From the thread below, you appear to believe Israel also coordinated the destruction of the World Trade Center towers, so I think our premises are probably too far apart to discuss anything productively.
I do not believe that (although I could see how you would read it like that). I meant your insinuation that the well documented Zionist false flag was the equivalent of 9/11 conspiracy theories, but you admit that Israel did do the false flag.
Jewish immigration to Israel is not similar at all to Nakba. It was voluntary, and that's extremely different from having your homeland invaded and ethnically cleansed.
It seems unthinkable that Intel would continue to invest in Israel. They should have never done it in the first place, and building a new fab would be at minimum a major PR disaster.
For me it is one of many reasons to avoid Intel products, but I am not sure why their upcoming fab in Israel will be a PR disaster -- Intel will simply focus their PR on their USA factories.
What was the impact of IBM collaborating with the Nazis prior to and during World War 2. It is my understanding that there was very little to no negative impact on their business from the bad PR.
Perhaps this is just a calculated risk Intel is willing to embark on. And with the number of anti-boycott laws and policies in America and Western Europe, I’m not surprise they’d take that risk. After all, both Siemens and Chevron are on the BDS boycott list for the Eurasia interconnector, but are very minimally (if at all) effected. So little in fact that I’m expecting Siemens to land a huge deal with California in building the trainsets for their high speed rail network.
Did IBM have factories in the war zone though? BDS aside, I would think building any infrastructure in Israel would come with a very high risk of disruption or actual destruction.
Good point. I actually do think BDS is a good and effective strategy, I was perhaps being overly pessimistic here. Hopefully Intel will get punished for their complacency in ways IBM wasn’t.
Why would anyone disagree with “wokeness”? I think that says a lot. Are the ultra-rich who complain about the “woke mind virus” hurt in any way by diversity? No, they are not.
Why would anyone disagree with fundamentalist Christianity? Why would anyone disagree with Wahhabist Islam? Why would anyone disagree with Maoism?
People have different opinions on politics, religion, society. The more extremist a certain group/movement/ideology is the more concerned about it people will become.
"Wokeness" as defined by the people who use it is not a religion (and it's not extreme). It's just pejorative word for diversity used by people who believe in white supremacy.
I very much dislike woke-ism and I don't support white supremacy, and I'm also not super-rich. I very much dislike woke-ism because it's a political movement that tries to get people to ignore reality in favor of its dogmas and it often uses authoritarian tactics to do so.
Yes, when I say "woke-ism" I'm of course not using the word "woke" in its original non-pejorative meaning. But I can't think of a more precise, widely-understood word to use to refer to this social movement.
By your description you sound like you're woke as well. You're just less passionate and have a different approach. I think it would be benifitial to mingle with other woke people so that your different approaches kind of balance each other.
Just like Social Justice Warrior (SJW) before it, woke is a term that those it applies to gave themselves as a positive descriptor. It only took on a negative connotation with the general population when the people applying that descriptor to themselves kept acting in abhorrent ways. It wasn't "white supremacy", it was the behavior of the SJWs and now "woke" that created the negativity. And whatever term they come up with next will likewise quickly become tainted with negativity that reflects the activities of those who wear that label. Not sure what you think you gain by trying to gaslight people who have for years seen both of these labels self-applied by those who later have tried running away from them once their behaviors caught up with them.
A fun game is to templatize that statement and try swapping it out with other beliefs:
Why would anyone disagree with <something I agree with>. I think that says a lot. Are the <people who my ideology targets> who complain about the <derogatory term for my political belief> hurt in any way by <the best part of my political belief>? No, they are not.
Why would anyone disagree with environmental activism. I think that says a lot. Are the corporate polluters who complain about the tree huggers hurt in any way by clean water? No, they are not.
Why would anyone disagree with conservatism. I think that says a lot. Are the left-wingers who complain about the rightards hurt in any way by individual liberty? No, they are not.
Here's a definition that should be acceptable to both sides.
Wokeness is the belief in three axioms:
1. Disparity is undesirable
2. Disparity is caused by discrimination
3. Applying different discrimination will reduce disparity
Those on the "for" side will agree with these axioms. Those on the "against" side will disagree with these axioms.
I put it in quotes because it's the term a certain set of people use (not me). It had a historical meaning to the Black community but that's been usurped by reactionaries.
Wokeness or being woke originally simply meant "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination". Very few people disagree with this because being alert does not say anything about how much prejudice exists. Two people can considers themselves woke by that definition and have radical different perceptions of prejudice.
The disagreement always comes when it comes to actually implementing solutions to the racial prejudice and discrimination.
I mean yes, it literally is. How can people make up their mind if they can’t even see it? You’re being very argumentative. If you don’t agree, that’s your decision, you don’t need to come into the thread and promote censorship.
Yes, it's also a "shadow banned" topic. Mods delist it from the front page before outright killing it. I suspect the Gaza keyword in particular is filtered.
Moderators said that their stance on this topic was formed by talking with lots of Israelis in real life, and a couple Palestinians online who are no longer active (maybe dead).
This can also happen automatically from the high rate of flags this topic gets from anti-politics and pro-Israel folks
The topic isn't banned. The keyword isn't filtered. HN mods said none of the things you've claimed.
What you're seeing is users flagging the articles. We've turned the flags off on stories related to Gaza several times. The people you disagree with are just as upset about it as you are, btw, and just as convinced that the site is biased against them.
This is an impossible situation, but I'm still willing to turn off flags on the story in the future—but the article is going to have to be something more substantial than an opinion piece about a meme. Obviously the users who flagged this particular submission were correct to do so.
I assume you've already seen the many explanations I've posted about how we approach this and similar topics, but in case not—or for anyone who wants to know—here are a few:
This is all standard HN moderation practice that has been in place for many years. We haven't changed it. You're welcome to disagree about particular calls (i.e. about particular threads)—I don't claim we've called everything perfectly, in fact I know we haven't. But it's cheap and wrong for you to defame us for not allowing HN to burn to the ground on this topic, just as it's cheap and wrong for others to do so because we won't suppress the topic altogether.
dang did wrote a (poorly worded IMO) comment about his views being colored by talked to Israelis, then, when called out on the biases, he replied that he also had contact with a user from Palestine that unfortunately went missing afterwards. At least that’s something that I remember as a fact.
But it seems to me that dang is engaging in a neutral manner (even if I disagree about the ethics of engaging neutrally in the current conflict), and I do agree that this article is just rage-bait, and was rightly flagged.
That’s a real shame. This is about a meme, I’d think it would be relevant. Even Paul Graham is speaking out against the genocide. It’s weird that we can’t discuss even tech stories about it here.
There was interesting news about AI tech the IDF uses to decide their bombing targets. This was also flagged out multiple times immediately.
If the HN audience universally thinks something is reprehensible, it's an acceptable topic. If there's a core group that supports the reprehensible thing, it's now controversial and disallowed here.
Paul Graham I think is now retired from YC. The current YC CEO is pro-Israel, pro-Zionism.
The topic isn't banned. The issue is how often to have a thread about it, and by what principles to decide this. HN has had clear moderation principles about this kind of thing for many years, and I've explained them many times. If you, or anyone, wants to understand what they are, take a look at the links in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39435024 and you'll find further links to plenty of past explanations. If, after reading those, you or anyone else has a question that I haven't already answered, I'd be happy to hear what it is.
This rings true because as someone without a religious background, I definitely feel the opposite: that progress is inevitable and the people who are "in charge" while it progresses are a commodity. I also find the "deification" of leaders (like say Steve Jobs) to be damaging to culture, leading to arrogance, political fighting and empire building.
Trying to have a good life and be good to those around you, while riding on the one-way track of technological progress seems like a better strategy.
Yep. Everyone praises the "great men," as the article mentions, and Western culture is heavily individualistic, so it stands to reason that we should deify the most visible leaders of things.
But they aren't that special.
Often, they're high-performing individuals with a somewhat-damaged attachment that they have found ways to channel productively. Their success and visibility feed more success and visibility. So we talk about them more and more, dissect their histories, daydream about what potential causes could be. But I can guarantee you there are plenty of people who did those same things whom we never hear about. There's certainly a luck component to it.
Once I realized that, I then had to question: why hold these people up on a pedestal at all? They don't need my help in maintaining their position, after all. I reject the idea that they're "higher value" individuals than I am, despite culture's insistence otherwise. If luck played such a role, why should I value them more?
(It's hard to talk about this without reeking of sour grapes.)
I don't think this argument is all that great - most rational people have already internalized that luck plays a role for everyone in the world.
To start with there is the "i was born healthy, wasn't malnourished, wasn't in a war zone" kinda luck.
Then there is the "being at the right place at the right time" kinda luck - which is part luck, part perseverance and persistence. You won't be in the right place if you never try or want it.
Then there is the "my direct reports did all the work, but I took the credit" kinda luck - which is pretty much any manager in the world.
Then you come to the "i have the title & power to affect change, the high standards/insight to enforce certain ideas or create certain products, and the financial backing to work through failures" kinda luck, which is where everyone wants to be, and thinks they can execute better then the other guy - but they're almost always wrong. The person who got there was self-selected by the system, and fought their way to reach the spot. The kinda of personality traits, qualities and other attributes that got that person the job, are not simply borne out of luck. Its the combination of their life experience and working through difficult situations, taking a collection of people of varying ability, personalities, etc along for the journey and getting a a large chunk of people to agree with them, etc. Its not that easy to hand-wave this away. The seeming counter-examples of people who were just gifted the role through nepotism or what have you, are not really examples, because they don't have the respect and don't play in the same league.
Except there is incredible luck and bias. Being born to rich or connected parents. Being white. Being male. Business culture has rarely been a meritocracy. Like the post above you said, there really isn't a lot going on here that millions others don't have. Its luck, failing upwards, and cultural biases and corrupt business culture making these people leaders.
Scientifically, the only trait we've found these people have in common is that they're all low empathy, dark triad types, sociopaths, etc. That is to say, to climb to the top, like in the royal courts of old, the system tends to choose not those with the most merit, but those who are the most ruthless and dishonest socially.
Steve Jobs was a ruthless bully and had a mess of a personal life. Apple workers accepted being screamed at him as part of the job. Elon Musk walks the floors of his factory and fires people on whims, then bought twitter to spread hate speech. Torvalds is a bully of the highest order and regularly has child-like tantrums over code suggestions. etc, etc.
The meritorious in our system tend to get locked down in skill worker positions, bullied out of jobs, burned out by being the hard worker to the 'idea guy' or the 'chummy country club guy' or the 'rich kid' or the 'bully' or the 'loud mouth political player', have their work and labor surplus stolen, etc. The game-playing sociopath is the one who ends up in the c-suite.
You do not live in a just universe. This is trivially provable.
Your third paragraph is like talking about Tiger Woods without mentioning a green jacket.
There’s an implicit moralizing in your stance. Why do you presume that the dark triad traits you assert “””these people””” have in common are unrelated to merit? That suggests a moral, not pragmatic, stance that valorizes “the hard worker” while denigrating things like charisma, vision, boldness, and ruthless drive which, to sample your phrasing, are “trivially provable” to be essential traits of merit in leadership.
You are presenting your own bias and opinions - which is fine, everyone is biased and has opinions, but you're smuggling them as objective moral truths about the universe. Sorry, it doesn't work like that. People absolutely do not agree on what objective moral truths there are, or even if they actually exist in the universe.
>Scientifically, the only trait we've found these people have in common is that they're all low empathy, dark triad types, sociopaths, etc. That is to say, to climb to the top, like in the royal courts of old, the system tends to choose not those with the most merit, but those who are the most ruthless and dishonest socially.
There is no "scientifically" here. It's peoples opinions and self-reported views. Cultural contexts, human experiences, personality traits, opinions, feelings, views are highly variable throughout the world are are nowhere near deterministic. Science is about determinism and discovering objective truths about the natural universe. Frankly this is not science, and is an abuse of the term.
> Yep. Everyone praises the "great men," as the article mentions, and Western culture is heavily individualistic, so it stands to reason that we should deify the most visible leaders of things.
Sure, having kings, emperors, or prophets like the good old days was so much less individualistic.
Yes, it was. Individualism is the last thing you want if you want people to act as though their lives are worth less than the king's / emperor's / state. You don't want people valuing themselves and having legal and economic standing, free to make agreements between themselves. You want them to do what you want them to do.
you may as well claim everyone in the US believes their lives are less important than the presidents.
In truth, the president very rarely has any major effect on the lives of Americans, therefore they don't really care one way or the other.
Or to put it another way, that food needed to be harvested regardless of who was king, as long as said king didn't interfere with the food harvesting, people might have opinions but ultimately didn't care.
I can't find them anymore, but I've read interesting articles on attitudes of slaves and minorities. One of these wrote of certain slaves valuing themselves less than their owners. Then there's the research on black children preferring white dolls to black dolls.
Huge numbers of people have a status quo bias. Anytime the leadership changes you're dealing with fear impulses.
Possibly, but I'm referring to how large-scale decisions were made. You can wipe out inequality with a sustained attack on the wealthy[0], but if you value all lives, not just the lives of your group, then you shouldn't see that as an option. If you value your pilots' lives you cannot invent kamikaze planes, nor even cheap planes. You have to invent F16s and the like, that improve their pilots' survivability at significant cost. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.
I think the premise is flawed. Everyone doesn't praise great men. In fact, one of the identifying features of a 21st century American is which "great" men they criticise.
I could have just fallen prey to exactly the flaw that you're describing, but if I look at Apple during the Sculley years and immediately prior to Jobs' coup vs afterwards, I think that the company changed direction and the subsequent progress was by no means pre-ordained in 1991-1997.
Likewise, Microsoft during the early Gates' years was not a lock to rise to the level it attained.
Or the Buffett Partnership and eventually Berkshire Hathaway under Buffett.
Maybe these are outliers (and by company size/outcome, they quite obviously are), but that seems to itself be a (perhaps circular) argument that leadership plays a significant role in directing the trajectory of the company.
> "I definitely feel the opposite: that progress is inevitable and the people who are "in charge" while it progresses are a commodity."
This view is problematic too. It removes agency, accountability, participation. Leader worship is dangerous, I agree, but there's a strange emptiness to life when "someone's gonna do it, it's inevitable" takes root.
A person ought to believe they can do great things. Also that we're quit ridiculously irrelevant in the scheme of things. Also: we can do great things. Lovely things.
> A person ought to believe they can do great things.
I think there's pressure on us to think this, but I find that the older I get the happier I am moving away from this idea. I've accomplished a lot in my life and at the end of the day it doesn't bring me satisfaction. What brings me satisfaction is being able to sit quietly with peace of mind and be content with just being.
The desire to do "great things" is paired with an existential anxiety that I don't think is healthy. And not to be political, but often "great things" mean accomplishments that don't correctly model externalities like environmental damage and human exploitation.
I like to think of the solo hero vs the group as more like the difference between men's and women's basketball. Men's is all about the individuals but women's is interesting because there aren't really heroes so much as team play, teamwork.
And whenever I say that, there are people who immediately tell me that men's basketball is better. To those folks: it's ok to have a different opinion. You could be right! I'm just trying to illustrate another way of people working together.
Progress isn't inevitable because the government can stop it sometimes. Nuclear power is regulated to be forty times safer than natural gas (the safest natural gas) (the factor of forty is ignoring the additional climate costs), and that's why we don't have abundant nuclear power.
> However, if, for example, Cyrus the Great did not help build the Jewish Second Temple
And again, who was convincing Cyrus to do this? Why not call them the "great men" instead? Had Nebuchadnezzar the second never destroyed the Jewish temple would Cyrus had spoken as he did about the Jewish god? Had Cyrus not ordered it rebuilt, isn't it likely the Jews still would have survived to rebuild it later on?
There's a real question whether Jesus existed. One alternative explanation I've seen is that he was invented by one of the Flavian Roman emperors in order to more firmly draw the Jews into the empire. Not being a historian or even historical fictionist I could see something like this happening even without Cyrus.
As far as I know, it isn't controversial amongst scholars whether Jesus existed - the consensus is that there was an actual teacher around whom the cult of Christianity formed. Obviously this consensus doesn't regard supernatural claims with any validity, nor the content of any Gospel as being historically accurate.
Maybe yes, maybe no, it is not known and really, it's unknowable how the arc of history would have turned out had events been different. But it is not reasonable to say that their actions did not affect and influence the world, at their level of political power.
Doesn't this go against the comic in the post that claims that it's easy to block what you don't want to see? Also that it's an open network? Why not just let everyone in if the moderation tools are good?
I definitely would never give my phone number to a social network.
The SMS verification requirement is only for the Bluesky operated PDS host. Soon (this month) it will be possible for others to self-host their own PDS hosts that do not have this requirement.
how will the bluesky PDS deal with the flood of spammers on malicious PDSs, like, why is the phone number a useful gatekeeping tool if you're just going to fling open the gates at the end of the month?
We do have an anti-abuse tool to help flag abuse. It is obviously important that PDS operators not allow themselves to become overrun with abusive users.
Anyone technical can run their own single-user or low-user-count PDS and probably not have to worry about any problems.
Let's say you just eliminate the requirement altogether. What percentage of non-phone number signups are going to be "thoughtful people" compared to bots?
Sure you'll get people who refuse to sign up with a real phone number, that's a given. Some percentage of those people will be "thoughtful." You'll also eliminate a huge number of bots, automated signups, etc.
It's hard to argue letting all those bots on will not decrease system quality.
do you have an example of a platform that does not require a phone number for sms verification and is filled with bots? we have many that use sms verification and are infested with abusive content and bots.
This isn't accurate. Israel doesn't control Gaza and in fact has lost control areas that it once had under control. Hamas continues to launch rockets from northern Gaza and multiple battalions have had to be withdrawn, including the elite Golani brigade. Israel is also under major pressure in the north with over 100k settlers evacuated and constant losses from Hezbollah. That's not even counting the political battles Israel has lost and will continue to lose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Magic_Carpet_(Yemen)
And the anti-Zionist riots were in response to the illegal occupation of Palestinian land:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_anti-Jewish_riots_in_Aden
None of this was even remotely on the scale of Nakba.