Hacker News Reader

johnnyworkeron AI or Ain't: Eliza

You cannot compute what you don't understand, and even if you did by accident, you wouldn't know you computed it, as long as you don't understand what you're trying to do. That seems obvious to me.

And "computable" and "computable for us" are very different things. It's not about the machines or algorithms we might make one day, provided that we fully understand everything that goes into our our thoughts and emotions with nothing left unaccounted for, and everything turning out to be countable; it's about the ones we are actually making, back then and today, and then in some cases outsource our decisions to.

johnnyworkeron AI or Ain't: Eliza

> For a "judgement" to be non-computable, it'd need to come from some factor in the human brain which violates know physics and can't be reproduced outside a human brain.

You say this as if we are even close to understanding much less reproducing the human brain completely, which probably would have to include the web of relations with all sorts of other living things that also go into the judgements we make, and the emotions we have while making them. Until you actually do draw the rest of the owl, it's not exactly "religious" to say there's no owl.

johnnyworkeron Comics I Loved in 2023

Can someone explain the modern American usage of the word "ideology" to me? Because in my books, an ideology is something that promises to hold the key to all secrets and all future wonders, the explanation for all evils (which is usually failure to comply to the ideology). E.g. there is even a difference between just being racist on an individual level -- as sucky as that may be -- and explaining the whole world and who is to blame for evil in those terms, the latter being ideology, like white supremacism. Or say, Bitcoin. It can be just technology, but people can also turn cryptocurrencies into an ideology. Same with "AI" and so on.

That's how I understand ideology, to me it implies a narrow and distorting lens through which to squeeze all problems.

But the way I see it used, it seems to be more like something that makes some kind of moral judgement, or has an opinion on a few issues that are framed as "left" or "right" in the US public. I honestly don't know and just can't parse that word the way it's often used.

johnnyworkeron Comics I Loved in 2023

> War, Fascism, concentration camps, rubber truncheons, atomic bombs, etc., are what we daily think about, and therefore to a great extent what we write about, even when we do not name them openly. We cannot help this. When you are on a sinking ship, your thoughts will be about sinking ships.

-- George Orwell

johnnyworkeron AI or Ain't: Eliza

snippet from the WP article on the book:

> Weizenbaum makes the crucial distinction between deciding and choosing. Deciding is a computational activity, something that can ultimately be programmed. It is the capacity to choose that ultimately makes one a human being. Choice, however, is the product of judgment, not calculation. Comprehensive human judgment is able to include non-mathematical factors such as emotions. Judgment can compare apples and oranges, and can do so without quantifying each fruit type and then reductively quantifying each to factors necessary for mathematical comparison.

Okay, so what is judgement? I haven't read that particular book and I don't quite remember his argument from interviews and lectures I saw, so this might be wrong, but I'd say it's for example saying "this is fair" when you measure the slices of pie you cut a cake into. That is, calculating that they're of equal size is pure computation; but there is no way to compute that when sharing cake with your friends, the slices should be equal.

Just like you can compute how much clean drinking water an average or specific person needs a day, with at least some accuracy, but when it comes to the question "should there be life in the universe" or "should people die of thirst", no computation could answer it. You could choose to write a program that decides it based on a random seed or a super complex algorithm taking a billion factors into account, but and then that program would decide the question, but it's essentially still something you did / chose.

johnnyworkeron Fired comedian ordered to get day job back after jokes ruled 'simply funny'

> Our main way of relating ourselves to others is like things relate themselves to things on the market. We want to exchange our own personality, or as one says sometimes, our "personality package", for something. Now, this is not so true for the manual workers. The manual worker does not have to sell his personality. He doesn't have to sell his smile. But what you might call the "symbol pushers", that is to say, all the people who deal with figures, with paper, with men, who manipulate - to use a better, or nicer, word - manipulate men and signs and words, all those today have not only to sell their service but in the bargain they're to sell their personality, more or less. There are exceptions.

-- Erich Fromm, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu-7UDT0Xe4&t=94s

johnnyworkeron This UN vote shows how completely isolated we are from world opinion

> You've been posting many dozens of comments about this and basically nothing about anything else for a long time now.

A long time? A few comments in the last week. Do I owe you token comments on other subjects? I am reading, I just haven't seen anything I had anything to say about in the last week. This is the subject I currently am learning about.

For example, on that Ultima thread, I wrote a long comment and then didn't post it because I am too sad and too appalled. I thought fuck this, IDF soldiers brag about bombing schools so kids can't become engineers, and I'm posting some derpy nostalgic anecdote?

So? I don't owe you or anyone comments pretending everything is alright.

What a weird, arbitrary criticism. So now, whenever I say anything about this subject, I'm out? Or is there a quota?

I can only say as vaguely defined and as arbitrarily applied the terms you use are, it's just whatever. I tried my best, I refrained from personal attack and generally posted less than when you talked last to me, that's all I can do, if you want to ban me for not posting enough filler, just do it, it's fine. But when it's justified in this Kafkaesque way -- as "standard" as it may be -- I simply can't follow and can't care.

> if you're relating to what the other person is saying, remaining respectful

How did I not do that here? If someone brings up morality as an argument, and with this issue in general, morality is on the table. It's not a discussion about tabs vs. spaces.

johnnyworkeron This UN vote shows how completely isolated we are from world opinion

[flagged]

johnnyworkeron This UN vote shows how completely isolated we are from world opinion

Thank you, so much. Maybe you give me too much credit in that I do it for a form of moral self hygiene, too. I'm German, and trying to grapple with the Nazis and the Holocaust is something I'll do as long as I live. So this strikes home on several levels, the trauma that the Nazis seeded into Israel, the way the Holocaust is now used to dehumanize Palestinians or to smear critical people as anti-semites, and the all too familiar (having read dozens of books on the subject) tropes and fallacies used to defend these crimes, the dehumanizing language, the thinking of people in blobs. All of it.

Hannah Arendt is my favorite person in the world, period, so if I don't say anything about this, I cannot use the site for other discussions with remotely a good conscience. So it's selfish, that way. But I also hope and wish it helps a little, somehow.

johnnyworkeron This UN vote shows how completely isolated we are from world opinion

Human rights apply to all humans, as the individuals they are, not as members of a group you assign them to.

"They" is doing a lot of work here. Who is "they"? Half of the population of Gaza are under the age of 15. "They" keep electing terrorists and keep starting wars.

> They should get what every other group gets when they do stuff like what they did on Oct 7th.

Again, "they". What other group? Name them. Name one. Outside of what the Nazis did and how they rationalized it. Outside of how terrorist groups rationalize and attempt to justify what they do.

> This too does the for a totalitarian environment so well prepared vernacular express in its own way when it no longer speaks of "the" Russians or "the" French, but tells us what "the" Russian or "the" Frenchman wants.

-- Hannah Arendt

So cause the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet right now..

https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue...

.. blow up infrastructure and make fun of that...

https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17317722618482647...

https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/174329670657626944...

https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1743411493813575711

.. and then "they" will... stop being radicalized into terrorism?

And while you're at it, attack refugee camps in the West Bank? Because children who weren't even born in 2006 elected terrorists in Gaza, and enough is enough.

Nonsense. And everybody know it is.

> "In the context of de-legitimization - Hamas is an asset (for Israel) and the Palestinian Authority is a liability"

-- Smotrich, https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1741196470399783296

> If we act strategically correctly, there will be immigration and we will live in the Gaza Strip. We will not allow a situation where 2 million people live there. If there are 100-200 thousand Arabs in Gaza, all the talk about the day after will be different. They want to leave, they have been living in the ghetto for 75 years and are in need"

-- Smotrich, https://twitter.com/GLZRadio/status/1741347524693127398

So if you keep electing people who are murdering civilians to commit ethnic cleansing to take over the land, or keep electing leaders that supply those other leaders with weapons to do that, and then, as an adult, go on a forum to re-iterate that you personally agree with it, that's fine. But kids in Gaza, they have to pay for what they did.

johnnyworkeron This UN vote shows how completely isolated we are from world opinion

Opening the gates of hell is not an actual thing.

And the comparison with Mexico falls flat because the US isn't run by a government working hand in hand with religious zealots who talk about how Mexico actually belongs to them, and if they can just drive out or kill all people there, they could move there.

> "In the context of de-legitimization - Hamas is an asset (for Israel) and the Palestinian Authority is a liability"

-- Smotrich, https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1741196470399783296

-- also Smotrich, https://twitter.com/GLZRadio/status/1741347524693127398

> Just as it is clear that the [Israeli] right wing was right, today everyone says it is clear all Gazans must be annihilated"

-- MK Moshe Saada, https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17424904213961198...

If killing 1000+ people is opening the gates of hell, what is killing 20k+ people and setting 500k+ on the course to die of famine or disease? Opening the gates of the Underverse? That's all Lord of the Flies nonsense. In reality, the terrorists of Hamas are responsible for their terrorism, and IDF and Isreali government for their crimes against humanity. One doesn't excuse the other, that's not how it even remotely works. That's only how you whip up people into actions they cannot justify and that cost them dearly.

johnnyworkeron This UN vote shows how completely isolated we are from world opinion

> I’m not sure why you’re pointing specifically to American Jews

They weren't. They were referring to prominent American Jews. They probably have specific statements in mind, by specific individuals but for the sake of brevity, didn't include them.

Also, I'd subtract the people who just lapped up all sorts of dehumanizing, sanctimonious propaganda, such as the stuff which even Joe Biden simply parroted: https://www.declassifieduk.org/beheaded-babies-how-uk-media-...

What some people think they are supporting and what they are supporting are vastly different.

As for the "military operations" and "urban warfare":

https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/174329670657626944...

https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17317722618482647...

> For all those asking why there is no education Gaza. Oops, we've had a missile fall on them. That sucks. Ohhh, too bad. That's how you'll not be engineers anymore.

-- Israeli soldier standing before Al-Azhar university, https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1743411493813575711

https://www.972mag.com/israel-torture-camp-gaza-detainees/

And then there's the murder and attacks on civilian infrastructure in the West Bank, too. Or the bulldozing of a cemetary. I'll spare you posting dozens and dozens of pieces of proof each of which belie the claim of calling this a "war", much hiding the arbitrary, cruel attacks on civilians under the cover of "urban warfare".

As for "productive" discussions, for the purposes of ethnic cleansing and genocide, all that is required is a.) to continue sending arms b.) pretending this is a defensive "war".

Famine and disease will do the rest: https://jewishcurrents.org/epidemiological-war-on-gaza

And that is part of the openly espoused calculus.

-- Smotrich, https://twitter.com/GLZRadio/status/1741347524693127398

Again, just one of many examples, more here

https://law4palestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Law-for...

And even that is just the tip of the iceberg.

johnnyworkeron What should we know about APFS special files?

> whose size is given as 107 GB, although it only takes 18.47 GB on disk

In context The 107 GB and 18.47 GB are being contrasted, not 100 GB and 107 GB.

johnnyworkeron Military action against land-based targets in Yemen moves a step closer

It's not a stalemate.

https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue...

And that is part of the proclaimed calculus, such as:

> "If we act strategically correctly, there will be immigration and we will live in the Gaza Strip. We will not allow a situation where 2 million people live there. If there are 100-200 thousand Arabs in Gaza, all the talk about the day after will be different. They want to leave, they have been living in the ghetto for 75 years and are in need."

-- Smotrich, https://twitter.com/GLZRadio/status/1741347524693127398

Here is a list with more, that is work in progress apparently:

https://law4palestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Law-for...

> I am astonished you bring up ethnic cleansing, when all of the evidence points the opposite way: that Jewish people are victims of ethnic cleansing across the Islamic world

That is not the opposite of "is Israel calling for / committing ethnic cleansing". The opposite would be "it is not doing that".

And it's not dichotomy, a hot potato that only one party can ever possess. The history of persecution against Jews has exactly zero bearing on the question whether what Israel is doing right now are war crimes, ethnic cleansing or genocide. One crime doesn't prevent or legitimize the other.

> I actually think the "other options" are simple, though quite difficult in practice: Hamas & Fatah could put down their weapons

An alternative to the current actions of Israel isn't "what someone else could do differently", that's an alternative to the actions of those other parties. And things like blowing up the Supreme Court building after posing for selfies in it (= no fighters), attacking refugee camps and disrupting their water supply in the West Bank, and so on, cannot be remotely excused with Hamas.

> The Genocide Convention requires Israel, as a State party, to suppress “direct and public incitement to commit genocide,” regardless of whether genocide has actually transpired.

[..]

> Still, it does appear to us that Israel has failed – so far – to criminally investigate some specific public calls which seem to border on genocidal in their language. While Israel’s political leadership distanced itself from potentially genocidal language, it has also failed to apply meaningful political sanctions against the politicians making these comments (such as firing instead of merely suspending the junior minister responsible for the Atomic Bomb comment or launching any effort to remove the deputy chair of the Knesset after making the “burn Gaza” comment). Although there might be some mitigating circumstances, given the many challenges the country now faces, the slow and feeble response from Israel’s legal and political leadership to such extremely problematic statements, may not be compatible with its obligations under the Genocide Convention.

-- https://www.justsecurity.org/90939/selective-use-of-facts-an...

^ something the Israel Foreign Ministry retweeted, apparently before reading it carefully

> “The explicit calls to commit atrocities against millions of people have become, for the first time that we can recall, a legitimate and ordinary part of the Israeli dialogue,”

-- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/04/stakes-high-as...

johnnyworkeron Military action against land-based targets in Yemen moves a step closer

You just repeat the trope about "human shields" in response to attacks in the West Bank, on refugee camps and more, on basic water infrastructure. It has been refuted.

> leads people like you

Can you refrain from personal attacks, as totally lacking of substance as they may be?

> This is what Israel has begun to do - we cut the supply of energy, water and diesel to the Strip … But it’s not enough. In order to make the siege effective, we have to prevent others from giving assistance to Gaza … The people should be told that they have two choices; to stay and to starve, or to leave. If Egypt and other countries prefer that these people will perish in Gaza, this is their choice.

-- Giora Eiland, former head of the Israeli National Security Council

Just ONE of the many many many dozens of such things is enough to refute these tropes about "human shields" and "$evil group and their likes". "(...)" describes the full depth of your counter-argument.

> If you care about the problem then you'd be directing your indignation towards the root of the problem

I am just as outspoken against those who glorify Hamas as I am here. You are, right now, just repeating what I essentially replied to, while ignoring the inconvenient facts I introduced, and making it about me, and "the others". That's all that happened here, what I wrote stands, your attempt to dismiss it stands.

johnnyworkeron Military action against land-based targets in Yemen moves a step closer

Israel is also bombing refugee camps in the West Bank right now, destroyed water infrastructure last night. Hamas isn't in the West Bank. A few Politicians are criticizing Israeli politicians openly talking of complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza, but tacitly condone the actions.

Terrorists aren't just a fixed group of people, and studies and common sense is that widespread and arbritrary attacks on innocent people increase resentment. It's like an employment program for war mongers and war profiteers. The civilian populations of Israel and the US also don't benefit from this, in addition to the innocents in Palestine Israel as occupying force is obliged to protect under international law.

> The only effective strategy to prevent civilians from being thrown in arms way

... is to not do it actively. Obviously. Otherwise, preventing the harm to innocents can be ruled out as a motivation and justification.

johnnyworkeron Military action against land-based targets in Yemen moves a step closer

As Immortal Technique said in a recent interview, the US can't really protect Israel, or anyone in the region. It can only attack and deliver weapons, but it has no (credible) diplomatic voice with which to pursue anything but more war. The US cannot tell anyone "hey guys, you need to stop" and even get a hearing. That's not just because "they" all hate the US 24/7, unchanged, regardless of what is done except killing everybody, that's in part a result of how the US tends to interact with the region and the conflict(s).

johnnyworkeron Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

Thanks. I really just needed that acknowledgement to restore a sense of fairness, because I did assume if a response is called out, the context would at least be looked at. I am fine with adhering the guidelines though it's not always fair, or even when the other kids started it, etc. -- but using flags against a comment that is a reply to me, in a debate type situation, is just not something I can bring myself to do. Even in debates I am involved in maybe. Knowing that I if I called it out, I'd get a fair hearing, as I just did, is really all I needed.

johnnyworkeron Claudine Gay resigns as Harvard University president

> As anyone can understand, Israel would likely close its border to such an awful region.

Murdering or ethnically cleansing the population to then take over the area isn't "closing the border". The IDF created a situation in which 500.000 people might die in the next 12 months, without further bombing. The murder continues either way.

And under international law, the obligations of Israel as an occupying force are clear.

> The occupying power must take measures to restore and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety.

-- https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/634kfc....

Instead:

> Israeli forces continue their attacks on Palestinian refugee camps throughout Palestine, including in the West Bank. They destroyed more infrastructure in Tulkarem refugee camp last night including roads and water infrastructure. Water access is controlled by the occupation.

https://twitter.com/Shepherds4Good/status/174285862996590192...

While some at best condemn the now unmasked calls for ethnic cleansing and even genocide, but not the actions.

The claim that reducing Gaza to rubble and murdering or dislocating all the people there is the only way to ensure safety is nonsense, it ensures no such thing. It would remain a giant crime even if that was the intent, that "intent" isn't even real. Hamas was supported over moderates by Netanyahu precisely to prevent peace. That's all on record.

> Israeli finance minister Smotrich: "In the context of de-legitimization - Hamas is an asset (for Israel) and the Palestinian Authority is a liability"

- https://twitter.com/pgosh_MTP/status/1741169302051402195

Wanton destruction of civilian infrastructure, just one very clear example one of many, many such war crimes: https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17317722618482647...

- https://twitter.com/GLZRadio/status/1741347524693127398

Denying that this is ethnic cleansing, and blaming the victims for the collective punishment and crimes against humanity, is a terrible thing to do. It's also futile.

johnnyworkeron Claudine Gay resigns as Harvard University president

On top of the collective punishment and other war crimes committed en masse, the aim to make Gaza unlivable for the people living there has been repeated by several Israeli politicians by now and even more importantly matches the actions of the IDF.

Are you implying that genocide has necessarily to do with wanting to exterminate a so-called "race"? It does not. From Wikipedia:

> In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group.

The category of "Arabs" is therefore irrelevant. And moreover that's you counting people as that monolithic category, not the affected individuals doing it. How great "Arabs" have it somewhere else for whatever irrelevant reason doesn't help a person in Gaza, or justify crimes against humanity on them, just because they're "also Arabs". They are individual persons with names and all that.

johnnyworkeron Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe (2023)

Why not check first if it's true before you claim it? It takes the same time, too: I simply copied and pasted from your comment and here they are, take your pick:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=the%20impact%20of%20re...

edit: But IMO more importantly, it's not like farmland practices that endanger birds and renewable energy somehow offset each other. Both are desirable (not the harmful farmland practices are, but farming per se is), even vital things, and their undesirable side-effects need to be reduced.

johnnyworkeron Claudine Gay resigns as Harvard University president

> There are many Arab countries all over the world, they are safe from Israel, Israel does not want to destroy all arabs in the same way that people want to destroy all Jews.

Some IDF soldiers are dancing, chanting "there are no schools in Gaza because there are no kids in Gaza" and "Gaza is a cemetary".

The category of "Arabs" is not relevant here at all.

johnnyworkeron Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

> Edit: But you can't post stuff like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38849625 - that's just too aggressive, and "what part of X don't you understand" is both a swipe and a flamewar trope!

When someone turns what I wrote, that one sentence, into "it seems like you're excusing killing Jews", that's fine? So you saw that, and have no poblem with it? Well, wow.

I honestly do not understand how that sentence could be more concise and clear. If someone reads something as fantastic as me "excusing killing Jews" into that, I have to ask, what in the world gave them that idea.

If I said "I'm under the impression you kept your comment short because you wanted to go back to kicking homeless people", and said that in a very polite way as I just quoted it, would you say "oh, that's a misunderstanding"??

johnnyworkeron We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

How is that not civil? And if someone says "it seems you're excusing killing Jews", I actually do have to respond to that. You see problem with one and not the other, that's noted.

johnnyworkeron Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

The US not nuking Iraq in a war of aggression is proof that "the US" places a high value on human life? It would have started WW3 and there would have been no more US. Even the worst sociopath in the world wouldn't have done it just for that reason. It's still a war of aggression, with hundreds of thousands of civilians murdered.

https://twitter.com/GLZRadio/status/1741347524693127398

That is the intention of those I stand against.

https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1742199071761142056

These are the values of those I criticize.

To say "we could have murdered more" and think one can be in any sort related or even adjacent to the tradition of enlightenment and human rights at the same time is preposterous.

johnnyworkeron Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

Man, you do have a thick skin, I'll give you that. How could I have been snarkier? Yet you breeze right past that to comment something generous and constructive. That's not something I am any good at, but I do respect it greatly.

Okay, I'll try. That is, name-calling and personal attack I can do without, that's obviously more than fair.

I'm just not entirely sure what the "flame war" thing is about, what I do to start or prolong them in your mind. When someone says something I consider incorrect, I refute it. Yeah, I added a lot of extra here I guess, but even without that, long comments with a bunch of quotes and links tend to be my thing. FWIW, they tend to be a LOT longer first draft, if you can believe that. As much snark or passion may have remained in some, it's not that I'm not trying at all. If that (long comments and not letting someone have the last word unless I agree or we're going in circles) is considered "flamewar" I can't help it and must plead guilty and unrepentant and be removed. No hard feelings, either.

But I honestly I don't understand why "too much activity" becomes a problem for you, even on day old threads -- or if it even does, I don't really grok you in that regard. But that's been my impression, as if you think it takes away from discussion of other topics?

During times like these, just like, say, when Appelbaum got cancelled, I do kind of get this thing that Brecht described, where you feel you can't discuss innocent topics while this elephant is in the room. At least not endlessly. Unless it's right in my ball park, something else I deeply care about or know a lot about, I pass, I'm not going to read up and learn on something new and then form a comment based on that, as I otherwise might. Just not in the mood. What I'm trying to say is, if I didn't post these comments (minus the personal attacks, but let's call them activist or political and maybe a bit too long) I would post none, I wouldn't post on other subjects instead.

But I don't post in random threads and try to make them about the chip on my shoulder, either. That's the best I can do, really.

And we don't even have notifications, so when people keep posting in week old threads back and forth, it's because they're both manually checking to see if the other replied. In other words, it's between consenting adults, and as long as it's really just disagreement and splitting hairs and all that, and not abusive, is that really a problem?

Again, other points taken, please don't take this as a long-winded way of say "yes, but" to name-calling and getting personal. It's just your usage of "flamewar" that is hazy to me. To me, flaming someone is name-calling and getting personal, but not a lengthy or "endless" debate as such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaming_(Internet)#Flame_war

The tricky things in society, the ones that matter deeply to people or which they literally need to live, just aren't like programming anecdotes and all that, where people can have different experiences and no friction. Of course you're right in that this means one should take extra care to not add friction, and I'll renew my efforts for that. But I don't think friction as such is always bad. Too much of it is, but having zero is also a red flag IMO.

johnnyworkeron We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

Got it.

johnnyworkeron We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

That's great. The claim was "the reason why such an attack happened is because the people who did the attack were the ruling government body of 2 million people for almost 2 decades". And that's transparent nonsense in service of the colonialists committing genocide right now. Do you disagree?

johnnyworkeron We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't

They're a fig leaf and asset [1] for those who use them as an excuse for collective punishment and genocide. With predictable and predicted [2] results.

[1] Smotrich: "In the context of delegitimization, Hamas is an asset and the authority is a burden" -- https://twitter.com/pgosh_MTP/status/1741169302051402195

[2] https://twitter.com/Rachael_Swindon/status/17417897483670733...

johnnyworkeron Maersk ship hit by missile in the Red Sea

https://time.com/6334409/is-whats-happening-gaza-genocide-ex...

> his sort of bombastic rhetoric hurts the pro-Palestinian cause.

First off, that dichomoty of "pro-Israel" or "pro-Palestine" something I reject. I stand for international law and against Nazis. I know you find that "bombastic", too, but I prefer the company I'm in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM2fXTkjU2

Secondly, it's not even that clear cut as you make it out to be.

https://time.com/6334409/is-whats-happening-gaza-genocide-ex...

> Raz Segal, the program director of genocide studies at Stockton University, concretely says it is a “textbook case of genocide.” Segal believes that Israeli forces are completing three genocidal acts, including, “killing, causing serious bodily harm, and measures calculated to bring about the destruction of the group.” He points to the mass levels of destruction and total siege of basic necessities—like water, food, fuel, and medical supplies—as evidence.

If a director of genocide studies says there is a case to be made, there is a case to be made. I can try to make the case, if you want, until dang steps in to curtail a flamewar between two people who aren't even mad at each other and who nobody else reads ^^

But more importantly, what practical difference do you see?

I say our neighbour is murdering his daughter, right now. All sorts of people come from the brushwork to call me a neighbour-hater, berate me in all sorts of ways, seek nuance, blah di blah. Turns out, he didn't murder his daughter, he was "just" raping her and cutting her legs off while people made excuses to do fuck all. And then they feel vindicated even! See? False alarm. It wasn't crime A that is beyond that pale, it was crime B that is beyond that pale!

Hannah Arendt explained how totalitarianism can only by fully understood by obduction, and how people who can't get mobilized by what is already known, wouldn't be mobilized by the full picture either.

Don't criticize me for doing imperfectly what you are not doing at all and expect anything but a tired groan. Put people on trial and then the judges can and should be nuanced. Until then, nope.