The definition of “existential risk” in question is specifically cult jargon for “could singlehandedly end human civilization and/or the entire species.” Autonomous weapon systems, though horrifying and unconscionable, are just fine by most “x-risk” types as long as they’re only used against enemies of the state instead of enemies of Skynet.
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it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
Fuck AI@lemmy.world•Why does an oven need to know what it is cooking?English
8·1 month agoThe touchscreen is cheaper to install than buttons and knobs, and they’re trying to come up with reasons that a cheaper, worse product is actually good and you should thank them for their innovation.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
World News@lemmy.world•Far-right Israelis call for NAZA co-director to be hanged in protest outside parents' homeEnglish
11·1 month agoThose more extreme than Netanyahu are at least still a minority, albeit empowered by their position in the coalition. The majority of the protests against Netanyahu come from the same kind of centrists as the Americans you saw protesting Trump in 2017, who objected to the fascist boomerang coming around to hit them but wouldn’t have raised nearly as much of a fuss about deportations and overseas assassination campaigns if Hillary Clinton had been the one behind them.
I think it’s all too easy to imagine a mass of undifferentiated monsters rather than confronting the connection between unfortunately familiar patterns of political engagement and the slaughter they cause, just because that connection is more obvious closer to the blade of the imperialist knife. Plenty of militaristic genocide deniers are just as much liberal progressives as their counterparts in western countries until the switch flips back to their military brainwashing and they start talking about security guarantees and buffer zones.
Maybe I’m naive for believing that people can change, but I don’t think that everyone who’s been sold on the lie that forever war is the only way for them to be safe is as committed to violence as the backyard terrorists with lawn chairs.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
New Communities@lemmy.world•A community to discuss about sortition, a type of governance where officials are chosen by lottery.English
1·2 months agoNeat! Genuinely cool to see more models of governance than the default BDFL/cool kids’ club online.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
New Communities@lemmy.world•A community to discuss about sortition, a type of governance where officials are chosen by lottery.English
10·2 months agoWill community moderation policy be determined by sortition?
Snorting launch. Snorting hack. Snorting go. The possibilities are endless.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
World News@lemmy.world•Russia and China Develop Joint Plan to Counter Starlink; It Involves Physical Destruction of SatellitesEnglish
7·4 months agoIt’s not even secret, there have been highly publicized tests of ground- and air-launched interceptor missiles, and a fair few tests observed by amateur astronomers where military satellites rendezvoused and closed to observation/weapons range with dummy targets. It’s very hard to hide anything that happens in orbit.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
Privacy@programming.dev•ESA bafflingly declares private Minecraft servers "illegal" in Stop Killing Games hearing: "We consider it piracy", we have lawsuits.
1·4 months agoFunny how the key distinction is that developer-sanctioned private servers are usually for games monetized through a single, up-front purchase of the client rather than a subscription service with which the private server would compete directly. I’m sure that isn’t relevant to the context this argument was used in at all.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
World News@lemmy.world•Israeli Settler Council Issues Unprecedented Admission of Ritualistic Child Sexual Abuse After Broadcaster Exposes Cover-UpEnglish
31·5 months agoChabad are mostly notable for being less insular than most Orthodox sects, doing a lot of outreach to secular/Reform/Conservative Jews, and thus ending up as one of the big names in overseas funding for Zionism in the modern day. They’re really the mainstream face of Orthodox Judaism, and the fucked up abuse scandals in Israel have tended to come from fringe, Messianic sects that the state’s Rabbinate and larger organizations like Chabad can at least pretend to distance themselves from.
As for the Talmud, it’s weird how much it tends to get played up in antisemitic narratives, because in my (very limited) experience it is really, incredibly dry and mostly boring. It’s like reading Reddit comments on every page of the scriptures, where 5 incredibly pedantic nerds are arguing over what exactly counts as a fork, or what a story about a wage dispute is supposed to say about contract law and social hierarchy. There’s a predictably authoritarian “just listen to your boss and your rabbi” bent to the morals it extracts, but at the end of the day it’s a couple thousand pages of mundane, day-to-day legal doctrine. Anyone can learn Talmud, it’s just a lot of effort, and like a lot of difficult religious texts, it mostly ends up being a source local authority figures can pull out to settle arguments in their favor.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
World News@lemmy.world•Israeli Settler Council Issues Unprecedented Admission of Ritualistic Child Sexual Abuse After Broadcaster Exposes Cover-UpEnglish
2·5 months agoThere’s a lot of government and religious NGO money funneled around Israel for religious schools and student stipends, so any unscrupulous rabbis looking to start an abusive cult have plenty of opportunities handed to them. It’s really not unlike the various Christian cults that sprouted up on compounds in the American West, taking advantage of cheap resources and isolation tactics to build organizations that beat the shit out of children or do whatever else they want.
Edit: I think the settlements in particular create a similar physical dynamic, where living on stolen land ringed with fences and security checkpoints allows leaders to create an insular community that keeps victims in and accountability out. Even twenty minutes’ drive from Jerusalem, no one gets into a settlement without arranged permission, and a housewife with no car may as well be stranded out on the prairie.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
World News@lemmy.world•Israel’s occupation of Gaza, Lebanon, Syria extends beyond what maps showEnglish
4·5 months agoedit: Actually this isn’t worth dignifying with a response in the first place.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
Fuck Cars@lemmy.world•Medford, Oregon is ripping out a protected bike lane to make room for 40 parking spaces. Because who cares about the safety of bike riders when the convenience of drivers is at stake?English
3·5 months agoWho cares about whether it’ll benefit the business, the business owners want a place to park their car out front of their workplace, and it doesn’t matter who pays, how much, or if it’s in blood.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
World News@lemmy.world•Israel’s occupation of Gaza, Lebanon, Syria extends beyond what maps showEnglish
5·5 months agoAre you aware that Bedouin exist? That an area not being solid fields and cities on a map doesn’t mean people can just be resettled there without consequences? How Palestinians feel about Egypt, by and large?
counter strike tWo
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
Science@mander.xyz•'Negative Time' Really Does Exist, New Experiments Suggest
2·5 months agoYeah, it’s only once the photons in front of it could already have gotten there, so it’s like photons from the tail end of the pulse are catching up to the front as it emerges, even though they haven’t even entered the cloud yet.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
World News@lemmy.world•UK Jewish groups call on government to prevent Hasan Piker from entering the countryEnglish
61·5 months agoI can only wish for a less internet-poisoned figurehead of anti-genocide activism, but it’s still amazing to me how a man who spends all his waking hours in front of a webcam is enough of a big deal to be considered a national security threat. This is a man who has spent years in a self-imposed hell of nonstop news clips and hate chatter clapbacks, constantly under attack and arguing with people who hate him, and now the anger is actually coming from a place of power. Hasan is like a guy made in a vat to get in a loud, public fight with the ADL.
Funny how for all the quotes they pulled, the article couldn’t dig out any instances of the more common traps leftist criticism of Israel falls into, like slipping into ZOG/“Khazar elite” talking points or rants about how murder is “their” culture. It’s honestly just laughable at this point seeing organizations like the ADL try to argue that anyone pointing out the obvious fact that Hamas aren’t baby-eating Islamist rape demons is engaging in religious hatred while geo-targeted online ads from Christian Zionist organizations blast me with “Jesus the messiah will save you” daily. This whole “debate” is a joke, but Hasan is an experienced clown, so he’s in his element.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
World News@lemmy.world•Israel approves purchase of fighter jets from the USEnglish
1·6 months agoOh, the white supremacy even against other Jews was there from the beginning. It’s a real mess.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
World News@lemmy.world•Germany To Ban Russian, Belarusian, And Soviet Symbols During May 8–9 WWII CommemorationsEnglish
2·6 months agoWestern liberals weren’t paying attention to the years of massive protests against corruption and consolidation of power that make Trump and his pet SCOTUS look like amateurs even to the liberal-Zionist Ashkenazi centrists, starting well before 2023. Western media loves to totally ignore the millions of Israeli subjects living under permanent martial law, too, so of course their viewership would say “democracy” based on what they were shown. The final crack in the facade doesn’t make the lies before it real.
it_wasnt_arson@awful.systemsto
World News@lemmy.world•Israel approves purchase of fighter jets from the USEnglish
1·6 months agoAsk the average Mizrahi restaurant worker living in a moldy studio sublet in Rehovoth what good that weapon money is doing them. The upper classes of both countries make out just fine, everyone else suffers.


I’m not the one moving them, go look at the actual kinds of statements the PR guys make about destroying humanity.