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Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

theguardian.com

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Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#101

Post by Wickedflickr »

atq2119 wrote: post #33
hliyan wrote: post #28

I'm starting to realize, very belatedly in life, that we suffer from an end-of-history illusion in politics and political economy. I used to think we live in a golden age because a hundred years ago, democracy broadly replaced monarchies, market economies replaced feudalism and other coercive systems, and with it went many of the old, indirect mechanisms of subjugating large populations (e.g. moral imperatives throug…

I like your optimism that a decent end state can be reached at all. There are so many ideas that sound good on paper but are bad in practice, and that happen to be convenient for the goals of unscrupulous powerful people. The notion that society as a whole will at some point stop falling for such ideas seems very optimistic to me.

Society came very close to realizing the beginnings of a decent state in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. George Orwell faught in it, and wrote about what he saw that society achieving in his book, Homage to Catalonia.

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#102

Post by YZF »

forgotoldacc wrote: post #91
YZF wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Iran isn't an ally of any country in the west. The west says "Iran is an awful, oppressive country" basically daily. What's new to report there? They're already economically cut off from most of the world. There's not much else for us to do. Israel is an ally of every country in the west. People say "stop criticizing them because you can't do that until you complain about every other problem on earth first!" and it's…

Most of the west is definitely not Israel's ally based on their lack of support.

The US does support Israel but this is a story about the UK. The UK does not support Israel and even partially boycotts Israel at the moment.

If you're American then your tax money e.g. funds Egypt. Egypt is a dictatorship, no human rights, involved in the Sudan civil war where millions are dying. Not a beep on Hacker News.

EDIT: Not to mention the billions of dollars, including indirectly to Hamas, coming from the west.

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#103

Post by djkivi »

Avicebron wrote: post #58
dluan wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's math. You can model what happens in n-player repeated games of incomplete information, and you'll realize we're far from any stable point. And it's not even that hard to understand that the narrative of "end of history" benefits the people who get to say that and uphold that narrative.

Could just be cyclic? 1776->1861 (romanticism leading into civil war), 1861->1940 (modernism leading into WWII), [weird cold war baby boomer era of prosperity] 1970->2025 (post-modernism leading into..)

See the Fourth Turning!

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#105

Post by crystal_revenge »

jader201 wrote: post #59
crystal_revenge wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this flamebait? Is there another way to report on this topic that would be less inflammatory? Or should media manipulation by foreign governments simply not be discussed and we should just keep quiet less someone get upset? Surely if Russia was manipulating BBC reporting it would be note-worthy as well no?

I think parent just means that it’s a divisive topic, which means on the internet, that inherently makes it flamebait (and not necessarily through any fault of the reporting). Even on HN (and sometimes, especially on HN). There are some divisive topics that are less prone to flame wars on HN vs. other discussion platforms, but those are fairly limited, and often not political (in my experience).

The problem with this logic is that it is very, very easy for even a small number of people interested in silencing a topic on any issue they're concerned about "divisive" just by intentionally flooding the comments with knowingly inflammatory responses.

This has already be used on HN to essentially silence any serious reporting on climate change. Anyone technical with an interest in data will find most climate change related studies interesting, but a small minority of people who are fearful of the consequences will make sure to create an issue and shut down conversation, organically getting posts "flagged".

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#106

Post by [deleted] »

cantor_S_drug wrote: post #54
hliyan wrote: post #28

I'm starting to realize, very belatedly in life, that we suffer from an end-of-history illusion in politics and political economy. I used to think we live in a golden age because a hundred years ago, democracy broadly replaced monarchies, market economies replaced feudalism and other coercive systems, and with it went many of the old, indirect mechanisms of subjugating large populations (e.g. moral imperatives throug…

The problem is you can't even point a finger or single out people responsible for the current state of things. Unless we collectively accept there is a problem, the solution will not get implemented.

[deleted]

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#108

Post by janalsncm »

pomian wrote: post #65
hliyan wrote: post #28

I'm starting to realize, very belatedly in life, that we suffer from an end-of-history illusion in politics and political economy. I used to think we live in a golden age because a hundred years ago, democracy broadly replaced monarchies, market economies replaced feudalism and other coercive systems, and with it went many of the old, indirect mechanisms of subjugating large populations (e.g. moral imperatives throug…

We are going up, slowly, in health, literacy, education - globally. But, like all progress, it is up up and down, then again up up and down. Thanks to retro grades like Putin and Trump. As to health indenture -that form of slavery is primarily in USA. Most other countries have figured it out. I agree with hope for the future though. Star Trek, not Star Wars!

Globally this is true because of improvements in developing countries. Not uniform improvement everywhere. Some places backslide.

Re: Open letter accuses BBC board member of having a conflict of interest on Gaza

#110

Post by forgotoldacc »

YZF wrote: post #102
forgotoldacc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran isn't an ally of any country in the west. The west says "Iran is an awful, oppressive country" basically daily. What's new to report there? They're already economically cut off from most of the world. There's not much else for us to do. Israel is an ally of every country in the west. People say "stop criticizing them because you can't do that until you complain about every other problem on earth first!" and it's…

Most of the west is definitely not Israel's ally based on their lack of support. The US does support Israel but this is a story about the UK. The UK does not support Israel and even partially boycotts Israel at the moment. If you're American then your tax money e.g. funds Egypt. Egypt is a dictatorship, no human rights, involved in the Sudan civil war where millions are dying. Not a beep on Hacker News. EDIT: Not to…

The Prime Minister of the UK recently said he supported Israel's attacks on Iran. The UK even helps arm Israel. [1] Not sure what the basis of your claims are but they're quite different from reality.

And I apologize in advance to any Egyptian readers out there, but Egypt has a very low reputation these days. I've not once seen a positive comment about the country in these past 10 years. Nobody is flooding in to defend Egypt when their problems are brought up and saying "Before you criticize Egypt, what about..."

And if you hold your country to the standards of, as you said, oppressive dictatorships that support brutal wars, that's a low standard and will attract criticism.

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/07/uk-sent-isra...

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