On Fox News, Trump said that regarding Muslims in the US, he would do “unthinkable” things, “and certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country”. He also said it’s impossible to tell with absolute certainty whether a Syrian was Christian or Muslim, so he’d have to assume they’re all Muslims. This suggests that telling US officials that I’m a LW transhumanist might not convince them that I have no connection with ISIS. I’m not from Syria, but I have an Arabic name and my family is Muslim.
I’ve read Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, and this might be a generalization from fictional evidence, but I can’t help asking: As a foreign student in the US, how likely is Trump to have me tortured for no reason? Should I drop everything and make a break for it before it’s too late? Initially, many Germans didn’t take Hitler’s extremist rhetoric seriously either, right? (If I get deported in a civilized manner, well, no harm done to me as far as I’m concerned.)
I normally assume, as a rule of thumb, that politicians intend to fulfill all their promises. If a politician says he wants to invade Mars, that could be pure rhetoric, but I’d typically assume that he might try it in the worst case scenario. I have observed it is often the case that when we think other people are joking, they are in fact exaggerating their true desires and presenting them in an ironic/humorous light.
Seems like you’re just falling for partisan media histrionics and conflating a lot of different things out of context.
On Fox News, Trump said that regarding Muslims in the US, he would do “unthinkable” things, “and certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country”.
In context, Trump is giving a tough-sounding but vague and non-committal response to questions about whether there should be a digital database of Muslims in the country. He later partially walked this back, saying it was a leading question from a reporter and he meant we should have terrorism watch lists. Which obviously already exist.
I’ve read Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, and this might be a generalization from fictional evidence, but I can’t help asking: As a foreign student in the US, how likely is Trump to have me tortured for no reason?
I’d say it’s about as likely as you giving yourself a heart attack reading political outrage porn.
Thanks, I guess. I knew he was talking about a digital database, but I was wondering if it could have been a dogwhistle for something else. I don’t have a favorable opinion of human decency in general.
FWIW, that wasn’t a political comment. I hardly ever read or watch anything political. Some TV clips were shown to me by an acquaintance and I wanted an honest assessment of what he had told me it was about. I don’t have any opinions on the subject myself.
assume, as a rule of thumb, that politicians intend to fulfill all their promises.
This is a horrible rule of thumb. It’s not anywhere close to true, and even if it were, their ability lags their intent by orders of magnitude. Instead, assume that politicians will very slightly alter existing trends in order to encourage their constituents.
I suspect you are at somewhat higher risk of being targetted by officials for your foreign-ness than you were last year. Trump being president will somewhat increase as well, but more because it’ll be a sign that the general populace is more racist than we thought than because of any actual policy change.
I think it’s really unlikely you’d be imprisoned or tortured, with or without Trump, unless there are stronger ties to enemy groups than just your nationality.
I assume that because I read on the SEP that strategic voting skews results in democracies. The rule of thumb is more like a Schelling point than a lower order rational principle. I said that’s what I usually do because I’m aware it’s not very applicable in this context since I’m not voting in these elections, but it’s a habit I’ve indulged in for years, unfortunately.
If I were in a pedantic mood, I’d say that the results skew because of bad voting mechanisms (state-level electors and first-past-the-post decisions) that encourage strategic voting, rather than directly from strategic voting.
Still, the electoral skew isn’t what you should fear, nor the actual election outcome. The signalling of the populace that such ideas are acceptable to a significant degree is very scary. It’s up to you just how personally to take the fear, and how to react to a risk increase from a small fraction of a percent to a less-small fraction of a percent.
I can imagine if you’re an activist or particularly stand out as a target group, or just a nervous person, it might be justified to maintain an exit plan you can execute over the course of few days if something changes your estimate of personal danger to the measurable range.
that such ideas are acceptable to a significant degree is very scary.
Which ideas? After John Yoo’s memos on torture, Snowden, assassination-by-drone as an entirely routine matter, Guantanamo, etc. what exactly is new and scary to you?
New and scary is the degree to which it’s become normal and accepted in mainstream press and the general populace. People with power have always been horrible, but until recently they’ve had to do it in secret and say they’re sorry when they get caught.
New and scary is the degree to which it’s become normal and accepted in mainstream press and the general populace.
So… if we’re talking presidents, this goes straight to Bush and Obama. I would say Obama in particular because he was supposed to be a bulwark against such things.
However we are discussing why is Trump scary. Why is he more scary than status quo or, say, Hillary? There is a pronounced trend towards a police state, Trump isn’t going to stop it, but then I don’t see anyone who would and who has a chance at getting to a position where he could.
“As a foreign student in the US, how likely is Trump to have me tortured for no reason?”
It’s hard to judge, but I think having a pro-torture president will make use of torture by the police more likely. My feeling is that you aren’t in clear and present danger, and institutional changes take time.
You are not as safe as someone with a non-Arabic name.
My feeling is that you don’t need a go bag, but you might as well start researching other places which would be good for you to live.
Hitler had a huge party of supporters behind him that he spend a decade gathering around him. Trump on the other hand is much more of an one-man show. One of the biggest role of the president is making personal choices and there simply no comparable pool of talent. Under a Trump administration someone like Chris Christie who’s a long-term friend of the Trump family is likely going to get a post in his administration.
When it comes to totalitarism it’s a mistake to assume that the past will repeat exactly the same way. It’s hard to believe a US government would simply torture random people with Arabic names intentionally just because they have Arab names. It’s more likely that privacy will get completely eroded. Today we have face recognition that’s strong enough to hook up all camera’s on streets to it and get general movement profiles. Forbidding encryption would also be on the table.
On Fox News, Trump said that regarding Muslims in the US, he would do “unthinkable” things, “and certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country”. He also said it’s impossible to tell with absolute certainty whether a Syrian was Christian or Muslim, so he’d have to assume they’re all Muslims. This suggests that telling US officials that I’m a LW transhumanist might not convince them that I have no connection with ISIS. I’m not from Syria, but I have an Arabic name and my family is Muslim.
I’ve read Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, and this might be a generalization from fictional evidence, but I can’t help asking: As a foreign student in the US, how likely is Trump to have me tortured for no reason? Should I drop everything and make a break for it before it’s too late? Initially, many Germans didn’t take Hitler’s extremist rhetoric seriously either, right? (If I get deported in a civilized manner, well, no harm done to me as far as I’m concerned.)
I normally assume, as a rule of thumb, that politicians intend to fulfill all their promises. If a politician says he wants to invade Mars, that could be pure rhetoric, but I’d typically assume that he might try it in the worst case scenario. I have observed it is often the case that when we think other people are joking, they are in fact exaggerating their true desires and presenting them in an ironic/humorous light.
Seems like you’re just falling for partisan media histrionics and conflating a lot of different things out of context.
In context, Trump is giving a tough-sounding but vague and non-committal response to questions about whether there should be a digital database of Muslims in the country. He later partially walked this back, saying it was a leading question from a reporter and he meant we should have terrorism watch lists. Which obviously already exist.
I’d say it’s about as likely as you giving yourself a heart attack reading political outrage porn.
Thanks, I guess. I knew he was talking about a digital database, but I was wondering if it could have been a dogwhistle for something else. I don’t have a favorable opinion of human decency in general.
FWIW, that wasn’t a political comment. I hardly ever read or watch anything political. Some TV clips were shown to me by an acquaintance and I wanted an honest assessment of what he had told me it was about. I don’t have any opinions on the subject myself.
This is a horrible rule of thumb. It’s not anywhere close to true, and even if it were, their ability lags their intent by orders of magnitude. Instead, assume that politicians will very slightly alter existing trends in order to encourage their constituents.
I suspect you are at somewhat higher risk of being targetted by officials for your foreign-ness than you were last year. Trump being president will somewhat increase as well, but more because it’ll be a sign that the general populace is more racist than we thought than because of any actual policy change.
I think it’s really unlikely you’d be imprisoned or tortured, with or without Trump, unless there are stronger ties to enemy groups than just your nationality.
I assume that because I read on the SEP that strategic voting skews results in democracies. The rule of thumb is more like a Schelling point than a lower order rational principle. I said that’s what I usually do because I’m aware it’s not very applicable in this context since I’m not voting in these elections, but it’s a habit I’ve indulged in for years, unfortunately.
If I were in a pedantic mood, I’d say that the results skew because of bad voting mechanisms (state-level electors and first-past-the-post decisions) that encourage strategic voting, rather than directly from strategic voting.
Still, the electoral skew isn’t what you should fear, nor the actual election outcome. The signalling of the populace that such ideas are acceptable to a significant degree is very scary. It’s up to you just how personally to take the fear, and how to react to a risk increase from a small fraction of a percent to a less-small fraction of a percent.
I can imagine if you’re an activist or particularly stand out as a target group, or just a nervous person, it might be justified to maintain an exit plan you can execute over the course of few days if something changes your estimate of personal danger to the measurable range.
Which ideas? After John Yoo’s memos on torture, Snowden, assassination-by-drone as an entirely routine matter, Guantanamo, etc. what exactly is new and scary to you?
New and scary is the degree to which it’s become normal and accepted in mainstream press and the general populace. People with power have always been horrible, but until recently they’ve had to do it in secret and say they’re sorry when they get caught.
So… if we’re talking presidents, this goes straight to Bush and Obama. I would say Obama in particular because he was supposed to be a bulwark against such things.
However we are discussing why is Trump scary. Why is he more scary than status quo or, say, Hillary? There is a pronounced trend towards a police state, Trump isn’t going to stop it, but then I don’t see anyone who would and who has a chance at getting to a position where he could.
“As a foreign student in the US, how likely is Trump to have me tortured for no reason?”
It’s hard to judge, but I think having a pro-torture president will make use of torture by the police more likely. My feeling is that you aren’t in clear and present danger, and institutional changes take time.
You are not as safe as someone with a non-Arabic name.
My feeling is that you don’t need a go bag, but you might as well start researching other places which would be good for you to live.
Hitler had a huge party of supporters behind him that he spend a decade gathering around him. Trump on the other hand is much more of an one-man show. One of the biggest role of the president is making personal choices and there simply no comparable pool of talent. Under a Trump administration someone like Chris Christie who’s a long-term friend of the Trump family is likely going to get a post in his administration.
When it comes to totalitarism it’s a mistake to assume that the past will repeat exactly the same way. It’s hard to believe a US government would simply torture random people with Arabic names intentionally just because they have Arab names. It’s more likely that privacy will get completely eroded. Today we have face recognition that’s strong enough to hook up all camera’s on streets to it and get general movement profiles. Forbidding encryption would also be on the table.
Thanks, I’m basically ignorant about contemporary American politics. (But I’ve read Tocqueville. This is probably not a desirable state of affairs.)