12 ms·

You can see this happen out in the open when Paul Graham (or anyone else) posts statistics about who's been killed, raw footage... he's immediately swarmed by p

You can see this happen out in the open when Paul Graham (or anyone else) posts statistics about who's been killed, raw footage... he's immediately swarmed by people, some major players in the industry, accusing him of "antisemitism", which it most definitely is not.

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richardfeynman 3y ago
It was certainly interesting to see Paul Graham, famous for his skepticism of China's COVID numbers, immediately embrace the Gaza Ministry of Health's death toll, without understanding how they themselves generate it.
- JeffSnazz 3y ago
  ...is there any reason to doubt these figures? Is there any reason to suspect that Hamas is any less trustworthy than the Israeli government is?
  - richardfeynman 3y ago
    Yes, of course there is reason to suspect Hamas is untrustworthy. I'm not trying to argue one should take Israel's word at face value (of course you should subject it to scrutiny as well), but yes, Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press, strong left-wing movement, and the second biggest tech sector out of silicon valley, is far more trustworthy than Hamas, a repressive, fundamentalist, authoritarian regime with no free press. This doesn't mean they always tell the truth, but there is no equivalence between them and Hamas. In terms of specific reasons to doubt the Gaza Health Ministry numbers specifically, I could go on forever about that, but I don't see the point of doing so on HN. It's not a tech-related question.
    - keefle 3y ago
      I believe there is very little reason to assume the numbers are not accurate. Not only have their numbers been fairly accurate in previous conflicts, but also many US officials believe them to be accurate if not underreported. It feels more like an Israeli attempt at using fog of war and the masses ignorance on the matter to soften the reaction and spread doubt about the real numbers. As this talking point was continously used by Israeli spokespersons even after US officials believed these numbers to be fairly accurate. I would be happy to be corrected, I wish the numbers are actually less, and would want this to be the reality. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-growing-confidence-in-death-toll-reports-from-gaza-b3b5183a https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-gro...
      - richardfeynman 3y ago
        "I believe there is very little reason to assume the numbers are not accurate." How are the numbers generated?
        SauciestGNU 3y ago
        Not the OP, but does it matter if I specifically know how the numbers are generated? I'll absolutely appeal to authority and accept that the United States, various United Nations agencies, MSF, etc accept these numbers as reasonably accurate and acknowledge that they're in a far better position to understand the provenance of the data than I'll ever be.
        richardfeynman 3y ago
        Great - I'll rely on scientific thinking -- nullius in verba -- and ask questions I'd ask anyone else about how they gather their data, how they know what they claim to know, etc. You believe in the church when it says the sun revolves around the earth.
        SauciestGNU 3y ago
  - loeg 3y ago
    For example, Hamas claimed that an Israeli bomb struck a Gazan hospital and killed 500. Later the consensus viewpoint is that (1) it was a failed Gazan rocket launched at Israel that malfunctioned, and (2) it struck in a parking lot and the death toll is likely much, much lower. Hamas, a terrorist organization that repeatedly launches rockets at Israeli civilians, does not have a ton of credibility.
- keefle 3y ago
  From my understanding their numbers have been fairly accurate throughout the years, do you have any specific examples of prior extreme discrepancies? (Because from what I followed, even the US believes those numbers to be accurate, but I would be happy to be corrected) https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-growing-confidence-in-death-toll-reports-from-gaza-b3b5183a https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-gro...
  - richardfeynman 3y ago
    I'll answer your question, but first I'll ask you a question: Do you know how the Gaza Health Ministry generates their death toll? What do you think of their methods? My guess is you don't know but you trust it because you see these numbers repeated in the media (just like China's COVID death toll). If you ask me how Israel calculates its death toll the answer is pretty simple: they use archaeologists, forensic medical teams, and more One of the most obvious examples of a prior discrepancy was the Health Ministry claiming that ~500 innocent civilians died when Israel bombed al Ahli hospital. Of course, we later discovered the hospital wasn't bombed, the parking lot was, the bomb wasn't dropped by Israel but was rather an errant rocket from Hamas, and that far fewer people died. In other words, a series of lies. The Health Ministry never corrected the death toll and kept adding from that. Beyond this, here's one of many analyses casting shade on the Health Ministry's statistics: https://twitter.com/Aizenberg55/status/1744381711993946209 https://twitter.com/Aizenberg55/status/1744381711993946209 You can google around for dozens more. As I said to the prior commenter, I'd rather not have a debate here about whether the numbers are accurate (not because I'm not confident but rather because of the famous XKCD) and I simply mean to point out that Paul Graham has one standard for China's COVID death toll and a completely different standard for Hamas's Health ministry figures.
    - keefle 3y ago
      I still this still ignores important points, and ill make some comments and questions, some of which might be pedantic so feel free to ignore them 1. Regardless of the method, it was fairly accurate for years, and matched closely to Israeli estimates of casualties in prior conflicts. 2. The US, Israeli's largest ally, is not doubting those numbers. This alone says alot given that the US from a strategic perspective would want to present Israel in the best possible light they can given the majority of the globe is heading towards leaving Israel in isolation. 3. The Israeli claim against Almamadani hospital incident is placing the blame on Islamic Jihad (not Hamas) (pedantic point) 4. The issue of Almamadani hospital incident is still not settled, especially as the Israeli claimes have been debunked by multiple entities most notably the New York times. [1] 5. Ignoring the questionable numbers of this specific incident, because you might be right, but its interesting that the US's admission that the death toll coming from Gaza is accurate came at a date way after the Al mamadani hospital incident (my claim would be that this incident has been taken into consideration by the US officials when they admitted the accuracy of the death toll coming from Gaza). This paired with the US's strategic support of Israel makes their admission that the death toll is accurate is way more trust worthy than possibly exaggerated COVID death tolls, as in one case its an admission playing against the admitter, whereas the other case the admission is in favor of the admitter. But thank you for sharing the Twitter thread, I'll investigate it and look into other sources as well [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-israel-hamas-video.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hos...
volleyball 3y ago
paulg was among those specifically targeted by high-profile pro-idf groups as part of the "information wars" in this latest conflict. https://nitter.net/paulg/status/1733146138226614465 https://nitter.net/paulg/status/1733146138226614465 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1733146138226614465 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1733146138226614465

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deleted 3y ago

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richardfeynman 3y ago

It was certainly interesting to see Paul Graham, famous for his skepticism of China's COVID numbers, immediately embrace the Gaza Ministry of Health's death toll, without understanding how they themselves generate it.

JeffSnazz 3y ago
...is there any reason to doubt these figures? Is there any reason to suspect that Hamas is any less trustworthy than the Israeli government is?
- richardfeynman 3y ago
  Yes, of course there is reason to suspect Hamas is untrustworthy. I'm not trying to argue one should take Israel's word at face value (of course you should subject it to scrutiny as well), but yes, Israel, a liberal democratic state with a free press, strong left-wing movement, and the second biggest tech sector out of silicon valley, is far more trustworthy than Hamas, a repressive, fundamentalist, authoritarian regime with no free press. This doesn't mean they always tell the truth, but there is no equivalence between them and Hamas. In terms of specific reasons to doubt the Gaza Health Ministry numbers specifically, I could go on forever about that, but I don't see the point of doing so on HN. It's not a tech-related question.
  - keefle 3y ago
    I believe there is very little reason to assume the numbers are not accurate. Not only have their numbers been fairly accurate in previous conflicts, but also many US officials believe them to be accurate if not underreported. It feels more like an Israeli attempt at using fog of war and the masses ignorance on the matter to soften the reaction and spread doubt about the real numbers. As this talking point was continously used by Israeli spokespersons even after US officials believed these numbers to be fairly accurate. I would be happy to be corrected, I wish the numbers are actually less, and would want this to be the reality. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-growing-confidence-in-death-toll-reports-from-gaza-b3b5183a https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-gro...
    - richardfeynman 3y ago
      "I believe there is very little reason to assume the numbers are not accurate." How are the numbers generated?
      - SauciestGNU 3y ago
        Not the OP, but does it matter if I specifically know how the numbers are generated? I'll absolutely appeal to authority and accept that the United States, various United Nations agencies, MSF, etc accept these numbers as reasonably accurate and acknowledge that they're in a far better position to understand the provenance of the data than I'll ever be.
        richardfeynman 3y ago
        Great - I'll rely on scientific thinking -- nullius in verba -- and ask questions I'd ask anyone else about how they gather their data, how they know what they claim to know, etc. You believe in the church when it says the sun revolves around the earth.
        SauciestGNU 3y ago
- loeg 3y ago
  For example, Hamas claimed that an Israeli bomb struck a Gazan hospital and killed 500. Later the consensus viewpoint is that (1) it was a failed Gazan rocket launched at Israel that malfunctioned, and (2) it struck in a parking lot and the death toll is likely much, much lower. Hamas, a terrorist organization that repeatedly launches rockets at Israeli civilians, does not have a ton of credibility.
keefle 3y ago
From my understanding their numbers have been fairly accurate throughout the years, do you have any specific examples of prior extreme discrepancies? (Because from what I followed, even the US believes those numbers to be accurate, but I would be happy to be corrected) https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-growing-confidence-in-death-toll-reports-from-gaza-b3b5183a https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-officials-have-gro...
- richardfeynman 3y ago
  I'll answer your question, but first I'll ask you a question: Do you know how the Gaza Health Ministry generates their death toll? What do you think of their methods? My guess is you don't know but you trust it because you see these numbers repeated in the media (just like China's COVID death toll). If you ask me how Israel calculates its death toll the answer is pretty simple: they use archaeologists, forensic medical teams, and more One of the most obvious examples of a prior discrepancy was the Health Ministry claiming that ~500 innocent civilians died when Israel bombed al Ahli hospital. Of course, we later discovered the hospital wasn't bombed, the parking lot was, the bomb wasn't dropped by Israel but was rather an errant rocket from Hamas, and that far fewer people died. In other words, a series of lies. The Health Ministry never corrected the death toll and kept adding from that. Beyond this, here's one of many analyses casting shade on the Health Ministry's statistics: https://twitter.com/Aizenberg55/status/1744381711993946209 https://twitter.com/Aizenberg55/status/1744381711993946209 You can google around for dozens more. As I said to the prior commenter, I'd rather not have a debate here about whether the numbers are accurate (not because I'm not confident but rather because of the famous XKCD) and I simply mean to point out that Paul Graham has one standard for China's COVID death toll and a completely different standard for Hamas's Health ministry figures.
  - keefle 3y ago
    I still this still ignores important points, and ill make some comments and questions, some of which might be pedantic so feel free to ignore them 1. Regardless of the method, it was fairly accurate for years, and matched closely to Israeli estimates of casualties in prior conflicts. 2. The US, Israeli's largest ally, is not doubting those numbers. This alone says alot given that the US from a strategic perspective would want to present Israel in the best possible light they can given the majority of the globe is heading towards leaving Israel in isolation. 3. The Israeli claim against Almamadani hospital incident is placing the blame on Islamic Jihad (not Hamas) (pedantic point) 4. The issue of Almamadani hospital incident is still not settled, especially as the Israeli claimes have been debunked by multiple entities most notably the New York times. [1] 5. Ignoring the questionable numbers of this specific incident, because you might be right, but its interesting that the US's admission that the death toll coming from Gaza is accurate came at a date way after the Al mamadani hospital incident (my claim would be that this incident has been taken into consideration by the US officials when they admitted the accuracy of the death toll coming from Gaza). This paired with the US's strategic support of Israel makes their admission that the death toll is accurate is way more trust worthy than possibly exaggerated COVID death tolls, as in one case its an admission playing against the admitter, whereas the other case the admission is in favor of the admitter. But thank you for sharing the Twitter thread, I'll investigate it and look into other sources as well [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-israel-hamas-video.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hos...

volleyball 3y ago

paulg was among those specifically targeted by high-profile pro-idf groups as part of the "information wars" in this latest conflict. https://nitter.net/paulg/status/1733146138226614465 https://nitter.net/paulg/status/1733146138226614465 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1733146138226614465 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1733146138226614465