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Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

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Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#521
post #485

Know Amjad from years ago. We're on the opposite sides of ideological barricades, but he's no terrorist sympathizer. Just a man who loves his people. He seemed extremely pragmatic too-- if he ran Gaza it'd be an economic paradise by now.

He doesn't seem pragmatic because everything I read about him or any time I hear from him it's about this geopolitical issue. Doesn't he have a company to run? What's the point of making this front and center part of your personality. His thoughts on the war in Gaza is literally the only thing I know about him. That and him firing an intern about a weekend project. It's all just exhausting. How is that pragmatic? If…

It sounds like you're mainly responding and reacting to what people (and media) choose to write about him (a narrative revolving around his political beliefs), rather than how he (mostly) goes about his day to day.

Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#522

Are we still doing these kinds of lionizing puff pieces after SBF, Holmes, Musk and all the others? By now, I consider being featured in one a negative signal.

You've got to admit Holmes is an interesting character though.

Nah I find her typical of the silicon valley variant who chases VC money without any sense of business or product development experience.

Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#523
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an example? I've studied quite a bit of Hertzel and what I mainly remember repeated to us is "We shall never discriminate between one man and another; We shall never ask 'what is your religion?' nor 'what is your race?'. For us it is enough that he is a human being." and "My will to the People of Israel: create your country in such a way, that the non-Jew will feel good to be your neighbour".

Sure: In a diary entry from June 12, 1895, Herzl detailed his plan: "We shall try to spirit the penniless [Palestinian] population across the border by denying it any employment in our own country... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly".

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Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#524
post #485

Know Amjad from years ago. We're on the opposite sides of ideological barricades, but he's no terrorist sympathizer. Just a man who loves his people. He seemed extremely pragmatic too-- if he ran Gaza it'd be an economic paradise by now.

He doesn't seem pragmatic because everything I read about him or any time I hear from him it's about this geopolitical issue. Doesn't he have a company to run? What's the point of making this front and center part of your personality. His thoughts on the war in Gaza is literally the only thing I know about him. That and him firing an intern about a weekend project. It's all just exhausting. How is that pragmatic? If…

[deleted]

Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#525
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to hear an argument for this being true that doesn't involve counting all of the deaths caused by Sunni-Shia sectarian violence in Iraq, suicide bombings in civilian markets, ISIS etc. as caused by America.

Well there's Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya etc which would tally ~300k civilian deaths alone. Given the blatantly false pretences that America invaded Iraq under, and the sectarian violence that significantly flared post-Saddam, I don't see why you'd not want to involve Iraq in the stats?

Let's not forget Laos and Cambodia, where unexploded munitions dumped by the US decades ago are killing and maiming people even today - https://www.humanium.org/en/unexploded-bombs-still-endanger-...

Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say this as if the side you're advocating for didn't start the war by killing over a thousand civilians. Just in general, asserting that everyone will agree with your side in the future is such a bizarre rhetorical tactic. Do you honestly think this convinces anybody to reconsider their position?

My point equally applies to everyone who condones violence to achieve some end goal. Jeanette Rankin was vilified for her lone dissenting vote against war, yet decades later she is among the few of her contemporaries to have a statue in the Capitol to honor her dedication to pacifism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeannette_Rankin

Something to keep in mind, though, was that she was clearly wrong.

Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#527
post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure: In a diary entry from June 12, 1895, Herzl detailed his plan: "We shall try to spirit the penniless [Palestinian] population across the border by denying it any employment in our own country... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly".

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What happened is that Zionists showed up and started murdering families and stealing land. The fictional Zionist “history” is no longer sellable.

Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, all land has been taken either by direct force, or by the threat of force. All land, everywhere. It is NOT a natural right that anyone owns any land, nor that any countries exist. That is something everyone's ancestors fought each other for and created as a system of human society. Of course that's written in the past tense. Facing reality rather than the fantasy presented in history books and document…

> At some point, all land has been taken either by direct force, or by the threat of force You're broadly correct. But there is land that was settled within the historical record. The Levant, obviously, is not that. It was settled prior to the historical record. It is the coast closest to our cradle of civilisation. Every human with ancestry outside Africa has some sort of claim to lineage to that land.

You're sort of making the point though.

'within the historical record' -- No one still makes a big deal about it because it happened long enough ago.

There are places that are not widely contested today, generally most of their present borders are assumed to be generally stable. Or places with obvious natural geographic bounds and mostly internal conflict through history.

Yet at some point were those places not battled over? Even the internal conflicts count, even if as a whole the majority of a country's population of today considers themselves of one people.

The regions that remain in conflict are considered such largely because of the people who have, at some point, lived in an area long enough for it to become a notable part of their history, they have not unified as a people OF a place, but as a distinct ethnic group (be that religious or otherwise) who happened to have at some time lived in some area.

They have all been 'wronged', and all* (generally an assumption but likely to be true) have 'wronged' others (at least in 'aggressive self defense' if not in some other way) at some point.

-- put into a metaphor --

There's a public park owned by the people (earth) which has a single tree that many children have made memories with. However two or more groups of childhood friends want to continue making memories with that tree and disagree with each other and how each other interact with the tree.

What is the solution?

The evil answer from a fiction writer is to destroy the tree to remove the problem. However that does not make a right.

Using any method to give the tree to one group would be a wrong to the other groups.

The groups cannot agree on how to share, nor how to all be full adults and make memories with the tree in peaceful coexistence.

Thus, lacking an accepted answer, the problem remains unresolved.

Re: Replit founder Amjad Masad isn’t afraid of Silicon Valley

#530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No land was stolen. All land was purchased before the war. All land taken after wars was taken after wars started by the Arabs. That's always been the case with nations who lost wars. Germany lost the war and lost land because of it. Should Germany take back land that was "brutally taken from them"? Or should they maybe just accept that they shouldn't have started the war? The Germans certainly have accepted that.

If a war has finished, should the victor still be able to keep taking land off the loser? What’s the duration of that right?

Largely yes. That is a risk of starting a war.

If an aggressor is defeated, the victor gets to make demands and set terms for ending hostilities.

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