<h2>Mean Grocer</h2>
President-elect Donald Trump successfully campaigned on lowering prices, especially at the supermarket. But this could be impossible to achieve if he wants to deliver on his other big promise: the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/18/trump-military-mass-deportation">mass deportation of millions of immigrants</a>.
As farmers and economists warn, carrying out this brutal policy would almost certainly cause food prices to skyrocket, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/18/economy/economy-trump-deportation-grocery-inflation/index.html">CNN reports</a>.
The ugly truth of the matter is that the US agricultural industry is heavily dependent on labor performed by undocumented immigrants, who are vulnerable to exploitation.
Major moral questions aside, from a purely economic point of view, the consequences of the scale of deportation that Trump has promised are clear. With a shortfall of labor, less food will be produced. And that means higher grocery prices.
"There's no question that mass deportation of immigrants will disrupt the agriculture and food processing industries, resulting in severe labor shortages, higher costs and thus higher prices for a wide variety of groceries," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, told CNN. "The only question is how high prices will go."
<h2>Job Hunting</h2>
According to <a href="https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/farm-labor/#demographic">statistics</a> from the US Department of Agriculture, between 2018 and 2020, 41 percent of all crop farmworkers in the country were immigrants without work authorization. Only 36 percent were US citizens, with the remainder being authorized immigrants. In this line of work, domestic workers are outnumbered by foreign-born ones roughly two-to-one.
Overall, as of 2021, around 300,000 undocumented immigrants worked in the agriculture industry. At that scale, replacing the shortfall in labor is a pipe dream. It's not just the sheer volume that's a problem; it's that people born here aren't exactly lining up to do some of the most grueling work imaginable. Just ask the people who run the farms.
"There are no domestic workers that want those jobs," Fred Leitz, who owns a family farm in Michigan, told CNN.  "It's seasonal. It's outside. It's hot. It's cold."
"It's a demanding job. It's dirty at times. Physical in nature," echoed Rick Naerobout, CEO of the Idaho Dairymen's Association. "And when you're sitting with unemployment rates as low as what we have, your domestic workforce kind of gets the pick of the jobs they want to take."
<h2>Food for Thought</h2>
According to Naerebout, as much as 90 percent of the dairy industry is made up of immigrants — so those (raw) milk products that <a href="https://www.axios.com/2024/11/20/what-is-raw-milk-rfk-jr-trump-health-risks">right-wing grifters are obsessed with pushing</a> would probably be the first to suffer.
"The impact to you in the supermarket would be a significant [price] increase in milk, cheese, yogurt," Naerbout told CNN.
That being said, it could be the case that Trump's deportations won't go as far as he says they will. Another big promise, his proposed global tariffs plus a ludicrous <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-tariffs-gaming-expensive">60 percent tariff on Chinese goods</a>, don't seem to be taken seriously by <a href="https://apnews.com/article/stock-markets-rates-china-93421462d761eb1402d813cb381fe6e9">an optimistic Wall Street</a>, which would directly suffer under such a policy.
In any event, there will be many political obstacles to achieving those goals. But if the agriculture industry's alarm is any indication, even a softened version of Trump's vision could have dire consequences for the economy.
More on Trump: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-planning-self-driving-cars-loose">Trump Reportedly Planning to Let Self-Driving Cars Loose</a>

Giving Away the Farm

"The only question is how high prices will go." 

If Trump Actually Goes Through With His Deportations, Grocery Prices Will Spike Brutally

International celebrity Kim Kardashian has <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kimkardashian/p/DCk9PKUpQpV/?hl=en&amp;img_index=1">shared a strange series of pictures</a> showing her hanging out — and engaging in just a touch of PDA — with a Tesla Optimus humanoid robot sitting inside a Cybercab.
The provocative series of photos, clearly intended to market her shapewear line, didn't quite hit the mark with her audience on Instagram.
"This is so weird," the top comment reads.
A <a href="https://x.com/PopBase/status/1858603823151149161">short video</a> shows her waving at the robot and forming the shape of a heart with her and the humanoid's hand pressed together.
And a <a href="https://x.com/KimKardashian/status/1858667396720193822">separate clip</a> shows the robot posing in a suggestive manner inside the golden two-seater prototype.
A shot of Kardashian holding hands with the robot <a href="https://x.com/PopBase/status/1859082263646138709">caught the attention of netizens</a>, leading to discussions of women possibly <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/men-sex-robots">choosing to have more sex with robots</a> than with men.
Beyond the awkwardness of posing with a stiff humanoid robot, it didn't take long for netizens to charge that Kardashian was outing herself as a Trump supporter, given his cushy relationship with Tesla CEO Elon Musk — regardless of whether Kardashian intended to make a political statement or not.
"Kim and her stupid robot is all I need to see to know she voted for Trump," one commenter <a href="https://x.com/Messinadress1/status/1859077312722907297">wrote</a> on Musk's social media platform X-formerly-Twitter.
"Women who support Kim K?" another user <a href="https://x.com/YallpussCImBack/status/1858924911655612780">wrote</a>. "Which is more important ya womanhood or skims? Make her feel it!... We know who she voted for now."
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
👽 <a href="https://t.co/zqgue0uGz1">pic.twitter.com/zqgue0uGz1</a>
&mdash; Kim Kardashian (@KimKardashian) <a href="https://twitter.com/KimKardashian/status/1859110283148677294?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
Musk showed off both the EV maker's latest iteration of its Optimus humanoid robot and the Cybercab, a fully autonomous two-seater, at a <a href="https://futurism.com/tesla-robotaxi-event-disappointment">flashy event last month</a>.
But whether either invention is anywhere near ready for a mainstream rollout remains dubious at best.
Case in point, during the event, a number of Optimus robots could be seen interacting and conversing with eventgoers. But as it <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-sped-up-video-optimus-robots">quickly turned out</a>, they were being remotely controlled and voiced by human actors from afar.
Meanwhile, Tesla still has a lot of work ahead of it before it can roll out a robotaxi service. The company has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-promises-paid-robotaxis-next-year-significant-hurdles-remain-2024-10-24/">yet to even apply for a regulatory permit to launch</a> such a thing.
Tesla's self-driving software is still in a less-than-ideal state, leading to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-self-driving-deer">plenty of collisions and near-misses</a>. The Cybercab has neither a steering wheel nor pedals — a disaster waiting to happen.
The EV maker also made a <a href="https://futurism.com/why-tesla-cybercab-robotaxi-no-sense">number of baffling decisions</a> when designing the Cybercab prototype, from an intentionally missing charging port to a cramped interior for just two people.
In short, it's unclear what Kardashian's PR department was intending with its strangely tone-deaf marketing stunt. Was it meant to drum up excitement for Tesla tech — or score political points with the far right?
Given her already extensive efforts to <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/rumors-kim-kardashian-finger-cybertruck">market the carmaker's highly divisive Cybertruck</a> long before the presidential election, it's likely more the former than the latter.
Her fans, however, weren't buying.
"Sorry Kim, you’re not gonna normalize this weird behavior for us we don’t want this!" an Instagram user commented.
More on Kim K: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/rumors-kim-kardashian-finger-cybertruck">Rumors Fly That Part of Kim Kardashian's Finger Got Cut Off by Her Cybertruck</a>

New Botfriend

"This is so weird."

Photos Show Kim Kardashian Holding Hands With Tesla Robot

President-elect Donald Trump's <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/rfk-jr-brain-worm-hhs-trump">pick to lead</a> the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has a lot of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/caroline-kennedy-says-rfk-jr-holds-dangerous-views-vaccines-rcna180706">dangerous opinions</a> about healthcare — and his <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gx3kkz8z3o">comments about drugs</a>, addiction, and rehabilitation should give anybody pause, perhaps especially if they rely on an Adderall prescription.
Earlier this year, <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/07/rfk-jr-wants-to-send-people-on-antidepressants-to-government-wellness-farms/">Mother Jones spotted a bizarre claim</a> the former presidential candidate made about so-called "wellness camps" for people taking the ADHD treatment and other common drugs — which, it was <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/rfk-jr-adderall-labor-camps">hard to ignore</a>, sounded an awful lot like labor camps.
"I’m going to create these wellness farms where they can go to get off of illegal drugs, off of opiates, but also illegal drugs, other psychiatric drugs, if they want to," he said during a recorded podcast interview billed as a "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=PLcSLB9n2hAu3QNA&amp;v=c10sdjGTjkY&amp;feature=youtu.be">Latino Town Hall</a>" event, "to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall, and to spend time as much time as they need — three or four years if they need it — to learn to get reparented, to reconnect with communities."
Needless to say, there's an astonishing amount to unpack in those brief remarks. Are these "wellness camps" a service that people attend voluntarily, or are they forced? Are they presented as folks' last choice besides prison? What happens if someone shows up and doesn't work hard enough?
And perhaps most of all, when he calls out Adderall, benzodiazepines, and serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) — all currently legal pharmaceuticals with legitimate medical purposes — as a reason to end up on these farms, what is RFK Jr. signaling about his leadership at a federal department? Will he push for these medications to become illegal, or restricted, or harder to prescribe, or unavailable on insurance?
These are outrageous questions to be asking with scarcely a month to go before Trump takes office. But underlining RFK Jr's lack of seriousness as a candidate or appointee, he never appears to have said anything substantive about what he actually wants to do about these drugs — beyond vaguely-worded fearmongering, that is.
"Our kids are all on Adderall. They’re all on [anti-depressant] SSRIs. Why?" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm3uOuz9_9o">Kennedy told a podcaster</a> March. "Doctors didn’t just start prescribing these for no reason. We have damaged this entire generation. We have poisoned them."
Poison? That's a stretch — SSRIs are <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/483137/case-against-antidepressants">open to critique</a>, and both Adderall and benzodiazepines are subject to abuse, but all three drugs unquestionably help many Americans live functional lives. (And let's not forget that RFK Jr. <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/05/09/before-robert-f-kennedy-jr-s-brain-worms-there-was-the-steroid-question/">makes an exception</a> to his anti-drugs messaging for his own habit of testosterone therapy.)
We reached out to both Kennedy and Trump's campaigns to ask for clarification on the nominee's stances regarding Adderall and these so-called "farms," and received no response by press time.
A quirk of RFK Jr. is that he often mixes perfectly reasonable claims with bizarre or conspiratorial ones. Back in the summer of 2023, for instance, he <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12454363/Recovering-heroin-addict-RFK-Jr-wants-billions-sent-Ukraine-invested-healing-farms-Americans-struggling-depression-addiction-battle-no-stranger-to.html">told the Daily Mail</a> that his "farms" would serve as an alternative to "warehousing" America's "desperate and alienated."
"One of the things I'm going to do is to launch a series of healing farms in rural areas all across the country," Kennedy said, "in places where the only industry now are prisons."
"We're now seeing an epidemic of addiction, alcoholism, but also just loneliness, despair, disassociation, alienation," he continued. "People feel dispossessed, and we need to start healing people."
In a sense, of course, he's totally right: people fall into addiction when they don't have any sense of opportunity in their lives, and prison tends to push the most vulnerable even further into self-destructive habits.
But RFK Jr.'s ongoing adulation of Trump — whose election caused the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/11/private-prison-stocks-jump-on-trump-appointment-of-immigration-hardliner-tom-homan.html">stock of for-profit prisons to soar</a> as investors slavered over the mass incarceration of immigrants and other marginalized groups — suggests a man with very little depth of conviction.
Case in point, he's often positioned himself as a foe of processed fast food — but who could forget the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/rfk-jr-mcdonalds">photo of RFK Jr. with Trump</a> and his posse that emerged this week, all posing on a private jet with fresh slop from McDonald's? (Let's not forget that <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-white-house-drugs-speed-xanax-1234979503/">Trump's White House was "awash</a>" in Adderall, the benzo-like Xanax, and other dubiously-prescribed substances.)
At the end of the day, the fact that RFJ Jr. has offered almost nothing in terms of specifics about his radical rhetoric means that a threat is now looming over everyone in America who relies on these medications. If nothing else, leaving them in limbo is a profound failure.
More on RFK Jr.: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/rfk-jr-mcdonalds">RFK Jr. Grimaces While Eating McDonald's With Donald Trump, Elon Musk</a>

Losing Focus

Rx/Medicines

This does not bode well. 

If You Take Adderall, RFK Jr. Should Probably Make You Quite Nervous

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Mehmet Oz, the controversial television doctor and failed Senate candidate for Pennsylvania who has routinely promoted <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/20/dr-oz-trump-cms-credentials-controversy/">pseudoscientific and unproven</a> medical treatments, to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS.)
This is a critical position that — if Oz is confirmed — would put the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/26/us/politics/dr-oz-medical-advice.html">television personality</a> at the helm of a vast and consequential public agency that oversees and facilitates health coverage for <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/19/trump-picks-dr-oz-to-lead-massive-medicare-medicaid-agency-cms.html">roughly half of American citizens</a>. Oz is trained as a cardiothoracic surgeon and was once a professor and vice-chair of surgery at Columbia University — though Columbia has since <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/chickenshit-move-columbia-quietly-cuts-ties-with-dr-oz/">attempted to distance itself</a> from the weight-loss <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/26/us/politics/dr-oz-medical-advice.html">drug-slinging</a> TV doc — but has no experience running government agencies or large healthcare or insurance programs.
As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/us/politics/trump-dr-oz-medicare-medicaid.html">The New York Times notes</a>, the CMS oversees healthcare for over 150 million Americans, and is responsible for nearly one quarter of spending for the entire national budget. The CMS falls under the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services, to which the conspiracy-peddling anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has been nominated by the president-elect as head.
"CMS touches virtually every family in America through Medicaid and Medicare, and it's probably the most challenging technical, policy and political job in government," Drew Altman, president of the health research group KFF, told the NYT. "Even small, almost daily decisions at CMS are billion-dollar decisions that affect industries and patients with serious illnesses who really care."
Medically speaking, Oz's baggage runs deep. In addition to being yet another <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-cabinet-media-personalities-1b9bc74e807f6a6b4b3b86028d967dbd">Person on Television</a> nominated to Trump's historically unqualified cabinet selections, Oz has <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/04/23/dr-oz-show-columbia-doctors-call-for-resignation-column/26179443/">routinely come under fire</a> from his peers for irresponsibly using his platform and position as a physician in ways that have worked to undermine public health. To wit: during his unsuccessful 2022 bid for Pennsylvania's senate seat, a cohort of over 150 Keystone State physicians signed a letter <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/pa-doctors-call-dr-ozs-senate-run-threat-to-public-health/">condemning</a> the TV star as a "major threat to public health" due to his well-documented history of spouting baseless and misleading medical treatments and theories, including dangerous misinformation about debunked <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/20/well/dr-oz-health-medicare-record.html">alleged COVID-19 treatments</a>.
And back in 2014, <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7346">a study published in the </a><a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7346">British Medical Journal</a> found that roughly half of all advice promoted on Oz's television show was either not supported or refuted by established medical research and knowledge. He's also <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/dr-oz-some-incest-okay">sort-of-kind-of defended some types of incest in the past</a>, so there's that.
Oz's penchant for hawking dubious supplements has gotten him in trouble, too — including with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2014/06/17/health/senate-grills-dr-oz/index.html">who in 2014 chastised the celebrity doctor</a> for championing multiple green coffee bean-based weight loss supplements that were later discredited as snake oil. Oz called the coffee supplements "magic" drugs; according <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2014/05/ftc-charges-green-coffee-bean-sellers-deceiving-consumers-through-fake-news-sites-bogus-weight-loss">to the Federal Trade Commission</a>, which sued the pills' creator, they didn't live up to purported benefits and were marketed illegally through "bogus weight-loss claims and fake news sites."
"I don't get why you need to say this stuff when you know it's not true. When you have this amazing megaphone, why would you cheapen your show?" then-Democratic senator Claire McCaskill told Oz during the hearing, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2014/06/17/health/senate-grills-dr-oz/index.html">as quoted at the time by CNN</a>. "With power comes a great deal of responsibility."
Oz is also, remarkably, the <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/dr-oz-killing-dogs-puppies-bunnies">second alleged killer of puppies</a> to receive a cabinet nomination (the first being North Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who in her memoir <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/26/trump-kristi-noem-shot-dog-and-goat-book">described</a> shooting a puppy named Cricket in a gravel pit because it had annoyed her.)
In 2022, <a href="https://www.jezebel.com/dr-oz-s-scientific-experiments-killed-over-300-dogs-e-1849609272">Jezebel conducted an extensive review</a> of 75 studies published by Oz — who was billed as the studies' "principal investigator" — between the years 1989 and 2010, ultimately finding that his testing resulted in the deaths of 661 rabbits and rodents, 31 pigs, and 329 dogs and puppies, among other critters. Though animal testing is an unfortunate reality of medical research, there are animal welfare rules that those who conduct animal experimentation are required to follow — and Oz, according to whistleblower testimony and an internal Columbia investigation into his practices, frequently engaged in allegedly grotesque, inhumane, and poorly designed animal testing that violated the Animal Welfare Act. (Indeed, per Jezebel's reporting, Columbia was fined by the United States Department of Agriculture in 2004 for failure to comply with Animal Welfare Act standards.)
Oz has established himself as a loyal Trump supporter in recent years, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-congress-mehmet-oz-donald-trump-united-states-senate-6561a6d248a49c3f7813648de3be2f97">earning a sought-after Trump endorsement</a> during his 2022 campaign.
In social media posts announcing the nomination, Trump presented Oz and Kennedy as a bundled, health system-smashing deal.
"Dr. Oz will work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake," Trump wrote yesterday on social media. Adding that Oz will focus on "Disease Prevention," Trump claimed the TV star "will also cut waste and fraud within our Country's most expensive Government Agency."
As it stands, it's unclear how Oz might slash "waste and fraud" at the CMS. That said, the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 — a playbook for a second Trump presidency, created by the former president's allies, which outlines a sweeping consolidation of power within the executive branch and overhauls of government agencies — <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-ai">calls for the use of AI within the agency</a> to locate instances of Medicare and Medicaid <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/09/how-medicare-and-medicaid-fraud-became-a-100b-problem-for-the-us.html">fraud</a>. (It's murky how it might actually deploy this imagined AI tool effectively or ethically, and didn't mention algorithmic bias, which has historically resulted in <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aax2342">measurable healthcare harms</a>.)
To that end, Oz has historically been in favor of more expansive universal healthcare policies, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2020/06/11/medicare-advantage-for-all-can-save-our-health-care-system/">writing in a 2020 Forbes article</a> that healthcare access should be expanded under a private Medicare Advantage plan funded by way of a "new dedicated 20 percent payroll tax." This position, however, stands in contrast to those commonly <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2024/09/19/how-jd-vance-reopened-the-health-care-fight-00180154">held in Trumpworld</a> and in the <a href="https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2024/project-2025-could-become-a-political-reality-that-would-upend-medical-practice/">ideological MAGA movement</a> at large.
At the end of the day: do America's health and food systems suck? Yeah, they absolutely do, and broader, comprehensive reforms are needed. But while Oz might hold a real medical license, his public life has largely been an exercise of using his license to award undue credence to quackery and pseudoscience, presented under the collective guise of overall healthy living. He is, indeed, one of the original wellness influencers, entertaining unproven treatments, diets, and cures for the sake of — well, entertainment.
And between him and Kennedy, the latter of whom has for years <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/robert-f-kennedy-jr-2024-presidential-campaign-democratic-primary.html">traded on his family name</a> while smoothly blending intuitive health advice with <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/07/13/1187272781/rfk-jr-kennedy-conspiracy-theories-social-media-presidential-campaign">destructive and disproven nonsense</a>, our healthcare systems — and the Americans who rely on them — deserve better.
More on Oz: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/dr-oz-killing-dogs-puppies-bunnies">Dr. Oz Accused of Killing Hundreds of Dogs, Puppies, Bunnies</a>

Demanding to be Taken Seriously

Developments

Trump has tapped television's Dr. Oz, of health entertainment fame, to run Medicare and Medicaid.

Trump Nominates Television Quack Dr. Oz to Run Medicare and Medicaid

<h2>Drag Race</h2>
For <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-buyers-disgusted-elon-trump">longtime Tesla owners</a>, Elon Musk's increasing <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-anti-jewish-tweet">rightwing crusading</a> has made their electric cars into <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/vandal-spray-painted-cybertrucks">mortifying red flags</a> — and now, a bunch are sticker-slapping back.
As the climate change news site <a href="https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/anti-elon-bumper-sticker-tesla#">Heatmap reports</a>, a Hawaii-based sticker maker is doing a booming business selling bumper stickers to Tesla owners who, as one of his wares advertises, got their EVs "<a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/1384790275/tesla-owner-bumper-sticker-i-bought-this">before we knew [Musk] was crazy</a>."
"I started making stickers on my own before the Elon sticker," explained Matthew Hiller, the Waikiki resident behind the popular Etsy shop "<a href="https://www.etsy.com/shop/MadPufferStickers">Mad Puffer Stickers</a>."
An aquarium employee who often makes "fish stickers" for work, Hiller said that he got the idea to start making his tongue-in-cheek accessories in 2023 when considering buying a Tesla of his own. After Musk purchased Twitter and started his "extreme censoring," however, the creative realized he definitely couldn't <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/drivers-turned-off-tesla-elon-musk">handle the heat</a> that came with being <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/buyers-avoiding-teslas-elon-musk-toxic">associated with such a toxic brand</a> — and that gave him an idea.
"I figured, there’s no way I’m buying a Tesla — but there have got to be so many people who are so embarrassed to be repping him on the streets driving their Teslas and who want to completely disavow this guy," Hiller told Heatmap. "Because I know I would want to sell mine immediately after I saw what he was doing."
Hiller's first sticker, a small run of the aforementioned "I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy," repeatedly <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/me_irl/comments/169m9i7/me_irl/">went viral</a> on social media and even ended up on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-sticker-bought-before-elon-was-crazy-debate-reddit-2023-9">news sites like Business Insider</a> and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/10/musk-tesla-trump-fans/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzIzMjYyNDAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzI0NjQ0Nzk5LCJpYXQiOjE3MjMyNjI0MDAsImp0aSI6IjVhMDMxM2RmLWNhNTQtNDZkNS1iNzRiLWEzOTZkYTdlNjI0ZCIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS90ZWNobm9sb2d5LzIwMjQvMDgvMTAvbXVzay10ZXNsYS10cnVtcC1mYW5zLyJ9.AmGp0sVkBjkQU0TphNmAlUcpTRPJaSK6wTJPURTWXac">Washington Post</a>. Unsurprisingly, that meant he had to print way, way more.
"I would be selling five to seven a day," he said, "and then suddenly, there would be 50 a day because someone else talked about it on Reddit."
<h2>Line Goes Up</h2>
More than a year in, Hiller says that the attention his anti-Musk stickers have gotten is "insane" — and that in the aftermath of Donald Trump's electoral upset, sales are up "unbelievably."
"I can barely keep up," he told Heatmap. "My full-time job is at the aquarium, and I come home and pack stickers until 11 p.m. It’s just me and my wife doing it all."
Obviously, there are lots and lots of cheap knockoffs being sold on Amazon and other such sites — but considering that Hiller's are less than $10 a pop without Etsy's sale prices, getting an original is still a viable option.
In a "ballpark" estimate, the sticker salesman said he's sold more than 10,000 units since last year, with an average of 180 going out per day.
"It’s rough," Hiller said.
More on anti-Musk sentiment: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-responds-politics-tesla-sales">Elon Musk Responds to Concerns That His Political Antics Are Tanking Tesla Sales</a>

Bumper to Bumper

"There have got to be so many people who are so embarrassed to be repping him on the streets driving their Teslas and who want to completely disavow this guy."

Embarrassed Teslas Drivers Buying Huge Numbers of Anti-Elon Bumper Stickers

An unusual cosmetic surgery procedure that involves permanently changing the color of your eyes using tattoos soaring in popularity.
As the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/eye-color-change-surgery-risks-keratopigmentation-df99c38b">Wall Street Journal reports</a>, experts are warning that the procedure — called keratopigmentation, or corneal tattooing — could leave lasting damage.
The procedure involves cutting a donut-like tunnel into the cornea of the eye. The surgeon then widens this tunnel and fills it with a special dye that immediately and permanently changes the color of the eye.
Conventionally, the procedure has been used to correct a cosmetic disfigurement from an injury or disease, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/nov/18/keratopigmentation-eyeball-tattoing-on-the-rise">The Guardian reports</a>. For some patients, the procedure can reduce glare following corneal damage.
But as the WSJ reports, European doctors began injecting dyes for solely cosmetic reasons in the 2010s.
"I see it as an enhancement," New Jersey resident Jason Jimenez, who underwent the procedure, told the newspaper. "People get their teeth done, they get implants and Botox. If it’s something that could make you happier, make you look better — then why not?"
The US Food and Drug Administration <a href="https://www.ophthalmologytimes.com/view/navigating-the-controversy-exploring-keratopigmentation">has yet to approve</a> keratopgimentation as a procedure in the US. But that hasn't stopped surgeons from finding workarounds: some are using lasers designed for vision correction off-label and buying dyes from companies overseas where they're certified, the WSJ reports.
Earlier this year, the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) <a href="https://www.aao.org/newsroom/news-releases/detail/academy-issues-warning-on-eye-color-procedures">issued a public warning</a> on the risks of eye color-changing surgeries, including "damage to the cornea that can lead to cloudiness" and "leakage of the dye into the eye."
Other patients have reported an increased sensitivity to light, according to the WSJ.
"No surgery is free of risk," AAO clinical spokesperson JoAnn Giaconi in a statement at the time. "With purely cosmetic surgeries on the eye, it’s just not worth the risk when it comes to your good vision."
Instead, patients seeking to change the color of their eyes should resort to far less invasive options, such as colored contact lenses, the AAO advises.
More on cosmetic procedures: <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/influencers-boccal-fat-removal">Expert Warns of Grim Consequences of New Cosmetic Surgery Trend</a>

iTattoo

This is nuts.

People Are Getting Their Eyeballs Tattooed

<h2>Bondage, Discipline, Sadism, Musk </h2>
A body language expert assessed Elon Musk and Donald Trump's behavior around each other and concluded that the future president is acting uncharacteristically deferential around his <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-donald-trump-weird">star-crossed friend</a>. 
Former police officer Darren Stanton analyzed a video of the pair at Musk's latest flatlined <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-watch-elon-musk-starship-explodes">SpaceX rocket launch</a> <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/11/20/musk-trump-body-language-awkward-spacex/?ICID=continue_without_subscribing_reg_first">for The Telegraph</a>, establishing that "only other figure with whom the president-elect is so submissive is Vladimir Putin."
"Trump was very uneasy," Stanton said. "Usually, he comes over as this alpha male, the most empowered, most powerful person in the room." But on that blustery November day in Texas, Trump was "out of his depth — his hands were just by his side like a mannequin." 
<h2>Big Dog on Capitol Hill </h2>
To be clear, body language isn't exactly a reliable science. In fact, it hardly even exists; in 2023, a group of nonverbal communication researchers <a href="https://spsp.org/news/character-and-context-blog/fridlund-patterson-crivelli-body-language-misconceptions">explained in The Society for Personality and Social Psychology</a> that "outside of gestures like OK signs and extended third fingers, there aren't the kinds of precise meanings [in nonverbal communication that] we see in language." 
That said, the vibes are unmistakable: Trump does appear uncharacteristically timid around Musk, a dynamic that might fuel his team's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-blowout-fight-trump-adviser">growing exasperation</a> with Musk's overbearing presence.  
A member of Trump's inner circle <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-trump-donald-mar-a-lago-appointment-position-rcna179826">reportedly complained</a> recently that Musk has been "behaving as if he's a co-president," trying to "make President Trump feel indebted to him." 
And of course, Musk did unload around $200 million to get Trump into office — so maybe it's no wonder that Trump would pause his usual <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GnYtuhZXzo">hand flapping</a> to act unusually docile in his presence.
"He was playing with his pockets, but he didn't put his hands in his pockets," Stanton told The Telegraph about the video of Musk and Trump. "It’s the anxiety of not knowing what to do with [his] hands." 
Or, possibly, his presidency. 
More on Trump: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-planning-self-driving-cars-loose">Trump Reportedly Planning to Let Self-Driving Cars Loose</a>

Very Demure

"The only other figure with whom the president-elect is so submissive is Vladimir Putin."

Body Language Expert Says Trump Is Acting "Submissive" Around Musk

<h2>AI Gore</h2>
Coca-Cola <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/coke-hideous-ai-commercial">drew criticism</a> for rolling out an uninspired and lazily AI-generated holiday advertisement this year.
The ad is pretty much exactly the kind of insipid corporate sludge you'd expect from AI: predictable, unimaginative and vaguely uncanny.
Fortunately, Redditors took matters into their own hands, celebrating tooth-rotting soft drinks with a <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/aivideo/comments/1guzx4b/the_new_cocacola_ai_ad_is_unhinged/">far more "unhinged" take on Coke's concept</a>.
The result harkens back to the glowy days of AI gore, when <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/horrific-ai-generated-video-shows-will-smith-eating-spaghetti">Will Smith glitchily "eating" a bowl of spaghetti</a> went mega-viral, with unsettling mishmashes of morphing body appendages and explosions. At one point, a polar bear even yeets its offspring into an icy lake for no discernible reason.
"Brilliant," one Redditor <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/aivideo/comments/1guzx4b/comment/lxy85dj/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">assessed</a>. "No notes."
<h2>Out of Touch</h2>
Coke <a href="https://www.forbes.com./sites/danidiplacido/2024/11/16/coca-colas-ai-generated-ad-controversy-explained/">contracted three separate AI studios</a> for its cheap-looking ad, and it didn't take long for netizens to call out the company for brazenly replacing human artists with bland AI.
"FUN FACT: Coca-Cola is ‘red’ because it’s made from the blood of out-of-work artists!" Alex Hirsch, the creator of the Disney TV show "Gravity Falls," <a href="https://x.com/_AlexHirsch/status/1857847598054518921">tweeted</a> in a tongue-in-cheek post.
It's only the latest in a string of companies relying on cheap generative AI for its ads. Earlier this year, the corporate husk of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/toys-r-us-ai-video-ad-controversy-explained-commercial-rcna159030">Toys "R" Us was flamed</a> for a similar effort.
Perhaps it would've served Coke better to lean into the limitations of the tech. During this year's Super Bowl half-time, after all, its sports drink brand Bodyarmor released a nausea-inducing generative AI ad in an attempt to make a point about offering its customers a "real" product.
At least, the ad passed the low bar of being somewhat entertaining to watch, which can't be said of its latest cringe-inducing attempt.
"They should've made it more self-aware and comical, it would've had a better reception IMO," one Redditor <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/aivideo/comments/1guzx4b/comment/lxyd58w/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">argued</a>.
"Tough for the marketing department to make a self-aware ad when they are all out of touch in the first place," another <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/aivideo/comments/1guzx4b/comment/lxytmlg/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">replied</a>.
More on AI ads: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/coke-hideous-ai-commercial">Coke's AI Commercial for the Holidays Has Us Wondering If We Live in a Fallen World</a>

AI Polar Bears

"Brilliant. No notes."

Someone Made a Deranged Version of Coke's AI Holiday Ad and It's Way Better

To celebrate its new image-understanding capabilities, Elon Musk has <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-grok-medical-scans">encouraged his followers to share medical documents</a> like MRI scans and x-rays with Grok, his AI chatbot integrated into X-formerly-Twitter.
"This is still early stage, but it is already quite accurate and will become extremely good," Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1851206080564773344">wrote in a tweet</a> at the end of last month. "Let us know where Grok gets it right or needs work."
Despite the many baffling privacy implications, many of his fans have done just that. In some cases, they've even <a href="https://x.com/SpaceX69_420/status/1851207226645532947">shared their results publicly</a>.
Now, experts are warning against sharing such information with Grok — echoing security concerns <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/italy-ban-chatgpt-privacy-gdpr/">with chatbots at large</a>, but also emphasizing some of the lack of transparency around Musk's companies.
"This is very personal information, and you don't exactly know what Grok is going to do with it," Bradley Malin, a professor of biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/well/x-grok-health-privacy.html">told The New York Times</a>.
People sharing their medical information with Musk's chatbot may be under the impression that it's protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.
But the protections enshrined by the federal law, which prevent your doctor from sharing your private health info, do not extend beyond the medical purview, the NYT notes. Once you put it out in the open, like on a social media site, it's fair game.
This is in stark contrast to when tech companies have official partnerships with hospitals to obtain data, Malin said, which are stipulated with detailed agreements on how that information is stored, shared, and used.
"Posting personal information to Grok is more like, 'Wheee! Let's throw this data out there, and hope the company is going to do what I want them to do,'" Mailin told the NYT.
The risks of inaccurate answers may also put patients in danger. Grok, for instance, misidentified a broken clavicle for a dislocated shoulder, according to the report. Doctors responding to Musk's tweet also found that the chatbot failed to recognize a "<a href="https://x.com/DrDatta_AIIMS/status/1851218293845295191">textbook case</a>" of tuberculosis, and <a href="https://x.com/heacockmd/status/1851231467226964097">in another case</a> mistook a benign cyst for testicles.
Then there are also concerns with how the chatbots themselves use the information, because their underlying large language models rely on the conversations they have to fine-tune their capabilities. That means that potentially anything you tell one could be used to train the chatbot, and <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/medical-ai-doctor-lies-records">considering their</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/whisper-nabla-hospital-ai-details-patients">proclivity for hallucinating</a>, the risk of one inadvertently <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/amazon-begs-employees-chatgpt">blurting out sensitive information</a> is <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.17035">not unfounded</a>.
To that end, the privacy policies of X and Grok developer xAI, are unsatisfying. The latter's, for example, claims that it will not sell user data to third parties, but that it does with "related companies," per the NYT.
There's reason enough to doubt how faithfully this is enforced in practice, however, because Musk brazenly encouraged people to submit medical documents, even though xAI's policy states it "does not aim to collect sensitive personal information," including health and biometric data.
Still, it's possible that Musk's companies may have explicit guardrails around health information shared with Grok that hasn't been shared publicly, according to Matthew McCoy, an assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
"But as an individual user, would I feel comfortable contributing health data? Absolutely not," McCoy told the NYT.
More on Grok: <a href="https://futurism.com/sam-altman-elon-musk-anti-woke-grok">Sam Altman Points Out That Elon Musk's "Anti-Woke" Grok AI Seems to Actually Support Kamala Harris</a>

From the HIPPA

"This is very personal information, and you don't exactly know what Grok is going to do with it."

Experts Alarmed by People Uploading Their Medical Scans to Elon Musk's Grok AI

<h2>Dog Racing</h2>
A robot dog has run and completed an entire 26.2 mile marathon.
Built by the South Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), the dogged competitor — dubbed RAIBO2 — is the first quadrupedal robot to complete a full-length marathon in an official competition, the university <a href="https://news.kaist.ac.kr/newsen/html/news/?mode=V&amp;mng_no=41590">claimed in a statement</a>.
The event took place on Sunday. Clocking in at a time of four hours, 19 minutes, and 52 seconds, the robodog's no Olympian yet; the first place time by a human competitor in the race was two hours, 36 minutes, and 32 seconds, <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/robo_dogs_marathons/">according to The Register</a>.
It's fair to say that slow and steady did not win the race this time — but did get the little machine over the line. And who's to say that the old adage won't be redeemed by a future iteration of the robodog?
<h2>Steep Competition</h2>
The competition, the 22nd Sangju Dried Persimmon Marathon, is apparently infamous for its arduous hills, including two approximately 50-yard elevation climbs.
That's tough enough for a human runner, and very energy-demanding for a four-legged bot, potentially causing "unexpected losses in efficiency." Depleting its battery pack, after all, would be tantamount to a human competitor dropping out of the race.
But the robodog's engineers had a solution. By simulating the course's hilly environment and its diverse terrains, they were able to develop what they're calling a "high torque transparency joint mechanism" that allows the robot to harvest energy on the downhill slopes, thereby recouping what it lost on the uphill portions.
And that's not all. As anyone who does a lot of running can tell you, all those impacts of your feet striking the ground can take a toll on your joints. It's no different for a robot, meaning that enduring four hours of activity was a testament to the in-house built bot's robustness.
<h2>Whirring Up</h2>
The robodog, however, faces bipedal competition. Earlier this month, a humanoid robot called "Tiangong" <a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202411/1322879.shtml">ran alongside human competitors</a> in a half-marathon in China, serving as a pace-setter for the very last 100 yard stretch of the race. Not bad, but it obviously has some catching up to do with our quadruped.
Speaking of: this won't be the last we'll see of RAIBO2, according to its builders.
"Through the marathon project, we demonstrated that RAIBO2 has the walking performance to stably execute services such as delivery and patrol in urban environments with many people and random objects," Choongun Lee, a researcher at KAIST and co-lead author of the studies on the robodog, said in a statement. "In follow-up research, we will add autonomous navigation functions to RAIBO and strive to achieve the world's best walking performance in mountainous and disaster environments."
More on robots: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/robot-dog-spotted-guarding-mar-a-lago">Robot Dog Spotted Guarding Mar-a-Lago</a>