It was just a matter of time, we’ve had automated vacuum cleaners for ages now.

Putting guns on them is a bit harder, you definitely want a well-tested system for that. But cameras is pretty easy.

Well written answer. This actually gives me a fantastic chance to argue the pro-Palestinian side for a change, which deserves some nuance of its own that it doesn’t get nearly enough of.

I would argue that the realpolitik stance of Netanyahu is grossly outdated. Before the events of Oct 7th, Israel was getting closer and closer to an agreement with Saudi Arabia, indicative of a growing perception that the days of fossil fuel profits running an economy are slowly coming to their end, and the need to transition towards a service sector economy based around tourism, the free flow of business and cultural and technological export. All of these are severely hampered by violence in a way that resource extraction is far less subject to. Because of this shifting economic climate over not just the region, but the whole globe, the days of sudden, large-scale Arab attacks into Israeli territory were growing more and more unlikely. This ultimately makes the wish to secure a greater strategic depth unnecessary.

While that would not remove the chances of terrorism, we can look to the end of The Troubles in Ireland and see that negotiation and autonomy can create a viable path forward for ending local sectarian hostilities. While this would no doubt be a difficult path, requiring significant investment and no small amount of vulnerability from Israel in the short term, it has the potential to secure a lasting peace in a way that bombs simply cannot. If a negotiated peace and independence for the Palestinian people can be achieved, then, further ties with the rest of their Arab neighbors become significantly easier, giving Israel a much better opportunity to rise to a status of acceptance and prominence within the broader Middle East community. This would in turn allow them to exploit the Sunni/Shiite and secular/religious divides within the Islamic world to align themselves with the majority against Iran, and give them much greater security in the long run.

This diplomatic and economic path to security is perhaps barely still possible, if Israel can throw out Netanyahu and change their direction, reversing their pattern of settlement in the West Bank and economically compensating the Palestinians for land already lost. A back-breaking property tax could perhaps be levied on all Israeli citizens living within the West Bank settlements, with the proceeds going to outreach, health and education programs for their neighbors, both Arab and Israeli. This could slowly lead to a sort of economic demilitarized zone, and be the first step towards co-existence.

I thought hexbear was far right. .grad is the full-on tankie instance.

I don’t block any instances, though I am rather happy that .world decided to defederate with hexbear and .grad. I’m not so bothered by .ml, while they can be a little annoying sometimes, they’re at least usually able to carry on a semi-intelligent conversation. Usually anyway.

It’s actually not really that hard, any cook worth their salt can make a good shot at reverse-engineering a sauce from tasting it. It just takes a lot of practice at tasting things.

Clothes and housewares. Buying secondhand is vastly cheaper, better for the environment, and can get you surprisingly high quality sometimes.

Over the counter medications. If the active ingredient is the same, delivered in the same way and in the same dosage, the effects will be the same.

Games. There’s no good reason to not wait for a price drop and/or sale unless it’s some multiplayer thing and you want to play with friends. In the modern day, you’ll even usually get an improved product after more time has passed for patches and updates.

I must admit, I thought they were full of shit when they claimed they were training dolphins to do underwater patrols, but if this is real then maybe they do have some sort of animal training program.

You could collect skulls after informed consent. People could potentially sell/donate the rights to their skull after they’re done using it, with maybe some permission from next-of-kin, since they have a certain degree of claim as well.

If everyone agrees though, you could then ethically take that skull and sell it to a third party I suppose. It’d be somewhat similar mechanically to using remains for medical education and/or research, except without the noble cause or broader societal benefit.

Otherwise, in my eyes, this would qualify as grave-robbing and definitely be frowned upon. Nonetheless a fairly common practice throughout history though.

Hamas doesn’t have nukes. If Russia didn’t, we probably would sail into the Baltic and posture.

And yeah, you do have a point with Ukraine. We don’t have any signed treaties with them like we do Israel though. Just the Budapest Memorandum, with its very soft wording.

Well, “we have to look strong” basically sums it all up, yeah. To quote a famous American saying, “Walk softly and carry a big stick”. We’ve been doing it for centuries, google Commodore Matthew Perry for an old example. Another good example would be Reagan reactivating our old Iowa class battleships just because they looked so dangerous, even though they were basically obsolete in the era of aircraft.

Making a threat can be very useful, it’s not hard to understand. Same reason a dog growls or a cat hisses.

D&D lore, or any other fictional lore is really good for this. It’s not nearly interesting enough to really keep my attention, but just interesting enough that I kinda half listen.

Put this on, and just try to stay awake at night, I dare you.

https://youtu.be/RF-5kbXzopg

For background listening while I’m winding down in the evening I like something a little more interesting, and my best for that is probably SEA. One of the best astronomy channels around.

https://youtu.be/-ybiXR2WCFQ

Power projection, maintaining our reputation and a threat. We send aircraft carriers all over the place, there will always be one or two near any ally threatened with attack. It’s why we buy them.

It’s really just Hezbollah at this point. Hamas barely has a couple brigades left, if that. Houthis are too far away to do much asides shoot at ships in the Red Sea. Not sure where the other fronts are. You think Egypt is going to invade or something? Jordan? Syria? Iran going to march through two countries to get there?

True. The military blockade allowing only a modest amount of aid in with no real assistance in distribution is also a major problem.

If Egypt was a rival, why not help hamas or leave the Gaza border open? If Jordan was a rival, why help track Iranian missiles? If Syria was a rival, why have American military bases?

Meanwhile, estimates put Hezbollah fighting strength at 60k. IDF has 300k enlisted.

Israel almost certainly has nukes.

The problem isn’t IDF propaganda, it’s your propaganda that cannot acknowledge any difficult truth, because of your pretty clear goal in aiding the Jihadist quest to reclaim all of Palestine.

edit: Oh, and I almost forgot. Hezbollah is Shiite Muslim. Most of the rest of the Middle East is Sunni Muslim. It’s a lot more complicated than some basic conflict.

Egypt? Not an adversary. Jordan? Not an adversary. Syria? Not an adversary. On top of that, the last 3 times Israel fought them all, sometimes even simultaneously, they crushed them. All there is left is Hezbollah, with around 20% the total size of the IDF.

Oh, and now they have nukes.

And none of this is necessary to starve a captive population to death anyway.

That would not actually save Palestinians from starvation. You don’t need 1000lb bombs to commit a genocide.

I’m afraid it is not the purpose of the USA to save lives in other countries, we’ve taken vastly, vastly more than we’ve ever saved. We’re just honest about it, at least, and we do occasionally save some too.

Eh, it’s a little more complicated than that, unless you’re just believing that Jews run the world, which is not actually necessary to understand why America doesn’t give a shit.

We’ll see though.

Well, not if we have anything to say about it. I may often argue for a more nuanced, accurate understanding of things, but I am very glad to see the political pressure the uncommitted movement and peace protestors consistently apply to our government. We can potentially fix this if we play our cards right.

The US does not need Israel, not anymore. We just need to strengthen and enforce our positions on human rights violations. I do remain hopeful that Harris will be more open to stronger measures than Biden was, and its our job to maintain that pressure on her.

I do think its important to do so accurately, though, and avoid spreading misinformed propaganda just because it says anti-Israeli things, which is pretty common online unfortunately. There are plenty of real and accurate arguments we can use to criticize Israeli actions and apply pressure to elected officials, we don’t need any bullshit to be right or effective.

For now, though, I do know she has to beat Trump. And that means she has to convince McDonalds-eating, football-watching Americans that she isn’t pro-hamas, which is what Trump will try to say. So I don’t expect much progressive rhetoric out of her for the next few months.

Yea. The world is full of mental gymnastics unfortunately. Nothing is simple when people’s perceptions are the topic.

Global affairs make the problem even worse, since ethics are not fundamental to international affairs. In the eyes of many leaders, population is a statistic, a resource to be utilized just like how much money or oil or how many tanks and jets you have. Democracy tries to remedy this somewhat by making leaders vulnerable to being voted out, but cannot do so completely.

Germany was gassing them all en masse, an industrial level of extermination delivered with unargued intent. Even then, many people were reluctant to believe it at the time, until evidence was uncovered after the camps were captured and investigated. Even with that evidence we still have deniers.

Israel is operating a step below that. They do allow some food aid in, just not in sufficient quantities to alleviate the starvation. They’re keeping them on the brink, but not finishing it, just toe-ing that line. The killing could be completed quickly if they decided to. This hazier state of affairs reinforces people’s inclinations to disbelieve in atrocities, unfortunately.