“Suicidal empathy” is a term coined by evolutionary psychologist Gad Saad to describe a pathological form of misplaced altruism where emotional compassion supersedes reason and self-preservation. According to Saad, this maladaptive trait causes societies to prioritize ostensible victimhood and the feelings of fringe groups over truth, common sense, and their own cultural survival. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Every country and culture has an idea police. These are called societal norms and customs. Some of those norms evolve, incorporate other cultural ideas, and some remain consistent. Saad’s entire point is if you wait until they actually start stoning, it’s already too late.
Have you ever been to Egypt? Have any direct experience with Egyptian immigrants or are you resting your bias on a single survey that fits your narrative?
I’ve lived in and travelled in Egypt (I have a cool picture of me inside one of the pyramids back when you could just walk in one with no one stopping you). I am confident we have nothing to fear about a few thousand (or a few million) of them immigrating here and resulting in public stonings becoming the norm.
No and it is irrelevant to the discussion. The point is there are societies and cultures that have deeply held views that conflict with our own and it is okay to be wary of those groups. It isn’t a critique of the average Egyptian or if on an individual case by case basis, he or she wouldn’t be an excellent addition to our society. But, I don’t think that kind of careful critique is happening in Europe.
We’re talking about Europe. As to the US, it turned out, you didn’t need a bill after all, just the right leadership. For anyone who cares, one of the largest killers of those age 16-24, fentanyl, it seems to have been greatly reduced.
Yes, fentanyl deaths peaked in 2022, and dropped by an astounding 34% in 2023. Moving away from the ineffective policies of the past made a big difference.
Tell me again how high fentanyl deaths increased starting in 2020, how many children are unaccounted for? It’s okay to admit it. The public asked for the current administration to secure the border and they did it without a bill.
The online Chinese companies can not do this. This is why American workers can start at the bottom selling eyeglasses with no training at first and advance over time.
You cannot test people’s eyesight simply by getting certified through the optical department. State laws and professional designations divide eye care into three distinct roles, and only one is legally qualified to test eyesight and write prescriptions. [1]
The three main eye care roles include:
Optometrist (Eye Doctor): A medical professional who conducts eye exams, diagnoses diseases, and writes prescriptions. Becoming an optometrist requires a 4-year undergraduate degree followed by a 4-year Doctor of Optometry (O.D.) program.
Ophthalmologist (Surgeon): A medical doctor (M.D. or D.O.) who performs eye surgery and treats complex ocular diseases. This requires medical school plus a multi-year residency.
Optician: A technician who fits, measures, adjusts, and dispenses eyeglasses and contact lenses based on an optometrist’s or ophthalmologist’s prescription. Opticians are not legally permitted to conduct eye exams or write prescriptions. [1, 5]
If you start at Costco in the glasses department with no training, you can become a Certified Optician.
The Path: Costco often hires entry-level “optical trainees” or cross-trains existing employees. You get paid while you learn on the job.
The Certifications: You will be expected to study for and pass the American Board of Optometry (ABO) exam for eyeglasses and the National Contact Lens Examiners (NCLE) exam for contacts.
Costco Policy: Costco usually covers the study materials and reimburses the exam and state licensing fees once you pass. [6, 9, 10]
You can browse open positions or learn more about the benefits on the Costco Career Opportunities page.
Would you like to know more about the salary expectations for opticians at Costco, or are you interested in prerequisites for optometry school if you want to become the doctor who tests eyesight?
In the past 18 months, 55 people have died at the hands of ICE, either in detention or during arrests, including those arrests which involved chasing the wrong person, ie a complete innocent. This is an astonishingly high number but not surprising, given the lack of training and speed with which this “good leadership” effort was begun.
If this number was the same for CEOs, or ministers, or PTA members there would be banner headlines and Congresspeople speeches and laws being passed to reign in the terror. But because it’s happening in disadvantaged, and particularly brown communities, people are going around applauding.
It’s disgusting. There is a way to enforce the law without setting a bunch of untrained hooligans with guns loose on the streets, and permission (applause!) for killing people.
Actually, the number is closer to 60. For context, more than 1200 people were killed by police in 2025. By some estimates, more than 5000 die annually in local, state and federal prisons/custody.
the numbers matter little unless you bother to do the research on each specific case to determine whether it was misuse of power.
There have no doubt been some missteps. But, you’re histrionics aside, we’re in this situation because of a lack of immigration enforcement that the public is no longer willing to tolerate. There are those on the left encouraging citizens to interfere with police actions, putting agents and themselves at risk. As tragic as the outcomes are, they are not unexpected outcomes.
The bulk of ice agents are black and brown if that makes you feel better. I don’t think anyone is applauding and I know I am not. It’s tragic that the last administration completely skirted its duties and put the public at risk along with a lot of illegal immigrants abused and mistreated by those bringing them over. Let alone, the hundreds of thousands of opioid related deaths attributed to drugs being brought across the border. Spare me your outrage.
Polling for current policies is pretty much what it was for Biden’s lax immigration. The vast majority of Americans are appalled by the hooliganism and unnecessary killing of people who comitted a misdemeanor, let alone all the innocent people who’ve been detained, abused, and killed.
Detainees are refused their medication. There are reports of guards betting on who is going to commit suicide next. This is truly evil shat. Ghislaine Maxwell has received better treatment from this adminstration.
You’re going to need to provide specific evidence. If officers have violated the law or of detainees have been abused, they should be held accountable. But, it’s not a reason to not enforce immigration laws and remove those that are here illegally. We don’t as a general practice suspend enforcement of policing or the criminal code, because some might abuse that power. Although, there are a number of extremists calling for exactly that.
I don’t accept broad talking points as evidence. We don’t do that with policing and incarceration data in general. I mean certain activist groups do to create a narrative but the devil is in the details.
Generally speaking, people killed in traditional law enforcement activities are those being pursued for criminal activities, often violent criminal activities. There’s a difference there, they’re not just rounding up people based on their skin color (OKed by the USSc) in a Home Depot parking lot.
It doesn’t make me feel better, because it’s false.
No, white agents outnumber Latino agents at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by nearly 3-to-1, meaning most ICE agents are not minorities. However, ICE is still racially diverse; nearly 30% of ICE agents self-identify as Latino, making it one of the most heavily diverse federal law enforcement agencies
Even if it were true it wouldn’t make it OK. We are paying “bonuses” for signing up (attracting the most economically desperate) and putting them on the street with lethality in as little as 28 days. Your typical police officer will train for 6 months to a year. See the difference?
Yes, I get that. In Biden’s term there were 10 million immigrants, 5 million of whom were sent home. In Trump’s first term there were (according to Pew via Google) 3 million net immigrants. So a difference, however it’s also true that the Obama administration deported more illegal immigrants than did Trump in his first term, and more per-annum than Trump has so far in this term. DHS reports 675,000 deportations so far - which is fewer than Biden carried out (again, rationalized for math: 4 years vs 18 months).
You talk about May histrionics. Perhaps you need to find news sources which are more truthful about, you know, actual numbers.
If that’s what happening, I would be opposed to it. I think most want legal enforcement of immigration policy.
I love the numbers game. The Obama administration changed the way they count net deportations and Biden continued with that practice. How it really worked is they altered the data to count encounters and turn backs at the border as “deportations”. So the math and data get fuzzy. But the reality is this, the last administration made a mess of immigration enforcement. At every turn, they did everything possible to thwart border states ability to even protect their own citizens. Now, somebody has to clean it up.
Remember, this was Biden’s approach. The entire time the administration said there wasn’t even actually a crisis. I have no interest in going back to that. It represents the largest migration of unaccompanied children ever to enter the US in a single period. Many of which we have no idea where they are today.
This is the internet and not a face to face conversation. So, I don’t know if your criticisms are simply of the current enforcement policy as a whole or just specific actions by ICE. I have made the assumption that your critique is of the latter. If I’m wrong about that and it is confined to where ICE has shown poor judgement or a lack of training or violated the law, I would agree those specific issues should be fixed. But, not at the expense of suspending enforcement of the current immigration policy, which seems to be the broader criticism from many.
By any means? ICE patrols running people off the road, and shooting indiscriminately into vehicles in residencial areas is making us all safer? Get real.
Again, are you levying specific criticisms on ICE actions and the treatment of detainees to correct it or do you want to shut down immigration enforcement? If it’s the former, you have my full agreement that detainees should be treated appropriately. ICE officers that violate the law should face civil and criminal penalties. It’s no different than the typical view on domestic policing.
But if you’re going to sensationalize the numbers to suggest widespread wrongdoing and characterize it as if its the wild west out there, I don’t accept your premise. It is hysteria for effect. Again, many are using this argument to shutdown enforcement at all or to essentially neuter its capabilities. Is that your aim? Because for many of the sources you are citing, it is exactly that strategy. Every deadly interaction with ICE paints them as the villian. Not because it’s the truth, it’s because it serves a narrative.
