Good to know, will keep a watch for it.

I really want to use it but always end up closing it in frustration and firing up photoshop.

Having spent ages trying to adopt it and failing like 20+ years ago it’s just crazy to me that every time I give it another chance, it still doesn’t have non destructive editing and is still a non-intuitive UI from hell. It feels like they want it to be like this.

It’s unbelievably creepy that these two guys are trying to concern themselves with anything at all to do with their students’ bodies or health.

It just screams “got into teaching for the wrong reasons”.

I get the impression students in the US get treated sort of younger for longer, e.g their PhD students still attend classes.

I think it was really cool that you asked questions instead of just being content with assumptions.

Btw, here’s an article describing how epidemiologists have been able to independently verify the mortality rate. It’s from a while ago so the numbers are lower but you can still get a sense of it.

The answer to your second question to some extentit probably depends on which country you’re in.

Generally speaking I think the people with strong opinions about land occupation already had those opinions before this war. The current wave is much more a reaction to what is happening to civilians right now.

I think the general population in the US are more likely to have pre-existing strong opinions about Israel Palestine because it’s regularly in their news, and there is a sizeable US expat population in Israel. For me personally (I live in New Zealand) the human rights situation in Gaza normally sits on my radar alongside the situations in for e.g West Papua and Western Sahara. But right now, there is an active large-scale massacre of civilians taking place in Gaza.

To answer the first question, sorry I keep breaking it into smaller components but again, separating it out makes it clearer. If we look at:

• what the IDF intentions are

• what their actions are

• what the effects of their actions are

What people think kind of depends on how well we think it matches up and whether we think the first one is actually an okay justification for the third one.  Like when is it okay shoot when you can see there’s someone in the crossfire.

What their intentions are

The IDF and mainstream Israeli politicians publically stated intention is to “destroy Hamas” in order to protect the safety of Israeli citizens both in Israel and in the part of Palestine that Israel is occupying. Hamas is a broad term encompassing both militant (eg militant) and civil (eg Health Dept) organization. Some politicians have gone a lot further and said their intention is to remove most Palestinians from Gaza. Some have said that no civilians are innocent, but these are minority viewpoints.

What their actions are

This is where it gets tricky, and some of it is contested. What is common ground is that  they have chosen to use an unusually large number of bombs in a built up environment full of civilians, using huge bunker buster bombs, and drone bombing of targets suggested by AI. It also involves a ground offensive, and there appear to be “kill zones.” The IDF has set itself numbers for “acceptable” number of civilians per kill, which may be high, and also permits itself to bomb hospitals and schools. Here is an article which covers some of the AI concerns. They also keep tight control of humanitarian aid and limit what enters. There are allegations that are disputed, of widespread deliberate killing of wounded and civilians and children. We may find forensic evidence in the mass graves. The IDF dispute it.

The effects of their actions

• I’ve covered this already above, but what stands out is the unusually high number of civilians and medics being killed, compared to other modern wars that involved urban warfare. To put the total mortality into perspective, during the Bosnian Genocide 3% of the population were killed over a 2-year period. 1.5% of the Gaza population have been killed in 6 months. The mortality statistics we have are for known deaths, those still buried in rubble are extra.

• Using satellite images of before and after, analysts estimate 57-60% of buildings in Gaza are destroyed, rising to 75% in Gaza City. We also know the hospitals were bombed.

• During the current war monitoring of humanitarian aid entering Gaza has drastically reduced the amount going in. (Before this war, Gaza did not function self-sufficiently.  A significant part of the population (many were refugees) relied on humanitarian aid.

• NGOs on the ground report that the current numbers of starving people will meet the technical threshold for it to be designated famine, by May.

For many of those who are on the side of civilians, there is no possible justification for killing this many people to get to each millitant. International law (eg Geneva Conventions) specifies how to treat civilian populations, and many international experts think that these rules are being breached. Moreover, the blocking of humanitarian aid is problematic, whatever the rationale.

Most of us live in civilisations where we do not find it acceptable to kill innocent people as way to also kill guilty people.

Okay there are more than 2 sides.

Personally I am on the side of civilians whether they are Israeli or Palestinian or Druze or Bedouin. I am also on the side of the doctors, nurses, and humanitarian aid workers. These are who I consider the Good Guys. “Look for the helpers.” - Mr Rodgers.

But to cover your question, there’s two separate issues here:

• the claims of the belligerents

• feelings about what is happening now in the Israel Gaza war

The past claims of the belligerents

I’m not going to go into this, but but it goes back to history and it’s where the side-taking on the sides of the belligerents mostly comes from, because different people have different interpretations. Legally speaking Palestine is occupied by Israel (West Bank) and blockaded by Israel (Gaza). No one can get in or out, it’s effectively controlled by Israel.

What is happening now

What is happening now is a “war” between the IDF and Hamas. People like me, who are rooting for civilians are upset about:

• proportionality (so far about 33,000 Palestinian deaths vs 1,400 Israeli deaths)

• mortality (currently over 1.5% of the population of Gaza have been killed)

• civilian mortality - high numbers of children being killed (according to aid agencies, one is killed or injured every 10 minutes)

• high numbers of humanitarian workers and medical staff being killed

• inappropriate weapon choices (hundreds of 2,000lb bombs are being dropped, for reference the US used just one in its war against Isis.

• widespread infrastructure destruction, particularly of hospitals and other important buildings

• mounting evidence of starvation in the civilian population due to blockade of aid

Personally I am against anyone treating a civilian population like this for any reason, and I believe it amounts to war crimes. I was against the killing of civilians in Myanmar, Rwanda, East Timor, and I am against it now.

Side note: The median age in Gaza is 18, meaning literally half the people in it are still children.

Edit: I haven’t given any sources cos lazy. I am happy to give them to OP or anyone in good faith (there are probably a bunch on the post history of my main which is [email protected]). However, I do not speak sealionese.

I’d never heard of Ed Zitron but this is the second good blog I’ve seen by them this week.

It’s also pretty obvious he cheated, though.

He clearly had a good phone, phone plan, and secure comprehensive healthcare.

Totally with you on the important part, which is everyone needs to de-google now.

I didn’t downvote you personally (I only downvote spam), I was just pointing out the flaw in your logic, in passing.

If what you’re saying is true, I would expect the opposite outcome

I don’t see why you would expect upvotes for snidely implying the worst about people in here though.

I’ve almost de-googled and came here when I saw the crosspost was in this community especially because I was hoping for discussion on degoogling.

I like Here We Go (used to be Ovi). Its realtime traffic is pretty good.

@[email protected]

@[email protected] @[email protected]