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To add to this, I’ve been using GIMP on and off for a decade and I’ve never given any thought to the name. It’s all capitalized. I didn’t think it was a backronym, I thought it was just an acronym.
I’ve used this in professional settings (I used to work in academic molecular bio), and I was very evangelical about it. Especially because we’re not doing high-level artistic work, we just sometimes need something for processing microscope images or making graphics for scientific publications.
I’d say to any and everyone, “You know, you don’t have to pay an annual subscription fee for Photoshop: there’s this free, open-source program called GIMP that does most of what you need and you don’t have to pay a thing! Want me to install it for you?”
I didn’t even think to be embarrassed about the name, and no one ever seemed to care in conversation. As others have said, the bigger impediments are people’s attachment to commercial software and interface challenges. This is just an absolutely silly complaint to make.
This is a good question.
My analysis:
First and foremost: It is not a demand that Israel accept a ceasefire, it is a demand that Hamas accept the terms of a ceasefire. Sometimes this is a very subtle difference, but one the key elements of a ceasefire negotiation is that each side is trying to continue fighting while making their adversary look like the aggressor. So far, it looks like Biden has moved slightly, but he still is not applying pressure on Netanyahu to end the war.
Second: Continuing on that last point, there is no leverage. Biden has persistently chosen not to do anything that would actually apply pressure. He has deferred to Netanyahu’s judgement and supported him while gradually shifting in tone, but it’s become 1000% clear that Netanyahu will stop when he is forced to, and not a moment sooner.
Third: The focus is constantly on micromanaging the situation. Debating how many civilians can get killed, what fraction of the homes can be demolished, how much territory Israel can appropriate in Gaza. None of this actually addresses the foundational issues: one side is imposing apartheid with genocidal intent on a neighbor that is largely powerless, and the other side’s only real avenue for expressing itself is through terrorism. Which is bad for both sides. If these realities persist, then the cycle that has governed nearly three generations is allowed to continue. There must be a breaking point in that cycle, and referring back to point 2: it’s going to have to be imposed on the leadership in Israel. They WILL NOT accept it willingly.
In summary, this is a very welcome change in narrative for Biden, but we are far past the point of fiddling with narratives. We need policy action, and it’s incredible that he’s still dug in like this after another state department official just resigned because she said that she was being pressured to be an accomplice in breaking US law against knowingly aiding war crimes.
That sounds like a good start.
I don’t think Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben-Gvir will like that, because they really hate it when the UN tries to do UN stuff at them, but that sounds like a very appropriate request.
It’s going to be awkward to listen to John Kirby explain into a microphone why having peacekeepers from the unarmed peace force standing in the vicinity of a lot of women and children in the area that Biden has insisted the IDF not kill everyone is helping Hamas.
This article is pretty good, because it’s not subtle about the context: Ben-Gvir is a convicted terrorist who has made his desire to exterminate Palestinians totally clear his whole life. And he went from too radical to serve mandatory military service to in charge of the national police and jails.
He is an exemplar of the worst humanity has to offer.
Just read my comment again. I think there’s an important point that more people need to internalize.
People joke about how Trump constantly declares himself a lover of “law and order”, but is a flagrant criminal, for instance. But he’s not just being randomly hypocritical: his definition of “law and order” is different from ours. We think of law as immutable rules that apply to all. He thinks of it as state power wielded by those who deserve it. Laws applied against him aren’t laws, and extrajudicial violence by his supporters is. Same with order. It’s not quiet, peace, or calm. It’s a privileged group who the law protects but does not bind and a tier of others who the law binds but does not protect.
Greene isn’t lying, she’s speaking loud and clear in another language, and we need to learn to translate it and listen to what she and the whole Christian Nationalist movement are increasingly saying out loud.
I mean, good for him, but I think it’s pretty clear that she’s not opposed to fascism.
When people like Greene decry Nazis, they mean something different than we do. We mean “Nazis”: violent white supremacist nationalists.
She just means “nazis”: our ultimate national enemy. And her audience understands her perfectly well.
She could be like, ‘We must protect our home-grown historical demographics by any means necessary, and seek out a final solution to do so, or the nazis will make Christians servants by replacing us with inferior people trafficed across the border.’ And her constituents would say, ‘Obviously! Yes, we must.’
“I didn’t feel like some members of Parliament, or a lot of members of Parliament, understood the existential threat that Israel faces and the fears of Jewish Canadians as a result of what’s happening domestically, what’s happening abroad,” he said.
What’s funny is that I feel this way too, but towards this exact kind of liberal Zionist.
The religious Zionism movement and the Jewish supremacy movement are taking a wrecking ball to the foundations in which Israel’s long term security sits.
I think it’s almost a given that Israel in 10 years is going to exist as a very direct country. There’s no going back to the status quo in which the world treated Israel as a respected participant among law abiding nations without a reestablishment of some kind.
Anyone who cares about this project of a stable, democratic homeland for Jews should be linking arms with defenders of Palestine. It is obvious to me at this point that it can’t exist without justice for Palestinians.
This is wild.
Now I want to see him reject AIPAC money. That’d be an absolute bombshell move.
They’re probably not giving him anything after this, but calling them out would be a a huge blow to their massive influence campaign in the party.
They’re the largest donor to Democratic super pacs ( this was a claim they made a few weeks ago, I can’t confirm it).
I think this is taking us way off topic, but I’ll answer.
First, I think you’re making a key logical misstep. This isn’t actually relevant, but it’s bugging me:
If antisemitism existed prior to Israel, than Israel cannot be responsible for its invention. Logically sound.
If antisemitism existed prior to Israel, than Israel cannot be responsible for its rise. Logically unsound.
This is separate from the fact that I don’t actually think Israeli policy fosters antisemitism. My working theory is that most antisemitism exists for other awful reasons, but is held at bay by the high cultural standing of Jews, the strength of our social ties to allies, and the protections afforded to us by democratic, multi ethnic societies. Israel’s actions damage all three, which erode the foundations of our defenses.
Second: The story of Esther; The story of Hanukkah; the destruction of the first temple; the destruction of the second temple. And on and on and on.
Like… I’m sorry but what? Did you think we were just having a good time for thousands of years and then people started persecuting Jews in the common era? That makes no sense dude. What does your Sedar look like?
Can you just summarize?
If you think someone is making light of a serious situation and you want people to know that, I think you should say it in words. Speaking for myself, I’m not making light of anything, and that characterization seemed respectful. I’m not sure what part you read as glib or jokey, and your response when asked to clarify seems needlessly cryptic.
The reason it exists is it is fed by a stream (deep-rooted cultural antisemitist sentiment as a cultural practice that uses desire to scapegoat, etc).
Wait, what part of this seems flippant? That seems to me like a succinct and accurate characterization of the enduring presence of antisemitism since antiquity. I don’t see anything dismissive about this.
If the present rise in antisemitism is rooted in Israeli governmental policy, then before there was an Israeli government, by that logic there should be no cause for antisemitism.
I’m not sure if I should take these seriously. I don’t think observing that Israeli policy has implications for how people view and behave towards Jews suggests that antisemitism was created several years after the Holocaust happened.
Would the inverse be true? Does the existence of antisemitism in prechristian times suggest that the blood libel conspiracies couldn’t have any influence on antisemitism in medieval Europe?
I want to point out for context that in 2019, the American Jewish Electorate survey found that a quarter of American Jews considered Israel to be an apartheid state, and 22% of American Jews thought that the treatment of Palestinians constituted a genocide. That was where American Jews were half a decade ago.
That should have been a huge canary in the coal mine. When the survey results came out, the established Zionist institutions insisted it was some sort of error in the way the data was collected. What that was telling us is now clear: the Likud party’s leadership was able to maintain support among political leaders, but they’d already overdrawn our store of goodwill YEARS ago. Oct. 7 just brought this all back into the news, and now we’re dealing with a loss of reputation that had been building slowly for years.
That doesn’t account for the rise in antisemitism we’ve seen in the last four months, but I think it contributes heavily to the loss of allies who previously served as a crucial bulwark against antisemitism.
This is a very serious problem. However addressing it requires context that I don’t think the article provides.
First, this study was conducted by the Community Security Trust, and you can find the full report here. It’s worth reading.
Thankfully, if you check page 23 we can see that murder or extreme violence were at zero. Less fortunately, they count 266 assaults and 305 threats. The vast majority of incidents – over 4,000 – are speech.
The Haaretz takes great pains to insist that the rise in antisemitism occurred in the week after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack but before the Israeli counter attack. I think the case they make is very thin, since I suspect the window of time is too small for reliable statistics, and this kind of attribution is notoriously subjective. Regardless, it strikes me as an attempt to dispel the obvious fact that Israeli policy fuels antisemitism around the world. To pretend otherwise is absurd.
Overall, I find it enormously frustrating as a Jewish father that many of my Zionist friends appear unwilling to reconcile the fact that for better or worse, combating antisemitism cannot be pursued while simultaneously deligitimizing criticism of Israeli crimes against humanity as pure hate speech. Additionally, we cannot operate from a starting assumption in which we believe we’re entitled to and capable of achieving widespread public goodwill irrespective of the actions of Israeli leadership, the Israeli military, and western allies. That’s not something that is possible.
Is it fair that all Jews must bear this burden? As an anti-zionist Jew, I get to be the first to say, “No, it’s absolutely fucking not fair that I have to deal with this.” And I also get to be the first to say to Zionists, “If you think it’s unfair, that do something about it: stop conflating Zionism with Judaism and then complaining when gentiles get confused. Stand up against war crimes when they are perpetrated by people insisting that they speak on behalf of Jews.”
I have this issue with friends. Frankly, we shouldn’t need to be threatened to speak up against atrocities. But with our own safety jeopardized as well, what the hell reason is there for us to run defense for fascists like Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, and Smotrich? Let’s protect Muslims AND ourselves by making clear: they don’t speak for us.
Absent that, it’s hard to take concerns about antisemitism from people who won’t do that seriously. If you cared, you join me in trying to actually do the obvious first step to improve this terrible situations for world Jews.
Forgive the arrogance of this statement, but I find it bewildering how dumb national and international economists are.
Take one step back and there’s a lot of obvious critical flaws in their whole ambition: the kind of growth everyone’s chasing is specific to industrialization. It’s like measuring your child’s height and weight from age 3 to 10 and then trying to keep them growing an inch a year forever. It’s both impossible, and also hugely destructive.
I generally agree. I think there are no great answers, but the expert they interviewed makes good points. The main point that resonates with me is the network effects: if everyone feels pressured to begin using tools because they feel like everyone else is on them, it’s very difficult for any parent to constrain their kid’s use.
Age prohibitions aren’t very restrictive because they’re difficult to enforce. They’re basically just advice and a legal tool to go after the very most flagrant business targeting minors.
As for the positive effects: that’s a great point. I want my kid to have access to explore cyberspace in the same way I want them to have access to explore our city and nearby wildlands. I want them to have as much freedom as possible while teaching them to recognize and avoid danger. I think in all these cases, exposure with supervision before gradually increasing unsupervised access to areas that have become familiar is the only strategy to achieve that that in aware of.
I’m going to answer in two parts.
Part 1: I grew up a Zionist. In most versions, Zionism envisioned a peaceful, multi-ethnic state. In that sense, the zionist project is half-complete.
The first half was accomplished by people who aspired to something that everyone said was madness, totally impossible, completely unfeasible, hopelessly unworkable. And they fucking did that thing.
Now, anyone who considers themselves a Zionist needs to take on the responsibility for continuing that project with the sense of courage and insane vision that brought Israel into existence. ‘It’s too hard!’ ‘There are no good solutions!’ BULLSHIT. The whole country is founded on the idea that nothing is impossible, so let’s stop making excuses.
Part 2: The biggest problem is Jewish radicals. Itmar Ben Givir of the Jewish Power Party, Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionist Party, and Netanyahu of Likud. These are the primary leaders of a genocide, and Netanyahu’s special move for decades has been foreclosing peace. Step one is wanting peace, and step two is holding accountable the people who’ve never wanted it and always tried to keep it out of reach.
Step three, I think, is to help every Palestinian climb what I think of as “the ladder”. Israel is an apartheid state. You’ve got Ashkenazi Jews at the top, and Mizrahi/Sphardeic Jews close but just below. Then you’ve got Palestinian Israelis, then a whole bunch of tiers of West Bank / East Jeruselum Palestinians, then Gazans / foreign refugees. Each group needs a path to the rights of the group above, and there has to be a roadmap to a roadmap to peace. And that is going to require international brokers. Israeli needs a government that isn’t hostile to the UN, and the US needs to reduce its involvement and stay the fuck out of the peace process.
This is devastating. And amidst so much debate over Israel’s right to defend itself, I feel it’s getting lost that this military campaign is only a success if measured by a set of goals even most Zionists would not recognize as productive.
Will it make Israel safer? No, undoubtedly the war has cost international standing, strained the US-Israel relationship, and will inevitably radicalize far more extremists than are killed.
Will it continue the right-ward shift of Israeli policy? Does it cut off avenues for peace and reconciliation and foster militant Israeli nationalism? Yes.
This campaign is only a success if the primary objective is the eventual capture of the entire region at the cost of Israel’s safety (and the safety of Jews around the world) and Israel’s international standing. By any more conventional aims, it is an unmitigated disaster.
Not only that, but their blindness is the result of developers choices on what they share. If you don’t want people making incorrect assumptions, give them more info. Don’t tell them to just forego having any opinion on the matter.
If it looks like a decision was made cynically, prove otherwise, don’t just say ‘No, you’re wrong, you just don’t know!’
If you’re looking for a thoughtful legal analysis, you should check this out: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/harvard-law-review-gaza-israel-genocide/
To summarize it, human rights attorney Rabea Eghbariah makes the case that Israel’s efforts to eliminate the political agency and national identity of Palestinians should be viewed as a novel atrocity which she suggests calling a “Nakba”. She argues that using formal definitions, one can create a compelling case that Israel is guilty of at least attempting genocide in numerous discrete places and points in time, however the contours of their actions are very different structurally from past genocides, and don’t extend well when trying to characterize the broader devastation brought against the Palestinian people even when bombs aren’t falling.
She points out that our concept of apartheid emerged from a system by that name in South Africa, and our concept of genocide emerged after witnessing the industrialization of ethnic murder by the Nazis. In this vein, rather than insisting on trying to examine the Israeli model using the tools and benchmarks of past forms of ethnic suppression, she argues that we may find it more instructive to examine it as a series of innovations in control, particularly focusing on the legal systems used to carefully segment the managed subclass into a complex hierarchy selective in its conferral of rights to movement, occupancy, and legal protection.
I think this is a good framework. I’m very comfortable calling the campaign against Gaza in the last few weeks genocide, but many people call what has happened since 1948, or 1968 or since 2006 a genocide, and it’s understandably harder to pin down. But it starts to become easier to think about and talk about if we tie the intermittent bombing campaigns into a larger picture with the systems of work permits and building permits and water rights and so on that are used to dispossess Palestinians and render them powerless.
Firstly, I have yet to see anyone say that they support Hamas’ actions. What they’ve recognized is that this was an entirely anticipated outcome from Israeli policy.
The reason that people make this observation is because it’s clear that Israel has meaningful agency here, and it’s not clear that Palestinians do. Israel has the option to pursue a genuine peace process or continue ethnically cleansing occupied territory. Conversely, Palestinians largely have the option to die quietly or violently.
I am entirely aware why people find criticism of Israel to be tasteless during an attack against Israel. That said, these attacks aren’t really a security failure or a policy failure in Israel. Periodic outbreaks of Palestinian violence are a part of an ongoing project of genocide. Restrict food and medicine > Face violence > Use it to justify culling young men and destroying basically all infrastructure assembled since last culling until the resistance is exhausted > Return to baseline abuse until enough Palestinian kids reach suitable age to launch a new attack and repeat the process.
As I said, the Israeli government – and by extension, the US government – have the power to interrupt this cycle. And if we really care about the lives of Israeli victims, we have a moral obligation to.
It’s also, imo, because it’s a relatively newer career. Nurses, teachers, mechanics all existed as industries before he decline of labor. I work in biotech, and people have these oblivious conversations on reddit that are like, “I have a masters but can’t find a job with any stability or a living wage in my city. What am I doing wrong?”
And each time I explain that what they’re doing wrong is trying to get paid under late stage capitalism in a high risk-high reward casino industry filled with foreign visa-holding indentured servants and no one who has ever heard of collective bargaining.
Sadly, it’s another hustle. If you spend enough time on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TIkTok, you may see ads for “business opportunities,” which include a bunch of ways to spend lots of wasted time on things that will supposedly give you “passive income”. A lot of them consist of stringing together crude tools to supposedly run a business without actually running anything. For instance, you can learn how to set up a business on Amazon where someone else manufactures your products and Amazon stores and ships them, and supposedly you’re now a business owner. Obviously, it doesn’t work.
One version of this is becoming a “published author” by having stuff written either by ChatGPT or what are essentially slaves in the global south, and then self-publishing it as ebooks on Amazon.
Again, there’s no real money or sense of accomplishment, but people are desperate, and so people try it.
At these sizes I’m starting to think that game devs should just go back to physical storage.
If I’m going to have to store 100 + GB, then the storage space is now a meaningful contributor to the cost of the game. It looks like quad-layer Bluray disks can store 128 GB. I’m not sure what the cost to produce them is, but I’d be curious if it’s worse than the cost players have to pay in buying more storage space for these giant games.
Damn that’s dark.