Stromae is fantastic! I just found out he did music for Arcane

If it doesn't feature 4NonBlondes and What's Going On, then I'm not interested

Pulse Water Modulation

Commenting for some context.

I have some experience with this since I was a recruiter for a couple years (Disclaimer: before trump). I did officer recruiting and had no quota, so I had the freedom to be more honest with people. My first question was always, "Do you want to join the military?" And if the answer was "no" I'd tell them to go do anything else. If the answer was "yes," I'd try to figure out what they really wanted. Often what they wanted was something they could find elsewhere and I would tell them so and how to get there. Occasionally someone would just be pro-military and I put a lot of energy into explaining that there are no promises, no guarantees, and the government will do what it wants with you whether you like it or not. My goal was to dismiss misconceptions (often generated by media/movies or recruiting ads themselves). This was before this insane trump era and I had fewer reservations if someone truly wanted it AND had the wherewithal to be a decent human about it.

Enlisted recruiters don't necessarily have the same leeway. They are directly graded on the number of enlistments they get in whatever reporting period. Their promotions often depend on it. They are also given materials and information to use. The message above looks like a mixture of someone trying to meet their enlistment quota through outreach and a certain well-intentioned blindness that comes from years of indoctrination to trust the system. I'd be hesitant to say this recruiter is personally trying to round up immigrants, although there is always a chance. It seems more likely that this either came from higher in the organization, like Pentagon level directive (arguably more concerning), or comes from short-sighted intention to help without considering or being aware of the broader dangers so they're trying to disseminate info about programs that could have been helpful in the past without understanding how they can also be weaponized.

That being said! Intention doesn't matter. This is a program that can be weaponized and it should be ridiculed as such.

PSA: Everyone should always be highly skeptical when dealing with recruiters, now more than ever, especially since they are graded on number of enlistments. If anyone you know is considering an enlistment tell them that recruiters are not there to help you get what you want, they're there to make numbers. The incentive structure for them is not in anyone else's best interest. I've found this argument to be effective where more ideological arguments may not land or may further entrench.

It's almost a concept of a plan

I had a boss that did this quarterly meeting where he'd schedule two full days to review everything he heard piecemeal once a week and it always ended up taking 3 and a half days. It was hell and we all hated it. The whole office had to sit in it, no one got any work done, and most of us fell asleep. No decisions were ever made and it was just to give himself the feel goods about telling his boss he knew what was going on.

Horrible boss. The running theory in the office was that he hated his family and didn't want to go home

I might go back and read those again. If I remember right, they get dark as hell for kids books

The downdetector comments have descended immediately into utter madness

I saw a breakdown the other day postulating that the true unemployment rate is masked by the gig economy, because people are more likely to drive Uber than file for unemployment

I'm convinced they'll do it to themselves, especially as more books are made with AI, more articles, more reddit bots, etc. Their tool will poison its own well.

I think Bojack did a good job representing the different kinds of discourse on the subject, while also showing how impactful representation can be. However it was a relatively short arc that did not get much of any revisit