domain:alexepstein.substack.com
FtSoA
18hr ago
Or perhaps your enemy is good at hiding amongst civilians, but bad at killing their opponents.
Keep in mind how many rockets were launched by Hamas from Gaza against Israel with the intent to kill civilians. Just looking at the deaths without considering the causation of the numbers leads to poor judgements. Context matters.
You can't assign immorality to the side with greater competence against the side with demonstrated malicious intent with a low success rates.
Let's put it another way. How many Israeli combatants died in the recent war with Iran? How many Iranian civilians?
Good luck dividing by zero.
Skulldrinker
18hr ago
I mean more long-game. I suppose my view of Palestine is colored by my run-ins with it's propaganda and activist-industrial complex.
ArmedTooHeavily
18hr ago
Yeah but the hacker anonymous runs them all.
YoungAchamian
18hr ago
Idk if I believe language possesses all the necessary info for a world model. I think Humans interpret language through their world model which might give us a bias towards seeing language like that. Just like intelligence, humans are social creatures we view the mastery of language as a sign of intelligence. A LLM's apparent mastery of language gives people the feel that it is intelligent. But that's a very anthropocentric conception of language and one that is very biased towards how we evolved.
As for why some prominent AI scientists believe vs others that do not? I think some people definitely get wrapped up in visions and fantasies of grandeur. Which is advantageous when you need to sell an idea to a VC or someone with money, convince someone to work for you, etc. You need to believe it! That passion, that vision, is infectious. I think it's just orthogonal to reality and to what makes them a great AI scientist.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
19hr ago
This is facilely circular.
Mihow
Lipstick on a guitar
19hr ago
It really does seem like we’re seeing propaganda at work here.
Sam Harris (who lost his mind in 2016) calling Islam a death cult is the forever correct thing.
Until a time that religion is as neutered as present day American Christianity, they should hold no place at the civilization table.
FtSoA
19hr ago
ymeskhout
Wasn't he pretty clear about being tired of dealing with certain views that would simply not respond to evidence?
Less of a "personal" thing or "flameout" but in the same vein.
EverythingIsFine
Well, is eventually fine
19hr ago
Just simplifying a bit, there's the whole thing about zones, and of course plenty of "interstate commerce" as it were. But ultimately the PA are in charge because the Israelis let them be in charge, as the zone system demonstrates with great clarity. Of course I'd still say that the Palestinians themselves should have more urgency in trying to reform or replace the PA with something better, we shouldn't let them off the hook, but the PA is far from a full-fledged state, even laying military matters aside. The Israelis have effective veto power over the broad strokes of what they do.
Mihow
Lipstick on a guitar
19hr ago
Israels behaviour has taught a sizeable portion of goyim what jewish mindset is and that the jewish view on this is fundamentally incompatible with a western mindset.
There’s never been a country at war going so softly.
Never has there been such pains to not kill civilians.
What you think is honestly morally reprehensible - which is fine! It is what it is.
If any ‘ goyim ‘ sees it this way then it’s due to MSM insane-washing Islam and Islamists.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
19hr ago
It seems to be every international org, and every unbiased org, any unaffiliated with Israel, that have been testifying the same thing. Why would Swedes or Japanese or American Baptists all be lying? The UN, in the link at #3, is saying that their own staff face hunger and “hospitals have admitted people in a state of severe exhaustion caused by a lack of food.”
It’s a fucking war.
Hardly. It’s disproportionate, there’s no viable objective, Israel’s intention is to ethnically cleanse the land, and there’s no legitimate reason to be punishing the civilian populations by withholding aid or firing on civilians attempting to obtain aid.
TequilaMockingbird
Brown-skinned Fascist MAGA boot-licker
19hr ago
As i have said in prior discussions of the topic, I fully believe that AGI is possible and even likely within my lifetime, but I am also deeply skeptical of the claims made by both AI boosters and AI doomers for the reasons stated above.
TequilaMockingbird
Brown-skinned Fascist MAGA boot-licker
19hr ago
The basic methodology is still widely used today, GPT 4.0 and DeepSeek R1 being two modern examples.
quiet_NaN
19hr ago
Nah, I do not think that the Hamas leaders had a financial motive for Oct-7, at least not raking in donations from Westerners. Before the attacks, Hamas leaders were living the good life: getting their cuts of bribes or taxes/protection money from the Gazans, as well as skimming of donations, while being left in peace by Nethanyahu.
Now, they no longer get cuts from Gazan "taxes" or foreign donations to Gaza, and on top of that they have to worry about Mossad murdering them. Still very much first world problems compared to their citizens, but likely not an improvement in material wealth.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
19hr ago
What!? The movie was not in the least boring. This really is Terrible Take Tuesday, lol.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
19hr ago
But if you have 40 civilans dead for every one of your soldiers, then it becomes reasonable to suppose that you have a callous disregard for the lives of the civilian population
If the enemy sniper somehow is always accompanied by 40 civilians, which one of us is callously disregarding their lives - me or the sniper? It seems pretty clear which one of us would prefer there to be fewer civilians on the site and which one would like more.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
19hr ago
They are a good ally in the region, and we like our allies to be strong. If we decided to stop being an ally Israel would still be able to defend themselves. They have nukes!
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
19hr ago
That's like claiming The Onion and The Babylon Bee are disinformation sites. If it's labeled as fiction it's not disinformation.
erwgv3g34
19hr ago
Different boards have completely different cultures. /b/ is not /pol/ is not /k/ is not /r9k/.
quiet_NaN
19hr ago
I think it is entirely reasonable to hold Israel to a higher standard than Hamas. If I held the Israel government only to the standard of Hamas (whom I consider murderous thugs who need to be wiped from the face of the earth), then I would have to concede that it would be a good thing if NATO invaded Israel and occupied them for a few decades until they learned better.
Per WP, there have been about 70k Gazans and 1k IDF killed since Israel responded to the Oct-7 attacks. Let's assume that 40k of the Gazans were civilians as a ballpark number.
The ratio at which your own soldiers die relative to enemy civilians is reflective of the value system of the society waging the war, what the factor before the count in the utility function is for enemy civilians and your soldiers.
Approximately, the relation of death tolls should reflect the quotient of these values. (The distribution of tactical options is also relevant, of course, if you only ever have to decide between two of your soldiers and one civilian, you might end up killing a zillion civilians and none of your soldiers despite valuing them equally, but I think it is unlikely that this distorts the effects too much in reality.)
A toy example would be that you are harassed by an enemy sniper in a building (back when Gaza had buildings), which is also expected to be inhabited by civilians. You can either call an airstrike, thereby killing an estimated X civilians, or storm the building with infantry, losing an estimated Y soldiers in the process.
I am not saying that you need to value enemy civilians as much as your troops. Few armies would gamble a soldier to rescue an enemy civilian (probably non-allied civilian would be a more appropriate phrasing) in a double or nothing scenario.
But if you have 40 civilans dead for every one of your soldiers, then it becomes reasonable to suppose that you have a callous disregard for the lives of the civilian population, and that is the point where the IDF is right now.
oats_son
19hr ago
The movie was already boring! There were like, two fight/chase scenes that didn't have any tension plus some politican getting vaporized at the start of the movie and then a bunch of weird not-very-interesting philosophizing on what a person is or random political intrigue, in both cases several minutes of people just talking. Screw that noise! GitS sucks!
Because they’re all dirty liars that have constantly lied about every single thing over at least the last 12 years I’ve been paying attention?
I clicked on link 3 at random, read the article, and am unsure how or what you’re supposed to be trusting.
I’m being honest here - what is it even saying?
‘ Israel shouldn't be be in charge of food distribution to Gaza - people in Gaza are hungry - Palestinians have been killed trying to get food ‘
It’s a fucking war.
What is it that you’re supposed to come away with? Why did you link it? What is it supposed to mean to me?
Corvos
19hr ago
This happened to a friend of mine. He had a very good case, and the lawyer said, "Look, you've got a 95% chance of winning this. But the other side is going to hire the very best, most expensive guys in town. There's a 5% chance you'll pay millions in damages - can you handle that?" And of course they didn't have that kind of money.
Primaprimaprima
...something all admit only "TRUMP", and the Trump Administration, can do.
19hr ago
insanely twisted way of framing that forum
Bruh, this
”The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.”
has been the header on /b/ since the 00s. They embrace it.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
20hr ago
If every Gazan and inhabitant of the West Bank became a full citizen of Israel, there would no longer be a guarantee of a Jewish Israeli PM or President or majority in the Knesset.
There are currently 7 million Jews and 2.5 million others with Israeli citizenship. There are about 2 million Gazans and 2.7 million West Bank-ians. Add them in and give them voting power and suddenly there is a substantial non-Jewish voting block. (And then the wolves eat the lambs.)
It's one of those things everyone knows but not a lot of people make the point to explain. The Jewish Ethnostate depends on not integrating these people, or at the very least, integrating slowly.
If you exclude civilian ship crews, the total number of US civilian deaths in WWII is around 100, and single-digits if you only count state territories at the time (not Alaska or Hawaii). British civilian deaths, despite the Blitz, were still pretty small compared to Germany and Japan. Civilian casualty ratios are a terrible metric unless you want to be an Axis (or Soviet) apologist.
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