The only thing that bothers me about terms like “trans rights”, “women rights”, … is that there should be no need to prefix “rights” with anything but “human”. And human rights should apply to all humans indiscriminately, obviating the need to label any subset of human rights that shouldn’t exist. In my book, the slice of bread should read:

Humans have human rights. Trans people are humans.

And in a better world every bit of that should be so obvious that it wouldn’t need mentioning at all.

Ich hab Feuerchen gelegt 🔥🙃

This article was posted elsewhere, so I’ll just copy my comment from there over here:

I generally enjoy listening to/reading Sam Harris and always go away from his pieces with the feeling of having learned something new, some fact or perspective, however small. It’s kind of the same here, but, I think his arguments are, at least in part, deeply flawed here.

I find the distinction between victims of terror and collateral damage problematic. Under the line what he’s saying here, is that their quantities are not comparable because they are of very different nature. I can’t agree with that. Dead people are dead people no matter how they died. They had lives, family, friends, … To them it makes no difference if they died because of terror or as collateral damage. Thinking back to the WTC attack and the wars that followed Sam Harris’ notion suggests, that the >3.000 victims of terrorism could be worse than the >1.000.000 collateral in the following wars, because of their quality and the quantity not being comparable. In my book, that’s plain nonsense.

I tend to agree with his stance on “us” (western world/democracies) having a set of higher moral standards than Hamas and others we would consider failed states or dictatorships. Though, he and I share a compatible set of morals in our upbringing. I am personally opposed to absolute morals as they are usually provided by religious texts. But in the spirit of democracy I acknowledge that a majority could decide and settle on a set of morals incompatible with mine. I could argue all I want and never claim to be objectively correct. But, more importantly, especially when looking at Gaza and Hamas, as he points out himself, our moral compass wasn’t that different in sometimes very recent history. “Our” progress on the moral front was made in times of peace (at least at home) and economic stability and success. If “we” deny a group of people (I’m deliberately not saying society here) the conditions we had to achieve what we consider our superior morals, we can’t be surprised if they don’t share them. And I would go a step further and argue, that we are not in a morally justifiable position to criticize them for their “lack of morals”.

Sam Harris isn’t really saying much contrary to what I’m saying here. He’s just conveniently leaving out the angles I’m bringing up. Knowing lots of what he’s said/written and being familiar with his eloquence and rhetorics, I’m tempted to assume it is very deliberate. Hence I’m pretty disappointed in him for this particular piece.

And the barrel extension/trunnion has dials too …

“AI” doesn’t understand how guns work. There’s a dial sight on the bolt …

It’ll likely go away with an update. But you can always check xsession log, dmesg, etc to see if there’s a hint on why the screen locking process is crashing.

They hated Jesus™ for saying the truth. Which is irrelevant here, because you are neither Jesus™ nor saying the truth.

Obviously we have only testimonies of that from officers and volunteers and confirmation from Israeli authorities,

No, we have the testimony of one IDF member who promoted Palestinian genocide in the past. Everybody else who was on the scene and gave a statement could not confirm that one testimony lie. All the newspapers back-paddled on that story; maybe you should too.

What is there to benefit from faking such document? Is it not obvious that Hamas targeted civilians and children?

Yes. Children are civilians. The repeated claim is that children were not targeted as part of the populace but specifically. In the eyes of most people that would be even more sinister. And Israel needs Hamas and the Palestinians who supported them to look as bad as possible to distract from their retaliation.

Do I really need to spell it out like that?

You quite obviously do not understand how propaganda and dehumanization works.

That’s a child’s way of seeing things.

That’s rich coming from somebody who just said what you said.

Wait so if I understand you correctly: […]

You don’t.

even if these documents are genuine and prove that Hamas explicitly wanted to target children, it’s still a big media conspiracy to make Hamas look worse than they are?

No. But I don’t see that from those pictures. They targeted a residential area, which happened to contain a school (big surprise). Like with the “beheaded babies”, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. From the provided information I’m not convinced that Hamas targeted children specifically.

Targeting civilians is already bad. The way I suggest they spin a story is by setting the focus on children, babies, women, … to appeal to emotions rather than just reporting facts. And I think they do that to dehumanize Hamas and by extension Palestinians to justify the retaliatory atrocities of an even bigger magnitude in the eyes of the world.

It’s really not that hard of a concept to grasp … remember the babies taken out of the incubators in Iraq?

Have you ever heard of propaganda and dehumanization? Have you also noticed how Israel has already killed at least three times more civilians in the past few days?

Hamas targeted residential district …

Hamas target school in … to kill children!!!

Spot the difference. What feels more like honest reporting and why would one choose the other option?

Fake evidence to spin a narrative??? We have all seen the result of these plans

We have have seen the result of some plan. I’m questioning whether it is 1) the plan that was depicted here and 2) even if it was whether the reporting on its content is accurate.

I like that you also moved to goal posts […]

Not really.

[…] since you clearly couldn’t stomach your own shit take on how the plans must be false flag plants, […]

Um, no. You do not seem to understand what false flag means, and nowhere did I suggest any false flag operation.

[…] but my favorite part was when you felt able to say that even if they were genuine, that SIMPLY REPORTING IT would be an intelligence attack on Hamas/palestine.

I did not say anything even remotely like that.

Like are you fucking kidding me??? Shall they only report on things that look good for Hamas?

They should report stuff they have fact checked and not transform ‘the general populace’ into ‘babies, kids, women, cripples, …’. The entire point/concept of terror is hitting soft targets. Reporting only on the ‘very weak’ caters to emotions, not transport of information. And why would they do that …

Don’t mind getting banned on r/atheism. The staunchest atheists get banned over there for not adhering to the hive mind. It’s a cesspool.

Well, I for one, don’t accept any beliefs. I reject the entire concept of belief. What people might mistake for my beliefs, are actually informed assumptions. Admittedly, informed to varying degrees, but still. I’ll happily adjust them when my information changes ;-)

Cut the dull act; the answer is literally in my previous comment:

Look, devices have serial numbers. Manufacturers keep track of where devices are sold to.

I’m not even sure what you’re trying to talk about here. Regional settings? Look, devices have serial numbers. Manufacturers keep track of where devices are sold to. It does not matter what route a device takes, only who pays for it. The number of devices in Gaza paid for by Israel is going to be very small. If a non profit in Germany buys a printer for a hospital in Gaza, that device will go through Israel before ending up in the hands of Hamas, and that device might or might not have Israel regional settings, that does not magically make Israel the buyer and does not alter the manufacturers or traders records who the device was sold to. It’s really not that hard to understand, is it?

I’m not sure if you’re playing dumb here. What I’m saying is, that this looks like Israel is planting fake evidence to spin a narrative. That does neither mean nor imply that there was no attack or that that was not planned. The “40 beheaded babies” turned out to be bullshit and I bet this will too. Even if the printouts turn out to be genuine, the reporting on it seems to be disingenuous and tries to make Hamas, and by extension the Palestinian people, look even worse than they are to make the over the top retaliation more palatable to the world by dehumanizing the enemy.

So you’re saying all printers in Gaza were bought by Israel, right?

I’m talking about the attack plan printout here. Not the attack itself.

I have no doubt about Hamas fighters invading Israel. That is pretty evident. But this kind of “evidence” found on the fighters is pretty suspicious. It is as credible as the pristine passports of the terrorists found near the WTC after 9/11.