Israel relying on Microsoft cloud for expansive surveillance of Palestinians
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
This story should not be flagged.
Yeah, no that is not how this works. We in tech also need to be able to talk about about how the systems we build impact the world. And if we only talk about the positive sides, we are not getting the full picture.
I would guess that it's because you said "already worked" which people probably read as meaning that it is now visible in /news.
You know why it's flagged. Israel wants to continue doing its highly automated genocide silently without people questioning it an their cloud providers.
Tomorrow it's you.
I must assume you mean the first one, because Israel would not survive without the US
I don't think that's the case. I think most people are not self-interested, or at least not in the selfish sense. I think most people are more than willing to sacrifice _some_ direct personal gain for better community gains.
The problem is that capitalism only allows selfish self-interest to flourish, so it incentivises even the more community-oriented people to always put themselves first, a lot of the time even in detriment to their immediate vicinity.
Capitalism is a form of authoritarianism in that it really only serves a few, and everyone else is just constantly fighting for survival.
> being authoritarian which will inevitably leads also to surveillance
That's exactly where capitalism is taking us.
Wasn't a requirement, self interest doesn't imply malice.
>capitalism only allows selfish self-interest to flourish
How's that then?
>Capitalism is a form of authoritarianism in that it really only serves a few
You're cooked, market liberalisation has led the world from >80% in poverty to <10% in under 40 years, even removing huge entities like China.
But regarding China specifically it has been the gradual transition to a more market led economy.
The standard of living for the median worker has improved significantly in forty years let alone two hundred, lifestyle inflation is definitely rapid as you would expect with progress, wage growth has outpaced inflation for everyone but public sector workers.
Bad as things may seem now, we are all richer than ever before.
And you mention being richer. We also have an unfolding climate crisis, authoritarianism, mass surveillance, and the real possibility of imminent nuclear war (brewing now with China). All these things are the result of a wealthy minority controlling policy for their own interests. And the wealthy minority has gotten there through the same market mechanisms that exploit workers and concentrate wealth. Are we better off when we are much closer to our own self destruction? It’s this wealthy minority that has brought us here. Their relative power continues to grow.
In fact, many of the gains in wealth we have seen are not the result of markets but either savvy government policy or the result of people pushing back on the power of the ruling class. Markets have good and bad sides. It’s best to take off our rose colored glasses and see markets for their good and bad.
In case you don't know mass phone tapping didn't start in the US until decades (plural) later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_East_Germ...
Not that I have experienced socialists/communists reacting positively to being proven wrong much before. Even when proven wrong by their own historical record (yes, they PROUDLY published they were doing this in 1946, after all, that's what Marx instructed them to do). Yes, the need for mass surveillance of the masses is actually in Marx and Engels's work.
In fact it was a part of Marx's work in much the same way as you are arguing it here: he was falsely accusing capitalist and bourgeoisie of mass surveillance, even while he was trying to do it himself. But yeah, Marx is Marx. His whole work, a pamphlet discussing massacring the bourgeoisie ... when, of course, both he himself and his family (up and down, his parents, he himself, his wife, his children) were very much part of the "hated" bourgeoisie. But, of course, in his mind he was excluded. He himself was very much not the evil he was trying to fight, and that every description he published said otherwise ... Very on-brand for communists, that.
And you refer to Soviet Russia as if that’s supposed to represent socialism and communism. In fact there are many different kinds of socialists and communists, many who support democracy and oppose authoritarian governments. In fact many such people opposed the Bolsheviks and were killed by them. It’s simply not true that being socialist or communist entails supporting totalitarian government.
Only the governments themselves, who are of course also very, very, rich would retain their wealth. And quite a few governments in his time were individuals or families, but he didn't see them as the enemy, kind of, but not as the "source" of the evil of capitalism. Of course, communists aren't against a very, very rich government. The Soviets initially offered to make Tsar Nicolas II the leader of international socialism. Only when he kept refusing did he become the enemy.
And then the "that wasn't true communism" argument! Thank you. I kind of agree: most other communists were MUCH worse than the Soviets, and especially lacked most of the redeeming qualities the Soviets retained from imperial Russia.
In fact, I miss that about the Soviets. The Soviets were going to conquer Europe, provide housing and jobs for everyone, and get everyone to work and back each day on rocket powered trams. Seriously. Today's socialists just seem to want to destroy everything, which will then encourage Gaia to save the world and care for everyone. The Soviets were very much going to exploit nature to make everyone rich.
Never mind that even the ancient Greeks knew better: the godess Gaia is a Titan who massacred, and then ate people. Men, women, children. Especially children. She was the embodiment of natural disasters, of the primal, absolute force of nature. She killed to save nature, true. But also just for fun, because it is her nature. Especially children. Especially lost children. She was like almost all Titans: considered completely amoral, not necessarily evil, but she needed to be fought, even destroyed, not for fun, because otherwise a LOT of people would die.
Have you seen how YC higher ups talk about capitalism, elitism, etc? Culture comes from top down and within Silicon Valley tech elite it is practically a monoculture.
For that specific guy. It’s weird he invoked such a short text that he definitely didn’t read or hasn’t read in a long time. So easy to respond to that. That’s why I responded.
> He meant what we now call the middle class.
Capitalists according to Marx are those that own the means of production, not the middle class.
> larger land owners were mostly outside of cities, and were well on the way to inevitable bankruptcy
He saw them as a declining class that would eventually merge with the industrial bourgeoisie. He didn’t predict their inevitable bankruptcy.
> quite a few governments in his time were individuals or families, but he didn't see them as the enemy, kind of, but not as the "source" of the evil of capitalism
Again, inaccurate. His view is that the state is an apparatus of the capitalist class structured to protect its property and interests. The state and the uber-rich are the primary enemies of the working class, in his view.
> Soviets initially offered to make Tsar Nicolas II the leader of international socialism. Only when he kept refusing did he become the enemy.
Citation needed. Are you just fabricating things? The Bolsheviks ideology was based on the idea that there would be a proletarian revolution that would dismantle the old capitalist and aristocratic order, which the Tsar represented.
> that wasn't true communism" argument!
There are many different varieties of socialism and communism. In fact many societies long into pre-recorded history have been peaceful, leaderless and without money - communist. Yet it would be a mistake to call those societies Stalinist for example.
> get everyone to work and back each day on rocket powered trams. Seriously.
Soviet plans were never that fantastical. Fabrication.
> the godess Gaia is a Titan who massacred, and then ate people. Men, women, children. Especially children
Gaia isn’t typically represented that way. She is not a Titan but mother of the Titans. Maybe you are thinking of Kronos.
Technically, not precisely “the rich”, but the people whose main interaction with rhe economy is through ownership of capital to which rented labor of others is applied (specifically, this is the haut bourgeoisie in Marxist theory.)
There is also the middle class (the petite bourgeoisie), those who have a (in broad terms) balance between ownership of capital and application of their own labor, most particulatly applying their own labor to their own capital as independent business operators as a kind of capitalists, but it was the haut bourgeoisie that Marx portrays as the problematic, exploitive, ruling class. The main issue with the petit bourgeoisie is their disinterest in improving the condition of the working class being exploited by the haut bourgeoisie; because they are already out of the state of alienation that comes from separation of labor and control of capital, and at risk of losing that status if they sufficiently rock the boat.
> He meant what we now call the middle class. Managers. Engineers. Store owners. (Small) company owners. Factory owners. Smaller landlords.
Nah, what we now call “the middle class” is mostly the middle income segment of the working class (Marx didn't really have a special term for them, for Lenin a lot of them would be in the proletarian intelligentsia.) But the group you name is a mix of them, the petit bourgeois, and in the case of factory owners the haut bourgeois (kind of weird that you think “factory owners” fits any modern definition of “middle class" that also includes line managers.)
Under this paradigm it's miraculous that we tolerate hundreds of years of oppression and racism from the whites peaceably.
If you call for bloody revolution and simultaneously identify yourselves as the villains, don't be surprised when we come busting down your doors.
It's not cool to make stuff up just to win an argument. It makes you lose the argument.
> In fact it was a part of Marx's work in much the same way as you are arguing it here: he was falsely accusing capitalist and bourgeoisie of mass surveillance, even while he was trying to do it himself. But yeah, Marx is Marx.
Yeah, Marx was trying to establish a vast spy network of ravens and pigeons, spanning the whole continent on Wakanda. /s
Both mine and your statements are equally true.
> Yes, the need for mass surveillance of the masses is actually in Marx and Engels's work.
Yeah, in the unpublished archives that only you have access to. /s
There are a number of big name tech companies associated with similar through their collaborations with the Nazi's, IBM etc. Did that have any effect on those companies that might inform what could happen to Microsoft and others?
(I don't think every story about this conflict should be on HN by the way, as a "major on-going topic". But IMHO this particular story seemed like a good one as it intersects with tech and is something actually new, at least to some degree).
https://www.theverge.com/news/643777/microsoft-bill-gates-st...
There's even a musical segment of the documentary (he convinced the people to reimagine their doings in the style of 50's Hollywood movies they loved) where actors playing the victims thank the killers for saving them from godlessness and sending them to heaven: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-ta9To14yw
I wonder how many of the genocide-defenders and genocide-enablers (not to mention genocide-executioners) will have similar PTSD...