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Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai speech

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Re: Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai speech

#71

Everyone loves the "free Palestine" slogan, but I've never actually seen the people who call it offer a concrete realistic solution that could achieve that - is it a two state solution? Is it a one state solution that will burst into a civil war? What's the plan? What does it actually look like? I still think a two state solution is the only realistic plan.

It's a fashion statement for some people I've found. Like the Anarchy symbol on a T-Shirt. I've run in to people with such a hard line opinion on the matter who couldn't even point to where Palestine is a on a map.

Re: Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai speech

#72

Seems this has more to do with Palestine and Google's involvement with Israel to provide cloud computing.

In this seemingly forever argument, it seems there is some nuance in that Palestine is not Hamas and vice versa. One of the perspectives as I understand it is that Hamas is actually a threat to the existence of Palestine; the militaristic behaviour undermines Palestinian efforts at independence (and this is an avenue for exploitation by those who don't want to see an independent Palestine). It is a similar situation…

There's simply no excuse for what Israel has been doing and everyone with a functioning moral compass should be denouncing it. Debating about Hamas is a distraction. They have a right to defend their country, but not treating a whole population as collateral damage.

Re: Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai speech

#73

Everyone loves the "free Palestine" slogan, but I've never actually seen the people who call it offer a concrete realistic solution that could achieve that - is it a two state solution? Is it a one state solution that will burst into a civil war? What's the plan? What does it actually look like? I still think a two state solution is the only realistic plan.

Let's start by Israel no longer committing a genocide on the Palestinians and go from there.

Most "free Palestine" protestors probably don't care an awful lot about the final outcome of the conflict, they just want the mass killing of innocent people to stop.

There's a reason the movement only flared up when Israel started carpet bombing Gaza, and not during the mostly-quiet years before.

Re: Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai speech

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this seemingly forever argument, it seems there is some nuance in that Palestine is not Hamas and vice versa. One of the perspectives as I understand it is that Hamas is actually a threat to the existence of Palestine; the militaristic behaviour undermines Palestinian efforts at independence (and this is an avenue for exploitation by those who don't want to see an independent Palestine). It is a similar situation…

There's simply no excuse for what Israel has been doing and everyone with a functioning moral compass should be denouncing it. Debating about Hamas is a distraction. They have a right to defend their country, but not treating a whole population as collateral damage.

I agree with your first sentence.

The rest is the messy middle around which negotiation is required for any form of minimal co-existence.

Re: Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai speech

#75
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this seemingly forever argument, it seems there is some nuance in that Palestine is not Hamas and vice versa. One of the perspectives as I understand it is that Hamas is actually a threat to the existence of Palestine; the militaristic behaviour undermines Palestinian efforts at independence (and this is an avenue for exploitation by those who don't want to see an independent Palestine). It is a similar situation…

No, it's actually really simple. You start with these two questions: 1. Is Israel an apartheid state? 2. Is Israel committing a genocide? At this point (IMHO) you need to do some serious mental gymnastics not to answer "yes" to both questions. As soon as you do, it gets real simple. The existence of Hamas doesn't justify either of these things. The people who bring this up are engaging in respectability politics or e…

While I actually have sympathy for people on both sides of the struggle, I also find it hard to answer "yes" to both questions, mostly because of how muddied the definitions of everything are. It's obvious to me, that both the Israeli government and Hamas are both committing serious warcrimes, and that there no good actors here, here are some questions I don't have an answer to.

For example, is Palestine its own country? Is Hamas is its rightful government? Does that extend to the West Bank or only in Gaza? Palestinians seem to say that Palestine is its own country, Israelis say that Palestinians are not a part of Israel - so how can it be an apartheid state if BOTH sides say they aren't part of the same country at all?

Is Israel committing a genocide? Well, what does a genocide look like? Israel is still distributing food in Gaza, to this day. I don't think it would look like this, but at the same time, there are terrorists on both sides (Itamar ben-Gvir being the most prominent on the Israeli side, in my opinion).

There are more issues and questions and uncertainty around the problems in Israel, Palestine, the Levant as a whole, Iran's involvement and so on.

Even worse, for most Israelis (who are 70% of Arab descent), the country of Israel no longer existing could mean a real genocide for the Israel side! (A counter-genocide?) Regardless, if this issue were easy to solve, it would have been solved already.

Honestly, the situation seems to complicated to boil down to two "simple" questions and I admire that you can have such an "obvious" outlook, but the more I look at Israel and the Middle East (and read, and research), the more questions I have.

Re: Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai speech

#76
post #2

Tech leaders from this era will not be remembered well.

That is a bold prediction

It doesn't seem like a stretch. I don't know what you mean.

(You may disagree with the opinion of course, but "bold" is a counterintuitive adjective here)

Re: Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai speech

#77
post #53
post #2

Tech leaders from this era will not be remembered well.

I wonder which spectrum Steve Jobs would be on if he was still alive to this day.

Hate him or not, Steve Jobs understood humans. He spoke and behaved as a human. He was flawed and may be considered "cringey" now, but I think he'd be liked better than the rest.

Re: Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai speech

#78

Everyone loves the "free Palestine" slogan, but I've never actually seen the people who call it offer a concrete realistic solution that could achieve that - is it a two state solution? Is it a one state solution that will burst into a civil war? What's the plan? What does it actually look like? I still think a two state solution is the only realistic plan.

Unless the people who shout “Free Palestine” are part of the Knesset or Hamas, I don’t think their offering of a “concrete realistic solution” matters one bit.

[deleted]

Re: Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai speech

#79
post #49
post #2

Tech leaders from this era will not be remembered well.

There's two opposing forces at work. Everyone wants to be Steve Jobs, and no one wants to be Steve Ballmer. So the only choice is to go to the extreme to stay as far away from the other end as possible.

I'd take Steve Ballmer over most of the current big-tech CEOs, to be honest.

Re: Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai speech

#80
post #73

Everyone loves the "free Palestine" slogan, but I've never actually seen the people who call it offer a concrete realistic solution that could achieve that - is it a two state solution? Is it a one state solution that will burst into a civil war? What's the plan? What does it actually look like? I still think a two state solution is the only realistic plan.

Let's start by Israel no longer committing a genocide on the Palestinians and go from there. Most "free Palestine" protestors probably don't care an awful lot about the final outcome of the conflict, they just want the mass killing of innocent people to stop. There's a reason the movement only flared up when Israel started carpet bombing Gaza, and not during the mostly-quiet years before.

[deleted]
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