hundreth

We've been hearing this song and dance for months. How super strong Hezbollah is going to wake up and overpower Israel. No one is scared. Hezbollah is strong within Lebanon because they have networks of tunnels and caves they can conduct guerrilla warfare from. They aren't capable of a real offensive front on Israel. Though they can certainly pester northern Israel indefinitely.

Killing Hamas' leader isn't an escalation, it's what Israel has been saying it's objective was since the beginning. It's just the narrative over time has become that Israel only cares about slaughtering children, so when one of their goals actually comes to fruition months later it seems crazy. Today was a good day.

I think if you can get JP to speak with you, you absolutely should. Let's be real, he has a huge platform, is an intelligent guy, and there's a lot you can discuss with him. If you do go on with him, it wouldn't be prudent to go straight into your overarching infinite consciousness, alien consciousness, non duality stuff. You wouldn't sound very different from Terrence Howard spewing off his theories. You'd have to spend time grounding yourself within his frameworks - speaking about society, politics, conventional theology, etc. Once you relate that you understand the basics, you can make some headway into some of your more interesting conversational topics.

I would love to see it. That said, I don't think he's capable of speaking about spiritual topics anymore without relating them back to politics. Everything now has to be tied back to politics, so be prepared for that.

Trump's entire presidency is based on overt displays of bigotry. What are you talking about?

A black woman and a gay man combo is literally the worst strategy to beat Trump. People are voting for Trump because they're scared. They see all of the public discourse being about identity politics, gender fluidity pushed in schools, DEI corporate initiatives, etc etc. Now your strategy is to validate all of their fears by putting forward these two Hilary esque "food groups." Even if these candidates may be qualified, it comes across as Disney movie casting bullshit. All people want is some semblance of normality. You can only move as fast as society allows you to. They weren't ready for Hilary. They might be ready for Harris, but you at the very least need someone cookie cutter to pair her with.

I suggested this needed to happen weeks ago. He wasted crucial time. Now it seems we're locked into Kamala. Maybe that was part of the plan, who knows... but I don't think she's our best candidate.

I actually believe the opposite. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/15/powell-indicates-fed-wont-wait-until-inflation-is-down-to-2percent-before-cutting-rates.html https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/traders-see-favorable-odds-fed-rate-cut-september-rcna162141?ref=biztoc.com This is what is driving the current bull market. Investors know that the Fed is going to cut interest rates no matter what, flushing cash into our already inflated economy. Is this the right thing to do? No... But they are doing it anyways. Why are they doing it? It is political. September cuts drive the economy and stocks higher just before the elections in an attempt to keep Biden in office. What happens if Trump gets elected? More of the same. Trump said he would fire the Fed chair to put a new one in place that will lower rates for him. Why? Because Trump only cares about the short term. He wants to see those Dow Jones numbers pop. Is this all ultimately good for the economy? NO. What will happen? More wealth will be transferred to the already wealthy. When will the markets actually begin to crash and correct for this? Probably some time mid way through Trump's next term... but it isn't going to be now. We just went through a couple of years of high interest rates. This WAS the recession. A still highly inflationary period which will only be ramped up now.

You're really making my point for me. Because of the babies claim you've moved the goalposts so far away that now you can minimize what Hamas did. If you watched those live streams and don't believe what you saw was barbaric and crossing a line, I don't know what to tell you.

Unfortunately it was paywalled for me, but I came across this article: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-says-12000-hamas-fighters-killed-in-gaza-war-double-the-terror-groups-claim/ That's from February. It would seem likely that number went up since then to that 14K figure. Unless they've significantly revised them down.

43% of 38 thousand is somewhere about 16,000. It seems unlikely that 14 out of 16 adult Gazan males are combatants. Also, there is surely some percentage of combatants who are under 18. I don't know the breakdown but it's likely the 14K number is overcounted if we're going by the GHM's data. To what extent is unclear, I wouldn't feel comfortable pushing that number down more than 15-20% or so at most.

You are correct. I wasn't sure which was the case but wanted to at least understand where his ratio came from. I think in general some of the Hamas militants killed numbers will be contested, as some of the civilian wounded numbers will be contested. But at the end of the day including wounded is kind of apples and oranges. There's no way to compare those ratios to anything else because wounded isn't used. Killed militants vs civilians is what is used. If we're going by IDF numbers that's 14K to 24K which is a 1 : 1.7 as you said. With the deaths of those trapped under the rubble, that is an unknown that needs to be contended with. But then you also need to assume some percentage of those trapped are also militants. Is that ratio going to be the same? Hard to say and a lot of guesswork all the way around. The ratio could likely be anywhere from 1 : 1.5 to 1: 2.5 depending on the interpretations of data. The biggest criticism I've heard regarding the IDF's combatant killed numbers is that the number is close to the number of adult males killed, and therefore they must be overcounted as militia. Though I haven't checked the numbers myself to see if there's any validity to that.

Ahh, the 89K doesn't include killed. Thanks for clarifying.

Where did you get this ratio? Are you comparing all wounded included combatants to combatants killed? Even if you did that skewed math it's 1 : 6.4. But really, if you wanted to include wounded then you'd also need to include combatants who are wounded and subtract that from the total wounded to get a real ratio. When you cherry-pick and misrepresent numbers like that, it's not a good look dude. Edit: Just saw your post about 14K including wounded. Ok, in that case your argument is more reasonable, though you'd still need to subtract 14K from 89K... So then it's 1 : 5.3. Which isn't great but still far from 9. I'd like to see actual accurate numbers of militants killed.

Here we go with the decapitated babies again. Why are we still talking about that? No, I don't believe it because it's been reviewed and debunked. That's the end of it. It wasn't some nefarious Israeli plot to make Hamas look bad. They did enough of that themselves. They livestreamed some of the most barbaric acts. This was moreso just another Biden brain malfunction which isn't uncommon. Hamas did however burn babies alive by burning entire houses. There are photos which corroborate that. I've said it many times, decapitated babies are literally not needed and makes no difference. Hamas had already beyond crossed the line with what it published. But yes, claims like beaten to death with hammers does sound ridiculous. It sounds like something a propagandist would make up. Of course you aren't going to go through the same trouble to fact check and verify that one as you did with decapitated babies which you're still bringing up 9 months later. A claim literally no Israeli uses or cares about. Only anti Israelis are obsessed with the babies thing. And the reason the babies thing is continually brought up is as a rhetorical device to invalidate and minimize real things Hamas has done.

Over time these claims get more and more preposterous. Now the IDF is beating civilians to death with hammers? @Gennadiy1981 any idea if there's any validity to claims like this?

It's also more complex than that. Those oversimplified percentages don't include Jordan. Jordan was part of the Palestine mandate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Jordan In July, 1922 Britain gave 73% of "Palestine" to the Arabs, most of which today is modern Jordan. Jews had purchased land in parts of this land, and they lost the rights to that land. They later gave them another 4%. 3,240,000 Palestinians today live in Jordan while 1,650,000 live in Israel. More than 2,175,491 registered Palestine refugees live in Jordan, the largest number of Palestine refugees of all UNRWA fields.

Says you. But let's call a spade a spade, you don't really know what was achieved militarily. You read anti Israel articles all day and post them here. You aren't really going to come across news where Hamas' capabilities have been minimized. If by the standard that Hamas is completely eliminated, of course not... but Israel had to go in and squash their short term capabilities. So yes, they are absolutely safer from Hamas' military in the short term and even Pro Palestinian outlets have conceded as much. If you had HIV, you wouldn't reject taking anti viral medications because they don't completely eliminate the virus. You have to take action. It doesn't matter that you were partially responsible by having unprotected sex, etc. You suppress the immediate threat as a first step. As for the long term implications of having a non proportional response, yes I'd agree it's an issue for sure. Israel has one military ally on the entire planet which is completely quid pro quo for the U.S. - but many pretend it's not. In the immediate aftermath of what happened, the narrative was already focused on the dead babies claims to shift the goalposts and minimize the significance of what happened. And today we see basically the same thing. It is a huge deal. Of course we should also understand why what's happening is a huge deal for the Palestinians, including all the wars which came before. I don't believe in minimizing the horrors the Palestinians have suffered. I don't believe we should minimize what happens to any group. That isn't the answer.

There really is no such thing as an overreaction to having your country invaded and >1000 of your people brutally murdered while live streamed and celebrated. Especially given the relative size of Israel compared to other nations. That is an all out act of war and a declaration as such. On 9/11, 3000 people were killed in a nation of over 300 million. It lead to 20 years of war, and is still remembered as a landmark moment in history today. Each year it is actively remembered. To minimize such an event is absurd. Now, that's not to say it warrants any response involving the indiscriminate killing of civilians. But minimizing such an event only shows us that we need to do whatever it takes to care of ourselves, because no one else will.

Even that you have issue with? I think you need some therapy or some help my guy. You have thousands and thousands of posts here and seem to spend an unreasonable amount of time here shitposting. You almost got banned the other day. Take it easy. You can condemn the actions of a group without hate and rage... as I've done. I am for the elimination of Hamas, but I'm not for horrible prisoner conditions, torture, abuses, and the needless harm to civilians and families.

I think we'd all be better off if both sides took from the wisdom of the Gita and conducted themselves without hate and rage.

Compassion and objectivity don't always go hand in hand. If you were being absolutely compassionate, no war would be justifiable regardless of motives. If you were absolutely compassionate, there wouldn't be much you can do without the concern of doing harm. In fact, you'd be paralyzed by the turmoil of feeling the weight of the world. I think that's what he meant by having selective compassion. It's a normal human response to allow us to function. And then comes the question of what is objectivity? They are approximations we share some consensus on at best. I think the most reasonable consensus we can agree on is having valid motives while doing your absolute best to avoid civilian casualties. In that respect, I would agree that Israel has failed. The Bhagavad Gita speaks to this very well:

I saw this on Kyle Kulinski's channel, and he framed it as "Israel murdered 186 thousand Palestinians!" It is an interesting observation regarding the impact of wars, all wars unfortunately.

Perhaps. It's more about the realization that I'm 1 of 300 million people in this nation of absolute morons. And even then, those 300 million have very little agency or power. It's hard to fathom and wrap your head around a number like 300 million, it's such a large number. Regardless, I'm not a political voice and my contribution to this world has not and will not be in this domain. I don't have to emotionally invest myself in a machine I have zero control over. I'd rather take my chances with nature. At least I personally enjoy Costa Rica, and on a very basic level the values there are more grounded and in tune with reality.

I stopped caring. I'm looking for property in Costa Rica now. Pura Vida.