There is a little bit of an assumption of the mad scientist here. Most scientists and engineers are very compassionate and caring people, even if many are excentric. We care about a thriving humanities department.

The psychopath cohort you’re thinking of is the executive branch, or the people who made it to sales manager.

I mean yeah the internet has proliferated stupid. But I think everyone was always stupid, but just nowhere near power.

We need a meritocratic system that is also based on modern science and social psychology, and it needs to be diverse, equitable, and inclusive too…

If it’s always been that way, how did things ever get better?

Nah, it’s all about the money. It’s literally just trolling with people lives to make money off of their inevitable fear

The only way to win, is if people who have invested money aren’t afraid of losing it. Which of course almost nobody, because when gambling the house almost always wins. Which is to say an increasingly small minority get to win the lottery of a financially free life.

People are increasingly relatively poor within their own societies particularly compared to the wealthy and ultra wealthy increasingly visible on the internet.

Charismatic autocrats have done a good job falsly directing blame for this to socialists. It’s maddening to behold people basically cheering for their own chains.

Haha, wouldn’t surprise me. Although now that ks to the supreme court the president is now infallible and above the law, so I’d be expecting Trump to have many successors waiting to stab him in the back for the chance at becoming king.

My understanding is they could work around the law if they really wanted to, but that puts the campaign at some additional risk. Kamala will probably be the candidate in the end because of this. And she’s great. Ezra Klein really helped me change my mind about her. I’d rather Taylor Swift, but I don’t think she’ll try until 2028 lol.

Sure, but that makes all the difference. You and I can believe what we want, but put us in positions of power and influence, and it matters what is corroborated before we make sweeping decisions with huge ramifications for future well being. I try to aspire to that threshold of responsibility. Otherwise, what’s the good in commenting or posting?

It’s two instances over a war that’s already been in progress for 8 months.

That’s a start then. I hope you’re wrong.

I think we’re still a long way from reasonably comparing Hamas’s use of human shields and Martyrs among their own people, to this.

I do think there are likely a very significant number of IDF soldiers who are monsters who treat Palestinians as subhuman out of pure prejudice and maybe psychopathy. Because of course there are in any military, and very likely moreso in this one. But there is insufficient evidence this applies systemically more than to a very small minority, and more in the IDF than wider Israeli society of course. But they’re still not motivated by anything specific in the culture except a long history of conflict. There is no intrinsic reason for even psychopathic Jews to be prejudiced toward Palestinians on the basis of Judaism. Not so the other way around, when there is well established hatred of Jews in Islam.

This matters, and I remain sure history will remember this following what’s to come (especially if Trump wins the election).

More than one, for a start. The accusation is that there’s a pattern. One does not a pattern make.

Maybe in terms of visuals, but they will publish the story itself if the evidence is strong. There was the story involving the hood of a car. That one I know is real.

My skepticism here should not be interpreted as some kind of stubbornness to acknowledge the IDF are committing war crimes. They absolutely are.

But I don’t think this story is what it looks like, and I am sure Al Jazeera are embellishing a lot of content that is being published on social media.

The car hood event is a sample of one. You can’t prove a pattern of behavior of a military using human shields with that. That’s not how patterns work.

I often wish people in these situations tough it out, because of they don’t, who will make the difference? Stepping down gets you one news article and then everyone forgets.

I respect his choice though, and it’s another kind of heroic to put yourself and your family’s safety first.

Why isn’t it being reported on any other news service than Al Jazeera Arabic and Commom Dreams then? Am indictment against the IDF like this would absolutely be published in Reuters or the AP and many others.

And yet that’s the narrative, not necessarily what is actually going on. There’s a reason it’s not a story published on Reuters, or AP, or even English Al Jazeera that I can find at least. There’s plenty of criticism of Israel in all of these. No reason why they wouldn’t run a story with evidence of the IDF using human shields. They ran this story after all.

It’d be fantastic to not have the dramatic music and narrative overlay and have a translated version of the original footage and any dialogue that’s going on. We have Al Jazeera to blame for that though.

It’s not a defense - I am just expressing how hard it is to really know what’s going on. It’s a good article though, and Common Dreams despite a strong liberal bias are known for factual reporting. There’s a good chance this is real, and that really sucks.

And we can trust what’s being said you think?

You’re kidding me right? This is in Arabic for a start. I don’t speak Arabic. It looks on the face of it a vague as before otherwise. Help me out here.