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There is an interesting and delicate conversation about how a twenty-something engineer in the military ends up frequenting anti-military and anti-democracy sub

There is an interesting and delicate conversation about how a twenty-something engineer in the military ends up frequenting anti-military and anti-democracy subreddits. I think that fits in with hn. There is another interesting and delicate conversation about what that person thought about Gaza and about Israeli Jews, and where those ideas came from. He posted on Reddit that Hamas's stated intent to destroy Israel - where 7 million Jews live - would not count as genocide. That is a higher percentage than the extermination of 6 million European Jews in the Holocaust, when there were more Jews alive than now. He based this on the belief that Israel is a US and UK colony, which is hard to take seriously either literally (since it isn't) or figuratively (since none of the many non-middle-eastern waves of Jewish refugees came from the US or UK). He also had a deeply held belief that the violence killing 1% of Palestinians in Gaza IS a genocide (and I think it's safe to assume that he fully accepted Hamas's claims that 30k people have died, and fully rejected IDF's claims that 12k of those were Hamas militants). So deeply held that he burned himself to death over it. To me, the inconsistency of holding those two beliefs so strongly at the same time is a sign of antisemitism believed more deeply than I personally believe in anything. And that contradiction does not survive a moment's rational thought - to me at least. Which makes me assume that someone whose profession is built around thinking rationally was simply unable to think rationally about the Israel-Gaza conflict and see the inherent asymmetry of what he was saying. So I think there is a discussion here. Not about whether he was right that the devastation in Gaza amounts to a genocide, or right about whether democracy is evil, or right about whether America is evil. But the limits of rationality compared to how engineers usually think about themselves, and whether we are more or less susceptible than anyone else when it comes to online echo chambers. And it is incredibly hard to have that conversation without getting into flame wars. Or projecting our personal beliefs about the Israel/Palestine conflict to the point that it prevents useful discourse.

SomeoneFromCA 3y ago
In every legal system, intent without capacity is not considered to be intent. It is so laughable and pathetic, frankly, that you brought it up at all.
- PoignardAzur 3y ago
  > It is so laughable and pathetic, frankly, that you brought it up at all. If the claim you're making is "we should not bring up the fact that the Hamas' stated intent is to kill and/or deport every Jew in Israel because they don't have the capacity to do that"... I mean, I've seen variations of that claim before, but I still find it baffling. (Standards disclaimers apply, the Hamas having genocidal intent doesn't justify the IDF's war crimes, etc.)
wesselbindt 3y ago
> Hamas's claims that 30k people have died That's not just Hamas's claim, that's the UN's claim, Amnesty international has this claim. There's plenty of independent thirds parties which hold this claim. The same cannot be said for the 12k militants claim, for which the idf has supplied no evidence, and is not repeated by independent third parties. And beyond that, I don't think the belief that killing 1% of a population and displacing and injuring many more has much to do with any feelings towards any race. If the Belgians came into my country and killed 1% of everyone, I'd be pretty miffed, but that doesn't mean I have an ethnic hatred of Belgians.
- incognos 3y ago
  Even the IDF uses those numbers. The number is likely much higher as it does not take into account those buried under the rubble - which cannot be reached without proper equipment.
jstarfish 3y ago
[flagged]
- flimsythoughts 3y ago
  That is a wild take on the comment you are responding to. Are you sure you are responding to the right comment?
  - drc500free 3y ago
    This is why the conversation is nearly impossible, even on hn. It's hard to find enough people who agree on which facts are objectively true in order to have the discussion. Things end up stuck in endless loops of the loudest voices claiming that either "any criticism at all of Israel, no matter what it does, is antisemitic" or "no criticism of Israel is ever antisemitic unless it explicitly and directly refers to Judaism." Ironically, I've observed many of the former have trouble understanding that racism can exist without using a racial slur, while many of the latter can easily write a 1000 word essay about dog whistles and implicit bias against groups other than Jews.

SomeoneFromCA 3y ago

In every legal system, intent without capacity is not considered to be intent. It is so laughable and pathetic, frankly, that you brought it up at all.

PoignardAzur 3y ago
> It is so laughable and pathetic, frankly, that you brought it up at all. If the claim you're making is "we should not bring up the fact that the Hamas' stated intent is to kill and/or deport every Jew in Israel because they don't have the capacity to do that"... I mean, I've seen variations of that claim before, but I still find it baffling. (Standards disclaimers apply, the Hamas having genocidal intent doesn't justify the IDF's war crimes, etc.)

wesselbindt 3y ago

> Hamas's claims that 30k people have died That's not just Hamas's claim, that's the UN's claim, Amnesty international has this claim. There's plenty of independent thirds parties which hold this claim. The same cannot be said for the 12k militants claim, for which the idf has supplied no evidence, and is not repeated by independent third parties. And beyond that, I don't think the belief that killing 1% of a population and displacing and injuring many more has much to do with any feelings towards any race. If the Belgians came into my country and killed 1% of everyone, I'd be pretty miffed, but that doesn't mean I have an ethnic hatred of Belgians.

incognos 3y ago
Even the IDF uses those numbers. The number is likely much higher as it does not take into account those buried under the rubble - which cannot be reached without proper equipment.

jstarfish 3y ago

[flagged]

flimsythoughts 3y ago
That is a wild take on the comment you are responding to. Are you sure you are responding to the right comment?
- drc500free 3y ago
  This is why the conversation is nearly impossible, even on hn. It's hard to find enough people who agree on which facts are objectively true in order to have the discussion. Things end up stuck in endless loops of the loudest voices claiming that either "any criticism at all of Israel, no matter what it does, is antisemitic" or "no criticism of Israel is ever antisemitic unless it explicitly and directly refers to Judaism." Ironically, I've observed many of the former have trouble understanding that racism can exist without using a racial slur, while many of the latter can easily write a 1000 word essay about dog whistles and implicit bias against groups other than Jews.