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If you want to take an entrepreneurial lesson from this: 1) Get your permits. Dot your Is, cross your Ts if you can. If you can't and you think you are in the

If you want to take an entrepreneurial lesson from this: 1) Get your permits. Dot your Is, cross your Ts if you can. If you can't and you think you are in the right, you should probably do it anyway. 2) If someone infinitely more powerful than you wants you to fail, things will not be easy for you. 3) Politics, business and technology mix whether you want them to or not. 4) If you are a powerful entity bullying your competition, there will be bad PR. There may be consequences in the future. You've been warned and it may be in your long-term interests to behave yourself. Interestingly enough as I read the above I see a strong pro-Palestinian bent. But the 3 Jews sitting next to me right now would see me as a more middle-of-the-road-why-can't-we-all-get-along sort.

azernik 15y ago
Props for taking a probably-off-topic post and bringing it on-topic.
mark_l_watson 15y ago
After years on HN, I am going to post my first negative response to someone's comment, yours! The Israeli government's actions in this and many other acts are completely immoral. Your 1) point may have some logical validity in general, but for the good of the Israeli and Palestinian people, the whole world needs to get behind slamming down on the actions of the Israeli government, which also I believe also will hurt their own people in the long run.
- nyellin 15y ago
  Really? The world must unite to fight the possibly unethical enforcement of a sensible law in a country which has (for the most part, but with some exceptions outside of its jurisdiction) an excellent court system that has overturned similar decisions in the past? This is a controversial issue, which doesn't belong on HN, partly because people's strong opinions on Israel are often disproportionate to their overall interest in human rights in the middle east. People in this thread have a special self-righteous stick up their ass for Israel, but can't name the neighboring countries which executed or imprisoned gays, woman rights activists, and journalists or even tweeters last year.
  - rooshdi 15y ago
    Issues with other countries in the middle east have been discussed. Some examples: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3599396 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3599396 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3575029 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3575029 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=550719 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=550719 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=452153 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=452153 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2616318 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2616318 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1565419 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1565419
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  - cabalamat 15y ago
    > This is a controversial issue, which doesn't belong on HN, partly because people's strong opinions on Israel are often disproportionate to their overall interest in human rights in the middle east. I don't see how that could make it off-topic. Everyone one HN -- indeed, everyone -- knows more about some things than others, and has more interest in some things than others, so by your standards everythin g ought ot be off-topic for HN. > People in this thread have a special self-righteous stick up their ass for Israel, but can't name the neighboring countries which executed or imprisoned gays, woman rights activists, and journalists or even tweeters last year. That may be true of some sections of the general public. I suspect it is less true of HNers.
- orbitingpluto 15y ago
  Please re-read what I wrote and clarify that you read what you think you read. The nature of the opinions I voiced here are pretty much Chomskian in nature. If you're picking a fight with that spectrum of opinion with respect to Israel and Palestine as being to pro-Israeli, then I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you actually just misinterpreted what I said. Easy enough to do as it is an emotionally volatile subject. I have some pretty strong emotional reactions to the existence of an apartheid state. But for real peace to happen everyone will have to set aside personal and historical feelings (or rabid crazy born again send me your money so that Armageddon may come craziness) and come up with a compromise where no one is happy, everybody is still breathing, and with a full belly from supper to boot. A moving apartheid wall of course has to go, the 1967 borders form a (sans US) international consensus, and efforts to create a mutually beneficial economic interdependency have to occur. I really believe that Israel has been moving in the wrong direction. I also believe that Israel's utility to American interests will also slowly begin to wane over time and Israel should have a long term dove-not-hawk plan to survive past their usefulness. You might not agree with how I presented it. But I think it's important to talk about Palestine and Israel whenever possible and the way the conversation was going wasn't productive for what this forum is from a technological, business or political view. I tried to shift it to a direction where it could be honest & productive and not get down-voted out of existence from rabidness. I'm upvoting your comment because it does look like you have both parties best interests in mind as well. And I'm going to try to put this into a positive note: This is also might be completely naive on my part. But the thought of one city, Jerusalem, being the capital of two different countries sounds like it should be the basis for peace and not the shitstorm that people make it out to be. Both sides have to meet and both say, "This is fucked up. Let's fix it. Real prosperity and security is mutual prosperity and security." I frankly would love to be able to fly to Israel, do a contract, fly to Iran, do a contract, fly to Palestine, do a contract, fly to Sweden, so on and so forth. Free mobility of labour AND free mobility of capital would require new labels. It wouldn't be your standard messed up crony big-C Capitalism of today and it wouldn't be socialism either.
  - mark_l_watson 15y ago
    I think that I did mis-understand your position, thanks for clarifying it for me. I would bet that a lot of people share our basic wish for the well being of the people on both sides, and criticism for the governments.
zacharycohn 15y ago
If Israel wants to shut you down, it will find a way to shut you down.

azernik 15y ago

Props for taking a probably-off-topic post and bringing it on-topic.

mark_l_watson 15y ago

After years on HN, I am going to post my first negative response to someone's comment, yours! The Israeli government's actions in this and many other acts are completely immoral. Your 1) point may have some logical validity in general, but for the good of the Israeli and Palestinian people, the whole world needs to get behind slamming down on the actions of the Israeli government, which also I believe also will hurt their own people in the long run.

nyellin 15y ago
Really? The world must unite to fight the possibly unethical enforcement of a sensible law in a country which has (for the most part, but with some exceptions outside of its jurisdiction) an excellent court system that has overturned similar decisions in the past? This is a controversial issue, which doesn't belong on HN, partly because people's strong opinions on Israel are often disproportionate to their overall interest in human rights in the middle east. People in this thread have a special self-righteous stick up their ass for Israel, but can't name the neighboring countries which executed or imprisoned gays, woman rights activists, and journalists or even tweeters last year.
- rooshdi 15y ago
  Issues with other countries in the middle east have been discussed. Some examples: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3599396 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3599396 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3575029 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3575029 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=550719 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=550719 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=452153 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=452153 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2616318 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2616318 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1565419 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1565419
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- cabalamat 15y ago
  > This is a controversial issue, which doesn't belong on HN, partly because people's strong opinions on Israel are often disproportionate to their overall interest in human rights in the middle east. I don't see how that could make it off-topic. Everyone one HN -- indeed, everyone -- knows more about some things than others, and has more interest in some things than others, so by your standards everythin g ought ot be off-topic for HN. > People in this thread have a special self-righteous stick up their ass for Israel, but can't name the neighboring countries which executed or imprisoned gays, woman rights activists, and journalists or even tweeters last year. That may be true of some sections of the general public. I suspect it is less true of HNers.
orbitingpluto 15y ago
Please re-read what I wrote and clarify that you read what you think you read. The nature of the opinions I voiced here are pretty much Chomskian in nature. If you're picking a fight with that spectrum of opinion with respect to Israel and Palestine as being to pro-Israeli, then I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you actually just misinterpreted what I said. Easy enough to do as it is an emotionally volatile subject. I have some pretty strong emotional reactions to the existence of an apartheid state. But for real peace to happen everyone will have to set aside personal and historical feelings (or rabid crazy born again send me your money so that Armageddon may come craziness) and come up with a compromise where no one is happy, everybody is still breathing, and with a full belly from supper to boot. A moving apartheid wall of course has to go, the 1967 borders form a (sans US) international consensus, and efforts to create a mutually beneficial economic interdependency have to occur. I really believe that Israel has been moving in the wrong direction. I also believe that Israel's utility to American interests will also slowly begin to wane over time and Israel should have a long term dove-not-hawk plan to survive past their usefulness. You might not agree with how I presented it. But I think it's important to talk about Palestine and Israel whenever possible and the way the conversation was going wasn't productive for what this forum is from a technological, business or political view. I tried to shift it to a direction where it could be honest & productive and not get down-voted out of existence from rabidness. I'm upvoting your comment because it does look like you have both parties best interests in mind as well. And I'm going to try to put this into a positive note: This is also might be completely naive on my part. But the thought of one city, Jerusalem, being the capital of two different countries sounds like it should be the basis for peace and not the shitstorm that people make it out to be. Both sides have to meet and both say, "This is fucked up. Let's fix it. Real prosperity and security is mutual prosperity and security." I frankly would love to be able to fly to Israel, do a contract, fly to Iran, do a contract, fly to Palestine, do a contract, fly to Sweden, so on and so forth. Free mobility of labour AND free mobility of capital would require new labels. It wouldn't be your standard messed up crony big-C Capitalism of today and it wouldn't be socialism either.
- mark_l_watson 15y ago
  I think that I did mis-understand your position, thanks for clarifying it for me. I would bet that a lot of people share our basic wish for the well being of the people on both sides, and criticism for the governments.

zacharycohn 15y ago

If Israel wants to shut you down, it will find a way to shut you down.