to the US.
Lately Alternative für Deutschland has been getting a lot of votes in Germany; what kinds of rules (on top of the existing ones) do they think should be in place for people in southeast asia trying to immigrate to Germany?
> Lately Alternative für Deutschland has been getting a lot of votes in Germany; what kinds of rules (on top of the existing ones) do they think should be in place for people in southeast asia trying to immigrate to Germany?
The AfD is in no position to put legislation regarding immigration in place, that is federal law. Nevertheless, southeast asian immigrants are not particularly in the eyes of the public.
> After naturalization and giving up my original citizenship, I am a little envious of people with dual citizenship of US + any EU country. It really doesn’t get better than that.
Depends on whether you actually want to enter the US. If you don't, its citizenship is a burden like no other citizenship: Banks want nothing to do with you and you pay extra taxes that no other nation requires from you. Oh, and should you decide on giving it up - that's cumbersome and costs a bunch of dollars, from what I've heard.
So from someone that at a max would want to visit the US only as a tourist: Having only european citizenship is better than dual european/US citizenship to me.
What is it about the US you enjoy so? As someone who migrated to Europe from another country (and has never had the privilege of visiting the states) I can certainly think of ways I’d imagine America is better, and vice versa, but comfy is a surprising description. Genuinely curious
Well, while it does seem to be changing now, I will tell you the parts I learned to appreciate:
- Great food -- especially if you live anywhere near one of the major metropolitan areas, but holes in the wall are aplenty ( I still remember that one ridiculous medley in SD )
- It is huge -- it is hard to explain to people how big US is, which has its own benefits and drawbacks. The obvious benefit is that if you really don't like somewhere, you pick up your toys and move somewhere else. As an immigrant myself, I appreciate that. Doing route 66 properly will take you more than 2 weeks.
- Shit is designed for the lazy -- there is an obvious diclaimer that goes along with that. The design relies on the lazy to extract as much money as possible, but it is effectively designed to be convenient. I used to hate how wasteful dishwasher is until 1) I used it 2) read up on data supporting the approach
- Access -- Most of everything I possibly want ( though - without going into details - thanks to Trump that has changed somewhat ) as long as I can ship it here
- Vibe -- This may be the hardest to actually ingest unless you spent some time here. It is hard to explain the ability to be excessive should you so desire. I think the closest I can get to explain it is the 'merica meme, which is not so far from reality once you get to a certain point ( as in, if you are really into something, you can absolutely get into some crazy level stuff, which may include and I am just listing random encounters with people here: own a tank, have a pet alligator, ride a doom buggy to work, build an indoor range in your house ). I know it is changing in EU, but I think most excess/hobbies there are kinda.. not limited exactly, but they don't often seem to reach the same level of crazy.
All small things and there is plenty to complain about, but I stand by my comfy. I do not think I would be able to do half the stuff there I did here.
Great food is very relative, we are exposed a lot to French and Italian cuisine and US one... not up to the task to be polite. Quality of ingredients, taste, also portion size.
Its bigger but then there are bigger places. It takes cca 4 days to travel from one side to another, but thats rather meaningless quality. I can hop in a car and be in 30 minutes in France, in 1.5h in Italy (living in Switzerland). I can be in top notch ski resort like Verbier in 1.5h. Thats a positive to me anyhow I look at it. Massive exposition to properly different cultures rather than US mono culture.
I wouldn't call excess a positive, being lazy positive, being deep in comfy/comfort zone an achievement in life, in contrary. But that's up to everybody how they setup their lives.
Everything has a weakness. Everything can be a drawback depending on circumstances. If everything is close means you can never really "get away" from everything; it means everything is condensed and you are effectively forced in a mode of life most Americans instinctively avoid. Is it possible you convinced yourself it is a desired state?
<< Massive exposition to properly different cultures rather than US mono culture.
I personally see this as a severe misunderstanding of US or not having traveled here. Even moving between states, there are massive differences across multiple facets of social reality ( though admittedly, often shaped by local geographical reality ). Utah and New Jersey come to mind -- the is almost nothing about both that aligns beyond maybe existence of tollways there. About the only thing that I can kinda find to support your claim is McDonalds, which is a lone oasis of stability across the continental United States.
edit: FWIW, I wouldn't want to live in France or Italy these days. Maybe Spain. In other words, I think my preferences are showing.
> Or you can simply move to a country that actually apreciates you and doesnt treat you like unwanted subhuman garbage. We have few in Europe, with QoL and happiness higher than US average.
Please don't. Europe has enough ethnic tensions. At least the US is built to be an ethnic melting pot. It's much better to go there.
Ehhhhhh I like Europe, a lot, but when you're in you're 20's or 30's and looking at $300k in SF or €80k in Paris (and better access to investment products and lower taxes in the US to boot), suddenly clocking off at 16:00 on Fridays doesn't seem as nice as being able to retire in your 40's.
300k in SF or NYC is FAR from early retirement unless you live 'frugally' - Manhattan average rents are 5K for 1 bed. You pay city, state and federal tax. Food and alcohol are 30-50 percent higher than Paris. And no one talks about property taxes.
In the US, local and federal taxes plus property taxes are easily 50-60 percent of your income.
Inflation runs higher in NYC than the rest of the country, as well.
> 300k in SF or NYC is FAR from early retirement unless you live 'frugally' - Manhattan average rents are 5K for 1 bed
You don’t have to retire in the US. As others have pointed out, nobody comes here for the lifestyle.
Immigrants like us are literally the holy grail of immigration. Come in during our most productive years, work hard for 10 to 20 years, go back home before you need any of the social and health care stuff you paid into.
Yeah, assuming you don't marry in the US, and don't have kids. But surely, you can think about it in your home country after working 20 of the best years of your life.
You can marry in the US and have kids and still move somewhere else 20 years later. Don’t Americans move to Florida or whatever to retire? If you’re moving that far you can just as well leave the country lol
Of course, but 80k is also on the high-end for Paris jobs as well and buying an apartment in or around Paris is not cheap at all. And most companies in France, even in tech, except maybe the few high-end international ones like FANGS or Mistral and Datadog, explicitly request French language for their workers, whereas English is enough for most US jobs.
I'm EU citizen and looked towards working in France even for the lower wages, but the French language mandates for most jobs are really off putting, even in European companies like Airbus.
Like I'm willing to learn the language, but I'd need at least 2-3 years to get remotely fluent, and it's just not worth the added effort, just for the opportunity to get the average Europoor wages that I can anyway get with just English and my mother tongue anywhere else in EU without any additional effort.
Even in my small Eastern European home town I hear more and more french speakers in the city center every year, and when I talk to them I understand they're all here to study medicine or get junior tech jobs, which is insane to me and speaks volumes on how bad the French jobs market must be for the youth when Eastern Europe is now an immigration hotspot for the french when 20 years ago it was the opposite.
So no, Paris/France is no European SV equivalent, not by a long shot, even by the low European standards. Amsterdam is probably the closest thing to SV the EU has, after London left, but housing and CoL there is insane and even that has significantly fewer VC funding than SV and even London, which highlight just how poor the EU is by comparison to the US at tech funding.
Like I want to get the EU to the top an catch up to the US, but I don't see how that's possible with such limited tech funding and glass ceilings based on having the right nationality and language requirements. EU will never beat the US, at least not in my lifetime.
> Even in my small Eastern European home town I hear more and more french speakers in the city center every year, and when I talk to them I understand they're all here to study medicine or get junior tech jobs, which is insane to me and speaks volumes on how bad the French jobs market must be for the youth when Eastern Europe is now an immigration hotspot for the french when 20 years ago it was the opposite.
It's often mere fiscal arbitrage. Look at the Belgians in Sofia for example. Euro zone, simpler and more stable administration, much cheaper, better climate, good food. Ridiculously lower taxes. Work remotely for Belgian customers. Pay 10% tax instead of 53.5% + 25+% employer social security contributions + 13.07% employee side. Even in a junior position, working for a Belgian client, you are so much cheaper to them while your net income is so much higher.
From personal experience, in Paris 80k would be a very good salary for a senior engineer at a startup with solid funding. AI startups/big tech would pay around 50% more, but those roles are very rare.
Most people would make way less, at big French companies you won't make 80k until late in your career as an IC (they don't have a staff+ track).
So 80k sounds like a decent guess for the top 10-15%.
>And I assume the top 10-15% in Paris is substantially more than 80k?
I don't think that's a good assumption. 80k is rather high for Paris. That's a Google salary at their small office there (or it was when I checked a few years ago). I think the OP's comparison was pretty reasonable.
It's definitely on the high end. Besides the fact that most startup equity ends up being worthless, you can't wait on a four year cliff to pay your rent.
The reality is many people come on temporary visas, as tourists, as students, etc., and overstay. This policy is some attempt to address flows of quasi-legal immigration.
It's unfortunate there's friction to the process, but it's by design. 15% of American citizens and permanent residents are foreign born, the highest it's been in 50+ years, so people are successfully making it through the process. Ideally we'd have better levers to (1) modulate the rate of immigration, (2) simplify the process of legal immigration, and (3) still somehow limiting illegal immigration, quasi-legal immigration, overstays, etc. This is not the ideal solution.
> it feels necessary to say: people who come here to contribute their skills and experience don't all come along on an H1-B/L1
Do people migrate to "contribute their skills" to a foreign country, or to improve their lives? Maybe I'm a cynic, but I suspect the vast majority of people throughout history have migrated to improve their lives, not to altruistically benefit a foreign country. And that's fine, that's normal. It's what motivates people, and the U.S. has a long history of being shaped by ambitious people, especially immigrants, who wanted to improve their lot in life.
> nor do they only come from white or european countries.
I don't know if that's necessary to be said, because who thinks that? In recent decades, 85%-90% of immigrants to the U.S. are not white. >90% if you include undocumented immigrants. The trajectory of America from a white majority to white minority country is fueling at least some of the immigration backlash today. But I think for most people, it's a feeling (right or wrong) that jobs becoming harder to find, houses are becoming harder to afford, and more and more people are competing for fewer resources.
> Do people migrate to "contribute their skills" to a foreign country, or to improve their lives?
I think the two are often linked.
> I don't know if that's necessary to be said, because who thinks that?
Effective January 21, 2026, the Department of State paused all visa issuance to immigrant visa applicants who are nationals of seventy-five countries. The overwhelming majority of the affected countries are not predominantly white and are not European.
Apparently there is no white genocide going on in SA [0], and in farm attacks the victims are quite often black.
Perhaps you can enlighten me on the Zimbabwe situation?
That said, I think the centuries of colonialism and slavery--of which whites in the US greatly benefited--makes this exclusion of immigrants from predominantly brown nations disgusting. Pulling up the ladder, even from some of those who built it for you.
Correct, and it is overall a positive impact. There is marginal increased competition for a limited number of professions, and a meaningful boost to local economies
I used to have a more naive libertarian view, but after the last decade, observing both my countries (US and Sweden), I agree that you need to keep the immigration at a level where they have to adapt to your existing culture, not the opposite.
That said, importing smart engineers and entrepreneurs from the world is so absurdly beneficial for the US that... I can't find words right now.
> have migrated to improve their lives, not to altruistically benefit a foreign country
These are not mutually exclusive. I want a better life, and I also have career ambition and skills that I'm willing to deploy in a place that will give me a better life in return.
Well…your motivation is not altruistic to the host country in that case, it’s selfish.
You want a better life, the country providing it is arbitrary as long as it accepts the currency that you can provide for that better life by your skill set.
If it was altruistic you would emigrate because you believe in the country you are emigrating to even if it meant your life was worse.
> your motivation is not altruistic to the host country in that case, it’s selfish
There is nothing wrong with that. I'm selfish, you're selfish, the government is selfish, everyone in the host country is selfish. It's human nature. We all want good lives. That's the reason a transactional economy exists. It's good for the country's GDP and overall economy to welcome outside talent, and that outside talent enjoys being rewarded for their contributions, and over time, their new place of residence becomes a part of their cultural identity. That's how things usually work.
Not everyone is a saint.
> If it was altruistic you would emigrate because you believe in the country you are emigrating to even if it meant your life was worse.
Reality check: 99% of people would take a better life over a worse life. And there's nothing wrong with that. The entire world is built with this as a base assumption.
Also, reality check: Life in the US kinda sucks unless you have a well-paying skilled job or a lot of money. In either case you'll be contributing to the economy.
I made no claim that selfishness is wrong or altruism is right. Nor did i make any claims as to what life is like in the US—so I don't need any “reality checks” about what your personal beliefs are about life in the US at specific income levels, it’s not relative here. Being poor in the US probably sucks compared to being rich in the US. I am also sure that you can say that about literally every country on this planet.
My comment was about why this was not a “it’s both” type of situation. So just own your motivation for what it is—you emigrate so you can get a better life in a new country than you can get in your old country. That’s honorable enough.
This policy is a further extension of this administration’s public, explicit and frequently repeated goal of ethnic cleansing. Acting like this is a rational policy response to any real problem is ridiculous.
Both the far right and far left throw around accusations of "ethnic cleansing." Both are ridiculous, but considering the U.S. population shifted from 85% white to 55% white in the last few decades, and even today most immigrants come from Mexico, India, China, etc., there really doesn't seem to be much evidence that we're actively trying to limit the flow of non-white people into America. Besides that, there are valid reasons why people want to limit or increase immigration that don't justify hysterical accusations of ethnic cleansing.
Ethic cleansing is something much worse when that race you are "cleansing" is already living there (Israel removing Palestinian from Gaza)
The accusations is just racism. The fact that Trump gave extra fast visas to white South Afrikaans makes you think that there were some racial reasoning there.
In the last decades the whole world is more global.
> The accusations is just racism. The fact that Trump gave extra fast visas to white South Afrikaans makes you think that there were some racial reasoning there.
What is wrong if white people want to help other white people escape persecution?
But if you only help based on the colour of the skin... That's a little bit racist.
Also, as far as I know there is not persecution in South Africa. Trump used photos from the wrong conflict. And there are really bad things happening in Africa... but not to white people
I totally agree. They advertised Zelda on Facebook, which is why I was following the page in the first place. YouTube and other platform entities are introducing verification solutions of their own, but nothing exists centrally, and I’m concerned about that path.
Dine elsewhere if you’d like, but I’d ask if you find your point ironic considering the core argument in the post. If there is more concrete feedback that you have about the voice or style I’ll take it.
I don't, as my point applies regardless of the article's contents: that any downvotes of the submitter's comments are perhaps due to people not liking LLM-generated content, such as this article appears to be. (Being a person made of meat, rather than an LLM, I had to get my own opinion of LLM prose squeezed in there too - but it's a side issue, and you can ignore it if you like.)
Regarding the style, no concrete feedback I'm afraid, other than the repetition of "upstream" sounding like the LLM tic of the day. Other than that, I just got that LLM vibe from the writing, and, as above, perhaps I wasn't the only one. Some discussion here of some LLM tropes: https://qht.co/item?id=47291513 - which may apply.
I wrote this article earlier this week and it attempts to describe the change we're seeing on the internet with the advance of cheap agentic content.
I tested eight models from unrelated labs (Gemini, DeepSeek, Qwen, Gemma, Kimi, Grok) at default temperature with the prompt "Write a story in 10 sentences." Four converged on a lighthouse keeper; two of those named him Elias. The commonly derived "Elias Thorne" name now appears as the byline on an alt-medicine cancer protocols book ranked #18 in Oncology Nursing on Amazon. If anyone has a larger sample, a counter-result, or a better explanation than mode collapse into a shared training-data basin, I'd love to hear your comments.
Amazon isn't alone here, of course. Since writing this article, I also found Dr. Elias Thorne's YouTube channel, where another operator appears to be producing AI-generated health videos for seniors.
Yes you can use the code however you want but equally they are free to bar anyone they wish from accessing their servers. These are completely orthogonal issues in a legal sense.
They can bar people from accessing their servers if they do so by rewriting the entire slicer to be closed source and then implementing some actual security, instead of literally giving you the means of access AND the permission to use and modify it as you wish.
If I give you a template for a postcard, it doesn’t give you the right to send it with “signed, ricardobeat” at the end. These are orthogonal concerns.
They could very well enforce login for the entire app, that doesn’t require any closed source code and everyone would be worse off.
It does if you make the card self destruct if you don't write "signed, ricardobeat" on it. Courts have been over this in the 1990s with Nintendo. The Gameboy wouldn't boot any game that didn't start with "signed, Nintendo" so game companies just put that there and it wasn't illegal.
(Later, a trick was found to replace the signature and still boot, but it required extra chips in the game cartridge)
That is not the case, is it? You only need to spoof the BambuStudio client in order to use their cloud infrastructure. Sending prints over LAN is still possible without it.
- "It is more convenient" is not a strong enough argument there, that's kind of the point of a commercial venture.
- Yes, they could be nicer about it. They aren't. That doesn't make this any more legal or acceptable.
> it doesn’t give you the right to send it with “signed, ricardobeat” at the end.
Given this was "a developer using upstream code verbatim", in your analogy "ricardobeat" would've been printed on the blank postcard by you, then you gave me the postcard with permission to use/modify/redistribute it. Plus it'd be a machine-readable field interpreted as "this postcard supports the same envelopes as ricardobeat's template", not something read by a third-party.
Techies like us get caught up in mechanism all the time in discussions like this.
But, though there are some explicit laws where that’s how it works, that’s not generally how the legal system works. If I have a private server, and I don’t give you permission to access it - or, even better, tell you not to, it doesn’t really matter how I secure it. If you access it, you’re in the wrong.
To give a physical analogy, it doesn’t matter how I’ve secured my house. Even if the door is open, you’re not allowed to just waltz in (or, to take it a bit further, come in and start using my stuff).
In general, I agree with you. However, to extend your analogy a bit further, so that it applies to _this_ situation: suppose you buy said house. When the former owner hands over the keys, you copy them. Then, one day, you enter the house using the copied key. The former owner can't really be all that upset, can they?
1. You bought the house.
2. They gave you a key, which implies that you have permission to use it.
3. Is the problem really the _copy_ of the key?
With no authentication it's a "gates down" scenario and it's assumed that if you put your server on the open internet you intend people to connect to it.
With authentication it's "gates up" and then "without authorization" from CFAA kicks in. I think it's unlikely that a user agent string creates a "gates up" situation, especially not if it's from code granted under a permissive license.
I have a mailbox in a multi family home. The keys are numbered and standardized. There are identical mailboxes out there that have the same key as me. In fact, I had to buy a replacement key since the original key broke and I just had to tell the manufacturer which number my mailbox had.
My neighbor could in theory buy the key to my mailbox, but it would be illegal for him to actually open my mailbox and read my mail.
If I build their slicer, not modifying any line of code, then accessed using that binary, would that be acceptable? If not, why not, considering it is identical to what is on their website?
If I made any changes prior to building, would it still be acceptable? And if not, where is the line? What is the legal basis, any precedent? How much of the code may I modify before I cross an invisible threshold and somehow "bypass" an "authentication" (neither fit UA anyways, either for law or other purposes unless one can provide any evidence that it ever has).
Even if that’s correct, Bambu has a right to then press charges on the users, but can’t really complain about the guy simply copying AGPL software to make it work. He’s not the one doing the illegal part.
Bambu clearly didn’t want to press charges on their users, though, so they weaponized the law to try and prevent this, and it’s causing them issues.
In any case, we’re not in some “only the laws matter” reality, we’re also have ethics and morals to consider, in which case Bambu is clearly in the wrong. If they want to secure their servers, they should do it properly rather than using legal threats.
"Press charges" - as if this were some Simple Assault. The CFAA isn't something one "chooses" to levy or not, these are crimes against the United States of America and it is solely up to the discretion of a US Attorney to prosecute.
A US Attorney prosecuting anyone on behalf of Chinese business interests isn't a good look politically, though, and that's often a factor.
That is how I (a non-lawyer) understand it as well, but I wonder if it's so simple when you combine it with the GPLness of it all. Like, releasing something under the (A)GPL is a license to use and modify the code how you see fit, and that goes "virally" through the forks. This fork is just using their own GPL-licensed code, and it seems unreasonable (for some definition of "unreasonable") to limit forks in this way. I think it's plausible you can make an argument that if you make this kind of restriction in your GPL codebase, you're violating the GPL license of the original ("upstream") authors.
Spoofing a User-Agent by itself is not illegal. Browsers, curl, bots, monitoring tools, and privacy tools do this constantly for legitimate reasons.
The legal risk comes from why you are doing it and what protections you are bypassing.
If you are doing it specifically to bypass Bambu's authorized access, then it is very likely to fall afoul of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The mechanism (spoofing the UA) is entirely incidental to the motivation (bypass authorized access), which is what the law cares about.
weev got convicted for something pretty similar to this. His conviction was vacated, but he did spend time in prison for unauthorized access to an AT&T server that only required a specific user agent and a guessable numeric device ID number.
At least in the US, the law against unauthorized access to a computer system has no requirements for how good the security has to be. If you should reasonably know you're not supposed to be using it, that's potentially enough to make it illegal.
I checked and in that case [0] specifically, the court specifically doubted that such access was violating any applicable laws. Course, it got vacated before that could be properly addressed and this seems to be specific to NJ so if someone knows a broader case, happy to read up, but to me this makes the argument stronger that there is no reason to just presume such a "bypass" (if that counts, many of us have "bypassed" a lot via reading robots.txt, etc. in our youth) is inherently illegal. Again, happy to read if someone can provide a source saying something else. If Bambu want to argue EULA, go ahead, but let us not give these entities the ability to just wish something illegal because they simply dislike it, when there is no evidence it is.
Am currently somewhat into the topic of UAs for a personal project (not connected to Bambu printers), so am honestly interested for any tangible information, I just dislike us assuming something illegal because a corporate entity views it in a negative light.
[0] https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/131816p.pdf ("We also note that in order to be guilty of accessing “without authorization, or in excess of authorization” under New Jersey law, the Government needed to prove that Auernheimer or Spitler circumvented a code- or password-based barrier to access. See State v. Riley, 988 A.2d 1252, 1267 (N.J. Super. Ct. Law Div. 2009). Although we need not resolve whether Auernheimer’s conduct involved such a breach, no evidence was advanced at trial that the account slurper ever breached any password gate or other code-based
barrier. The account slurper simply accessed the publicly facing portion of the login screen and scraped information that AT&T unintentionally published.")
There was more than one court involved. He was convicted. Then he appealed and the appeals court vacated the conviction. So from one perspective, "the law" as a whole decided that he wasn't guilty. From another perspective, he still got involuntary lodging courtesy of the state.
I don't think courts basically ever settle narrow technical questions like that. Any court decision would carry with it particular baggage based on the rest of the specifics, so I don't think it would have established a clear precedent either way.
The funny part here is it seems Bambu is more exposed to a libel suit than the developer is for... checks notes clicking 'Fork' on Bambu's github. Since the moment he did that, his software was supposedly in breach of Bambu's...expectations.
Thanks, would have been surprised, was mainly asking because OP was mentioning legal concerns. This may be a case for their EULA, sure, but I would have been surprised if there was any legal precedent or grounding for such a statement.
They're essentially saying "yes, the code is open source, but you're not allowed to modify it or we'll ban you and threaten you with legal action", which is completely antithetical to the whole idea behind open source (especially the GPL which literally says in the license text itself that it was created to protect your right to run modified software). "Violation of the open source social contract" is a good way to describe it.
You're correct of course that this is an entirely distinct argument from what Bambu's legally allowed to do under existing law.
You can run modified software per the GPL but that does not include the right to connect to Bambu's servers with your modified software. That is entirely reasonable (especially since this is not some social/messaging application). If I release a client as open source, that doesn't mean it's OK for modified clients to connect to my server. I expect you to use it offline or set up your own server to connect to.
I don't know if that is what is happening here because the article is talking about a fork that is bypassing Bambu's servers entirely (which is permitted under the AGPL) and Bambu is not happy.
Edit: On re-reading, it seems to me the fork is still calling Bambu's servers. It's just bypassing some things.
You must put authorization on your server if you don't want others connecting to it.
While the right of access is not granted by AGPL - it is not reasonable to run a public service with an AGPL client and say you shouldn't be connecting to it.
They are doing a lot of work to create implied consent under CFAA.
If you want to control access you must do something to control access - it must reach a threshold, it cannot just be a public user agent string.
> You must put authorization on your server if you don't want others connecting to it.
Unfortunately, the CFAA doesn't necessarily require that authorization is implemented through technical means, and it definitely doesn't require any authorization to be technically robust.
The point is that they distributed AGPL licensed software which legally speaking puts them on very thin ice if they say "actually you're not allowed to modify that software we gave you and explicitly told you you could modify to do whatever you want."
This is a direct quote from the Affero GPL:
> When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid
circumvention of technological measures to the extent such circumvention
is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to
the covered work, and you disclaim any intention to limit operation or
modification of the work as a means of enforcing, against the work's
users, your or third parties' legal rights to forbid circumvention of
technological measures.
The thing Bambu is doing is very much against the spirit of the AGPL, which is the license they chose for the Bambu printer software. And the AGPL has such broadly written language it's hard to believe what they are doing complies with the letter.
You're certainly allowed to modify the software, but that doesn't necessarily give you the right to connect it to hardware owned by other people. And AGPL does not provide for any right to services -- only a right to use and modify the covered work.
For example, AGPL doesn't prevent you from being banned from a Mastodon server.
The key part of the sentence you quoted is "... to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work" -- meaning, you can't use anti-circumvention to prevent people from using or modifying the copyrighted code.
Again, legally that's correct. But it goes completely against the spirit of open source and especially the GPL which says in the license itself that "our General Public Licenses are intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program". If you can't run a modified version of a program without getting sued, you practically speaking do not have the freedom to modify it.
Elsewhere, the GNU explains why this is important[1]:
> With proprietary software, the program controls the users, and some other entity (the developer or “owner”) controls the program. So the proprietary program gives its developer power over its users. That is unjust in itself; moreover, it tempts the developer to mistreat the users in other ways.
> [...]
> Freedom means having control over your own life. If you use a program to carry out activities in your life, your freedom depends on your having control over the program. You deserve to have control over the programs you use, and all the more so when you use them for something important in your life.
Telling your users they can't run modified versions of your open source client goes against this principle.
Again, I'm not necessarily saying Bambu isn't within their legal rights to do this, I'm just saying it's a jerk move.
"You can't use any client you want because of security" is bullshit, as if hackers will care what client you'd like them to use or not when they're trying to hack your infrastructure.
This is just Bambu alienating their customer base, again.
This is a v0.1 draft protocol for letting users own the derived claims AI systems make about them, rather than the platform that derived them. There's an in-development Rust reference implementation alongside it (in private, not yet public).
Would value feedback, particularly from anyone who's worked on Solid, AT Protocol, Iroh, or the Willow Protocol. The comparison chapter in the spec walks through how this relates to each. Willow in particular has real overlap and I tried to be honest about that.
I do think it points at something bigger than just attention architecture: "memory" isn't just storage, and merely longer context isn't the same thing as having a better understanding of the source data.
I'm looking at this through the "personal AI" lens, where I think the missing "memory" layer seems to be consolidation & prioritization. It's not enough to just pattern match and grab the right emails, notes, etc, stuff them into the context window & hope, but instead it's useful to consider offline processing and turn events into durable state: clusters of observed data becomes episodes, assumptions, contradictions and power confidence for suggestions.
That also pushes up the need for provenance & inspectability. It's going to be interesting to see what kind of memory consolidation strategies are required for each domain use case.
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