The technology acts as a motion sensor that detects faces, so the machine knows when to activate the purchasing interface
This sounds like an excuse to me. I’m a university student in the UK. Our vending machines use a very effective means of letting the machine know we’re ready to buy something without using any facial recognition software at all. What we do, right, is press the letter and number buttons that match up to what we want to buy. The machine says how much money the item costs, and then we tap our bank/credit cards to the contactless card reader, just like we would in any other shop. Then the machine dispenses the item.
It’s really, really clever how they’ve invented this way for us to purchase afternoon snacks to help us cope with how annoying our classmates are, and we don’t even have to have our faces scanned! Truly the kind of innovative technology you’d expect to find in a university.
I suspect that’s a lie. From a technical point of view there are way easier and cheaper ways to detect potential customers. A simple LDR would probably do a better and more reliable job and cost hundreds of times less.
The spokesdroid also stated that the machines do not take pictures. Duh. It’s a camera, what else would it do. May they meant it doesn’t store images, but the statements made so far don’t exactly instill trust.
I say sue them into oblivion. Make an example out of them.
Exactly. Vending machines have never needed complex ways of detecting when a customer is ready to buy something, because there’s really no need for anything beyond having a button available for customers to communicate to the machine “I’d like to buy something”. What it sounds like to me is they’re using the facial recognition technology to track the demographics of who buys what and how often. Do men like X snack more than Y? Do women buy more in the morning or afternoon? Stuff like that.
Devil’s advocate: they don’t need to track demographics, but a “bonus feature” would be to start playing some ad when they detect someone looking at the machine. Not a random leaf or shadow, so it doesn’t start playing annoying ads at random in the background, but an actual face. Or do play a random ad in the background when nobody has looked at the machine in a while.
Of course the temptation of using demographic data to target the ads, could be too big to resist for the company. The temptation of also storing statistical data, might follow.
Well, they did specify that the facial recognition software was there to activate the purchasing interface, rather than to advertise the machine’s contents, so I’m not inclined to cut them some slack if the real motivation was to show adverts to people when they’re claiming it needs to recognise faces because otherwise no one can purchase anything. (Why can’t the purchase interface be activated all the time, rather than requiring sight of a face? Do they think someone other than human beings is going to try to buy something? Is there a widespread problem with squirrels and pigeons buying from vending machines, which requires machines to know when it’s a person trying to buy something?)
Let’s say, the marketing dept decides that having people go through a funnel like “Attraction, Presentation, Call to action”, will increase sales of whichever product has the higher profit margins.
In a “dumb” vending machine, they have a single advertisement where they have to put all those steps in, be it as static graphic elements, or as a looping video. A client comes by, sees whatever part of the video is playing, makes up their mind, and decides to interact with the machine or not. There is no control over whether they saw the “Attraction” part first, or directly the “Call to action”, which might as well have put them off, and that’s a lost sale.
Now imagine they made a “smart” vending machine, where they could guarantee that the “Attraction” part will play when, and only when, someone looks at the machine. Instead of having random people pass by and look at senseless stuff, now they have someone that’s showing interest in the machine, and it springs into action by playing the full funnel… right at the moment the user is making up their mind!
Honestly, I’m surprised they don’t do it more often, like in supermarkets and stuff: you go through an aisle, and wherever you look, ads would start playing just for the thing you’re looking at, offering you an alternative (higher profit) product, maybe flashing a “Limited 3x2 offer, JUST FOR YOU” if you stop showing interest, and stuff like that.
same gender parents lose parentaln rights in a hearthbeat but abusive parents?, noooo, family is everything, child need them, even if gonna fuck them up mentally and create tons of trauma
My favourite part is when the conservatives start talking about all children absolutely needing mother and father. Not just parents, not a parent, not a family; mother and father specifically. Yeah, sure, now what about the millions of single parents? Shall we start forcefully assigning a new spouse of opposite sex to them the day after their current spouse dies, divorces (if we keep that as an option, that is), runs away or whatever? All pregnant people who are not in a relationship are immediately married off to a random person of opposite sex? No opt-out. Because think of the children!
Single mothers in particular used to have a hard time in the past, not just due to the economic challenge, but also due to government harassment. I recall reading an article about how they routinely had their children taken away in 1950s and '60s West Germany, with the kids being forced to grow up in often abusive church-run orphanages. I don’t think Germany was the exception in this regard.
My own father was put in such a place for just a few days when his married mother was hospitalized and his father was unable to care for the toddler due to his work. He still has nightmares about the abuse he had to endure from the nuns there.
This has been known and warned for probably decades now.
But still we continue to “preemptively” use it in vast quantities in the meat, milk and egg industry instead of using sustainable or even humane conditions for the animals in question.
Guess who gets to eat antibiotics evey day, increasing likelihood of multi resistant germs?
I was also shocked to learn the US have over the counter antiobiotics that people pop for random illness and minor cuts/scrapes. Pretty much unthinkable here (EUN)
Yes, some topical AB are available according to a quick online search
Some topical antibiotics can be purchased as over-the-counter (OTC) medicines.
However, it is always recommended that you consult a medical expert before purchasing and using any medication.
Topical antibiotics are used to treat skin wounds, scrapes, scratches, and minor burns.
They are available in ointment, cream, spray, or powder forms and are used to prevent infection in topical skin ailments.
Some over-the-counter topical antibiotics include: Bacitracin (Neosporin)
Polymyxin (Polysporin)
Neomycin (Neosporin Plus Pain Relief)
Pramoxine
Benzoyl peroxide (Proactiv)
There’s a huge difference between saying ‘antibiotics are available OTC’ and ‘topical antibiotics are available OTC’. One is misleading clickbait nonsense, the other is true.
Wait, I’m assuming you’re from somewhere in Europe, you don’t have topical antibiotics available without prescription?!
I wouldn’t argue against antibiotics being overprescribed in America, they definitely are. The tendency is for medicine to be prescribed if a patient sees a doctor. Another crappy consequence of an expensive medical system, people won’t be satisfied if they spent hundreds of dollars only to be told to rest and drink lots of fluids.
US friends of mine “keep” their remaining prescription ABs for when they are sick again
This is definitely a thing that morons do over here 😂
You are making the false assumption that your consumption is causative to the production of animal products which is, unfortunately and non-intuituvely, untrue. The only difference between vegan and non-vegan diets is whether animal products end up on your plate vs. in “cheese mountain” type stockpiles, exports, landfills, etc.
That being said, ‘commie’ is a terrible communicator if that’s what they’re trying to say. Going vegan does help to highlight some of the contradictions of capitalism and you’re on the right track as it should be advocated for. However, the ‘invisible hand of the free market’ does not translate veganism to any reduction in farmed animals, land or water use.
That’s not what I’m saying, I’m saying the act of “not buying it” (even if it was a complete and total boycott) has no impact on the production due to the system of subsidies, futures, derivatives, etc. that is set up explicitly to make sure production continues. And therefore has no impact on land/water usage, suffering etc.
With the point being that it’s a good first step, but if your expectation is it will change anything without first changing the underlying system you will be very disappointed.
Surely the societal pressure to change the systems that support factory farming of animals will grow pretty much in proportion with the vegan/vegetarian population? I don’t like the defeatist attitude that our choises as consumers don’t matter, at all.
it’s not a nirvana fallacy. they’re actually right, being vegan has no impact at all. a peace treaty actually creates peace. buying beans just means beans are sold, it doesn’t do anything to change any of the problems.
Are u saying if over night the entire customer base of meat as a whole stopped buying it would have zero effect? Certainly thats not whay youre saying right?
you’re the one telling people being vegan will help, but now you’re admitting it doesn’t. you should just go edit the comments where you lied about this and apologize to the people who might have been misled.
oil is 17.2%. since a soybean is only about 20% oil to begin with, you need to crush 85% of all soybeans to get that much oil. do you see how the vast majority of what is fed to animals is called “soy meal” or “soy cake”? that’s the industrial waste from processing soybeans to oil.
Its statista, they limit traffic. Try a different browser.
Btw funny you link OWID, you should read their article. It doesn’t mention the feed as a side product of oil production, and I’m having trouble finding your quote.
Even if its 100% true and just not mentioned in any articles on the matter, then I guess large scale veganism still only removes loads of industrial processes/co2 production, unspeakable animal abuse and insane amounts - and i mean ludicrous amounts - of wasted drinking water.
I guess large scale veganism still only removes loads of industrial processes/co2 production, unspeakable animal abuse and insane amounts - and i mean ludicrous amounts - of wasted drinking water.
You seem to have a very tough time matching what people say/write and what you feel like they mean with it.
Let me rephrase the original claim so you may understand what the actual topic is you’re so furiously debating: Reducing global meat production would be a net benefit to the planet and every being living on it in the long term.
Reducing demand for said production at a large scale WOULD (this is in conjunctive because it’s still a small movement so IT HASN’T HAPPENED YET - we all know that) over time force said production to scale down.
Literally no human i have ever interacted with before you thought not buying a steak for a few months instantly fixes the world. We are painfully aware. Which is why we chose not to participate in that insane bullshit which causes all kinds of issues and harm anymore.
Thank you for your time and energy, this has been awfully unproductive.
Reducing demand for said production at a large scale WOULD (this is in conjunctive because it’s still a small movement so IT HASN’T HAPPENED YET - we all know that) over time force said production to scale down.
when someone takes you at your word, and then you need to walk back your position to a much weaker claim because they point out that you are writing checks the facts don’t support, it’s you who is practicing intellectual dishonesty. compounding it with strawmen, and then rhetorically implying it is, in fact, the person who called you out who is being dishonest is the height of intellectual dishonesty. you should be ashamed, and you should edit the comments where you lied so as not to continue to mislead other users.
but beef, chicken, and pork continue to be made in increasing amounts. things are getting worse despite the fact that vegans exist. being vegan doesn’t help the planet at all.
what crops that are fed to beef chicken and pork are parts of plants that people won’t eat for the most part. The same fields that grow the soybeans we use for oil are growing soybeans that are used as feed. The same soybeans that are used for oil are used for feed.
This is sometimes true. However, e.g., about 4% of the farmland in California is used for alfafa, which is just for livestock. Alfafa is also a very water intensive crop.
Additionally, there are other uses that livestock corn feed could be put to if there weren’t so many damn cows, so it’s not like we’d be throwing away megatons of silage if it weren’t for cattle.
Bringing up Tiananmen when there are documented instances (with actual evidence) of people getting run over by Israeli tanks and bulldozers in Gaza right now. Backed by the US government. With the US President actively spreading FUD about the scale and extent of atrocities. Nice.
Xizang is literally the phonetic transliteration for the region of the TAR. You’re basically saying that we should keep the name Western colonialists gave a territory because Western brains would get hurt if the name changed.
I love how you Tankies just assume everyone but you is pro-US or something.
Yeah, absolutely; the Chinese government is evil just like Israel and the US’s governments. Glad we agree that they’re all imperialist genociders! Good talk!
By the widely recognized origin of the word (the Soviet Union rolling in tanks to suppress revolution in Hungary) and what it means (people in support of that use of force and tanks to suppress civilian revolution), supporters of Israel and the US are both “tankies.” Glad we agree, good talk!
Tankie refers to those people who supported the Soviet use of tanks to quell the Hungarian revolution. Literally, it’s the exact same thing Israel is doing in Gaza.
Not quite what it refers to now, but I’m sure you’ll inform us that you know better.
Tankie is a pejorative label generally applied to communists who express support for one-party communist regimes that are associated with Marxism–Leninism, whether contemporary or historical.
The term “tankie” was originally used by dissident Marxist–Leninists to describe members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who followed the party line of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Specifically, it was used to distinguish party members who spoke out in defense of the Soviet use of tanks to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 1968 Prague Spring uprising.
By the widely recognized origin of the word (the Soviet Union rolling in tanks to suppress revolution in Hungary) and what it means (people in support of that use of force and tanks to suppress civilian revolution), supporters of Israel and the US are both “tankies.” Glad we agree, good talk!
what it means (people in support of that use of force and tanks to suppress civilian revolution)
This ^ is the incorrect part of your statement. That is not what it means now.
edit: Also
Tankie refers to those people who supported the Soviet use of tanks to quell the Hungarian revolution.
Emphasis added. If you meant “referred” in the past tense, that was a typo on your part. Otherwise, you are just trying to reclaim the term to an earlier meaning.
For what it’s worth, there’s still no evidence that Chinese tanks actually killed anyone on 6/4. No journalists on the ground found any indication of a mass casualty event on Tiananmen Square, which directly contradicts the claims made by protestors that there was. The same cannot be said for Soviet tanks in Hungary or Israeli tanks in Gaza, where civilian causalities are rather well-documented.
What’s saddest about this is that it took me literally 3 minutes to find images of tanks in Tiananmen running over student barricades, and blood streaks left on the ground afterwards, and bodies on the ground, but you don’t actually care at all, you’ll just cover your ears and push your narrative. You’re no better than people downplaying what Israel and America do, but you are so wrapped up in the righteousness of your ML rhetoric that you’ll just deny it and make up excuses for your side doing the same stuff.
Have you seen the blood streaks that tank tracks create? You can look at some of the videos in Gaza if you want to.
Try again, maybe this time with actual evidence instead of unfounded conjecture.
Edit: To clarify, I don’t think anybody is denying that people were hurt and killed on 6/4. Let’s make that clear. If anything, the Tank Man video shows that tank drivers were under orders to avoid civilian casualties.
It’s very funny to me that you keep bringing up Gaza like it’s some counterpoint to what I’m saying, when all you’re doing is pointing out another bloodthirsty regime’s crimes. Do you think that Israel’s government being evil is somehow a rebuttal to China’s government being evil?
took me literally 3 minutes to find images of tanks in Tiananmen running over student barricades, and blood streaks left on the ground afterwards
I’m not as fast browsing through the 2141 images you’ve linked, most of them of protesters, some burned down tanks, and someone on a bike dressed as a tank. Could you point to the exact images you’re referring to?
No journalists on the ground found any indication of a mass casualty event on Tiananmen Square
ON Tiananmen Square. This is fascist-level wordplay. The same journalists found a massacre all around Tiananmen Square in the rest of Beijing.
no evidence that Chinese tanks actually killed anyone on 6/4
This is just a straight up lie. Lots of people were killed in Beijing. Just possibly not any within the tiny physical confines of Tiananmen Square itself.
For these people it’s the most grievous offense to criticize china and russia, and if you’re not constantly cheering for total annihilation of the West, you’re an ontologically evil libshit and deserve to be gulag’d
the name Western colonialists gave a territory because Western brains would get hurt
This is one of those cases where we really need to know the wishes of the people in question before we make assumptions.
Case in point: Myanmar. "Burma" is the British colonial name, however it is preferred by some of the freedom fighters fighting the Tatmadaw because "Myanmar" is associated with the Junta's regime. And the real/pre-colonial name varies because the old name Myanma Pran is associated with a specific ethnic group, the Burmese.
Dude brought up a completely unrelated topic and used the “tankie” perjorative, a term that literally describes IDF supporters based on the actions of the IDF in Gaza.
Everyday people need to remember the difference between the general Chinese population and the CCP. The Chinese people are wonderful. The CCP is horrific, and working tirelessly to create their own version of hell.
I second this. I love Chinese people and culture, hell, I’m even learning Chinese to be able to communicate with my Chinese gf’s parents, however CCP ≠ Chinese people.
However, when you travel in China, you don’t have to travel far before you realise that broadly the Chinese support their government because things are getting better and in many places are on par or better than the west.
I love how you start off by saying you’ve never been to China and you never intend to go, then immediately discard the claims of someone that’s been there a lot.
Yeah: mass transit (transit) into camps (housing) for “re-education” (education), with the chance to get forcefully married to a real Chinese man (social mobility), or end up having your organs harvested (healthcare)
Do people really need to know more? I don’t think there are any virtues that could make up for China’s treatment of Uyghurs and the people who try to save them.
Uyghur’s aren’t one big monolith and treating them as one is reductionist and frankly a little racist.
Up until 2017-2018 the US was striking ETIM training camps on the border with China… But by 2020 “ETIM no longer exists.” It’s not like extremism in the region is entirely unexpected, and similarly China’s response has taken the dragnet approach for catching extremists. It hits a good chunk of innocent people, yes (give me a perfect response to terrorism), but it’s not systematically targeting all Uyghurs and it’s trying to do so without killing the human capital that China relies on for economic growth (particularly because ethnic minorities are the only ones reproducing above replacement rate in China).
That’s why Muslim countries are pretty much unanimously in support of China’s actions in Xinjiang.
A lot of stuff. But that your point basically boils down to “not all of China is about genocide!” is more than enough to know that it’s not worth my time arguing with you.
“affirmative action that China takes on its minority groups” good god, have the balls to call it what it is dude. China is doing a genocide. If that doesn’t bother you, that’s your deal, but at least own up to what you are defending
Chinese healthcare makes American healthcare look good by comparison. It is mostly private and you’re expected to bribe the doctors, nurses, orderlies and have a family member stick around the hospital the whole time pestering them or you won’t receive care. Same with Education, which is like the American Ivy system times 1000. Housing in China is… well, just try googling Evergande. Upwards mobility involves either climbing the party hierarchy or “leveling up” from being a rural peasant to being an urban migrant worker with bad hukou.
You got me on transit though, the Chinese have built some amazing trains.
Nobody would deny this. On the other hand, it’s the same argument as “not all Russians support Putin” or even—dare I say—“not all Germans were Nazis.” It’s true that when you live under a despotic regime there’s not much you can do about it, individually. And most people would not willingly be complicit in the regime’s crimes except to the extent that they have no choice.
But it’s true that these regimes do have lots of internal support. They wouldn’t exist without that support. And to the extent that this support is manufactured by internal propaganda, people within that message-space will not be able to resist having their own perceptions shaped by it.
So while it’s undeniably true that the CCP is not the Chinese people, and that the Chinese people are the principle victims of the CCP, they also are complicit in a collective sense.
I’m being generous. I tend to think that the Chinese people (or people of any country, really) are victims of propaganda. We’d all be less supportive of our various governments if we weren’t constantly told that we’re the GOOD guys, and our enemies are BAD and EVIL.
Reminds me of how Trump has been going after wind farms for a long time. He claims they’re noisy and they’re killing all the birds. (He began saying this when Scotland wanted to place Wind farms near his Scottish golf resort)
They did have an effect on birds though. I think it was almost entirely mitigated by painting one blade black, if memory serves, but it was based on some truth.
Please don’t give their statement any credibility without adding the important context. Based in some truth may be technically accurate, but when compared to all the other possible causes of bird death it’s basically inconsequential.
If there’s a solution, such as painting one blade a different color, then great. We can leave it up to the turbine engineers and wildlife agencies to address it, it doesn’t need to be part of any news cycle. Giving their outlandish claim any air at all lends it far too much weight.
It’s almost silly to look into bird deaths and realize just how low wind power is on the list, even with its rapid growth in recent years. It was recently estimated that with the expected growth of wind power, it will be killing about 2.2 million birds a year in the US… in 2050. Meanwhile, power lines kill anywhere from 12 to 48 million a year right now, fossil-fueled power plants kill as many as 14 million a year right now, communication towers kill over 5 million, cars 60-80 million, pesticides as much as 90 million, and cats well over a billion. Every year. The numbers aren’t that hard to find. Replacing all fossil-fueled power plants with wind turbines would be a net positive for bird populations, and the facts make that very clear.
the recording industry is an exploitative middleman that's obsolete in an age where you don't need a big company to press vinyl disks to get your music out there
Man, the 20s are a weird time. A century ago, it would have been the Germans asking the Jews if they were Jewish at gunpoint, not the other way around. It's almost funny how "never again" is now just "again" now that Israel is taking charge...
Atheists are far less likely to be committing genocide. Atheist tend to value skepticism and science highly as well as logic and reason. Combining these generally leads to people who are humanists at their core.
I’m not aware of a single war that was ever carried out under the banner of atheism.
This whole story is full of hilarious bits, and there’s far too many good quotes for me to post them all, but from another angle it’s just sad that these people are so far gone from reality that they can be taken advantage of like this. You really think Walmart is going to give you a 10000% guaranteed ROI after a year of holding some funny money? That doesn’t set off any alarm bells? Why would Trump give you 100x your money before he’s even re-elected in 2024? What could he have done to bring about such economic inflation prosperity in a single year?
Loads of these people have defended Trump for years, supported him despite his obvious lies and grifts and so you kinda have to believe that whatever else he comes up with is also true. If you believe all his previous falsehoods, why not the next?
To admit he’s full of shit means your whole belief system has to change. Trump supporters have lost friends, alienated family, spent their money on him… It’s much easier to keep believing in him than it is to admit you’ve been wrong all this time, cause that would mean having to admit you’ve been taken for a fool this whole time AND it means all your efforts and sacrifices have been for nothing.
People have over and over again tried to apply some logic to Musk’s behaviour, but I have found that in most cases it ends up just being plain stupidity or ignorance at best.
He’s an innovator / dreamer / entrepreneur at best. I doubt he’s an engineer, scientist or any of that … he is a visionary, but he sure as hell didn’t figure out all the Tesla and or rocketry shit on his own, ppl/professionals helped him mostly. Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla figured out /and build shit on their own (essentially)… them folks are geniuses.
Even that is generous. He is good at buying others innovation and tying them to his brand. 2 years ago I would’ve said he was also good at his own PR (I was wrong lol).
Giving a nation the idea you may support an enemy. Is in no way a protection from that nation taking control of your assets. It is at best giving the nation the ability to rationalise the need to limit your own power.
After all dispite not seeing any reason why any corp in the US would be worried about current potential govs nationalising them. It just not something either of the main parties are fans of.
I mean siding with Trump, buying Twitter and the “free speech” people. This is the smoke screen so that he CAN defend Russia and make Biden wary of fighting back, because he now has the unconditional support of 30% of the country.
Not that aiding Russia is the prevention, I think it may be at least part of the goal.
While I hate to give the little shit the benifit of the doubt.
It is worth considering. That there are plenty of other people out their. Who truly think letting russia keep the ground they have taken. Is the best way to prevent the war continuing on.
I disagree because evidence is give russia an inch. And they will just wait until they build up again. And take your whole nation. They are just not trustworthy when it comes to peace treaties.
But plenty of folks are less untrusted (more stupid imho)
There is also more direct fiscal reason why he may want to discurage the US from supporting Ukraine.
If the war continues with the current US weapons spending on Ukraine support. Eventually the gov is going to have to raise money to do so. This drematically increases the risk that industries like his. Will lose some tax breaks or loopholes he uses.
It doesn’t have to be nationalized, but it doesn’t make any sense for a civilian to be able to unilaterally make decisions like that while under military contract. At the very least, any decision to change or influence the contracted service while the contract is active should require some sort of review and approval. Maybe there’s a good reason it’s the way it is, I’m just a layman, but every time I hear about this it just baffles me why it was even allowable for Elon to make the call he did, or any call for that matter.
A key issue, often overlooked, is that US law imposes significant restrictions on the export and sale of military hardware.
Starlink is currently not considered military hardware. SpaceX is desperately trying to keep it that way, their ultimate goal is to sell subscriptions to civilians. Thus they get anxious when it is openly used for military purposes.
In this regard Starlink is somewhat similar to civilian GPS receivers, which automatically shut down at 1200 mph so they can’t be used in missiles.
Can you really call a cave bat-infested if that’s where the bats live? I don’t refer to my apartment as being infested by humans. But maybe we can say that this planet is infested by us.
I feel like calling something an infestation is a hilarious way of setting a narrative for something. Like someone opens a cupboard in your house and your like “Careful!! Snack infestation in there, can’t seem to get rid of em”
Aye, but you see, that usage of “Infest” is correct. I don’t want wild rats living in my house, therefore its an infestation. Wild bats living in a cave, well, that’s where they live.
Just makes me wonder how many Palestinians they’ve murdered in similar circumstances, and we just didn’t hear about it because they weren’t Israelis, so it was treated as if it didn’t matter.
I mean, the answer is loads. There was a hospital where they had to move all patients away from the outer rooms because the Israeli army were using snipers to pick off staff who came to attend to them. Uniformed doctors who were engaged in treating their patients were shot with no warning.
I love how a country is allowed to just get away with killing children and UN workers and doctors and journalists but we condemn countries that do the same thing like Russia. It makes no sense that Israel should get a free pass, all it does is expose a huge double standard
Russia bombed Kiev for the hell of it, not even pretending there was a military objective. Russia also is conscripting Ukrainians to fight against their fellow countrymen as cannon-fodder on the front line. It is kidnapping children into Russia.
The whole point of the article is Biden criticizing Israel for going too far in their mission to eradicate Hamas. He even criticized US for invading Afghanistan.
Bit of a tangent, but I find it insane that the US spent over 2000 billion to fight the war in Afghanistan, but congress is unwilling to authorise giving the Ukrainians 60 billion. A relatively small amount, that means Ukrainians can keep fighting Russia, decreasing the likelihood of American troops ever having to get involved in a war in Europe.
I once did the sums to calculate that USA could have afforded a run a gun buyback scheme (like Australia) rather than invade Iraq, you know… to cut down on Americans killing Americans.
Ah, but from where I sit (a long way from the US), it looks more like a pissing contest between the Republicans to see who can be the most terrible human being in government, than it does look like any sort of actual policy or principal.
It's not about helping Ukraine, or avoiding the mistakes of Afghanistan - it's about trying to make Biden (and/or 'The Dems' in general) look bad, even if that involves civilian deaths.
Are they evil, Russian agents or just absolute clowns? It doesn't really matter, does it. The end result is the same.
From someone in the US, smack dab in the middle of very dense Republican land (Oklahoma,) I want you to know that you’ve nailed it! You’re spot on. I wish you were exaggerating, lol.
He criticizes their war crimes with one hand but with the other hand he gives them billions of dollars to help them commit more.
Netanyahu said in a statement on Tuesday that Israel had received "full backing" from the U.S. for its ground incursion into Gaza and that Washington had blocked "international pressure to stop the war."
IDF are the good guys, just like the Ukrainian army is. That doesn’t mean that every single individual in either army are angels or that every operation is virtuous, just that their overall intentions are just.
An important question: What would the world look like if these guys won versus if they lost?
Isreal’s main exports are cutting-edge technology found nowhere else in the world. Russia’s main export is oil. Western and European Union countries were fine getting their oil elsewhere, but they absolutely do not want to give up advanced tech. Especially since there will always be other countries that don’t care and will continue trading anyway.
It's security software - firewalls, VPNs, that sort of thing. It's not that it's not available anywhere else, but the Israeli stuff was always considered among the best before this conflict kicked off.
Israel sells billions worth of weapons a year, sometimes to repressive regimes like the Myanmar junta.
It also innovates quite heavily in that space.
I have been noticing a number of doctors mentioning a new kind of burn on children in Gaza. Israel routinely deploys new weapons there, and this may well be a new example of testing experimental weapons in Gaza
If Ukraine had initially launched an attack on Russia and killed 1,200 mainlycivilians, taken 200+ hostages and thrown in a bit of organised gang rape, I doubt Ukraine would be receiving its current level of support, and there may even have been some support for retaliatory action by Russia.
That’s not to say that Israel’s current appalling treatment of Palestinian civilians is justified
Let’s ignore how many people israel has killed, they need to kill more, and let’s also go ahead an label everyone who says “too much” a hamas supporter
Then you go here and it’s again 90%
Let’s not even call hamas terrorist, more like freedom-fighters with some friendly rape and friendly fire thrown in.
If it makes you feel any better, I got banned for my first and only comment there (not even a post) which was a link and an explanation of the high credentials of the author. Like this…
Hersh first gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.
Ah, so only beehaw prohibits downvotes, not other Lemmy instances. TIL.
I guess even what I showed you may have gone negative if downvotes were allowed. The person I was arguing with wasn’t being nasty about it, just incredibly obstinate.
I worry about a return to Nazi style anti-semitism (though I hate Likud) which the polarized discussions are leading us towards. It is arrogant to think it could never happen again.
Some Lemmy instances have downvotes, some don’t. It varies by instance. I think most instances have/allow downvotes. Beehaw & Blahaj are two bigger ones that don’t that I can think of off of the top of my head.
Also agreed with your last bit. I’m nervous about it, too. I wish people would just be decent and… not suck, lol.
Here in the fediverse there are many people with opinions similar to mine, i.e we are on the side of civillians, not any of the belligerents in this hellscape of war crimes.
Except it wasn’t Palestine that attacked, it was a group disassociated with the Palestinian Authority, that Israel itself funds so it can justify the “war” to favor the arms dealers and distract the constituents of the terrible administration they’re receiving.
The two conflicts are not even remotely comparable.
Given that I was replying to a message drawing equivalence, you'll see that I was saying that they weren't really equivalent, in that Ukraine hadn't mounted an attack on Russian civilians. Hope that helps.
It’s really just a video of Netanyahu saying the words himself. It’s not interpreted or analysed by the website. Don’t see how that can be very biased.
I watched it a second time to be sure. While the voiceover doesn’t say “Holy War” he does cite religion and sounds like religious radicals dog-whistle.
There’s good reasons to be critical of Netanyahu government, but I’d still suggest seeking better sources.
It may indeed be, I’m not familiar with Middle East Monitor, but Media Bias/Fact Check are themselves rather infamously biased towards the American right wing. For example, they list the New York Times as nearly as left-biased as their scale goes, despite that the Times has largely taken the Republican party line on a number of issues, such as queer rights (their deceptive coverage of trans rights has been a large part of the current moral panic, and has led to multiple open lettersof protest). The Times was even instrumental in elevating Trump to the presidency with their incredibly dubious decision to give Comey’s procedural memo front page placement and a misleading headline mere days before the election — a choice that Nate Silver has said was possibly deciding on the election. The Guardian is also listed as left-center despite even more extreme transphobic editorial decisions than even the Times.
Similarly, they list MSNBC as far-left, despite them having Republican-led shows and frequent Republican guests. I’ll definitely agree there’s some degree to which they’re on the left, but it’s pretty minor all told. The idea that they’re far left is just ridiculous, and one that only makes sense from the perspective of America’s right-wing culture.
At the same time, they list Wall Street Journal as mostly credible, something that just isn’t a serious take on media credibility.
(Edited to add: a lot of this comes down to the very strong bias in American media towards the “both sides” idea that if two sources disagree, the truth must be in the middle. That bias is especially clear in discussions of climate change, but it’s also prevalent in discussions of other political issues more generally.)
As usual, our Overton window is all that matters to people in the states. There’s some active debate about how much longer centralized media control in all legacy formats will mean the level of control the phrase implies, but until that shifts, Overton is staying put.
Nah, news organizations aren't internet echo chamber.
I mean, if they write dozens of opinions a day, news organizations labeled center-left or even left-leaning have to go to the other side sometimes. If not, they're just propaganda machines.
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