The United States withdraws from UNESCO • Hacker News Board

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#401

Post by DSingularity » Tue, Jul 22, 2025, 3:54 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #396

dijit wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden and the US are “kinda cozy” (I would say at least, from an inside perspective on how Sweden seems to lean in to US interests including copyright enforcements and so forth). However Sweden was the first country to recognise Palestine. Is it possible that the pulling out of UNESCO is further in-line with Trumps “we want to focus on America” fluff, similar to the threats of pulling out of NATO and the actual pull…

So far all independent verifications of the gaza health ministry’s numbers have found that they under-report the death toll. And i’m not sure how your sweden example says anything about the US supporting israel’s genocide? Was there something you expected to happen when sweden recognized palestine?

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Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#402

Post by ilaksh » Tue, Jul 22, 2025, 3:54 PM UTC

DemiGuru wrote: post #265

ilaksh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a worldview that is so different it is effectively an alternate reality. This mostly comes from seeing different information streams or being in different social circles.

The same could be said of any worldview. So tell me—what part of UNESCO’s decision to admit the “State of Palestine” as a Member State strikes you as objectively righteous?

I didn't say I thought it was objectively righteous. I didn't say anything about my worldview.

It seems objective that many civilians have been killed and a lot of land stolen.

But my point is that things that seem objective to one group of people might be objectively false to another group.

Which isn't to say that there is no real truth. Just that the premises people hold are so different that the worlds are not compatible.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#403

Post by cogman10 » Tue, Jul 22, 2025, 3:54 PM UTC

eldaisfish wrote: post #331

cogman10 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that politics, particularly in the US, tends to push people into binary thinking. I certainly do not love the Trump admin and think Kamala would easily do better. However, that does not mean the Trump admin has done nothing I agree with. There are nice parts to the OBBB that directly benefit me. Further, I think the approach to H1Bs, removing the lottery and instead basing it on salary, is the right mo…

a more appropriate way of looking at this would be incentives. Who, in the government, stands to benefit from revising the H1B system? Even if you agree with the action, you may not not agree with the motivation. Your line of thinking is like saying that the British Raj was terrible for India, but the British built railways, which was a good thing. Good and bad do not exist in isolation. The British built railways in…

I disagree, outcome matters more than incentives IMO. Every policy and regulation will create winners and losers. The incentives for doing so matter in they drive which policies get written, but you can't use those incentives to determine if a policy is ultimately good or not.

Back to the british railway example. You are correct that it was there to more efficiently extract wealth (bad). But that does not mean that rails aren't hugely beneficial to the population in general. Roads in the US exist primarily to aid in rapid shipping, that doesn't mean roads are a bad thing because a company like Amazon gets the majority of the benefit.

It's a basically non-existent politician that does something purely out of the goodness of their own hearts. In a democracy, it's the role of the electorate to try and remove politicians from power who refuse to provide benefits to the citizens as a whole.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#404

Post by DSingularity » Tue, Jul 22, 2025, 3:55 PM UTC

Workaccount2 wrote: post #381

kennywinker wrote: post #251

The US is complicit in the intentional starvation of gaza’s people by israel. At least 15 people have starved to death in the last 24 hours, including an infant. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-gaza-war-hunger-childre... Ragequitting UNESCO over their recognition of palestine is a small part of the project of supporting the ethnic cleansing of gaza and the west bank.

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Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#405

Post by eapressoandcats » Tue, Jul 22, 2025, 3:55 PM UTC

kennywinker wrote: post #251

The US is complicit in the intentional starvation of gaza’s people by israel. At least 15 people have starved to death in the last 24 hours, including an infant. https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-gaza-war-hunger-childre... Ragequitting UNESCO over their recognition of palestine is a small part of the project of supporting the ethnic cleansing of gaza and the west bank.

This was less true before Trump’s return. It’s frustrating that people said they wouldn’t support Biden/Harris over this and now instead we get essentially full-throated endorsement of genocide instead.

Like there were always practical limits to how much the US could constrain Israel, especially due to its relative popularity until recently. A bunch of activists didn’t recognize that and tacitly endorsed letting Trump win and now here we are.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#406

Post by csours » Tue, Jul 22, 2025, 3:55 PM UTC

cooper_ganglia wrote: post #387

pkilgore wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama didn't do anything (other than follow the law at the time): https://web.archive.org/web/20141224180231/https://foreignpo...

Sure, it was a Democrat president enforcing laws passed by a Democrat-controlled House and Senate in 1990 and 1994, under at least one Democrat president. There are no real "sides" when it comes to the U.S. and Israel. Every party bends the knee and kisses the wall. It’s one big club, and we’re not in it.

Excuses and explanations can feel the same. I do not intend this to be an excuse, but a partial explanation. Before the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, there was a feeling of a possibility of peace in some form; in this context, those laws could be viewed as the stick of a carrot and stick approach.

At this point in time, you can make your own determination about how that has worked out.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#407

Post by marcosdumay » Tue, Jul 22, 2025, 3:55 PM UTC

glitchc wrote: post #150

lvl155 wrote: post #40

And it’s wild to think that more than 1/3 of the devs I’ve met in my life support this admin. These are seemingly smart people. The past 10 years or so made me realize I don’t know anything about human nature or intellect. Edit: I am in no way saying conservatism is bad and liberalism is good. I have my values in both.

The online space (Reddit, HN, others) is so deeply embedded with groupthink that people have lost the ability to see other points of view or debate topics of interest. To me it's very clear why the government is leaving UNESCO (and over time the UN at large). The UN is dysfunctional and does not work. It used to be a source of soft power for the States, but hasn't been so for the better part of this century. Meanwhil…

> The UN is dysfunctional and does not work.

Says the person using an international communication network orchestrated by the UN...

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#408

Post by pxc » Tue, Jul 22, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

glitchc wrote: post #174

esseph wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the US the only country in the world denying Israeli crimes in Gaza? That's how I know the UN no longer matters.

Because the rest of the world denies Palestinian crimes in Israel.

Resistance of occupation, including violent resistance, is not a crime under international law.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#409

Post by zakum1 » Tue, Jul 22, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

There is no role for the USA in multi-lateral organizations - the USA has made this clear for decades now - it should withdraw from all of them and let the rest of the world get on with creating a world that is based on the dignity of all people.

Re: The United States withdraws from UNESCO

#410

Post by trealira » Tue, Jul 22, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

ShadowBanThis03 wrote: post #303

Loughla wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's different perspectives, I've come to learn. The people I know who support this regime do so because they feel completely left out (they're low income so I'm not sure that applies to software developers). When there's nothing for you why wouldn't you want to just burn it all down? Then you can build a more "fair" system. Please note that I do not agree with literally anything current admin does, this is just the…

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Because he talks like them, and they know he's a scumbag, but he's their scumbag, which they sic on the people they hate most: the vermin liberals, the immigrants poisoning the blood of the country, the parasitic federal workers whose lives they want to make miserable, the trans people they deem as all predatory groomers, the academics and scientists they're defunding because it's all woke. It's about taking their lump of flesh. They excuse the open corruption as at least being open corruption, since they assume everyone else is ten times as corrupt behind closed doors. That's why they were fine withholding disaster relief from blue states in 2020.

It makes me angry as hell. They hate us and you can't say anything about it because if you're not nice enough to them, they act like you're being mean to them and the personal reason they'll continue to vote for people that demonize and hate you.