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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)AL
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2 yr. ago

  • So what's your point?

    Was this election so unimportant to the Democrats that they couldn't pressure Israel into a ceasefire in October?

    Biden had all the power for the past 15 months. Failing to deliver anything and claiming they are "working tirelessly" can only mean incompetence or deception on the part of Democrats.

    Blaming Palestinian-Americsns for staying home when American bombs were killing their families is just such a weak take.

  • The vast majority of Germans did not know about the death camps. They were under the impression that the Jews were held in labour and prison camps and only learned about the genocide towards the end of the war, around 1943.

    My (great)grandparents were in the Dutch resistance and saved many people, including Jews. They thought they were saving them from labour and prison camps.

    They also only learned about the death camps towards the end of the war when news of it started leaking out. This made them even more resolved to save whom they could, which was hard in the Dutch famine in the 1944/1945 winter. They gave away a lot of food that winter.

    Neither they, nor the Germans, could do much more than that. Trying to protest the Holocaust would lead to immediate arrest by the Nazi's.

    Also, even the Nazi's didn't know about the Holocaust until the 1942 Wannsee conference where they invented it as "the final solution". By that time the war had entered its third year.

    My point is, unlike the Israelis today, the German public as whole at that time can only be accused of being complicit in genocide, during a period where they themselves were under martial law. They can not be accused of supporting genocide while still enjoying civil rights.

    Which is why I have more disdain for the Israelis today.

  • A bit late, but I just want to say, you are doing it right. I hope you find a new home for your community.

    If people want less bigoted religions, then they will need to support initiatives by reasonable people to steer those religions.

    Otherwise, if all reasonable people leave a religion, all that remains will be a cesspool of toxicity and ignorance.

  • In the 1990s, we all knew. And we had enough time and the technology to stop it.

    That technology was nuclear, since solar and wind just weren't developed enough back then.

    But we collectively decided that nuclear power was too risky, so now we are here today.

  • After the election win, I am no longer that certain in how bad of an investment Twitter was for Musk.

    It probably helped the Trump campaign somehow, even if not decisive.

    And he will probably get billions in AI subsidies which he will partially spend on licensing Twitter content for AI purposes.

  • Yep, this is it.

    They are trading battery longevity for faster charging.

    Personally, I generally prefer battery longevity, since that is the main factor that causes me to buy a new phone.

    This is also the main reason I would like to buy a Fairphone for my next phone. I can get a new battery for $50 and replace it myself. And with 8-10 years of updates, I figure I can actually use it for 8 years with two battery replacements along the way.

  • That would be more in line with the actual American tradition.

    But personally, I would recommend to only allow filibusters in the House, which has a more proportional representation, and to not allow it in the Senate, which has the least proportional representation, even less than the electoral college.

  • There are two considerations.

    For the American government and corporations, Chinese espionage is an obvious and real threat. NVidia doesn't want China to steal their chip designs and the Pentagon doesn't want China to steal military info.

    For American private citizens, it isn't really a threat. It's actually preferable in a way, because you know they won't disclose whatever they learn to the American government. You might even consider buying a fully "designed and made in China" device, which the NSA might not have a backdoor to.

    This only makes it more concerning to the American government, because they lose control over their citizens.

  • Also, having been on the other side of such a situation: it's not cool to pressure or guilt trip your guests. Either be hospitable and let them do whatever they want, or don't invite them.

    If people aren't hungry, then they aren't hungry. Maybe they are on a diet, maybe they misunderstood OP's intention and ate beforehand. Maybe they are recovering from something and don't want to eat too much.

    And as for the two that did not showed up. It's a good practice to reconfirm the night before. Sometimes people forget. Sometimes life gets in the way.

    If they did reconfirm and still didn't show up and did not have a good excuse, then I would start looking for better friends.

    Hope OP has better success next time. I do understand that the situation sucks.

    But it's also a situation that, in my opinion, is preventable.

  • Exactly. Every time the UN does something, people say "they can't enforce it".

    Well, that's the whole point of the UN. To resolve things without using force.

    It's a good design, designed by people who learned from the horrors of WW2.

    It's sad to see how many people nowadays forget those lessons and are itching for global war.

  • I agree with this take.

    AI will definitely make some white collar jobs way more productive, and thus change the nature of that work and reduce the number of people employed in those jobs.

    A good example is translation, where translators are now mostly reviewing translated texts instead of translating from scratch.

    This means the ability to read fast and take on the role of editor is what remains important in the remaining jobs for translators.

  • The only country that can be blamed for destroying Iraqi industry is the USA. Two decades of war, one decade of sanctions and another decade of war (by Saddam against Iran) sponsored by the USA in the 1980s.

    Obviously, Iranian industry will outcompete Iraqi industry at this point in history.

    Iraq needs to rebuild and they need outside help.

    I'm not gonna defend Iranian war mongering. And neither will I defend Turkish war mongering, or IS, USA or Israeli war mongering.

    But the only path forward for Iraq is by making peace with the two power brokers in the region: Turkey and Iran.

    And that's what the current government is trying to achieve. The Turkey-Iraq corridor and the new port they are building are going to lay the foundation for their future prosperity.

    As for Iran, Iran is desperate for allies. It won't be that difficult to find some mutually beneficial relationship with them.

  • It's more-or-less geographic destiny that Iran and Turkey will become the dominant powers in Western Asia.

    They both basically ruled the area for most of history.

    The best we (the West) could do is nudge them towards human rights and peace and friendship. For Turkey, that's mostly a done deal.

    For Iran, that was exactly what Obama tried to do. And it's also what Iran has been trying to get for the past 25 years.

    Iran is inherently on a path towards secularisation and more dovish policies. It's the threat of war by the US and Israel that keeps the defense hawks in power.

    Iran, especially, will never fully trust the USA - and for good reason. But they do want better relations with the USA. They just don't want to get burned or bombed.

  • The US never did anything about Rachel Corrie or the USS Liberty or Hersh Goldberg-Polin. And we can probably add hundreds of Palestinian Americans to the list, but even their names aren't known in the mainstream media.

    It seems the USA capacity to care depends on how much AIPAC will allow it to care.

  • They aren't combatants or PoW, taking them hostage was a human rights violation from the beginning.

    But Israel can't really expect Hamas to follow Geneva conventions when they themselves violate it a hundreds times as often.