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Reflections on Palantir

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601–610 of 658 posts

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can start by removing from power the government officials who funded Hamas. After that, yes time travel could help: https://xkcd.com/209/

How will removing Benjamin change anything?

That depends on who replaces him. Do you have a better idea?

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#602
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> Is it all that repressed guilt from invading Indian lands or something? I don't think you have to look that far back to find fairly convincing arguments that the US is the architect of much of its own immigration "problems." Most illegal immigrants come to the US from Latin American countries that the US spent a lot of time interfering with in very recent history. Consider Guatemala. Democratically elected presiden…

We have the right to turn them away granted by our ability to use force, and we absolutely should if they are making our lives worse, period, end of story

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For reference, I'm willing to accept every factual statement of the article: the doctor worked in Gaza, he saw many children with bullet wounds to the head or chest, many were single shots, etc... A relative of mine is a nurse working in a hospital. I noticed a long time ago that her perspective on the statistics of illnesses is very skewed. She sees only very sick patients because -- duh -- she works in a hospital.…

Mate, idk, now you’re arguing that it’s ok for toddlers to be sniped during war as long as your government claims they were “human shields”. I literally don’t know what to say to that.

There is no way for a doctor to know from a bullet wound that someone got "sniped". All bullets lodged in the body look the same, whether they just happened to run in the path of fire, or if a a sniper targeted them on purpose.

This -- this -- is precisely the emotion-laden but evidence-free language that I'm trying to warn people from avoiding. It doesn't help your cause (whatever it is) to misrepresent, assume, or just make things up. People will see through it and stop listening to you. I've largely stopped listening to propaganda coming from Russia and Gaza because they're both very transparently made up bullshit.

The sad thing is that at least in the case of Gaza the plain unvarnished facts are more than enough! Israel is bombing them, they are levelling large chunks of the city, they are killing tens of thousands of children, etc...

State the facts. Don't guess. Don't interpret. Don't weave a sob story based on hearsay from very highly biased people who themselves are necessarily ignorant of the facts on the ground. The doctor didn't witness the shooting, he just dealt with the aftermath.

The facts are bad enough:

Kids are being shot in huge numbers.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#604

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, if $COMPANY is also providing munitions for "Gaza Israel blah blah", then by continuing to work for $COMPANY, you are also very much a part of that. It doesn't matter what department you are in, or the neat little Ansible scripts you get to write.

I suppose you’re also complicit in the deforestation of the Amazon, since humans did that and (I’m assuming) you’re human The point is that we should constantly demand better of our governments and leaders, but that doesn’t require throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I don’t think anyone should want to completely defund the people working on maintaining radios for EMS and 911 if they happen to work in a buildin…

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Re: Reflections on Palantir

#605
post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US intelligence agencies agreed with Israel, journalists that have never stepped foot in a Gaza hospital disagreed. I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle: just because injured combatants are taken to a hospital doesn’t necessarily mean that that hospital is a military command centre. However at least one hospital was more than likely (but not certainly!) used as such. The tunnels under the Al Haifa hospital…

The American medical professionals who served in Gaza certainly disagree with Israel. Do you believe them or do you believe the same Israel who made up "40 beheaded babies"? > The 99 signatories to this letter spent a combined 254 weeks inside Gaza’s largest hospitals and clinics. We wish to be absolutely clear: not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other h…

Are they working in these hospitals only with the approval and permission of HAMAS, or are they free to voice an independent opinion without fear of reprisal from armed militants in the middle of a war where a doctor with their head blown off is just a statistic?

I'm not just saying this as an argument, this kind of bias in reporting from volunteers in war zones is common. There was some war in Africa where medics from Doctors Without Borders got in serious trouble because they spoke up about atrocities. If I remember correctly, some were abducted and/or killed. I do remember the head of MSF saying in an interview that they have a policy of keeping quiet because "that's what it takes to be allowed to provide services" under those conditions.

Also: "not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities".

Israel was saying that HAMAS had built tunnels under the hospitals, which doctors would not have been allowed into and would not have seen. They most probably told the truth, but that truth may just what they saw... they just didn't see the tunnels.

Last but not least: How would they know if activity was "militant"? HAMAS generally does not wear uniforms!

PS: I do think that at most one hospital might have been used as a HAMAS office... for something. Quite possibly a military medical office, coordinating care for the wounded or something similar. I wouldn't be surprised if Isreali drones saw 'x' HAMAS members walk into the hospital and hence they marked it as a "HAMAS office" based on that intelligence alone. (I always assume there's idiots on both sides of a war. It's an effective and accurate model of reality.)

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mate, idk, now you’re arguing that it’s ok for toddlers to be sniped during war as long as your government claims they were “human shields”. I literally don’t know what to say to that.

There is no way for a doctor to know from a bullet wound that someone got "sniped". All bullets lodged in the body look the same, whether they just happened to run in the path of fire, or if a a sniper targeted them on purpose. This -- this -- is precisely the emotion-laden but evidence-free language that I'm trying to warn people from avoiding. It doesn't help your cause (whatever it is) to misrepresent, assume, or…

There is no way for a doctor to know from a bullet wound that someone got "sniped". All bullets lodged in the body look the same, whether they just happened to run in the path of fire, or if a a sniper targeted them on purpose.

This just doesn't make any sense.

On one hand, it's trivially correct in that no forensic information can ever tell us anything about the intent of the person who fired the bullet.

But otherwise, what you're saying just doesn't hold up to basic common sense. First, "All bullets lodged in the body" definitely do not look "the same" -- some are fragmented or marked in ways that otherwise show signs of having passed through something besides human flesh (more suggestive of an indirect hit) while others are not (suggesting a direct hit).

The circumstances of the entrance would can also say something about the bullet's approximate velocity when it entered the body, and direction of fire. Finally, the location of the wound is itself very important - a disproportionate number of people with gunshot wounds to the head tends to suggest that, well, that's where whoever was firing at them was aiming at.

Such indications may not be sufficient to determine conclusively that someone was sniped. But they do shift the overall balance of evidence, and require us to weight our probabilties for any such interpretations of what happened accordingly (in the context of other available evidence, of course).

It isn't as if the condition of the bullet and the circumstances of the wound provide no signal at all in this regard, as you're suggesting.

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#607
post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes Russia is the only country creating crisis abroad. I couldn't really name any other country that constantly does that as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Lol, you really really think that south americans being forced to emigrate to the north is putin's fault? It's entirely USA's fault, bringing up putin when talking about immigration in USA is the whatabautism part here :)

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> political parties that are using it to hide the real problems of ultra rich and corporations abusing the country Yup, same in Europe. There's constant fear mongering with racist undertones in the media about illegal immigrants and refugees, it's driving people crazy and violent against each other. All the while they're conveniently distracted from the root of their social ills.

Europe has the "pie" in form of considerable (by standards of most of the rest of the world, including US) welfare benefits. I don't think it's particularly surprising that people who have access to it today don't want to share. The legal vs illegal distinction is really mostly about that - when it's legal, it can be significantly curtailed (and the same people who are against illegal immigration saying "just go thro…

What welfare benefits? Are you living 50 years ago?

Re: Reflections on Palantir

#609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way for a doctor to know from a bullet wound that someone got "sniped". All bullets lodged in the body look the same, whether they just happened to run in the path of fire, or if a a sniper targeted them on purpose. This -- this -- is precisely the emotion-laden but evidence-free language that I'm trying to warn people from avoiding. It doesn't help your cause (whatever it is) to misrepresent, assume, or…

There is no way for a doctor to know from a bullet wound that someone got "sniped". All bullets lodged in the body look the same, whether they just happened to run in the path of fire, or if a a sniper targeted them on purpose. This just doesn't make any sense. On one hand, it's trivially correct in that no forensic information can ever tell us anything about the intent of the person who fired the bullet. But otherwi…

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Re: Reflections on Palantir

#610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will removing Benjamin change anything?

That depends on who replaces him. Do you have a better idea?

yes, better airstrike policy as a first. Eliminating hamas is important, but instead of letting israel run wild, deploy a coalition so that you can chain israel while also eliminating hamas.
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