• 6 Posts
  • 67 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • The bullshit that gets upvoted/downvoted here, does not get that on reddit. It’s really weird to see some of the cultural differences between the two platforms in terms of user base.

    We drug animals for flights all the time, it’s practically a requirement. Until the age of at least 5, kids are essentially animals with just as little self-control

    Not only do I think it’s ok to give them something that would help them sleep through it, I think it should be mandatory.

    I don’t think this level of bullshit would fly in the reddit equivalent of r/worldnews



  • At literally every point of modern history, a reduction in the amount of humans was beneficial for the vast amount of humans in the long run.

    Like, even the Black Death led to reduced wealth inequality and the beginnings of workers rights.

    I don’t see how someone can claim that the mass death of people is simultaneously beneficial to that people.

    There’s a difference in reduction of humans by events that cause death at large scale vs decline in rates of reproduction. Clearly catostrophic death is being used as an example of “a reduction in the amount of humans.”







  • I’m not making a both sides argument about history. I’m making a both sides observations about personal experience and belief. Individuals on both side have experienced things that compel them to feel justified in war at a personal psychological and biographical level. Collectively, at a sociological level too. Explanation/description and justification are not the same thing, and I am merely trying to explain that no side thinks they are the bad guys, and both sides think they have justification. If you want to explain “why” israel goes to war it’s not useful to describe them as a maniacal bond villain or one dimensional like a Marvel Villain.

    I think the conflation of justification vs understanding, description, explanation, is preventing us from having meaningul discourse. When Hannah Arendt wrote “The Origins of Totalitarianism” it wasn’t a justification for the the holocaust. It was a description of the rationality that lead to the holocaust. Just because you can attempt to understand evil doesn’t mean you are promoting or justifying it. Today, merely suggesting that Israeli’s suffered and had had experienced a sense of duty to rescue hostages is somehow interpreted as an argument for genocide and will somehow cause someone to be accused of being a zionist or some other inflammatory rhetorical pejorative.











  • I’m not mad. But the context around South Africa is interesting. The questions around the court really only being able to bring charges against recognized nations and not Palestine or Hamas is interesting. It’s important to put this ruling in the larger context of world events and politics. Also the context of Israel actually showing up unlike Russia is important. I don’t think the tone of the article is about being sour about the result, but the need for consistency.

    Given the dreadful toll of civilian deaths in Gaza, reportedly now topping 25,000, Israel should answer questions about its conduct. Every member of the United Nations’ 1948 Genocide Convention has an obligation to raise concerns if they have evidence that a group of people is at risk of genocide. Given previous catastrophic failures to prevent genocide—in Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur—more referrals to the court could be good news for the protection of civilians at risk. And unlike Russia, against which Ukraine made a complaint to the court in February 2022, Israel has indicated that it takes the charges seriously, attending the court to dispute the accusation.




  • I’m having trouble connecting this paragraph about US provided intelligence for targets:

    “They’re probably targeting people, targeting officers,” Lawrence Cline, who served as an intelligence engagement officer in Iraq before retirement, told The Intercept. Targeting intelligence refers to the identification and characterization of enemy activities including missile and artillery launches, location of leadership and command and control centers, and key facilities. “What I can see is we’ve got a lot of global assets in terms of satellites and the like and the Israelis have a lot in terms of more localized radar coverage.”

    With this paragraph about how Israel selects targets:

    The Israeli military intentionally strikes Palestinian civilian infrastructure, known as “power targets,” in order to “create a shock,” according to an investigation by the Israeli news website +972 Magazine. Targets are generated using an artificial intelligence system known as “Habsora,” Hebrew for “gospel.”

    This makes it sound like US engagement is trying to identify military targets that follow some criteria of what a military target is. But Israel is doing their own thing using AI?