naraburns nihil supernum
7mo ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
Isn't this a bit like the "US government money going to Planned Parenthood/Christian charities but that money doesn't fund abortions/Christian ceremonies" situation? Pipelines aren't fungible like money, but if getting PVC pipe allows them to dig up existing non-PVC pipes, that's close enough to fungible, and so they're using European-donated pipelines to make rockets regardless. It's just that the European-donated pipelines aren't being used to build the body of the rockets; rather, the European-donated pipelines are being used to substitute the existing pipelines for their water-carrying use while those existing pipelines get used as the rocket frame.
That's a fair point, the effective fungibility breaks down at some point. Of course, it's also the case that at some point they should run out of Israelis to blow up, but I think it's most likely that that point is far beyond the point after which they run out of metal pipes, so that's not really a limiting factor.
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Notes -
Isn't this a bit like the "US government money going to Planned Parenthood/Christian charities but that money doesn't fund abortions/Christian ceremonies" situation? Pipelines aren't fungible like money, but if getting PVC pipe allows them to dig up existing non-PVC pipes, that's close enough to fungible, and so they're using European-donated pipelines to make rockets regardless. It's just that the European-donated pipelines aren't being used to build the body of the rockets; rather, the European-donated pipelines are being used to substitute the existing pipelines for their water-carrying use while those existing pipelines get used as the rocket frame.
Well, at some point they should run out of metal pipes to repurpose if all the replacements are polymer pipes.
That's a fair point, the effective fungibility breaks down at some point. Of course, it's also the case that at some point they should run out of Israelis to blow up, but I think it's most likely that that point is far beyond the point after which they run out of metal pipes, so that's not really a limiting factor.
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