Having a good grasp of complex systems doesn't make one avoid the shortcomings that have created modern genocides and industrialized society, etc. In fact I'd argue that deep knowledge of complex systems makes a politician even more competent at causing harm on massive scales.
Knowledge does not make one moral.
Also, smarter folks understand that in hyper-complex structure like our global society, or on smaller nation scale, how good and freedom is something that's rare and practically unique for our current times, and should be protected at (almost) any cost since its loss may not be easily reversible for generations. Simpler folks care only about their own situation, bigger concepts are an afterthought at best.
Also, its much easier to spot manipulators and liars, typical populists these days really can't wrap their manipulation in some clever package that requires detailed analysis to unwrap, at least not most of them (and usually that's enough). When you can easily detect lies and twisting of truth you know who you deal with, you can assess both/multiple sides and weight on who is who much closer to actual truth.
Morality doesn't become some fancy foreign inconvenient concept but understanding how things that go around come around, always, and how only so you can build strong free society with bright future. And so on.
But also much more capable of manipulating others via the same sorts of tricks, that's my point.
Anyway, the real problem is parsing out the information in a way that reflects reality - what is presented on screens passes through many filters before it gets to us: corporate, military, governmental, not too mention all the people that are only able to see the world in the way that their education allows.
As a fellow software developer, let me challenge both claims.
Regarding genocide, there is zero evidence of that. We can tell that by comparing the number of civilian victims whenever Russia bombs Ukraine, with the number of civilian victims when Israel bombs Gaza or Lebanon. While there is no excuse for "collateral damage" (that's the Western term, I'm sure Russians have a similar euphemism), and one civilian victim is one too many, it is clear that Russia is targeting infrastructure and not humans. It is throwing many more, and more powerful bombs than Israel and doing orders of magnitude fewer civilian victims. This (false) narrative may have worked, had the conflict between Israel and Palestine not restarted, providing a grim yet useful comparison point.
Regarding the first statement, the extent to which Ukraine was disarmed is subject to debate. After all, demilitarization is an explicit goal of the Russia invasion. The main reason Russia invaded Ukraine is to prevent it from being used as a NATO-powered bulwark against Russia in the future, as America often does with its "allies". According to your own morality, if this prevents a future invasion of the sort you decry, wouldn't it be morally justified to some extent?
Russia is targeting both. In particular, Russia targets glide bombs without precision at cities. There are also cases like Bucha, where people were rounded up and killed. And the execution of POWs.
Keep in mind that Gaza is both more concentrated, and it doesn’t have air defense systems like Ukraine does.
And their civilians are holding it wrong. /s
On the other point, Russia intends to hold the territory and integrate the civilian population they conquer while Israel seems less interested in incorporating Gazans as equal Israeli citizens any time soon. (Not defending Russia but I suspect the different motives lead to different outcomes).
Israel doesn't want to control Gaza. Israel want to coexist peacefully with it and has been willing to go very far and take risks to achieve that.
This is very clear when you study its relation with Egypt, Jordan and Gaza.
The fact that Jordan and Egypt has not seen a single attack after they stopped attacking Israel is well known.
On the topic of Gaza it seems to be a lot of confusion, but here are some details people often leave out:
- Israel voluntarily left Gaza in anticipation of a permanent peace deal
- Israel wanted Gaza to succeed and forcefully removed their own people
- Israel left infrastructure behind
- Israel, in the beginning, had relatively open borders towards Gaza
- There was hospital cooperation so people could easily be rushed from Gaza to Israeli hospitals to save lives
- Gradually the borders have been closed more and more. Each of these restrictions have a reason written in blood.
- Yes, that includes the reasons why ambulances are not allowed to cross into Israel without inspection, Gazan terrorists abused even that opportunity to stage attacks
- The border have been restricted more and more thanks to this, but even until 07. of October last year, people could live in Gaza and work in Israel
- Israel left infrastructure behind
I think it's good to apply Mearsheimer's realist thinking here, and the intention is obviously clear that Israel does not want peace with Gaza as that would require recognition of a Palestinian state as the PLO had wanted since the 70s, which is a non-starter. Instead, as Israel has recognized, it is in its best interest to ethnically cleanse Gaza, either through outright murder of tens of thousands of civilians or rendering the strip uninhabitable to force the Gazans out. Many Gazans live in tents since their homes were destroyed by the Israeli military, and I doubt Israel will allow for any meaningful reconstruction once the war on Gaza is over, and will probably welcome the remaining Gazans fleeing the inhospitable conditions.
This will probably also open up space for new settlements in Gaza that many politicians have already started proposing.
You have to realize that most Israelis (~75%, and this figure includes Arabs) are in favour of the war, and IIRC half are in favour of expelling the Arabs altogether. I don't think we'd see much objection to this course of events within Israel itself.
>The fact that Jordan and Egypt has not seen a single attack after they stopped attacking Israel is well known.
It is interesting you mention this, because during the Israeli occupation of the Sinai penninsula in 1967, Egypt attempted to resolve the issue diplomatically, mediated by Gunnar Jarring. Their request was simply the Sinai in return for recognition of Israel and cessation of hostilities. Israel refused these conditions. Egypt eventually attacked in October 1973 and (much to Israel's surprise) was able to retake enough of the Sinai to call Israel's military domination into question. I think Rabin said that Egypt was enough of a threat that it needed to be neutralized, which is what the Camp David Accords did. It was literally through attacking Israel that Egypt was able to achieve the diplomatic solution it wanted from the start.
>Israel wanted Gaza to succeed and forcefully removed their own people
The Palestinians materially gained nothing from disengagement (in fact, they were blockaded and bombed during Cast Lead and Pillar of Defense despite the "disengagement"), but the Israelis were able to alleviate enough American pressure for a peace process that could potentially result in Palestinian statehood. Not to mention a costly military occupation could be stopped and Jewish settlements in one of the most densely populated regions of the world (i.e. a disaster waiting to happen) could be dismantled.
I don't think benevolence towards Gazans had any role in the decision for disengagement, considering the overall Israeli indifference towards the suffering of the Gazans.
That was not Israel’s policy back in 2006. Hamas had zero interest in coexistence or the wellbeing (or lives) of the people living in Gaza. The current situation is a direct outcome of that.
I mean.. yes, if the only choice is between removing the entire population of Gaza and giving it back to Hamas it’s not that surprising that most Israeli’s are picking the first option.
I don't think the evidence favors this conclusion. Their actions immediately following 2006 suggests they definitely had quite a bit of interest - they enforced a ceasefire after 2006 (also punishing other groups that attempted to break it), and according to former President Carter were willing to accept a 2-state solution if the Palestinians democratically approved it. This was all put on hold after Cast Lead, which aligns with the Israeli policy of denying a two-state solution.
The only piece of evidence I can think of that counters this is Hamas' charter, which IIRC calls for the creation of a Palestinian state in all of former Mandatory Palestine which would imply the destruction of Israel. But even then, based on the pragmatism demonstrated above (and the openness to a two-state solution), the Hamas leadership were rational enough to realize this goal could not be achieved.
From what I see from my perspective:
Last time it was on the table the deal was so good PLO realized it could be forced into a real two state solution with peace and permanent borders.
At that time the PLO, not Israel, left the negotiating table without even a counteroffer.
For me, from all I see from the rhetoric, Arab organizations want all:
- right of return for them
- no compensation or right of return for Jews forced into Israel from surrounding areas
- no permanent borders and peace, they see it only as a first step
> as that would require recognition of a Palestinian state as the PLO had wanted since the 70s
Let's also for completeness include that PLO want to eradicate Israel, and are brazen enough to have it in their official charter.
This is not true. I am not interested in whatever labels the Israeli or Palestinians might ascribe to their agreements. There has never been an instance where the PLO was offered something that resembles a modern, economically and politically independent nation-state. The closest was in 2001 under Bill Clinton, but Israel refused the conditions set by Clinton while the PLO accepted them.
>Let's also for completeness include that PLO want to eradicate Israel, and are brazen enough to have it in their official charter.
Again, much like the Likud party's own charter, from a realist perspective this is irrelevant. What's relevant is what both parties are realistically capable of doing, and the balance of power clearly favours Israel.
https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-is...
Putin wants to destroy Ukraine as a nation and obliterate Ukrainian identity.
I invite you to pay attention to the "Evidence of genocidal intent" chapter. The same intent that Israel lacks.
The actual section of the WP article you're referring to comes to no conclusions on the matter.
It's just a giant hatchet job, a mishmash of conflicting opinions.
BECAUSE OF RUSSIAN THREAT.
NATO is just an useful scapegoat to justify Russia's imperialistic tendencies. During the period between fall of the Soviet Union and invasion of Crimea Russian businessmen here in Finland kept buying locations and buildings near military bases and strategic infrastructure, even though we had no intention whatsoever of joining NATO. They just like to subjugate their neighbours.
Synder goes further, and suggests that Putin's view that Ukraine never "really" existed, and was in essence basically a fake country (society, culture, identity) all along.
Which explains a lot of things; like how he seemed so confident that he could just plough in there, and grab pretty much as much of the country as he wanted in a few weeks. Because how could such a "non-society" possibly come together and mount an organized defense?
In any case -- it's definitely not hard to figure out. The man is practically an open book, at least in terms of his core motivations and his basic attitude toward Ukraine -- and many of his choice phrases are quite revealing. One just needs to be able to read between the lines, in certain places (and not simply take everything he says at face value).
Because Ukraine has access to modern AA and early warning systems. Russia is still indiscriminately shooting at civilian targets it’s just that they have a much harder time hitting anyone than the Israelis.
Also there are hardly any actual military targets in Lebanon and Gaza because the local terrorists couldn’t care less about the civilian population there (not that this fact absolves Israel of anything)
> used as a NATO-powered bulwark against Russia
Deranged paranoid delusions… NATO, EU and USA couldn’t care less about somehow attacking or invading Russia. That’s just as absurd as it gets.
> America often does with its "allies"
When exactly did they do that in Europe?
"Knocking people's heads together" doesn't work on people who have the entire military force of their country at their disposal. Such heads are basically un-knockable. Unfortunately one of the things that the state as an institution is really good at is projection of force; and outside democracies which divide power in a state deliberately, that force usually answers to a single person and their whim, or, at best, a small inner circle of people.
And frankly, I trust scientists even less when it comes to politics that anyone else. Khmer Rouge was an academic enterprise. There isn't really a reason why an educated person should have any better sense of morality than a random farmer from the bush. When I look at the activity of the IT giants, it is 50 shades of moral grey underlined by stuffing their pockets and trying to project a cool vibe. It seems to contradict your idea of superior morality in the IT circles.
Really. I's say sense of delusion. I think that ratio of assholes to normal is about the same in highly educated vs your regular factory workers.
>"I really hope some of us will branch out into politics or other power-positions in those institutions, and start knocking people's heads together."
Sure. PhD in physics, that's all it takes for politicians to fix everything. This is delirium
Maybe there being so much money in programming changed that a bit. It seems like it was worse when people become programmers out of interest mainly.
Gee, when you put it like that, why are we waiting to conscript my only son and send him to die in foreign lands?
Clinton fucked up. He was a bad president more concerned with getting his dick sucked by interns than doing things correctly. Ukraine should have kept its nukes (some of them, don't need 6000), and if they had none of this would be happening. Maybe Putin would've called the bluff and Moscow would be a glowing crater, but then it would have ended. But I guess he "felt your pain" so that was good right? Enlightened self-interest, and rational strategy. These things save more lives than compassion ever have.
Pity about it costing money though. :(
>I'll be quite clear about it: a nuclear superpower invaded a disarmed neighbor, and is currently committing genocide on its territory. This is unquestionably, unconscionably, unacceptably wrong.
It surely is your amazing grasp of complex systems that allows you to make such a 2-dimensional assessment of the situation. Can I vote for you as World Controller right now?
Surely there were many complex causes which resulted in Germany invading Poland back in 1939, and Poland itself at the time was a deeply flawed state in quite a few ways?
So of course you would also say that that event could not be described as “unquestionably, unconscionably, unacceptably wrong”?
Having read various opinions expressed on HN about politics, history, physics, medicine, and so forth, I'm pretty sure that we don't. Coding is not that difficult and many here are quick to say that they learned nothing of use to them in college.
I've also read posts from credible people suggesting that worse things are happening on territories still under Russian occupation. If those (unconfirmed) rumors are true, they would be the horrifying atrocities with genocidal intent since WW2.
The same tragic, traumatic events are being "rhymed" now in Ukraine. Yeah, perhaps we're tired of hearing it - but I'm writing this because after 110 years of industrialized warfare, our institutions and systems have still not restructured themselves to prevent these cascades of events. The consequences are unspeakably terrible (read the article!).
I'll be quite clear about it: a nuclear superpower invaded a disarmed neighbor, and is currently committing genocide on its territory. This is unquestionably, unconscionably, unacceptably wrong. (I won't mention the situation in Gaza, because that situation is far more complex and horrendously polarized.)
More than any other profession, many of us - as software developers, mathematicians, scientists - have a better grasp of complex systems. And most of us on HN have a healthy, deeply internalized sense of morality. I really hope some of us will branch out into politics or other power-positions in those institutions, and start knocking people's heads together.
I'm constantly - deeply - appalled, at the ghastliness of what's happening right now while we chat, work, and play in our separate worlds. Humanity can do better.