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zazo

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Outrage over ‘massacre’ in Gaza as Israel rescued four hostages (www.theguardian.com)

At least 274 Palestinians were killed and 698 wounded in Israeli strikes on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday. The Israeli military said its forces came under heavy fire during the daytime operation....

zazo ,

So then would you hold Israel to the same standard of using human shields that you do Hamas?

If so would you claim the Hamas attacks on the 7th were justified because they attacked settler towns like Be’eri, whose ideological purpose of existing this close to Gaza was specifically to create a civilian border (literal large scale human shield)?

Using civilians to protect any military objective (including the land you’ve settled by force) is appalling - but let’s not pretend only one side is doing it.

If you really care about peace - petition your leaders for a one state solution where both Israelis and Palestinians (no matter their religion) are allowed to coexist and are equal in the eyes of the law and the people.

zazo ,

You accuse me of whataboutism then you just use it yourself.

Yes, I don’t think Hamas should be using human shields but I also don’t think Israel should be settling land even before the partitioning of Palestine. (I mean the idea of a foreign state partitioning land they don’t inhabit is insane, but let’s ignore that for the sake of argument)

How do you not see using civilian encampments as a makeshift human wall just as immoral?

And we can play the whole who started it first game as much as we want but it doesn’t negate the fact that even after unfavorable borders for Palestine were established - settlers continued to take over land with the support of the IDF - where is the defense in burning homes and expelling Palestinians from land not even within the borders of Israel?? (oh but it was contested territory you see so that gives us the right to massacre people, yes I am very intelligent…)

Saying Hamas is the reason the IDF is killing civilians completely misses the history of the struggle - what’s next the Nakba was also Hamas’ fault then?

zazo ,

I mean you came in swinging with the whole “but why is Hamas holding hostages in a refugee camp” line which is actual whataboutism when the thread is about the IDF killing over 200 people.

Why not ask why the IDF doesn’t have procedures in place to prevent civilian casualties? Why not ask why is it impossible to send ground troops instead of carpet bombing Gaza? Why not ask why does Hamas exist in the first place? Is there a single thing you’ll admit the IDF/Israel has done wrong that isn’t somehow the fault of Hamas?

Your lack of humanity was already showing, but I didn’t think you’d be so unable to retort that you’d just forfeit the debate…

zazo ,

I mean you could have asked why Israel attacks refugee camps in the first place (even before Hamas)?

Or do you think that atrocities like "women and children were stripped, lined up, photographed and then slaughtered by automatic fire" doesn’t breed resentment? (not that Hamas didn’t do the same on 7.11 but let’s not pretend Israel isn’t at least as complicit as Hamas in the overall conflict)

I’ll admit using civilians as shields is indeed dreadful - but my main point is acknowledging that violence only breeds more violence and that the first step to preventing more deaths is dismantling the current terror state form of Israel, not killing more and more civilians as some form of extirpation…

I’ll leave you with this - if there’s no oppressor to rally against, what would give Hamas power?

zazo ,

Yes.

That’s the main issue with colonial-settler states - they colonize the land (via terror and extermination) and then settle either in borders they’ve drawn up (or even outside if there’s not enough resistance)

Using past native American genocide to justify the current native Levant genocide isn’t the trump card you think it is…

And we can go on a whole debate around “oh but other states got to establish their borders this way in the past - why doesn’t Israel get to do the same?” - because we’re supposed to be more civilized by now and understand that killing people to take their land is an extremely inhumane and reductionist point of view.

The whole phrasing around “a land without people for people without a land” is the same native population erasing shit the European settlers used to colonize the Americas.

If Israel wants to be a brutal colonial state - it gets to decide that - but at least be honest and don’t pretend it has some sort of divine right to do so while expecting to not be met with resistance.

If Israel really wanted a land for its people (while not infringing on the rights of Arabs already living there) they could have assimilated into the already existing population where they are just one of the people living on that territory and not gone for the nuclear option of total dominion over everyone else.

Which is why Israel is so afraid of Hamas and the general resistance - because it understands the world from a dominator-dominee perspective - they cannot envision a world where somebody doesn’t try and take over Israel in return for them doing the same. Since if “every country exists because of terrorism” then the Arabs have as much right to terror and conquest as anyone else - but I doubt you would you defend their rights to do as fervently as Israel’s…

So instead a much less bloody way forward would be to work on dismantling borders for the benefit of everyone instead of stockpiling more and more guns while waiting for the inevitable boom…

zazo ,

Nah - i want both the west and Israel to pay reparations and return as much of the land as possible (not just some nature reserves as pittance) while also apologizing and commemorating the ones that have been displaced.

I wasn’t around when the native American genocide was happening to “disallow” the outcome - but i sure can do something about the one going on right now instead of throwing my hands up and going “well same thing happened with slavery, so I guess we should just sit around and do nothing” while crying “hypocrisy!” - just because bad things occurred in the past isn’t an excuse to keep doing bad things in the future…

zazo ,

If someone asked you to give back the land you own for free, you’d fight tooth and nail to prevent it.

As these are words you are trying to put in my mouth - I can only assume it’s your stance on the issue, in which case if you claim to not be hypocritical then you have to admit to also supporting Palestine’s right to land sovereignty, right? And one could argue their claim is more valid as they weren’t the ones that explicitly took the decision to appropriate somebody else’s land by force.

Also I’m not even from the US but because like most countries, mine has had a history of both being occupied and occupying other people’s land - I am a supporter of a no borders policy, inheritance abolishment and wealth redistribution, starting from the ones that have extracted the most and giving to the ones that have been exploited the most (and I’m more than willing to distribute my fair share)

Which is why I am actively doing everything in my power to “fix a wrong” both domestically (supporting immigrants and locals and fighting for land reform policies) and internationally (pressuring governments to stop engaging in colonial practices)

So “If you won’t deal with it, they shouldn’t have to either.” doesn’t even apply here but I’d still warn against that kind of thinking as a certain “nationalist” used very similar rhetoric to claim that if the US were allowed to put native Americans in internment camps, so was he…

zazo ,

I really shouldn’t have to keep justifying myself to you but I do own personal property to have a place to live…

Here we’re not talking about kicking your grandma out of her single bed flat and onto the street - the main argument is that individuals that already have disproportionately more than others - should distribute it instead of hoarding more and more (especially to ones impacted by historic land grabs) - as in do you genuinely think it’s fair for one individual to own https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a42543527/why-is-bill-gates-buying-so-much-farmland/ more land than the average person?

Land should be shared as much as possible not being an “investment” to hoard. That’s why I’m also against inheritance and have been looking into how to give away the land I’m supposed to inherit (as nobody should ever really own more than one property)

zazo ,

mf you say this:

Russia can end this war tomorrow. Any and all deaths are on them. Hell, if Russia would just stay out of their neighbours business, there would have been no civil war in the first place.

but then blame Palestinians for defending themselves - so kidnapping settlers is a war crime - but ethnically cleansing and bombing children isn’t?

so if I came into your house, squatted in your living room and locked you up in your closet - it’s your fault if you break out and attack me? most sane warcock guzzler ever…

zazo ,

nobody is cheering for the “good guys” - but when one side is actively displacing the other and your response is to just let it happen because of both sides being bad it loses the nuance of the conflict and the people just living there. especially when we’re on a thread about one side asking about a military ceasefire in exchange for the only leverage it has - while the other refuses and actively chooses to continue it’s current onslaught.

if you actually care about lives you wouldn’t argue pedantic points about which side commits war crimes but instead influence policy towards there being less war crimes in general. (maybe starting from the ones causing the most damage…)

zazo ,

ah yes - trump makes things bad - biden doesn’t make them worse - that’s the fantastic choice of the lesser of two evils…

even if joe wins this time - next time it’s gonna be worse - that’s why the lib dems nowadays are holding policy views similar to moderate conservatives of the past - like fucking Reagan of all people signed the immigration reform act to give 3 million immigrants legal status - and now we’ve got joey being hounded by conservatives for trying to do something similar…

don’t take this as an excuse to call me a russian/chinese/4chan or w/e else “bot” for trying to get people to think rationally about the trajectory of US politics - fucking vote for biden for all I care - but more importantly - take to the streets, toss a fucking shoe at his head - just don’t think you’re “doing your part” by voting once every 4 years for the marginally less genocidal power tripping fuckwit - like how can you expect them to do anything if they know you’ll vote for them no matter what? how is that any different than the maga zealots?

it’s not about one-topic voting - its about the very obvious slow slide into authoritarianism - because nobody is willing to do anything to disrupt the status quo - and frankly it’s kind of disgusting to say the more “ethical” choice is letting a proxy state massacre children because the opposition will massacre them more. that’s not progress, that’s just pretending to wash you hands off the blood you’ll never have to experience firsthand…

zazo ,

That’s why you should start building an alternative system that isn’t right-wing instead of just voting for Hitler^lite - by choosing the lesser of two evils election after election you will always be actively choosing evil - that may be fine for you but it sure isn’t fine by me - and saying that any alternative is too idealistic means that you’ve already given up.

Trump is truly awful but let’s not pretend that police haven’t arrested students at pro-Palestine encampments without solid grounds under Biden either - sure vote for Biden now to mitigate the biggest calamity that is Trump - but it just signals to the dems that so long as they’re a smidge left of neo-Hitler they’ll get voted for.

And if you really think Joe will listen to protestors about the genocide after he’s in office, that’s what I call naïve idealistic thinking…

zazo ,

The famous change within the system - please tell me more about where that has led us - surely in the direction of more transparency and democracy right? definitely and not just pushing the needle further and further right.

But hey keep swimming in the pot and telling the other frogs that the water may be getting warmer but you know at least the cook hasn’t burned us alive yet…

zazo ,

Also by saying the only option in case of systematic collapse is the emergence of right wing authoritarianism what you’re implying is that you’d much rather wait for that to happen than to create a left wing environment now that can establish itself in the power vacuum - to me this shows that you have so little faith in yourself that you would much rather do nothing and just let the right wingers trample you over and over - no wonder things keep sliding right when even so called leftists think they’re such massive losers.

zazo ,

What if it was so small and light it was only electrons? And what if it accrues its value from the energy expended to create it? Maybe using some sort of cypher to ensure anyone could verify it? Idk maybe we’re onto something…

then again it still syphons value to the top so maybe not…

zazo ,

So a state and oligarchs amassing capital isn’t capitalism but monopolic corporations amassing capital is?

zazo ,

Mf that’s why I’m saying both are forms of capitalism - you’re the one claiming Russia isn’t a capitalist state…

zazo ,

that’s why OP was suggesting we subsidize home (and I’d add allotment) gardens - give people money to plant food and flowers and they’ll be better of f both physically and mentally.

zazo ,

If you don’t think building chairs or sculptures requires solving “intellectual” challenges you’ve never tried building a completely wooden multi-axial interlocking joint furniture…

zazo ,

Putting down animals for misbehaving is fundamentally fucked and anyone who does it shouldn’t be allowed around animals - or as they say where you’re from - “While its fucked to kill your own kind, this is a common reason to put down animals.”

zazo ,

which also doesn’t feel justified…

zazo ,

So saying “wipe Gaza off the face of the Earth” followed by almost continuous bombardment isn’t in your eyes evidence of specific intent and action, because they haven’t wiped them out yet? Therefore, by your own definition, the colonizing Europeans never commited genocide against the indigenous American population, because there’s still native Americans left and they have their own nature reserves to reside in?

zazo ,

I mean the person who coined the term “genocide” considers the atrocities against the native Americans a genocide…

But sure, call it “ethnical cleansing” if pedantry helps you sleep better at night…

And I’ll still continue using the UN recognized definition of “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” which by my understanding fits both the American and Palestinian atrocities.

zazo , (edited )

sex != gender

Biological sex determines the bits you have in your pants - gender on the other hand is the social construct we humans have created, on top of that, to assign social roles and expectations to individuals.

The main issue TERFS (or FARTS) have, is that they argue the only thing that matters is what bits you have in your trousers. Which completely ignores the reality of people everywhere that are societally expected to behave in certain ways because it aligns with what society has deemed “manly” or “girly”. They argue that by wanting rights for trans people, that means, we, as a society, end up entrenching the gender norms feminists have fought so hard to dismantle.

However, that fully relies on the idea that gender has already been abolished and everyone presenting the way they truly feel is just “men” co-opting the feminist movement for their own “deviant” benefit.

Which

A. Completely misses the point about equality and solidarity (why does it matter if AMABs present as women if we all have equal rights?)

B. Disregards the reality of transmasc, transfemmes, enby and anyone else that just wants to live life in a form they feel comfortable with (feminine women and masculine men are just as valid as the opposite)

C. Absolutely dismisses the experience of transmasc individuals as “confused girls” - which is not only bigoted but extremely sexist, it implies that AFABs have no agency and are fully controlled by society - “you see they’re not smart enough to understand social constructs and how their lives fit into them - no! they’re just trying to pass as male so they get the patriarchal benefits the current system provides!” - again completely missing the point of equality.

You may think these are strawmen but if you’re familiar with JKs rethoric you’ll see these are genuine beliefs she holds.

This way, the “Trans Movement” (ie. people presenting and behaving in ways not directly assigned to their birth sex) becomes a hill to die on.

Not because of the purported “safety of girls” in bathrooms, sports and prisons (which JK will gladly demonize in her own fictional worlds of trans criminals and rapists (spoilers - people of any sex or gender expression can be awful human beings - saying they’re the reason sex crimes occur just dismisses the reality of abuse perpetuated by hurtful people))

But because it’s an ideology of absolute societal constructs (how can a man pretend to be a woman if the only thing that makes a woman is her genitalia?)

And look, I too am a gender abolitionist - if we lived in a genderless society that didn’t have gender reveal parties or gendered shoes or clothes or interests or literally anything that divides people into binary groups - I’d be on that shit - but that’s not what folk like JK are fighting for.

They see sex as this immutable quality that not only determines your reproductive organs - but how society should perceive you. You have a penis - you are a man. Oh, you don’t like being perceived as a man and you feel you relate to women in a way that other men don’t? Well, too fucking bad, in the man-bin you go. Rooster between your legs says you’re not allowed to sit in a female-only cubicle - get the fuck out.

That’s why this type of thinking is harmful, the goal isn’t to see who gets the “most rights”, the goal is for everyone to get the same amount of rights, always - so it doesn’t matter if you call yourself a man, a woman or any other label you may choose - what matters is that if you give out love and respect you should receive the same in return.

Edit: Sorry for the massive essay, but assumed you might be interested in the context around sex and gender

zazo ,

Glad to help!

The main book on gender I’ve seen recommended is Suzanne J. Kessler and Wendy McKenna’s - “Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach”

'Everyone in the World Needs to See This': Footage Shows IDF Drone Killing Gazans (www.commondreams.org)

Adding to the mountain of evidence that Israel is engaged in a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera on Thursday aired footage of what the news outlet reported was an Israeli drone targeting four Palestinians in Khan Younis last month....

zazo ,

Does the fact that’s an obvious lie (you can clearly see a second missile come from the top left) make you more or less likely to support the IDF? Anything’s fair in war and genocide right…

zazo ,

How about people openly calling for the genocide of Palestine on live television?

zazo ,

It doesn’t. What are you doing instead that is saving those lives then?

zazo ,

when a professor does this they’re “based” and “brainpilled” but when I pretend to sell crack on the benches outside, all of a sudden the judge claims it’s “entrapment” and “illegal” smh…

zazo ,

who said buying material goods for 3k was materialistic, smh…

zazo ,

Look I’m not supporting mega rich assholes extracting even more from working people, but would you use the same argument for textile weavers and the Jacquard loom? Sure a lot of people lost their jobs at the time, but most, if not all, respecialized and we got computers in the end so would you say it wasn’t good progress? 🤷

zazo ,

Ah yes, because the favorite part of the process for every artist is the hours spent going back and forth with their client touching up the most minor details instead of creating art they actually want to make…

Idk, I feel AI art only affects commercial artists who first and foremost care about making money off their art form. The ones that actually make art for the love of the craft (without expectation of getting anything in return) aren’t really affected in any way.

TL;DR Let UBI free artists from the capitalistic yoke and let the oligarchs use AI to automate the soulless part of art creation that nobody enjoys anyways.

zazo ,

Do you think the software engineers who are developing the AI models (which have been trained on freely given away code) are just stupid and are willingly creating a machine that will take away their jobs because they don’t understand the impacts? Or could it be that they do understand the stakes, but continue on despite that because of (as you mention) the unfathomable good the technology can bring? I would hope most people would be willing to sacrifice their wellbeing now for the betterment of everyone else in the future.

If you’re still understandably worried tho - just start a garden and begin building tightly knit communities now, since you never know when a solar flare will wipe all our technological progress away…

zazo ,

It’s fine to get paid for your skills, but from experience I can say that developing skills just to get paid is also rather soulless.

Since, sure, I can bet there’re furry artists that love drawing sexy tigers to bits, but I can guarantee there’s a not-so-small percentage that would much rather draw something else, but the yiffing money is too good to pass up on.

zazo ,

See, that’s the crux of the argument I feel. You can’t have one without the other, you can’t have voice generation for the mute without that technology also displacing voice actors in the process.

That’s why I think the Luddite approach doesn’t work, we can’t forcefully break the machines that are capable of so much good because they’re also capable of so much bad.

Instead we should focus on helping those that are most negatively impacted by their existence, while supporting everyone that is already being positively affected by them. (like the UBI mentioned in my other comment)

PS. Totes down for replacing CEOs with AI and distributing their salary among the workers

zazo ,

That’s a good attitude to have and I’m not advocating for putting down our arms and waiting for big tech to steamroll us all.

But as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the people making the AI models are fully aware they are contributing to a technology that will take away their own jobs, because they think that it will create other, even more interesting jobs in the process. (see trad artists swearing off photography in it’s early days because it was “mechanical and soulless”, only to realize it’s creative potential years later)

My advice would be to continue being aware of the negative history of things, but don’t let it blind you to the positive aspects either.

zazo ,

Any artist who stops being an artist because someone else can put words into a computer and get a big tiddy goth gf pic out, wasn’t really that interested in making art in the first place.

zazo ,

But like, it will happen anyways. You can’t stop Musk from shoving Grok down everyone’s throats and firing 80% of his work force to replace them with AI drones.

If we saw the potential in these tools, and decided as a society to just let the machines do all the stuff we don’t want to do, and we all got to do whatever meaningful beautiful things our hearts wanted, then sure.

Yes, literally this, my argument is literally we use all our efforts to fight for this, as making something beautiful out of a shit situation is literally all life has and I feel always will be.

zazo ,

My dude, my grandfather got fired after the collapse of the soviet economy because “artist” wasn’t a productive enough job to be kept around, but he still made art for 20 years after without getting paid because his purpose in life was to create art, not to sell it.

And sure the theft argument would be valid, but that’s a strawman, because Adobe have already trained their own image gen model on fully licensed images and real life artists are already paying money to use it, so they must see the value in it.

zazo ,

The real estate company’s ads for ‘presale’ lots in Gaza and plans to ‘prepare the groundwork for a return’ to the enclave were meant to be ‘a joke’ for its followers

Ha ha, what if we pretend to build houses on bombed people’s land. that would be funny i think.

zazo ,

Oh oh, are we on Jeopardy! I’ll take “Brutal Middle Eastern Imperialistic State” for 500, Alex!

zazo ,

You don’t genuinely believe the US cares about Israel and doesn’t just give out trillions of their defense budget so they have a strong foothold in the middle east to prevent the caliphates from uniting, do you?

Bill Gates thinks of himself as 'very nice' compared to Elon Musk and Steve Jobs (www.businessinsider.com)

Bill Gates name-checked Elon Musk and Steve Jobs during a fireside chat on Thursday. The Microsoft founder said he considers himself “very nice” compared to his fellow tech leaders. But Gates acknowledged that a certain level of intensity is required in innovative fields. Bill Gates said he considers himself a more relaxed...

zazo ,

If I “donate” 12 billion dollars and use it to buy stocks in the company I personally own that made all that money - would you say my concern is funding good cause NGOs until I’m no longer a billionaire or am I just dodging taxes?

Also, if he’s so adamant about giving away his wealth, why does it keep increasing? No way he’s actually more concerned about getting an ROI than his most noble goal of helping others through his “philanthropy”…

Emails Reveal How a Hospital Bowed to Political Pressure to Stop Treating Trans Teens (www.propublica.org)

The Medical University of South Carolina initially said it wouldn’t be affected by a law banning use of state funds for treatment “furthering the gender transition” of children under 16. Months later, it cut off that care to all trans minors....

zazo ,

Why do you think people actively choose to adapt their bodies to better fit the idea of themselves if they could just “change their minds”? And do you really think most haven’t tried that first?

This to me feels very much like shaming a depressed person for taking antidepressants by telling them “the medical field has failed you by giving you pills, have you considered just being happy?”

zazo ,

I do appreciate your concern but what do you think is the “real fix”?

zazo ,

Not sure how that degree makes you an expert in toxicology or cancer research, but I sure hope you’ve not made your mind up about Roundup being safe. I’m not saying it’s not (the WHO is) but from experience I’ve found that treating potentially cancer causing chemicals with extra care is less likely to well…give you cancer.

But I’m willing to hear your side. Just fyi I don’t think the argument “it’s the best we got right now or people starve” is any stronger than saying “we can’t switch from lead pipes, the people will die of thirst”.

zazo ,

On the topic of organic farming, what’s your opinion on herbicide free permaculture gardening? In a small scale distributed model I don’t see why glycolphosphate would be needed if weeds are just part of the landscape.

zazo ,

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