I think you’re arguing with a person in your imagination more than with me.
What exactly do you think I won’t change my mind on? That the article posted was of poor quality? If so, that’s true. It should have presented the available evidence clearly and indicated its sourcing. I am interested in additional information, but it’s not relevant to my original assessment.
Stupid gotchas have their place in undermining imperialistic narratives about how Taiwan “rightfully” belongs to the PRC.
No territory rightfully belongs to anyone but it’s inhabitants.
Russia is an important geopolitical ally for China. Tension between them is not advantageous at this time.
Also, Americans love dunking on the Russian army, and while it maybe wasn’t as formidable as we thought, it’s still significant. It’s not as if it would be totally free.
A link to it? Lol
Yeah unfortunately they only care when it’s convenient for their geopolitical interests. Pretty much sums up the entire US foreign policy.
Was he? I didn’t think so. I know he lived and worked in the US but many non-citizens do.
There are a lot of ways people can die in a tunnel in war. Friendly fire, suffocation, starvation, disease, tunnel collapse… the list goes on. Execution is a very specific way to die, and it’s extremely convenient to IDF’s narrative about the conflict, and it seems counter to Hamas’s interests to throw away their main bargaining chip. It’s not that I don’t believe that’s what happened, but the minimal details presented here don’t tell a complete story and weren’t even traceable back to a specific source. I’m just looking for a little more detail to fully understand what happened.
And this is assuming the bodies were found where they died. It’s also possible they died elsewhere and were being stored here for use in negotiations. We just don’t know much and unfortunately, will need to depend on untrustworthy sources to find out more.
What a terrible article. What is the source or evidence the hostages were executed? People are saying it’s a claim by the IDF but it’s not even attributed to them. From reading the article I have no idea who is making this claim or how it is supported. That’s not how journalism works.
So much angst about unreliable sources here, but we’re letting this fly?
Edit: Here is a better summary of the available source information. It is coming from the IDF, but they haven’t really said much other than it was obvious to them Hamas was the culprit. We’ll have to see what further information they release.
Oh, you meant the Chinese.
Ancient viruses?! We’re all gonna die!
Most viruses are completely harmless to humans. There are millions of species, of which only a few hundred are medically significant. I doubt these frozen viruses will have any noticeable impact on anything.
The invasion of Russia has given them at least small gains for the first time in a while but it really doesn’t change the overall situation as of right now. The territory gained is very small compared to what they’ve lost.
Russia would have just continue letting them gain more and more territory until they have enough for some kind of exchange, but that seems unlikely. They were caught off guard, but now that they’re defending, further advances will become difficult and it’s likely to soon reach another stalemate like the other fronts.
A tiny area of strategically insignificant territory.
Look at the size of the territory gained compared with what they’ve lost: https://images.jifo.co/21540781_1723737029035.svg
It’s an interesting gambit but like I said in my initial comment, the Russian resistance would need to essentially collapse for them to gain enough territory to make some kind of exchange for what they’ve lost. Unless they continue to gain ground at the same rate for the next year I don’t see this changing the overall situation which has been near stalemate on the main front for over a year now.
I don’t see Kamala’s policy being meaningfully different from Biden and it’s far from sure she wins. Trump will almost certainly cut aid and make the situation substantially worse.
I hope it works but honestly I don’t see any path for Ukraine to recover all of its territory at this point. Barring some major shakeup that causes Russian resistance to collapse.
I don’t really agree with this framing. There are plenty of things that Israel can do to protect their citizens and weaken Hamas that don’t involve murdering thousands of civilians.
It’s debatable whether this conflict will even weaken Hamas long-term. I think it’s been a huge boon to their image and it seems fairly likely they’ll be able to rebuild even stronger when the killing ends.
The best way to destroy Hamas is to make peace, stop killing and oppressing Palestinians, grant them equal rights to Jewish Israelis, redistribute land fairly, educate the populace and promote real democracy. Hamas’s extreme views won’t be popular in the absence of a great evil to scapegoat.
It could spread from other places where it exists. Syria would be the most likely source given its geographic proximity.
Alternatively, there are vaccines that use a semi-disabled live virus. While normally harmless, in war with lots of opportunities for transmission and many many people with weakened immune systems, it is possible for it to mutate back into the dangerous form of the virus. This was known to happen in the US in the last few years.
The issue is growth rates are wildly different among different areas and cultures. The population in some places is dropping precipitously which will cause economic problems, especially around elder care.
While I agree that a gradual population reduction would be beneficial, rapid declines will increase human suffering and should be avoided.
Ironically I don’t think Ashitaka would approve though.
So how can we solve this, realistically? This conflict hasn’t gotten much attention because it’s not closely tied to Western geopolitical interests, in contrast to Ukraine and Gaza. But the upside is there’s not likely to be much organized opposition to aid as there is with Gaza. So how those few of us who are aware of it act to make the situation better?
The fact that I am not an expert in the exact structures a hypothetical anarchist society could take doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Furthermore, as you allude to, their implementation in the real world would likely differ from any theoretical structure based on the experience and practical needs of the people involved. There are people building such organizations as we speak, and hopefully, as they gain experience, we can collectively learn which structures work and which ones do not.
In general I see anarchism as more of an aspirational process. The goals are to achieve human liberation to the maximum extent possible. Maybe it’s not possible to achieve complete global liberation (and I agree not to the extent that some individualist anarchists believe, i.e. the no rules people) but there’s good reason to believe it can be achieved to a much greater extent than current societies. I think that’s worth working towards, and even if we did achieve a more liberated society like Republican Spain, that process wouldn’t end there. We would keep iterating and tinkering to find the best and most free society we can reasonably attain.
I read the article. But it’s a separate article so it has little bearing on the quality of the one OP posted here. How do you feel it’s relevant?