I should also point out that invoking “secularism” in defense of Israeli brutality is absurd. Religious exceptionalism is a foundational characteristic of that state. The fanatical zealots that run their current government invoke religious providence all the time when rationalizing their own brutal policies. Lastly, the root of US patronage for Israel, the thing that allows the state to persist at all, is evangelical Christians who hope to usher in the end times described by their religion.
Every single rationalization that I’ve heard Israel and the US use for the inhuman violence they are inflicting, if applied consistently, would also justify both October 7 and the behavior of Hezbollah. “We have a right to defend ourselves.” “They deserve it because they are terrorists that target innocent civilians.” “This is our land.” “They hide behind civilians.” “We support our Allies without condition”. Secondly, “secularism” is worthless if it is employed in the the service of racism and fascism. Thirdly, please examine history and realize that all of this brutality always, always sows the seeds of more violence that will be visited upon you later. Israelis are sacrificing their own long term security for the sake of wanton short term bloodlust. It’s sick, self destructive and short sighted.
Justice would be hauling Joe and his Secretary of State in front of congress and appropriate courts, to be tried for violating the Leahy laws and actively lying to congress. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a rules-based society.
There is no depth to which Joe Biden will not sink to prop up, arm, cover for, pay, or deflect accountability from Israel. He is a zealot, devoted to a racist, un-democratic state and its culture of ethnic purity and regional domination. He is a monster who would be undeserving of his role as president, if the country he presided over wasn’t itself a violent, racist stain on humanity. Harris should be given an opportunity to course correct, but we all know that she won’t. She has no actual ideology other than self promotion. Her party has been captured monetarily by the Israeli lobby, as has most of congress. Despite a lot of flowery rhetoric, the only consistent US principle is a willingness to ignore US principles if there is profit or power to be had. As a US citizen, I hope our allies realize how duplicitous we are, and how shallow our calls for unity, peace and order are. The US should not be trusted, and our demon child Israel should never, ever be legitimized as anything other than the cancer it keeps choosing to be.
Israel is a cancer.
Netflix, Ford, Tesla, T-Mobile, AIG, NextEra, Darden, MetLife, Duke Energy, First Energy, DISH, Principal Financial, American Electrical Power, Kinder Morgan, Dominion, Oneok, Williams, Xcel Energy, NRG Energy, Salesforce, DTE Energy, Ameren, Sempra Energy, U.S. Steel, Entergy, AmerisourceBergen, PPL, CMS Energy, Evergy, Voya Financial, Atmos Energy, Alliant Energy, Match Group, UGI, Agilent Tech
Why should it feel a need to respond? This administration and congress have shown nothing but breathless support for every illegal and inhuman action they’ve taken and imposed exactly zero meaningful consequences for violating the few feckless ‘red lines’ Biden has feigned to impose. They have nearly complete ideological and/or monetary capture of the administration and congress, and the US professional media is salivating about having more wars to cover. Both presidential candidates have promised no change in policy. Furthermore, the international community seems to be largely unwilling to meaningfully intervene and challenge US hegemony.
I really cannot fully express how much I have grown to hate all these motherfuckers and their awful work - and I work in Silicon Valley.
I’m willing to argue that the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor was replete with war crimes by modern standards. I’ve cited some documentation above. Since doing that I’ve learned that there are also specific prohibitions against booby-trapping: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/ccw-amended-protocol-ii-1996/article-7 Turns out that Israel has violated many international standards for war crimes and terrorism. It’s simple mystifying to me that any of this is controversial.
As an intellectual exercise, what do you suppose are the chances that Vance is a nazi? I don’t mean ‘nazi’ in a rhetorical sense, and I don’t mean ‘nazi’ in the sense that his worldview and ideologies overlap with those of nazis. I mean, what are the chances that he’s actually in his basement with a brown shirt, seig heil-ing from time to time? It probably doesn’t matter, as long as his civic actions support that cause anyway. But I wonder this each time I hear yet another awful detail about this loser. I peg it at about 10%, low but definitely above zero.
First of all, there was no way for Israel to know whether the people they claim to be targeting were combatants when the attack occurred since Israel had no information about the status of these bombs when they chose to detonate them.
Secondly, placing a bomb in a common device that you have every reason to believe will spend much of its time in the proximity of civilians, in homes, markets and other public spaces, and choosing to detonate it without knowledge of the location of the bomb, or it’s proximity to your supposed target, is actively avoiding distinguishing between ‘combatants’ and civilians. I can’t believe that western brain rot requires this to be spelled out for it.
On the prohibition of indiscriminate attacks:
“(c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.”
It’s important to note that this is the consensus of much of the international community and the US (and I presume its surrogate Israel) have not signed on to the above provision despite speaking to support it. The weasely approach we (the US) have taken to these standards really demonstrates how hollow our sentiments are when we feign moral authority in international affairs.
18 U.S. Code § 2441 - War crimes
Prohibited conduct: “(D) Murder.— The act of a person who intentionally kills, or conspires or attempts to kill, or kills whether intentionally or unintentionally in the course of committing any other offense under this subsection, one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including those placed out of combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause”
It’s literally a war crime to attack people who are not actively participating in combat. That includes people who are members of your enemy’s military.
Apartheid. Ethnic cleansing. Genocide. Terrorism. Israel and its benefactor are just awful.
Well, that’s terrorism right there. Wish I lived in a country that had a problem with such awfulness.
This is part of Obama’s legacy.
“Ethically and follicly challenged” Frank Luntz
This take is correct although I would make one addition. It is true that copyright violation doesn’t happen when copyrighted material is inputted or when models are trained. While the outputs of these models are not necessarily copyright violations, it is possible for them to violate copyright. The same standards for violation that apply to humans should apply to these models.
I entirely reject the claims that there should be one standard for humans and another for these models. Every time this debate pops up, people claim some province based on ‘intelligence’ or ‘conscience’ or ‘understanding’ or ‘awareness’. This is a meaningless argument because we have no clear understanding about what those things are. I’m not claiming anything about the nature of these models. I’m just pointing out that people love to apply an undefined standard to them.
We should apply the same copyright standards to people, models, corporations, and old-school algorithms.
The all-encompassing ethos of malicious self-interest that both trump and the crypto community embody makes them a perfect match for each other.