Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stanford grads walk out on Google CEO Sundar Pichai speech

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 313 posts

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

#81

Post by ergocoder »

neaden wrote: post #44
ergocoder wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The protest isn't about Hamas/Palestine. It's about criticizing what Israel is doing.

I was answering why you don't see people protesting Hamas, which is what you brought up. If you didn't want to discuss that, then you shouldn't have brought it up.

But the protest isn't about who funds whom. It's about criticizing what Israel is doing.

> If you didn't want to discuss that, then you shouldn't have brought it up.

I want to discuss it but you misunderstand the topic and seem angry based on your own misunderstanding.

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

#82

Post by jmyeet »

ameminator wrote: post #75
jmyeet wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 coun…

The definitions aren't muddled. Apartheid [1] and genocide [2] are both defined by the UN. Apartheid in particular is also objectively true. Do Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Jewish Israelis? No, objectively [3][4].

As for Palestine being its own country, it clearly isn't. Palestinians live on land claimed by Israel and recognized by pretty much every country in the world. But what if it was? Then Israel is illegally occupying it. Is that better? Why does this matter? Does one make the treatment of Gazans (in particular) more acceptable?

> 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!

You can't use a theoretical future genocide to justify a current actual genocide. Also, it's ahistorical. Did this happen when apartheid South Africa ended? What about slavery? No, what actually happened was the former oppressors continued to commit violence against the previously oppressed.

[1]: https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/cspca/cspca.html

[2]: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/...

[3]: https://decolonizepalestine.com/myth/all-israelis-are-equal/

[4]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-...

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

#83

Post by ergocoder »

8note wrote: post #46
ergocoder wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen any protest by students that protested against Palestine. In fact, at University of Washington, a protest was organized to support Palestine after the Oct 7 massacre on Oct 8; they chose to show support Palestine after Palestine did a massacre. And there was a very little criticism on that kind of actions.

is oct 7th actually comparable to what israel has done to Palestinians over time? sure it was reprehensible, but is it on the same scale even? both before and after? criticising hamas seems like premature optimization, and picking something basically irrelevant to the overall conflict

> sure it was reprehensible

Exactly, and organizing a support for Palestine immediately after Palestine committed a massacre is NOT okay.

> criticising hamas seems like premature optimization

Are you saying we shouldn't criticize Palestine?

> picking something basically irrelevant to the overall conflict

Why do I have to pick? Why do you need to pick?

We can criticize both. Both are evil in different aspects.

Why do you have so much issue with criticizing the evilness of Palestine?

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

#84

Post by ergocoder »

nujabe wrote: post #60
filoleg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only one side is being armed and funded by our tax dollars I mean, yeah, I would heavily prefer for one of the sides in this conflict to be much better funded and armed than the other. Specifically, the side that I consider to be fundamentally in the right in the conflict. Whichever side I am talking about is not relevant to the point. What's relevant to the actual point I am trying to make, is that I don't think t…

> I would heavily prefer for one of the sides in this conflict to be much better funded and armed than the other. Most Americans would prefer that we fund neither. And this isn’t 2012, majority of Americans today do not see Israeli’s, who steal, spy on and try to get Americans killed through wars they start as the “good guys”.

> Most Americans would prefer that we fund neither.

I'd say, based on the latest election result, this isn't true.

Trump was basically like: I'm gonna fuck up Palestine. They'd better watch it. He was always clear about this.

And then he won every single swing state and even won popular vote.

Not that I agree with Trump. I merely state what I've observed.

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

#85

Post by Freedom2 »

sva_ wrote: post #15

I wonder what percentage of total graduates walked out? The video shows maybe around 50 people at all. The title makes it seem like everyone graduating walked out.

Which part of the title indicates that everyone walked out? I assumed it was merely some of the cohort.

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

#88

Post by seanmcdirmid »

yodsanklai wrote: post #72
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #47

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.

Wait, you mean there is “no excuse for what Israel is doing” and “Hamas kidnapping and murdering Israelis” was just a distraction?

This is why we should just move on to EVs and stop getting involved at all in the Middle East. I see no morally right way of engaging with either side. Both positions seem to end in “let one side genocide the other side.”

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

#89

Post by donsupreme »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #47
gritspants wrote: post #4

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…

I am tired boss

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

#90

Post by gmerc »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #88
yodsanklai wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wait, you mean there is “no excuse for what Israel is doing” and “Hamas kidnapping and murdering Israelis” was just a distraction? This is why we should just move on to EVs and stop getting involved at all in the Middle East. I see no morally right way of engaging with either side. Both positions seem to end in “let one side genocide the other side.”

That’s not an excuse. Kidnapping is a police problem. Not a genocide problem.
Post reply on HN