havelhovel

> People from the US really need to get out of that bubble.

Maybe you live in a smaller bubble.

India: "Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, a 69-year-old American, has been elected as Pope Leo XIV, making history as the first American to head the Roman Catholic Church." https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/10-facts-ab...

Denmark: "For første gang i verdenshistorien er paven amerikansk." https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/udland/fra-missionaer-i-peru-til-n...

Brazil: "Papa Leão XIV é americano e tem cidadania peruana" https://www.estadao.com.br/brasil/papa-leao-xiv-e-americano-...

Nigeria: "America’s Robert Francis Prevost announced as new pope" https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/05/breaking-americas-robert...

Slovakia: "Lev XIV. je prvý Američan na pápežskom stolci." https://svet.sme.sk/c/23488126/novy-papez-lev-xiv-profil.htm...

It’s the same in English. There was supposed to be a comma between both words because they’re coordinate adjectives.

It's incredible that a term was coined in the 19th Century to describe demonstrable hatred toward Jews, that the term was happily adopted and popularized by people who hated Jews, and now over 150 years later the term itself is pointed to as "proof" of Jewish privilege or conspiracy, perpetuating the cycle of ignorance and hatred under a new guise.

> people who migrated from what is now Sweden

a.k.a. vikings

These things can add value, but no one needs a new hire to point that fact out. I'm also skeptical that a freshly hired IC's values will align with business values, even though the latter is what shapes the tech debt and tooling you're referring to.

What's more likely: a team of equally experienced engineers is waiting on a new hire to identify and fix significant blind spots or a team just needs more bandwidth to get things done?

I've never been on a team where we've needed a new IC to come in and assess our inefficiencies, question priorities, and lengthen meetings with debates we've already had. There are plenty of management consultants available for that. What we wanted was for an IC to come in and help us meet our goals by churning out more code. There's lots of talk about reputation but no mention of value.

"When questioned about the relationship between art and sexuality, Pablo Picasso once replied, 'It’s the same thing.'"

https://time.com/archive/6671960/sex-in-the-city/

I’m not sure why you’re pointing specifically to American Jews as the source of authority on a conflict in the Middle East, but in terms of polls and surveys:

“About a quarter [of Americans] (27%) say Israel is going too far in its current military operation, while about as many (25%) say it is taking the right approach; 16% of Americans say Israel is not going far enough militarily.” So more Americans support Israel’s campaign than do not.[1]

“81% of American Jews support Israel continuing its military operation to ‘recover all Israeli hostages and remove Hamas from power.’” Which implies the vast majority of “prominent American Jews” are not calling this genocide.[2]

And on this last point, this is hardly a “textbook example of genocide” when scholars of genocide contest this label[3], it is outright rejected by the US State Department[4], and casualties fall within the expectations of urban warfare experts[5]. The textbook example of genocide is the Holocaust.

All this hyperbole and generalization, just like we saw in Paul Graham’s tweet, makes it impossible to have productive discussions.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/12/08/americans-vi...

[2] https://jewishinsider.com/2023/12/poll-overwhelming-majority...

[3] https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-to-define-genocid... and https://time.com/6334409/is-whats-happening-gaza-genocide-ex...

[4] https://www.reuters.com/world/us-not-seeing-acts-genocide-ga...

[5] https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/07/opinions/israel-hamas-gaza-no...

> It appears to be the only one able to consistently get US citizens working for US employers in US soil fired

Can you provide some examples of Israeli lobbyists getting US citizens fired by US employers for expressing their opinions?

I think that's a fair critique. Do you have any alternative metrics for evaluating the "most powerful" lobbies in the US? Because I'm curious how AIPAC and Israel get this reputation if it's not based on something objective like financial statements.

I don't think that providing actual lists of top spenders is either "clever" or "disingenuous," but if you have a better way to empirically evaluate the claims being made about lobbying influence please share.

> He is talking about America's most powerful lobby FOR a foreign country.

I'm only interested in discussing the actual text that received (as of writing) 2.3 million views and is the subject of this thread, not your own revision.

> Also, your second list only includes official foreign agents, while most pro-Israel lobbying is not registered as such (notably AIPAC)

I was responding to a comment about the "Israeli lobby." Israelis are not Americans, which is why I addressed foreign spending. But since you're insinuating that AIPAC is a channel for foreign influence despite being a US organization with 3 million American members, changing its status wouldn't influence the list I provided, so I don't see the relevance of this argument to the larger question of lobbying power.

> The Israeli lobby is the most powerful

This is simply not true. If you look at spending since 2016, Israel is 10th, but didn't even break top 10 in 2023:

1. Liberia $183,313,959

2. Saudi Arabia $47,703,350

3. Japan $35,712,625

4. China $35,659,291

5. Hong Kong $30,717,811

6. Bahamas $26,763,000

7. Marshall Islands $26,579,703

8. United Arab Emirates $25,903,225

9. South Korea $24,050,739

10. Qatar $16,063,590

https://www.opensecrets.org/fara?cycle=2023

I'm curious which lobbying group Paul Graham is referring to as "America's most powerful lobby." Here are the top ten, by spending, in the US as of 2023:

1. US Chamber of Commerce $49,970,000

2. National Assn of Realtors $33,661,316

3. Blue Cross/Blue Shield $21,634,765

4. Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America $21,043,000

5. American Hospital Assn $20,928,991

6. American Medical Assn $15,330,000

7. Amazon.com $14,970,000

8. Meta $14,640,000

9. Business Roundtable $13,490,000

10. CTIA $11,570,000

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders

No. The comment you're replying to explicitly calls out the poor methodology this report is based on and the lack of subject matter expertise shown by the authors. The Wikipedia article is supplementary information that situates this critique within a wider context. They are not saying you should dismiss the report simply because of the Wikipedia article.

I think this report actually demonstrates the anti-Israel bias HRW has been accused of. HRW points to the 9,500 content takedown requests that Israel has made as one of "four underlying, systemic factors that contributed to the [pro-Palestine] censorship." But knowing that a single Reddit post can receive more than 9,500 comments within a day[1], and that some percentage of the takedown requests likely relate to posts that threaten operational secrecy or the right to privacy of victimized Israelis, leads me to the exact opposite conclusion: that Israel's takedown requests are neither intended to censor pro-Palestine voices nor, if that were the intent, large enough in number to have an impact. Since the report provides no context for the numbers it reports makes me think the authors are more interested in pushing the idea that Israel controls the online narrative than they are in understanding what is actually happening on these platforms.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/news/top/?sort=top&t=year

> Human Rights Watch published a call for evidence of online censorship…from the main Human Rights Watch accounts on Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), and TikTok.

I don’t see how HRW can post this in good conscience without acknowledging the huge potential for voluntary response bias in this survey. Pro-Israel voices have been skeptical of HRW’s perceived Anti-Israel bias[1] for over a decade. They are not going to be following or engaging with HRW accounts, and their voices are most likely fewer in number overall[2]. The fact that 1,049 of the 1,050 comments submitted for HRW’s review were Pro-Palestine should be a red flag, not the core piece of evidence.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204619004574318...

[2] https://wpde.com/amp/news/nation-world/support-for-palestine...

I hope someone investigates whether 23andMe adjusted user profile preferences or exposed this data through new features instead of assuming users chose to share the information now available in this leak.

And in the West what’s available is the product of people making what they want to make with relatively few restrictions.

I guess I’m also pretty naive then. Got any examples of the US government dictating what people can watch through censorship on par with North Korea or even China?

This isn’t a free speech debate. This isn’t a Chinese newspaper being banned. This isn’t a US citizen being blocked from expressing themselves. This is a software product. The US also regulates products like arms and drug shipments without being labeled hypocritical. Free trade doesn’t mean all or nothing.

As a member of this community, you should already know that mobile apps generate certain types of data that distinguish them from “all cross border internet companies,” and whether or not you’re willing to acknowledge the unique geopolitical context of this particular app, neither of the above can be ignored in any productive, nuanced discussion about TikTok.

Nothing important submitted to the app except for a full psych profile of every user updated in real time. I’m not a very creative person, and I can immediately see how this could be used to identify and recruit potential assets or improve psyops.

And there’s nothing hypocritical about both using and blocking an exploit, although I disagree with the reductive view that US companies are as aligned with US policy as Chinese companies are with China’s policy.

Those interested in this topic may also want to read Stephen Greenblatt‘s The Swerve.

> Trader Joe’s fans will stand in line for hours for groceries but still give the store just an 84% satisfaction rating, according to a survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Institute.

It’s tough competition, but I think this is the most absurd sentence in the article. Nevermind the difference between a premium consumer good and a grocery store, my takeaway is that reported satisfaction could be much higher among TJ shoppers without the hours long waits.

You asked “how in the world do people in India or Arizona survive their summer?” Historical trends are irrelevant when the answer is that some don’t.

There are also people who hate their day job, and after dealing with food, chores, and physical fitness, just want to spend their last waking hour or two relaxing before starting over.

According to the article, Reddit has gone from 20 employees to 2,000 over the last ten years. As someone who still uses the old theme and has been conditioned to use Google instead of Reddit’s own search functionality, it’s hard to understand the additional value all that extra labor brought to users.

> Plus, it would be great to get to know more about the amazing SaaS community here on Reddit!

Chef’s kiss.

The author of that article is a professor of archaeology who seems to hedge their language throughout. What speculative claims are presented as fact?

> I’m not sure those are great examples of people clinging to power forever, considering they’re semi-retired / retired and neither were heavily involved in politics in the first place

The desire to retire may have something to do with mortality.

> Just because most people with political power are old rich white men doesn’t mean all old rich white men run the world

It's hard to understand why you went in this direction. The parent comment didn't mention race or sex, and there are entire continents of people that ought to disprove your world view.