DdCno1

@DdCno1@beehaw.org

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

A crumbling rail system in Ethiopia reveals failed promise of China’s Billions in African infrastructure ( martinplaut.com )

Today it sits as a daily reminder of the broken promises of China-funded infrastructure investments that swept Africa in recent years. Frequent breakdowns, inadequate maintenance funding and operational constraints mean barely one-third of its 41 trains are operational, ferrying 55,000 passengers a day, a fraction of initial...

DdCno1 ,

Yeah, no. Your point is whataboutism in order to deflect from an obvious failure. It's the old hypernormalization approach that dictatorships and their defenders love to use. "If everything's bad, then the countless problems of this autocracy can't be that bad, right?"

DdCno1 ,

And freedom is slavery.

Baldur's Gate 3 actors reveal the darker side of success fuelled by AI voice cloning ( www.eurogamer.net )

The cat is out of the bag and despite many years of warning before this and similar technology became widely available, nobody was really prepared for it - and everyone is solely acting in their own best interests (or what they think their best interests to be). I think the biggest failure is that despite there being warnings...

DdCno1 ,

Including widespread use of slave labor. It doesn't get any cheaper.

DdCno1 ,

I'm referring to Chinese slave labor, which is not even remotely comparable to American prison labor.

DdCno1 ,

I've used forums that had these things 20 years ago. This isn't new.

DdCno1 ,

I should add that it wasn't the norm back then either.

What's kind of funny is that all of the debates around these systems are exactly the same today as back then, like for example that you should use the voting system to reward quality comments, not use it as an agree/disagree button.

DdCno1 ,

Why are you having a problem with someone not liking this dictatorship?

DdCno1 ,

What a weird person.

China faces more scrutiny from the West over its aggressive export practices — overcapacity and huge subsidies. ( www.dw.com )

Chinese firms can often undercut their Western counterparts for many reasons, including cheaper labor and economies of scale. But they also benefit from very generous state incentives, which help to make foreign rivals uncompetitive....

DdCno1 ,

Are you seriously trying to redefine slavery just to defend a murderous dictatorship?

DdCno1 ,

I mean, we should pull all production out of China. There is no actual need for our goods to be made there and it comes with a long list of side-effects, including propping up a regime that is hell-bent on starting at least one major war in Asia.

DdCno1 ,

We all know they lied, but until it's proven that they did instead of making "honest" mistakes, that's a neutral way of describing what his lawyers did.

DdCno1 ,

So far, he's been right, unfortunately.

DdCno1 ,

The American government has the ability to address both. It's not like money is being taken away from social programs to fund the defense of Ukraine. It's not like much money is involved in the defense of Ukraine to being with: The vast majority of weapons the Eastern European nation is receiving are old, even expired stock that would have otherwise been destroyed.

The issue is that while monetary capital exists to fix e.g. housing, political capital does not. Part of it is intentional - like all democracies, American democracy is intentionally designed to be slow in order to protect it - and part of it is due to the fact that one party is highly dysfunctional and entirely bought and paid for by interest groups, both foreign and domestic.

DdCno1 ,

The Russian lie is that the support of Ukraine and existing American social issues are meaningfully related, that if the former wouldn't exist, the latter could be solved. You're dangerously close to repeating this lie.

DdCno1 ,

In addition to what @tardigrada said, I doubt China's concentration camps show up in the official statistics. Do not believe any numbers coming out of autocracies like China.

DdCno1 ,

Agreed. This is a superficial history lesson masquerading as an article. While nothing lasts forever and Steam has its issues, the examples being cited are not supporting the not outrageous prediction that Steam might get worse in the future. It's just not very insightful.

Anyone who, unlike the author, actually had to deal with early versions of Steam can attest to the fact that in most ways, the platform has dramatically improved.

DdCno1 ,

Not just cheaper, but the vast majority of Indie games need the platform for exposure, despite it being so crowded. Those first few hours on the front page are when most sales are happening, especially given how abysmal to nonexistent the marketing of most small games is.

Developers seem to be under the impression that a few social media posts shortly before or after release are enough, whereas in reality, they need to create a community that is eagerly waiting for the game beforehand, spend at least as much time on marketing and community management as on the game itself.

Then again, the majority of games - and this is something few people are willing to admit, least of all their developers - have absolutely no commercial value, no chance of ever making any money, no business being on any store front and even, in the majority of cases, no business even being distributed for free other than among close friends and family. Over 12000 games were released on Steam last year. Does anyone believe that more than a few hundred of those are even worth looking at, let alone being purchased and played?

Nobody is waiting for the billionth card game or sidescroller with unattractive amateur art. Nobody is waiting for an ugly looking game with a poorly written store page that costs 15 bucks and is coming from a new, unknown developer while similar, better games are routinely on sale for a fraction as much. I've received outraged reactions from both developers and gamers for comparing some first marketed at release titles with other games out there. Almost every time, they were trying to sell their games through sob stories like "I worked seven years on this solo, surviving only on ramen and tears", as if anyone actually cares. Those stories are bonus trivia that you look up and are impressed by after having played a game and caring enough about it to read its Wikipedia article. I'm not buying your terrible time management skills and unrealistic expectations, I'm spending my limited disposable income on entertainment and escapism - and if your seven year amateur project can't keep up with a two year project by an experienced team of fifteen people even at the very first glance at the first screenshot of the typo-ridden store page, then you're out of luck - and I like weird "auteur" Indie games. Those 12,068 titles are not just competing with the other 12,067 released that year, but the entire catalogue on Steam (roughly 73,000 at the beginning of this year), as well as older games, games on other platforms and other types of media.

One has to assume that most people brave enough to dive head-first into Indie games development are either ignorant of these facts or hopelessly optimistic. We kind of need this optimism, without it we would have never gotten gems like Stardew Valley (which did not make any of the mistakes listed above though) or the equally amazing and divisive interactive art that studios like Tale of Tales have produced, but it's still frustrating to witness it pan out very predictably every time. Every single Indie success I've observed from the start was clearly on a winning path and every failure was obviously going to be a failure. I'm shocked how predictable it is, which is what gives me hope. At least success in this sphere is based on clear rules.

DdCno1 ,

Isn't it trivial to install boot camp on this thing?

DdCno1 ,

This looks like a problem with your system to me. Run a few checks on your RAM and storage devices. I had files corrupt on my NAS and a PC of mine, because both had defective memory. I only noticed it, because installers and 7zip began to produce errors.

DdCno1 ,

Anything that hurts these two wretched regimes is good.

DdCno1 ,

I keep hearing "Sanctions aren't working, please, please, please remove them." from Putin's paid and unpaid trolls. It's pretty obvious that they are effective - they just aren't resulting in a sudden collapse that some people were unrealistically expecting.

DdCno1 ,

The attacks forced Russian refineries to shut in some 14% of capacity in the first quarter

That's astonishing, especially keeping in mind just how cheap these drone attacks are. Given just how dependent the petro state that is Russia is on these refineries, how much its government depends on income generated by gas and oil, these kinds of attacks have the best chance of destabilizing the regime and reducing its ability to function.

DdCno1 ,

It is not a war crime to kill commanding officers in a war. On the contrary, this is a common and widely accepted strategy that can reduce the number of overall casualties, since it often motivates lower ranks to surrender.

DdCno1 ,

Independent Palestinian polls show that support for Hamas and especially violent struggle are lower in Gaza than in the West Bank. This goes against your hypothesis. Also, as the war rages on, there has been a recent and rather dramatic uptick among Gazans who support a two-state solution, a complete change from before. This indicates that people directly affected of the war are becoming tired of it and want peaceful coexistence, not a continuation of the fighting.

https://i.imgur.com/h5TlemJ.png

https://i.imgur.com/jyP8jrT.png

https://i.imgur.com/3JncEU4.png

Source: https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/969

One might even go so far as to say that Israel is breaking the fighting spirit of Gazans. Israel is winning this war, slowly but surely, at a great cost - especially, but not only, at the cost of Palestinian lives - but there will be no other outcome. Hamas could end it right now by admitting defeat, but they choose to let the people die until the bitter end while they are hiding, in bunkers and in Qatar.

One more thing: Striking a commander and hitting civilians with him is the opposite of an indiscriminate bombing. That's still a targeted discriminate strike, even with additional civilian casualties. Indiscriminate would be carpet bombing - and Israel doesn't even have aircraft that are capable of this.

DdCno1 ,

“Civilians want to stop being bombed en masse, more open to demands of bombers” isn’t exactly the argument you think it is.

It's an observation. Not to mention, a two-state solution is the best thing Palestinians can ever hope for. At this point, it's highly optimistic at best, but still more realistic than the genocidal "from the river to the sea" pipe dream.

Your comment also fully assumes that the goals of Israel are to reduce war sentiment in Palestine.

Not the goal, but it's most certainly a goal. Before this war, I was under the impressions that many Palestinians and their supporters failed to realize just how massive the difference in capabilities between the two sides are. Palestinian leadership decided to essentially poke the bear through horrendous massacres and rapes, hoping that the rest of the Arab world would join in before they've been bombed back to the stone age. They were extra stupid doing this while a far-right coalition was in power. One can only call these a series of grave miscalculations that ordinary Palestinians will be paying for for decades to come.

Among other odd issues in this comment, ultimately you’re not addressing the core issue people are taking with Israel’s choices by taking a hard-line ‘realism’ stance.

So being realistic is a bad thing now?

Here's the deal: Israel had no other choice but to declare war over this. No other nation would have acted any differently. If you do not strike back at a pseudo-state that staged one of the worst terrorist attacks in history, you are inviting more attacks like these. If you make concessions in response, you are showing terrorists that terrorism works, also inviting more attacks. Even Denmark would have declared war in this kind of situation.

The only valid point worth discussing is how they are choosing to fight this war. I feel like Israel is between a rock and a hard place and can only ever hope to choose the least terrible option - and since they are not infallible, they are not capable of always doing that and even if they do in certain situations, this can still result in the suffering of civilians. War is awful, always has been and people should get rid of the delusion that a clean war is even possible.

I wish there was a different and far more moderate government in power in Israel instead one under the leadership of the Israeli equivalent of Donald Trump, one that is far less callous about human lives, but here's the problem: After every single terrorist attack in the past, the Israeli public has moved further to the right. I'm sure Palestinian leadership knew this when they made their plans, I'm convinced they hoped for this, because it means the conflict will live on. Seemingly paradoxically, both the Israeli far right and the Palestinian leadership need this mess to remain unsolved, because they rely on it for power. Neither are capable nor willing to actually solve problems and are largely in it for personal gain.

DdCno1 ,

I would have never chosen this word myself to describe any of my stances, but since you did it, even with quotation marks, it's a bit odd that you're now complaining about it.

Not that I was expecting much from your response, but that's all you have to say?

Elderly Chinese rights lawyer who was tortured in detention is finally free after six years and six months behind bars ( safeguarddefenders.com )

While she was incarcerated, the 74-year-old Chinese human rights lawyer Li Yuhan was subjected to inhumane abuse and mental torture. This included denying her essential medicines for serious diseases such as heart issues, forcing her to take ice baths and depriving her of food and water. Officers also humiliated her by urinating...

DdCno1 ,

This has to be one of the worst takes possible on this state crime. Well done!

DdCno1 ,

That is one clumsy attempt at whataboutism.

DdCno1 ,

Who cares? This isn't about the US, this is a deliberate provocation by China, so let's discuss how China is marching towards instigating an armed conflict with Taiwan.

DdCno1 ,

Whataboutism and lies are all that defenders of autocratic hellholes like China have to offer. It's getting tiring.

DdCno1 ,

There's a rumor that North Korea has an underground replica of a South Korean city in order to train spies and sleeper agents. They are said to live there for a while, learn how to blend in, speak the different dialect, handle things like electronic payment methods, etc.

DdCno1 ,

Whataboutism doesn't become any more effective the more often you repeat it.

DdCno1 ,

I didn't report anything. Some of my comments were removed as well.

What is actually low are the accusation and the insult.

DdCno1 ,

Most users are blindly accepting any and all requests by apps.

DdCno1 ,

Normal users can quickly hide it with a taskbar setting, power users (or those who can Google) can disable the feature entirely through a group policy.

DdCno1 ,

Is this an AI-image?

DdCno1 ,

I can tell from experience that image generation software will create nonsense watermarks surprisingly often, if its training data included images with watermarks.

Take a closer look at the image. It has many telltale signs of an AI-image.

DdCno1 ,

Israel and Ukraine need very different weapons. This is false.

DdCno1 ,

The reason why support for Ukraine is so shaky is that Republicans have been thoroughly compromised by the nation that started the war and has an interest in removing American support for Ukraine. Trump is far from the only leading Republican who is bought and paid for by Moscow.

Israel is an entirely different matter. As much as Netanyahu is a terrible person, he did not start this war and had absolutely no other choice than to respond to Hamas murderous rampage with a campaign to remove the terrorist organization. There was no other option and someone far further left on the political spectrum would have to do the same. Hell, any nation on Earth, including the most peace-loving ones, would have started a full-on war in reaction to attack like this.

The relationship between Israel and the USA is also far firmer than between Ukraine and the USA and not just because of the routinely overstated influence of the "Israel lobby". Israel is a far more important country, the most important Western partner in the Middle East for strategic reasons alone. It's a hub for cutting-edge research in pretty much all areas, from biotech to defense and it houses some of the most important chip fabs in the world - think of it as a second Taiwan. It's also a startup hub, one of the most important places for new high-tech companies to emerge in the world. You have very likely used technology and inventions that came from Israel without knowing it. Intel for example has had a presence in the country since the 1970s, pretty much since the beginning of close US-Israeli ties, and benefited massively from the research and development that happened there.

Israel is small and surrounded by enemies that have tried to destroy it and its people (what do you think "From the river to the sea!" actually means?) from the moment it was conceived by the UN. You are making a serious and sadly these days very common mistake of falling for a massive worldwide propaganda campaign - fueled by Iran, Russia and China, who are doing it in an attempt to weaken one of America's most important strategic partners - that tries to portray the justified, if brutal, war against an organization that does everything in their power to get as many civilians on both sides killed as a genocide, while at the same time ignoring the real and openly stated genocidal intentions of this terrorist pseudo-state and its supporters. The whole genocide argument falls apart at even the most cursory glance: Why would a country with genocidal intentions go through enormous lengths to minimize civilian casualties, far more so than any other country in the world? The IDF is the only military on the planet that is routinely informing civilians through calls, messages, flyers, hacked TV stations, web services, etc. before air strikes and ground operations. This is nearly completely unheard of elsewhere and entirely unheard of at this kind of scale. This actually hurts Israel militarily, as it allows not just civilians, but also terrorists to get away.

Why would they go through all of this trouble if the aim was to exterminate a people? How would a pluralistic democracy where Israeli Arabs (they don't like to call themselves Palestinians) have representation in the Knesset and even a Supreme Court judge decide to commit genocide anyway? Not to mention, if they were truly genocidal, they would start with the members of this people within their own borders, with an increasingly harsh campaign to separate them from the majority to slowly lead over to extermination, which is the opposite of what's happening in Israel, where - despite some very real discrimination, not too dissimilar to minorities in other developed nations - Israeli Arabs has gained more rights, influence and representation instead of less over time.

Note that I'm not saying that there are no war crimes being committed by Israel in Gaza. That would be preposterous. I'm certain that, just like in sadly any war, there are individual soldiers satisfying their blood lust. I'm also not denying that Palestinians have experienced and are experiencing countless injustices from the Israeli state and individual Israelis, especially settlers. This is however entirely different from the allegation that there is a planned, systematic campaign to murder an entire people. I think many people who are parroting this claim have good intentions, but are simply too inexperienced with what wars look like, mistake the absurd overrepresentation of this conflict in the media compared to other, much worse ongoing wars with this war being much worse. Assad had - in a single prison - about as many people murdered as have allegedly (we only have Hamas numbers) been killed in Gaza. The civil war in Sudan has seen massacres at a near incomprehensible scale, with tens of thousands dying over the course of days - yet barely anyone is talking about this. Why is that? Why are we all so obsessed with this tiny strip of arid land in the Middle East? I'm not saying that we shouldn't be watchful, that the international community should not be Israel's bad conscience, but there is still something profoundly wrong with the way our media - both news and social media - elevates this conflict above every other war.

Sorry for the wall of text. I hope you don't mind it and the fact that I have some opinions that go against the majority in this community.

DdCno1 ,

Lengthy reply, you have been warned.

One reason why support for Israel is so unanimous is that all politicians have been compromised to some degree by AIPAC’s influence.

The influence of this organization, while not small, is vastly overstated. I explained in my previous comment the significant strategic importance of Israel to the US and other Western nations, which is the actual reason. That famous Iron Dome defensive system for example is also used by America to protect key locations. American and German (and soon British) tanks are getting equipped with Trophy APS, developed in Israel and used very effectively in Gaza (I've seen footage of this system intercepting multiple missiles in a row), which can intercept missiles before they hit the armor. This kind of tech - and it's not just defense tech - is priceless and you can't get it anywhere else at this level of quality right now.

This conflict has been going on for a long time before October.

That is an awful and very misleading source going by the note at the top alone (no serious expert is disputing that a terrorist missile fell on that hospital) and by this war I meant this war in Gaza, which Hamas did start. The conflict as a whole can be traced back to arbitrary points in time, but the modern starting point would be when the Arab coalition attacked the young nation of Israel the moment it was founded according to a UN resolution.

starving children and everyone else

Hamas is hoarding vast amounts of food, fuel, medical supplies and are openly stealing aid coming into the strip, often by force. Just like they are to blame for the start of this war, they are to blame for most of the suffering.

bombing hospitals

When a hospital is used to launch missiles at civilians in Israel, how is Israel to respond? Are they supposed to let their own people die or do they have the right to defend themselves? The Geneva convention is very clear on this: The moment a civilian structure is being used for military purposes, it loses all protections. It sounds harsh, but the idea behind this is to discourage this kind of behavior by malevolent actors.

absolutely guaranteeing the continuation of the conflict

Prior to this war, tens of thousands of Palestinians were working in Israel, earning the same wages as Israelis would, which means they earned several times as much as they would in Palestinian territories. Thousands were being treated in Israeli hospitals. Food, power, water and telecommunications were being provided for free. Israel was brokering a deal with Egypt and Palestinians for the exploitation of a gas field at the coast of Gaza, which would have provided energy independence for the strip and a significant source of revenue for Palestinians.

Hamas ended all of this. Israel - despite its many faults - has repeatedly made concessions and incentivized peaceful coexistence. Every single time, they were rewarded with more violence and hate. When they forcefully evicted all settlers out of the Gaza Strip, Hamas thanked them by launching attacks - rockets, bombs, stabbings, shootings, suicide bombers - in response and they deliberately destroyed the greenhouses, water pipes and fields left behind by the settlers. How do you deal with an organization like that?

Do you really think there’s a single person in Palestine today who doesn’t want to see Israel eradicated off the face of the planet?

I wonder if you are aware of what Palestinian children are being taught at school. It makes the kind of hate children in Nazi Germany exposed to look like Sesame Street. I highly recommend you read this report (PDF link at the beginning) in its entirety. It's lengthy, but very illuminating:

https://unwatch.org/un-teachers-call-to-murder-jews-reveals-new-report/

Please tell me what you make of this. This indoctrination has been the primary factor in keeping this conflict alive. It has done far more damage than any bomb or any rampaging settler.

They could have chosen to pursue a genuine end to the conflict and address its root causes

If you respond to one of the worst terrorist attacks in history by making concessions, you are telling the terrorists that violence works and thereby encourage further attacks like these in the future. Is this the kind of message you would want to send? Hamas knew that with their attack, peace between Palestine and Israel would be made impossible for decades. They counted on it, because this is what gives them power. The only response to an organization that works like this can be to destroy it and then and only then work on more peaceful steps to resolve the issue. More on that later.

which basically boil down to Israel wanting to take land from the Palestinians

Most Israelis abhor the settlers and their land grabbing. They want peaceful coexistence. Within the current Israeli government, there are however many politicians that support these deeply unpopular land grabs. This is a problem, but only for the duration of the war, as this government and its parties and politicians are not expected to survive the next election, especially not Netanyahu. I'm sure you recall the mass protest against him that went on for months before this war. His days are numbered.

reduce them to subhuman status with the society they’re imposing on them

That is one hell of an accusation. Israel has no control over Palestinian schools, not even in the West Bank, and they only have limited influence over the PNA. Neither did they interfere with how Hamas governed the strip, beyond retaliating for attacks and preventing the smuggling of weapons and materials that could be used for the creation of weapons and tunnels into the strip. Both Gaza and the West Bank are highly repressive ethno-religious autocracies similar to many other Muslim-majority states. This is not the fault of Israel - they would certainly prefer it if these were liberal democracies like Israel itself. In my opinion, the worst thing Israel does day-to-day to Palestinians outside of the war is restricting their movement within the West Bank. Random check- and choke points, arbitrary restrictions on movement, unpredictable treatment at the checkpoints. That's a serious issue that needs to be addressed, but given the highly volatile security situation - Hamas is very active in the West Bank as well - it's unlikely that there would be improvements for Palestinians in the near future.

and kill them without warning or recourse any time they feel like

I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but there is what can only be called a human sacrifice ritual going on in the West Bank. Teenagers (mostly) are being encouraged to attack certain Israeli check points near a Palestinian hospital with slings - serious weapons that can kill a man at long distance and have been used for warfare for millennia. Soldiers then shoot back at them using small-caliber ammunition, aiming at their legs. Pretend-medics (seriously, these men are not trained at all; their incompetence is staggering), then pretend to tend to them - many die or end up with lifelong injuries. All of this happens at set locations in front of a large number of journalists ready to capture the macabre spectacle with their cameras - and it provides a steady daily trickle of "murdered kids" for Palestinians propagandists to use in order to sway naive, well-meaning Westerners to support organizations that openly advocate for the destruction of Israel.

This has been going on for decades. I first saw a TV report on this back in the 1990s and it fundamentally changed my view of the conflict. There is something seriously wrong with a society that values its children so little, its willing to throw their lives away this callously for political gain. Fundamental reform is needed.

invoke a war against Hamas itself, while still being at least mindful-on-the-surface of civilian casualties

How? They are mindful, they are, as I explained in my previous comment, above and beyond what every other military is doing to minimize casualties, but they are fighting against a terrorist pseudo-state that is doing the very opposite, deliberately doing everything in their power to increase the number of dead on their side. Read this in-depth academic report on the issue:

https://stratcomcoe.org/publications/hybrid-threats-hamas-use-of-human-shields-in-gaza/87

It's accessible and you can get the gist of it from the first few pages, if you don't have much time. The evidence provided in it is overwhelming.

since their treatment of Palestinians means that basically anyone who’s an adult could potentially be a Hamas supporter

This is not the fault of Israel, but of Palestinian terror organizations. They only wear uniforms during parades. Even in their own propaganda footage, they can be seen fighting in civilian clothes. This is deliberate. They not only hope to blend in (some terrorists have even been caught wearing female clothing), but also to encourage twitchy, scared soldiers to see any Palestinian as a threat and fire at them, in the hopes that this way, more civilians are killed, which to Hamas, as they have repeatedly and openly stated, is the goal for both internal and external propaganda.

How do you fight an enemy like this?

Continued below.

DdCno1 ,

Part 2 (of 2, thankfully):

when you oppress an entire population for 75 years

Palestinian territories were occupied by other nations, namely Egypt and Jordan, for decades during this time (a significant part of Palestine still is). This often repeated (and now outdated - it's 2024) 75 years of oppression meme is highly misleading. Both Egypt and Jordan were not benevolent in their occupation and permitted the Palestinians under their rule no influence on how they were being governed. Furthermore, Palestinian refugees in various middle Eastern nations are essentially without rights for perpetuity. Please educate yourself on this instead of spreading falsehoods.

you create a situation that’s boo hoo difficult for yourself to deal with “humanely.”

What on Earth is that supposed to mean?

They could have done literally nothing

You can not be serious.

it’s not ideal

The hell it isn't.

it wouldn’t have involved killing thousands of children

I am not denying that many children have died in Gaza, but the numbers released by Hamas are not reliable at all. Read this:

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-gaza-health-ministry-fakes-casualty-numbers

Also, see the above report on Hamas deliberately putting civilians, including children, at danger. Hamas is to blame, not Israel.

absolutely guaranteeing continued support for Hamas from this generation of Palestinians and maybe beyond

Support for Hamas in Gaza, according to independent Palestinian polls, is lower than in the West Bank, where almost no bombs are falling. This is patently false. The opposite would be happening if what you said were true.

In the aftermath of World War 2

We are not in the aftermath phase of this war yet. Israel is sending in aid into areas that they are controlling, which is all you can realistically expect of them. During WW2, the Allies - unlike Israel - deliberately targeted civilians with bombs and low-flying aircraft - my own grandmother recalled how she had to flee from a funeral that was attacked by strafing allied warplanes flying at tree level, low enough for them to see who they were attacking. Also, nobody demanded of the Allies that they supplied the enemy with food, water, power, electricity and telecommunications, all demands that are frequently uttered towards Israel.

Involve the international community

This was kind of necessary, because a global coalition had been fighting against the Nazis. There's a reason why there were American, British, French and Soviet judges at the Nuremberg trials. There is no international coalition fighting in Gaza. It's a totally different kind of war.

Ensure that anyone accused of this crime would have a chance to defend themselves against the charges with legal representation

Yahya Sinwar used to be in an Israeli prison for the abduction, torture and murder of several Palestinians and Israelis. He had received a fair trial with representation and in prison, he was able to get a degree from the University of Tel Aviv. One day, he complained about vision problems. Israeli doctors discovered a tumor in his brain and removed it, saving his life. He was released in 2011 as part of an exchange to free a hostage held by Hamas and ended up as the mastermind behind the October 7 attacks. One of the surgeon's nephews is among the civilians Hamas abducted into Gaza.

This man received a fair trial and treatment for his abhorrent crimes and yet, once released, he orchestrated one of the worst terrorist attacks in history. How do you deal with people like this?

Took the “innocent” (relatively speaking) civilians of the country, made some effort to rebuild their country, and carefully set up structures which would address the root causes that had led to the breeding ground for hatred that had been created where the problem had festered in the first place.

The Nazis were only in power for 12 years. While they indoctrinated many - and I recall from my elderly relatives that some of the hate they were taught as schoolchildren remained with them for their entire lives - they did not have the decades upon decades of time that Palestinian extremists had to indoctrinate the children of their people.

In order to remove the Nazis from power, in order to eliminate them as a threat, much of Germany had to be razed to the ground and it needed to be occupied for decades. Millions were killed, millions were displaced. Those who survived and rebuilt had very little interest in dealing with the past. The process of denazification that followed took many decades and was only getting into full swing once the children of those who had experienced WW2 as adults started to ask serious questions. "What did you do during the war, mom/dad?" became an uncomfortable staple of many family dinners in the late '60s. The '68 revolution ousted many former Nazis out of positions of power in West Germany, against a state that chose to react to this with violence and repression, until the pressure became overwhelming. The modern German culture of remembrance, the Germany as we know it today as a tolerant, pluralistic nation with an honest approach to its past was born in those days.

Hamas need to go first, then there needs to be a benevolent occupation and a complete rewiring of Palestinian society, to the point that at some point, children are beginning to ask uncomfortable questions to their parents. Only then can we start to talk about concessions towards Palestine.

with an oppressive open-air prison

Gaza was never an open-air prison. This is yet another propaganda talking point that you are repeating, without ever having bothered to check its veracity. I encourage you to look into what life in Gaza was like before the war. The only oppressors there were Hamas.

I’m not excusing any murder, kidnapping, or rape of the innocent on October 7th. The people who did it should be punished.

Two sentences. That's all you have to say about the people responsible for this war, its continuation and worst atrocities. You only vaguely state that they should be punished, but don't appear to have thought about how that's supposed to happen.

and somehow we managed to react to that without starving millions of children

1.170.000 civilians died in Germany during WW2, many of which through bombs, but a significant portion of these died from starvation. The Allies were not sending over food during the war. After the war, hundreds of thousands more died from starvation, exposure and disease, especially in 1946 and 1947, when the entirety of Germany was directly occupied. There was aid being sent at that point, but it was wholly insufficient. Please educate yourself before making statements like these. You aren't exactly doing your credibility any favors with this.

continuing an endless cycle of suffering

Did you know that there was a point in time, up until well into the 1970s, when the borders between Palestinian and Israeli territories were very open? There was almost complete freedom of travel, which citizens from both sides of the border used. There are still some older Israelis who recall going to restaurants in Gaza. Terrorism conducted by ruthless opportunists ended this, terrorism fueled by pure hatred, by virulent antisemitism deliberately destroyed the tiny sprouts of hope and peace that were sprouting. None of the violence that followed would have happened without massacres like the Munich attack.

Israel is not innocent in this conflict, far from it. I'm not denying the Nakba, I'm not denying the everyday suffering of Palestinians, I would never state that they shouldn't do more, I will never be a supporter of the current government, but you are making the serious mistake of portraying the Palestinians, which are their own people with agency, with the ability to choose their leaders and their futures, as these hapless children that are perpetually being bullied around. Don't infantilize them like that. They have a shared responsibility for this continued conflict and its time they start building a future for themselves.

DdCno1 ,

No.

Ukraine is mostly getting old stock, weapons that would otherwise be destroyed, because they are at or past their expiration date.

Israel gets the latest kit, which they are buying with American money from American arms manufacturers. An entirely different mechanism. It should be noted that Israel is mostly self-sufficient in terms of military weapons, but it's of course more convenient for them to take this aid than to make weapons they could make themselves.

As for "political capital", Ukraine and Israel are so thoroughly different in this regard, it's like they are from two different planets. In no way are they comparable other than that America has a vested interest in keeping both alive and on its side.

DdCno1 ,

Adblock your life and don't consume anything that can't be adblocked.

DdCno1 ,

Because most employees can't just install random software on their machines and because compatibility between Libre Office and Microsoft Office is nowhere near perfect. You don't want to send your boss a file that ends up looking mangled on their screen.

What non-FOSS software have you been unable to quit?

For me, Google video search, Google books (Internet Archive is good, but doesn't always have the same stuff), Adobe InDesign (but in the process of learning LaTeX), and Typewise. As for the Google stuff, I liked Whoogle a lot, but almost all their instances seem to have been blocked or shut down. Also, apologies if this is...

DdCno1 ,

Signal does, by the way.

DdCno1 ,

Those 100,000 soldiers for the summer offensive got to come from somewhere. To the penal battalion it is. Bring your own shovel, because there's no guarantee you'll get a rifle (I wish I was making this part up).

DdCno1 ,

If you think the Western world is bad in this regard, then you only need to take one look outside of it. This is as good as it gets right now in terms of teaching independent thinking. There are lots of issues and gaps, but the rest of the world is considerably worse in this regard, especially Asia.

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