Alternative link for those who want an additional choice than American media: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/rfk-jr-autism-1.7516252

From the article:

more recently, news that the NIH will create a disease registry to track autistic Americans.

Now, he wants to create a registry of Americans with autism—pulling from a 1939 Nazi playbook.

Do these actions from RFK mean I will soon be able to qualify for political asylum in another country, if RFK is going to go after people with Autism here domestically? If it is not safe for me to remain in my country, but I am not sure I even have the necessary skills or resources to depart the country in due time.

Having a car, working at some notable brand company.

Bragging.

I halted all of my posting to reddit during the API fiasco. Lurked on Lemmy until I needed to start blocking communities and then created an account to do so.

Most of the niche and local communities (most notably r/IWantOut) are still on that sinking ship though, and not here :(. I only visit to see what those niche communities are up to from time to time, but do not post or get any news from there.

Of the communities that are highly active on Lemmy, I do think the content is pretty good and is enough to replace reddit. I feel like I get to hear what's going on without the censorship on that sinking ship. There's just enough activity such that the more general communities have enough new content to look at by browsing the "all" tab on the homepage and in the communities, but there's still not enough activity or users for me to browse through "local" or "subscribed" yet.

Authortarianism and censorship to the point where I can never return to my former homeland until that changes for the better. No worker's rights. Human rights issues in the north and west in areas that weren't part of China historically.

Possible conflict with Taiwan (if that happens than I'd be sent to the camps to die by orange cheeto, unless I leave).

1.4 billion people & had the One Child policy for the longest time.

Lots of enviornmental problems, air pollution (and apparently much of the country has really really hot heat indices in the summer, avg high of 40C and low of 30C already.... no thanks).

Really difficult language to learn (tried to learn it back when I was in school, couldn't really and basically forgot it all).

The original creator of this map (it was originally posted by OOP to twitter, but that site is now a hudge pudge), is from Alaska.

and part of an at-risk group - and there are many

Are there any other "at risk groups" that may likely be targeted but are not commonly talked about or targeted at the moment? I know trans, non male/female, green card residents, and naturalized citizens are some of the most at risk groups.

Cheeto has blamed aspergers/autism on vaccinations (?), so I'm not too sure yet whether cheeto plans to go after disabled/neurodiverse/aspergers people next. I have already seen "disabilities" and "disability" on the "banned words" list in the New York Times article about "banned words" at agencies in Washington.

I suspect that if the PRC goes after Taiwan, then that may put any ethnic Chinese in the U.S. into an at risk group.

The problem is that I'm not sure the latter I mentioned qualify for political asylum just yet, aside from the former that are targeted at the moment.

Which at risk groups should plan to leave right now aside from the most obvious?

Yeah, it's pretty dire. Those aformentioned countries are the only places in which to go where learning a new language isn't necessary to get permanent citizenship.

To get permanent citizenship in any other country generally requires fluency in the native local language in pretty much all cases.

If I wanted to move to the EU, say the Netherlands for example, I wouldn't be able to get EU/Dutch citizenship until learning and becoming fluent with the Dutch language, plus x amount of years with residence in the 1 specific EU country. Replace the language/country with whatever EU country and it's the same situation.

Even with Canada, since I didn't take French in middle or high school, that means Quebec is pretty much off the table for me, unless I go through the hassle of learning French as an adult.

Even if Canada could have a threat of invasion from the south, I do not think it would likely succeed, as there are at least 5 border states that are blue/democrat, and Canada would likely get help from other countries. Perhaps Mexico may start a second front from the south siding with Canada, so that there's 2 fronts to deal with? Canada does have the city of Edmonton located pretty far from the US border, so it is not required to live adjacent to the US border in Canada. I would say that fleeing to Canada is about the same risk as fleeing to Finland or Estonia, and the latter two are in the EU.

Australia and NZ also exist, those countries are likely fine in that no major global trade routes go through there (unlike the Arctic), so that mitigates the risk of war over there. Those I've read somewhere on r/IWantOut that some countries like Australia have a list of medical conditions that would mean one is not allowed to emigrate there.

England/the UK I haven't read much, but that's about as far as one can go, aside from Canada; to go elsewhere means learning a new language is outright required.

I'm in a similar position as OP, and trying to leave with someone else would be even more trickier. Even Canada is very limited in how many family members/friends/relatives that one can sponsor or emigrate with.

I'd feel like being of Chinese descent is more of a liability. If the PRC goes after Taiwan, I could totally see the cheeto crowd go after my ethnicity and be a repeat of what happened in WWII.

I just hope any one country will start allowing asylum seekers to get out before it's too late, but I won't hold my breath given that everywhere in the developed world seems to have a housing crisis all at once.

Yea. I actually had [email protected] filtered, so I had to unblock it and edit my post.

In [email protected], they have a huge banner at the top of the sidebar telling users "Before you post, if it's politics or world news, post it in the specific sub-communities at x and y". It makes a huge difference in how the main Australia community is much less hectic and easier to find discussion and text posts, vs. [email protected].

The sidebar of [email protected] does not have any banner or mention of [email protected], but is instead buried underneath a collapsed menu. This I would think leads to users posting political and geopolitical news in [email protected] instead of [email protected], which the latter is better suited for such posts.

It can also sometimes be hard to distinguish between notable news. For example, if there is a new Prime Minister, should c/Canada allow it?

In those instances, I suppose it is fine to post that in the main [email protected] community if it is that major. I'd imagine there would be text/general discussion posts relating to that issue, so such news would be in the main Canada community anyways in that format.

I think filtering based on link posts vs. text and image posts would be valuable. Perhaps [email protected] and (world)[email protected] could become communities dedicated to link posts (posts that link to news sites, etc.), and then [email protected] would be text, image, opinion, and miscellaneous posts. (i.e., open ended discussion, etc.). It seems like right now [email protected] currently allows text posts as well, but I suppose that is fine and there isn't that big of a need to change that.

Online education isn't exactly great for people with poor self control or focus. At best, online education is good for lectures, but not much else (aside from if commuting or finding a place close by to live is a pain, then I suppose online education may be a tradeoff in that regard).

Everything else is generally better in person. Stuff like group projects and whatnot cannot be done online.

Since COVID, I've found that the growth of technology isn't exactly great for the learning experience. Now a lot of educational work takes place through the distraction vortex (computers and phones are very tempting to do something else instead). Pre-pandemic when education was more paper and pencil based, it is much easier to focus. At "best", you can only daydream or whatnot. Other people would not be as tucked to their phones and laptops like it is since the pandemic.

In a way, online education would also be harmful in reducing social cohesion as well if it becomes the default mainstream, so it's not just limited in excluding certain neurodiverse populations from access to education. Online education isn't exactly more "efficent".

Unfortunately I'm on the wrong side of the border, so I'm more screwed in a way, but means the incentive to get out is much higher.

*2029

Holy sheesh. Should I take this at face value? Seems plausible.

The thing about implementing tariffs for a day then turning it off again after 24 hours to "test whether cheetoland's or the Canada's ecnomy crashes or not" seems too good to be true. The thing about destabilizing Canada with (social) media campaigns, then I remember the fact that I've already seen dozens of posts of "American media pretending to be Canadian" right here on Lemmy.

This article literally screams "get out ASAP" to me like it's ringing alarm bells. I've never felt so scared or paranoid. Is this the thing that convinces me that I gotta leave my hellscape I'm in and emigrate elsewhere?

Canada clamped down on immigration several years ago, so that option seems, mostly difficult at best if at all. Not sure about Australia, England, and NZ either.

By the time the world allows those who want to leave the hellscape for elsewhere, it's almost certainly going to be too late and much worse off :(.

I feel so scared and paranoid, and I've never been this scared and paranoid for just existing where I've lived my entire life. And yet I've already blocked dozens of news feeds and whatnot, and it still doesn't go away with more slop that gets through the ever growing cracks. Can't hardly focus or do a thing at all.

A slightly different graph from Fedecan shows the user growth more clearly without the Hexbear blip

Highest daily growth since 2023 at 1.2k per day the past few days.

It's slowly starting to look like the next great influx as seen from Fedecan stats.

Kinda wild. I really gotta leave and get out of this pile of a dumpster fire I'm in, and head to Canada or someplace. This screenshot is just insane. I have no words for what I'm seeing here in this screenshot.

Glad I no longer post to reddit anymore. May go ahead with a essentially full block of reddit and essentially all of Big TV outright at some point. I've thought about cutting off Big TV completely; as hearing from American news media has been driving me on the verge of outright mental insanity, but now seeing this tonight, it seems like I gotta cut Big TV outright.

I've never been so thankful and glad to be on Lemmy and Mastodon for this wild ride since the start. I'm realizing just how dire it is out there. Having to get this off my chest with nowhere to vent to. Now I just need to find a Lemmy community or something that helps with people coping with this insanity, because I might need to hide this community again otherwise for my sanity. I already had most of the news and politics communities hidden on Lemmy to manage the flow of insanity, but went back and forth on this one this week.