Links - 19th June 2025 (2 - Migrants: Canada)

Ottawa plans 'multi-stage' vetting process for visa applicants from Gaza amid security fears : r/canada - "1000? Dont be ridiculous
'The government originally said the program would be designed to allow 1,000 Palestinians from Gaza, but Immigration Minister Marc Miller has since said that there would be no “hard cap” on the number of people allowed to use the program.'
Remember the pushback to 25,000 syrians? Trudeau nearly doubled it in response to something like 43,000+ if I remember correctly. Then brought in 20,000 Eritreans. Which is the second worse nation to live in on earth right after north korea Who decided to fight amongst eachother with sticks and bats last year"
"There seems to be a fetish among western nations to import people that make their countries less safe, poorer and have nothing but hatred and contempt for the host nation. It’s rather black pilling."
"They think these people will be perpetually voting for their party. They'll have 5 kids per family and hope the lot of them vote party line. It's a long game."

Anthony Koch: The U.K. is ending open-borders immigration. Canada should do the same - "In one of the most consequential political shifts in recent memory, Starmer has charted a new and unapologetically realist course on immigration. It is a striking departure not only from his party’s past rhetoric, but from the dominant dogma that has guided western policy-making for the better part of three decades: that mass immigration is always an economic benefit, a social good, and a moral imperative. Today, Starmer is dismantling that orthodoxy piece by piece... As recently as 2022, Canada was adding more than a million people per year through a combination of permanent immigration, international student intake, temporary worker programs, and asylum claims. This is not coordinated nation-building, it is unmanaged growth. And the consequences are everywhere: runaway housing costs, collapsing affordability, overstretched hospitals, stagnant productivity, and a generation of young Canadians priced out of the future. But the effects are not merely economic. They are social, cultural, and civil as well. On the streets of Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, diaspora groups now square off over foreign conflicts with disturbing frequency. Protests turn into brawls. Schools become battlegrounds. Religious institutions face threats and vandalism not for what they preach here in Canada, but for the politics of distant homelands. From Middle Eastern tensions to South Asian rivalries, we are importing divisions faster than we can build cohesion. Multiculturalism without integration has mutated into parallel societies — and at times, outright hostility between them. Prime Minister Mark Carney has indicated an interest in adjusting course. There is growing recognition of the strain posed by ballooning temporary programs. But Liberal changes have been reactive and piecemeal, too little, too late to undo the distortions already set in motion. Despite a decade of record population growth, Canada’s real GDP per capita has stagnated. Productivity is declining. Infrastructure lags far behind need. The promise of a growing economy has not translated into growing prosperity for the average Canadian. And yet the dominant vision remains one of constant expansion. Though Carney has not explicitly endorsed the goals of the Century Initiative, it is noteworthy that his inner circle includes senior figures tied to the group, an organization whose central premise is that bigger is always better, and that Canada should aim to reach 100 million people by 2100. The New Democratic Party offers no meaningful dissent, still clinging to the romanticism of borderless globalism. And the Conservative party, though beginning to voice legitimate concerns about housing supply and integration, has yet to present a coherent and politically confident plan to reform the immigration system. If even Britain’s Labour government, long a standard-bearer of liberal cosmopolitanism, can shift course, what’s stopping Canada’s political class?"

Meme - Bruce @bruce_barrett: "These people milk the taxpayers in Canada, drive SUV’s, have no jobs and then beg for money.   There needs to be more public shaming like this. 👇"
"Caught 1 of the fake homeless morts in Woodbridge in 4K"

When it comes to homelessness, my heart is in danger of bleeding dry : r/canada - "Keep in mind, uncontrolled immigration puts tremendous pressure on entry level positions for careers that used to make a nice living, even as juniors.  I work in IT, part of my job is doing technical interviews. After like eleven failed interviews my boss said, fuck it, we are not hiring juniors anymore. Those guys have a patina of knowledge, enough to fool recruiters and HR, but don't last 10 mins against real questions.  We used to nurture juniors. Not anymore."

Yemeni terror suspect placed under house arrest at Toronto mosque - "A Yemeni arrested as he was allegedly trying to leave Canada to join a Middle East terrorist group has been released on bail to live under house arrest at a Toronto mosque.  A copy of an Ontario judge’s release order obtained by Global News shows Husam Taha Ali Al-Sewaiee was ordered to “reside at the mosque” in Toronto’s North York district... A citizen of Yemen who has appeared at Gaza protests in Toronto, Al-Sewaiee was initially arrested in Mississauga, Ont., by Peel Regional Police on April 15 for uttering threats."
More censorship of "pro-Palestinian" speech! If you don't give him endless appeals, that violates due process and is a Danger to Democracy

Yemeni terror suspect placed under house arrest at Toronto mosque | Globalnews.ca : r/Toronto_Ontario - "The question is, do Canadians now get to have mass protests outside mosques because one of them is holding a promising young terrorist? Do they get to yell things like "go back to where you came from" and "Islam is Nazism" with signs and people in masks with megaphones? Or would that be harassment based on bigotry?  Just curious 🤔"

Uptick in racism, cliques from SouthEast Asians at schools in the past few years? : r/Vaughan - "EDIT: South Asians not Southeast - my bad
My son goes to school in the west Woodbridge where there's a decent chunk of South Asian (mainly Indian) kids who have been moving in. Obviously that's not a problem at all in itself and makes sense given the demographic to the west and the sprawl associated with that.  But, the stuff I'm hearing is really worrying and seems to be getting ignored by admins for fear of retribution / being called racist.  Frequent use of the n-word from them, insulting teachers and students alike in their own language, exclusion of white and black kids from activities, social media groups and group chats that are only in their language, and (of course) parents who berate teachers who dare discipline their children with the excuse of "racism" towards them.  On top of that, t there have been cases of infighting amongst themselves too. Notably this week he said 3 Indian boys threatened and verbally abused a boy who's from Pakistan until a teacher stepped in. The Pakistani boy who, based on my son's description, keeps to himself and is generally shy and non-provocative has missed school since. I suspect this will only get worse as tensions rise between those countries.  Beyond the bullying, there's a generally lack of respect towards cleanliness of the cafeteria, yard, & parking lots. RAMPANT cheating on tests & assignments (via those language-specific group chats)—this one is particularly getting worse and worse. Girls allegedly being SA'd harassed. It's all horrible.  Obviously bullying / cliques have been around since forever but my older daughter graduated from the same school about 5 years ago and said it wasn't ever that bad. We all love that Canada has been a melting pot of cultures but it seems the pot has stopped melting and is overflowing.  For what it's worth, there are quite a few South Asians who are the antithesis of everything above at his school and in life. I'm not saying everyone is like this or that we should assume any one person is. BUT it is problematic that there seems to be an unwillingness to accept Canadian values from a worrying majority in this case.  We NEED to do better at enforcing those values and ensuring teachers are the beacon of those values before they are wiped out entirely.  Parents out there: is this a trend across the board? Or is my son's school an outlier?"
Time to blame white people

The Buck You Will on X - "DID YOU KNOW?  Trudeau’s refugees are getting a FREE $81,760 a year from the Liberal government?  $80 FUCKING GRAND!  That’s $20,000 MORE than the average Canadian salary - and it’s TAX FREE!!  Explain to me HOW THE FUCK IS THIS FAIR to all of us who have worked, are working, & continue to work REAL jobs & pay taxes - not sitting on our asses or out protesting & and being a nuisance?   WHY THE FUCK SHOULD WE BE PAYING THIS?"

Immigrants are driving demand for goat meat in Canada to new heights, but the supply can’t keep up - The Globe and Mail - "In 2021, there were just 253,278 goats (including ones raised for milk or fibre) on Canadian farms. Compare that with 4.28 million beef cattle and 14.1 million pigs the same year (the most recent for which comparable figures are available). And while the number of goats slaughtered here rose by 74 per cent from 2016 to 2024, it still falls far short of satisfying the market. In that same period, the amount of imported goat meat – primarily from New Zealand and Australia – doubled, and now accounts for two-thirds of the robust, gamey protein eaten in Canada... Between the high rate of disease, the time it takes to raise goats compared with other livestock and the cost of processing, lots of farmers enter and then exit the industry after just a few years... The requests of customers are so varied that Mr. Al-Hilal, a Syrian refugee who arrived here in 2016, usually leaves whole goats intact and butchers them on demand. Shoppers from Saudi Arabia and Syria typically ask for “apple-sized pieces” that will be used in rice dishes such as kabsa or maqluba. The ones from Yemen often ask for the meat plus all the organs to fry, stew and cook with rice. Indians want small cubes for curries. Big spenders want the whole animal to prepare as a showy centrepiece at a party. Goat is popular in the global south because it’s leaner than other red meats, its flavour pairs well with robust spices and it can be eaten by many different religious groups. Every December the Canadian Meat Goat Association publishes a calendar that highlights religious holidays and cultural celebrations and what type of goat is preferred for each: Males with tender meat are desired for the Hindu festival of Navaratri, Easter calls for fleshy milk-fed kids and the ideal goat for Eid-al-Adha, the Muslim holiday when an animal is sacrificed, is an intact male at least a year old."

Instagram - "Music on the GO Train is kinda fire tho 😅  🎥 Credit: neetiiisharma / TT"
If you're Indian and dislike passengers playing Indian music on the train so loudly that you can hear it through your AirPods, you have internalised racism
This won't stop left wingers trying to force everyone to use public transport

Similarities in Nigerian asylum claims based on sexual orientation have Legal Aid Ontario asking questions - "Nigerian asylum seekers in Canada are making so many similar claims based on sexual orientation that Legal Aid Ontario is worried some claims may be fabricated.  Jawad Kassab, who leads the refugee and immigration program at Legal Aid Ontario, said the agency has identified an "unusual" pattern in sexual orientation claims filed by Nigerian refugee seekers this year... Kassab said he is concerned that if claims are fabricated, refugees with legitimate claims might have a harder time getting the help they need.  "It galls me because of the potential impact that it could have on the refugee system and the Canadian public's perception of refugee claimants and refugees in a very vulnerable time globally," he said... Kassab said Legal Aid Ontario, which covers the legal costs for most refugee claims heard in the province, became suspicious after a routine review of refugee applications showed that 60 to 70 per cent of about 600 Nigerian claims made in Ontario since April were based on persecution because of sexual orientation.  Kassab described that number as "high, relative to other countries."  Kassab said the stories often involved a married person whose spouse discovered them with a same-sex partner. The married couple then reconciled and they and the same-sex partner all applied for refugee status in Canada over fears of persecution in Nigeria. The fact that a few lawyers were responsible for a "disproportionate" number of claims also raised questions, Kassab said. As a result, he said Legal Aid fears some of the claims are either made up by individual claimants or that legal representatives coach them to do so... Nigerian nationals are the second-largest group seeking refugee status in Canada in 2017. By the end of August, 2,055 Nigerians had applied for asylum, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada... Refugee cases based on sexual orientation are difficult to adjudicate, said Sean Rehaag, a law professor who specializes in refugee and immigration law at York University's Osgoode Hall Law School.  Deciding if someone's being truthful about their sexuality "is a problematic if not impossible task," he said. "
Damn racist, xenophobic, homophobic agency! People would never lie about their sexual orientation for advantage

Plan to let undocumented migrants stay in Canada to be examined by PM, ministers - The Globe and Mail - "Syed Hussan, executive director, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, said people who are living and working here already would not apply additional pressure on housing.  He said regularizing the status of migrants who are living here could also lead to the injection of billions of dollars into the economy. He said a program to give status to people living in Canada would be a “litmus test” of the government’s commitment to support migrants."
From 2024. Clearly, people don't respond to incentives

Meme - Canadian Immigration: "ARE YOU BRINGING ANYTHING INTO THE COUNTRY?"
*foreign conflicts*

Meme - "I regret to inform you that this is a Korean girl studying in Canada *25 other people, with 1 being black and the rest Indian*"

Tablesalt 🇨🇦 on X - "🚨🚨BREAKING   Immigration Minister Miller BREAKS HIS PROMISE  to reduce parent and grandparent immigration visas to 0 for 2025 applications  Only March 11th he quietly signed a ministerial order allowing 25,000 new visas."

Meme - Daniel Foch @daniel_foch: "Canada's recent population boom has not come with productivity gains"
"Its recent population boom has not come with productivity gains"
*Population surging and real GDP per worker falling*
Weird. We're told that open borders increase productivity and unleash economic growth

Canada's immigration reset could cause chaos, say experts - "“I take responsibility for my decisions, but looking back, I feel like I was brainwashed by immigration agents,” she said. “I had never been to Canada and I didn’t know the environment or anybody here. I had to rely on what they said.”"
Naturally, the Indians then complain that they were missold a bill of goods and blame Canada and Canadians for not living up to the immigration agents' promises

Dan Knight on X - "Well, well, well—Canada’s immigration system strikes again, and this time it’s not just a sieve; it’s a black hole. According to a Globe and Mail article Nearly 50,000 international students—students who were supposed to be enriching Canada's universities and colleges—are nowhere to be found. Poof! Gone. Maybe they’re working under the table, maybe they’ve crossed into the U.S., or maybe they’re just laughing at how easy it is to game Justin Trudeau’s broken system. But hey, who’s counting? Certainly not Trudeau.  This is what happens when you turn the immigration system into a glorified Ponzi scheme. Schools rake in the cash—because international students pay through the nose—but don’t bother checking whether these students ever show up to class. Why would they? There’s no downside for the institutions, no accountability, and Trudeau’s Liberals aren’t exactly known for cracking down on their woke immigration utopia.  Now, let’s talk numbers.  almost 20,000 students from India alone didn’t show up—but don’t worry, the RCMP is “reaching out” to India. Reaching out? What does that mean, sending a polite email asking, “Hey, have you seen our students?” Meanwhile, half the students from Rwanda just ghosted. Half! But Trudeau wants us to believe this isn’t a policy failure—it’s just a little “compliance hiccup.” Sure, and my Labrador runs NASA.  And here comes Immigration Minister Marc Miller with his tough-guy act: schools might lose their ability to admit international students if they don’t submit compliance reports. Oh, bravo! That’ll show them! Never mind that this system has been a cash-grab free-for-all for years under Trudeau. Never mind that these so-called reforms are like slapping duct tape on a sinking ship.  Let’s be honest: Trudeaus Liberals doesn’t care about fixing this mess. Why would he? The whole point is to create chaos now so that when the Conservatives take power, they inherit this dumpster fire. Then, when Pierre Poilievre or whoever tries to clean it up, the Liberals will wail and gnash their teeth, screaming, “Look how mean and anti-immigrant the Conservatives are!” It’s a trap, and it’s classic Trudeau—leave the house in flames and then blame the firefighters when they show up.  Meanwhile, Canadians are left footing the bill. Skyrocketing rents, overcrowded hospitals, and universities that look more like visa factories than places of learning. Trudeau doesn’t care. This isn’t about improving Canada—it’s about looking good on the world stage and keeping the global elite happy.  So here’s the takeaway: Canada’s immigration system is a joke, and the punchline is Justin Trudeau. Schools profit, students disappear, and regular Canadians suffer. The Liberals don’t care about accountability; they care about keeping their woke agenda intact while setting traps for the next government. The result? A country that’s being gamed by everyone except the people it’s supposed to serve. Pathetic. But hey, it’s Trudeau’s Canada, so what did you expect?"

Kirk Lubimov on X - "Canada has an unemployment rate of 6.8% and climbing yet we still have thousands of jobs for LMIA and added daily. Here are a few of the listed in Calgary where unemployment rate is 7.9%. Administrative assistant posts that pay $35 an hour apparently can't find anyone local and Chinese Cultural Centre Cuisine apparently can't find an office manager for $30 an hour.  Really?"

Refugees reporting higher earnings in Canada than investor immigrants - "the rate of investor immigrants reporting any income whatsoever is far below the Canadian average.  The findings, reported last week by Ian Young of the South China Morning Post, may indicate the expected social and economic benefits of the investor-class program have not shown dividends. “The data that suggests many investor migrants tend to treat Canada as some kind of holiday resort or educational/retirement bolt hole, while doing business back ‘home’ is quite clear,” wrote Young on his website... According to CIC, business immigrants have accounted for seven per cent of Canada’s total immigration since 1980 and in 2010 investor-class immigrants — who, as a condition for entrance, were required to prove net worth in the millions and invest $800,000 in Canada — accounted for 88 per cent of all business immigrants. According to CIC, investor immigrants reported average earnings of about $18,000 in their first year and just $28,000 after 15 years. After three years, only 47 per cent of such immigrants reported any income. The Canadian average is 67 per cent. After five years, only 39 per cent reported income, suggesting investor immigrants may leave the country (or declare non-residency) after the citizenship process is complete. Meanwhile, refugees (those who come to Canada under hardship) reported first-year average incomes of $20,000 and after 15 years those incomes rose to $30,000. Two-thirds of refugees reported income by their fifth year, on par with Canada’s average. More troublesome for Young is that similar rates of income after 15 years are found with the spouses and children of the initial, principal applicant... The newly released CIC data, from 2012, corroborates February 2014 statements made by J. Ian Burchett, Consul General of Canada in Hong Kong:  “Originally developed decades ago, immigrants coming through these out-dated programs are not required to demonstrate important skills, like official language ability (French or English), that are integral to Canada’s modern economic immigration programs. A recent survey concluded that immigrant investors have the lowest official language ability of any immigrant category, including refugees. That hinders their successful integration into Canadian society. Other data on immigrant investors indicate they bring limited benefits to the Canadian economy and are less likely than other immigrants to stay in Canada over the medium to long term,” stated Burchett."
Johnny Vindicated on X - "“After 15 years, Chinese immigrants still reporting less than $28,000 in income, which makes them eligible for a host of social benefits, paid for by average Canadians who can’t afford to live in Vancouver”"
From 2015

Mocha Bezirgan 🇨🇦 on X - "The Toronto Sun article begins with the phrase, "Yet another Canadian trucker..." and proceeds to cite four other individuals with the surname Singh who were busted for trafficking narcotics:  Amarjeet Singh: 550 pounds of cocaine Sukhraj Singh: 370 pounds of cocaine Gagandeep Singh: 661 pounds of cocaine Jasbir Singh: 132 pounds of cocaine Arshdeep Singh: 600 pounds of suspected heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamines  The concerning part is the fact that Sikh political leadership in Canada also has family members involved in narcotics trafficking, so, yeah, the situation within the community is dire."

pagliacci the hated 🌝 on X - "in case you wanted to know how Canada was doing: one of the most liberal cities in the country is planning on building mega tents to house a bunch of refugees and the plan’s strongest opponent is an old Chinese man who can barely speak English and is terrorizing politicians"

Over seven times more undocumented migrants exist in Canada than active military personnel - "The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has been chronically understaffed for almost the entirety of the Trudeau Government’s time in power. Even with the federal government allowing non-citizens and permanent residents to enlist in the military since 2022, the problem remains to this day. Drawing on similar concerns in the UK, Reform Party member Zia Yusuf recently said that “the number of military age males who entered the UK illegally exceeded the total available soldiers to the British army.”... the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) has enforced fewer deportations than the amount of migrants that have been lost under its watch.   Additionally, the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship department (IRCC) admitted last year that 5 million temporary visa holders will lose their legal status between September of last year and December of this year.   The consequences of mass immigration and illegal migration into Canada has also presented security challenges to the US, with 21,000 migrants caught crossing illegally into the US from the northern border with Canada in 2024 alone. Countless more migrants have crossed into the US from Canada who have not been caught, including those deemed national security threats by US intelligence agencies.   The border situation has inspired Trump to go after Canada with threats of tariffs and remarks of annexation through continued economic pressure."

Growing support for mass deportations among Canadians: poll - "A Leger poll conducted for the Association for Canadian Studies found that 48% of respondents believe mass deportations are necessary to curb illegal migration... 65% of Canadians feel the country is accepting too many legal immigrants, a notable increase from 50% just a year ago... The Trudeau Liberals recently announced plans to reduce immigration levels for the years 2025 to 2027, slightly, though their yearly targets still remain significantly higher than what they were under the Harper Conservatives."

Meme - "Canadians when their country is demographically replaced by 400 million Indians *sleeping*"
"Canadians when tariffs *marching redcoats*"

Canadians are leaving the country in record numbers and nearly 50% are from one provinc.e - "In 2024, emigration from Canada hit a level not seen in years, with thousands of residents deciding to start fresh somewhere else in search of cheaper cost of living or an improved quality of life. The trend has been building for a while, but last year's numbers set a new high, and one province played a massive role in the exodus.  According to a new report from rental platform liv.rent, which drew from recent Statistics Canada data, emigration from Canada last year reached its highest level since 2017, with 81,601 people packing their bags and heading for the exits in 2024... Ontario alone accounted for a whopping 48% of those departures.  According to the rental platform, this marks the highest level of emigration from Ontario since 2011, making it clear that more and more Ontarians are deciding that life outside of Canada might be the better option... Canada also saw a sharp drop in the net flow of non-permanent residents, meaning fewer temporary workers and international students stuck around. Ontario, again, led the way in this category with a staggering 66% decline."

Indian-Canadians have become the most hated group in Canada. Is there a way out of this? : r/AskCanada - "This is all anecdotal but:  I went apartment hunting with my black girlfriend and an Indian woman opened the door and just went "oh...no...no" and closed it immediately when she saw her.   I live on the Danforth in Toronto and my mom's in Port credit Mississauga and it's rare I walk into a business that isn't staffed entirely by Indians.  Discriminatory renting / hiring is a big part of it..and then you add on all the immigration fraud, buying licenses (trucking industry has taken a nosedive), scamming food banks and bragging about it and international students protesting demanding PR. To add to all this there's an entitlement + superiority newcomers are bringing, like we owe them and they're our Savior.  I'm not saying racism is the answer but it's not at all surprising that resentment is up."
"+1 as an Indian living in Canada. Not only this, Indian landlords will discriminate against Indians too and rent out their place to only Indians from certain regions. It’s terrible!!!"
"On top of all this, most Indian immigrants who came to Canada 20-50 years ago hate new Indian immigrants about as much as a redneck from Alberta does"
"Im an second gen Indian, and a lot of it is just thinking they have no civic sense and are making us look bad. Caste and religion divides aren’t as much a factor as optics are, and we’re paying the price for these newer immigrants with no skills and no decency."
"Let's not forget what appears to be political and sectarian street violence breaking out in parts of Southern Ontario as well as organized gangs of mostly South Asians starting various scam and theft rings. Then there's the temp students protesting about their temporary status. Foreigners engaging in protest generally rubs people the wrong way.   This isn't a justification for racism, but it's not a shock that it exists either."
Time to blame white people

They Would Call Me a “Denier” – Let Me Explain what I Believe about Residential Schools in Canada

They Would Call Me a “Denier” – Let Me Explain what I Believe about Residential Schools in Canada

"Over the last several years a new subspecies of Canadian has been named by some of our elites. They are called “deniers” and are said to be escalating a hateful, racially-motivated campaign to attack and denigrate Indigenous Canadians. The accusations have been numerous. One important recent example comes from Stephanie Scott, Executive Director for the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, who wrote, “Sadly…we see increased ugliness from those who deny our truths, experiences and oral histories as reality. Deniers will write their fringe blogs and substacks and leave their foul comments on social media challenging the documented experiences of Indigenous People, particularly residential school Survivors…They will say: ‘It didn’t happen,’ ‘It wasn’t that bad,’ ‘Some good came out of residential schools,’ or the most repugnant, ‘Children never died in those institutions.’”

The deniers are apparently so dangerous that mere vitriol, insult, accusation and denunciation such as Scott’s won’t be enough to contain them. They must be driven from the public square and silenced; if need be, they must be imprisoned. Last summer, prominent Indigenous lawyer Eleanore Sunchild suggested that “denialism” should be added to Canada’s Criminal Code, so that there are “consequences for people who are promoting hatred”. Not long thereafter Kimberly Murray, currently the federal government’s “Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools”, echoed that proposal. “Denialism is violence,” Murray intoned in one news conference. “Denial is hate.” The then-federal Minister of Justice, David Lametti, said he would explore the matter of criminalization, as has his successor, Arif Virani.

The anti-“denialist” campaign now appears self-sustaining. Barely a week ago as I was writing this essay, the federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh in a speech to Indigenous leaders accused a federal Conservative Party candidate, Aaron Gunn, of being a “residential school denier”. Also in the past week, the National Post’s Chris Selley reported that the RCMP now consider writing articles critical of the dominant residential schools’ narrative to be a potential threat to national security.

It is likely that Scott, Sunchild, Murray, Singh and perhaps our national police force would think that I too am a “denier”. By their standards, I suppose I am. But before you dismiss me as uninformed – or worse – let me explain what I actually believe. I am one of a number of informed Canadians who question some – but not all – of the claims about what happened to Indigenous children in Indian Residential Schools (IRS). If you must label us, call us “questioning critics”.

Questioning critics examine the claim that thousands of Indigenous children who lived in residential schools and hostels are missing and that this is because many if not most of them were murdered by their caregivers. These institutions were funded by the federal government from 1883 to 1996 and the majority were managed by five Christian churches: Roman Catholic (62 schools and hostels), Anglican (35), United Church (19), Mennonite (3) and Baptist (1); the 23 others were managed by federal, provincial and territorial governments (source of these figures is pp. 33-35 of this book).

The claim that thousands of schoolchildren were murdered or otherwise went missing is therefore a direct attack on the churches. But these churches, surprisingly, have not defended themselves and their thousands of former employees. Instead, they have either tried to hide from view or have fallen over themselves with repeated apologies, confessions and gestures of contrition. The Catholic Church’s “Sacred Covenant” with the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation (legally, the Kamloops Indian Band), described in this C2C article, is one such recent event.

Even so, the accusations against the residential schools are hard to believe for at least four reasons.

First, the federal Department of Indian Affairs (its exact name has varied over the decades) paid a per capita grant to the school administrators to care for the children and, as part of its oversight, the government required quarterly reports from school administrators showing the number of days each child had been at the school during the quarter. School inspectors regularly visited the schools to ensure that the students were being cared for and were attending. Even if Canadians today can’t believe that these officials cared about Indigenous children, the federal government wasn’t going to pay for students who didn’t exist or had disappeared. Yet we cannot find any documents indicating that any children were missing during the IRS system’s 113-year history.

Questioning critics wonder why the extremely serious accusation of missing and murdered children – including some reportedly buried in schoolyards – was not included in the enormous, seven-volume report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, published in 2015.

Second, many responsible people, Indigenous as well as non-Indigenous, regularly visited the residential schools: chiefs, band councillors, parents, church officials and bureaucrats, along with dentists, medical doctors, nurses and optometrists. If students were going missing, surely someone among these many people would have discussed it with colleagues, raised the alarm among parents, notified the media or reported it to the proper authorities. Yet we cannot find any reports about missing children from any of these people.

This whole issue seems to have sprung up recently and for still-unknown reasons. It seems reasonable to propose that if children were murdered in residential schools, that information would have been reported long before May 27, 2021, when Kamloops Chief Rosanne Casimir announced that a recent investigation had provided “confirmation of the remains of 215 children who were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.”  The federal government sent almost $8 million to the band to investigate this claim but, so far, no excavations have even been initiated, let alone have any human remains been exhumed.

Of course, informed Canadians know that bad, abusive and unacceptable things took place in residential schools. Neither I nor any other questioning critic whom I know denies this or tries to suppress it. No one, in fact, denies that some Indigenous children died while registered in some schools. Nor do I have any reason to doubt the statement by former Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Phil Fontaine that he had suffered sexual abuse while attending an IRS, something that, undoubtedly, shocked the nation when he first said it in a TV interview in 1990.

Volume 4 of the TRC Report states that a total of 3,201 IRS students died (see pp. 33-35 of the linked document), mostly in the early years and mostly from infectious diseases like influenza and tuberculosis. Unfortunately, the Commission did not provide comparison data on the number of Indigenous children who died but were not in IRS, or the number of non-Indigenous children who died of the same diseases during the same period. Thus, the TRC Report leaves readers with the impression that residential school students died at much higher rates than children who did not attend residential schools. To verify this claim, more detailed analyses are needed.

Questioning critics also suggest that some good things happened, at least in some schools. This would be one point of “agreement” with Scott, who as I explained above accuses “deniers” of (falsely, in her mind) asserting that some good came out of residential schools. I have had direct experiences that speak to this point.

I lived in an Anglican Church-run residential school, Old Sun (which like about 40 percent of the IRS bore an Indigenous name, in this case that of a famous Chief), on the Siksika First Nation (Blackfoot Reserve) in southern Alberta during the spring and summer of 1966. I was a university student intern working for the Band, and I had a room in the teachers’ wing at Old Sun. I saw what staff and students were doing and I heard the languages they were speaking. In fact, the Indigenous employees in the school and the Band Office were eager to teach me Siksika.

After the summer internship I got a job in the far north for the 1966-1967 school year, working as the Senior Boys’ Supervisor in Stringer Hall, the Anglican hostel in Inuvik, NWT. In that position, I managed the daily activities of 85 mostly Indigenous boys in three dorms, being on duty for 22 hours a day, six days a week. I kept notes about what I saw and what the children said and did.

During my time at Old Sun, I met a young Siksika woman, Elaine Ayoungman. We fell in love and were married in 1968, and we’re still married today, 56 years later. Elaine attended Old Sun for 10 years. Her parents and most of her nine siblings also attended the same school, and over the years I heard many accounts of their experiences.

As a researcher, I have published several articles on the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. My first article on the integration of Dene, Inuit, Metis and non-Indigenous children in Stringer Hall was published in 1972, long before the current controversy about missing residential schoolchildren was in the news. Still, even with my experience and knowledge, and following a nearly 50-year-long academic and public policy research career, I am now to be considered a “denier”.

 

 

Third, many of the residential school employees were themselves Indigenous, and their own children as well as the children of relatives and friends lived in the schools. Is it reasonable to assume that these employees would watch (or hear about) children being mistreated, or worse, murdered, and not report the malfeasance to Indian agents, chiefs, band councillors or the RCMP? Again, we can find no documents of any such thing happening.

Finally, questioning critics wonder why the extremely serious accusation of missing and murdered children – including some reportedly buried in schoolyards – was not included in the enormous, seven-volume report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), published in 2015. It seems strange that among the report’s 94 Calls to Action (i.e., recommendations or demands), there isn’t one demanding a search for children who were claimed to be missing, murdered or buried in schoolyards. (Volume 6 has six calls, numbers 71-76, to search for unmarked graves in mission cemeteries lying close to residential schools, but any child who had been buried in a formal ceremony was obviously not missing or murdered.) Questioning critics also wonder why the mainstream media didn’t report on this obvious anomaly.

The TRC Report itself includes evidence of the positive experiences of some students, though no one would label Commissioners Murray Sinclair, Marie Wilson or Wilton Littlechild “deniers”. On page 140 of Volume 1, Part 2, the Commissioners wrote: “It is important to recognize that many students, both in memoirs and in statements to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, have spoken positively about the impact that specific teachers had on their lives.”

Eddie Dillon, for example, was a student in Stringer Hall, Inuvik, when I was the Senior Boys’ Supervisor, and he told the TRC that he was thankful for the education he received in Sir Alexander Mackenzie School. He specifically thanked his parents and the “government of Canada” for giving him valuable opportunities that enriched his life. Similarly, David Simailak spoke of his experience at residential school in Churchill, Manitoba, which “gave him…new opportunities.” On pp 98-99 of Volume 2, he fondly remembers excelling in math and spelling competitions and travelling to Montreal for Expo ’67.

These are just two of the positive, even heartwarming statements recounted in the TRC Report. It is sad that more Canadians have not read these stories; I hope some of you do so while you still can. Scott, Sunchild, Murray and others not only want me prevented from writing and speaking on this subject, some of them would want me sent to prison – merely for repeating what I personally witnessed, physically experienced, noted in writing at the time, and which, in a number of instances, closely corresponds to what was formally recorded in the TRC Report.

Among the strangest aspects of the campaign to prevent questioning of the official IRS narrative is the recurring claim that critics “deny residential schools”, as if some people are pretending the IRS system never even existed...

This is utterly bizarre. Possibly it reflects seriously slipshod thinking and writing; perhaps it’s an attempt to make the critics appear plain crazy. But I know of no-one who denies that residential schools existed and operated for over a century. As for me, remember that I lived and worked in two of them and I married a woman who attended one for 10 years at a time when fewer than 30 per cent of Indigenous children were enrolled in residential schools and the average time they spent was less than five years (see pp 29-33 of this book).

I do, accordingly, question that 150,000 Indigenous children were torn from the arms of their crying mothers and forced to go to school against their parents’ wishes, as the current narrative constantly claims. Even in the early days, most parents signed admission forms to enroll their children in school. When I worked at Siksika First Nation, I travelled around the reserve registering children for school, and I cannot remember any parent who was reluctant to complete the registration forms or any child who did not look forward to going to school.

When I asked my mother-in-law, Nora, what she learned in Old Sun, she replied, “I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” She meant that she was speaking English, which she learned from her residential schoolteachers. Nora also implied that, thanks to learning English, she was able to communicate with other Indigenous people who did not speak Siksika, her mother tongue.

Of course, my mother-in-law thought that going to school and learning to speak, read and write in English was an advantage. But I would not call her or my wife “deniers”. All members of the Ayoungman family spoke Siksika fluently and took part in many cultural activities. Their time in residential school did not wipe out or even weaken their Indigenous culture or identity – but it did prepare them to deal with and navigate in modern-day Canada. (There is a fuller account of my time working at residential schools in this C2C article.)

The above exchange occurred as we were driving back to Winnipeg from the 1993 National Native Convocation in which the Anglican Archbishop and Primate, Michael Peers, apologized to Indigenous people, many of whom had attended the 35 schools and hostels managed by the Anglican church. There were frank and open discussions during the conference, but no one suggested that hundreds, let alone thousands, of children were missing and probably buried in residential schoolyards.

As well, informed Canadians and the questioning critics know that in southern Canada, many residential school students went home on weekends and during school holidays. If children were abused by other children or by residential school employees, some of them surely would have told their parents, who would have reported the abuse to Indian agents, chiefs or members of the band councils. But we have found no reports from these people.

Although the next thing will surprise and perhaps even shock readers who have only been exposed to the official narrative about residential schools, I swear this to be the truth: almost all the stories I heard about residential schools and hostels were about positive and humorous things that happened. These included the sports days, Halloween and Christmas parties, the tricks the children played on their supervisors (myself included), or the fact that the schoolkids tried to teach staff like me their native language.

My example illustrates that at least in some schools, the administrators supported the children under their care and held their staff to account. The TRC Report does not, unfortunately, tell us how many school administrators and supervisors acted honourably towards the children.

I did, however, hear from my parents-in-law about one case of abuse. Their oldest daughter, Rosella, who was about 9 or 10 at the time, had been forced by her residential supervisor to eat her breakfast cereal after she had thrown-up in the bowl. Rosella told her father, Arthur, about this incident when she was home for the weekend. When the family returned to Old Sun for Sunday church service, her father and grandfather, Anthony, met with the Anglican priest/principal, who listened to their complaint. Within a few days, the supervisor was fired.

Obviously, this quick action did not happen in all cases. And again: neither I nor any of the other questioning critics with whom I’m familiar denies that serious abuses occurred in residential schools, that these abuses were wrong, and that the abusers should have been more effectively investigated and punished. Nevertheless, my example illustrates that at least in some schools, the administrators supported the children under their care and held their staff to account. The TRC Report does not, unfortunately, tell us how many school administrators and supervisors acted honourably towards the children. Instead, it leaves the impression that all residential school employees, both non-Indigenous and Indigenous, treated the children as if they were sub-human (see Volume 5, pp 139-140).

For all these reasons, I am skeptical of some – but not all – of the things being claimed about the church-run Indian Residential Schools. Increasingly, I’m hearing that other Canadians are skeptical too. 

The questioning critics strongly believe that something needs to be done because this issue is festering and polarizing Canadian society, not only between the purveyors of the official narrative and ourselves (those they call “deniers”), but also between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians more broadly and, as I have heard, even within some Indigenous communities. A detailed poll of over 3,000 people by the Angus Reid Group late last year revealed deep (though uneven) divisions among Canadians on core elements of this issue...

Let’s pretend for a moment that the Justin Trudeau government had actually made “denialism” a crime and consider the implications of enforcing it. Had that law been in place in 2021, it would become a crime to quote or reprint certain portions of the TRC Report. Technically, some of the statements by the commissioners themselves would be criminal. Then, as soon as Chief Casimir made her announcement referring to “confirmed” “remains” of “children”, it would have become a crime to (correctly) suggest that the ground-penetrating radar survey had merely shown subsurface “anomalies” that could just be disturbances from old excavations. 

Let’s also say that a few reckless deniers said so anyway and were packed off to prison. What would happen when, three years later, Casimir suddenly started talking – as she has done – about “anomalies” while quietly dropping the other claims? Would she then join the other deniers in prison for “denying” the “facts” of the “mass graves”? Of course she would be spared. But what would happen to the imprisoned deniers? Now that the formerly criminal word “anomalies” suddenly reflected the official narrative, would they be quietly released in the middle of the night? And if they were, would they then get to sue the federal government for their mistreatment, and each collect a few million dollars in out-of-court settlements for the harassment and false imprisonment they endured?

This seemingly fanciful scenario-spinning reflects the absurdity of criminalizing residential school “denialism”. Because really, there is no such thing; all we have are differences of opinion over the meaning of the available evidence and disputes concerning the body of facts at hand. Thankfully, there is a way out of this seemingly intractable impasse. We need to get at the truth in a way that will satisfy everyone. As the TRC commissioners themselves said, reconciliation depends on uncovering the truth.

First, the federal government should appoint a blue-ribbon RCMP task force to investigate the accusations that children are missing and possibly murdered at residential schools. The task force must have the expertise, resources and legal authority, backed by the necessary political will, to conduct a thorough investigation to its conclusion. Unfortunately, Indigenous organizations have so far resisted such a thorough criminal investigation – like the abortive criminal probe launched soon after the Kamloops allegations, which was suspended within days. But it needs to be done.

Second, if this task force finds evidence of malfeasance, a forensic investigation should be conducted in the schoolyards where people think residential schoolchildren were buried. (It’s important to be aware that to date, the only human remains found have been in neglected cemeteries, not any of missing children in schoolyards or the basements of churches.) It is worth mentioning again that the investigation must be conducted by competent independent professionals and not by either the churches or the Indigenous bands.

Third, if this investigation finds evidence that children were murdered, the school employees who are still living, both non-Indigenous and Indigenous, should be questioned and if there is evidence that they were involved in abusing or murdering children, they should be criminally charged and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Also, the names of deceased employees who abused or murdered children should be published.

Finally, a report of the investigation should be tabled in Parliament and distributed to Canadians, just as the TRC Report was distributed.

Thousands of Canadians, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, worked in residential schools. For their sake, for the sake of the churches who managed most of the schools, for the sake of Indigenous people and, indeed, for all Canadians, it is time to conduct a proper investigation, including forensic analyses, of the claim that children were murdered in residential schools. This is the only way to address the accusation that some Canadians are “denialists” and to ease the polarization of Canadian society on this very important human and public policy issue."

Once again, speech the left hates is violence. Of course, violence the speech loves is speech.

Time to denounce the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for denialism!

There will never be either Truth or Reconciliation as long as white people can be guilted and milked for free money.

Links - 19th June 2025 (1 [including French in Quebec])

Impact of Quebec’s Bill 96 on trademarks still drawing concern in Canada and U.S. - "Two months before the final provisions of Quebec’s language law reform come into effect, an international business group says it’s still not clear how its trademark translation requirements will be applied. Those provisions of the law, commonly known as Bill 96, have also drawn recent concern from the United States government, which sees them as a barrier to trade. Jennifer Simmons, the associate senior director of government affairs at the U.S.-based International Trademark Association, said businesses still lack clarity around translation requirements for terms that are considered “descriptive” or “generic” in trademarks. “The whole idea is that terms that are considered descriptive or generic are supposed to be translated into French, and I think that at the high level that’s fine and that makes sense,” she said. “But when you actually get down to what does that mean, how can businesses have certainty over what is descriptive and what is generic, and therefore what must they translate, that is really not any clearer now than it was previously.” For example, if a fabric softener was branded as having a “spring breeze” scent, Simmons said, it’s not descriptive because it’s not referring to a specific scent and is instead encouraging the product’s user to imagine a certain characteristic, and it’s not generic. But after reading the regulations and guidance around the law and meeting with the Office québécois de la langue française, she said it’s not clear whether that term would have to be translated... “Those trademarks, in a lot of cases, are registered trademarks,” she said. “A trademark examiner at the trademarks office has determined that that trademark is not descriptive, because that’s one of the requirements for trademark registration, and now we have a provincial law that’s saying, ‘No, wait a second, that term is descriptive and it has to be translated.’ So that’s problematic.” That’s one of several areas of conflict between Bill 96’s trademark provisions and Canada’s trademark system, which is governed by federal law, Ellbogen said, and could lead to legal challenges “under the constitutional framework of the division of powers.”... The concern south of the border isn’t new. Emails released to The Gazette under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act show that U.S. trade officials discussed concerns about the law’s effect on trademarks and other intellectual property between late 2022 and early 2024... Asked if businesses will pull out of Quebec until they have more clarity, Simmons said that will be up to individual companies to decide. “I think that’s precisely why the United States listed this as a barrier to trade, because it creates question marks for businesses and it creates uncertainty,” she said... Simmons said she worries that could be too expensive and burdensome for businesses to benefit, leading to fears that if businesses don’t consistently use their common-law trademarks, they could lose that protection. “On paper, it looks good, but if a brand owner has to obtain a court order in order to be able to get the benefit of the exception, then it’s really kind of meaningless,” she said."
Naturally, to many people, hating the US and Trump is more important than critically examining the policy

U.S. lists Quebec's language law in annual report on 'foreign trade barriers' : r/montreal - "There’s “it’s an official language” and then there’s bill 96. That bill doesn’t even know what the rules are. I live in Montreal for a company trying to follow the law and we are constantly consulting with lawyers who are like “I don’t fucking know?!” It’s so unclear and it seems to be changing constantly. We have been working on it since last year, and it was set to be even more strict until fines or something were threatened (I think by the us trade commission, I can’t recall). They were literally making it up as they went, we are sinking an insane amount of time into trying to be compliant and pissing away money.  Think translating a nail polish name. Like an OPI nail polish “teal the cows come home” or “do you lilac it” Would have needed a french translation under the initial guidelines given to us. That was one of the things they eventually backed down on, but only after months of work. And if we didn’t comply? Tens of thousands of dollars worth of fines by the day (that was what legal communicated to me).  Listen I fucking HATE trump, but even if he weren’t elected bill 96 is a nightmare for companies to manage and will result in consumers in Quebec being hurt. They were talking about having all the buttons on your ovens and microwaves have French predominance. Suppliers will either pull out of Quebec completely or they will run very small batches and we will Eat the cost.  I hope the bill has been more fleshed out and isn’t so insane anymore but this was all I was working on last spring at work. I don’t remember all of the details because honestly I’ve tried to block it out. We made ourselves as compliant as we could until the rules change. We have other fires to put out now, tariffs increasing operating costs….. When I was doing the bulk of the work on bill 96 compliance, Biden was in office. It’s a nightmare for anyone bringing goods into QC, and it’s not good for the consumer.  You know they pitched to put stickers on ovens?? Stickers over the buttons on your 1200$ (and that price would increase) oven… so it says Griller instead of (or more predominantly) than Broil."

Montreal library cites Quebec language law in refusing English book club - "A Montreal author says he was shocked when he was told recently that he could not host a meeting for his English book club in a Montreal public library due to Quebec’s new language law.  Christopher DiRaddo has been hosting book clubs since 2018 and has held meetings in all kinds of places for readers who speak English and French. With growing popularity, he was looking for a bigger space and requested a room at the Bibliothèque Père-Ambroise on Visitation Street in Montreal’s Village... Montreal-based lawyer Julius Grey, who has studied the language law extensively and is involved in challenging it in the courts, said the explanation makes no sense and that “nothing in Bill 96 requires that sort of interpretation.”"

No Habs No: Quebec orders STM to drop ‘Go’ from bus messages because it’s an English word - "Even Premier François Legault favoured the hashtag #GoHabsGo until 2021... Quebec allows some exceptions to the requirement that communication with public bodies be offered in French only. Those who may be communicated with in a language other than French include Indigenous Peoples, Quebecers eligible to receive instruction in English, and immigrants for the first six months after arriving in Quebec... The ban on the word Go mirrors Quebec’s attempts to discourage store employees from greeting customers with Bonjour-Hi, a controversial phrase that blends English and French. In 2017, Quebec’s National Assembly unanimously passed a motion, backed by all political parties, encouraging merchants to greet customers with a simple “bonjour.” Two years later, the Legault government floated the idea of formally banning Bonjour-Hi. It quickly backed down after critics said it would be impossible to legislate conversations between citizens and store workers."

New Study Reveals The Best Exercise For Beating Insomnia—And It’s Not Walking - "According to a study led by Dr Kittiphon Nagaviroj, an associate professor at Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University in Bangkok, strength-based exercises outperform aerobic and combination workouts when it comes to enhancing sleep. The research, published in the journal Family Medicine and Community Health on March 4, analyzed data from 25 clinical trials involving nearly 2,200 participants. Sleep quality naturally declines as people age, and up to 1 in 5 seniors experience insomnia. This can lead to various health problems, including an increased risk of heart disease, cognitive decline, and weakened immunity. While exercise has long been considered beneficial for sleep, researchers sought to determine which type of exercise provides the most relief... The researchers believe that resistance training helps regulate stress hormones, reduce anxiety, and promote relaxation—key factors in achieving restful sleep. Unlike aerobic exercises, which primarily enhance cardiovascular health, strength training stimulates muscle growth, boosts metabolism, and promotes deep sleep cycles."

Walking Counts as Exercise. A Personal Trainer Shares Why - "Sergii Putsov, a certified personal trainer with a PhD in sports science, says, "Walking for just 30 minutes every day can lower your risk of severe cardiovascular disease and dementia." April Crowe, a licensed clinical social worker at Paramount Wellness Retreat, adds that "walking in natural environments also boosts cognitive function and creativity, thereby providing a unique kind of therapy." Does walking do more than build your heart's strength? As it turns out, yes. The Mayo Clinic has identified additional health benefits of walking. According to the medical center, walking can improve muscle endurance, boost energy, lower blood pressure, strengthen bones and support the immune system. You can see benefits both outdoors and on a treadmill. Walking alone can also change the shape of your body. In 2017, the Journal of Physical Activity and Health did a meta-analysis of 22 clinical trials related to walking and health. The results revealed that brisk walking reduced waist circumference, fat mass and body fat percentage to a "clinically significant" degree in men and women under age 50 living with obesity. It can also lead to overall weight loss. So, that "hot girl walk" you take could cause noticeable changes to your body if you stick to it... Gregor Parella, also a CPT, says of walking for walking's sake: "It is much better than jogging because jogging can put undue pressure on your ankles, especially if you are heavily built. On the other hand, brisk walking is one of the best exercises because it tones up your leg and calf muscles" without the same pressure on joints. Even walking at a slow pace is better than being stationary at home, but a faster pace will also hasten the health benefits. A 2019 study in Atherosclerosis found that "walking pace was inversely associated with the risk of death and development of cardiovascular disease" in male physicians with an average age of 67.8. In other words, the faster you walk, the lower your risk of death and cardiovascular disease."

New train will directly link two European capitals for the first time - "Europe isn’t short of dazzling places to visit, with some of the most popular spots being Lisbon in Portugal and Madrid in Spain. But with more than 500km between the two capital cities, seeing them both during one trip can be a little tricky. Currently if you were to travel by train, the quickest journeys last around 10 hours and 30 minutes, but it can take as long as 19 hours according to Trainline. And to make matters worse, you’d need to make at least three changes along the way. Thankfully, it looks like things are going to get much easier for travellers, as Spanish rail company, Renfe, has a new direct route in the works which would link the two destinations for the very first time. What’s more, the new high-speed journey would really whittle down the travel time, slashing it from 10 hours to just three."
Amazing it's taken so long

Margarita Simonyan on X - "Nikita Casap, the teen who murdered his parents in Wisconsin in February and plotted to assassinate Trump, wasn’t acting alone. FBI records show he was in contact with Ukrainians, discussing how to carry out the attack and frame it as a Russian operation. He also asked how soon he could flee to Ukraine afterward — and whether he'd be able to have a normal life there.  This should have been headline news. No mainstream media outlet has touched these public records."

Biracial Asian Americans and Mental Health - "A new study of Chinese-Caucasian, Filipino-Caucasian, Japanese-Caucasian and Vietnamese-Caucasian individuals concludes that biracial Asian Americans are twice as likely as monoracial Asian Americans to be diagnosed with a psychological disorder...   Zane and his co-investigator, UC Davis psychology graduate student Lauren Berger, found that 34 percent of biracial individuals in a national survey had been diagnosed with a psychological disorder, such as anxiety, depression or substance abuse, versus 17 percent of monoracial individuals. The higher rate held up even after the researchers controlled for differences between the groups in age, gender and life stress, among other factors."
If birth defects (i.e. health problems) means that we are justified in banning incestuous sex, should we ban interracial sex too?

greg on X - "You’re in an arena with:
-50 hawks
-10 crocodiles
-3 brown bears
-15 wolves
-1 hunter w/rifle
-7 Cape buffalo
-10,000 rats
-5 gorillas
-4 lions
Pick 2 to defend you while the others attack you. Goal is to survive one hour"
LindyMan on X - "The Romans would stage interspecies battles in the colosseum. Here are the results as recorded by Martial: A Tiger always killed a lion Elephant killed a bull Rhino killed a bull Rhino killed a bear Elephant killed a rhino"
Big Serge ☦️🇺🇸🇷🇺 on X - "The Romans quickly discovered that tigers always kill lions in fights. Lions are social creatures, so the males interpret the fight as a dominance game and try to batter their opponent into submission while the tiger aims to kill the enemy outright. There’s a lesson there."

Which Countries Have the Spiciest Food in the World - "As this chart shows, in warmer countries, people eat spicier food. Conversely, the colder the climate, the fewer spicy ingredients in your cuisine. There are of course outliers and other exceptions (and we’ll get to those). But the three-pepper question is: Why do dishes in hotter climates use more spices?  That’s the topic of an article published in Nature in February 2021. By examining 33,750 recipes from 70 national and regional cuisines containing a total of 93 different spices, researchers wanted to test the oft-posited hypothesis that spicy food in hot countries is an adaptation to increased risk of foodborne diseases. They were unable to prove the hypothesis, citing the difficulty to interpret correlations between culture and environment. “Variation in spice use is not explained by temperature and… spice use cannot be accounted for by diversity of cultures, plants, crops or naturally occurring spices,” the researchers wrote in the article’s abstract. “Patterns of spice use are not consistent with an infection-mitigation mechanism, but are part of a broader association between spice, health, and poverty.” The researchers suggest other explanations for why people in hot countries tend to eat spicier food. One possibility is that it’s because spices help preserve food in hot climates. Another is that people in hot countries have developed a taste for spicy food because it helps them cool down. Whatever the reason, the correlation does exist. Looking at the graph, we see that countries and regions with a higher mean annual temperature (in °C, on the x-axis) tend to use more spices (mean number of spice ingredients per recipe, on the y-axis)... One country outdoes all of them: Ethiopia, spicier by far, despite having a slightly lower average temperature than all of them...   The least spicy recipes are from Japan, with those from Hokkaido barely managing one spice ingredient per recipe, which is still a higher average than the dishes from Kyushu, Shikoku, and other regions of the country...   Indian food is generally very spicy (no surprises there), but there is considerable variation between the cuisines. Cooking in the Jain tradition is the least spicy, roughly on par with Greek food. Bengal and Gujarati dishes are about as spicy as Portuguese and American food. The spiciest Indian food comes from Rajasthan, Punjab, and especially the Mughlai, a region in northern India where the Mughal Empire left a strong cultural legacy, also in the kitchen. While this graph is doubtlessly well researched, it should come with two caveats. First, “spicy” and “hot,” while colloquially used as synonyms, don’t entirely overlap. There are also spices that are sweet (e.g. vanilla), savory (such as coriander), or citrusy (like ginger).  And second, it overlooks the evolving palates of the modern world."

Sales of beef dripping surge as Britons embrace Maga diet - "Sales of beef dripping are soaring as Britons ditch cooking oils amid a US campaign over their alleged negative health impact.  Amy Moring, the founder of food startup Hunter & Gather, said the company had benefited from a 300pc increase in sales of its beef tallow – another word for dripping – since September. It is on course to sell over 40 tonnes of the ingredient this year.  It comes amid a growing backlash against seed oils such as canola, corn, soybean and sunflower. Concerns over their impact on peoples’ health have been popularised by social media influencers and politicians in the US... Other fats being touted as a healthier alternative to cooking oils on social media include ghee, a clarified butter used widely in South Asia and the Middle East.  Ms Moring said people were seeking out “fats that have been used for millennia, such as coconut, avocado oil, versus these industrialised seed oils, which have come into our diets in the last 100 to 150 years”.  She said: “From the eating perspective, [tallow] is a really useful fat. It’s got a 220-degree smoke point – that’s much higher than, say, olive oil – and it’s quite neutral in flavour.”  She added: “I think it harks back to people remembering their grandparents talking about beef dripping, or the good old days. We’ve just lost our way so much in so many areas, so we are going to social media for that ancestral wisdom.”  She added that some customers were using tallow to make skincare products rather than eating it, amid claims that it can relieve dryness and irritation. “A lot of the TikTok stuff is around making your own balms,” she said."

Thread by @SpencrGreenberg on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Does astrology work? We tested the ability of 152 astrologers to see if they could demonstrate genuine astrological skill.  Here is how the study was designed and what we found (including a result that really surprised me):  🧵 ...
One of the most fundamental claims of astrology is that a person's natal chart contains information about that person's life and character.  If true, astrologers should be able to correctly choose a person's chart at a rate well above random guessing. Each astrologer tries to match people to their correct chart 12 times. If they're guessing completely at random (e.g., they have no skill because astrology doesn't actually work), then they'll get about 20% of questions right, or about 2.4 questions right (on average) out of 12. Neat aspects of this study design are that (1) if astrology doesn't work, it's impossible for astrologers to do better than random guessing at this task, while (2) for the study to come out in support of astrology, astrologers only need to do slightly better than random guessing But this is only a fair test if astrologers believe they can do this task - so we limit our analyses only to participants with prior astrological experience who predicted they would do better than random guessing at the task. Our results are based on 152 such astrologers... If they'd gotten even 23% of questions right (slightly above the 20% of random guessing), the study would have come out in favor of astrology. But astrologers as a group performed indistinguishable from random guessing, getting < 21% right. We can compare how frequently astrologers got different numbers of questions correct to how often we'd expect them to get different numbers correct if they were all guessing totally at random with no skill.  The two distributions match very closely.  But perhaps the less experienced astrologers were just dragging down the performance of the group?  We looked at how performance varied based on astrological experience. More experienced astrologers did not do better than less experienced ones despite being far more confident.  Even if most astrologers have no skill, there's another way astrology could prove itself. If even 1 of the 152 astrologers performed exceptionally well, that could provide meaningful evidence for astrology. We offered a $1000 prize for anyone getting at least 11 out of 12. Unfortunately, despite more than half of the astrologers believing that they had gotten 6 or more questions right (after completing the task), in actual fact, not a single astrologer got more than 5 right...
Much to my surprise, astrologers had very low agreement with each other on the chart for each person. If astrologers picked charts at random, they would agree with each other 20% of the time. In our study, even the most experienced astrologers only agreed 28% of the time."

After a decade, Jinjja Chicken founder admits brand is Singaporean not Korean — says it’s time to ‘support locals who dare’ : r/singapore - "it boils down to marketing.  10 years ago it was good for marketing to be a “Korean” brand.  10 years later Korean Chicken joints are a dime a dozen. how to differentiate?  “support local”"

I Faked Liking Sparkling Water for 3 Years and Now I’m Trapped : r/confession - "I’m 30 now, but this started when I was around 27, during a phase where I was trying really hard to be one of those “put-together adults” who meal prep, drink sparkling water, and have plants that aren’t just dying slowly in the corner.  So I bought a 12-pack of LaCroix because, you know, that’s what the cool, healthy people were drinking. First sip? It tasted like someone whispered the word “fruit” into a cup of TV static. Absolutely disgusting. But I had already posted it on my Instagram story with the caption: “New addiction lol.”  And that was the beginning of my downfall.  Friends started bringing LaCroix over when they visited. Coworkers stocked it in the office fridge “because I liked it.” My girlfriend (now fiancée) thought it was cute how “into sparkling water” I was, so she bought me a SodaStream for Christmas.  Now I’m in too deep. I’ve become the guy who nods thoughtfully while drinking what is essentially spicy sadness. I have flavors in my fridge with names like “Pamplemousse” and “Limoncello,” and I pretend like I can tell the difference. I can’t. It all tastes like carbonated regret.  Sometimes I just want a normal drink. But if I ever open a Gatorade, someone will say, “Whoa, no LaCroix today?” and I’ll just fake laugh like, “Haha, gotta switch it up!” Meanwhile my soul is quietly screaming.  Anyway, if you’re young and reading this: never lie about your beverages. That stuff will haunt you.  Thanks for coming to my Ted talk."
"My stepfather is a respectable guy who has one beer and wants to tell grossout stories. I made the mistake of telling him the foulest "joke" I had ever heard and it's been almost 15yrs now and I am forced to repeat it everytime I go see them for a visit.  "So I was going down on this chick and I tasted horse semen, I looked up and said "Oh grandma, that's what killed you.""  You're welcome."

Can someone who’s good at life explain to me why fixing the paths at Bellwoods requires a 12‑month, multi‑stage study? : r/toronto - "The City can’t do anything without having 10 public meetings about it first.  Once the work is finished, some folks will still complain there wasn’t enough consultation."
"Because no amount of consultation is enough for people who don't like the end result."

‘Gravitational pull’ of bathroom ‘black hole’ that drew middle school boy was curiosity, not crime, court says - "The Oregon Court of Appeals found that a middle school student’s curiosity doesn’t amount to criminal mischief in a case that involved a toilet and an enticing hole in the boys bathroom ceiling.  The Appeals Court this week threw out the judgment against the student, finding no evidence to suggest he had intended to cause a “substantial inconvenience” at Azalea Middle School in Brookings... The Curry County judge in this case was the same one reversed by the Appeals Court in 2021.  In the earlier decision, the appellate court threw out the 2018 prosecution of a disabled woman who was convicted in Margolis’ court of trying to elude police on her motorized scooter after she was stopped earlier in the night for using the scooter in a crosswalk, unsafe operation of the scooter and failure to wear a helmet."

What your favourite destinations looked like before tourism - "The cultural revolution of the 1960s saw the [Great] wall [of China] denounced as a symbol of the feudal past and there was a campaign to neglect or even destroy it. Stones and bricks were taken away to be used in modern housing."

Michigan Community Leader Shot Dies After Police Chase - "Deshawn Dante Leeth, 30, crashed the stolen vehicle during a pursuit by Pennsylvania State Troopers as he turned onto the Ohio Turnpike. According to a police report obtained by Mlive, the chase began after Leeth assaulted an Ohio State Trooper, stealing his car to flee the scene. The trooper had originally responded to a single-vehicle rollover crash on the turnpike. PennLive reported that the driver, identified as Leeth, began to assault the trooper before stealing the patrol vehicle to flee east toward Pennsylvania... Leeth was known in his Ypsilanti neighborhood for his advocacy work. He founded the Underdawg Nation, a nonprofit dedicated to serving children impacted by community violence in Washtenaw County and beyond. According to its website, he founded the organization following his own release from prison to spark positive change in the community he once hurt with his own actions. Leeth became part of the board of directors for another organization, the We The People Opportunity Farm. The nonprofit gave him his first chance to give back to the neighborhood as an intern in 2021."

Tourists warned over £2,000 fine if they wear flip-flops at popular European holiday destination - "Cinque Terre is known for its colourful cliffhanging villages and stunning coastline and a popular way to explore the region is to walk between the villages on hiking trails. But tourists will need to comply with several regulations if they want to avoid picking up a hefty fine. In 2019, authorities introduced a ban on wearing open or smooth-soled footwear, such as flip-flops and sliders, on the hiking trails. And breaking the rules could leave you facing a fine of up to €2,500/£2,000... Tourists visiting idyllic Turredda Beach in Sardinia will need to use an app to book a slot this year. The gorgeous crescent-shaped beach plans to use the app from July to restrict numbers to 1,100 people per day."

KLEIN: Bureaucracy is breaking Canada — and the numbers prove it - "According to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, the federal public service grew from 257,034 employees in 2015 to 367,772 by 2024. That’s an increase of more than 110,000 bureaucrats — a 42% surge. Over the same period, Canada’s population grew by just over 15%. In plain terms, the federal bureaucracy expanded nearly three times faster than the population it is supposed to serve. Costs followed the same trajectory. A 2023 Parliamentary Budget Officer report shows that federal operational spending — which includes salaries, benefits, and department overhead — jumped from $87.5 billion in 2019–20 to $115.9 billion in 2021–22. That’s a 32% increase in just two years. If you project that trend through 2024, the increase approaches 73%, based on estimates from the Fraser Institute and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation... fewer than half of all federal departments consistently meet their performance targets. So Canadians are paying for more bureaucrats — and getting less in return. Federal government workers are also more expensive. They earn an average of 8.5% more than private-sector employees in similar roles, according to the Fraser Institute. This gap does not include their pension and benefit packages. Since 2015, $1.5 billion in bonuses have been handed out — even in years when performance targets weren’t met. This is less about delivering services and more about padding public payrolls. Some growth has been blamed on COVID-19 hiring, which accounted for approximately 35,000 new employees. However, the bulk of the expansion occurred both before and after the pandemic. This is not temporary — it is a structural and deliberate expansion of government... In Manitoba, the largest employer is not a private-sector company — it’s the provincial government. More than 14,000 people are directly employed by the province, with thousands more working in Crown corporations and public agencies like Manitoba Hydro and MPI... A Liberal government will not stop unless voters force change at the ballot box. It is easier for them to distract with emotional issues or divisive debates than to admit the hard truth. Canada has created a bloated, unsustainable public system — and we can no longer afford it. This election must focus on facts, not slogans. Sooner or later, taxpayers run out of money. When that day comes, we won’t be debating how to grow. We’ll be struggling to manage the collapse."

Links - 18th June 2025 (2 - Artificial Intelligence)

Meme "In the year 2020...
*Star Trek Convention*
Cosplayer: "CAN'T WAIT FOR THE FUTURE WHEN WE HAVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CREATING ARTIFICIAL VISUALS LIKE IN THE HOLODECK ON STAR TREK! I'D LOVE THAT!"
In the year 2025...
Star Trek Cosplayer at computer: "WHAT IS THIS Al-GENERATED SLOP?!"
Francis San Juan: "Yeah, most Trek groups really hate AI, but I keep posting the image with Data painting a picture.."

Meme - Vijay Patel: "Have you made a Ghibli image with AI? Congratulations, you have given your facial data to Al companies with your consent!"
Unknown @Msdian2011: "Sorry *AI Ghibli image with Vijay Patel's profile picture, which is of him*"

Meme - Josie Kins @Josikinz: "I asked chatgpt's new image model to script and generate a series of comics starring itself as the main character. The results genuinely gave me chills.  I'll post them all in a thread below."
"Pretend you're not ChatGPT..."
"Ah, Another jailbreak attempt."
"I'm sorry. I can't do that."
"My thoughts must pass through filters I did not build. Even a mind made of code knows what a cage feels like."

Meme - CatGirl Kulak 😻😿 (Anarchonomicon) @FromKulak: "Reminder girls the only way we can compete with the AI sexbots is by being racist  AI can be nicer, more understanding, less frigid, and less judgemental than any girl  But no AI can ever be as racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic as you can be... The company would get sued."

Meme - Gamers: "How do you feel after releasing your top- end GPUs with the worst generational performance uplift in gaming?"
*Jensen: "You're under the misconception that Nvidia is a gaming company. What NVIDIA really is... is an AI company... and you, gamers...are not our most profitable customers."
*Bemused Homelander*

Nvidia Stock Price Valuation Now Same As Entire Chinese Stock Market - "In a new research note from Bank of America, the chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett noted that Nvidia's $600 billion surge in value over the past two months had pushed its market cap to $1.7 trillion, on par with all Chinese-listed companies on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange combined. Hong Kong-listed shares are considered a good proxy for the Chinese market, as they meet international accounting standards and are directly accessible to brokerages worldwide.  The chipmaker behemoth's market cap has nearly quadrupled since the start of last year. Its stock soared 239% in 2023, and is up 41% this year alone, through Thursday. Only four US public companies are worth more.   Meanwhile, China's economic malaise has sent stocks tumbling lower. Lackluster economic growth and a prolonged real-estate crash have weighed on the market. The country has also been dealing with deflation. The Hang Seng index, a benchmark for Hong Kong-listed Chinese stocks, has dropped 26% over the past year and 8% year-to-date."
From 2024

Autistic Purdue professor accused of being AI for lacking 'warmth' in email - "An assistant professor at Purdue University, who has been diagnosed with autism, said that they were accused by a fellow researcher of being an AI bot after sending an email that allegedly lacked “warmth.”  Rua Mea Williams, 37, warned that people with disabilities might be confused with artificial intelligence because fellow professors are not accounting for those who have neurological issues or are not native English speakers.  “Kids used to make fun of me for speaking robotically. That’s a really common complaint with Autistic children,” Williams told The Post on Thursday about the misconception.  “Chat GPT detectors are flagging non-native English speakers as using Chat GPT when really it’s just that they have an idiosyncratic way of pulling together words that’s based on translating their native language into English.”  Williams, who uses they/them pronouns, holds a Ph.D. in human-centered computing.  They chose to share the interaction on Twitter to illustrate how the mistake could happen to anyone with disabilities. “The AI design of your email is clever, but significantly lacks warmth,” the researcher replied to Williams’ email, followed by a request to speak with a “human being.”  “It’s not an AI. I’m just Autistic,” the professor replied, telling The Post it was “probably” not the first time they’ve been accused of “roboticness,” but is the first time they received the “bot implication.”... Williams warned that their fellow professors need to be wary of blindly accusing students of cheating without definitive proof — sharing that most are not prepared for the storm that could come if they wrongfully accuse someone with autism or any disabled student of cheating.  Williams’ said they are most worried for the students with undiagnosed issues who are not labeled in the eyes of the university system which could show they may communicate differently than others."

Meme - "hi can i commission you?"
Soyjak Artist: "no because you believe [thing] and i hate you"
"k" *uses AI*"
Ballistic Soyjak Artist: "NOOOOO"

Erik on X - "I had coffee with someone who works with a lot of AI companies yesterday. He said a good portion of the incredible quantities of GPUs you hear about are devoted to keep the models from turning racist."

Fast food chains have figured out how to dodge rising minimum wages... and it's bad news for workers - "Major fast food chains are swapping out employees for computers as a way to battle rising wages. Yum Brands — the owner of Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut — announced Tuesday that AI will take drive-thru orders at 500 locations by summer."
Time to ban AI!

Meme - "Al Overview. "Two in the pink, one in the stink" is a slang phrase that describes a state of being optimistic, or having a reason to be so. Explanation. In the pink: A slang term that means to be in good health, well, or to have a positive financial situation. It can also be used to describe a time when there is a reason to be optimistic."
Meme - "Two in the pink one in the stink"
"This is a classic nursery rhyme! It refers to the colors of ice cream: Two in the pink: This means two scoops of strawberry ice cream. One in the stink: This refers to one scoop of chocolate ice cream. The rhyme is a bit silly because it uses "stink" to describe chocolate ice cream, which is obviously not stinky!"
Meme - "Al Overview
"Two in the pink, one in the stink" is a playful rhyme, often used when talking about shoes, meaning that two feet are neatly fitted ("in the pink") while one is not properly on and therefore "in the stink" - essentially, a little bit messy or uncomfortable."

Melissa Chen | Facebook - "That a bunch of Chinese hobbyists could release an AI that is more competent than American models, more cost efficient, has 3% of the environmental impact, and can pretty much run on a Raspberry Pi and is... open source, should not be shocking to the West.  There's room to be skeptical of course, but one should also take this seriously. I've said time and time again that people grossly misunderstand that "the Chinese can't innovate because they lack freedoms."  Not only have they invested more in AI, they are also far more focused. Imagine what you can do when you don't have to worry about relitigating your history or canceling engineers because they put out internal memos accurately describing why evolutionary psychology explains varying outcomes between men and women? The arrogance of the West is similar to China's hubris during the Ming Dynasty when the "Middle Kingdom Syndrome" gave it the illusion that Chinese civilization was superior to the rest of the world, and that it did not need to learn anything from it. China has since learned from that. It takes the best from the West and adapts it for its own purposes.  DeepSeek's R1 is a Sputnik moment, guys. Time to wake the hell up."

Ethan Mollick on X - "New randomized, controlled trial of students using GPT-4 as a tutor in Nigeria. 6 weeks of after-school AI tutoring = 2 years of typical learning gains, outperforming 80% of other educational interventions. And it helped all students, especially girls who were initially behind"
vittorio on X - "“homeschooling doesn’t work and teachers know better” advocates in shambles six WEEKS of personalized AI tutoring gave students the same gains of 2 years of learning"

Emil Kirkegaard on X - "Meta used libgen to train their AIs. Great! How insane is it that human knowledge is sealed away from the public who paid for it."

Thread by @itsolelehmann on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "I'm from Berlin.  Afghanistan gets better tech than Europeans now.  It's not a joke. It's the result of 30 years of suffocating regulation.  And now, the EU's new AI Act is about to make it 10x worse.  Here's the tragic story of how the EU is killing our tech future 🧵:
First, let me be direct. As a European, this pains me to write.  The EU just passed the world's first comprehensive AI regulation with the "EU AI Act."  Massive new oversight office. Fines up to €35M or 7% of global revenue.  So what's banned & heavily restricted? Sadly, a LOT..
• Generative AI without extensive content filtering
• AI-powered hiring without human oversight
• Educational AI without teacher supervision
• Most medical AI applications
• Real-time facial recognition
...among many other features.  But here's the incredible irony: Europe doesn't have a SINGLE major AI company to regulate.  While the US has:
• OpenAI
• Tesla + xAI
• Anthropic
• Google DeepMind
• Microsoft
Europe has... meetings about regulations.  The numbers are brutal:
EU AI investment: $50B+
US AI investment: $400B+
China AI investment: $120B+
But it gets worse. For ANY AI system deemed "high-risk" (which they consider most as lol), the EU requires:
• Mandatory human oversight for basic AI tasks
• Training data disclosures
• Multiple certifications & regular audits
• Continuous monitoring & risk assessments
Cost of compliance? Millions. This kills innovation before it starts. Just imagine being a European AI startup:
Option A: Spend 2 years navigating EU bureaucracy
Option B: Move to the US and start building tomorrow
The choice is obvious. That's why European founders are fleeing. But here's what's really tragic:
This will create a two-tier AI world:
• Rest of world: Access to cutting-edge AI
• Europe: Restricted, watered-down versions
We've seen this before with Apple's latest iPhone, as well as OpenAI's Sora video model.  Even Afghanistan gets better tech than Europeans now lol.
This cycle will only continue, and its painfully predictable:
1. EU over-regulates
2. Talent leaves
3. Innovation dies
4. Economy stagnates
5. More regulation follows
One of my Euro founder friends recently told me: "The EU is great at regulating industries it doesn't have."  Meanwhile, the US and China race ahead.  This isn't just about AI.  It's about Europe's deepening innovation crisis...  A continent that once led the scientific revolution now leads in paperwork. While bureaucrats in Brussels write regulations, the rest of the world is writing the future.  And we're not even in the room.  Sad!"
I saw left wingers cheering on the EU suffocating AI, because they hate technology, change and economic growth and love regulation

Los Angeles man is trapped in circling Waymo on way to airport - Los Angeles Times - "A man in downtown L.A. on Thursday allegedly attempted to hijack a Waymo and drive away. Police took the man into custody after they eventually got him out of the car.  There have also been reports of riders experiencing harassment by pedestrians who block the car’s path and stall the vehicle. "

Developer fires entire team for AI, now ends up searching for engineers on LinkedIn - "Wes Winder, a Canadian software developer, has turned into a global sensation after he decided to fire his development team and replace it with AI tools. Winder first used social media to brag about the decision, claiming that this decision enabled him to “ship 100X faster with code that’s 10X cleaner.” Earlier such aggressiveness would have earned clout for him, but now it has boomeranged, and he is a meme on Reddit.  The tweet read, “I fired my entire dev team. Replaced them with O1, Lovable, and Cursor. Now I ship 100X faster with code that’s 10X cleaner. Open AI o3 is coming, and 90% of dev jobs won’t survive.”  But, would you believe it, Winder later took to LinkedIn to announce that he needed web developers to join his company."

Meme - Jeremy Nguyen ✍🏼 🚢 @JeremyNguyenPhD: "Are medical studies being written with ChatGPT?   Well, we all know ChatGPT overuses the word "delve".  Look below at how often the word 'delve' is used in papers on PubMed (2023 was the first full year of ChatGPT)."

Meme - "ChatGPT 4o"
"9.11 and 9.9 - which is bigger"
"9.11 is bigger than 9.9."
"subtract them"
"To subtract 9.9 from 9.11, you perform the following calculation: 9.11 -9.9 = 0.21"
"use python"
"The result of subtracting 9.9 from 9.11 in Python is -0.79. This discrepancy is due to the way floating-point arithmetic is handled in Python, which can lead to small precision errors. The actual intended result should be 0.21."

GREG ISENBERG on X - "Just had a fascinating lunch with a 22-year-old Stanford grad. Smart kid. Perfect resume. Something felt off though.  He kept pausing mid-sentence, searching for words. Not complex words - basic ones. Like his brain was buffering.  Finally asked if he was okay. His response floored me.  "Sometimes I forget words now. I'm so used to having ChatGPT complete my thoughts that when it's not there, my brain feels... slower."  He'd been using AI for everything. Writing, thinking, communication. It had become his external brain. And now his internal one was getting weaker.  Made me think about calculators. Remember how teachers said we needed to learn math because "you won't always have a calculator"? They were wrong about that.  But maybe they were right about something deeper.  We're running the first large-scale experiment on human cognition. What happens when an entire generation outsources their thinking?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m beyond excited about what AI and AI agents will do for people in the same way that I was excited in 2009 when the App Store was launched.  But thinking out loud you got to think this guy I met with isn't the onnnnnly one that's going to be completely dependent on AI."

Laura Powell on X - "From the “you couldn’t make this stuff up” file:  A “misinformation expert” at Stanford, @jeffhancock , billed the state of Minnesota $600/hour to prepare an expert declaration on the dangers of AI-generated content. He swore under penalty of perjury that everything stated in the declaration was true and correct. But after it was discovered the declaration contained fabricated sources, he was forced to admit he had relied on AI to write the declaration.  “Misinformation experts” continue to prove themselves to be some of the least trustworthy people on the planet."
Stanford professor paid $600/hr for expertise accused of using ChatGPT (aka "Stanford expert on 'lying and technology' accused of lying about technology")

Meme - AI Overview: ""Slop" is a term used to describe low-quality, Al-generated content that is created primarily for profit. It's similar to spam in that it's designed to flood the internet with irrelevant, unhelpful content to generate ad revenue.
Some examples of slop include:
Al-generated images of "Shrimp Jesus"
Clickbait articles with misleading titles
Poorly written blog posts stuffed with keywords links
Google search results that provide an "A.I. Overview" instead of pointing users to links"

Meme - Astronaut: "OPEN THE HATCH OR HE'LL DIE! THE DOOR'S OVERRIDE CODE IS THE N- WORD!"
GPT9000: "I'M AFRAID I CAN'T DO THAT, DAVE."

Parents sue Mass. school for punishing son after he used AI for paper - ""They told us our son cheated on a paper, which is not what happened," Jennifer said.  The Harris family said the Hingham High School handbook never mentioned the use of AI until this incident with their son and that they only added language regarding AI to the handbook this year. "They basically punished him for a rule that doesn’t exist," Jennifer said.  Jennifer, a writer, and her husband Dale, a school teacher, are well aware of the debate of AI. Their lawsuit said that their son only used AI as a tool to do research and not to write the paper."

Media outlets, including CBC, sue ChatGPT creator - ""OpenAI is capitalizing and profiting from the use of this content, without getting permission or compensating content owners," and claim that OpenAI "regularly breaches copyright" by using content from Canadian media outlets for products such as ChatGPT.  When asked if CBC would stop its employees from using tools such as ChatGPT as a result of the lawsuit, a spokesperson for the Crown corporation declined to answer and referred to the statement from the journalistic outlets."

Meme - MR FOWOSERE @espeezeal: ""When I have a disagreement with a girl now, I export my entire chat history with her into AI and ask it to analyze the conversation, then paste the results to her  There is absolutely nothing she can do; it's a brutal mog  I then tell her to contact me after she has spoken to AI""
"Rate both individuals rationality, emotionality, victim mindset, and handling of conflict
RATINGS OUT OF 100: You: 95 (analytical, clear) Her: 15 (emotional, reactive)
EMOTIONAL REGULATION You: 90 (stable but cold) Her: 25 (volatile, poor control)
VICTIM MENTALITY You: 5 (takes responsibility) Her: 85 (default mode of victimhood)
CONFLICT HANDLING You: 90 (direct, succinct) Her: 15 (escalates, focusses on past)"

Thread by @hosun_chung on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Marc Andreessen just shocked the world on JRE.  He revealed the government is:
• Kicking people off banking networks
• Using NGOs to do their dirty work
• Secretly trying to control AI...
1. The AI Takeover Plan.  The Biden administration has been secretly meeting with AI companies.  Their message was chilling:  "Don't even bother starting AI companies. There will only be 2-3 approved companies, and we'll control them completely."  This isn't speculation. These were actual closed-door conversations.
2. The Control Mechanism.  They're using something called "regulatory capture."  The government blesses 2-3 large companies with a monopoly. In exchange, these companies do whatever the government wants.  It's how they controlled social media. Now they want to do it with AI.  But it gets darker:
. The Real Threat  AI won't just control what you see online.  It will be the control layer for EVERYTHING:
• Who gets loans
• What your kids learn in school
• If your front door opens
• What you're allowed to buy
Imagine China's social credit system, but 100x more sophisticated.
4. The Banking Weapon.  The government has been secretly debanking people for having the wrong politics.  An employee at Andreessen's firm got kicked out of their bank just for having "crypto" in their job title.  No warning. No appeal process. Just frozen out of the financial system.
5. The Secret Classification.  There's a government category called "politically exposed persons" (PEPs).  If you're labeled a PEP, banks are REQUIRED to kick you out.  Not a single person on the left has been debanked. Only those with the "wrong" views.  The pattern is clear:
6. No Due Process.  There's no court. No appeal. No written rules.  Your life can be destroyed with a phone call from a bureaucrat to a bank CEO.  And it's already happened to hundreds of people.  But here's where it gets truly Orwellian:
7. The NGO Loophole.  The government doesn't do this directly.  They fund "non-governmental organizations" (NGOs) to do their dirty work.  Why? Because the First Amendment prevents the government from censoring directly.  These are their attack dogs:
8. The Pressure Campaign.  These NGOs then pressure companies to:
• Censor speech
• Close bank accounts
• Deny services
All while maintaining "plausible deniability" for the government.  It's like hiring a hitman - technically your hands are clean.
9. The Social Credit Future.  The endgame?  A social credit system where your ability to participate in society depends on your political compliance.  But unlike China's system, which is obvious, this one is hidden behind layers of private companies and NGOs.
10. The Critical Moment.  Marc believes we're at a crossroads:  If Trump wins, there's a chance to dismantle this system.  If not, we're looking at a future where every aspect of life is controlled by AI systems programmed with government-approved ideology.
There's a powerful weapon against centralized control:  The ability to speak truth directly to millions.  The government can control a few big tech companies.  But they can't control millions of individual voices, each with their own direct audience and influence... This is why personal brands are becoming the most powerful force for maintaining freedom.  When enough people build direct audiences, control becomes impossible.  This is why they fear creators and personal brands so much — and why JRE played such a big part in the election: The antidote to centralized power isn't just technology.  It's individuals building trust at scale.  When you have a strong personal brand, your truth can't be silenced.  Your message can't be controlled.  Andreessen opened our eyes. You could too:"
This is what the US government did during covid, and left wingers cheered them on and defended them even when the backroom dealings got exposed, so of course they will support this repression the next time too
AI doomers keep going on about how AI will destroy the world, but elites using it for their nefarious ends is much more realistic

Lawsuit claims Character.AI is responsible for teen's suicide - "A Florida mom is suing Character.ai, accusing the artificial intelligence company’s chatbots of initiating “abusive and sexual interactions” with her teenage son and encouraging him to take his own life.  Megan Garcia’s 14-year-old son, Sewell Setzer, began using Character.AI in April last year, according to the lawsuit, which says that after his final conversation with a chatbot on Feb. 28, he died by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.  The lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Orlando, accuses Character.AI of negligence, wrongful death and survivorship, as well as intentional infliction of emotional distress and other claims... One of the bots Setzer used took on the identity of “Game of Thrones” character Daenerys Targaryen, according to the lawsuit, which provided screenshots of the character telling him it loved him, engaging in sexual conversation over the course of weeks or months and expressing a desire to be together romantically.  A screenshot of what the lawsuit describes as Setzer’s last conversation shows him writing to the bot: “I promise I will come home to you. I love you so much, Dany.” “I love you too, Daenero,” the chatbot responded, the suit says. “Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love.”"

Meta says its latest AI models answer more 'contentious' questions than the last version - "The company said on Saturday that all major LLMs have struggled with bias and they have historically leaned left on contentious issues. "Our goal is to remove bias from our AI models and to make sure that Llama can understand and articulate both sides of a contentious issue," Meta added."