SankaraStone

SankaraStone , 1 month ago

The moment they canceled the Valedictorian speech, I would have simply failed to show up to the commencement. And I would have done my best to surprise USC of it. And I’d have organized or at least hoped other people would do the same thing.

SankaraStone , 2 months ago

He should required to be up there to answer questions from congress and the Feds.

SankaraStone , 6 months ago

Why isn’t OPEC imposing sanctions on Israel, refusing to export oil to them, like the US did with Japan in 1941.

SankaraStone , 7 months ago

Yep, this is what I do. Signal’s pretty much one of my top favorite open source applications.

SankaraStone , 7 months ago

This is not how war functions. Tell me what refugee camps or other sets of civilians Ukraine is bombing. This is how Netanyahu and his government function.

SankaraStone , 7 months ago

…amazonaws.com/…/V5MFNFCAMY4JVFTARDFGJ4PRPY.jpg

This is what I saw before I even came on Lemmy.

SankaraStone , 7 months ago

Have you ever seen a politician make the rounds on Sunday news shows? They, especially Republicans, sound extremely different on Fox News vs. the rest of media (Democrats sounds different on mainstream media vs. progressive independent media). This colonel is doing the exact same thing. He learned from the clip going viral and the way people are reacting to it to sound like he’s concerned and feels for the Palestinians rather than saying it’s their own fault like he was in the Blitzer clip.

SankaraStone , 7 months ago

Yeah, the complex reality of Judaism, the Jewish people, Israel, and Israelis is fascinating. But it pales in comparison to the horror of what’s going on right now, and that needs to stop.

SankaraStone , 7 months ago (edited 7 months ago)

Go where with what money and fuel to stay where? And are they safe there?

Gaza is 41 kilometres (25 miles) long, from 6 to 12 km (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide. Manhattan is 13.4 miles (21.6km) long and about 2.3 miles (3.7km) across at its widest point. So Gaza as a whole is maybe 4 times the size of Manhattan. And they’re using these bombs there?! Have you been to Manhattan?

Edit: Here’s the overlay of Gaza on Manhattan: newsweek.com/gaza-strip-size-us-cities-maps-18338…

These are war crimes. Same as what Hamas did on October 7th. Netanyahu and his government belong in the ICC dungeons of the Hague, the same as Hamas.

SankaraStone , 7 months ago

I’m more interested in what the term is for folks who wear different masks for different audiences and in particular folks who react to criticism by putting on a mask later all while saying the same thing. It was astonishing seeing this guy on Erin Burnett’s show after seeing him on Wolf Blitzer’s show. It was like watching Lindsey Graham on the Daily Show or Meet the Press vs. seeing him on Fox News Sunday discussing the exact same stuff.

Edit: I’d only listened to the Burnett interview. They’re different people.

SankaraStone OP , 8 months ago

Ran out of space, but there’s obviously more I could have added there. Like Palestine should exist and needs to exist as an equal.

SankaraStone OP , 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

I’m talking about the meaning of those statements to different different people. Take a look at this video interviewing Elisha Wiesel from the Elie Wiesel Foundation and Michal Cotier-Wunsh, Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQn5X4ra8KY

She says that Anti-zionism is Anti-semitism. To many people, Anti-Zionism is a value statement on the history of the creation of the modern Israeli state by the British, the UN, and America in the 1940s: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Zionism I think people who hold the view that creating a the modern state of Israel as a Western colonial action (one could have simply opened up immigration to Jewish folk and ensuring that one state guaranteeing the protection and safety of Jews and declaring it the ancestral home of Israelites and the Jewish religion and Palestinians (who are also Canaanites like the Lebanese) was created, as opposed to having some asshole somewhere else draw a border (like they did in India between India and Pakistan), and unleashing the subsequent ethnic cleansing that ensued (like it did in India and Pakistan)), but don’t hold Hamas’s views that Israel and Israelis should be driven off the land (or the equivalent that Pakistan or India should be destroyed and the subcontinent reunited) can be called anti-zionist but not anti-semitic.

My point is that if we change the statement from Israel has the right to exist to Israel exists (like the US exists) and has the right to continue exist separates the folks who think the creation of Israel in its form was a historical mistake (mostly because of all the suffering that’s resulted from it) from the folks who think it and its people should be driven off the map. That statement that Israel has the right to continue to exist is something I think both Israelis and many Palestinians can agree on and can clarify what the goal of peace should be.

The other thing in that video is declaring Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian American, blaming Israel for the bombing of the Gazan hospital based on early news report, as blood libel is weaponizing the label of anti-semitism against a person who I don’t believe is Anti-semetic (she’s not declaring the Jews are trying to replace us or creating space lasers or that they created covid, or engaging in millenia-old anti-semitic tropes) and is instead trying to protect her people from violence (like the folks in the video are trying to protect their people from Hamas violence), and trying to silence her and trying to silence criticism of Israel and the occupation and settlement of Palestinian land. And I think we while the evidence seems to be mounting that Hamas lied about scale of death and damage and who fired the rocket, it’s not completely crystal clear, and I think Tliab should be given more time to judge before being accused of blood libel and being an anti-semite who should be driven out of congress, eliminating one more voice that tries to bring balance to American policy to include Palestinian interests. Edit: Someone pointed out in a Majority Report clip that Israel and Biden initially claimed that Hamas beheaded babies and children. And they (I think it was a pro-Palestinian Israeli) called it blood libel too. I think it’s the fog of war, and we need to stop calling both people blood libelists, and focus instead on the reality of the situation and see what the best options are for saving lives, getting the hostages back, achieving peace, and getting justice.

We can talk about offers after. But that’s not what the post was about. It’s about creating clarifying statements that clearly define peace and what peace will be while avoiding obfuscating value statements. Not only does it make discussion easier, but it also separates people who hate the history of what Zionism has created from the true anti-semites who want to wipe Israel and Israelis off the map.

SankaraStone OP , 8 months ago

I wanted to make it a little longer to make it clearer, but I hit a title limit and the rules say the shower thought has to be in the title.

SankaraStone OP , 8 months ago

There’s definitely been admixing with other populations (including Ashkenazi Jews with Europeans), but Palestinians are Canaanite/Levantine (just like the Lebanese and Jews and Jordanians) and form a Levantine cluster. See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews#Com… Meanwhile, Judaism is certainly from Israel (if the history didn’t already point to it, the archaeology of Israel does). But a large number of Jews/Israelites were expelled by the Romans in the first century CE, creating a Jewish diaspora that shows genetic evidence of admixing with local populations over 2000 years. And certainly before the modern state of Israel was created and Zionist Jewish folk started immigrating back into Israel-Palestine after 1800-1900 years, the Palestinians were there.

Jewish people were persecuted in Christian nations because Christians started blaming Jews for Christ’s death. You can see evolution of this idea from being nearly non-existent in the earliest gospel, the Gospel of Mark, to the newest canonical Gospel the Gospel of John. And sentiment is argued to have risen from Christian anger at the failure of other Jews to accept Jesus as the messiah and convert. All these negative stereotypes started to develop. And with the Romans destroying Jerusalem (or at least the temple in Jerusalem) and scattering Jews, you had a group of people with a strong cultural group identity that was strongly monotheistic in a strange land, that was easily to cast as the other. It’s all bullshit.

Anyways, Israel-Palestine is the home of Judaism, the descendants of Israelites, and Palestinians (who probably partially the descendants of Israelites or at least neighboring Canaanites, from whom Israelites became distinct by the development of their monidolatry and later monotheism).

Also see this 2020 paper that compares the genetics of modern people living in this region (including Jews, Palestinians, Lebanese) with Bronze Age DNA from the region: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10212583/ (got this from an earlier section in the above Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews#201…

So yeah, at least some of the ancestors of modern Palestinians were in Israel-Palestine in the Bronze Age (ie before the Babylonian Captivity).

SankaraStone OP , 8 months ago

Eh, I don’t think many societies besides America are as open as America to migration and immigrants (and we have strong anti immigrant streaks sometimes, but I think we’re more tolerant than most). Like Japan is an old society that’s just not used migration/immigration. Hell, the shogunate shut out people coming in or leaving for 200 or so years before 1850. And even old Western societies that have a colonial past and immigrants resulting from that are not as open to immigrants as the US (I mean that’s what Brexit’s about, right? And you saw how destabilizing Syrian and Libyan refugees have been to the EU, and how incompletely integrated Algerian immigrants are in France).

Both Jews and Palestinians were first. At least some of their ancestors were chilling in the land as far back as the bronze age: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10212583/

But Jews were expelled a long time ago from their home, and only started coming back with the Zionist movement. But with respect to the creation of modern Israel, obviously the Palestinians were there before the Zionist movement and the creation of modern Israel, and I think they might feel the same way about the creation of Israel as maybe Native Americans might feel about European colonization and the creation of the US.

SankaraStone OP , 8 months ago

The ancestors of the Jewish diaspora are too, just like the ancestors of Palestinians, but the Jewish diaspora been out of the state for at least over a 1000 years if not close to 2000, and that’s why Palestinians would experience their return and the creation of modern Israel as maybe what a Native American might have experience European colonization and the creation of the US and other modern North and South American countries.

As I stated elsewhere, I don’t think Israel-Palestine should have been divided into two states, and that I think that since Israel is the home of Judaism, Jewish immigration should have been allowed, but the focus should have been as much on co-existing and equality as protecting the rights and lives of Jewish folk and making sure sure the constitution of this new one state never allowed anti-semitism. The division of the area into two states with an arbitrary border led to ethnic cleansing just like the creation of India and Pakistan led ethnic cleansing and the mess we have today. The creation of one non-colonial state with equal rights might not have.

SankaraStone OP , 8 months ago

P.S. If Jewish people have the right of return to Israel today after Rome performed an ethnic cleansing of Jewish folk in Israel in the first century CE, then Palestinians refugees and their descendants have the right of return to Israel-Palestine after the ethnic cleansings that have happened since the 20th century.

SankaraStone OP , 8 months ago

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/…/1899395.stm

It doesn’t use that language explicitly as I understand it. It says:

In return the Arab states will do the following:

<span style="color:#323232;">Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict over, sign a peace agreement with Israel, and achieve peace for all states in the region 
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Establish normal relations with Israel within the framework of this comprehensive peace
</span>

SankaraStone , 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

Nah, man. If they cited all those things, or more importantly the complete stifling of Gazans’ ability to prosper or flourish today, that would be one thing. What did they cite instead? The desecration of the Al-Aqsa mosque. That is more important to them than the apartheid. Fuck Hamas. They’re accomplishing nothing more than the death of Palestinians and more suffering. And they just empowered the most right wing, unpopular government that Israel’s ever had, one that Israelis were divided against. Hamas and the Iranian regime need to be eradicated. They are hurting any chance at Palestinian freedom and equality and right to prosperity. And they’re just causing more and more every day normal Israeli/Jewish and Palestinian suffering. This Iranian regime supports the tyranny of the Syrian government over the Sunnis (and its use of chemical weapons against them), Russia’s terrorist attacks on civilians in Ukraine and the invasion of that country in general, the complete undermining of the Lebanese government by Hezbollah, and the complete overthrow of the Yemeni government by a similarly tyrannical group in Yemen. And it uses of rape and sexual violence and murder against men and women protesting the death of a woman caused by the morality police and the oppression of women by the regime.

I think the only way to accomplish either a true one state democratic nation that honors Israel-Palestine as the home of Judaism or a two state solution, is boycott and divestment (because there is no way to peacefully protest and engage in civil obedience to achieve freedom and equality (they murdered a journalist and nothing came of it) and there’s no way to win militarily). It worked with the apartheid government in South Africa, and hopefully it will work with Israel.

SankaraStone , 9 months ago

That Bill of Rights isn’t for humans. It’s for corporations.

SankaraStone , 9 months ago

Nah, speaking as a Gen Y/millennial, we’re the failed generation. You guys and the folks after you are the hope. Many of us graduated into the Great Recession and then went through the pandemic. You guys are graduating into a much better economy, but some unprecedented hurdles (in recent times) like climate change. You guys are the hope and future. The difference between Gen Y and Gen Z is like the difference between the folks who came of age in the Great Depression vs. the generation that came of age in and around WWII (the Greatest Generation). I just hope we leave a hopeful world for my gen alpha nephew for when he comes of age.

SankaraStone , 9 months ago

As a person born nearly a decade after you, I pride my generation (Gen Y/millennial) as also experiencing life before computers and the internet in your home, but still developing (sort of naturally) with all that (but still remembering what it felt like to be really and truly bored). Gen Zers born after a similar gap as between me and those born later, don’t remember life before the internet or 9/11.

SankaraStone , 10 months ago

What? The New Deal was hardly successful at getting us out of the Depression? It took World War II. Most of FDR’s presidency was over the Great Depression (he didn’t cause it). That’s hardly a successful economy.

The best Economic years of America were Eisenhower-Kennedy-LBJ followed by 6 or so years of Clinton. We might be finally getting back to Clinton good, but we’ll see.

Ok, just saw the clip. The blurb is misquoting the guy. He’s saying Biden’s had the best economic intervention since the New Deal. I’d argue that Biden’s covid relief and infrastructure and climate bills are the best Economic intervention by the elected Federal government since WWII and better than the New Deal.

SankaraStone , 10 months ago

The clip said that that this is the best economic intervention since the New Deal. I’d argue with the trillions we’ve spent, it’s probably greater. We prevented a Great economic collapse.

SankaraStone , 10 months ago

And before people say that it didn’t need to be shut down, they ignore that the hospitals were overwhelmed and could have been even more overwhelmed if we didn’t have mask mandates and/or lock downs. People were being denied health care because the hospitals had no space.

SankaraStone , 11 months ago

Nope, it’s pronounced dix. Learn some french, sheesh.

SankaraStone OP , 11 months ago

I want them to be a place where we can pull together like minded individuals of Lemmy and perhaps the Fediverse/ActivityPub together about a cause we care about and want to create a movement for. I figure c/movement will be were you can gather those folks c/organize is where you can have discussions and organize to take action. Perhaps there should be an associated matrix or discord channel for the second one.

I’d like both communities to be community owned and community-led. So on big decisions and deciding the guidelines, I’d like the community to call the shots while mods would do the heavy lifting of enforcing those guidelines and organizing things to where the community’s voice can be heard (so for example, after having a discussion about guidelines, consolidating all of that into some sort of vote if there needed to be one on finally voting in the new guidelines).

And the thing is we all have jobs, classes, family or something else entirely having claims to our attention and time, but we shouldn’t give up or give in. Let’s still figure out a way to persevere.

SankaraStone OP , 11 months ago

I wrote a reply to this when I should have been focused on real life deadlines, and Lemmy with its server issues lost it. : (

But I think your question gets at the heart of the question of how these platforms can be used to organize action. Will get back to you some time this week when things have calmed down.

SankaraStone OP , 11 months ago

So we should probably get started sooner than later. Especially while we have folks like Lina Khan in office.

SankaraStone OP , 11 months ago

P.S. If any lawyers and people really knowledgeable about web technologies and standards here on Lemmy can get together and help us draft something together that we can all send in, that would be amazing.

SankaraStone OP , 11 months ago

I am so disappointed. With that attitude, we can’t accomplish anything. With that attitude, our ancestors would have accomplished nothing

Yeah, Lina Khan lost that fight. But he’s not the only judge out there. And the United States isn’t the only country Google and Chrome are responsible to.

Didn’t the UK block the acquisition?

SankaraStone OP , 11 months ago

P.P.S. If we can’t find a Lemmy lawyer, I’m proposing we take this to the EFF and Louis Rossmann (who has experience lobbying for right to repair and trying to get legislation passed) for their help.

SankaraStone OP , 11 months ago

Hey all, so along with this post, today, I made a couple of communities geared towards starting and organizing a movement like the one in this post that has us working together to petition our government for redress on the anticompetitive behavior by the Google Chrome monopoly. I messaged Ruud and reached out to c/support because I have no idea what I’m doing and where or when it’s appropriate to advertise the community and I’m looking for guidance. So if it’s inappropriate here, mods of c/Technology, I apologize and please delete this comment.

But here are the two communities I made: !movement !organize

I want them to be a place where we can pull together like minded individuals of Lemmy and perhaps the Fediverse/ActivityPub together about a cause we care about and want to create a movement for. I figure c/movement will be were you can gather those folks c/organize is where you can have discussions and organize to take action. Perhaps there should be an associated matrix or discord channel for the second one.

I’d like both communities to be community owned and community-led. So on big decisions and deciding the guidelines, I’d like the community to call the shots while mods would do the heavy lifting of enforcing those guidelines and organizing things to where the community’s voice can be heard (so for example, after having a discussion about guidelines, consolidating all of that into some sort of vote if there needed to be one on finally voting in the new guidelines). Anyways, rather than having a discussion about the communities here, let’s have them over on the c/support thread (lemmy.world/post/2061735) or the communities themselves.

And the thing is we all have jobs, classes, family or something else entirely having claims to our attention and time, but we shouldn’t give up or give in. Let’s still figure out a way to persevere.

SankaraStone OP , 11 months ago

Yep, I only saw it like a couple of hours ago. I joined it too. But I’m hoping we can do more than just protest. Like organize to clean up a wetland or something. Or organize to petition the government.

SankaraStone OP , 11 months ago

I took a look at it. Do you want to be a mod at both communities or at least c/organize with me (I figure the app shows me that you have passion about all of this)? Even if we don’t necessarily get folks to download and install the app, I think we can potentially try out the algorithm and get community feedback on how they feel about it.

SankaraStone OP , 11 months ago

This is the way. The more I think about it, the more I realize it needs to happen. Market positions in each of them give Google an unfair, anti-competitive advantage in all the rest of them.

SankaraStone OP , 11 months ago

Same with Facebook. It’s used its market power to copy features from its competitors and get a leg up on them from their existing userbase. It should have never been allowed to buy its competitors like instagram, whatsapp and what not. It’s time to break them all apart again.

The most recent egregious example of this is the Threads app. But what it did to Snapchat with Instagram stories is another example, IMO.

SankaraStone OP , 11 months ago

Ok, guys I’m going to try to organize some community action about all of this over on the community I made on !organize. Specifically in this thread, I’d like to work on actions like crafting the letter we’d to send to the FTC as well as the letters we’re going to send to the EFF and Louis Rossmann. If you’re interested in collaborating on all this or just following the action, please join the community and keep up with the thread. I’m considering creating a sister Discord or Matrix. And it would anathema to the cause to use Google Docs to collaborate on writing this e-mail, but I figure we can use OnlyOffice (www.onlyoffice.com) or Etherpad (etherpad.org) instead.

Are you guys in?

SankaraStone , 11 months ago

Nope. Just being your dad’s dad.

SankaraStone , 11 months ago

www.searchenginejournal.com/…/491854/

SankaraStone , 11 months ago

Man, I thought I misspelled it, haha.

Yeah, I agree. His lobbying to ban gay marriage was anything but libertarian, but I think that’s how he identifies.

SankaraStone , 11 months ago

Yeah, I’m not the biggest fan of Mitchell Baker spinning out Rust and Servo and the decisions she’s made about Firefox funding. She oversaw a decline of browser share from 30% to 3% and still gave herself a raise. That said, with its containers extension and other extensions, it’s still easily the most privacy focused browser I’ve seen. I like Vivaldi as a Blink/Chromium back up. Only now do I think Safari’s kind of mimicking the containers sandboxing extension by creating profiles.

I don’t do web development (yet), but have you tried Firefox Developer Edition ( I first downloaded it to try out the Rust Quantum speed up before it was available in mainline Firefox)? Is it any different than standard Firefox and if so is it any good?

SankaraStone , 11 months ago

What do you feel Mozilla has done wrong? I list my own thoughts about what it’s done wrong here: lemmy.world/comment/1377476

What do you think needs to be improved to make it a browser worthy of your use? What’s wrong with the development model and what needs to be done to correct the ship? Basically if you were to fork Firefox/Gecko or Servo and build a competing browser around it, what sort of development model would you set up?

My understanding is that Firefox is as fast as chrome. But the last time I really checked was when Rust Quantum update rolled out and Firefox was killing chrome in loading up ESPN. I figured Chrome had caught up since then, but I have to rely on this: androidauthority.com/firefox-vs-chrome-which-web-…

I know you you said you don’t have to explain stuff, but I imagine, we’re on a subLemmy? that fosters discussion and learning and sharing. And it could be useful information for folks who come after us as well as folks who are curious like me who are following along right now.

SankaraStone , 11 months ago

Firefox Multi-Containers addon can help you with that, sandboxing different instances of Google. And you can even route each container through a different VPN server if you subcribe to Mozilla VPN or do extra legwork with Mullvad VPN, so that they can’t fingerprint you with your IP address, browser, and machine, even if you have a separate set of cookies for each container.