BraveSirZaphod

Jumping to “All Israelis deserve to die” is not helping you the way you think it is, but by all means, keep digging if you want.

So, yes, it’s “I think more civilian deaths would be good”.

I think I’ll just let that speak for itself. Cheers.

Are you suggesting that hundreds of dead Israeli citizens would be a better state of affairs?

If your position is that we should not support military action that blatantly violates standard rules of engagement, that would apply to the Iranian military just as much as it applies to the IDF. There’s no contradiction in criticizing IDF action in Gaza for not trying to minimize civilian casualties while also working to minimize civilian casualties in Israel as a result of Iranian action.

That other org is literally Hamas.

If you’re under the impression that Israelis universally support Netanyahu, I have a feeling you’ve never actually talked to any.

He’d be gone by lunchtime.

Why?

There’s this narrative that Israel is completely dependent on US aid and would be powerless without it, but I don’t think that’s obviously true. What military is going to meaningfully threaten them? Jordan has no interest in another giant wave of Palestinian migrants (given that the last one led to a coup attempt), nor does it have a significant military. Lebanon hardly has a genuine government. Syria is a mess. Egypt does have some legitimate power, but also has no interest in a massive war right next to them.

The only regional power capable of meaningfully threatening Israel is Iran, and Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Sunni coalition do not want massive expansion of Iranian influence.

Not to mention, Israel has already defeated all of its neighbors, simultaneously, twice. I’m fairly confident that the only thing that would actually happen if the US stopped sending aid is a bit of a dent in the Israeli economy.

One big thing I’d mention is that, shockingly, housing costs have a massive impact on homeless rates, independent of other factors that you might think would be more relevant. West Virginia and Mississippi are hardly bastions of economic prosperity or developed social services, and yet, they have some of the lowest rates of homelessness in the country, while California and New York are giant economies with huge social safety nets, and also huge homeless populations.

Why? Because the core reason someone becomes homeless is that they can’t afford a home, and even if someone’s life is completely unraveling, rummaging up $500 for an apartment in West Virginia is still much much easier than getting the $3000 that the same apartment would cost in New York City. As we’ve seen rent prices explode in HCOL cities, you see subsequent increases in homelessness. This isn’t complicated.

More direct interventions have their place for sure, but the single biggest thing we could do is actually build some god damn housing and not let Karen and Steve veto it because they think the parking lot it’d be replacing has historic significance as a pretense for not liking change or “urban” renters around.

The political problem is that voters who are paying rent tend to be annoyed by the government giving people apartments for free.

Housing first as a model is legitimate and works (at least more than doing nothing or maintaining terrible shelters forever), but the political resentment it builds is a real problem that no amount of finger-wagging makes go away.

Scratch a tankie and a toddler bleeds, or whatever the saying is.

My apologies, especially since you brought up WMDs in Iraq in just the best of faith.

Best of luck in your political ventures. The rhetorical bravery you’ve shown here has just been incredibly inspiring.

This conversation is specifically about the Uyghur genocide conspiracy theory.

Weird, I thought it was about Iraq!

The fact that the Iraqi invasion was deeply controversial at the time, and this controversy was able to be loudly expressed, stands in very stark contrast to how controversial topics in China’s recent history can be discussed. This is the main point I’m trying to make. I see you follow the lead of the Chinese government by simply refusing to discuss it, and I understand that talking about things that challenge your world view can be uncomfortable, so I’ll do you a favor by allowing this conversation to end.

I would just point out, though, that if I had responded to your initial comment about WMDs in Iraq with “Nope, not doing it,” you’d probably call me a coward or something.

I mean, yes, Bush lied to the American public. This is not particularly controversial.

And given that the original point was the difference between the ability and willingness of liberals to criticize our own governments relative to tankies, Tiananmen is a perfectly relevant topic, though I’m hardly surprised that you’d clearly like to avoid it. And if randomly bringing up supposedly unrelated topics is something to avoid, might I ask why you brought up WMDs in Iraq in a thread about the Uyghers in the first place?

The Iraq War inspired mass protests immediately that set records in several American cities, but sure.

You are correct though that the narrative has shifted with time. So I take it that this has also happened in China, such that someone could organize a protest on the Tiananmen anniversary, right?

The difference between your average liberal and a tankie is that liberals will openly say that there were no WMDs in Iraq and that the invasion was a mistake.

Find a tankie that would ever actually criticize the CCP the same way.

Violent revolution because of an operating system is genuinely one of the most terminally online ideas I think I’ve ever read in my life.

It’s not that genuine passion and altruism isn’t acknowledged; the entire open source software world is a testament to that.

You asked for an explanation as to why Free modern hardware hasn’t been developed yet. The simple answer is that passion and altruism has not yet been a strong enough incentive to motivate anyone to do it. He’s not accusing you of being lazy or hypocritical. The reason why you haven’t done it yet is the exact same reason why anyone else who could do it also hasn’t done it yet. It’s very very hard, and passion doesn’t pay the bills or feed you. Limited to a hobby, it’s simply more work than most people could ever hope to achieve in their spare time.

It’s more complicated than sheer greed.

The fact of the matter is that actually producing any modern technology takes a massive amount of work, and up til this point, no one has gathered enough motivation and free time to do it all for any modern hardware just out of pure altruism. There’s a reason why companies have to pay hundreds of engineers a huge amount of money to get anything developed; those people are not going to do this incredibly difficult work just for fun and moral satisfaction. It’s easy to point the finger at corporate greed for some things being locked down, and to be clear, there’s plenty of valid criticism to go around, but it has to be at least considered that most of this stuff would never have been developed in the first place if it wasn’t for those same companies. Your average person is not going to assemble a motherboard from parts and schematics.

Wouldn’t anyone just be curious to figure out how stuff works?

To this point, quite frankly, no. Average people simply do not care about this very much. They want to just turn on their magic internet box, get their work done, play their games, consume their media, and move on without any further fuss. The fact of the matter is that most people have no clue what a BIOS is, could not care less if it was proprietary or not, and have zero interest in learning about flashing them or why they would ever want to do that.

China will not seek to “own” outer space

Let’s see China get out of other nations’ ocean space first and then we can talk about outer space.

I’m speaking solely to the facts on the ground.

Regardless of anyone’s thoughts on the matter, Israel does hold all the guns here. Rights and privileges mean as much as the paper they’re printed on. In a perfect world, Israel and Palestine would exist side by side as peaceful partners, each with fully fledged institutions and militaries and all that jazz. But unless Israel is confident that a Palestinian military won’t have its destruction as its primary goal, it will not allow that to happen, no matter how much pontificating about rights and narratives and double standards anyone does. I’m not trying to talk about who’s “right”, whatever that even means. I’m talking about the actual situation and what will actually happen, regardless of anyone’s opinions on the matter.

When a country has such a consistent history, it’s rational to believe that they will continue annexing Palestinian lands

And an Israeli would say that Palestinians have a consistent history of attempting to murder Israeli civilians and so it is rational to never allow them to build up any military power, and thus the circus goes round. My point is that no amount of moral superiority means very much if you don’t have actual power to go along with it, and Palestinians simply do not. If the goal is actually to develop a real peace rather than avenge any sins of the past, both sides will have to give up on prior grievances and decide that they care more about the lives of their children than their own pride. It’s hard to imagine the situation being much worse than it already is (though I’m sure it’ll find a way)

it’s not impossible that Jordan, Egypt, and neighboring countries would gang up on Israel.

This has literally already happened. Israel beat them all in six days.