McGrann evolved his thinking from the Dead Economy essay to (what I think is) a more profound piece using The Grand Inquisitor as a framework.
Text and audio links here: https://zimberthink.substack.com/p/owen-mcgrann-the-intersec...
13 karma · joined March 17, 2020
Text and audio links here: https://zimberthink.substack.com/p/owen-mcgrann-the-intersec...
In our tools evaluation, React just had too much overhead. changes would trigger a huge cascade of events that killed responsiveness. We went with Backbone and it served us very well.
I know React is king, but so far I have managed to live without it.
Do you know what Hamas is?
Do you know their charter?
Do you know that they diverted billions of $, meant to build housing for Gazans to their own pockets and to a huge underground fortress under a civilian population?
Do you know that most Gazans support Hamas, and that Hamas has made many offensive wars against the civilians and armies of both Israel and Egypt? (Hamas killed dozens of Egyptian soldiers running wild in Egyptian Rafah in 2014... Know what Egypt did? Leveled hundreds of housing structures)
Hamas has been in a state of war since the day they took power in Gaza.
Hamas has murdered hundreds of Palestinians, including many who worked for peace.
What do you want to see?
More violence and blood?
Or more peace?
Promote what you want to see.
(Digging out the 100's of miles of offensive tunnels in Gaza is slow slow work. Hamas could end the war any time, but they will never surrender. They will fight to the last Gazan child. Do you want that?)
I live here. In places like Jerusalem, Jews and Arabs are together all day, every day. 40% of the police officers in Jerusalem are Arabs.
What is your problem?
Why do you selectively omit the polls of Arabs and Palestinians... about lots of things.... (attitudes to Jews, support of violent Jihadist groups, etc etc)
If you want peace, push for peace.
If you want violence and blood, keep doing what you are doing.
That is not a well thought out question. The answer is different in PA controlled areas, non PA areas, and Gaza.
And Gaza's life expectancy is different for members of Hamas vs. non members. And was one thing on October 6, 2023 and October 8, 2023.
Hamas has agency.
They could end the war a year ago or tomorrow.
Why don't they?
What?
You understand what would happen next, right?
Is there a single time in history when that has occurred? And if so, what happened next?
What a fantastically violent thing to say or propose.
>the israeli goal is the disappearance of all palestinians
If that is true, why are so many Palestinians alive?
If that is true, how do Palestinians have a population growth rate higher than any European country?
Palestine: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/state-of-pale...
Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_...
Do you live in a place that has a death cult committing daily acts of violence and killing (against people on both sides of the fence, of both "ethnicities")?
Do you live in a place where billions are spent on offensive weapons (tunnels, rockets) and stolen from donated food aid (as Hamas has been hijacking aid for many years and selling it at profit)?
If you do not, do you have any idea how a group of people (e.g. a society) responds to ongoing violence and threats of violence?
Your dismissive "constant shifting goalposts and lack of self awareness will always startle me" is the mark of someone who sits in an armchair and experiences no threat.
Beware of being dismissive. This region needs people who push for the hard work of peace and avoid labels and dismisiveness.
There was a peace movement in the 1990s. It accomplished a lot (a million+ Palestinians live under a Palestinian government in the West Bank and Gaza was left to its own devices in 2005).
A death cult (probably two) killed that process. By killing people (including the Israeli Prime Minister). Years earlier, that death cult killed Sadat for his peace making work.
Support those who push for peace.
Call out those who don't.
What I try to emphasize is that Hamas has agency. They make the decision to keep fighting, or stop fighting.
To deny Hamas agency is to dehumanize them. They have as much agency as Israel or any other actor.
And they are a death cult.
With two million Gazans between their tunnels and the IDF.
There is no way to make that nice or neat or pleasant.
Hamas is a death cult. They will fight to the last Gazan child.
They have agency. They could end the war tomorrow, or a year ago.
The population growth rate in the West Bank and Gaza is higher than that of Europe.
I ain't the one having the babies... The residents of those places are.
Hamas could have ended the war in Gaza a year ago. Or on October 8 2023.
Do they? No. They will fight to the last Gazan child.
Is it nice that Israelis see no alternative to Gazans being resettled elsewhere? No.
Do you have a path for Gazans to go back to the mid 1990's when 100+ Gazans came to Kibbutz Nir Oz for a peace festival?
What do those folks want for themselves? Be part of the Palestinian Authority? (Not the ones I have been doing a remodel with.) Make them part of Jordan?
Jerusalem is disputed territory. That makes it an uncomfortable mess, for more or less everyone.
The region needs more efforts toward peace, and less black and white, good/bad labeling.
East Jerusalemites are in limbo waiting for peace.
It's Jerusalem. It's a strange place.
Is there discrimination, in all directions? Yup. The world is a tribal place.
But you should move on from that "tiered" thing. I live here. I have been doing a project with Arabs for the last two weeks. We have lunch together most days. Move on.
- Constitution -- You clearly have not read the constitutions of Syria, Saudi Arabia, or many other countries. Ethnic groups are all over the identities of most of the world's countries.
- Automatic citizenship - How narrow do you define this? African Americans can go to Liberia and other countries of Africa. Until just twenty years ago or so anyone with a German grandparent could automatically get German citizenship. If you are Cuban you can get American citizenship. Are you thinking this through?
- NPT, I am not sure anyone cares, but this is very different than your other topics.
You know better than to listen to rants on line... I hope!
(If you correct for the 100K+ who left Gaza before Egypt closed its border in 2024)
Israel isn't any more apartheid than any of those places. Given that Israeli Arabs can and do vote (and become Medical Doctors), Israel is a heck of a lot _less_ apartheid than those places.
Consider travel... it can help you get outside the "american" box.
They are all ethno states.
The very concept "nation-state" is an alignment of "ethnic tribe" with "political borders"
You might want to hit a history book or two.
In this regard, Israel is more normal and places like the U.S. are abnormal. (Once you get outside the U.S....)
The fundamental issue is the population of the West Bank, who, outside of Palestinian Authority areas (aka "Area A"), are largely controlled by Israel but cannot vote. Note that 1-2 million West Bank Palestinians live in Area A under the Palestinian Authority.
- Within Israel, there is a Communist Party (which rejects religion and ethnicity) and other parties (including two Arab parties).
- A key problem in Israeli democracy, which it would be helpful if you noted, is that although there are two Arab parties (and majority Jewish parties who welcome Arabs), the Arab population of Israel votes at a low rate. This results in their being under-represented in the Knesset.
- The Basic Law you refer to made zero change to who can have political power.
- The 50% you refer to is neither the right percentage, nor does it take into account areas of great Palestinian autonomy.
- Function of the legal system has never been relevant to who can vote or hold office.
If you want to reflect what is on the ground, I suggest you take in the whole picture.
Film, Til Kingdom Come -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27Til_Kingdom_Come_(film)
This is not considered valid in Israel.
In Israel October 7 is considered a massive failure of intelligence. No one in the top 30 of any Israeli intelligence agency that Oct 7 was going to happen.
I dunno about that. Iraq suffered between a quarter million and a million dead (depending on how you count). The % of those who touched a gun is low, under %10. The vast majority are civilians.
There wasn't a focused effort to bring in food, water or electricity to Iraq. A key difference is that Iraqis could leave, and hundreds of thousands did (to Syria, Jordan and other countries).
Israel's war in Gaza, messy and horrible as it is, is far (very far) more focused on Hamas than America's wars were in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yup.
Hamas will fight to the last Palestinian. They could have ended the Gaza war a year ago (or more). All they have to say is: "Here are the hostages. Here are our weapons. We are now shoemakers."
Why don't they do this?
Because they would rather fight to the last Palestinian child.
Hamas has agency. They could end war any time since October 8, 2023.