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The real answer here is that he is mad about people protesting what Israel is doing in Gaza. This $100M donation is being made with funds he had given to UPenn.

• jimmydddd 8mo ago
  This answer is correct.
• an0malous 8mo ago
  I would have never guessed that a significant portion of western society would not only be ok with killing thousands of children but be outraged that anyone would protest it. I feel like I have more information about the world than ever and understand it less than ever.
  • sixo 8mo ago
    What people feel about things is almost an entirely a function of their information environment, rather than the facts of the events themselves. Almost nobody truly aware of the number of slaughtered and starved Palestinian children would be "okay" with it; the people defending it are more-or-less viewing these events in terms so different from that that those basic facts cannot reach their understanding at all.
    • JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
      > Almost nobody truly aware of the number of slaughtered and starved Palestinian children would be "okay" with it A lot of people aren’t okay with it but also choose not to engage on it.
      • EngineerUSA 8mo ago
        If I ignore it, it is as if it never happened. Part of it is willful ignorance though. For Ross, he is deeply religious and views the security of Israel as that of the Jewish people (having a home to run away to if shit hits the fan). Children dying is a sacrifice he is willing to make. For the majority of America though, I believe they are a) either scared, because they saw a witch hunt orchestrated by people in power (like Ackman). If 3 female deans, many of them minorities, can get ousted at the whim of a billionaire, then the typical engineer or employee will be easily labeled antisemitic for defending those who are denied their rights to life and property, and will lose their job. Canary Mission and other groups are funded by successful billionaires like Ackman, Adelsons etc and harass students on campuses for protesting. They doxx them, blacklist them (no boss will hire someone on those letters, at the expense of being labeled an antisemite, and you are in it for a suprise once you notice how many of our tech companies and finance sectors are run by religious sociopaths). I know a few victims of those efforts. Interestingly, 90% of them are white middle class, and I think they are mostly women. Their courage is to be admired. Or b) people are okay with it, because Ghaza is so far away and because of Israel's blockade on the media covering ghaza (Israel has already killed more journalists last year than all other nations combined btw. I do not know of any democracy that does this).
        • _bohm 8mo ago
          Not that I'm anyone important, but at this point if I google someone and they show up on the Canary Mission website, I'm inclined to hold them in higher regard.
      • ZeroGravitas 8mo ago
        The Onion’ Stands With Israel Because It Seems Like You Get In Less Trouble For That https://theonion.com/the-onion-stands-with-israel-because-it-seems-like-yo-1850922505/ https://theonion.com/the-onion-stands-with-israel-because-it...
  • fouc 8mo ago
    There's a lot of non-obvious information or hidden information out there if you have no context. I mean, at the very least I can tell that there are a lot of wealthy and powerful people in western society that are invested in maintaining the innocence and primacy of Israel. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” -- Upton Sinclair. Where salary in that quote could be metaphorical, given there's other reasons like identity, beliefs, or politics.
  • tjroqfggyu56275 8mo ago
    Don't think anyone in the "global South", which have suffered from Western "civilizing missions" are surprised by this. It's kind of funny to see "anti-interventions" podcasters go full empire mode and justify literally colonization today. Hardly surprising, since most of these white nationalists love the British Empire's "oeuvre" in non-White countries (but somehow ignore the fact that their own country fought against its tyrannical rule).
  • chii 8mo ago
    [flagged]
    • clipsy 8mo ago
      > How many children are dying/starved/killed in the sudan war? Why don't these same protests make the same kind of statements for that? Because no one in our society is defending, supporting, or funding the killing of children in the Sudan war.
    • EngineerUSA 8mo ago
      Sudan is a civil war. Ghaza is a genocide orchestrated by one group against another. It is completely different. The Syrian civil war claimed 500k lives. Civil wars are different and more complicated. In Ghaza, the bad actors are clear though. One of them is rightfully labeled for their war crimes. The other enjoys white house visits and the support of billionaires (Ackman), a diaspora that would excuse murder and cover for it. Just listen to bari Weiss, or those influencers that in Netanyahu's own words, must spread israeli propaganda at all costs. In a fair world, the israeli gov and the militias in ghaza would both be side by side at the Hague or in Guatanamo. The world does not work that way, for some are more equal than others, when rich backers in the West would put Israel first, and America and the free world last
    • an0malous 8mo ago
      > How many children are dying/starved/killed in the sudan war? Why don't these same protests make the same kind of statements for that? Because the United States isn't funding and supplying the weapons for that atrocity, and we don't have American congressman and presidents visiting Sudan to pay homage, or have US officials saying "Sudan first" and "Sudan is our greatest ally" and putting the Sudanese flag in their offices. The US president's son-in-law isn't pitching investors on buying beachfront property in Sudan. > is very specifically socially engineered imho - because there's an actor behind it with purpose Who do you think is socially engineering these protests and how? There's far more evidence that Israel is manipulating public perceptions, but they're failing at it because there are too many alternative sources of media to control them all now.
  • it_learnses 8mo ago
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  • somenameforme 8mo ago
    Estimates for deaths we caused in Iraq range from the low hundreds of thousands to the millions, and that's going to be overwhelmingly civilians. [1] And given those are all very short time estimates (generally 2003-2007), and since many studies are from violent deaths only (excluding subsequent caused famine/disease/despair/etc) the millions is likely closer to the mark than not. Compare that to the death toll in any comparable war, event, or behavior that we politicize against domestically. Now imagine yourself seeing these things from the outside. That's how the world looks to the 'real' rest of the world, and not the ~15% and declining percent of the world that people call the 'rest of the world', when they mean Europe, the Anglosphere, and a handful of occasional oddballs like Japan or South Korea. And when you see this world through their eyes, you start to see an entirely different world, and it's the world that we are also starting to see now as all masks and pretexts have been coming off for years now. And in general I think that's a good thing. People can't form realistic and meaningful worldviews if they're stuck in a Marvel Comic Universe perspective of international relations. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
    • wqaatwt 8mo ago
      > deaths we caused in Iraq Doesn’t much change the horrible situation but overwhelming majority of them were indirect. Not quite the same as carpet bombing a densely inhabited city. Also well.. if you look at Sadam’s death toll in the 80s and 90s it isn’t really lower. Rather a low standard of course…
      • zaphirplane 8mo ago
        The disclaimers speak loudly what are you trying to say
    • foogazi 8mo ago
      > Estimates for deaths we caused in Iraq range from the low hundreds of thousands to the millions How many do you estimate you caused ?
  • asah 8mo ago
    it's hard to put numbers to words, but I doubt "a significant portion of western society [is] outraged that anyone would protest it" - likely, it's very small but influential and/or wealthy.
    • bryanrasmussen 8mo ago
      I think it's probably significant and at least as big as the crazification factor https://shebloggedbynight.com/2025/the-27-club-or-lizard-people-the-crazification-factor-and-me/ https://shebloggedbynight.com/2025/the-27-club-or-lizard-peo... Of course we haven't actually defined what we mean by significant, so I suppose we will have to drop back to that old standby of 5%.
    • direwolf20 8mo ago
      They're good at influencing opinions. Half of America voted for a person with dementia. Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
  • bulbar 8mo ago
    Having more information doesn't necessarily means that one is better informed. I also read/watch as much original sources as time and energy allows, that often (not always) gives a very different image than what media represents. For example, what I have read in the documents produces by UN representative for signs of genocide showed very thin/constructed arguments. Haven't read all of it so maybe there are better arguments as well.
  • csense 8mo ago
    I'm surprised that a significant portion of western society has any sympathy for the Palestinian side after October 7. Hamas started a war and used a bunch of heinous tactics -- kidnapping and murdering a bunch of random civilians, putting bases in hospitals, stealing food aid, and so on. Israel tries to avoid casualties when they can. For example when Hamas launches rockets at Israeli civilian targets, they shoot the rockets down with the Iron Dome and shrug it off. In my view Israel would be perfectly within their rights to return rocket for rocket into Palestinian civilian targets. That the Israeli rockets would have far more devastating effect as they'd produced by a nation state with a proper MIC, not what terrorists or smugglers can jury-rig, and the defenders don't have their own Iron Dome, Palestine would by far get the worst of the exchange, is something Hamas should be thinking of before they go around launching rockets at other people's civilian territory. That Israel doesn't return rocket for rocket in this way tells me Israel is fighting with a significantly higher amount of restraint and morality than their opponent, and I'm confused as to how many otherwise intelligent people seem to feel otherwise. I feel sorry for the civilians caught in the middle, but in my view, almost all the moral responsibility for the bad stuff happening to Palestine falls on Hamas. Hamas is always going around deliberately committing atrocities, Israel is often trying to show restraint while still maintaining reasonable military effectiveness against an enemy who likes using human shields.
    • mfru 8mo ago
      "Israel tries to avoid casualties when they can." Provably false: 2018 Great March of return. Peaceful protest against the occupatioon and for the Palestinian right to return. People got show down by snipers who also (until this day) shot at kids and medics. Edit: Also the "mowing the lawn" doctrine
    • ThePowerOfFuet 8mo ago
      >Israel is fighting with a significantly higher amount of restraint and morality than their opponent Gaza would not be starving were this the case, and you should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting otherwise.
      • wqaatwt 8mo ago
  • adastra22 8mo ago
    (1) If you are going to protest something, you need to show up with an answer to the question: “well, what should they have done?” (2) That doesn’t matter to the situation at hand. The protests on college campuses got WAY out of hand and disrupted the purpose of the institution: teaching.
    • mfru 8mo ago
      (1) The answer is simple: Stop the genocide in Gaza by any means necessary. The US has the power to do that with its proxy Israel. (2) Reading that I wonder if you also supported violent dismissals of Vietnam war protests
      • adastra22 8mo ago
        Not what I was asking about. What should Israel have done in response to Oct 7th? What would be the downstream effects? What should a country do when a neighbor invades and massacres entire towns, live-streaming the violent deaths and rapes for the world to see? What is the correct response to this? You have clearly not thought through the game theory and repercussions of what you are suggesting. Like many college protesters, you would do well to understand the complexity of the mechanics of the real world, and understand that reality ain’t rainbows and butterflies. I have no clue how you drew the Vietnam war protest thing from what I wrote.
        • watwut 8mo ago
          First, genocide is not necessary response. Second, Israel hard right was working on that and moving toward genocide for years.
          • solumunus 8mo ago
            So I guess no one is actually going to try and answer the question?
            • disgruntledphd2 8mo ago
• sejje 8mo ago
  Answer to what question?
• JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
  > real answer here is that he is mad about people protesting what Israel is doing in Gaza This sounds more like a proximate cause than a “real answer.”
• junofan 8mo ago
  By the article it sounds like Ross Stevens wanted his money to go towards excellence. Perhaps he didn’t find that at today’s Penn. Taking him at his word, he seems to have found that with the US Olympians.
• mhb 8mo ago
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• it_learnses 8mo ago
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• tmp3554981 8mo ago
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