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alephknoll

> Those who wrote the characters of Noah and Manu probably had same ancestors or the story travelled between Levant and Indus region.

They can't have the same ancestors because one is of aryan lineage and the other is of semitic lineage.

It's more likely these cultures and peoples borrowed from the same story.

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

It was just a simple observation. You are reading into things too much. There's no need to be so defensive. Your comment hasn't upset me in the slightest ( rationally or irrationally ) and I sincerely hope you weren't offended by mine.
Do you have regret? Ever asked yourself why did I do drink coffee just before bed. Have you ever played a game and thought if I do this, then my opponent will do that, so maybe I shouldn't do that. Have you ever had a meeting or interview and you went through how to introduce yourself or conduct the interview in your head?

I have a hard time believing that there are people who have no inner dialogue. Especially in modern societies. I think it's something we all do, it's just that we didn't know there was a word for it.

Ever ask yourself, why did I waste so much time on HN or other social media? Then you probably have an inner dialogue.

It must be exhausting being married to a woman who wants to 'buck tradition'. Why didn't she buck tradition and just name your kids 'Aa, Aa', 'Aaa, Aaa', etc and be done with it? Heck why not go all the way and let them go nameless.

> However, my wife hated that her last name was near the end of the alphabet growing up.

Just exhausting.

> We opted to hyphenate.

Isn't that tradition in a significant portion of the world? So by bucking tradition, you really meant you traded one tradition for an even older tradition.

Google workers protest China contract.

Sentiment of top comments : 'If you work at Google and you have participated in this protest: Thank you.'

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17776276

Google workers protest Israel contract.

'If the company continues cleaning house and gets back to their mission then maybe there's still hope for them.'

Hmmm... Something is amiss.

Protest china, thank you.

Protest israel, you deserved to be fired.

Re:Goldene: A single atom layer of gold on Thursday April 18, 2024 @11:30AM (#40077262)
By that criteria, everything is a failure. After all, it's the job of the proponent to oversell you on things.
So does israel. Will politico write a hit piece about that as well?
> After banning TikTok people will naturally start to wonder about regulating Facebook and other social media and this would be a good thing.

It's not 'people' demanding anything. It's the elites. Why would the elites want to ban facebook or any social media they control. Not to mention facebook, reddit, youtube, etc are much older than tiktok.

> Russia is a minor player compared to China, a distraction that was welcomed by China with open arms as it helps divide and weaken the West.

How does that follow? The war united the west, not divide it.

> China is the only one actually capable of influencing the world to embrace despotism and collectivism at the expense of freedom.

You mean china is the one forcing collectivism ( EU ) on europe? What is 'the west' other than collectivism?

So many stupid people watching stupid youtube videos and regurgitating nonsense. You probably have a brain. Try using it sometimes.

The most despotic entities in the world isn't china, it's the US and the EU. The most collectivist entities it the world isn't china, it's 'the west'.

Is china forcing everyone to be like them? Are they exporting communism everywhere? No. Guess who is trying to force everyone to be like them? The west.

It's the same thing as banning. It's banning via a different method. It's more of a ban than china 'banning' US social media for refusing to follow chinese laws within their own country.
Re:Why Sweden abandoned its secret A-bomb project on Wednesday April 17, 2024 @12:24PM (#40066871)
Nothing has to push them. These countries want to go nuclear. The only thing preventing them is the threat of american intervention. Japan and South Korea had secret nuclear programs that we put a stop to. Canada, Brazil and Mexico will never be allowed to own nukes. No nation in the western hemisphere will allowed to own nukes outside the US. As for germany and the netherlands, we'd sanction and isolate them if they ever developed nukes. They could have nukes, but their economy would be in shambles like north korea. If taiwan went nuclear then it would be the end of taiwan and both the US and china would take them out.
For the same reason this post was flagged. Israel. Did you really have to ask? Hard to imagine google workers protesting russia, china or saudi arabia being flagged.
Re:The NSA is just days away from taking over the internet on Wednesday April 17, 2024 @11:39AM (#40066226)
Or they could take the easier and less conspiratorial route and control government by controlling intelligence? Governments act based on intelligence. Intelligence determines who we go to war with, what surveillance measures we need and what constitutes national security.
Re:H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts on Friday April 12, 2024 @11:22PM (#40020216)
"Easiest" is probably entering illegally and signing up for the military.
Re:H-1B visa fraud alive and well amid anti-abuse efforts on Friday April 12, 2024 @11:21PM (#40020211)
The point of H-1B is to lower wages. Not to stabilize them. It's a way to increase supply of labor which puts downward pressure on wages.
You can have a 2-3-4 right triangle if you can find the right axioms for it.
> I have sympathy for news publishers

Why? They are the most spoiled, privileged and entitled group out there. Not only did they force google, facebook, etc to give them preferential treatment in search/algorithm/etc, now they want google, facebook, etc to pay them for the 'privilege' of giving them preferential treatment. Not only do they want google/facebook to send users to their sites, they want google/facebook to pay them for that privilege. The shameless hubris.

> therefore directly tax the platforms and then redistribute the revenue to a fund created by government for news journalism themselves.

No. That's for authoritarian countries like britain and china.

> huge risks of unintended consequence

But government funded news has no risks?

What we need is to break up google/facebook/etc. We need competition in the search, smartphone, social media, etc space. The fundamental problem is that two companies control so much of american mindshare.

Re:It's Dante's Hell–We're Just Living in It on Tuesday April 09, 2024 @12:32AM (#39976211)
> Which is why the south fielded close to a million man army

What does this have to do with the fact that most south vietnamese wanted reunification? You mean governments are able to pay poor men to sign up for wars? Shocking.

So we are agreed that the south vietnamese wanted to vote for reunification and the US renegged on that vote. Nothing else matters. That's the crux of the problem.

> and the north had to murder several hundred thousand south Vietnamese when they won the war?

But most of the south vietnamese military supported the north. Especially towards the end of the war. If your assertion was true, then how evil must the US truly be to allow hundred of thousands of soldiers to be murdered? Oh wait, you are just making shit up. And if the north was murdering hundreds of thousands of south vietnamese soldiers, there would have been an uprising. Oh wait, there was no uprising. Stop making things up.

> They just wanted to reunify peacefully so badly?

Yes. It's why the vietnamese agreed to the partition. They foolishly expected that the US ( the self-proclaimed defender of democracy and freedom ) was negotiating in good faith. Hopefully the vietnamese learned their lesson.

You are outright lying about basic historical facts. Not sure why you expected to get away with it. Especially here.

Re:Endless Censorship Demands from Brazil on Monday April 08, 2024 @10:32PM (#39975788)
> Do we need to rethink the idea of global social media platforms? Maybe even the idea of a global internet.

Yes.

> If countries like Brazil or India want to have everything censored

They aren't even the worst. The biggest advocates of censorship on american social media is europe, canada, israel, etc.

> create some subsidiary application solely for people within each of those countries

Or maybe brazil or india should outright ban these platforms and create their own? These countries have their own national tv stations, newspapers, etc? Why don't they have their own twitter, facebook, etc?

If media essentially controls who you vote for, shouldn't india, brazil and every democracy control their own media? Seems to me that a foreign nation controlling so much of your social media is a direct threat to your democracy.

Besides, if we continue on this path of global social media, we would have to censor everything everyone finds offensive. It would be the tyranny of the offended. The worst kind of tyranny.

Re:It's Dante's Hell–We're Just Living in It on Monday April 08, 2024 @09:42PM (#39975554)
Thats some deranged historical revisionism.

The vietnamese won their war of independence against france ( aka first indochina war). Then the US stepped in to protect 'european colonial interests' gave the southern half of vietnam to france with the promise that the vietnamese people will have a vote. When polls showed southern vietnamese were overwhelming for reunification with the north, we renegged on our promise and did not allow a vote. And hence the 2nd indochina war happened.

> The Vietnam war, or at least the fighting that us Americans refer to by that name, was started by the sovereign state of North Vietnam invading the sovereign state of South Vietnam

The vietnam war was the US fighting the Viet Cong. Do you know who the viet cong was? They were SOUTH vietnamese. The vietnam war wasn't the US fighting north vietnam. It was the US fighting south vietnamese freedom fighters.

Re:It's Dante's Hell–We're Just Living in It on Monday April 08, 2024 @09:33PM (#39975505)
You forgot the best part. Satan has 3 faces and each face has a mouth. One mouth is continuously chewing judas, another mouth is chewing brutus and the third is chewing cassius. For eternity.

It's a great book, but it really shows how christianity ( or religion in general ) is glorified fan fiction.

Re:It's Dante's Hell–We're Just Living in It on Monday April 08, 2024 @09:25PM (#39975460)
> It's not like NATO did any major nation building in Afghanistan or Iraq, at least nowhere near close to post-WW2 Germany... so in that point he did keep his promise.

What? So he carried out nation building in 2 countries rather than 1 and that means he kept his 'no nation building' promise? What kind of logic is that?

> The entire world lost out as a result of that - there is a direct link from the failures in Afghanistan and Iraq to the Russian invasion into Ukraine.

I don't think most of the world cares one bit if europe burns or not. Heck if we had a vote, most of the world would vote for europe buring given europe's monstrous treatment of 'most of the world'.

Re:It's Dante's Hell–We're Just Living in It on Monday April 08, 2024 @09:15PM (#39975407)
> The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality

This is not true. The 'neutrals' were not even granted the honor of a place in one of the circles of hell.

'These souls are forever unclassified; they are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on the shores of the Acheron. Naked and futile, they race around through the mist in eternal pursuit of an elusive, wavering banner (symbolic of their pursuit of ever-shifting self-interest) while relentlessly chased by swarms of wasps and hornets, who continually sting them'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)

And they certainly weren't anywhere near the hottest places in hell. If we are to assume the lowest circles to be the hottest then it would be the lowest part of the 8th circle which housed the falsiers and counterfeiters. The 9th circle, which housed satan, was actually a frozen lake. While we think satan is burning in hell, he's actually freezing in hell according to dante.

> Maybe because my introduction to him was

Would've thought most would view it as dark and melancholy and resigned. You get optimism from those lines?

Do you feel the following is optimistic?

'...

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.'

In some sense, I guess it can be viewed as optimistic. In the way 'death cures all' can be viewed as optimistic. Just never thought of it that way. Interesting.

> It is harder to get 1000 people to participate in an unethical military campaign than it is to get 10 people.

No. It's easier to get 1000000 to participate than 1000. But that's not the point. We are talking about accountability. I'd say it's easier to hold 10 people accountable than a 1000.

If norway or norwegians cared so much, they wouldn't be pumping out so much oil. Norway is a top oil producer on a per capita basis ( along with saudi arabia, qatar, etc ).

If norwegians care so much about the environment or climate change, let them take out their oil platforms first.

> No matter how bullish you are on the potential of AI, it's horrifying and categorically unethical to use them to decide who to kill.

Is it any more horrifying or unethical to decide without AI?

> It creates the possibility of atrocity with no accountability.

Who was held accountable for hiroshima? Or do you know how much atrocities were committed to create israel? You act like we had accountability before AI. We've never had accountability for atrocities. Just victor's 'justice'.

AI can be better than humans when it comes to atrocities. It can be as bad as humans, But it can never be worse. Humans set the standard.

Re:Amazon fined in Poland for dark pattern design tricks on Thursday March 28, 2024 @01:07PM (#39854457)
Don't know why you are getting downvoted. NYT and many publishers are notorious with their dark patterns to keep you around.

The only company that I know of that makes it easier to 'unsubscribe' than to 'subscribe' is netflix. I couldn't believe how easy it was. Didn't have to call them and have them guilt trip me into staying. Or chat with someone or some AI. Just cancel. Though they do email you deals from time to time. But even then only every few weeks or so.

> Citizens should be entitled to representation, but not over representation (which is what holds us back currently).

But it's the climate change advocates like you who are overrepresented? You don't represent the majority. Not just in the US, but even more so globally.

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