Okay, so let’s go with your position that attacking soldiers with explosive weapons in civilian areas are not justifiable.

Based on your beliefs, what do you see as a justifiable response to Hezbollah’s year long barrage of rockets and missiles into Israeli cities. Keep in mind Hezbollah by and large conducts these strikes directly embedded in or right beside civilian sites. And they also store weapons in civilian sites.

The goal now is not to say which is worse, there’s plenty of blame to go around. The goal is to understand how you think about conflict and the principles you believe in that shape your views.

That doesn’t answer the question. Let me rephrase to be more direct.

What do you believe makes for acceptable and unacceptable civilian casualties (e.g. children) in urban warfare and what principles do you draw on to form these beliefs? Please use an example from a side you feel are “the good guys”.

If you’re a pacifist or believe not a single civilian casualty is acceptable, what would your approach be to resolving a conflict where your civilian population is being attacked with rockets/missiles?

Serious question, would you condone assassinating Putin with an IED even if several children were killed? Would it be better if they used a missile strike with 5x the civilian casualties because at least it isn’t an IED? Would it be better to do nothing and allow an opposing military force to continue bombarding your cities and your children with rockets and missiles?

I abhore the mass bombings and utter destruction Israel has wrought over the last year. It is beyond the pale. I would genuinely have prefered it if they could’ve taken out all of Hamas by blowing up cell phones in their pockets instead.

Oh snap, that’s awesome! I wasn’t aware of this. I assumed NATO would be consistent with the US on mines. Thank you for sharing this.

I’ll modify my argument to “Even the US and Ukraine use mines”

It’s interesting though, according to my research the distinction between mines and weapons lie in how it’s activated. For example, the C19 ex-Claymore is now remote detonation only to comply with the Ottawa treaty because it can only be activated remotely and cannot be used with an indiscriminate activator like a tripwire. Therefore it is a weapon. With this les, the pagers/radios are more akin to weapons rather than mines.

So booby traps are allowed, as long as someone is there to decide when to press the button, which the Israelies clearly did.

Did you forget that every “responsible” western power(Edit: Ottawa treaty) the US and Ukraine (who was a signatory of the Ottawa treaty) also has an arsenal of anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines which are specifically meant to be hidden and disguised? Quite literally booby traps with long-lasting risks for civilian lives. Many children have lost their lives due to mines, yet they are still deemed acceptable in war.

Anything that risks civilian lives is pretty messed up. But even compared to the mines being used in Ukraine, the pagers/radios were far more targeted and posed less risk to civilians.

Yeah no, the exploding pagers and radios, which were from an intercepted supply specifically for Hezbollah, was far more targeted than anyone could reasonably ask for.

Like yes, Israel’s overall actions in Gaza and Lebanon have been horribly ruthless and against civilian well-being. And there is the broader context of Palestine. But this is what you’re outraged by?

If everything between bombing Hezbollah and targeted attacks like the pagers/radio are off the table, like what would you actually do if a non-governmental military was indiscriminately firing hundreds of rockets into your cities for an entire year? Seriously, how would you actually respond if you were in the leadership position?

For sure. And your job is deeply important and anyone who takes it seriously, with kindness and an open mind, is aces in my book.

Re: masking, my ignorant hot take would be that the difference is less about a difference in kind of masking rather than a difference in the amount (frequency, duration, intensity) of masking. I’d say society places much higher demands in cognitive load from masking on neurodivergent folks overall compared to neurotypicals, because neurotypicals will often naturally behave in socially acceptable ways… because what’s socially acceptable is often defined (not exclusively) by what is typical.

It’s a good response, which I hope they’ll receive genuinely. But when someone responds with a two-part treatise, my suspicion is that it’s usually not about you, so I wouldn’t take it as a personal scolding.

What I often see, autistic or not, is that people often respond to broader issues reflected in the wording and framing of an individual comment and want to respond to that. This is fair and acceptable as long as one differentiates which part is responding to the individual comment(ator) and which part is the broader issue.

Ironically @SaphiraGrace, while providing great information about autism spectrum, has made assumptions about you and your own experiences by lecturing you about not making assumptions, rather than asking you about what you meant.

Still this is in context of neurodivergent folks getting the shafted end of assumptions in general, so I must respect that. It does demonstrate though that reflecting on our own assumptions and treating each other kindly is something everyone must practice if we are to be responsible for how our behaviour impacts others, whether we’re neurodivergent or not.

Yes, but you see, the frivolous killing of each other was in context of a legal framework. It’s completely different! /Sarcasm

All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.

TIL, be a noun, don’t be a fucking adjective.

The 79% statistic does not seem true, at least if we’re assuming the American context. The sentiments around legal abortion are more similar than that between men and women, with 38% of men opposed and 33% of women opposed to legal abortion in most cases.

I 💯 went through this disappointment. I used to also love looking at a game’s concept art because they always looked so much cooler and atmospheric than the game. I remember the inflection point clearly. I was playing Mass Effect 3 and walking around the citadel wards/docks, with it’s beautifully detailed textures, evocative colours, and painterly lightshafts, feeling absolutely enthralled, and thinking “Holy shit, they’ve finally done it, the gameplay looks better than the box/concept art.”

Prepping is just a normal gay/anal sex term, no kink necessary

Who said AI was gonna put people out of jobs? Look here, a whole new industry of gig work where people can market themselves as “best buyers”. Is your Kroger algorithm fucking you over with horrible prices? Not to worry, with a low low subscription fee, you’ll have access to our best buyers whose meticulously curated profiles will buy your items for you with guaranteed lowest price every time. They’ll even deliver it to your door for a small fee, or upgrade to our premium plus preferred plan for unlimited free deliveries. We also offer a comprehensive algorithm consulting service to help you reshape your algorithm for optimum purchasing power. Be the best buyer your can be ;) /SARCASM

For context, the total length of high speed rail in the world is 59,000km. So China, which makes up 17% of the world’s population contains 2/3 of the world’s high speed rail.

The closest comparison would be Europe, which has about the same land mass and half the population of China has around 11,000km of big speed rail.

Cute, but no. They used a theoretical model, not a large behavioural simulation. You could probably run their calculations on a TI-83.

On comment threads, every day.

1. Do I want to put this out into the world?
2. Do I need this in my life right now/is it worth the time?

This reflective exercise has saved me many excessive fixations. And yes, sometimes I do need to make that snarky overly-researched comment that nobody will see.

The meme is correct. These days, this is 1.0 release with planned patches and DLC for a fully realized 2.0 after 12-24 months.

I read this comment thinking it was satire, then got to the end and was disappointed it wasn’t a joke.