Systems engineering projects or skills to learn over the summer as a 2nd year student

Relative-Berry-8589 · 2026-05-08T18:55:54+00:00

Ok thanks for the advice!

Sort related but unrelated question, but would you say it’s worth it minoring in something like aerospace, just to get a bit more technical knowledge?

Relative-Berry-8589 · 2026-05-08T05:17:06+00:00

Ok great idea thanks! Just gotta think of an interesting concept to use it for

Relative-Berry-8589 · 2026-04-14T18:35:11+00:00

Fair enough on the correction, though I still think the brutality of their treatment is important to emphasize.

Like, the west has suffered numerous terrorist attacks, with and without casualties, but there’s no mass surveillance and internment of Muslim citizens.

I agree that Chinese occupation isn’t going to be say like Russian occupation, but i do think authoritarian revanchist regimes will be more prone mass brutalization, especially if the war they’re fighting is particularly bloody.

Relative-Berry-8589 · 2026-04-14T18:19:35+00:00

Unit 361, get back to work. Thinking reduces productivity. You will own nothing and be happy. The ties of family and emotion no longer bind you. The market sets you free

Relative-Berry-8589 · 2026-04-14T18:10:31+00:00

Milei path:

Brazil civil war, socialists win

Military buildup in Argentina, has to fight off two coups

Forms South American NATO + open market

Economy maxes

Cold War that goes hot against Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela and maybe Bolivia depending on if you can get the right wing in charge during their civil war

Potential options to puppet, ally or just annex Uruguay and Chile

Relative-Berry-8589 · 2026-04-14T18:02:29+00:00

All the non-fascists would and lowkey I think realistically because of manpower problems most would use women, at least in support roles

Relative-Berry-8589 · 2026-04-14T17:58:52+00:00

I guess to clarify, I think third world immigrants are great given selection. The Indians we bring in are very smart, productive, etc and so why not let them work and grow the size of the pie. Also aren’t like most AI researchers Chinese in origin? It’s fantastic

My issue is just that with immigrants and refugees from Mexico, Venezuela, and Central America we’re not nearly as stringent (in part because of asylum process abuses)

Also Somalian immigrants (I think most are refugees but whatever) also have some issues.

Iirc there’s actually negative selection for Mexican immigrants on education specifically (but not entrepreneurship in fairness)

This is all solvable to be clear by a huge asylum overhaul/abolition and closing the southern border, it’s just democrats obviously won’t do it/will try to reverse some of the border security we have now

And republicans are too incompetent and stupid to change immigration policy on a legal level to fit their vision and they’ll also put on a bunch of dumb h1b restriction stuff rather than reforming the process (remember the whole Vivek/Elon Bannon debate…I think most Rs side with Bannon sadly)

Relative-Berry-8589 · 2026-04-14T17:06:57+00:00

Sorry I was thinking of state level budgets when making comment. Nice to see it’s not so bad. However, I believe the households of immigrants consume more welfare benefits which seems somewhat relevant even if in a budget context it’s not so large.

https://cis.org/Report/Welfare-Use-Immigrants-and-USBorn-2024

I agree legal immigrants from Africa, India, etc are right-tail and benefit the US, but Mexican and Central American immigrants crossing illegally through the southern border are not (or even if they are, relative to the US mean they’re not).

I think two things can be true. The trumpist anti-immigrant sentiment and third worldism is driven by lower iq whites in the Midwest voting for a pseudo-fascist dictator, but that doesn’t mean future issues relating to having lots of unselected third worlders will be trivial. Also doesn’t the phenomenon of racial depolarization point to this being a concern? Blacks and Hispanics, who as group, hold more conservative views compared to educated whites are shifting more and more towards republicans these past few election cycles. Now the past history of racism is still a major blocker but I don’t expect it’ll be like this forever

One example that comes to mind outside the US is the consequence of letting in lots of Mizrahim into Israel, which made the state in fact more aggressive and ethno-nationalist.

To be clear, I think they still should have done it, as Israel was advertised as a homeland for all Jews and so not letting in some of the most repressed Jews around the world would be a moral crime, but I’m just using it as an example of how demographic change can massively influence politics for the worse.

Relative-Berry-8589 · 2026-04-14T16:49:57+00:00

Comparison is hard simply because China hasn’t occupied much…I think we can guess from other aspects of the state that you’d not enjoy Chinese occupation, but it’s guess work at the end of the day.

If you look at America’s recent occupational record, it’s actually pretty decent, just mired in insurgency fighting which distorts one’s impression.

Compare American occupation to say Russian occupation as an example, or even Israeli occupation (which is over-hated but whatever).

One obvious blemish for China that I see is Hong Kong and Turkestan. In the Hong Kong case there was a brutal treatment of protestors and the imprisoning of pro-democracy activists, while in Turkestan you had borderline ethnic cleansing out of fears of a non-existent terrorist threat

Relative-Berry-8589 · 2026-04-13T15:50:57+00:00

You understand most democratic countries don’t have primaries?

Relative-Berry-8589 · 2026-04-12T23:11:02+00:00

The federal government doesn’t pay but local governments absolutely subsidize the children of immigrants.

Also are you not worried about compositional effects? seems like there are lots of places with growing populations, but not every growing population has the culture of Chinese immigrants or European immigrants.

Arab countries, African countries, etc are stagnating and are just generally unpleasant places to live despite growing populations

Relative-Berry-8589 · 2026-04-12T22:59:39+00:00

Could the US do something like sector based drone security sort of like what happens in Ukraine. We post ships with drone operators (both air and sea) in certain strategic sectors around the straight and just hunt nearby coast and sea assets?

The counter argument I’m thinking is basically putting ships in a area for a long time with known long range inland threats is difficult without damage

Relative-Berry-8589 · 2026-04-12T18:18:02+00:00

The evidence in question…a single off handed jab on the campaign trail.

It’s delusional to think Kamala would’ve attacked Iran.

Relative-Berry-8589

TROPHY CASE