The article says:

Eyewitnesses tell Asharq that beside the disguised troops, other special forces snuck into the Nuseirat camp inside an aid truck. The IDF has denied using humanitarian transports for the operation.

From the link you posted, it seems this would still be a war crime if it’s true, unless I’m misinterpreting the text:

Ruses of war are permitted. Warships and auxiliary vessels, however, are prohibited from launching an attack whilst flying a false flag and at all times from actively simulating the status of protected vessels such as hospitals ships, small coastal rescue craft or medical transports.

I assume the aid truck they were using would qualify as an “auxiliary vessel”, and they were using it to impersonate “medical transport”.

Off course, that’s fair. This was a while ago, but I believe my point was more generally about whether to rename an existing popular application. I think it’s commendable that you make that effort to protect the kids you work with.

Plenty of words have multiple meanings, but I rarely think of them when I’m using a word to mean a specific thing. I know the meanings of gimp, but I never think of them when using GIMP; perhaps because it’s capitalized and I always assumed it stood for something (and it does).

But anyway, and more importantly than that, what you describe is a problem that you might run into with any word.

A small subset of the world population can view it as an insult, but for the vast majority it means nothing. Sort of like the word “negro” in Spanish, which some English people take offense to when they hear it. I even searched “gimp” in 3 different search engines, and the first 2 to 5 results were always the GIMP. Most people have no other concept for the word.

Let me put it this way: you say you’d favor Kira, but how do you know that there aren’t some kids in Egypt, or Russia, or someone else in the world, that take offense to the word “Kira”?

You ignored most of what I said, cherry-picked things, and even then had to leave out context and use vague language to make your argument seem anything less than insane.

The rise of the Nazis before WW2 was definitely partly caused by the imposition of the allies after WW1.

You mean economic sanctions? Around the same time that Germany was suffering from those economic sanctions and Hitler was rising to power, the world was going through The Great Depression, and by the time Hitler rose to power Germany’s economy was already improving. And even you are aware enough to use the word “partially” in that sentence. More on this towards the end (*).

They write the history books after all.

That’s an argument made by people who don’t know history and have nothing to back their claims. I really would not be shocked if you tried to claim the Holocaust wasn’t real, next.

They still killed about 8% of the total German population during WW2.

I’m not gonna bother to check that number because 8% of the population of a country being killed during a war is not a genocide, and not even an inherent attempt at one. What the Nazis did to the Jews, and what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians, that is genocide. Push them away from where they live, close them off in ghetto’s or walled compounds, and slowly kill them off. That’s how the Holocaust started too, before they moved to concentration camps and gas chambers.

Almost 50% of German casualties during WW2 were civilians…

Firstly: According to this, about 2.25M civilians were killed during expulsions, and 500K Germans were killed by strategic bombing, but it does not specify how many are civilian. Even if we assume 100% of those are civilian and say the number of civilians casualties is 2.75M, that still only makes up 39% of the German death toll. That “almost” is certainly doing a lot of work there, for someone complaining about reality.

Secondly: How many civilians do you think make up the Palestinian death toll when they indiscriminately (and sometimes purposefully) bomb civilian areas? Israel has purposefully bombed civilian targets; 4 in 10 killed in Gaza are children; just in 2023 22K Palestinians were killed.

Finally: That still doesn’t cover the important part you ignored, which is that no one is defending the bombing of German civilians during WW2, (*) and most people acknowledge the sanctions on Germany after WW1 were too harsh. Meanwhile, you are actively defending the ongoing killing of innocent civilians, and the genocide that has been ongoing for decades. Even if (and this is a giant fucking if) you were right in your comparison, you are merely arguing against yourself, because most people are not okay with any of those things.

You are somehow both (1): trying to equate Nazi Germany to Palestine, when Israel is the one doing to Palestinians what Nazi Germany was doing to the Jews, and (2): at the same time, purposefully or not, trying to victimize and justify the fucking Nazis.

I’m pretty sure we’re not far from this conversation straying into Holocaust denial, either by you or someone else coming in here, so I’m leaving this convo permanently. I hope neither you nor your loved one ever get bombed because of people living in your general area; peace.

Firstly, the first and only rule of the instance you are commenting on is “be nice”, but you couldn’t even do that for one comment. Why are you even here? It’s like going to a place whose sole purpose is having somewhere where there isn’t rubbish on the floor, and throwing something on the ground as soon as you set foot in the area.

Secondly,

This situation and WW2 are not remotely the same thing. And no historian would call what the allies did to the Germans “genocide”, because it wasn’t. What Israel is doing has been. And it will be remembered as such. Just some differences:

• They don’t hold even remotely the same kind of power and influence over the people in their region. The Nazis were given power through legal elections, Hamas was not. And Hamas is only in control in Gaza, not in the West Bank, where Palestinians still suffer at the hands of Israel.

• The existence of Hamas is a direct consequence of what Israel has been doing for several decades; this conflict did not just start last year. There was not an ongoing genocide of Germans before WW2, and it’s not how the Nazis came about.

• WW2 was a war being fought between mainly armed soldiers, and people do not defend or support the bombing and killing of civilian targets, nor were they the primary targets. Israel has bombed and killed Palestinians indiscriminately, and that is what you are defending.

The podcasts and other media consumption will probably be what most benefit you in the long term, and something like Anki and Duolingo I think are good complements for that.

Any alternatives to Duolingo that I think would be worth replacing it, would have to be something that is more focused on the specific language that you are learning, i.e. Nicos Weg for German (and I don’t personally know any for Italian, sorry). Most other general language learning websites/apps would probably be running into the same issues and limitations as Duo, and which one to use depends most on personal preference; however, there is one I’ve heard of called Italki (there may be more) which basically acts as a language exchange app, where you connect talk to people who natively speak the language you are learning, and they can give you input. I’ve never tried it, but I’ve heard good things.

Other than that, you have certified online/in person courses, but obviously those are not as convenient as Duo, and they cost money (probably significantly more than even a Duo subscription).

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention, but one thing which I personally enjoy is looking up and trying to read children’s books; and I mean like “90% picture & 10% text” books which are made for parents to read to their very young kids. And as you get more comfortable, try finding and reading increasingly harder books/stories online.

This is frustrating, but it has always been an issue; and usually the more you advance in a language tree the more it happens, because fewer people have found the problem and reported it. It’s a human problem that comes with not considering every possibility when creating an exercise. I’d imagine that using AI (in addition to humans) would actually help reduce cases like this, since they could be detected before users run into them.

That’s a bit over the top, in my opinion. I’ve tried plenty of courses, and Duolingo is pretty good to get a hang of the basics of a language.

I’d say, in my experience, the hardest part of learning a language is getting started, and I feel Duolingo is perfect just for that. To get deeper knowledge and become more comfortable, one should probably switch once they start feeling more comfortable with the alphabet (if there is a specific one), and with the basic vocabulary and grammar.

EDIT: Forgot to add but another advantage of Duolingo, is that it’s also great to get a taste and basic feel for different languages; and that can be especially useful for someone who is looking to learn a new language but can’t quite decide on one.

Any tolerance for those ideologies

Again, you are misrepresenting what is being said. There is no tolerance being given to those ideologies, neither by me nor by the other user. You are arguing in bad faith and misrepresenting what is being said; the very thing you accused the other person of. There is really no point in continuing to talk if you’re going to do that, so I’ll just leave a link to another comment I wrote that expands on this, and I’ll be going.

I think you have misunderstood what the other user was saying, and/or are not thinking through what you are saying.

You said “All areas should be nazi-free areas”, but unless you are advocating for putting them up against a wall, that is not possible to do. That is what the other user meant by “‘Tow it outside the environment’ is not an option”. By the way, I think that expression is a reference to this; it’s not very relevant to this topic, but might help illustrate the point they were making.

Another alternative, like the other user mentioned, would be “lifelong reeducation camps”; but not only does that have questionable morality behind it, it’s also not a view that merges very will with the idea of abolishing the police and especially prison systems, which so many on the left, especially the more libertarian left (which btw a lot of Beehaw seems to lean towards, including me, and I think the other user as well), subscribe to.

Like the saying goes: “don’t attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity/ignorance”, or something like that; there are real life examples of former Nazis/white supremacists changing their views just from interacting with other people outside that group. When you think of a Nazi, you’re probably thinking about the smart and actually evil ones that tend to be at the top, but a large part (I think the vast majority) are just the product of fear and ignorance (think average German during WW2); and when you try to erase/separate those people from society, one way or another, you’re often just feeding into that ignorance and fear.

Over the past several days I’ve seen you draw out many good faith disagreements about racism or nazism into what seem like intentionally blurry “just asking questions” type derailments whereby you try to shift the topic of the discussion to other, emotional or tangential details and or try to misrepresent the issue at hand to make the racism or nazism seem not that bad.

This does not appear to me at all what is happening, at least in this thread, and I would even go as far as to call it gaslighting.

The other user literally said if 10 people are at a table and 1 is a Nazi, then all 10 are Nazis. They have also labelled any opposing view as “sympathizing towards Nazis” in another comment. That is pretty damn fucking far from good faith. And yet, somehow, because this other user pointed out the problem with this type of thinking, you are now accusing them of not being good faith? Are you serious? People are refusing to have any kind of nuanced view of the situation, accusing everyone in that situation of being a Nazi and people who disagree of being sympathizers, but somehow the other person is the one not acting in good faith, or using emotional arguments?

I really don’t want to be rude, but your comment reads like textbook projection. They also never said anything to defend Nazis or the far right, not once (*), so that makes you the one who is misrepresenting what they are saying and doing. I encourage you to keep everything you said in mind, but re-read the thread through a more objective lens.

I really didn’t want to get involved in this conversation, but some of these comments really frustrated me, and yours was just the straw that broke the camel’s back; I had to let some of the frustration out. If you just want to ignore me, that’s fine.

(*) At least as far as this discussion is concerned; I do not have an all seeing eye.

All those are fine suggestions, but a “free with ads” option isn’t that bad either; the real problem isn’t the ads themselves. The real problem is how intrusive the ads are, how many of them there are, as well as much information they (and YouTube) collect on you. Plus, in this case, the company in question isn’t exactly a small company who is financially struggling. It’s the classic capitalist problem of “infinite growth”, where your profits have to be constantly increasing.

But there’s nothing inherently wrong about the idea of having ads, just like there’s nothing inherently wrong about youtubers having sponsors.

He created JavaScript?!?!

I can excuse controversial right-wing views and homophobia, but I draw the line at creating JavaScript!

I do agree I am matching with the wrong kind of women, I just don’t know what to change haha.

My swiping criteria are basically the same as yours; however, instead of seeing a lot of copy paste jokes, I see a lot of profiles that are just an Instagram handle. I’d say easily over 3/4 of profiles I see are empty, and a lot of the others only have an Instagram handle.

I’ve had good matches and conversations before, and the women I meet outside dating apps are a lot better to talk to, so I know it’s just bad luck; but knowing that doesn’t stop it being frustrating after several matches in a row where I have to carry the conversation, and that’s after swiping through hundreds of empty or bad profiles between each.

So after a while of all that, I decided to take a break. Maybe when/if I return, I’ll have a new look at my profile, see if anything can be improved or if there’s something that’s giving a wrong idea.

Maybe it’s just my experience, but this just does not work. Maybe it’s because I’m asking “get to know you questions” and perhaps those should be reserved for dates; but the one time I decided to start by arranging a date, I got the answer “I would prefer if we got to know each other better here first” - which I agree with, by the way. So I do end up asking “get to know you questions”, but the women I’ve matched with don’t even try to put effort into the conversation.

To demonstrate what I mean by that, here’s a fictional representation of an actual conversation I’ve had (the content is fictional, but the structure and tone is real):

in her profile, she says she likes movies, so maybe I’ll ask about that

Me: Hey! So, what was the last movie you watched?

Her: Oppenheimer

Me: Cool, I went to see it last week! What did you think of it?

Her: It’s good

ffs, it’s always like this. fuck it, instead of asking another question, I’ll just answer my own question and make force her to come up with something to say

Me: [Give some of my thoughts on the movie]

Her: Ok

I never replied to her “Ok”, and she never said anything else. Most conversations follow along the same lines: me asking questions and getting the shortest answer back with no question turned my way.

This might make me sound horrible, but I had to stop using dating apps because it was beginning to give me a horrible view of women.

Well, I’ll put it this way:

I’ve been away from Linux for a few years (several reasons), but this year I heard of NixOS and decided to give it a try, and I had a blast playing around with it. With how easy* and quick to configure it is, and how stable it also is, it encouraged to tinker with it more than I ever have with Linux, and I never had any really frustrating issues like I had with some other distros that I barely tinkered with.

At the very least, I think you should play around with it for a while just to see if it’s something you like.

*PS: For anyone who does not have experience with Linux, NixOS is probably not a good first distro. I meant easy more so for people already familiar with Linux.

There have been examples of anarchy working. Unfortunately, most of the ones I know of were around during World War 2 and got crushed between 2 larger opponents, or backstabbed by one of them.

• Anarchists - and other socialists in Catalonia - during the Spanish Civil War, were stuck between the fascists and the republicans (Soviets), sided with the Soviets and ended up being betrayed. Homage to Catalonia by Orwell is a good book about the civil war and the anarchists.

• Korean People’s Association in Manchuria were destroyed by Japan a few years before WW2 during a war between China and Japan IIRC, and apparently some of its leaders were also killed by “Korean communists” (the same ones that ended up forming North Korea).

• The Black Army of Ukraine fought the Red and White armies at separate times; one time they joined the Red Army against the White Army, and were betrayed.

You might have noticed a pattern there, which is also why a lot of anarchists are not found of Marxist-Leninists or Stalinists.

A “Democrat” is a member of the “Democratic Party” of the USA, it is not a political ideology in itself. Democrats are usually economic Liberals and don’t care that much about workers or the environment, but some are Social Democrats (Bernie Sanders). They are also usually socially progressive.

The Republican Party is also composed mainly of economic liberals; however, they are typically socially conservative.

There is such a thing as a “Libertarian Socialist”, which seems to be what you are looking for. A lot of Libertarian Socialists also just call themselves “anarchists”; and “anarchism” essentially just means something like “anti-authority” or “anti-hierarchy”.

If you want to maybe explore it a bit:

• Homage to Catalonia is a book written by George Orwell where he tells of his time in Spain fighting alongside the anarchists and socialists in Spain (against the fascists supported by Hitler and Mussolini, and against the republicans backed by Stalin).

• The Dispossessed written by Ursula K. Le Guin; it’s a sci-fi story about a society living on a moon, who are anti-capitalists and supposedly anarchists (whether they are anarchists or not is one of the focus points of the story).

If you just want to read theory instead, you can also search for Pyotr Kropotkin, and Emma Goldberg.

Completely understandable. Not that I agree necessarily, but I understand.

My main issue is, would that really change much? At the end of the day, companies show up and survive by meeting people’s needs/wants, and politicians climb to the top and stay there by having people on their side and not doing things those people would disapprove of. This means that if all those powerful people just went poof one day and disappeared, they would be replaced by new companies and new politicians doing all the same things as before, as long as people want and do the same things.

This means the only way things can really change, is if the culture itself changes and people begin to want and do different things. One way or another, whether people believe it or not, people are in power. The question is in whether they organize and use it, or just sit back and give up control and let themselves be taken by the flow.

Off course, there’s a counter-argument to be made about how much influence those powerful people also have on everyone else’s way of thinking, but then that just makes it a closed loop, and someone needs to break it.