There's also the classic “it's not just X, it's Y”, adjective overuse, rule of 3, total nonsense (manage memory with surgical precision? what does that mean?), etc. One of these is excusable, but text entirely comprised of AI indicators is either deliberately written to mimic AI style, or the product of AI.
"not just x but y" is definitely a tell tale AI marker. But, people can write that as well. Also our writing styles can be influenced as we've seen so much AI content.
Anyway, if someone says they didn't use AI, I would personally give them the benefit of the doubt for a while at least.
Like many scholarly linguistic construction, this is one many of us saw in latin class with non solum ... sed etium or non modo ... sed etium: https://issuu.com/uteplib/docs/latin_grammar/234. I didn't take ancient Greek, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's also a version there.
Zionism was what pushed Jews to accept the Partition Plan[0], and later the disengagement plan[1], both rejecting the idea of Gaza as an Israeli territory.
The colonization of Gaza is entirely driven by Hamas's attack on Israel.
Acting like the dominant political stream in Israel has not been interested in occupying Gaza since at least 1967 to this day is a bald faced and shameless misdirection.
First, as the other comment mentioned, that political stream you're talking about was literally the one the left Gaza.
Second, that political stream is the opposition of the Zionism stream that established Israel. Picking and choosing the last two years as a proof for what Zionism is all about is like saying "Americanism is all about taking over Greenland". Somehow, when it's Zionism, people will not notice how ridiculous that sounds.
Sure. Just look at how they're doing now: they have the full support of the world to re-invade Gaza, and this can be justified by the fact that no Jews live there (Just look three comments above yours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45932249 )
If there were Israeli Jews (I am not referring to the religious group, but by which side of the conflict people are on) living in Gaza, such arguments wouldn't work, just like they don't work for the West Bank (which is also getting genocided but we're not talking about it, so maybe that strategy works too).
1) Hamas started a war with Israel by invading it, slaughtering and raping hundreds of civilians at the music festival and in their homes as well as taking hundreds of civilians hostage, including as we all know an toddlers, womens and elderly.
2) Israel in order to rescue its citizens as well as protect them from future attacked invaded Gaza and attacked Hammas and its infrastructure
So yeah, it makes sense to support the country trying to rescue its hostages from an enemy government.
We can debate how Israel prosecutes the war, but its a war that Hamas started and yet in your accusation of Israel above there is no mention of role Gazan goverment -- Hamas -- played in this war.
I doubt that my country -- the US -- would prosecute the war any better, had it been invaded by thousands of Mexican federales killing 42,000 people -- an equivalent of population the city of Cupertino where Apple is headquartered -- while kidnapping 9,000 of our citizens. I doubt any country would do better as a matter of fact.
> Hamas started a war with Israel by invading it, slaughtering and raping hundreds of civilians at the music festival and in their homes
Could you provide conclusive evidence for that? Could you provide even cases of formally filed rape allegations? [1] Yes I know that a lot of Israeli media people made the accusation, but there's no reason to repeat something that no proof was given for.
I find middleeastmonitor.com an extremely biased anti-israeli propaganda piece that makes BBC seem like an unbiased news organization.
If you search for the name "Moran Gaz" used in this article to conclude
that "Gaz stated that her department has found no evidence of sexual violence" is actually not true and is Moran's statements were quite nuanced:
"
In the end, we have no complainants. What was presented in the media compared to what will ultimately emerge will be completely different. Either because the victims were murdered, or because the women who were raped by them are not prepared to reveal it. We contacted women's rights organizations and asked for cooperation. They told us that they simply did not contact them. There were parents who contacted the organizations and asked what to do if something happened to their daughter, but they did not disclose the abuse...I know there is public expectation and understand the need to address the horrific sexual crimes and sexual assaults that have been committed, but the vast majority of them will not be able to meet the threshold of proof in court, and the criticism will ultimately come to the prosecutor's office – unjustly.
"
>> Either because the victims were murdered, or because the women who were raped by them are not prepared to reveal it.
>> We contacted women's rights organizations and asked for cooperation. They told us that they simply did not contact them.
This reads entirely different that what that article from MiddleEastMonitor.com leads you to believe. The way its titled and the way you interpreted is there were no sexual assaults, only slaughter, only murders.
Im not going to engage in "Hamas slaughered festival goers on camera, killed a father in front of his kids, while blowing out one their eyes and kidnapped toddlers, but we will question the sex crimes being committed".
Is protecting the killers of families, babies and kidnappers of toddlers from accusations of sexual assault really the proverbial "hill you want to die on"?
Lets focus on order of operatons:
1) Hamas started a war
2) Israel responded in order to free its citizens and protect from future attacks.
> Could you provide conclusive evidence for that? Could you provide even cases of formally filed rape allegations?
It's pretty crazy how far the Overton Window has shifted on Jews. We went from it being prima facie evidence of antisemitism to even "notice" their disproportionate influence on, or over-representation in, certain American institutions, like the Supreme Court--as shown when Pat Buchanan got soft-canceled for noting that Kagan's confirmation would make Jews a full 1/3 of Justices, despite being only 2% of the population--to it now being acceptable to outright deny war crimes committed against Israelis.
It is important to distinguish between Jews and Israelis, as there is a significant portion of Jewish people who are leading the fight for truth about what Israel is and what Israel does.
To address your comment, Israelis have been caught lying so many times that now when they make a claim, it is on them to prove that the claim is correct, rather than on others to prove that it is not. Just a few examples off the top of my head include:
- The killing of medical workers in a convoy of ambulances and burying them in shallow graves, then lying about doing it until someone dug the bodies up and found footage confirming that they lied on the phone of one of the buried aid workers. [1]
- The hunting down and killing of World Central Kitchen aid workers via multiple air strikes [2]. This was repeatedly denied by Israelis until too much evidence was stacked up and they settled for "it was a grave mistake".
- The high profile case of killing of Hind Rajab [3] who for a brief period of time was the sole survivor of a tank attack in a shelled vehicle filled with her dead family members. Aid workers were dispatched to rescue here, coordinated with Israelis. Neither the girl nor the aid workers were ever seen alive after that. Israelis repeatedly insisted that there were no troops in the area, until too much evidence was stacked again.
Asking why there are no filled allegation is as ignorant as suggesting that no Palestinian home was destroyed because no Palestinian appealed to Palestinian court suing Israeli soldiers for destroying their home. You clearly don't understand how the system works.
Hi, your mention of the UN report made me look at the actual report in an effort to find the truth of the matter. So let's go deeper into the UN report as it's often cited as a proof of rape, but as we'll see by the end of it, there isn't actually any evidence for it other than "people said" (for more context of why I'm dismissing this, look at the points below and especially at the end of this post). Please do double-check and correct me if I reach a wrong conclusion somewhere. Here's the link to the full report by Pramila Patten published around early March 2024: [1].
The key points based on which I say that there is no proper evidence are the following:
> 34. The mission team, specifically the forensic pathologist and the digital analyst, reviewed over 5,000 photos, around 50 hours and several audio files of footage of the attacks, provided partly by various state agencies and through an independent online review of various open sources, to identify potential instances and indications of conflict-related sexual violence.
So there is plenty of photo and video material from surveillance devices. Good. But, we have a few lines mentioning something very similar to this:
> 16. [...] With respect to the latter instance, while the forensic analysis reviewed injuries to intimate body parts, no discernible pattern could be identified, against either female or male soldiers.
Further searching of the word "forensic" reveals nothing conclusive about rape. Just notes that there were injuries to intimate body parts, which is expected when bodies are blown up by tank and helicopter fire (which was confirmed to have happened during the fighting). The report does not comment whether the injuries were inflicted specifically by hand-to-hand combat weapons and small personal arms.
Now, searching for the word rape, it appears throughout the report, but only ever to point out that "there are reasons to believe that it happened", but no proof is ever given, only statements by other people. A reminder that there is a lot of surveillance photo and video material, but none of it supported the claims. For example:
> 74. In the medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos, no tangible indications of rape could be identified. Further investigation may alter this assessment in the future.
And an example of rescue teams' statements that are used as sources for the accusations:
> 13. At the Nova music festival and its surroundings, there are reasonable grounds to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence took place with victims being subjected to rape and/or gang rape and then killed or killed while being raped. Credible sources described finding 5 murdered individuals, mostly women, whose bodies were naked from their waist down – and some totally naked – tied with their hands behind their backs, many of whom were shot in the head.
Please let me know if you find something in the report that represents credible evidence of rape. I'd like to see it because I care about the truth. We know that Israel rapes Palestinians in their torture prisons because we have not only victim testimonies (that we ultimately cannot take as solid proof even if they are true), but we have actual video evidence that was released of them doing that to a prisoner on surveillance camera footage. And there is an ongoing trial where the rapists are parading around the media in Israel and proudly defending their rights to torture prisoners, including via rape. And unfortunately they have a lot of support in the country. So if Palestinian resistance fighters did the same, I want to know. But we'll need proper evidence.
One final question remains to be answered here -- why don't I think that Israelis making these claims should simply be believed? Because they lied so many times that now when Israelis make a claim, it is on them to prove that the claim is correct, rather than on others to prove that it is not. Just a few examples off the top of my head include:
- The killing of medical workers in a convoy of ambulances and burying them in shallow graves, then lying about doing it until someone dug the bodies up and found footage confirming that they lied on the phone of one of the buried aid workers. [2]
- The hunting down and killing of World Central Kitchen aid workers via multiple air strikes [3]. This was repeatedly denied by Israelis until too much evidence was stacked up and they settled for "it was a grave mistake".
- The high profile case of killing of Hind Rajab [4] who for a brief period of time was the sole survivor of a tank attack in a shelled vehicle filled with her dead family members. Aid workers were dispatched to rescue here, coordinated with Israelis. Neither the girl nor the aid workers were ever seen alive after that. Israelis repeatedly insisted that there were no troops in the area, until too much evidence was stacked again.
As for your video of an alleged pPlestinian fighter admitting to atrocities with an Israeli flag behind him, we obviously cannot take seriously a statement made in imprisonment, highly likely obtained under torture, given the vast evidence of torture (including actual rape) being conducted in Israeli prisons.
No, you are spreading lies. I won't engage any further but I'll just say that there is absolutely no video evidence, not even one, showing a rape of a Palestinian by Israeli soldiers. What there is is a video that shows Israeli soldiers standing around and beating a Palestinian prisoner, that happened to be a Hamas police-officer. The video is very unclear.
The vast majority of the discussion in Israel isn't around the the right to torture prisoners (I have actually never heard anyone argue that). That's also a lie. The discussion is around whether or not it happened.
The main difference is that in Israel, people who are suspected in doing such things would be trialed, and if found guilty, sent to jail. That's true by the way not specifically for rape, but also for harming a Palestinian in any other ways. Trails against settlers violence, for example, take place all the time. Yes, much more needs to be done, but it happens. On the Palestinian side, however, I cannot recall a single case of Palestinian facing legal charges for ever harming a Jew, and it's not because it never happens.
Does Israel have a perfect legal system? Absolutely not. But it has a system that has put many Israelis behind bars, while the Palestinian Authority usually pays compensation for those who blew up civilian buses when I was child.
Israelis live in Palestine though - it's just that any area they live gets renamed from "Palestine" to "Israel", usually accompanied by heavily artillery fire and drone strikes, to clear out the natives.
I wish more people were upfront with the truth like you are.
A very sensible interpretation of your words is
a) All land between Jordan river and mediterranean sea should be called Palestine
b) only Arabs are natives of that lands.
Here b) is plainly wrong -- Both arabs and jews continuously lived in that area for hundreds and for Jews -- thousands -- of years.
and a) implies that the state of Israel does not have a right to exist.
This basically a two sentence version of "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" slogan where its clear that we are not talking about West Bank and Gaza, but rather the entire land including Israel.
I didn't say Jews. You said Jews. I said Israelis. I don't care what their religion is - bombing all the hospitals and universities in a region and drone striking little babies is terrible horrible no no very bad stuff.
By the way, if we're talking about tribalism, the distant descendants of the Jews who lived in that area thousands of years ago, are (largely) the Palestinians. The modern Israelis are (largely) an entirely separate group of white Europeans that immigrated from Europe after WW2.
>> usually accompanied by heavily artillery fire and drone strikes, to clear out the natives.
You clearly juxtapositioned Israelis vs the natives -- who did you mean by natives if not the Palestinian arabs?
Regarding descendants of Jews being Palestinains -- I find the way you present this interesting genetic fact quite misleading, making it sound that modern day palestinians have exclusive genetic connection to the land, whereas all genetic studies done in modern years show that modern day palestinian arabs AND ashkenazi jews AND mizrahi(middle-eastern) jews have clear genetic ties to people who inhabited that land in the bronze age(aka Moses era).
Lastly, its not true that modern israelis are LARGELY a group of europeans migrated from europe. Mizrahi jews(middle east and north africa) are the largest ethnic group in Israel. Not descendants of Ashkenazi europeans. Thank Iraq and Yemen for ethnically cleansing their countries of jews in 1948 for that.
Trauma to me means there are ways of responding to painful experiences that can keep you in that painful state for a very long time, and/or make things worse. I recognize that simple fact from my own experiences. In that lens, its helpful to reflect on your responses to painful experiences to stop them from developing into long term traumas. Maybe that's why this book, or at least the title, seems to resonate with people. (I haven't read it)
...But it's also good to know the author of the book was wildly mis-citing things
From the article: "An internal US government review found no evidence of widespread theft by Hamas of US-funded humanitarian aid in Gaza."
Other reporting supports this.
So what is going on is that the IDF are lying to justify their genocide. There is a massive propaganda machine at work to muddy the waters.
Israel blocks the entry of Plumpy Nut into Gaza, a peanut-butter like paste meant for treating severe acute malnutrition. They say it is a luxury item Hamas might steal.[1] The amount of evidence Israel is committing genocide is embarrassing.
As a side note, that's the same stuff that just sat on shelves and went back instead of going to starving kids all over the world because Trump and Musk and Co. decided that USAID was a "waste of money".
He took a credible claim by the IPC and changed several things (~12 months -> 48 hours, 6mo-5yr children -> babies, acute malnutrition -> death), making it patently false. There's no excuse for that kind of deliberate disinformation.
Do you really believe that this have anything to do with the hostages? They want the land, that's it. It could be done little by little or it could be done like now, when they have an excuse. But the end goal is the same.
Do you think that what they are doing in the west-bank have anything to do with the hostages or Hamas?
> Do you really believe that this have anything to do with the hostages?
To a significant degree, yes. If Hamas turned over the hostages today, Israel's position would significantly weaken. Palestinians' would strength. But so would Hamas', which is why they haven't.
Man, in a scenario where all the hostages are freed, I can't image Netanyahu stopping the genocide... so far he's been "Well, what are you going to do about it?!" about all the war crimes and killings, I would bet my left nut he'd continue the bombings even if all the hostages are returned. It's too easy to say the terrorist want to annihilate Israel (and so, Israel being a rules-abiding civilized democracy, must annihilate the Palestinian state first - terrorists, civilians, all the same...).
> in a scenario where all the hostages are freed, I can't image Netanyahu stopping the genocide
Okay. Are you certain enough about your imagination that it's not worth attempting? Two, it may not end the war. But it reduces Israel's leverage. If you think any of the international pressure and opinions have any effect, then returning the hostages is a winning move.
Israel has rejected every peace offer from Hamas, including ones brokered by the US. They invited Hamas peace negotiators to Qatar and then bombed them. They have shown no indication that they are willing to agree to a peace deal in exchange for the hostages, it’s just a rationalization they use so that people like you can counter every anti-Israel argument with “well what about the hostages?”
> Israel has rejected every peace offer from Hamas, including ones brokered by the US
Which offer did Israel reject that was put forward by Hamas and endorsed by the U.S.?
> They have shown no indication that they are willing to agree to a peace deal in exchange for the hostages
Maybe you're right. The Palestinians' hand is significantly strengthened if this is shown to be true. If Hamas unilaterally turned over the hostages and sued for peace, I really don't think Israel could continue the war. If they did, they'd lose a massive amount of of international indifference.
Israel's ideal outcome with gaza is for egypt to take it and all the gazans. They do not care about controlling the region, they just want the gazans gone.
> they want the people that it's there now gone, and the control of that territory
Israel's actions so far have shown it doesn't want Gaza controlled by Hamas. Some elements want to annex it. But it seems they've been quelled given Netanyahu's agreement to Trump's 20-point plan, which does not grant Israel control.
Ah, let’s try your logic the opposite way around: if hamas and the middle east is so hostile, why do Israeli’s not move to some flyover state. What do you think?
You are shockingly uninformed. All major human rights organizations are saying the exact same thing: Israel is actively committing a genocide.
> All major human rights organizations are saying the exact same thing: Israel is actively committing a genocide
Your argument loses credibility when you overstep like this.
Human rights organisations (and credible third parties) agree that Gaza is in famine. The term genocide is not universally applied, though it is increasingly and increasingly credibly, albeit at the expense of the clarity of the term.
> Human rights organisations (and credible third parties) agree that Gaza is in famine. The term genocide is not universally applied, though it is increasingly and increasingly credibly, albeit at the expense of the clarity of the term.
UN commission uses word genocide [0].
ICJ used word "plausible" [1].
HRW has used the word genocide [2]
...actually the list of explicit accusation of genocide is quite big [3].
Is there some single, powerful organisation left that does not agree that there is genocide? All the big mentioned also [4].
Yes, that's the credible third party I referred to.
> ICJ used word "plausible"
Correct.
> HRW has used the word genocide
In the phrase "may amount to the crime of genocide" [1].
> the list of explicit accusation of genocide is quite big
Yet not amounting to "all big humanitarian organizations." Like, the two you chose to highlight stepped back from making that claim prematurely because they don't want to cry wolf with a word that should have a lot of meaning, but which activists have effectively neutered in American political culture.
Maybe you missed it but Hamas are terrorists, they don't care that much. Hamas mistake was believing that Israel would care more about civilians, turns out they care much less. And Israel is supposedly this western democracy.
> Hamas mistake was believing that Israel would care more about civilians, turns out they care much less. And Israel is supposedly this western democracy
Let's be honest, betting on civilian shields when attacking any country, including a democracy, has never been a winning move.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with the framing, despite agreeing with many of the points raised. I think it's relevant to recognize that large organizations often become large by consuming smaller organizations. And that they consume smaller organizations precisely because they offer something like purpose and meaning, and other emotional/spiritual needs. When there are no more smaller organizations to consume, the larger organizations fracture out of an absence of these necessities. The division of 'small' and 'large' organizations is maybe relevant in today's economic structure but it does not feel absolute or permanent. Anyway, this well highlights the importance of genuine connections and activities at the individual level.
I read this letter for the first time many years ago when I was in my physics undergrad and thinking about starting grad school. It still crosses my mind pretty often as a postdoc.
Plum Village (a Buddhist community founded by Thich Nhat Hanh) has a free app with hours and hours of different kinds of breathing and other types of meditation. They also upload meditations regularly on their youtube.
ok certainly this is a high quality source BUT breathwork should be done with supervision of a practitioner that has some sense. Like swimming (?) this ordinary activity can do great damage in relatively rare situations, or someone trying to do "extreme" practices without guardrails.
You can most definitely get into trouble with breathing exercises.
Just consider for a second what hyperventilating looks like, or hypo-ventilating. That is one of the things many pranayama and other breathing exercises do.
Restricting &/or increasing oxygen to the body/brain for extended periods of time… what could go wrong?
Aleister Crowley somewhat famously gave himself asthma doing some fairly extreme pranayama, which led to him using heroin medicinally which led to him using heroin somewhat less medicinally for the duration of his life.
Yes, the guy was known for going big on most things he did. But it is worth throwing in the asterisk.
While we all practice breathing since birth I do believe that trying some advanced techniques could be dangerous. See https://zeta.blue/physiology for possible effects.
People have unique physiological, and mental limits. As a toy example we could imagine someone holding their breath until they pass out and fall.
>we could imagine someone holding their breath until they pass out and fall.
It is not easy to imagine this. Brain have protective mechanisms in place to prevent this. If someone is holding their breath for too long - they start experiencing an immense, primal fear which magnifies tenfold every second. It is close to impossible to consciously bear that fear and continue holding your breath – every other second requires years of practice. You will inhale, if you can. Your body simply wont let you fail or pass out.
1) I tried it, enjoyed it, thank you for building it.
2) I learned something new: I was aware of how making the exhale longer than the inhale promoted relaxation. Somehow I hadn't thought of inverting it for the opposite effect: more energy. Your app mentioned it and it was an "aha" moment for me. I tried it, and certainly feel something, but too early to say if it's a placebo effect or something real. Thank you for this new knowledge.
3) The pause portion. What does Richie Davidson (or other research say about it). What does it do, please? That is, what is the difference between not pausing at all between inhale and exhale, vs. pausing (i.e. box breathing)? Thanks in advance.
re: #3, I wish I had a clear answer for you. I believe the Navy Seals use box breathing (4 sec each for inhale, hold, exhale, hold) because it puts them in a calm, high-energy state. Those two descriptors may seem paradoxical, but it's a state I've manage to put myself in before, say, a sales call or public talk. You want high energy to raise the energy level of the audience, but you want calm to be making better decisions in a quickly changing situation.
That differs, I think, from a physiological sigh where you're just trying to relax, which the longer exhale vs inhale gets you.
James Nestor talks about the effects of breath holds in his book "Breath", and one thing he brings up is "carbon dioxide therapy"; ie exposing yourself to mildly elevated levels of carbon dioxide for brief periods was once thought to be beneficial, and he cites people claiming the research has not been disproven. One of the supposed benefits (I'm not a doctor!) is anxiety reduction, similar to how people might tell someone who is panicking to breath with a brown paper bag over their mouth.
speaking as someone who gets a lot of their posts flagged (to the annoyance of dang), a less-inflammatory headline can be less satisfying but a post that isn't flagged will get a lot more traffic than one that is flagged
"The civilians should be evacuated." They don't want to leave and Israel uses these "evacuations" to make sure Palestinians never return, as they did in 1948, 1967, etc[1][2]. This is whitewashing genocide and is an extremely violent view, packaged in reasonable sounding words. Israel has a long documented history of using terrorism to build its state. If you truly oppose terrorism I recommend starting with the books I've sourced.
[1] The ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé
[2] The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Kahlidi
The criminals would all line up with the civilians if it came to that, and they'd also still raise all their children to become the next generation of terrorists.
