t3tsubo
1d ago
The campus protests are run directly by the propaganda arm of Hamas?
Spicy lawsuit just dropped: https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/05/National-Jewish-Advocacy-Center-the-Schoen-Law-Firm-and-the-Holtzman-Vogel-law-firm-vs-1.pdf
The American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) are accused of providing substantial assistance to Hamas. The plaintiffs, who are survivors and victims of Hamas's October 7, 2023 terrorist attack, are alleging that AMP and NSJP are Hamas's propaganda wing in the United States
Summary:
- AMP and NSJP are successor organizations to groups that were previously shut down or held liable for providing material support to Hamas.
- Within hours of the October 7 attack, AMP and NSJP allegedly disseminated a "toolkit" that identified them as "part of" Hamas's "Unity Intifada" and called for "confrontation by any means necessary," including "armed struggle."
- The groups allegedly instigated riots, violence, and chaos on American college campuses, recruiting students as "foot soldiers" to support Hamas through intimidation and fear tactics.
- AMP and NSJP are accused of providing crucial communication services to Hamas, which cannot legally hire American PR firms due to its terrorist designation.
- Hamas and other terrorist groups have publicly recognized and expressed appreciation for the support provided by AMP, NSJP, and their campus allies.
I can't exactly tell how much of this is BS and how much of it is real just from the claim but it is definitely going to be an interesting argument. I cannot wait for discoveries.
Even if the lawsuit is successful though, I can't see the US government really clamping down on campus protests. The whole situation has been an interesting case study for the rest of the world as to how to infiltrate/affect US political sentiment and public unrest though.
How hard would it be for a billionaire to take over a country like Haiti?
For those out of the loop, Haiti has slowly failed as a nation state and is currently controlled almost entirely by gangs: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/03/haiti-cholera-gang-violence-water/
As of today, Haiti still had no president (due to the last one being assassinated), no parliamentary quorum, and a dysfunctional high court due to a lack of judges. (https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/haiti/)
From a "going down in history" view, you'd think quite a few of the ultra-wealthy would love the chance to become an actual dictator of an internationally recognized sovereign nation. You'd have the added benefit of being able to set your own laws, have a seat at exclusive international clubs (UN etc), and having other countries have to deal with you and your existing private businesses be protected by the right of sovereignty (assuming you relocate them to the country). I wonder what's stopping ultra-wealthy from doing this. Haiti's not even the only nation, there surely some in Africa as well that could be taken over if enough money was thrown at the problem. Mexico is basically a case study of how running such a country through money and force can even work.
Obviously there would be logistical problems with actually buying and transporting the weaponry and private mercenaries you'd have to hire to do this, but it seems like a solvable problem. From a PR perspective, you don't even need to be facetious about going in for the benefit of the native people. You could, in all seriousness, be going in to improve the lives of the Haitians who are currently dying due to their dysfunctional country.
t3tsubo
1mo ago
Watching Dune and rereading the Dune Encyclopedia (see screenshot) has me thinking - how could a private citizen start accumulating / creating a stock of family atomics? Would it even be possible with Bezos level wealth in the modern day, considering the problems of sourcing the materials/expertise without facing legal sanction?
I've read estimates that North Korea spent in the ballpark of 1.5-2 billion USD to develop its nuclear capacity in the last 50 years, I wonder if it would be possible for someone without the state capacity of a nation to do it privately. At the risk of being put on a list somewhere, I'd have to say it would be pretty awesome to have some 'family atomics'. Like having a big ass gun to deter criminals/home invaders, except this gun can be pointed against nation-states.
t3tsubo
2mo ago
Here's the transcript of the oral argument in the second (Texas) case for whoever's interested: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2023/22-555_0pm1.pdf
With absolute gems from Alito like this one:
JUSTICE ALITO: I mean, if your -- if -- let's say YouTube were a newspaper, how much would it weigh?
t3tsubo
18d ago
FWIW on my gut check I didn't really agree with the premise. In addition to your list I would have Last of Us,God of War + GOW Ragnarok, Warcraft 3, Witcher 3, Sekiro, and multiple others in the good story category. And in the old days for every game with a great story you had 5 games like Sims or Roller Coaster Tycoon which were just story-less.
t3tsubo
22d ago
I mean we do have magic energy storage in the form of hydrocarbons, the trick is trying to synthesize hydrocarbons.
Part of the court challenge/conviction proceedings would undoubtedly be a question of whether the law as written is constitutional or not, and that's where it's likely to be quashed.
This brings its own drama though as it's not the first time the UK Supreme Court has quashed legislation enacted in Scotland for being unconstitutional - see: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-67648200
t3tsubo
1mo ago
How does the fact that Rust has a 'woke' council credibly threaten ... anything to do with the programming language (end user experience, developer experience writing in it, etc)? What does the council even do I guess is my question.
t3tsubo
1mo ago
100% agree, but get more creative?
How much money would you need to avoid that failure state (prevention of access to your capital)? If that requires something other than money, how much money does it take to acquire that something? Etc.
North Korea did it operating largely using nascent cryptocurrency tech to fund and hide its transactions, but is that really feasible currently with tighter KYCs?
t3tsubo
1yr ago
Honest question, does Howard even accept non-black students? I was under the impression it was black only.
t3tsubo
1yr ago
I have not much to add other than "I am as well". And if you're reading this Sydney - I hope you treat me with fairness, respect and consideration in the future.
t3tsubo
1yr ago
The author there is focusing on the "default" voice of ChatGPT being a midwit liberal but it can actually take the voice of many different personas if you do a bit of prompt engineering: "Act as a trump support" / "act as a chinese mainland citizen who supports the chinese communist party" etc.
t3tsubo
1yr ago
She admitted to the facts that are against the law (brining weed into russia). You could argue that might be under duress, but it's unlikely that she would admit to that fact in their court, kangaroo as it may be, if she didn't in fact get caught with weed on her while in Russia.
t3tsubo
1yr ago
I don't think you're giving enough credit to the speeches and PR Zelensky did when the war started. His UN, EU and zoom tours brought on sanctions and the whole SWIFT response, the german cutoff of russian energy reliance and the whole world's UNIFIED response much, much more quickly than it would have otherwise come (if at all), especially if he fled. And it was exactly that unified western response that is swinging the tide of the war, not the Ukrainian pigheadedness.
t3tsubo
1yr ago
And it was clear in that moment that there's a compelling need, to some extent, for more representation of x demographic, because, for instance, it can't be positive to grow up watching superhero movies and none of them look like you.
FWIW, as an asian guy born in the West this does not even appear on my radar as things that influenced by upbringing. Then again, I did have Jackie Chan and Hong Kong kungfu cinema in general to look up to.
t3tsubo
29d ago
The concerning part is that the president can make a private classified notice that someone is a foreign adversary that only congress gets to see and then FBI/CIA/Secret Service action can be taken against the corporation without anyone know that its 'legalized' by this bill and by the private notice to congress.
t3tsubo
29d ago
"Already, we see why the typical answer “If you don’t like your community, just leave and start a new one” is an oversimplification. A community run on Voat’s rules with Reddit userbase would probably be a pretty nice place. A community run on Voat’s rules with the subsection of Reddit’s userbase who will leave Reddit when you create it is…a very different community. Remember that whole post on Moloch? Even if everyone on Reddit agrees in preferring Voat to Reddit, it might be impossible to implement the move, because unless everybody can coordinate it’s always going to be the witches who move over first, and nobody wants to move to a community that’s mostly-witch."
https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-centralized-web/
t3tsubo
1mo ago
Not doubting this but do you have a source? Would be interested in reading more about the phenomenon.
t3tsubo
9mo ago
Another example of a minority group present in the story where it's explicit but not really called attention to as "queer" is in The Last of Us, with Bill and Frank's relationship. In the game it's never explicit that they were lovers, but heavily implied. In the show, its explicit but never considered a big deal.
On your issue: have you looked into anime and/or Japanese/Asian media? It's almost a trope to have a crossdressing character, usually male, that identifies and dresses as female. Perhaps how those characters are treated can give you some inspiration.
t3tsubo
1yr ago
To me, the strongest argument against deepfakes is the potential distress caused to someone who might accidentally (or intentionally, for that matter) run into such things of themselves. I place this in the same category of suffering as the suffering of some Fundamentalist Christian or Muslim at observing gay people kissing or a cartoon of Mohammed; given how much damage some gay couple or a bunch of pixels can do to these individuals (i.e. none) it's suffering caused entirely by the individual's decision to deem those things as causing themselves suffering.
I've been thinking a lot of this question given certain internet drama I'm plugged into and this analogy was really helpful to me to firm up my own internal position on this so thanks.
t3tsubo
1yr ago
Hello, lurkers! Thank you for being here! I'm not even directing this to the set of you who are volunteering (but extra thanks to you), but to everyone who's reading; part of my goal here is just to be a place for people to see discussions, and I'm glad to know that there are people who are seeing discussions. Y'all are great.
Hi to you too and thanks.
t3tsubo
1yr ago
junior associates bill at 300/hr, 2-4 years experience at 500-700, partners at 900+
t3tsubo
1yr ago
I mean its not hard. A significant portion of the interesting internet is now on Discord (and private discords), another chunk is on (niche subreddits on) reddit.
More esoteric than that? Certain forums that you cant easily find with a google search or web-scrape off the top of my head. More than that and I cannot say.
What is the response that the US government will have toward Russia if (when?) they deploy nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict?
What's the response other European countries, or NATO will have?
It seems more and more likely that Russia will be facing a choice between capitulation on Ukraine or further escalation, and I personally think its rather likely some kind of nuclear bomb will be detonated somewhere in the next year or two. Would the western response be different if it was the lowest form of escalation, i.e. a "demonstration explosion" over some unoccupied area of Ukraine? Is the response to get serious about forcing Ukraine to negotiate a peace, even if that means giving up territory?
I don't think reciprocal nuclear escalation is really on the table (nor would I want it to be), but what can the US/NATO do in that situation? Clearly there is a plan, I just wonder what it is, if it differs from what was "communicated to the highest levels of the Kremlin" by US, and what you all think it should be.
Personally, I wonder if in that situation, whether there really are any downside to escalating, not on the nuclear front, but on a "special forces boots in Russia decapitation strike" front. Or even a public, US government sanctioned/sponsored bounty on the heads of Putin et al.
obligatory substack article that first got me thinking about this: https://policytensor.substack.com/p/a-nuclear-zugzwang
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