First, I am not on Israel’s side in this matter. I denounce their historical and ongoing oppression of Palestinians to say the least and generally see a two state solution as an ideal outcome, along with the outcomes you mentioned, dismantling apartheid and establishing self-determination for Palestinians. However I would not condone atrocities to achieve this goal. Just as I am in support of Ukraine’s resistance against Russia, I would not condone any war crimes if they were to commit them. How we achieve our goals matter.

Sure, neither of us are directly affected won’t be the ones deciding, yet here we are expressing our opinions and hopefully having a worthwhile conversation about it. Perhaps all of social media is just political noise, yet us humans seem to like to weigh in on world events.

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What does destruction of Israel as a genocidal settler-colonial ethnostate look like to you? Does it look like Oct 7 writ large across all of Israel? Does it look like the massive bombing campaign, displacement, and destruction of capacity for civilians to live that Israel has perpetrated in Gaza?

Who said AI was gonna put people out of jobs? Look here, a whole new industry of gig work where people can market themselves as “best buyers”. Is your Kroger algorithm fucking you over with horrible prices? Not to worry, with a low low subscription fee, you’ll have access to our best buyers whose meticulously curated profiles will buy your items for you with guaranteed lowest price every time. They’ll even deliver it to your door for a small fee, or upgrade to our premium plus preferred plan for unlimited free deliveries. We also offer a comprehensive algorithm consulting service to help you reshape your algorithm for optimum purchasing power. Be the best buyer your can be ;) /SARCASM

No. Rent and mortgage are two different things. One is a fee for service and one is a loan.

If your home that you own doubles in market value and you decide to sell it, you pay off the mortgage (loan) and keep the profit (capital gain). If you are renting and the home is sold, you gain nothing.

If your home that you own burns down, you still owe the bank the money you borrowed for purchase (mortgage). If you are renting the home that burned down, you don’t owe anybody money. There is to service to pay a fee for anymore.

Like sure, fuck capitalism. But we don’t need to misrepresent how these systems work.

I’m not sure how much the kingdom was involved in Al Qaeda’s early years, unless you count American-Saudi-British funding of MAK/other Mujahideen during the soviet-afghan war. However, it’s clear Al Qaeda was already declaring against the kingdom a couple years before the USS Cole in '98. But sure I’d see Al Qaeda being a child of SA in a way similar to the KKK being a child of the US

You forgot the part where Saudi Arabia started courting American aid and literally expelled Bin Laden for being anti-American. That doesn’t make SA “the good guys” but it makes a huge difference in how your framing paints SA’s position and involvement with Al Qaeda during the 2000s. Their history is long and complicated, but during the war on terror, SA was much more aligned with the US against Al Qaeda and Bin Laden

You forgot the part where Saudi Arabia started courting American aid and literally expelled Bin Laden for being anti-American. That doesn’t make SA “the good guys” but it makes a huge difference in how your framing paints SA’s position and involvement with Al Qaeda during the 2000s. Their history is long and complicated, but during the war on terror, SA was much more aligned with the US against Al Qaeda and Bin Laden

The difference is less that it’s in some circumstances only marginally better. Rather, it’s more that when you advocate for better coverage in EU, the pushback might be more along the lines of “that’s too expensive or an inefficient use of highly limited taxpayer dollars, but I’m open to continuing to evaluate the impact and economics of it”. In the US, sometimes the pushback is “you don’t like it? Then GTFO, you communist traitor!”

It’s not that they throw a ball around really well, it’s that the NBA brings in over 10 billion in annual revenue because of these players. How much are you willing to pay someone to bring in that amount of money?

Looking at it a different way, that would be like a photographer taking a photo of the sandwich and proclaiming “I’m an artist” or a director telling a chef what to make, telling a cinematographer/camera operator how to shoot it, and an editor how to cut it to create a short film of a sandwich and proclaiming “I’m an artist”. Art can be made from a series of creative and purposeful decisions that result in a piece of expression. It might not be good art, it might not be effortful art, it might even be unethically made art, but it’s not not-art.

“Don’t we try to categorize everything though”

That sounds like a you problem :P

Enter constructivist relativism

“Lmao no sympathy for anyone who buys expensive shoes”

^this you?

When you mature as a human being, whatever age that may be, you develop kindness through a willingness to understand and empathize with perspectives that conflict with your own. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to accept it for yourself. For many people, clothing is not simply a means of pragmatic function. It’s also a source of self-expression, joy, and beauty. Now for me, $600 for a pair of sneakers is exorbitant and ridiculous no matter who designed it. But it’s not a product for me. And if someone with the means feels great buying and wearing them, I don’t see the harm. I don’t usually pay more than I have to for footwear, but I would pay a premium for certain kitchen tools I use all the time if I like the design, enjoy looking at it, and feel good using it. What I do sympathize with and would like to see reduced in harm is the consumerist culture that pressures people with less means into feeling like they have to have such things for fulfillment.

I mean there you go, Toyota’s are appliances. They have to look bland because their style has to remain inoffensive after decades on the road.

That being said, I’m impressed with how much style they’ve managed to put on the new Prius while still aiming for long-term fleet vehicle role. I also like what they’re trying to do with the BZ4 styling wise, even if it’s a compromised first gen product.

There’s also always the Supra and LC500 :3

As someone typically critical of Abrahamic religions, this is the strong argument for why we need those religions :3

You forgot, corporations are people too. And who are the most important people in the world??

If they set a 10 year goal it may take 20 years to hit 80% of goals, if they set a 20 year goal it’ll take 40 years to hit 50%, if they set a 50 year goal…

Nobody thinks this is a realistic goal, but the target gives a concrete number to set a mandate on which actually pragmatic policies, funding projects, and incentives can hang their hat on to keep the ball rolling.

With big infrastructure developments, nobody wants to buy into realistic goals, it’s too costly, and there’s never enough political will. You set overly ambitious goals so you can get people to buy in and then the project is too big to fail, so you end up paying what it actually costs, and you try to mitigate waste, unanticipated problems, corruption, and poor management along the way.

I would too. Unfortunately I’m pretty sure most places that check even half those boxes still fail in the market. You often have to drag consumers kicking and screaming towards something more equitable and less exploitative, even when they’re the ones being exploited.

Right, but then someone will rebuild Minecraft in text-based Minecraft with a 3D rendering engine displayed through ASCII