261–270 of 832 posts
HN let this one fall through the cracks I guess. Usually this article would get flagged in under 10 minutes of being up.
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All of the arguments I've seen supporting this attack focus on the idea that it's fine to kill and maim civilians including children as long as you will probably get some combatants. It's a little bit open to interpretation, I guess, and I'm not a legal expert so fine, ok. But booby trapping mundane daily objects accessible to non-combatants is a clear violation of international law. No real room for leeway or interp…
The prohibitions on booby-traps are that they're indiscriminant, not that they involve mundane objects. I totally get the instinct to condemn the attack, since it's truly, deeply viscerally horrifying (not to mention terrifying!), but most of the rules about how you're supposed to conduct war basically boil down to 1. Make a reasonable effort to avoid disproportionately harming civilians 2. Don't go out of your way t…
(I agree the targeting per se seems to have been remarkably good for the world of asynchronous warfare—or even conventional warfare)
There are a few different angles to this. 1. If any other state had done this, we'd be correctly calling this a terrorist attack and there wouldn't be any question about it; and 2. Palantir was a partner in developing several AI systems used for targeting missile strikes in Gaza. Collectively these tend to be called Lavender [1][2]. Another of these systems is called "Where's Daddy". What does it do? It targets alleg…
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So, what exactly did Palantir provide? I'm staying out of commenting whether or not this was legal/justified and asking strictly what service this was that was sold. Is this like, live location information provided from social media/carriers/etc? Is it AI guessing who might be a target based on collected data? EDIT: I ask because this sort of claim could just be marketing on Panantir's end and the quotes and this pos…
Most likely as a data lakehouse, but the Palantir angle is most likely overstated - Palantir has a tiny presence in Israel, and has had a history of overstating it's intel and defense credentials (eg. A three letter agency that churned Palantir was named for years after before they stopped calling them out). That said, I have heard some positive feedback about Palantir's data integration capabilities - most other ven…
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For the IDF, a 28.6% civilian death rate is actually quite good. Their own classified data reveals an 83% civilian casualty rate in Gaza—nearly three times worse. The Lebanon pager attack: 12 civilians (including 2 children) killed out of 42 total deaths (28.6% civilian casualty rate). Gaza genocide: Leaked IDF intelligence documents show 8,900 militants killed out of 53,000 total deaths as of May 2025 (83% civilian…
According to Hezbollah sources 1500 of their terrorists were taken out of commission due to this attack. Making the death ratio 42/1500 or 3% while if only taking the civilian ratio that's even lower. Even the 12 civilian count is probably higher than reality because it is doubtful that 12 civilians had access to a military clandestine communication device https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hezbollahs-tunnels.…
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1. There aren't a lot of dead civilians given that this was a 2 year war fought in a built-up urban environment fought against a plainclothes terrorist enemy that violated every law of war, including using hospitals and schools as military bases. 2. Semites is not an ethnicity, it's a language family, sorry. When used colloquially it has always referred to Jews. 3. “Semitic” is a language group, not a racial caste. J…
> 1. There aren't a lot of dead civilians given that... It's amazing how similarly zionists/israelis and nazis rationalize. > 2. Semites is not an ethnicity, it's a language family, sorry. When used colloquially it has always referred to Jews. "Semitic people or Semites is a term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group[2][3][4][5] associated with people of the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, including Akkadians (…
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The brilliance in the targeting was in doing pagers, which are disproportionately carried by doctors and other medical workers. One of the most effective acts of terrorism in history.
> One of the most effective acts of terrorism in history. It's what "israel" specializes in. When you read the history of "israel", it's literally a series of acts of terrorism.
So, what exactly did Palantir provide? I'm staying out of commenting whether or not this was legal/justified and asking strictly what service this was that was sold. Is this like, live location information provided from social media/carriers/etc? Is it AI guessing who might be a target based on collected data? EDIT: I ask because this sort of claim could just be marketing on Panantir's end and the quotes and this pos…
Most likely as a data lakehouse, but the Palantir angle is most likely overstated - Palantir has a tiny presence in Israel, and has had a history of overstating it's intel and defense credentials (eg. A three letter agency that churned Palantir was named for years after before they stopped calling them out). That said, I have heard some positive feedback about Palantir's data integration capabilities - most other ven…
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OK, sure. How 'bout this one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221729 Or this one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221631 Or this one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221972
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221729 sounds like cross-examining to me. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221631 is not flagged. That might be because we'd already turned off flags on it (I can't remember). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46221972 I agree should not be flagged and I've unflagged it.
In threads that are, unfortunately, adversarial, abusing the flag button is a stable Nash equilibrium. I think it's a shitty equilibrium, though, and makes real, substantive conversations--ostensibly the goal on this forum--harder to achieve.
I think it's high time to reconsider the current 'flag' mechanics. At the very least I think we would all be better off if flags were simply disabled on highly controversial topics.