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Anduril, a startup from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, now valued at $1B

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Re: Anduril, a startup from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, now valued at $1B

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social safety nets, open borders, future ongoing existence of an orderly nation. Pick two.

If you think open borders and ongoing orderly nationare an option you're wrong. Whoever walks into your nation will shape it. Your children's voices don't matter. There are far more children outside the country than in it and democracy can't work with open borders.

I think for most any given policy you could find some constellation of trade-offs and counterbalances that would make it work. Maybe for a certain value of "work" because in many cases those trade-offs would have to violate values or principles that we consider more important.

I think that a nation could in theory have open borders and prosper, but the trade-offs would have to be such that only like-minded people who can fit in and succeed would have an incentive to immigrate. This means that their children's voices would be saying the same thing as your children's, but there would be e.g. no help for the poor since that would attract enough free riders to kill the goose.

So I agree with you that borders are preferable, but I don't think getting rid of them is totally impossible, but I do think that doing so would be even worse for the compassion that makes people want to in the first place.

Re: Anduril, a startup from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, now valued at $1B

#332
post #63

Yuck. It's like the perfect marriage of taking any remaining humanity out of law enforcement and add tons of bottomless greed to it. It's so very Peter Thiel-ish. I'd love to say I wish them well, but I hope this company goes out of business due to a public outrage. But they'll always find someone to sell to, like authoritarian governments, and make money hand-over-fist.

I say it's Thielish because it's an extremely audience-focused business without much competition because potential competitors are ideologically opposed to entering the market. Something else like this which comes to mind is gene editing or designer babies as a service, but this would have the opposite level of support from the current government regime.

Re: Anduril, a startup from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, now valued at $1B

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet no serious commentator advocates shutting down tourism out of concern for spread of disease, and it's long been found that the key to preventing infection outbreaks is to have a well-functioning medical system.

Probably because tourists move through very easily monitored access points. Not sure about the US, but most major airports in Asia have body-heat sensors to flag anyone who might be suffering from an infection-related fever. Similar controls should exist at all immigration points to the US. Implementing processes and technical systems to mitigate risk first requires acknowledging that the risk exists, and isn't just…

I've never knowingly been tested by any body heat sensor at an airport or other border crossing, and I've travelled plenty in Asia, USA, Europe, and in/out of my home country of Australia.

It’s hard to imagine how much use it would be; an active fever is only one indicator of whether someone is carrying an infectious illness, so such a test will lead to many false positives and negatives.

I'm fine with a sober discussion about the economic and moral pros/cons of immigration, and about fair and humane means of controlling immigration.

But this line of argument seems like a red herring.

Re: Anduril, a startup from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, now valued at $1B

#334
post #63

Yuck. It's like the perfect marriage of taking any remaining humanity out of law enforcement and add tons of bottomless greed to it. It's so very Peter Thiel-ish. I'd love to say I wish them well, but I hope this company goes out of business due to a public outrage. But they'll always find someone to sell to, like authoritarian governments, and make money hand-over-fist.

From your words I understand you don’t see compatible border patrol or border control with “humanity” and nothing said will change your mind. Are you aware of any country without any border control laws or laws to regulate the movements of people? I am only aware of countries who cannot enforce their own laws, and for sure I am for sure not speaking about international agreements between countries which is a total di…

I said it takes the humanity out if it. I am not, nor have I ever been against, having a border patrol. You’re putting words in my internet mouth.

It’s how you approach the idea of border patrol. I don’t know the ratios but border enforcement probably splits their time between smugglers of things and smugglers of people (or just Individuals crossing).

This fully AI based border-patrol system could work well if you see the border patrol problem as a "bringing shit in that we never want, under any circumstance" scenario, so for drugs this could work well. (although it'll just be yet another cat and mouse game, with the AI taking even longer to learn)

But the other side of the coin is the people side. It's more complicated. With people, it isn't just "we never want, under any circumstances" – there are many questions to be asked. We want to apprehend the actual smugglers for trafficking people, even if we want to deport the actual migrants, we want to properly file them, make sure they aren't malnourished, and send them back safely. Is an AI going to do all that? No. That's the problem with this solution.

I'm sorry that this doesn't fit into a binary view of "he must hate this totally AI border control, so he must be for open borders!"

Re: Anduril, a startup from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, now valued at $1B

#335
post #75

This is probably how the wall should be built for the most part. It allows wildlife to freely roam but then uses AI to identify specific threats. This will probably save a lot of lives too. Then Trump can have his wall and we can all laugh that it is invisible but it will hopefully be effective for border security and environmentally friendly.

>It allows wildlife to freely roam well good to know that the wildlife is going to have more privileges than the people. Truly a humanitarian technology company. We sure do live in interesting times.

I mean this is if we "have" to have a wall.

Re: Anduril, a startup from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, now valued at $1B

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but none of that has anything to do with you or your accomplishments which is where luck enters the equation as to your starting place. For the record I think borders should be secure, but also allow pathways to citizenship.

> Sure, but none of that has anything to do with you or your accomplishments which is where luck enters the equation as to your starting place. We didn't earn it, but we were given it by our ancestors. While it does behoove us to be generous, it is still ours by right. We also have an obligation to our descendants to preserve it for them. What good is it working to improve the fate of our descendants, if it is only g…

Yes you were given it, which means you were lucky in what you received. By all means try to do the same for your descendants I didn't say anything to the contrary, just that they would be lucky in the same way

Re: Anduril, a startup from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, now valued at $1B

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m not a member of the GOP. Extremely far from it. I didn't mean to imply you were or were not a member of the GOP. I included the observation about their hypocrisy simply because they are the largest group making the most noise about border security while clearly not actually giving a shit about Americans' jobs being "taken" by undocumented laborers. > Yes, of course. Punish those who exploit undocumented workers…

What you're talking about is basically a surveillance based internal border. It can work that way for people if you have massive levels of internal surveillance (otherwise how do you think the government can catch employers of illegals with any efficiency), but it doesn't do much for goods or people who cross the border without wanting to get a job, like gang members, dealers etc.

> What you're talking about is basically a surveillance based internal border. It can work that way for people if you have massive levels of internal surveillance (otherwise how do you think the government can catch employers of illegals with any efficiency)

What you're talking about is called law enforcement and it has existed in this country for a long time. Until you clarify your point (what are "massive levels of internal surveillance"?) and justify it (why isn't the current investigative toolbox enough?), this is nothing but FUD, and ridiculous FUD at that.

> it doesn't do much for goods or people who cross the border without wanting to get a job, like gang members, dealers etc.

To the extent that this is actually a real problem, why do you think these people are crossing the border? Are they just coming up here because they feel like it, or are they responding to some kind of demand?

Re: Anduril, a startup from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, now valued at $1B

#338
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your words I understand you don’t see compatible border patrol or border control with “humanity” and nothing said will change your mind. Are you aware of any country without any border control laws or laws to regulate the movements of people? I am only aware of countries who cannot enforce their own laws, and for sure I am for sure not speaking about international agreements between countries which is a total di…

I said it takes the humanity out if it. I am not, nor have I ever been against, having a border patrol. You’re putting words in my internet mouth. It’s how you approach the idea of border patrol. I don’t know the ratios but border enforcement probably splits their time between smugglers of things and smugglers of people (or just Individuals crossing). This fully AI based border-patrol system could work well if you se…

Binary view? Hate? what are you speaking about? I am just pointing to you the fact that you are mixing current politics with a principle of law and order which derived from any civilization. The conclusions you extract from it are all yours.

You should listen Palmer's interview in the podcast someone suggested in this entry. There is no humanity in the security arc or control of any airport, or in the form of any bureau and, even if there is a lot of margin for improvement, and there are methods effective than others, I do not believe that by denying these "control elements" their role and purpose will just fade away as if the civilization never needed them in the first place.

As soon as you recognize we need to have these controls in place, why not make them more effective? The humanity towards infractors of a bureaucratic process is regulated in a separate term, and it should not be left to a physical exam to the ones who can skip a control. And regarding humanity, these methods do not imply the judgement of a human person on individuals, it just will multiply the effectiveness.

As said I did not want to get into the current political discussions on the topic, just to remark that these things exist because they are necessary and negating them is negating the reality of the world.

Re: Anduril, a startup from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, now valued at $1B

#339
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You sound like someone with the ability to live anywhere, who consequently has little stake in their current "somewhere." And you sound like someone with the same privilege speaking from a place of paternalism. Restrictive borders disproportionately harm the poor. > I have family in New England who ran an all-organic dairy farm. They had to shut down a few years ago, in part because they couldn't compete with the f…

And open borders hurt everyone

That's why we have closed borders between us states, right?

Re: Anduril, a startup from Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, now valued at $1B

#340
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why aren’t they deploying this on the US/Canadian border? Or Alaska? I can see Russia from there. This whole thing smacks of corruption.

It's not corruption, it's basic resource allocation. Why would we want to dedicate equal amounts of manpower to both borders, when only one of them accounts for the overwhelming majority of unlawful crossings?

Since when are unlawful crossings a defense issue? Is Mexico sending an invasion force ready to storm the capital?

Soviet Union used the army to police immigration as well.

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